Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Kageru]

The saddest fact is there's so few moderately decent MMO releases of late we're still talking about this turkey.

Given that their subscription numbers have to be very low, the company probably not making a profit and they've proven the subscriber base isn't too willing to pay for content packs they've got to be considering whether or not to put this game on life-support. CO going inert probably isn't going to affect STO subscriptions any more, and they'll be shifting resources to their next title to generate more box-sales.

[UnSub]

Depends how Vibora was received, plus how much has come through the C-Store. I don't think ChampO is a massive commercial success, but it might be doing enough to be profitable.

If ChampO and STO have over 100k active subs, they are likely profitable for Cryptic. Although I think the term 'Plan to Fail' is crude, it reflects a viable strategy.

[Ollie]

And a strategy Roper and Emmert have more or less gone on record for advocating. I have no idea who coined the term shovelware, but it's fitting.

[satael]

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/6080087/Champions-Online/Product.html

(champions online EUR 3.99 with free delivery if someone for some reason would want to try it)

[Hutch]

Bill Roper departing from Cryptic (gamasutra article)

Roper's post on the CO site.

With no new job lined up. Nothing that's mentioned in either link, at any rate.

It seems like only yesterday that he was signing up at Cryptic, to take on the newly-created job of "design director". Now I wonder if it was a real job, or just a golden post-Hellgate parachute.

[Malakili]

Bill Roper departing from Cryptic (gamasutra article)

Roper's post on the CO site.

With no new job lined up. Nothing that's mentioned in either link, at any rate.

It seems like only yesterday that he was signing up at Cryptic, to take on the newly-created job of "design director". Now I wonder if it was a real job, or just a golden post-Hellgate parachute.

*shrugs*  I honestly can't will up much emotion about this one, and frankly I was one of the few people on these forums that think both Hellgate AND Champions were decent games.

[UnSub]

Not surprising, really. I don't think Cryptic is doing that well financially (or at least as well as they'd hoped) and it's a tough market to bring players back to games they might have tried and then turned away from.

According to Atari, they earned about US$10.8m from online sources in their Q1 2010 (Apr, May, Jun, I think), the majority of which I'd expect to come from Cryptic (unless Atari have some other key online business unit I'm unaware of). That's not bad... especially since Atari apparently didn't release any major titles during that time, which saw a massive decline in its retail revenues.

Hmm, who knows? Maybe Cryptic are ticking along better than I thought. IIRC, August 2010 was a key period that Cryptic was meant to get bonuses from Atari if they delivered specific revenue targets for their games. Wonder if they are going to get those bonuses?

[UnSub]

Throwing it out there:

Full free trial for this week as part of the anniversary celebrations.

[Lantyssa]

They made it a year.  I'm impressed.

This thread is also still completely borked, so that clicking new post takes you back twenty-five.

[Ratman_tf]

Trial's just about over. I was planning on revisiting CO anyway, and it was fun. I really like a lot of CO, but it's also just not enough to keep me subscribed for months, like WoW.

[Rendakor]

They made it a year.  I'm impressed.

This thread is also still completely borked, so that clicking new post takes you back twenty-five.

I thought that was only happening for me...

[Engels]

me too. its rather odd.

[Nevermore]

They made it a year.  I'm impressed.

This thread is also still completely borked, so that clicking new post takes you back twenty-five.

It's because the thread was released before it was ready.  I'm sure it'll be fixed in a future patch.

[Malakili]

Trial's just about over. I was planning on revisiting CO anyway, and it was fun. I really like a lot of CO, but it's also just not enough to keep me subscribed for months, like WoW.

I think I've said it before, certainly in other threads and probably this one I think I've said this is more or less the problem with CO that I can tell.  The game itself is more or less decent, but the meta game is non existent and there is really only so many times you can play through the content with a different power mix.  As it stands though, unless its really important for you to do your grinding in tights instead of plate, there isn't much reason to play this instead of something else.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I played this in a static team of ~4 people back when it was on sale for $6 on steam (including a free month!) and it wasn't a bad experience, really. The quests / zones are decent, character / power customization is nice, PQs are actually executed well... it's just that the actual combat gameplay felt extremely buttonmashy without playing like an action game / FPS. Kinda like combining the blah parts of a fighter game with a diku? The block mechanic itself was really annoying; when we were doing a mission with elite mobs, I pretty much did nothing but block 80% of the time and try to squeeze in some one-shot taunt blasts the rest of the time... it was either that or dying.

[Kageru]

You know I actually reported the fact that block was unbalanced, probably incapable of being balanced (you cannot have a mode the multiplies intrinsic defence to that extent and balance challenge) and extremely boring in beta. But they were fast too desperate to make the game saleable to think much about gameplay.

The button mashy gameplay is the remnants of the "console action" gameplay. It was even worse when you energy builder (which is basically the most debased possible combo system) had no auto-repeat mode.

[Typhon]

I took advantage of the free time to play as well.  I really liked the Vibora Bay intro.  I think they have made some improvements in the engine, as combat seemed to flow a bit more smoothly.

I think they could balance block pretty easily - make it a channeled effect that drains energy.  Have the channel time be 3 seconds and drains half your energy if you channel it fully.  Put it on a three second cooldown.  Blocking boosted abilities returns some energy and negates the cooldown. This way, you'd really need to time your blocks to coincide with the big-hitters.

If they were to do this, they'd need to re-balance all of the harder mobs.  Super-villain and above would have to be (to some extent) susceptible to holds, knock downs, etc.  If you were trying to take on a large number of scrubs, you'd need to work in knock-downs, holds, stuns, etc.

I'd also like to see them re-do the energy building mechanism. It seems like a good way to get you to alternate powers, but they missed the boat by making only one builder.

Take power armor as the worst offender.  The "chest beam" does massive damage and knock back/down.  So basically you alternate between energy builder and chest beam.  If they modified the powers so that you needed to execute combos to generate energy, and spamming a single attach drained energy, the combat would be more engaging.

They fixed "Might", it is actually pretty fun.  Drop out of flight, hit the "charge" ability which dashes you to the targeted mob, hit "slap" to daze them all, uppercut the villian, move back and around to ground slam the lot.

I still like this game, I'm considering re-upping for awhile.  That said, I like the sound of the changes to CoX planned in the next two released.  A bit tempted to return there as well.

[Kageru]

If block is short enough you have to use it reactively you screw over people with bad latency.

Since block is so strong you can't provide a challenge to a "blocking" character without one-shotting anyone else. And a blocking character in a group needs to keep blocking or risk getting one shot.

Really though the group dynamics in the game were a complete after thought. As are the powers which were almost entirely different colored DPS.

[Pendan]

Really though the group dynamics in the game were a complete after thought. As are the powers which were almost entirely different colored DPS.

I started playing CO with a static group 6 weeks ago. I agree that group dynamics are messed up but feel differently about DPS. I felt that way about damage in CoH. In particular one blaster was the same to me as another blaster. However with the similar range DPS energy frameworks in CO each type plays differently and requires different stats and support powers. For melee you also have different synergies and styles going on. You have single target or multi target strengths. You can go for burst or sustain damage. You can go for fear, bleeds, critical, or knockback/knockup powers and then must have other skills that take full advantage of those states. You also have a lot of choices between how defensive or offensive you want play with your choice of passive, block, crowd control, energy form, active defense, toggle form, and stance. The weakness with the system is not all powers are balanced but you can still enjoy the diversity if you choose.

Group dynamics are completely messed up. Instances scale with numbers (outdoors somewhat scales too because things run off to get friends when grouped which is often annoying but not too big of deal). The health and damage scaling would not be so bad but the numbers scaling makes it insane. In a 5 person group the first character to get agro takes 5 times the damage than they would take solo. Then the healer takes 4 times damage because 80% of the MOBs switched target as result of either healed or just having a buff running on the first character. This is particularly bad at low levels when you don’t have the skills yet to be defense and agro generating or healing and defensive. As a result my solo character can be set at very hard mode and go through an instance with wild abandonment. Only defeated on very rare occasions when make too many mistakes. My static group character at very hard mode plans out every pull and is either defeated or stays in block almost entire time.

Of course the other weakness of CO is diversity and length of content. 6 weeks of play and one level from max with solo character. Level time will depend on play hours but no other game have I reached max level with my first character in less than 4 months and I have not played CO as intensely as some others. I know an experience player can go from 0 to max extremely quickly.

[Slyfeind]

Of course the other weakness of CO is diversity and length of content. 6 weeks of play and one level from max with solo character. Level time will depend on play hours but no other game have I reached max level with my first character in less than 4 months and I have not played CO as intensely as some others. I know an experience player can go from 0 to max extremely quickly.

Ugh, yeah. If they had more diverse low- to mid-level content, then fast levelling would be a strength. But with only one starting zone and two lowbie zones, you're pretty much done with the game after a few weeks.

[Malakili]

Of course the other weakness of CO is diversity and length of content. 6 weeks of play and one level from max with solo character. Level time will depend on play hours but no other game have I reached max level with my first character in less than 4 months and I have not played CO as intensely as some others. I know an experience player can go from 0 to max extremely quickly.

Ugh, yeah. If they had more diverse low- to mid-level content, then fast levelling would be a strength. But with only one starting zone and two lowbie zones, you're pretty much done with the game after a few weeks.

Indeed, one of the things they've been adding is scalable content which would supposedly add in variety, but from what I can tell by reading the forums the last bit was pretty poorly received, mostly for sucking in general though, not for being scalable.  When I was playing I was making an argument than the game didn't need more depth, but more breadth, though it seems mostly to have fallen on deaf ears.  Another 2-3 low to mid level zones (to compliment the one high level zone they added, which I actually played and thought was of really high quality), would really flesh out the game and make it worth playing through multiple times.

[Ragnoros]

This is on sale on Steam for 6 USD at the moment.  Never did more then beta myself.  I think I can stand that price point for a couple days of goofing around.

[Rasix]

This is on sale on Steam for 6 USD at the moment.  Never did more then beta myself.  I think I can stand that price point for a couple days of goofing around.

Yes, but it's sitting right next to Monkey Island special editions for $5 a piece.  Choose wisely.

[Hoax]

This is on sale on Steam for 6 USD at the moment.  Never did more then beta myself.  I think I can stand that price point for a couple days of goofing around.

Yes, but it's sitting right next to Monkey Island special editions for $5 a piece.  Choose wisely.

Was looking at it myself but I'm not sure messing w/ the creator is worth $6

[Malakili]

This is on sale on Steam for 6 USD at the moment.  Never did more then beta myself.  I think I can stand that price point for a couple days of goofing around.

Yes, but it's sitting right next to Monkey Island special editions for $5 a piece.  Choose wisely.

Was looking at it myself but I'm not sure messing w/ the creator is worth $6

Are they still offering the demo?  I think that offers access to the creator, and its free.

[Malakili]

Not that anyone cares about this game anymore, but it looks like this is going to enter the free to play fray, also some significant changes according to this post: http://champions-online.com/node/595093

Maybe it'll be worth checking out again...then again, maybe not :)

We're doing three major things to address these issues in the Free-to-Play update.
 
New Descriptions - We've added tech and rewritten all of the power descriptions so that they are accurate and understandable. Tooltips should be more succinct while at the same time being clear and complete.

Streamlined Powers - We're fixing many systemic inconsistencies and outright errors throughout the power frameworks. Most of the time, we're doing this by simplifying interactions. For example, there were many different kinds of holds, which led to all sorts of strange interaction problems and unexpected results. We've simplified control powers so that there are fewer distinct hold types. We've also set them up in a way that should make them easier to understand and use appropriately.

Heroic Archetypes - The really big thing we're doing is adding a whole new way to choose your hero's powers! When you create a hero, you may choose an Archetype, which will specify which powers you earn as you level up. Archetypes aren't general like classes or roles, nor do they simply map to our frameworks. Archetypes are character builds that mimic a specific kind of superhero from the comic pages. For example, one of the Archetypes is "The Blade."  As you might guess, The Blade is a melee based character focused on using single-blade powers. He specializes in doing tons of damage to single targets. For comparison, "The Brute" is also a melee character that dishes out tons of damage, but instead focuses more on group combat and survivability. The Free-to-Play update will have at least eight of these Archetypes available to play right off the bat, and we'll be adding more every month.

A lot of players have mentioned how they’d love to spend more time in the city after the tutorial rather than immediately be whisked off to deal with the crises in the Desert or Canada. Players also said they wanted more direction and help following the tutorial. The main social hub in Champs is Millennium City's fantastic Renaissance Center, which players don't get to until a little later in their hero's career.
 
We're reorganizing and reworking our early content to address these issues.
 
Improved Tutorial - We're streamlining the tutorial to make it flow and teach better.

Welcome to Ren Center - Immediately after the tutorial, players will go to Renaissance Center, the social hub of Champions Online. Defender will be their first contact and help them get their bearings in Millennium City. He'll eventually send the hero off to check on some strange happenings in the park by the Super-Jet, which will lead the hero to adventures in Westside.

Westside Revisited - We've reordered, rescripted and augmented the content in Westside. There is now a more tightly scripted storyline for the whole neighborhood that ties everything together. While some of our favorite missions are still there, we've also added new ones, including a couple new boss battles! We've added new landmarks to the zone as well, so players can tell where they are and where they're going. After completing the adventure in Westside, players go to the Desert Crisis.

Desert Revisited - The Desert Crisis and the Desert have also had their stories punched up notch! There is now an overall structure to the story that integrates Project Greenskin, Burning Sands, Burnside and the Atomic Wasteland. We've also added a couple new fights and a big bang to conclude the adventure! This brings the player to around level 18 or 19, where they can continue in the Desert or return to Millennium City.

First of all, you can (and should!) still subscribe to Champions Online. If you continue to subscribe (and become a "Gold Member"), then what you get doesn't change from what you get today. You still get all the zones, all the levels, all existing and future adventure packs, and all the costume parts available today (plus a bunch of new ones). You still have complete control over what powers your hero has (as well as their color), just like today. The only difference you'll see is that there will be more things in the C-Store to buy, if you are so inclined.
 
Current lifetime subscribers automatically become Gold Members for life and get all the same benefits.
 
Non-subscribers ("Silver Players") don't get all of that. Most importantly, they don't get complete control over what powers their heroes get. Instead, they can only create heroes by choosing an Archetype. Though the power progression is predefined, the player can tailor the powers with their choice of Advantages. Silver Players are also limited in other ways such as inventory, bank and marketplace space. Of course, Silver Players retain full control over how their character looks using the costume editor. They also get access to all the zones and levels.
 
If you decide to switch from Gold to Silver, your characters will still be there. However, you won't be able to play them until either you re-subscribe or you convert them into Silver characters. Exactly how this will work is still being determined.
 
There are several other ways that Gold Members and Silver Players differ. We have a Features Matrix published right here with the exact differences.

[Lantyssa]

Champions where you can't pick your powers?  Well sign me up.

[Malakili]

Champions where you can't pick your powers?  Well sign me up.

I get the impression that is not to replace ther current power selection system, but an alternative way to do it to make it easier on new players.

[Lantyssa]

Read your last quote.  Free-loaders have to use the archtype system.

[Bandit]

Really though, I think this is the best and only option for CO.  I still play time-to-time as I enjoy the pace of combat and combat in general.  The content just wasn't there and to compensate they had wtf-ridiculous grinds.  Hopefully this breathes new life into the game and quickens updates. 

[Sky]

Wait, free to play but I can't play my existing characters?

F2P lulz

[Ratman_tf]

Champions where you can't pick your powers?  Well sign me up.

At least they'll get access to the compelling content! 

[Nebu]

At least they'll get access to the compelling content! 

Nice!  That one got a loud laugh from my office. 

[koro]

If the latest content patch can cause the Champions servers to completely shit the bed for a week+, I can't wait to see what will happen when you toss a few thousand curious freebies into the mix.

[Slyfeind]

 

Well they've shown they can learn. Maybe they'll eventually figure this one out too.