Edit for the record, I don't like WoW.  Never did.  - Sorry to the fanboi who thought that would justify the disagreement.

I also forgot to add that Champions should have released villian play from the beginning, but that would have required a reimplmentation of the game system since it is not designed well for PvP.

Originally posted by tuscarora

Edit for the record, I don't like WoW.  Never did.  - Sorry to the fanboi who thought that would justify the disagreement.

I also forgot to add that Champions should have released villian play from the beginning, but that would have required a reimplmentation of the game system since it is not designed well for PvP.

Well problem with adding another sideis that it ends up diluting the content, CoV resulted in no new content for CoH players for 3 to 4 releases. In the end both sides ended up sharing content rather than having anything unique because of lack devs. I don't think super hero game will ever have balanced pvp have given up on that after seeing them waste 2 years trying to fix all ATs for pvp.

Problem is there is way too many possible class combinations and travel powers  heck look how WAR turned out and all it had was 12 classes and few small difference between morales for order and dest. pretty much ruined it. Unless you plan to have just 4 classes exactly indentical on both sides like Aion you won't have balanced pvp (even AIon has balance issues).

Balanced is a word I don't like using in these games.  I am not sure you ever have balance when classes are different at all.  Warhammer hurt themselves by trying to balance the classes when that was never the real problem.   As long as you have zergs, the side with the greater numbers will typically win in these games.  And that makes sense in a lot of ways.  Tactics should change the game, not numbers and with the possible exception of Planetside... that did not happen well.  In that game it was a game of rock, paper, scissors.  The right weapon overpowered the right enemy.  A well played infiltrator could be a great asset, a poorly played one of no use.  Snipers were effective if they played on their range and did not fight from the front lines, but instead flanked the enemy so they did not know their locations.  Reavers devastated vehicles.  Skyguards devastated Air.  Tanks devastated infantry.   While one side or another always bitched about the opponents being OPed.  The reality was each sides differences were potentially more dangerous in specific situations.  The NC has a Heavy shotgun which was very powerful in towers, but useless at range.  Etc, etc, etc...

Balance in Champions was accomplished by limiting the total points on a character.  Example a 12d6 Energy Blast would be 60 points.  If you wanted the same blast to have an armor piercing effect it would be less than the 12 dice of damage.  And you capped the points for attacks, defense, etc...  Champions RPG was one of the best balanced game systems I have ever seen.  And just like Battletech, you can't just convert it to a computer game without using the system it was based upon.  That is where these games fail.

The game developers (HERO) not Cryptic, had years to balance out their systems.  The developers (Cryptic) ignored or did not understand these systems and thus created the existing piece of junk.

OP is right about one thing; the setting is pure uninspired trash. I guess I'm just not that fond of silver age cheese. Still, I find the gameplay fun and entertaining, and I can forsee myself playing this for longer than two days. That's how long I could play CoX. The massive amounts of instancing really killed the game for me.

Originally posted by tuscarora

Balanced is a word I don't like using in these games.  I am not sure you ever have balance when classes are different at all.  Warhammer hurt themselves by trying to balance the classes when that was never the real problem.   As long as you have zergs, the side with the greater numbers will typically win in these games.  And that makes sense in a lot of ways.  Tactics should change the game, not numbers and with the possible exception of Planetside... that did not happen well.  In that game it was a game of rock, paper, scissors.  The right weapon overpowered the right enemy.  A well played infiltrator could be a great asset, a poorly played one of no use.  Snipers were effective if they played on their range and did not fight from the front lines, but instead flanked the enemy so they did not know their locations.  Reavers devastated vehicles.  Skyguards devastated Air.  Tanks devastated infantry.   While one side or another always bitched about the opponents being OPed.  The reality was each sides differences were potentially more dangerous in specific situations.  The NC has a Heavy shotgun which was very powerful in towers, but useless at range.  Etc, etc, etc...

Balance in Champions was accomplished by limiting the total points on a character.  Example a 12d6 Energy Blast would be 60 points.  If you wanted the same blast to have an armor piercing effect it would be less than the 12 dice of damage.  And you capped the points for attacks, defense, etc...  Champions RPG was one of the best balanced game systems I have ever seen.  And just like Battletech, you can't just convert it to a computer game without using the system it was based upon.  That is where these games fail.

The game developers (HERO) not Cryptic, had years to balance out their systems.  The developers (Cryptic) ignored or did not understand these systems and thus created the existing piece of junk.

Not too familiar with Champions how did stats scale with items or was it all fixed value? One problem bringing over table top games over to MMORPG is the question of gear and how to scale them.

@Neonseeker,

What zones have you done? Desert and Canada are pretty lackluster and you can see they were rush kob but Millennium city looks very good.

Originally posted by tuscarora

Don't be fooled by the high score on this site... this game is crap.

It is a poor implementation of the Champions PnP.  In fact, it is not really an implementation at all.  This game is not ground breaking nor an improvement on earlier games.  It was thrown together by a studio who had to do something with a product Marvel dropped.  The gameplay is simplistic and gets boring real fast.  I would ask for a refund if I thought I could get one.

What a waste of time this was. 
 

 

Don't be fooled by this post,,,,, this post is crap.
 

You post that you are a 20 year veteran of Champions PnP so that makes you some kind of mmo expert. Horse droppings. Who cares? Your 20 years of playing a PNP game makes your opinion even more worthless in regards to the mmo Champions Online. Sorry but 20 years playing one PnP game is a waste of time, just like you say CO is. That is my opinion just like this worthless post is your opinion.

CO is a well polished fun game. I could give a crap if it is not like the PnP game, never played and never will. I play mmos not PnP and CO is fun. Cryptic has proven they will improve this game with time. What has Cryptic's making CO have to do with Marvel? I do not even believe you have played the game. If you have you would know it is hardly thrown together. No need to respond, I know my post is sarcastic it is meant to be since you hold yourself up as some kind of expert. I could careless about your feeling about CO. You hold up your 20 years in PnP as if you are somehow more informed then all the people who like CO. Oh and you being a software engineer means exactly squat, who cares. Take your 9 post somewhere else and leave mmorpg for those that play mmo not PnP. I am simply tired of the uneducated crap people post about games I doubt they have played. To those thinking about CO this guy has no clue. Try it is is a good game.

 Agreed. I was a beta tester, and though I decided not to stick around after beta I still know this was a damn good game.

oh, and I beta tested for a few months... rather than those who went to OB.

I should also add that when I started beta everything was incredibly broken. Even basic things such as flight, and combat were basically incomplete. Within that time Cryptic managed to polish things up, fix MANY problems, and even add an astounding amount of content to the game. I don't know how much that will say about development, but if it's anything like the beta I know it will go far fast.

CO is a very good, very fun game.  As a long time player of the Hero System I can tell you that you are dead wrong about the fezability of building a computer game around it.  The hero system is a great system if if you have a person running it but it would be terrable as a bases for a computer game. There are nearly an infinate number lopholes and exploits in the system that you need a person to screen for.

ven with a "good" ratings system (one based on polls taking during login to said game) your personal opinion may differ from the "masses" and its still 100% accurate for you.

 

This is where we get into quantified opinions and statistics.

In example, Imagine if Burger King taste tested the whopper against the Big Mac. They asked 100,000 people if they liked Whopper better.

80,000 people roughly said "Yes".

That is a quantifiable fact. 80% of the people asked prefer it.

If your personal opinion is that it sucks, its "100% accurate to you" but doesn't change the 'fact' that 80% of those who were asked, preferred it.

So the rating system on this site, as limited as it may be, is still better (IMHO) than anecdotal "it's total crap" from OP.

CO may not be an exact reintreptation of the Pen and Paper game. I don't think the devs ever promised us that any more than a Wild West theme park can promise an authentic 1880s experience.

All I know is I can play a Gunslinger, a Webslinger, a Lightning Slinger or anything I damned well please and I enjoy it. Yes, there are a lot of areas/room for improvement but thats a good thing. I am looking forward to see where they go with it. I think the difference to me boils down to "Are you willing to pronounce it "Crap" because you played the beta and a few days of actual time and it didn't bang your bone" or are you willing to give it some time and see where they go?

Because I paid for lifetime subscription, I got time to see where they go with it. How long will new content come out every 3 months last for? hopefully at least a few years.

Originally posted by Darkheart00

Originally posted by tuscarora

Balance in Champions was accomplished by limiting the total points on a character.  Example a 12d6 Energy Blast would be 60 points.  If you wanted the same blast to have an armor piercing effect it would be less than the 12 dice of damage.  And you capped the points for attacks, defense, etc...  Champions RPG was one of the best balanced game systems I have ever seen.  And just like Battletech, you can't just convert it to a computer game without using the system it was based upon.  That is where these games fail.

The game developers (HERO) not Cryptic, had years to balance out their systems.  The developers (Cryptic) ignored or did not understand these systems and thus created the existing piece of junk.

Not too familiar with Champions how did stats scale with items or was it all fixed value? One problem bringing over table top games over to MMORPG is the question of gear and how to scale them.

In Hero System, that's a distinction that make no difference because everything is built using the same sets of mechanics.  A character with a sword and a character with claws might do the same type and amount of damage.  The difference would be that the sword is "cheaper" than an intrinsic attack because it could be taken away by a grab or disarm.  An ability can become more expensive because of an Advantage like armor-piercing or area-effect, or cheaper due to a Limitation such as delayed activation or a limited number of uses.

Originally posted by CasualMaker

In Hero System, that's a distinction that make no difference because everything is built using the same sets of mechanics.  A character with a sword and a character with claws might do the same type and amount of damage.  The difference would be that the sword is "cheaper" than an intrinsic attack because it could be taken away by a grab or disarm.  An ability can become more expensive because of an Advantage like armor-piercing or area-effect, or cheaper due to a Limitation such as delayed activation or a limited number of uses.

 

It is also worth pointing out why the Hero system is a wonderful PnP game yet would not work for a computer game at all, or at least a multiplayer one. To start with the book is full of warning and stop signs to denote powers, advantages, and limitations that are easily abused. The GM is meant to pay extra attention to any powers built with them because in some contexts they are fine but in others they will break the game or produce effects much more powerful then other comparable point cost abilities.

This is an issue in a computer game because no computer can yet evaluate the context of your powers and how they combine to decide if a particular combination is ok and no design team will ever be able to hand code in all of the possible permutations of abilities that are broken.

Another very important principle of the Hero System is that a disadvantage that is not actually a disadvantage is worth no points. Again the open nature of the system makes it very possible to come up with disadvantages or limitations on powers that are not really drawbacks. And just as before you need someone who can think to decide which are appropriate and which are cheesy point grabs.

Finally despite what some will say the system is very good but it is not balanced. Just one quick example, you can get more points by buying your Strength up and selling back all of the secondary characteristics then it cost to by the Strength. So you gain character points and the intrinsic advantages of Strength (Hand to Hand damage, ability to lift and throw things, breaking out of many grabs and entangles) that way. A human GM would make you take the no secondary characteristics disadvantage instead but again it would be very hard to get a computer to catch everything like that.

Honestly I rarely play this type of mmo's since I was'nt a big fan of CoX.

However playing this game I just bought it for the hell of it cause I was waiting for my other MMO to come out. All I can say right now is that I am enjoying it and I am not even a big fan of mmo's that have alot of loading screens. Maybe because this game isn't a fantasy game with fricken elves, dwarfs and orcs.

It is what it is, a super hero game, but at least I am having fun and so are my guildmates I am playing with. The people I have teamed up online seem pretty nice and helpful, but then again, maybe I am getting lucky.