Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Valmorian]

Here's a combo that will likely get nerfed: Teleport+Heal.

When I get into a lot of trouble, I can just teleport in spot without moving, and use my heal on myself while I'm "phased".  I pop back in full health, which is usually enough to last until I can teleport again..

Anyway.. had a lot of fun last night fighting a boss ghost hangman guy in Burnside with some pickup players and someone from here, but I can't recall the name.. Morv?

[Malakili]

Here's a combo that will likely get nerfed: Teleport+Heal.

When I get into a lot of trouble, I can just teleport in spot without moving, and use my heal on myself while I'm "phased".  I pop back in full health, which is usually enough to last until I can teleport again..

Anyway.. had a lot of fun last night fighting a boss ghost hangman guy in Burnside with some pickup players and someone from here, but I can't recall the name.. Morv?

The question becomes, how to you balance power combos without hurting other combos.  Unless you add conditionals to everything like "heal goes on a cooldown after someone uses teleport", otherwise you are giving a general nerf to teleport or heal, which hurts a bunch of players who are playing perfectly "balanced" builds.

Anyway, its an inherent problem in systems like this, but I don't mind imbalances when it gives a lot of options for play.

[Valmorian]

The question becomes, how to you balance power combos without hurting other combos.  Unless you add conditionals to everything like "heal goes on a cooldown after someone uses teleport", otherwise you are giving a general nerf to teleport or heal, which hurts a bunch of players who are playing perfectly "balanced" builds.

Anyway, its an inherent problem in systems like this, but I don't mind imbalances when it gives a lot of options for play.

I don't think you follow me.  I was healing while I was "teleporting".  That is, when you teleport you are basically invulnerable and flying off to your destination by your own control.  You can actually use your heal power while doing this.

Basically it's a big "Make me invulnerable while I heal myself to full" toggle.

[Simond]

Here's a combo that will likely get nerfed: Teleport+Heal.

When I get into a lot of trouble, I can just teleport in spot without moving, and use my heal on myself while I'm "phased".  I pop back in full health, which is usually enough to last until I can teleport again..

Anyway.. had a lot of fun last night fighting a boss ghost hangman guy in Burnside with some pickup players and someone from here, but I can't recall the name.. Morv?

If I were a superhero and had teleport I'd wonder why there's no "Teleport other".

[Slyfeind]

Free retcon for all with no time limit. Squeee. 

[DLRiley]

Free retcon for all with no time limit. Squeee.  

Someone learned from Guild Wars someone learned from Guild Wars. I'm going to sub to this game because they have provided me a truly historic moment.

Wait one time only? Fail. Wow that would have been the second fastest un-sub if I had buyed the game. Ok this game is still on my " when it releases and I won't care" list.

[Slyfeind]

You mean, how you can't save up your retcons? I don't see that as a big deal. If/when they change things significantly to call for another retcon, you'll get another retcon. Shrug.

[DLRiley]

Well the ability to freely change skills, talent trees, and basically mold your character arbitrarily then rebuild him again at no cost is generally a sign of a smart dev team. Without such your basically in the stone ages if your serious about convincing me your building games for the year 2009 and not 2003.

[UnSub]

Well the ability to freely change skills, talent trees, and basically mold your character arbitrarily then rebuild him again at no cost is generally a sign of a smart dev team. Without such your basically in the stone ages if your serious about convincing me your building games for the year 2009 and not 2003.

With a game like ChampO, if you allow full respecs easily you are going to see players just churn through powers on one character, which is going to eat into what Cryptic would see as replayability based off their CoH/V experience. That said, I do think they should have full respecs available at the tailor, just make them expensive in terms of in-game resources (and right now respecs only go back the last 10 choices are are cripplingly expensive - it's a noted issue regarding the expense).

However, Cryptic did the same thing originally with CoH/V too - I don't think it launched with respecs, then the respec trials came in so that there were only 3 possibilities in-game for any kind of respec, then came the single free respec that wouldn't stack. Today, there are respecs everywhere - you can repeat the respec trial if you want - and you can even buy them from the NCsoft store for rl money.

MxO had the best respec system I've seen in a title, but that worked on very fixed ability trees. ChampO's power flexibility doesn't open itself up to that kind of full change very easily.

[Kageru]

I'm just watching the forums for when people hit 40 and realise there's nothing much there. With limited replayability, repetitive power sets, reasonably fast progression (despite their nerf) and no end-game retention is likely to be a real problem. Some people are reaching it already of course.

Unity missions need a lot of work. There's no way I'm grinding 125 mind-numbingly easy boring missions to get a secondary utility that adds an additional 5 end and 7 recovery to my 200+ super stats so that I can get "better" at grinding mind-numbingly easy missions.

[tmp]

I don't see that as a big deal. If/when they change things significantly to call for another retcon, you'll get another retcon. Shrug.

What the developer sees are significant enough to warrant a retcon and what the individual player does, are often entirely different things. With consensus taking multiple forum threads to achieve, if there's one at all.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm just watching the forums for when people hit 40 and realise there's nothing much there. With limited replayability, repetitive power sets, reasonably fast progression (despite their nerf) and no end-game retention is likely to be a real problem. Some people are reaching it already of course.

Unity missions need a lot of work. There's no way I'm grinding 125 mind-numbingly easy boring missions to get a secondary utility that adds an additional 5 end and 7 recovery to my 200+ super stats so that I can get "better" at grinding mind-numbingly easy missions.

Those kinds of people should give up MMORPGs altogether.



Not that they would...

[Kageru]

From a really high level point of view :)

But in practice it's all about the "meat" that is on the bare bones. And Champions wasn't even trying. When it's a map full of featureless caverns with identical clumps of trivial mobs and completion earns you .1% towards your goal it's not long before even the most tolerant wonder why they're bothering. Especially since there's no content that requires or becomes available when the character progresses.

[Malakili]

The lack of content is definitely the biggest issue with the game, but I do like the combat, and thats more than I can say about most MMOs, which is why I'm playing.

Also, the customization is excellent, giving me enough replayability in different characters to keep me satisfied until more content gets released.  Of course, if more content doesn't come in a reasonable time frame, I'll be unhappy.

Anyway, I guess I understand why people don't really like CO, but to me it has enough positives to keep me interested for now.

[ghost]

Yeah, I agree.  I've been screwing around with this a fair amount lately and this one has some real potential to it.  It's not quite the turd that War was.  They do have some issues with community and it would have been a lot better to have dedicated servers for each toon, but hey.  It's keeping me interested so far. 

[Ingmar]

I find myself wishing I could take their character 'class' model and put it into CoH's setting. Canadian seperatist militias aside, the lore and enemies in CoH are a lot more interesting. I like the 'framework' design for characters though, and I like that you can freely mix and match stuff, and that the tank/dps/support roles are something that everyone can swap in or out of (to an extent.)

[eldaec]

You mean, how you can't save up your retcons? I don't see that as a big deal. If/when they change things significantly to call for another retcon, you'll get another retcon. Shrug.

This is exactly like CoH, only as time goes on and they allow new methods by which players recieve retcons, you'll find they get put into a separate 'slot'.


Assuming this goes down the same path, the playerbase will bitch for a few months, but once the game is 9 months in, everyone bar the spreadsheet freaks will have more retcons than they know what to do with.

[rk47]

Shit, me and my buddy is wondering whether we should take the plunge, but hearing all the launch issues he said he's rather wait for a free trial period before splashing some cash. So if you guys got any buddy keys lying around, I'd really love to take a peek at the game.

[Sjofn]

I find myself wishing I could take their character 'class' model and put it into CoH's setting. Canadian seperatist militias aside, the lore and enemies in CoH are a lot more interesting. I like the 'framework' design for characters though, and I like that you can freely mix and match stuff, and that the tank/dps/support roles are something that everyone can swap in or out of (to an extent.)

I would like it to also be in CoX's graphics, perhaps updated a little but still in that style. With CoX's costume pieces. I don't really care that the faces all look the same in CO, but I DO care that there feels like there's GIANT GAPS in certain costumey areas. For my warmly dressed hero Snow Day I can't dress her in GIANT FAT COMBAT BOOTS or provide her with GIANT WARM GLOVES like I could in CoX. I also hate the skirts in CO. The "short" ones are too freaking short and the medium ones are too long for the look I want. I don't NEED my ass hanging out of my skirt, goddammit.

On the other hand, I have made some costumes I really do like, and I like that I can change how I stand (although the "vixen" one looks stupid, at least I don't have to stand that way). But it just often feels like I have to settle when I'm trying to recreate a CoX hero I made, and that makes me sad.

[caladein]

On the female side, there's a real lack of anything civilian-y or that shows skin without being ridiculous.  I was pretty happy with what I was able to whip up, but I definitely felt a touch more constrained with CO's character creation.  I definitely don't feel like I could do a secret-identity costume or even clone a Jenny Sparks (or Ms. Marvel without looking horrible).


That's not to say I think it's "bad", the graphics are "prettier", but it's not a the huge leap that something like APB is looking like, or that CoH was back in the day.

[rk47]

Been looking for an offline character planner. Anyone knows where to get those? Been doing google but site seems down.

[Malakili]

Been looking for an offline character planner. Anyone knows where to get those? Been doing google but site seems down.

http://champions.zarzu.ch/download.html

[rk47]

yeah i kept getting that site but whenever i click on it, i get a server time out for some reason

[Malakili]

works fine for me.  Here is a link to the .exe for the installer, maybe it'll work.

http://champions.zarzu.ch/championBuilder_0_3_2_setup.exe

[rk47]

no luck,. could u maybe re-host the file on mediafire or something? I kept looking for a mirror to no avail. 

[Morfiend]

no luck,. could u maybe re-host the file on mediafire or something? I kept looking for a mirror to no avail. 

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1329267/championBuilder_0_3_2.zip

There you go.

[Malakili]

To the people saying all the faces look the same:


I just found these in a thread on the official forums, not mine.

[eldaec]

I suspect the half-assed outcome is the result of listening to too many whiny complaining dipshits on forums when they were experimenting with the cel-shader. They got caught between no cel-shading, and fully assed cel-shading, ended up being fucked in the face with the worst of both worlds.

[Sjofn]

To the people saying all the faces look the same:


I just found these in a thread on the official forums, not mine.

All my complaints apply to the female side of things, and that lady face? Pretty much looks like my ladies. I don't have the GRR ANGRY eyebrows on any of my girls, although I do have the bushy ones on one of them.

[Redgiant]

To the people saying all the faces look the same:

Hey you are right - nondescript female, black male and white male faces do sort of look different. Kinda.

Not like in RL where women, black men and white men all look alike. 

[Lantyssa]

It is nearly impossible to change the female face to any extent without without making it look ugly.

That one doesn't look all that different to me.  You can even show pictures where people managed it (though I'd be surprised).  It doesn't change the difficulty for someone to do it themselves.

[Khaldun]

I have gotten some different-looking female faces through making them very long and thin and then exaggerating the expressions. The result isn't ugly as much as it is severe, kind of a sort of librarian-dominatrix face.

[rk47]

no luck,. could u maybe re-host the file on mediafire or something? I kept looking for a mirror to no avail. 

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1329267/championBuilder_0_3_2.zip

There you go.

Thanks man!

[Simond]

It is nearly impossible to change the female face to any extent without without making it look ugly.

That one doesn't look all that different to me.  You can even show pictures where people managed it (though I'd be surprised).  It doesn't change the difficulty for someone to do it themselves.

On the other hand, it's just being true to comic books:

[Bandit]

To the people saying all the faces look the same:


I just found these in a thread on the official forums, not mine.

I have found male faces to be fairly customizable, but you must use extremes on the sliders.