I didn't exactly take my time, but I didn't rush, I have a life and job so It took me about a month to hit level 40.

The "raid" zones consist of this, lots of villains with pumped up damage, hit points and stats. The zones are really a healthy size and usually have a pretty interesting story going along with it. Pretty typical for a mmprpg.

However the mechanics fail the player. The end villain, the one who should be the build up and fun fight is often just annoying and comes down to zerg tactics. They typically have at least one huge area attack that can kill a good 80% of the group regardless if your blocking or not. When you die, you revive at the closest spawn point, and that's usually a good 1-2 minutes away depending on your travel power and computer speed, yes you often have to zone more then once to get back to the fight.

So what you end up with is a group of 5, 1 or 2 of them don't die because they have stacked defenses on defenses, the rest of the group who may have dps or utility powers will die 4-8 times more or less.

Once you do chew through the 280,000 hps, they typically will drop one item if any at all, and its generally not an upgrade for anyone unless your group is crazy lucky.

Most of the "raid" zones are restricted to level 40, so you wont get levels, but I'm sure its great exps. The body drops are usually nothing worth keeping since you have done about 700 tasks already.

Did I mention you need to do UNITY tasks to get the crystals to even be able to access the "raid" zones?

On the UNITY tasks, you cant get any till 40, and they "pay" you in merits. I did all 5 unity runs, and the special mission 2 days in a row, and got a total of about 35 merits, keep in mind a cruddy action figure is 100 merits, to get any loot you may actually use, you will need to pony up a good 1000+ merits. Quick math says you will need to spend about 52 days running unity missions to even look at an upgrade..

Champions On Line has a level cap of 40, its a really fun ride getting to 40, but at this time, when you get there, you will wonder why you bothered.

I believe your first line explains the reason why alot of people whine and bitch over lack of content in CO and tons of other mmorpgs.  These people log on every minute they can, usually have no life, may have a job but log on whenever they have free time and burn through content at a record pace.  So they bitch over content and its no wonder. 

A mmorpg isn't intended to be a second job or second life or replace the one you have.  Play them all casually.  Your entertainment value will go alot farther.

Originally posted by Spiritof55

I believe your first line explains the reason why alot of people whine and bitch over lack of content in CO and tons of other mmorpgs.  These people log on every minute they can, usually have no life, may have a job but log on whenever they have free time and burn through content at a record pace.  So they bitch over content and its no wonder. 

A mmorpg isn't intended to be a second job or second life or replace the one you have.  Play them all casually.  Your entertainment value will go alot farther.

I do have to say, regardless of high end content. I had a heck of a fun time getting to 40.

Sounds like most, if not all, MMORPGs that are released half finished and with little and/or imbalanced high level content. Wonder when they learn that this kind of behaviour drives people away from the game...

Ah well, thanks for the heads up, guess I will level up alts until they fix high end content, or until I get bored, whichever comes first.

Originally posted by Spiritof55

I believe your first line explains the reason why alot of people whine and bitch over lack of content in CO and tons of other mmorpgs.  These people log on every minute they can, usually have no life, may have a job but log on whenever they have free time and burn through content at a record pace.  So they bitch over content and its no wonder. 

A mmorpg isn't intended to be a second job or second life or replace the one you have.  Play them all casually.  Your entertainment value will go alot farther.

That does not excuse that the high level content is crap. Even if you do as you suggest, and take your time, the high level content still would suck (unless they have fixed it by then). But I would say than anything more than 2-3 months to get to level 40 in this game is beyond casual play, more like altaholics or people that play only a couple of hours per week.

But even altaholics would be bored because the game is a themepark type MMORPG with very few pararell events to ride.

Originally posted by Yamota

That does not excuse that the high level content is crap. Even if you do as you suggest, and take your time, the high level content still would suck (unless they have fixed it by then). But I would say than anything more than 2-3 months to get to level 40 in this game is beyond casual play, more like altaholics or people that play only a couple of hours per week.

But even altaholics would be bored because the game is a themepark type MMORPG with very few pararell events to ride.

I've been playing every day for 4 hours or more and my highest level character is 28. Like many, I am waiting until they add that extra content on Monster Island before going past 30.

All of the difference powersets, character themes, travel powers make the game play very different on subsequent runs even if the underlying content is the same. I know it may blow some people's mind to say this, but character customization variety IS content.

Originally posted by Grenadier

Originally posted by Yamota

That does not excuse that the high level content is crap. Even if you do as you suggest, and take your time, the high level content still would suck (unless they have fixed it by then). But I would say than anything more than 2-3 months to get to level 40 in this game is beyond casual play, more like altaholics or people that play only a couple of hours per week.

But even altaholics would be bored because the game is a themepark type MMORPG with very few pararell events to ride.

 

I've been playing every day for 4 hours or more and my highest level character is 28. Like many, I am waiting until they add that extra content on Monster Island before going past 30.

All of the difference powersets, character themes, travel powers make the game play very different on subsequent runs even if the underlying content is the same. I know it may blow some people's mind to say this, but character customization variety IS content.

It is, in a sense, but playing through the same missions and storylines with a different character is not particular fun. That is the major weakness of themepark games, they have to have alot of different, parallel, leveling routes or replay value will be next to nil.

Ugh, sounds like an awkward endgame. But then, if those 39 levels didn't warn you, I wonder what miracles of intelligence design you expected? They took the wrong turn in almost EVERY single way.

Sidenote: I find it remarkable that endgame in so many MMOs is "raid" and some form of gameplay for very dedicated players. I wonder what a normal, casual soloing/duoing/trioing player is supposed to to at the endgame? Haven't see any MMO to answer me that properly.

Originally posted by Yunbei

Ugh, sounds like an awkward endgame. But then, if those 39 levels didn't warn you, I wonder what miracles of intelligence design you expected? They took the wrong turn in almost EVERY single way.

Sidenote: I find it remarkable that endgame in so many MMOs is "raid" and some form of gameplay for very dedicated players. I wonder what a normal, casual soloing/duoing/trioing player is supposed to to at the endgame? Haven't see any MMO to answer me that properly.

Warhammer Online got some casual PvP for high level chars to engage in (scenarios) and a little more hardcore PvP for those who got a few hours to engage in sieges.

However the latter one I can't recommend since it is buggy, laggy and just uninteresting. However WAR is great for casual type players who just want to stomp some dwarf/orc head.

Wish CO would build more on its PvP and offfer more and interesting maps and better rewards.

Originally posted by Yamota

playing through the same missions and storylines with a different character is not particular fun.

Disagreed. Its kept me entertained for the last 7 months. Considering that 90% of any MMOG is combat, its not like new content changes things much. CO is a fighting game. If you don't enjoy the combat (and the different ways to handle it) then its definitely not going to keep you entertained, but for those of us who enjoy the combat its definitely fun even on subsequent runs.

I certainly want more content, but I enjoy running the same content in this game more than any other MMOG I have ever played and that is entirely due to the varied character builds available. Even in WoW with a different class and running in new (but parallel) content wasn't as fun as this. In WoW I was always more interested in my exp bar than I was in actually completing the content.

Originally posted by Yunbei

Sidenote: I find it remarkable that endgame in so many MMOs is "raid" and some form of gameplay for very dedicated players. I wonder what a normal, casual soloing/duoing/trioing player is supposed to to at the endgame? Haven't see any MMO to answer me that properly.

Actually, Champions endgame is perfectly solo friendly. At level 40 you run UNITY missions, which allow you access to two "raid" like unlockable missions. There's no raid loot table, you're doing all this for UNITY merits, which you then exchange for items.

Long story short, you can turn in 6 crystals to access a raid, which if you're in a full group will give you 8 UNITY merits; or you can turn your 6 cyrstals in for 6 UNITY merits. You're only losing out on 2 for not grouping. And it takes 250 to buy anything remotely decent, 1000 to buy the very best stuff (or what passes for "very best").

Besides which, those two so-called raids start to look easy once you've been through them a few times. Many people prefer to do them in small groups because there's more merits in it that way.

I've never been an endgame focused player, but I was really disappointed this time around by how little there was to do at 40. I love rolling alts, but I don't care for repeating missions. The ease of dipping into various power pools, and the ability to switch roles with different builds, makes it pretty easy to explore a lot of options without leveling very many characters.

I was thinking in buying CO or Aion... because i alredy played LOTRO, WOW, and WAR tbh at some point you get bothered ...

So i buyed Aion truly amazing game :P but for having some fun i buyed only the game (retail) and sometimes i play in the public server (You have to buy the retail version game and after 2 weeks they delete your char) but at least i think it's a good solution, I just Disagree with the price, 50€ it's too much for that moo...

Thank you,