Game Feature: City of Heroes Beta Thoughts

[Alluvian]

One thing that keeps them safe with drops is that mobs don't drop anything when they go grey to your level.  No inspirations, no enhancements, nothing.

The way they do exp debt, you are always gaining exp, so you can't keep killing a mob that drops something without eventually leveling past it. You can't stop leveling unless you only fight greys that drop NOTHING.

Your concern about farming drops is no different if the things are purchaseable.  Then they just farm money instead.  Neither one is that destructive to the game I don't think.  I won't be doing it either way.  I will get what I get when I get it by doing whatever the fuck I want in the game.  So far I have everything I want.

[Aelton]

I think an even better idea than having temp powers be purchasable in a store would be to have them be available only from special contacts.  For instance, you are doing a mission for a scientist of some sort, and if you succeed, he gives you some prototype gadget he has been working on.  Or if you do a mission for some sort of magic based character, you could get some sort of magical item he found.  Something like this would be cool because they could be random and un-campable.  They should be fairly common, but not so common as to negate the cool factor.  Plus it fits nicely with the soryline...

[Khaldun]

Color me surprised.

I was pretty sure it was going to suck, partly because I think the normal mechanics of a MMOG are so wildly inappropriate to the superhero genre. (Much as they've turned out not to fit Star Wars and I'm sure won't fit Middle-Earth). Maybe I'm wrong. I'm still a skeptic--have been burned too many times--but CoH at least moves back onto the "might not suck" list now.

[Alluvian]

Nice idea.  Also anything that could have balance issues could easily be a fixed reward in a onetime quest.

[Big Gulp]

I've seen most of the comic book movement types covered except wall crawling.  Is that implemented?  How about rope/web swinging?

Nope, not looking to replicate spider-man, or even choose these powers, just wondering how sick they got with the super powers.

[Alluvian]

Nope, neither of those, but you can actually scale some building types with regular jumping in crevaces.

I could see wall crawling, but web swinging would probably just get them sued, hehe.

[koboshi]

I think an even better idea than having temp powers be purchasable in a store would be to have them be available only from special contacts.

I've seen most of the comic book movement types covered except wall crawling. Is that implemented? How about rope/web swinging?

 
In certain quests (at low levels) you can receive web grenades to ensnare your enemy, they don't run out and are yours until you complete the quest (the one I got it for was one of the kill 10 skulls)

[kaid]

Actually the devs talked about webslinging. It isn't that they would get sued or that it was a technical hurdel they could not accomplish. Their reason for not adding it is they could not find a way to make it look decent. Much of what spider man does is just impossible due to anchor points and momentum. For much of  what he does to make the physics engine like it you would be shooting webs and anchoring off the sky.

It is possible you could do it like the old time quake grapple hook but true webslinging was something they were not happy with how it looked so did not go through with it.

Heck I would rather see ice mans ice slide thing as a movement power but again it is one of those looking silly in game issues that would keep it from being done.

Kaid

[Alluvian]

Lots of spiderman games exist and although those play really fun, watching from another vantage point WOULD look pretty darn stupid.  When in tight third person like in those games you can just pretend there is something above your head.

But the pysics DON"T work unless you are attaching to a ceiling.  Using just buildings even with perfect reflexes you would either lost a TON of height on each swing or you would smack into the building you are attaching to.  In order to keep height you would have to swing well past the anchor and regain the height you lost before sending out another line.  And if you wait to get to your lowest point, you are below the anchor, or smack dab into the wall of a building.

Not that anyone who has spent more than 10 seconds thinking about it has not already figured that out.  The spiderman movie used an interesting trick that the webs were VERY elastic and PULLED him up on each swing by shortening after they attached.  This would work in a movie, but in a game it would be too hard to stay below the building line.  The alternative of attaching to air still looks silly.

Icemans movement would also look silly as you would have to decay the ice slide thingy really quickly after him or the whole world would be covered in them.  With the ice decaying shortly behind him it would make even less sense.

Some things only work on the pages of comics or in very carefully framed movies.

[Morfiend]

Ok, just a few things that have been bugging me about this game. Nothing big, but I thought it worth a mention.

First is the fact you cant swing the camra around in front of yourself. Some times I just like to have a look at my character, and I get tired of his athletic butt filling my view. I did find a way around this. If you put some one on follow, then you can swing the camra around.

Second, is that with no armor you dont really get more badass looking. In a lot of these games, as you get better equipment, you get more cool looking. Now, in CoH you start sweet looking. (some times). But you dont have that super badass looking piece of equipment to look forward to. Also, you cant always tell if a character is lvl 40 or lvl 2 by looking at them. I guess this is personal preference, but its a minus for me.

[Fargull]

Mouse look lets you rotate however you want, you can stare at your crotch if you want.

Agree about the non-changing looks, though with the mention of the Tailor later for influence, this might not be a huge issue.  Hmm...

[SirBruce]

I would hope at least the underlying physics engine could make all characters slowly "bulk up" as they level.

Bruce

[Khaldun]

No! No! It's a really *good* thing that you look more or less the same as you go along. That's a surprisingly good sign of being true to the genre. Sure, Spiderman and Superman and their ilk get better at being superheroes as time goes on, that's a part of the standard narrative. But they don't get more gear and phat loot and bulkier and all that crap. Here's hoping they keep a clear head on this and other issues and don't listen to MMOG junkies.

[Valmorian]

First is the fact you cant swing the camra around in front of yourself. Some times I just like to have a look at my character, and I get tired of his athletic butt filling my view. I did find a way around this. If you put some one on follow, then you can swing the camra around.

Press and hold Mouse3, then use mouselook.  This changed POV for me.

Second, is that with no armor you dont really get more badass looking. In a lot of these games, as you get better equipment, you get more cool looking. Now, in CoH you start sweet looking. (some times). But you dont have that super badass looking piece of equipment to look forward to. Also, you cant always tell if a character is lvl 40 or lvl 2 by looking at them. I guess this is personal preference, but its a minus for me.

It's a big, big, BIG plus for me.  I never liked the idea that I couldn't look the way I wanted to in an MMORPG.  What's more, I'm not penalized or forced to take a particular path if I want to look a particular way.  I can make a big hulking blaster, or a tiny little tanker, my choice.

[Jain Zar]

This game sounds way cool.  I'm so there!

[Alluvian]

First is the fact you cant swing the camra around in front of yourself. Some times I just like to have a look at my character, and I get tired of his athletic butt filling my view. I did find a way around this. If you put some one on follow, then you can swing the camra around.

Try pressing the shift key and moving the mouse.

I think that was the default, but you can look it up in keybindings.  You can move the camera however you want.

[NiX]

Sounds like a really fun game. I'm tempted to pick it up, but what are the min reqs? That's the only thing stopping me from pre-ordering right now.

[Velorath]

No! No! It's a really *good* thing that you look more or less the same as you go along. That's a surprisingly good sign of being true to the genre. Sure, Spiderman and Superman and their ilk get better at being superheroes as time goes on, that's a part of the standard narrative. But they don't get more gear and phat loot and bulkier and all that crap. Here's hoping they keep a clear head on this and other issues and don't listen to MMOG junkies.

On the other hand some characters like Iron Man tend to upgrade their costume and equipment on a regular basis.

[Kyper]

First is the fact you cant swing the camra around in front of yourself.

Hold page up and move your mouse to move the camera around.

I was one of the first 100 testers for CoH and I remember the thread on the old WT.O boards slamming NCSoft back in December for their "beta tester comments" news release.  Everyone said "those can't be real... they must all be fanbois".  Hehe.

We really were impressed with the game, even back in December.  It's a helluva lot of fun.

[Margalis]

Who is going to be a man (or woman I suppose) and admit that THEY were one of the people crying and complaining about CoH?

When the CoH people announced archetypes the reaction was *overwhelmingly* negative. Now all those people are looking to the side and whistling...weak.

[schild]

I already admitted in several threads the lack of PVP kept me away from the game. I said it sucked. On a whim, after being horrified  by Lineage 2 I exchanged the preorder for City of Heroes, not expecting much.

I was surprised.

[HaemishM]

Who is going to be a man (or woman I suppose) and admit that THEY were one of the people crying and complaining about CoH?

When the CoH people announced archetypes the reaction was *overwhelmingly* negative. Now all those people are looking to the side and whistling...weak.

I not only said it would suck because they went for the archtypes instead of skills, I said it was going to suck because they removed PVP.

I've already written the first line of my beta review.

"I was wrong."

[Morfiend]

No! No! It's a really *good* thing that you look more or less the same as you go along. That's a surprisingly good sign of being true to the genre. Sure, Spiderman and Superman and their ilk get better at being superheroes as time goes on, that's a part of the standard narrative. But they don't get more gear and phat loot and bulkier and all that crap. Here's hoping they keep a clear head on this and other issues and don't listen to MMOG junkies.

On the other hand some characters like Iron Man tend to upgrade their costume and equipment on a regular basis.

Dont forget, when Wolverine left X-Men, and was just Logan for a while, no costume, only a hat and  jacket.

Also, Hulk turned in to the Grey Hulk. Angle from X-Men turned into Archangle.

Or when Spider-Man got the symbiotic suit, and was black spiderman before the suit left him and became Venom.

How about The original Beast from X-Men, he looked human, but mutated more and got blue fur. Jean Grey turned in to the Pheonix, then the Dark Pheonix.

Iron-Man built a new suit, and was War Machine.

Batman had several different suits, with different amounts of armor and weapons in them.

Superman died and split in four. (I think, thats about the time my house burned down, including my comiv collection, and so I stopped collecting).

[Scorus]

The downside about people getting new gear that makes them look even more badass is that everyone ends up looking the same. Every level X looks like every other level X. Boring.

In this game, you just make yourself look like a badass from the character creation. :)

[Velorath]

Dont forget, when Wolverine left X-Men, and was just Logan for a while, no costume, only a hat and  jacket.

Also, Hulk turned in to the Grey Hulk. Angle from X-Men turned into Archangle.

Or when Spider-Man got the symbiotic suit, and was black spiderman before the suit left him and became Venom.

How about The original Beast from X-Men, he looked human, but mutated more and got blue fur. Jean Grey turned in to the Pheonix, then the Dark Pheonix.

Iron-Man built a new suit, and was War Machine.

Batman had several different suits, with different amounts of armor and weapons in them.

Superman died and split in four. (I think, thats about the time my house burned down, including my comiv collection, and so I stopped collecting).

Henry Pym has also gone from Ant-man to Giant-man, Goliath, and Yellowjacket, The Thing has mutated at times becoming bigger and sort of spikey, and Captain America has switched shields a few times.

The downside about people getting new gear that makes them look even more badass is that everyone ends up looking the same. Every level X looks like every other level X. Boring.

In this game, you just make yourself look like a badass from the character creation. :)

The solution might be to give characters new costume options every ten levels or so based on archetype, origin, and powers.  A tech character with flight for example should be able to get a jetpack or some boots with jets.  A broadsword based scrapper should be able to choose a different looking sword every so often.  Tankers should be able to become bulkier if they want.  Hell, take a look at the trailer on the pre-order disc and you'll see that even Statesman has changed his look a couple of times over the years.[/quote]

[HRose]

If I take what you are writing about this game out of the context it seems you are talking of World of Warcraft. Perhaps when it will be gold it won't be the first to have done something "right".

[Arthur_Parker]

Who is going to be a man (or woman I suppose) and admit that THEY were one of the people crying and complaining about CoH?

When the CoH people announced archetypes the reaction was *overwhelmingly* negative. Now all those people are looking to the side and whistling...weak.

In reaction to this bold statement, let me say I think you all will be bored with COH in 3 months.  I don't normally post on threads about games that I'm not interested in as it just annoys people to hear a conflicting view but all the love is rather disturbing.

From what I understand there is no end game, no significant economy, little loot drops, no wearable equipment, no twinking (apart from sidekicks which does sound like a good idea).  No player vendors, no housing, no crafting, nothing to fight over and with no pvp you are even unable to fight.  

What you have is an enjoyable grind, that will gradually become less enjoyable when you discover the best missions to achieve X, you will constantly do the same missions.  Kill stealing and capes will be the biggest complaints for weeks, at least till the boredom kicks in big time.

They could save it by making an evil path to follow to be a bad guy but again I don't see how that would work long term as it would require pvp.

I think it's an original game and intend to give it a go, if I get into the open beta but I don't think I will enjoy it long term.  It's a pity because I was looking for a game to introduce the girlfriend to MMORPG's

[stray]

I not only said it would suck because they went for the archtypes instead of skills, I said it was going to suck because they removed PVP.

Gotta crawl out of lurk mode here...

Anyways, that's probably what has put me off about CoH (lack of PvP). I should have paid heed to Haemish's L2 writeup though, because it's a piece of shit, PvP or not. Now I just want Fun (It sounds a bit sad, but I am really, really jonesin' here), PvP or not.

Hey schild, sometimes a fanboi can be good thing. I'll probably check it out.

I can see my way clear to pony up $10 in order to create Bozo the Destroyer.

And if your out of luck, there's always Rambozo.

[Soukyan]

In reaction to this bold statement, let me say I think you all will be bored with COH in 3 months.  I don't normally post on threads about games that I'm not interested in as it just annoys people to hear a conflicting view but all the love is rather disturbing.

From what I understand there is no end game, no significant economy, little loot drops, no wearable equipment, no twinking (apart from sidekicks which does sound like a good idea).  No player vendors, no housing, no crafting, nothing to fight over and with no pvp you are even unable to fight.  

What you have is an enjoyable grind, that will gradually become less enjoyable when you discover the best missions to achieve X, you will constantly do the same missions.  Kill stealing and capes will be the biggest complaints for weeks, at least till the boredom kicks in big time.

They could save it by making an evil path to follow to be a bad guy but again I don't see how that would work long term as it would require pvp.

I think it's an original game and intend to give it a go, if I get into the open beta but I don't think I will enjoy it long term.  It's a pity because I was looking for a game to introduce the girlfriend to MMORPG's

All of those things you mentioned are not what sell me on a game.

- DAoC has houses, but I must farm gold to obtain one.

- Same goes for player vendors and crafting.

- Wearable equipment just leads to spreadsheeting and camping and farming of the uber gear as in EQ.

- Twinking is necessary in games with interminable grinds and with mobs so beefed up that you cannot survive wearing equipment that the game originally intended for you.

- Players are fighting to protect the city. NPC threat, yes, but it's a goal.

- There are far better games to try to simulate an economy in as MMOGs have all fallen prey to massive inflation in their economies and end up diminishing gameplay by creating the necessity to farm gold. That's called work. I do it during the day, I don't want to do it at night.

- PvP might be nice, but not as an afterthought. If SWG players are content to pay money in the hopes the the Space Expansion will solve all their dislikes of the game, I think I can wait for the PvP expansion from Cryptic. I have more faith in them than SOE at this point.

- End-game in all previous MMOGs has been existent because they've needed a carrot to dangle in front of players who are forced to trudge through gameplay that is less than engaging.

All of the aforementioned are things that have the potential to repeat the past MMOG mistakes because they are so poorly tied into game systems. If any of those make an appearance in CoH, you would see an immediate change to mimic use of those systems as players are used to using them in other MMOGs. That's not the developers fault, but I give Cryptic credit for not trying to cram a shitload of extra features in before a fast approaching release date. I also give them credit for making a game that is FUN from the start. A game that doesn't require me to level to the max level and then begin an alternate level grind to enjoy it.

Sure, it's a possibility that if more low level content is not added on a regular basis that players may start to feel that if they do not level up, then they are missing something. But as I stated in other posts, it's hard to feel that way when the base gameplay is fun and engaging. It's the replay value that is important and I think Cryptic has the replay value down pat. The rest is just icing. Will I get bored with the game? Probably eventually. More likely another will come along that catches my interest. But to be honest, I think it will be quite a while. For me, I enjoy logging in and teaming up and have an absolute blast with other players. Gone are the days of watching a status bar for crafting, watching a mana bar fill while I med, killing mobs for gold because it is no longer optional, etc.

You are right about one thing. It's probably nothing more than an enjoyable grind. The key word there, however, is enjoyable.

[Alrindel]

In reaction to this bold statement, let me say I think you all will be bored with COH in 3 months.  I don't normally post on threads about games that I'm not interested in as it just annoys people to hear a conflicting view but all the love is rather disturbing.

I agree with you, although I think 3 months might be stretching it.

CoH as it stands is stable and fun right out of the box, which is good, and it has some good features with instanced indoor missions and the sidekick feature to let newbies do high end raids with their high level buddies.  But for how long am I going to want to be doing that stuff for $15/month?

Also, my character has now reached level 9, and I haven't been in a decent group in a while - which has left me running around the King's Row zone eking out a little XP by blasting green and blue con level 6-8 mobs.  This is very uncomfortably reminiscent of what DAOC was like for my ranger: 6 months of solo grind to claw up to level 50.  Make no mistake: combat is fun and full of eye candy, but under that sugar coating lies a treadmill.

Nevertheless, this game has surprised me - I had written it off a long time ago and had doubts it would even see the light of day (it's been in development for what, 4? 5? years now?) but I am planning to purchase it and subscribe for a while.  But probably not for long.

[daveNYC]

- End-game in all previous MMOGs has been existent because they've needed a carrot to dangle in front of players who are forced to trudge through gameplay that is less than engaging.

Yep.  End-game is just a fancy way of saying 90% of the game sucks.

[Arthur_Parker]

From what I have read COH sounds like a PVE version of planetside, not that there's anything wrong with that.  I guess with enough good reviews and lets face it from what I am hearing here the reviews should be very good, they should shift enough boxes to recoup the development costs even without aiming at long term player retention.

Is it going to worry EQ2 or WOW?  imho Nope.

[Alluvian]

Game will only be good for 3 months?  [edit]beyond good and evil[/edit] lasted me about 9 hours with little to no replay value.  Max Payne 2 I played through three times and still only played it about a week or two.  Prince of Persia, even less replay than BG&E because of the drawn out story telling and no difficulty mode.  Completed it in about 10-12 hours.  Ran through it a second time in 6.  Have not played it since.

I have already gotten more hours of enjoyment out of CoH than those games I just mentioned.  All of which are what I consider good purchases.

ONLY three months?  That is damn good for me.  And nobody knows when each individual will get tired of it. Could be one month could be 3, could be a year if they keep adding kickass shit like the rikiti spaceship and the devouring earth epic.

We are still in the low level game.  It actually gets MORE fun once you start forming taskforces.

Regarding the person who has not grouped, I don't think they are looking that hard.  Head out to perez and form a pickup group if nobody in the guild is around.  I get invited all the time out of the blue there when soloing.  Maybe it is because I CAN solo there and they want that in the group, I don't know.

Also started a scrapper bruiser and am having fun with him.  Broadsword is far from the best scrapper style but it fits my troll.  I wanted to see if I could remake the concept of my EQ Troll Ranjur.  So far he is a blast.  Love how he visually turned out, even though I found and reported a few bugs in character select leaving him with a few bits colored wrong.


Regarding costume changes:
Well, they ARE adding tailoring.  And I would guess that from time to time or with expansions or whatever they will add new costume bits.  Capes are coming in for sure, as well as particle effect clothing.  So you will surely be able to upgrade if you choose to at that time.

I personally don't like capes.  makes everyone look the same.  Thought they were a dumb idea in DAOC.  The only time I would agree with capes is if there are none that affect any stat so that you don't lessen your effectiveness if you don't want one.  So I am fine with them in CoH.  In DAOC everyone was compelled to wear one.  So the already overly same characters became even moreso.

[Soukyan]

From what I have read COH sounds like a PVE version of planetside, not that there's anything wrong with that.  I guess with enough good reviews and lets face it from what I am hearing here the reviews should be very good, they should shift enough boxes to recoup the development costs even without aiming at long term player retention.

Is it going to worry EQ2 or WOW?  imho Nope.

Of course not, and they've already niched themselves in that some folks won't want to play a comic book style superhero. But I do think they'll do well for themselves and garner a fairly decent playerbase. Hell, look at SB and the ridiculous tech problems and they still manage to retain players.

[Alrindel]

ONLY three months?  That is damn good for me.

Sure, for me too.  But for a MMORPG - where you have several years of development to amortize plus hefty operating costs, you will want a better retention rate than that, or you'll never get your money back.  Let alone profit.  The question is not whether you are getting your money's worth, the question is whether or not they are getting enough of your money and everybody else's to stay afloat.