City of Villians

[Righ]

Another Lord Kitchener is born.

"He is not a great man. He is a great poster."

[eldaec]

 I wonder if this is what they're planning on implementing in City of Villians - the villians actually being the masterminds with a plethora of minions at their disposal.

That could be neat I guess - if playing a villan ended up being something like this or this then I'd be throughly impressed by the level of ambition.

[Venkman]

There's been some discussions amongst the players on the beta boards about having an archetype built around working through third parties.

DAoC Theurgist gone wild? :)

The paucity of pets in CoH is a another beacon of light for the game. They're there, but it seems like only at the highest levels. I'd very much prefer it stay that way. Pets screw everything up.

[HaemishM]

Besides the crowd control type of powers, my biggest concern with PVP in this game is HP. I want the fights to LAST, even with crowd control. I want the fights to feel somewhat epic, since we are no longer dealing with minions. Whether that means cutting down damage for PVP, or what, I'm not sure.

[MrHat]

Haemish, Power Prestige Defense ?

[kaid]

If they come out with pvp they will need to add some lines of mez/hold resistance. There are Inspirations that do this but there would need to be some powers available to do this as well.

Many mobs already have them. All bosses and some LT's you need to land root twice before it takes effect and holds work in a similar fashion. Also there are abilitys to remove holds once they land but there are very few that make mezes land less.

Most tanks do however have a resist power vs mez things like wet ice for the ice tanks.

As long as heros and villans are treated like boss mobs for pvp hold/root checks it really should not be that bad. It would also mean more people would choose things like medicin power pool stimulant.

It would be pretty nifty if villans got minion powers that allowed them to produce or control lackies.

Kaid

[HaemishM]

Villans definitely need some lackeys, though I'd make it dependent on origins. People like the Joker is a very minion-oriented character, but I don't see guys like Venom or Bullseye using them much.

[eldaec]

To be fair, thinking about the cc thing a little more, there are quite a few of powers that either increase resistance to, or cure mez/stun/root/dizzy. You don't tend to take them when building a character for pve, but if they were considered important for pvp probably more people would be interested.

Maybe it won't be all that bad - after all, you don't end up mezzed for that long when mobs use cc on you right now.

Certainly we aren't looking at anything as out of control as a DAoC launch chain mez/stun situation.

[kaid]

Yes most of the tank sets now that I look at them more closely do have usually one power designed to shurg off holds/sleeps/stuns. Wet ice from the ice armor set is one of the nicer ones and really shrugs cc effects off.

I would not want to go one on one pvp in city of heros but group vs group could be pretty fun.

kaid

[Murgos]

I would not want to go one on one pvp in city of heros...

kaid

You'd get one shotted from a roof top by an energy blaster with sniper shot and build up.  It's a one trick pony so if you were in a group then that blaster would get creamed unless maybe he was using super speed and did hit and runs.

[Alrindel]

You'd get one shotted from a roof top by an energy blaster with sniper shot and build up.  It's a one trick pony so if you were in a group then that blaster would get creamed unless maybe he was using super speed and did hit and runs.

In case you don't recognize the profile from every other MMOG ever: that sniper is going to have stealth, as well as a bot account logged on the other side of the map with Teleport Friend ready to go.

[Fargull]

In case you don't recognize the profile from every other MMOG ever: that sniper is going to have stealth, as well as a bot account logged on the other side of the map with Teleport Friend ready to go.

Hmm.. could be used as a good group tactic also... have a flyer up in the sky above the group ready to cast Teleport Enemy and drop them from the height.  Into the middle of the group for the easy kill... good way to get rid of controllers.. but probably a one shot tactic only...

[kaid]

The same could also be said for the controller. Take invis and take teleport. You see said sniper port behind his back and slap a hold on him. Sniper blasts have a long windup so if you see the attack coming it is not trough to intrupt it.

Also if you see a sniper and you cannot close range jump behind a fence or a wall. Sniper shots have TWO line of sight checks one to initiate the power and one to land the power. Sniper shots are powerful but they also have many limitations.


kaid

[Morfiend]

Sniper shots have TWO line of sight checks one to initiate the power and one to land the power.

Sounds like a pain for PVE, but thats REALLY cool for PVP.

[Shockeye]

So I went to gamestop today and picked up CoH.

Along with their CoH boxes, Gamestop received preorder information for City of Villians.

$49.99, due out middle of November.

Original game required and CoV will be another complete city for Villians to adventure in with crossover areas for fighting Heroes.

[Alluvian]

I still want my damn instanced pvp missions.

[insanitykid87]

hey whats up guys, i was just wondering what the realese date for COV is....i'm loving COH right now with that new update they just set up HOLY CRAP I LOVE IT!!!! to bad none of my chars are lvl 50 yet.....anyway if anyone knows then just reply to the post, thanks a lot

[Mesozoic]

....

Another great showing for the homestate of myself and Schild.

By going to google and typing in "City of Villains release date" and then ENTER, I managed to solve your great query in 3.2 seconds.

Gasmespot says 8/05.  Others say 4/05.  Take your pick.  And please take some capital letters, commas, and periods from the grammar box on the way out.

Thanks.

[eldaec]

Q4.

Maybe.

[Big Gulp]

And please take some capital letters, commas, and periods from the grammar box on the way out.

Don't forget my favorite trick; the overuse of semicolons.

A)  No one really knows how they're used, so if at any point I feel I need to use some form of punctuation a semicolon usually does nicely.

B)  I figure maybe I can revive this long abandoned punctuation mark.

[shiznitz]

Oh c'mon, semi-colons are not complicated. They are used to connect two independent clauses OR to separate items in a list that have commas already.

Example 1
Boog arrived at work early and started shooting people; two customers survived.

Yes, a period would work too.

Example 2
While Boog was on the lam, he hid out in Utica, NY; Lancaster, PA; and Tupelo, MS.

Clearly, using commas to separate those places would be cumbersome.

[schild]

B)  I figure maybe I can revive this long abandoned punctuation mark.

Pfft, try reviving the eñe.

[HaemishM]

Damn you for making me use this two days in a row.

[dEOS]

The more I think of it, the more I believe it will be impossible to have a balanced PvP game with the PvE classes from CoH. They'll probably need to come up with totally different classes.

d

[Mesozoic]

It'll be tough.  I expect that the villains will need totally different powersets and classes to make it work.

[Rodent]

The more I think of it, the more I believe it will be impossible to have a balanced PvP game with the PvE classes from CoH. They'll probably need to come up with totally different classes.

d

I have nightmares about my superjumping tank chasing a flying controller all over Faultline, me being imune to his holds and stuns, him being too far up for me to punce.

Please... Make it stop.

[Pineapple]

I have nightmares about my superjumping tank chasing a flying controller all over Faultline, me being imune to his holds and stuns, him being too far up for me to punce.

Please... Make it stop.

CoH's downfall could be if they try to cross balance the classes against each other for PvP. The dreaded PVP requirement, the bane of proper class balancing in a game where you PvE to level.

What they should do is borrow an idea from EQ, and make PVP specific changes that only affect PVP actions. Example would be how you cannot fear in PVP, while fear still works fine in PvE.

People might bitch about how it breaks the immersion to not be able to fear a player, but can fear monsters. Too bad, the seperation between PvE and PVP balance should exist in actual design. They are different, treat them differently.

[Signe]

I will absolutely play again for CoV.  I wouldn't mind having a guild of 5th Column-esque characters, either, like we were going to do before.  Maybe my character is still around, Damezerstörung.  I bet we can even get Prince Harry to join.

[Llava]

Small update:

Recent interview, Statesman said that the archetypes for City of Villains would be:
Brute
Stalker
Enforcer
Mastermind

He said that these are not duplicates of the CoH archetypes, but they are similar.

Lord Recluse, the designer for CoV, said that they do plan to allow a "Fallen Hero" system.  Or at least, they want to do it.  Who knows if that will change the character's archetype, but from what Recluse is saying it sounds like he wants it to be a core "You are evil now" change, rather than recreating the whole character.

They've repeatedly said that there is no determined release date.  Any date you see is purely speculation.

[schild]

Stalker and Mastermind? Yes, I'll be signing up for CoH again - assuming the mastermind has something like dual stilletos or other ninja goodies. Mastermind had best be a controller that works like an RTS hero. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH THE POSSIBILITIES... That will never come to fruition.

[Llava]

imo....

brute=


stalker=


enforcer=
not a clue

mastermind=
[/img]

[schild]

I was thinking Enforcer would be like Cable or Forge. But bad. They'll just be more blasters. Guaranteed.

As far as mastermind goes, if these classes all end up being proxies of the CoH classes. I'll just be a pile of pissed.

[eldaec]

I don't really see how they can avoid proxies for the hero ATs.

But I do expect the powerset choices to be unique.

The powerset categories that define an AT; Defence, Melee Offence, Ranged Offence, Control, Pets, Buff, and Debuff are so generic that it's hard to see CoV ATs not being made up the same way.

My first half thought out guess at a possibility...

Brute = Defence + Melee
Stalker = Control + Melee
Enforcer = Ranged + Debuff
Mastermind = Buff/Pets + Control

Though I equally wouldn't be remotely surprised if they are direct AT copies with new powersets.

Brute = Tanker/Scrapper
Stalker = Controller
Enforcer = Blaster
Mastermind = Defender

[schild]

Stalker = Rogue = Scrapper
Brute = Tank
Enforcer = Blaster
Mastermind = Controller

There are no "Defenders" for evil. It is the paladin. The word represents too much good. Defender-style powers will be exclusively the domain of secondary powersets.

No - this isn't real information, it's just what seems to be what's happening.

[eldaec]

If true (and it might be), then there will be a wailing and gnashing of teeth like you have never seen (since the last time at least).

The most powerful group in the game is 8 defenders (something like 3 Rad 1 Storm 1 FF 2 Kin 1 Emp, all with psy secondary). If you are designing a group from scratch in pve, there is an argument for adding controllers, but the massive amount of status protection available to players will make cc moot in pvp.

The reason for this is that with a full set of defenders it is not hard to cap damage, defence, resistence, status protection and accuracy on every member, then on top of that you have a group where everyone can do ranged PSYCHIC damage (people are starting to work out that defenders do perfectly adequate damage once fully slotted), everyone can heal other members (most can do it pbaoe style) several members can run powers that prevent enemies reaching melee range, and additionally you'll have a ton of buffs for +run speed, +end, +recharge, +regen, etc etc.

The downside is that you have to organise the group before you can do anything. As in all MMOGs, organised people will dominate PvP, and as a result I fully expect 8 man */psy defender groups to become the first pvp fotm.