Game Feature: City of Heroes Beta Wrapup

[schild]

At least it's not World of Warcraft.

[Alluvian]

Regarding mobs, I believe they have said that they have half a dozen or so new villian groups ready to go in if launch goes well...  But that is just words and they are not worth too much.

While itching to see Eden, you should add Dark Astoria to your list.  It is supposed to be absolutely bitching.  Yes.  I used the word 'bitching'.  I am ashamed.

I also hear there is a mission or task force on a crashed rikti spacecraft.  That could be cool.  Hopefully it will look unique and not like a crey mission.

Guildhalls:
I think your ideas for guildhalls is abit sticky.  I think a lot of the player base wants the huge shiney Hall of Justice type building.  And being an old warehouse on the corner of 5th and Main won't exactly be what they want.  I have a feeling there will be a new instanced zone for housing.  It will make some happy and others not.  I don't know of a way to make housing to make all happy.  Needing X number of players in the group and doing a set of missions for it is great though and should for sure be the way it is done.  I also have little doubt it will be done since so many things in the game are unlocked by missions already.

Capes:
I don't think capes are just capes.  Capes is a cloth physics system from what I understand.  It will allow capes, but not just capes alone.  Women may also get long skirts.  Men may get kilts and hundreds of angry scottish superheroes would emerge.  Wings may come in at the same time.  Capes may come in at the same time as the particle effect clothing system for things like fiery hair.  I think it will be more than just capes.  For that reason I think it will be cool.  I personally think capes is pretty stupid.  They just make everyone look too similar from behind.


The success of this game will be heavily based on the rate of content addition.  There is really no player made content AT ALL in the game.  Devs can't blame players for not making their own content like they tried to do in SWG.  Other than making a new character there is little the player can do to extend content when it has gotten stale.


Good writeup.

[UnSub]

Overall I think CoH has had a fantastic beta and can really improve from here on in once they start adding in more content. Sure, CoH is one bad patch away from sucking, but to this point they have shown a lot of promise that they can pull off a successful mmog.

Well, until they cave to the pressure and introduce pvp and crafting.

[kaid]

Mob diversity does improve alot with levels but I agree it does start a bit slow.  You start off working with mostly human gangs and the higher you get the more and more different stuff you start to see. Also each gang can have a great number of models but some seem rare.

With 5th column you mostly see their troopers but once in a while you will see their flying pods or their awsome warwolf powerarmor/mechs.

Some types of foe have a wild ammount of diversity inside one gang.  Devouring earth I think has the largest ammount of diversity in mob types and looks of any of the foes I have fought. They range from swarms of sentient insects to HUGE monolithic treant looking things.

The super hero HQ thing was one of the originally planned things and is something I expect to happen eventually post launch although I expect it to be more of an instanced thing.


One thing I have started to see more and one thing I hope they continue to improve especially at lower levels is mission area diversity. There are a metric ton of floor plans but at least until level 10 or so you are mainly stuck in either a sewer or a office building/warehouse.  At higher levels you can go from underground cities to crey buildings,  to nazi bunkers and all sorts of other very diverse mission type areas. It really helps break things up if you are not going oh not an office building again.

Thankfully with the way they do instancing I fully expect that adding new types of mission styles/floorplans is something that is very easy for them to do and very modular.



The ground work is laid for a fun game and of all the most recent betas I have done I don't have any big gripes.


I think the only thing that would kill their release and give them a bad release day experience is billing. The game handled some HUGE ammounts of folks online last night and if the fight in founders falls did not cause the server to burst into flame then nothing will. Sure it got chuggy but there was about 200 people and as many rikti all capping off their aoes and what not rapid fire and it was still playable and I never map discoed onece during the fight.


Kaid

[HaemishM]

Billing will be a BIG concern. I don't think anyone has gotten this right, ever, except maybe DAoC. Hopefully, any fuckup they make on release day billing will be of the small variety, instead of the "OMFG I got billed 15 times because the web page wouldn't load" shit that Horizons had.

I wish I had seen the Rikti invasion, but my computer decided to give up the ghost on Tuesday and I haven't played since.

[ajax34i]

It was fun in a "let's follow the crowd and watch the gankfest" sort of way.  They started small, initially, but quickly caught on that:

1.  Players had access to the shout channel and would quickly converge, en masse, on any lone Rikti that appeared anywhere.

2.  The "heal all heroes in the vicinity" powers (they're quite common) are just sick when the healer has 200+ heroes in the vicinity.

So what followed were armies of riktis, spawning in multiple places, and especially the hospital (the "spawn here after you've died" spot).  And then it was just hilarious, energy attack overload lol.

Plus, the aliens were phisically rather big, and high level, but they had these fricking monkeys that were tiny and in my level 5 range, that would appear I think whenever the bigger guys died, so you'd be attacked and like "wtf is that dmg coming from" till you looked down.

Movie, slow download.  Nevermind, guy's overloaded and losing his ISP.
Some guy posted 56 pics.
Lotsa rikti, few heroes here.
More pictures.
Gamespy article on it, heh heh.

I took a few pics myself but for some reason my graphics editors find the .tga's badly formatted and I can't open them.  None of the pics out there captured the real crowd, so you won't get an idea of just how many superheroes did squeeze into the small area around mobs, heh.

[Signe]

Billing: It's always a fuck up.  You expect it, these days.  While everything else in a game MIGHT be a fuck up, you can always put your money on billing... or not put your money on it, as the case may be.

Capes:  I'd like to see them, though I won't use them.  It really is a very superhero thing, isn't it?  Well, I assume so... I'm not big on comics but I do seem to remember lots of capes.  Cloth movement is not the easiest thing to get right.  I have a feeling that this team has a good chance though.  They did a wonderful job on reflection and movement.  I especially liked the indoor floor reflections... something many games either botch or ignore.  It truly looked like marble to me.

Sidekicks:  Best idea EVER.  They have found a way to allow every level to group with each other, with no real detriment to anyone.  At level 2
E-Blue sidekicked me and I was actually able to function, with minimal death, for some level 13 or 14 missions. (I forget what level, exactly) They should erect a statue in the honour of the developer who came up with this idea.  Replace that one of the bloke in AP who looks like he should be flying but isn't... that one makes me feel anxious.

I have no excuse for missing the end of beta event other than I was exhausted and kept falling asleep.  I went to bed very, very early.  I'll be taking part in the catass, though, as Righ is off work for the entire week and I have no 7 AM wake ups to deal with.  Playing this game during the night with the lot of you has had a bad effect on my energy level.  After next week I'll probably be back on my day time playing and night time sleeping routine.

[Scorus]

They have announced the City of Villains expansion:
http://www.plaync.com/about/press_release_042304.html

Oh, and the 'capes' issue is actually a bit larger. It is the flowing art that is the problem but getting it down will also allow robes and long skirts, which some people have asked for. A lot of the female players hate that all the skirts are minis.

Scorus

[Signe]

After you reach a certain age and are no longer interested in being picked up in clubs... nothing that reminds you that your legs need shaving is welcome.

On a geekier note... now you can make those little star wars desert critters with the glowing eyes.  I forget what they're called.

[Murgos]

Jawa.

-5 geek points for Signe.

[UnSub]

Well, until they cave to the pressure and introduce pvp and crafting.

Irony noted about the pvp bit.

Once they get capes movement "right", expect to see the introduction of trenchcoats, moving tails and others along with the previously mentioned skirts and robes. I can imagine long skirts being popular with the flying female population - not every girl wants to give the city an eyeful every time she takes to the skies.

Seriously though, tails were almost cut from release because they didn't move. However, enough people voted to keep the static tails, so they stayed.

[gith]

Just a note for those that were not present, at last year's E3 in LA the SAME (toned down) Rikti invasion occured at the behest of the playtesters that were present and playing. The event was *not* new for the end of beta. In fact, from my e3 review of last year (it has since been taken down from the web since our guild web page got hacked ;() this is what I said about CoH (it used to be all hyperlinked):

I wandered over to the City of Heros setup, not before getting a picture with some 'booth babes'.

[snip]

Concentrate. Back to City of Heros. There were like 12 computers set up in a little LAN all connected so you could play with the other fucks there. There were no spots avaliable on them, so I asked one of the developer girls (Yes, it seemed that there were developers there that are actually female. Okay, let's not kid ourselves, they were community liasons.) if I could use thier machine. She obliged. She went away and left some dude to take me through character creation.

  Pic 5: Ragtop girth making purty girlies.  
I was like "How do I fly? Does this make me fly? When can I fly? Why am I not flying?". He was like "No. No. No. No, you can't fly yet.". I was bummed. The character creation was soo customizable that I made a girl with a flame sword and a red eyepatch (ARRR!! ). She also shot out fire from her hands as her ranged attack and had super speed (but on the ground!). Anyways, I started playing.

The game sucked. Basically it took place in a city and there were people everywhere. You could target them, but you could do nothing else. Basically, there were all these movable things and you could do nothing to them. Bad. I was like 'wtf?' and the guy said that I needed to go into the alleys and such where bad guys would typically hang out. So I hopped a fence (wow, actual nice 3d implementation) or two and fought some thug. I shot him with my ranged fire, then ran up to him and used my fire sword. It was very point and click. It was ALL point and click. There is a time where you have to wait for your powers to recycle before you can use them again, so I basically didnt do anything other than beat some thug into submission with my fists not even using my powers. Whoopdeefreakindo. I was about to leave, when the developer said that there was an alien invasion! So I sped into the middle of the city at city hall or something (Note: The city seemed very small... but it could just be the beta). There was a huge mothership like in Independence Day above the city hall with random aliens spawning in the city hall. There were like all 10 of the other players there, some had to have been 'leveled up'/developed because they were kicking the crap out of the aliens (with thier fists, since it took thier powers like 10 seconds to recycle and the mobs died in like 2). Anyways, the aliens all died, the mothership left, and so did I.


I may have been overly critical at the time, and I guess my point is, I don't know how 'extensible' the engine is in so far as generating content if they are still using the same content they generated from last Feburary/March.

(edit: my complete review of last year's e3: http://www-scf.usc.edu/~marthale/random/e3/e3.html )

[Joe]

I'm pretty highly convinced the invasion wasn't an events test as much as it was a "how many people can we cram into one instanced zone without burning out a CPU" test.

Just my thoughts.

[Alluvian]

Wow, I would have thought you would not have wanted to post that again gith considering all the stupidity that was in it.  But far be it from me to get in the way of stupid.

[Soukyan]

Just a note for those that were not present, at last year's E3 in LA the SAME (toned down) Rikti invasion occured at the behest of the playtesters that were present and playing. The event was *not* new for the end of beta. In fact, from my e3 review of last year (it has since been taken down from the web since our guild web page got hacked ;() this is what I said about CoH (it used to be all hyperlinked):

I wandered over to the City of Heros setup, not before getting a picture with some 'booth babes'.

[snip]

Concentrate. Back to City of Heros. There were like 12 computers set up in a little LAN all connected so you could play with the other fucks there. There were no spots avaliable on them, so I asked one of the developer girls (Yes, it seemed that there were developers there that are actually female. Okay, let's not kid ourselves, they were community liasons.) if I could use thier machine. She obliged. She went away and left some dude to take me through character creation.

  Pic 5: Ragtop girth making purty girlies.  
I was like "How do I fly? Does this make me fly? When can I fly? Why am I not flying?". He was like "No. No. No. No, you can't fly yet.". I was bummed. The character creation was soo customizable that I made a girl with a flame sword and a red eyepatch (ARRR!! ). She also shot out fire from her hands as her ranged attack and had super speed (but on the ground!). Anyways, I started playing.

The game sucked. Basically it took place in a city and there were people everywhere. You could target them, but you could do nothing else. Basically, there were all these movable things and you could do nothing to them. Bad. I was like 'wtf?' and the guy said that I needed to go into the alleys and such where bad guys would typically hang out. So I hopped a fence (wow, actual nice 3d implementation) or two and fought some thug. I shot him with my ranged fire, then ran up to him and used my fire sword. It was very point and click. It was ALL point and click. There is a time where you have to wait for your powers to recycle before you can use them again, so I basically didnt do anything other than beat some thug into submission with my fists not even using my powers. Whoopdeefreakindo. I was about to leave, when the developer said that there was an alien invasion! So I sped into the middle of the city at city hall or something (Note: The city seemed very small... but it could just be the beta). There was a huge mothership like in Independence Day above the city hall with random aliens spawning in the city hall. There were like all 10 of the other players there, some had to have been 'leveled up'/developed because they were kicking the crap out of the aliens (with thier fists, since it took thier powers like 10 seconds to recycle and the mobs died in like 2). Anyways, the aliens all died, the mothership left, and so did I.


I may have been overly critical at the time, and I guess my point is, I don't know how 'extensible' the engine is in so far as generating content if they are still using the same content they generated from last Feburary/March.

(edit: my complete review of last year's e3: http://www-scf.usc.edu/~marthale/random/e3/e3.html )

Have you ever played any other MMOG before? When I see the questions like "When can I fly?" and see you getting upset over not being able to fly, I gotta refer you to go try EverQuest for a day... hell, an hour, if you can last that long. Somewhere around the 4th rat, you should be asking yourself if it ever gets any better than this. And that boring punching has NOTHING on autoattack4tehwin! Heh. But I'm just picking nits. Compared to other MMOGs, CoH is a huge breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, if you are new to MMOGs, perhaps that air is still a bit stagnant.

[gith]

yeah i have played one or two other mmorpgs before. that actually hurts my feelings. :(


at the time i was playing shadowbane and was flying around in the air at various static levels with my warlock and I think I had made a gripe about it on my guild board or something, and I wanted to try out an engine that contained 'real' flying (is it pretty much the first?). and all the other mmorpgs that I played that day had pre-leveled characters so that the players/guests/etc. could experience some of the cooler aspects of the game (in WoW I used a level 53 huntress, Lineage2 there was a level 55 necromancer, etc). I guess the CoH people valued thier character creation over the cooler aspects of thier true 3d engine (jumping from building to building?).


I guess my point was just expressing doubt about how scalable/extensible/dynamic the CoH content scripting language is: can they add events/quests/ideas with minimal effort? or does it take 3 developers and 13 artists 3 months to plan one rikti invasion? can they generate monster spawning without admin control? I think that the easier it is to add content to the CoH engine, the better the PvM game will be.



Alluvian, in 3 weeks I'll have even more stupid avaliable.


:/

[Soukyan]

yeah i have played one or two other mmorpgs before. that actually hurts my feelings. :(


at the time i was playing shadowbane and was flying around in the air at various static levels with my warlock and I think I had made a gripe about it on my guild board or something, and I wanted to try out an engine that contained 'real' flying (is it pretty much the first?). and all the other mmorpgs that I played that day had pre-leveled characters so that the players/guests/etc. could experience some of the cooler aspects of the game (in WoW I used a level 53 huntress, Lineage2 there was a level 55 necromancer, etc). I guess the CoH people valued thier character creation over the cooler aspects of thier true 3d engine (jumping from building to building?).


I guess my point was just expressing doubt about how scalable/extensible/dynamic the CoH content scripting language is: can they add events/quests/ideas with minimal effort? or does it take 3 developers and 13 artists 3 months to plan one rikti invasion? can they generate monster spawning without admin control? I think that the easier it is to add content to the CoH engine, the better the PvM game will be.

You have some good points and I understand that that was a review from a year ago so apologies for sounding so snip with you. I see your point and it makes sense. The CoH folks should be damn proud of their work with the Z axis and they should have people flying around when giving a demo at E3. Perhaps flight wasn't complete at that time.

[HaemishM]

Alluvian, in 3 weeks I'll have even more stupid avaliable.

That sounded like a threat to me.

[Alluvian]

Yeah, he was actively comparing COH gameplay to SB gameplay and came away thinking COH 'sucked'.  Takes all kinds I guess.

Tell me when that extra stupid comes out in three weeks so I can actively avoid accidentally looking at it.  Maybe post it on your own site or something so I can install some child protection filters to my web browser and add that IP address or something.

[gith]

As a gamer, you almost have no choice but to compare games that you are currently playing with everything else that you run across. Especially if you are playing that game 2-5 hours a day. Luckily, I haven't been gaming at all lately, just being an armchair-designer, so this year's e3 will hopefully be somewhat fresh.

And Alluvian, there are going to be so many e3 reviews scattered all across the web in three weeks (guild sites, this site, other sites, comic sites, computer sites, etc etc) that you will best just not browse the web for like 2 months. And the only reason that I brought the review up was to point out the re-use of the code to people that weren't playing/following CoH back then and would like to have known that the current beta-ending event was not new.


P.S. I wasn't going to post a review this year, but I will now. AND do it here!! (and that's a promise!)

[Anonymous]

So you compared a war sim fantasy PvP RPG to a superhero PvM action game.  Uhhhhh ok.

Apples and oranges, anyone?

[Alluvian]

Knock yourself out.  I'll just skip it.  Or maybe I should read it and look into the games you hate and ignore the games you like.  I am as of yet undecided.

But post away.

I just don't see how you compare SB and COH gameplay and come away disliking COH compared to SB.  It does not compute.  SB was an abyssmal game where the pvp was the ONLY high point...  And that was too riddled with technical issues to enjoy.  But did you actually like the early levels of SB more than fighting thugs and running missions in CoH?

If so, does everyone wear little goatees and wear their uniforms reversed where you live?

[gith]

I just don't see how you compare SB and COH gameplay and come away disliking COH compared to SB.

Uhh, I didn't.

I don't think that I mentioned anything about the game play of SB at all. In fact, rereading my posts, yeah I didn't. I did say that in CoH waiting for your powers to recycle at early levels was boring. And hell yeah I'll still stand by that, 'cause it is. I don't mention SB gameplay at all so I don't see how I could compare them (you have any bones to pick? :p).

SB was the only mmorpg up until CoH that I know of that allowed player characters to fly and since I was just comparing the engines, then I think the two games deserved the comparison in that regard. Especially when someone brings up the fact that thier Z axis implementation is the best that I've ever seen. Apples and apples.


It just seems that people can't differentiate between a game's engine and its gameplay. A design and an implementation.

Shadowbane, for example, has a very niche game play perspective as a "war sim fantasy PvP RPG", and that, in itself, was a good thing. The laggy Arcane Engine with its outdated graphics and SB.exe exceptions did not help the game-play at all and forced many people to quit playing a game that they might have enjoyed gameplay-wise. It was a simple enough implementation that allowed characters to build things and affect the persistant world (in a true-3d environment). It was basic yet it allowed the player characters enough involvement in the war sim fantasy aspect of the game that they felt ownership of things which lead to more emotional clashes.

From what I have seen of the CoH engine, it is amazing in some regards. The z-axis implementaion mentioned above with all the buildings avaliable to travel on or over. It is a great engine for the pvm super hero type game. Yet, in one of those blurring game-engine and game-design things, heros cannot hurt, heal or interact with all the citizens of Paragon City. Nor can they change the world in any acknowlegable way: no matter how many thugs they kill the only record of it will be in the information terminal somewhere and the buildings will always have thier back alleys where the criminals congregate. It was a choice to program instanced content in this regard. And I'm not saying that it is good or bad, just that the engine does fit the game type very well. And that it is fun.

[Toast]

I understand now.

You are one of those "I want to change the world" people. I think you're looking for a single player game.

[AOFanboi]

SB was the only mmorpg up until CoH that I know of that allowed player characters to fly

Go play Anarchy Online and buy your character a Yalmaha, noob. Or don't vehicles count? WW2OL also wants a word.

[Sky]

I mean shouldn't a level 40 run faster than a level 1?

Nope. Not if the level 40 is the Blob and the level 1 is the Flash.

I'd rather see designs based on comic book lore than on the crappy mmorpg formula aka 'reward the catass!'. Toss aside your preconceived notions of failed formulas and embrace the fun without question!

[Morfiend]

Alluvian, in 3 weeks I'll have even more stupid avaliable.

Please direct you posts here http://cohvault.ign.com/

[Arthur_Parker]

I think Gith's comments are right on the mark and am quite amused by the responses directed at the non-believer.

Do tights really go with pitchforks and torches?

Mental note made to revisit this thread to bring it back to life in 3 months for a laugh.

[daveNYC]

Do tights really go with pitchforks and torches?

They do if you're Amish Man.

[Murgos]

I think Gith's comments are right on the mark and am quite amused by the responses directed at the non-believer.

I don't.  I think they are mostly indicative of yet another case of someone having heard about something and then in thier mind fitting it to a certain mold and then once they experience it and realize it's not what they dreamed it was they rail horribly against it.  Gith's posts all have the earmarks of that type of behavior.  You can note this most easily by the refusal to relate the subject to anything like it's actual self and instead constantly returning to a point how the game comes up short of some 'ideal' only he happens to be aware of.

Mostly, as far as I can tell, the basis of his arguments come, not from having played the game extensively but, from that while demoing the game at E3 last year they didn't let him play a character that flies (good luck getting that rectified) and that they decided to use the Rikti invasion theme again rather than do up a new supar-special end of beta event.

That they used the same event again is indicative of nothing other than they like Rikti invasions, no matter how much weight Gith wants to give to it.  Maybe once we have had 217 identical Rikti invasion events I'll lend the thought some credence.

[Sky]

Maybe it's also the fact that the main backstory is the Rikti conflict? It's like bitching about a stormtrooper invasion event in SWG, it's gonna happen. A lot.

[Alluvian]

I mean shouldn't a level 40 run faster than a level 1?

Nope. Not if the level 40 is the Blob and the level 1 is the Flash.

I'd rather see designs based on comic book lore than on the crappy mmorpg formula aka 'reward the catass!'. Toss aside your preconceived notions of failed formulas and embrace the fun without question!

And a level 40 player DOES run faster than a level 1 player anyway.  If the level 40 took super speed at 14 he runs WAAAAAY faster than the level 1.  Even if the level 40 didn't  take super speed, they could stick a single origin speed enhancer on the sprint power and be noticably faster.  Throw a few on and you have some pretty good speed.

[Arthur_Parker]

I think Gith's comments are right on the mark and am quite amused by the responses directed at the non-believer.

I don't.  I think they are mostly indicative of yet another case of someone having heard about something and then in thier mind fitting it to a certain mold and then once they experience it and realize it's not what they dreamed it was they rail horribly against it.  Gith's posts all have the earmarks of that type of behavior.  You can note this most easily by the refusal to relate the subject to anything like it's actual self and instead constantly returning to a point how the game comes up short of some 'ideal' only he happens to be aware of.

I believe the above comment could equally be applied to every negative review I have ever read.

Mostly, as far as I can tell, the basis of his arguments come, not from having played the game extensively but, from that while demoing the game at E3 last year they didn't let him play a character that flies (good luck getting that rectified) and that they decided to use the Rikti invasion theme again rather than do up a new supar-special end of beta event.

He also mentioned the waiting for powers to cycle and thumping thugs, both of which I experienced.  Daft as it sounds when you mention a superhero to someone, the most well know is probably superman.  Can leap a tall building in a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet, can fly.  I didn't experience any of thoses before I got bored and quit, that the E3 demo should have included them, I think is a valid comment.  What exciting elements of game play did I miss apart from killing mobs and waiting for powers to cycle?

[cevik]

He also mentioned the waiting for powers to cycle and thumping thugs, both of which I experienced.  Daft as it sounds when you mention a superhero to someone, the most well know is probably superman.  Can leap a tall building in a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet, can fly.  I didn't experience any of thoses before I got bored and quit, that the E3 demo should have included them, I think is a valid comment.  What exciting elements of game play did I miss apart from killing mobs and waiting for powers to cycle?

I find it very interesting that "waiting for powers to cycle" is a concern.  I'm a level 9 (almost 10) fire/fire blaster.  I have 2 single target direct damage, 2 area effect, one dd with a small DoT, and the other a heavy DoT, and a single target DoT/root.  I have each socketed for damage, precision, and endurance reducer.

I never find myself sitting and waiting for powers to recycle.  Endurance is so much more of an issue for me than power cycle times.  My ae DoT and ae dd have the longest recycle times, so a typical group battle for me goes like this (I'm almost always grouped):  Wait for the controller to open up with an AE root of some form.  Rush in and use my cone AE DoT (it's low range so I have to be close), attempting to get as many targets in the cone as possible.  This usually gets EVERYTHING to aggro me, so I run back behind the group praying for a heal.  When I get out of range, I turn and fire my AE dd + small DoT at the group, if they weren't pissed at me before they will be now.  I then find the boss or lt of the group and focus on him with my single target dd spells, rooting with my DoT/root if he gets loose from the controller.  When my AE dd becomes available again I'll blast the largest gathering I can find with it.  Repeat like this until the battle ends (usually just a few seconds).

I took the power hasten from the speed power pool and I almost never use it.  I hate myself for having taken it instead of hover, because everyone I group with has hover and thus I'm constantly trying to find my way around/over things so I can keep up.  I'm hoping that hasten becomes more useful with my later powers or that some day there is a way to respec.  When I do use hasten (like during a big boss fight) you can guarantee I'll run out of endurance and have to use a catch a breath inspiration or two during the battle; however, I can easily run myself out of endurance in a battle without hasten.   I'm not fast enough to keep up with power cycling when I use haten so it's mostly a waste because I'll often have several powers sitting waiting to be used while I'm working on deciding what to do next.

[Sky]

Power cycling was a HUGE concern for me.





...in the tutorial with a character that had one passive power.

Gripe about something you know about next time, so you don't look so ignorant.

What exciting elements of game play did I miss apart from killing mobs and waiting for powers to cycle?

Nothing, nothing. Just say you don't like it and move on, man. Move on.