Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[tazelbain]

The PQ idea is still cool in theory but suffers in two ways. The first is they tend to involve killing a fair number of mobs and mob XP is really low, making the end result generally un-rewarding for the time invested. More seriously the game is broken up into quite small shards (~100 players in practice) most of whom are doing XP quests. So a lot of the time the PQ's were sitting idle.

Umm ok, so what's this shards thing?  Is it like instances of zones?

[Trippy]

Yes. It's the same as what City of Heroes and EQ II do if a zone gets too crowded except tthat CO doesn't have separate "servers", so it's similar to EVE in that regard. (Kageru is using the word "shard" differently than it's normal usage).

[Malakili]

The end of open beta even is on.  Robot army is attacking Millennium City.  If you participate in killing one of the big ones (a hell of a process), you get a action figure (read: pet) mini-destroid, when the game goes live.

Screenshots:

[taolurker]

You can level to 40 today if you go talk to the waving cop at the Millennium City landing pad.

[Modern Angel]

The end of open beta even is on.  Robot army is attacking Millennium City.  If you participate in killing one of the big ones (a hell of a process), you get a action figure (read: pet) mini-destroid, when the game goes live.

I think you just have to damage a big robot, not kill one.

[UnSub]

How is CO doing their publlic quests?

When you get into a PQ area, the quest requirements pop up in the lower right hand corner. I've only done the tutorial one, but that one was 3 phases - phase 1 kill x monsters, phase 2 collect boxes, phase 3 defend the cannon. After its done, a scoreboard pops up showing you how much xp you got in relation to everyone else, then an item you can loot spawns next to the cannon. I never played WAR so no idea how that's different.

I've bolded the part not a lot of people know about - the 'golden chest' looks like the public mission logo and you have to walk up to it and access it to get your loot. It is usually next to the main 'contact' for the PM. It isn't well known about since it was only really patched in a week prior to launch (before then PQs just gave a score at the end with no loot).

The patch notes disagree

"The Powerhouse will allow retcon of up to the ten most recent powers changes to your character. This is by design."

I'm guessing full respecs will be bought through microtrans.

EDIT:

It was definitely not boosted XP during beta.

Kageru is right - beta didn't have boosted XP. However, the original plan was to launch with more content (the original info about ChampO contained 8 zones, not 5) and character advancement rates weren't looked at probably because only having 2 play sessions a week while powers were all over the place wasn't a good way to collect data. Slashing XP rates now is just stupid, however. Cryptic - who have been in crunch mode since at least December 2008 when key devs were being found asleep at their desks in the morning - needs to have a new zone ready 30 - 45 days from launch over slashing player advancement rates.

[Kageru]

They may be in crunch mode... but I don't think it's on champions. They mentioned that level 40-50 and two new zones (qliphotic and a moonbase) would be out soon after launch. They then (correctly) delayed the game for 3-4 months. That was surely more than enough time to complete that content. Instead the pace of change slowed dramatically and the focus was almost purely on bug-fixing, secondary systems (crafting, itemisation) and trying to make the UI work properly. I don't think they added any more content (other than the powerhouse) or powers in that entire time despite being very light on in both. I strongly suspect they moved people from Champions to Star trek.

That's fine, their business... but given that ST:O is meant to go into beta this year I seriously doubt they have the motivation or manpower to meaningfully extend champions in the near term.

[Trippy]

I don't know. CO needed A LOT of work just to get the basic stuff working even half decently. And apparently this miracle patch back in July actually managed to put some fun into the game.

[Sophismata]

Also, to be fair, they bug-fix, people tell them they should be adding more content - they add more content, people tell them they should have been bug-fixing. It's lose/lose.

[tazelbain]

Well, it's never going to be a pretty premature birth.

[SnakeCharmer]

Also, to be fair, they bug-fix, people tell them they should be adding more content - they add more content, people tell them they should have been bug-fixing. It's lose/lose.

Which is pretty much 75 percent of the posts on 100 percent of MMO forums.

News at 11.

[Sky]

If my budget wasn't tight, I'd buy it. I'm still having fun, wanting to create some new heroes, don't care if it's not a perfect or even finished game. I never make it to the endgame in any mmo, so I don't really give a shit.

Sorcery seems pretty strong, today my lil sorceress won the open quest in the tutorial seven times in a row (with a half dozen others or so almost every time), then I laid off and another sorceress won it three times in a row. The other magical powerset seemed limited with a short ranged power and melee just seems meh without ranged. I imagine that mostly gets fixed with later powers or nabbing one from another set, but I've only been running the tutorial and the very beginning of Canada/Desert so I can try a bunch of alts.

I love how crappy so many characters are, sometimes I just sit and watch new costumes come into the game and laugh. Not that I'm any hotshot, but a lot of people have brain damage. And now and again you see some really spiffy stuff.

[Morfiend]

For those not playing here is a random collection of my screenshots.

[Triforcer]

One thing I wish they would do is let you see Millenium City earlier in the game (besides the bounded tutorial, I mean).  Most people think of superheroes flying over the city and saving people.  Flying over the desert isn't exactly the same.

Also, just to pick the desert as an example- there are SO many high places where they could stick secrets.  I guess they don't want non-flyers to feel left out, but there are an awful lot of blank expanses on top of mesas they could make fun for explorers.  I guess if they were creative, they could find places for tunnellers (go under walls to a secret cave) or speedsters (run through a passage so poisonous that anyone not moving at speedster speed would die) to do this too.   

[ezrast]

This game looks less similar to CoH than most MMOs look to Everquest.

This game looks less similar to CoH than it does to Everquest (2).

Ultimately, I don't think I can take the whole solo-quest-ad-nauseum approach to PvE content, and the PvP is an amusing afterthought. I think I'm going to pass.

[Typhon]

(un)Holy crap supernatural sucks.  Unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, regen and powerdrain do essentially nothing.  Electricity, Force and Darkness seem fine.  Electricity does sick amounts of damage, and Force's knockback is very powerful in and of itself.

Also, I really like the block mechanism, greatly encourages you to pay attention to what villains/arch villains are doing at any point in time.

[Jherad]

(un)Holy crap supernatural sucks.  Unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, regen and powerdrain do essentially nothing. 

You must be doing something wrong (I'm not sure what!), regen is hella overpowered in the first few levels. Check which passive defense you have slotted, but you're practically unkillable with regen up unless you go afk in a fight, or take on 4+ baddies.


Am I the only person that has found CO boring? The powers and character creation are kinda fun, but (imho) the quests are generic, graphics glary, the zones uninspiring, and the mobs irritatingly sprinkled over the landscape. I found myself playing a character up to 15 or so, then getting bored and rerolling. Entirely possible I'm just broken on MMOs at the moment though.

[Typhon]

(un)Holy crap supernatural sucks.  Unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, regen and powerdrain do essentially nothing. 

You must be doing something wrong (I'm not sure what!), regen is hella overpowered in the first few levels. Check which passive defense you have slotted, but you're practically unkillable with regen up unless you go afk in a fight, or take on 4+ baddies.


Am I the only person that has found CO boring? The powers and character creation are kinda fun, but (imho) the quests are generic, graphics glary, the zones uninspiring, and the mobs irritatingly sprinkled over the landscape. I found myself playing a character up to 15 or so, then getting bored and rerolling. Entirely possible I'm just broken on MMOs at the moment though.

Good to know, I'll give it another try, especially since I have a char design that has a lot of chains that I like (fits the powerset concept).  I assumed that it auto-slotted into the passive slot, but maybe something went wrong (I didn't have any other passive).

Were you able to get powerdrain to do anything?  It seemed like it was trying to do something, and not succeeding, whenever I tried to use it.

[kaid]

One thing for the defensive powers make sure you are working on stats that feed them. They should list one or two stats they work off of. If you ignore those stats those passive powers are okay but not super but if you work up the stats that they key on they are hella strong right now regen is one of the nastiest out there.

Supernatural is very odd its kind of a melee set but many of its powers have at least a moderate range.

[Jherad]

Were you able to get powerdrain to do anything?  It seemed like it was trying to do something, and not succeeding, whenever I tried to use it.

Is that a power or advantage? To be honest, playing supernatural I just used regen, with lash/lariat, bite and bestial fury - then maximised for bleeds. The regen itself was more than enough to keep me on my feet, though I hear it doesn't scale well at higher levels.

[Modern Angel]

Am I the only person that has found CO boring? The powers and character creation are kinda fun, but (imho) the quests are generic, graphics glary, the zones uninspiring, and the mobs irritatingly sprinkled over the landscape.

That's the thing. I'm thinking the same thing but I'm still having fun. It took awhile but there it is. I have fun. I want to hate it, I really do, but I just don't. It's weird.

[Jimbo]

That type of stuff drove me nuts and then when I would post how I was getting my butt handed to me I would get replies telling me that I was doing it wrong and the game was too easy...

Regen works if you have the super stat (can't remember what it is...) and then took levels in it.  After you put some more points into regen it was great, add invincibility from power armor line and I could actually withstand damage with my ammunition (the two pistol animation is awesome...just not powerful) character.

There was a way to make a tank with I think Strength and Constitution as super stats, pick some powers from the might line that lowered damage as it hit you, and you could tank anything.  It took a while to get damage building, but you could survive almost anything.

The problem is that many times you can discover what works or doesn't work, and when you follow the stuff given to you (like take Dex and do more damage or avoid damage) it doesn't work, but if you generalize your build and take stuff you weren't going to take it works.

[Kageru]

One of your super-stats pretty much must be constitution. Not only does it give you a hefty number of hitpoints I'm pretty sure it's one of the determining statistics for both regeneration and invulnerability. For a really tough character take invulnerability and combine that with clicky heals (there's a click version of regeneration, resurgence or something?) and some of the powers that have regeneration effects. Of course you can buy heal potions anyway.

I still don't think the game's worth it though, there's just nothing it does that is either well done or remotely novel. The best part of the game is trying to come up with non-grotesque combination's in the characters builder and resisting the urge to make everything shiny.

Deleted my beta install with the feeling I'd given as much useful feedback as they allowed me to, but quite pleased its over.

[Cyrrex]

Is Open Beta actually over?  Or are you just over it?

[ezrast]

It ends at 5 PM PST, I think.

For the record, my superstats were presence and recovery and I hung out in sentinel all the time and I did just fine. I guess I died kind of a lot, usually due to my own mistakes or obstinacy (or lag), but I definitely never felt underpowered. Made it to level 19 and was doing missions 1-3 levels above me pretty much the whole way.

[tmp]

Regen works if you have the super stat (can't remember what it is...)

Super stat is the stat you pick to give a big boost early on with a perk. The funny part is the game never tells you picking that perk is going to turn the stat into something really important, and once you pick it you may notice there's something extra to it if you pay attention to attribute effect tooltips in character summary window. I only found out that was a super-stat from a random forum thread after i was already done with the game

[Numtini]

When I said the game lacked polish, it was really specifically the lack of help with making early decisions and what their importance was that I was thinking of.

[Lantyssa]

(un)Holy crap supernatural sucks.  Unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, regen and powerdrain do essentially nothing.  Electricity, Force and Darkness seem fine.  Electricity does sick amounts of damage, and Force's knockback is very powerful in and of itself.

I'm not sure if the people saying Regeneration is awesome have played recently.  It's taken a couple of hits within the last week.  It was very good.  Now it may only work well if you took the appropriate super stat.

[Typhon]

Having regen didn't have a noticable impact on the character's health (I died to super-villlains, alot. especially the one underwater in Canada), so I'm assuming that I didn't take the correct super stat.  Powerdrain is an ability, I may be mis-remembering the correct name.  Also, I maybe didn't understand that it was a click-and-hold instead of a click (very possible, now that I think of it).

[Morfiend]

I found Regen to be overpowered in PVP at low levels, but to not make much difference in PVE really.

[Typhon]

Sorry, kept getting the ability name wrong: Devour Essence was what I was talking about.  I think what confused me is that the effect took a couple seconds to activate and I didn't hold the button down long enough

[Bandit]

They ran out of their lifetime subscriptions/6-month deals.  I signed up for one, on a gamble really and the fact that I hate seeing subs come off my credit card monthly. I did enjoy their beta with a couple of gripes about minor things. A friend went to get a lifetime as well today - and shit out of luck (or not). I was positive it was ending at the end of the month, not based on # of subscriptions.

On the forums, apparently they announced a 1000 lifetimes left before running out:

Hey guys,

I know you're all frustrated by this and I apologize for that. Sadly, we only ever had allocated a certain number of Lifetime Subs and ceratain number of discounted 6 month subs. The sad and unfortunate truth here is that we're actually selling more of these than we thought we would. We messaged the offer would end on September 1 because we didn't think we were going to sell through this many subscriptions, and we were wrong.

The good news though, is that there are still some lifetime subs, and some 6 month subs left at these prices. Plus, you all seem to be enjoying this game enough that we're selling out of them! This tells me we're going to have a really strong launch community, and I'm incredibly excited for that!

Stormshade

I will probably get fucked on the lifetime.  It is doubtful I will be playing that long but now it's always an option, barring any Hellgate-like scenario.

[Malakili]

I was positive it was ending at the end of the month, not based on # of subscriptions.

On the forums, apparently they announced a 1000 lifetimes left before running out:

In there original post they said something like "while supplies last" but I don't think they gave a specific number.

[UnSub]

I didn't get a lifetime sub - a launch patch introduced a horrible graphics issue on my PC (<insert your own joke here>) and I was waiting to see how the XP rate issue played itself out.

I may be funding Schild's art career after all.

[Slyfeind]

I was looking forward to this, but the griefy objective-stealing is a game breaker for me. Is there any way around those kind of quests, and still have a meaningful play session?