Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Malakili]

Ironically ChampO faces both the issues of 'forced grouping' and 'no reason to team' depending on your build.

I love the classless character building system but there are huge power gaps between optimal builds and 'gimped' builds.

It's deja vu all over again

Context: Jack Emmert tried to do something similar with the original City of Heroes design by having no classes but gave up when it proved to be too hard to not gimp yourself.

While PvP remains a totally unbalanced beast.  I've yet to create a character that couldn't survive in PvE solo, maybe if I went out of my way...    Then again, I haven't played all the different combos I've tried anywhere past the low-mid level range.

[Lantyssa]

Context: Jack Emmert tried to do something similar with the original City of Heroes design by having no classes but gave up when it proved to be too hard to not gimp yourself.

I'm fine with being able to make gimpy characters, if there is enough info given to know that is what will happen if you choose said powers.  The lack of documentation makes it a crap shoot.

[Ghambit]

I knew you'd say that.  
Didnt stop me from posting it though...  
Yah, I fell into the Spore trap and got burned, but it didnt stop me from initially purchasing the game.  So, I figure even if ChampO sux overall... if it's better than Spore I can at least give it a shot.  Just wont sub it.  Yah, irrational, but fuck it.

I'm tired and MMO lonely  
It's either this or Fallen Earth bro.  For some dumbass reason they're both overpriced too.

<I've had too much sugar today>

[Modern Angel]

CO really does have a certain charm if viewed as a beat em up, Dynasty Warriors at half speed writ large. Some builds are way more fun than others. I may purchase this. I'm very on the fence. There's fun somewhere here for me that wasn't there for CoX. Note, though, that CoX's maturity shows in the mechanics, etc that people are talking about.

[Kageru]

That element fades a bit as well as you get to higher levels. The mob hit points (especially the quite common 2-bar mobs) seem to scale up faster than your damage to the point it can become quite tedious whittling them down.

The player collisions are pretty hilarious too. I repeatedly bugged a mission (investigation awry) saying that a timed mission which required interacting with an NPC on a relatively long respawn would cause rage quits. And true enough when I get to it there's 6 superhero's sitting around seeing who can talk to him first. Kinetic in the tutorial is almost as bad (and why are the iconic champions so weak?). The lost hitch-hikers one in Canada is even worse.

They've solved some of the problems by creating micro-instances to stop people fighting over the objectives. Like in Canada it says to investigate poisoned fish and you can still see the old mission objectives lying around. However the mission now involves zoning into an underwater cave to complete it.

[Triforcer]

Is PvP kinda buggy for anyone else?  Holds don't seem to ever stop anyone from moving- I must have cast 20 ice cages in one match and only one of them stopped the person from moving- every other time the cage appeared but the person still just ran around.  Shatter (ice spec) doesn't seem to work in PvP either (or maybe its my graphic not changing). 

Also, PvP seems an exercise in "five people must hit on one guy for 30 seconds to get him under half health."  Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. 

[koro]

So, someone on another forum I go to had some questions about Flavor of the Month builds and shot off a PM to Akinos (whom I assume is a dev? I don't follow Cryptic's staff) about it. The reply was kind of... odd:


The gist of it? If you're on a team, and you happen to use the same power on an enemy that someone else uses? Debuffs for you! If this is truly how they hope to "balance" things, god help anyone who tries out any new frameworks they put in in the future.

[Kageru]

I believe that post is the PM text itself rather than the reply, in other words the players idea. If they implement this they're borderline insane.

[koro]

Oh wait. Kageru's right, and I'm a total doofus who misread. Scratch that, then.

I didn't think Cryptic was quite that dumb. In my defense, the original poster of that quote was fairly vague.

[Murgos]

I tried it without bloom and outlining and with all texture stuff at max (200%, whatever the fuck that means).  Uh, there is 0 effort put into the textures.  In an age where bump mapping is ubiquitous (and cheap in graphical terms) their texture for asphalt is a matte black surface with a few circles here and there?  An armored car plate is a perfectly flat matte gray rectangle?  Granite is another flat matte gray rectangle?  Really?

[Sky]

And true enough when I get to it there's 6 superhero's sitting around seeing who can talk to him first.

I ran into this last night. One part when you have to rescue the citizens from the villain-level mobs, they were camped to fuck. So I tried forming a group so everyone could help each other rather than race around trying to ks. No dice. Then another where you free the trapped hero, stand in line or jump the line were the two options, again nobody interested in grouping, ignoring invites and no chat. And I hate grouping! Blah.

The kicker is that this is with 30-person instances. That's shoddy.

Had time to get into it more last night, rolled up an analog of my CoH defender Moleculator and had some fun with the power armor build. Still a bit odd, the one power will auto-target the nearest mob, but my energy-building attack won't. I like where they were going with power loadout design overall, I just think it either needs more time in the oven, or a more competent lead to tie things together. I do love the WAR-style open quests, loved those in WAR...at least as long as there are level-appropriate players around...

I'll probably buy it....next fall.

[Draegan]

Really, I dont see what all the negativity about the game itself is.

It isn't interesting enough to be negative about. It's just meh. Creating a character gets me excited to play and then when I play, I'm ready to log off and never come back after 30 minutes. That's not worth 1 month of subscription, much less a full box price.

Same here.

The game looking better with tweaked bloom and outline.  But fuck the character moves like ass.  Terrible control.  I also stop moving when my toe bumps into a pebble.

[Signe]

Yes, that whole thing where you stop dead when there is a tiny little step in front of you is annoying.  As I find more annoying things like that, the less inclined I am to play in the open beta.  I did get the game, though, so hopefully they'll fix and polish and at some point I'll play enough to justify the cost.  Or at least enough to not feel too much like an idiot for buying it.

[Numtini]

On forming groups, I wonder how many people actually look at the chat. The font is so user hostile I don't think I ever even glanced at it.

[Sky]

The chat font is ok for me. I have to tweak the size of the box a bit, but it's a larger font than what I have my EQ2 box set to.

The text in the ! and ? blue boxes is getting to me, though. Probably the outlining, but it's tough to read from across the room, I keep having to lean about three feet forward to read it. Since it has all the tutorial info and I actually read quest info, it was a pain in the butt.

Still, I'm not getting the hate, I had fun. I can make a list of gripes about any game at launch. I am glad to have this week to test out a few builds and see a bit of the game, though, since I can't really afford to buy it.

[Lantyssa]

Had a chance to see the game without the outlining and bloom.  It does make a huge difference and would have saved me a few tylenol had it been an option to disable during the beta.  The game is still ugly given they didn't put any effort into textures (probably since they weren't planning on allowing players to disable the cell shading).  But at least it did make it look better.

[Montague]

Still a bit odd, the one power will auto-target the nearest mob, but my energy-building attack won't.

The energy builder is a toggle power in combat. I can see the rationale behind it, if you're DPSing and draw aggro you'll want to be able to turn it off. An option to have it stay on with target switch would be nice though.

[kaid]

it would be very nice if the end builder stayed on whatever target you are on but at least with my gadgeteer I put one enhancment into my end builder and now its an aoe so its less of an issue.

[Sky]

Something I missed: the gold brackets on the energy bar. Why do I naturally only regen about 85% of the bar and fill to full only with my energy builder attack?

[Malakili]

Something I missed: the gold brackets on the energy bar. Why do I naturally only regen about 85% of the bar and fill to full only with my energy builder attack?

Its your equilibrium point.  The more REC you have, the higher up it will be on your bar.

[Mrbloodworth]

Can someone take a shot of a player that uses the blackout line, and zoom in on the outline?

[Sky]

Can someone take a shot of a player that uses the blackout line, and zoom in on the outline?

How close? There's a shot of my first character with the outlines and bloom on a couple pages ago.

[Mrbloodworth]

Can someone take a shot of a player that uses the blackout line, and zoom in on the outline?

How close? There's a shot of my first character with the outlines and bloom on a couple pages ago.

Really close. like, as much as you can. If so inclined.

[Sky]

Sure, I'll be on tonight, but it won't be until after 10pm. If I remember! 

[Signe]

Why do you want a close up of the outline?

[Mrbloodworth]

Hunch. Technical curiosity.

[Signe]

Gee, could you be more vague or something?

[Koyasha]

Still a bit odd, the one power will auto-target the nearest mob, but my energy-building attack won't.

The energy builder is a toggle power in combat. I can see the rationale behind it, if you're DPSing and draw aggro you'll want to be able to turn it off. An option to have it stay on with target switch would be nice though.

There is an option to have it stay on with target switch.  Under 'controls' if I remember right, at the bottom, you can change the functionality of the power in your first slot (which as far as I can tell HAS to be an energy builder).  If you switch it to 'toggle, never cancels' it'll stay on as you switch targets.  And depending on your auto-target settings, it will automatically acquire and begin firing at the next target.  It makes things a lot easier.

[Signe]

I'm confused.  I finished the tutorial and I thought I'd get a reward but they sent me to Canada!   

[Sky]

WATCH OUT FOR THE NAZI SOCIALIST DEATH PANELS

A couple other things I like. The jolt of power when my robot's jet boots kick into overdrive and the afterburner sound (or whatever it is). Good feeling of power to it. Also, the best level-up thus far in mmo. Dings are for wussies.

[Ghambit]

Oddly enough, the best sound in the game is just when you're farming craft-nodes.

[Kageru]

The original design was to not have autofire on the end builder. After all it was one of their promotional claims that there was no auto-attack involved. However a lot of people in the beta pointed out that spamming 1111111 got old fast. It was sufficiently obviously right that they eventually relented.

I'm fairly sure the "never cancel" option on the end builder will still not autotarget. It just means that as soon as you do have a target you start auto attacking.

[kaid]

Ya I just notice that and you can change it to a maintain power for those who do not like the auto attack can be made more like a normalish attack. So far I have been liking the game biggest problem is I really want to read the damn manual when I get it to maybe spell a few things out a bit more clearly.

Still a bit odd, the one power will auto-target the nearest mob, but my energy-building attack won't.

The energy builder is a toggle power in combat. I can see the rationale behind it, if you're DPSing and draw aggro you'll want to be able to turn it off. An option to have it stay on with target switch would be nice though.

There is an option to have it stay on with target switch.  Under 'controls' if I remember right, at the bottom, you can change the functionality of the power in your first slot (which as far as I can tell HAS to be an energy builder).  If you switch it to 'toggle, never cancels' it'll stay on as you switch targets.  And depending on your auto-target settings, it will automatically acquire and begin firing at the next target.  It makes things a lot easier.

[UnSub]

I wouldn't count on it.

I've played since alpha, but last night was my first chance to really play through the latest build as I missed playing since the last big patch. Christ they added a lot of things in at the last minute. And broke stuff too. The game not remembering my preferred control scheme (Shooter - First Person Shooter keys) every time I zoned was annoying. However global chat was also down, so swings and roundabouts.

Plus there certainly were some stealth changes to how things work that only Cryptic knows - the impact of stats was definitely tweaked and that in turn impacts on power performances. Mobs appear to have a number of new abilities or the AI has been tweaked to ensure they actually use the abilities they have.

Still having enough fun to consider a lifetime sub, but ironically I don't think I'd pay $15 a month for it over the long term.

[Signe]

What was your offer?  This thread is too long.  I'll never find it!