MMORPG.com's C.A. Thomas writes this list of overall improvements that need to be made to Cryptic's newest superhero MMORPG, Champions Online.

Currently, there is a very large and vocal group of people who view Champions Online as a disappointment for dozens of documented reasons. There are some major issues with the game itself on a functional level relating to the game's progression, elements and mechanics. It is widely agreed (and, to be fair, has been openly admitted by Cryptic Studios on more than one occasion) that there is not only a lack of content, but a lack of diversity in CO's content.

What does this mean for the future of Champions Online? Can it bounce back from the widely demonstrated distaste seen not only in the general population of MMORPG players, but within its own community, where the unrest seems to be strongest? Or is the game doomed to fail, having suffered major issues and controversy from the very moment they switched on the live server with the now-infamous Day One Patch?

Read Five Most Needed Additions to Champions Online.

 I think the main mistake that CO team did was trying to compete against the general mmo sword & magic style. Trying to bite that much they avoid the procedural content generation scalable in team size and dificulty that is a great feature of City of Heroes. This would make the game more team friendly.

About the suggested additions:

#1 More open missions. While open missions are a source of non-organized team, since they are not chainable  and most have a timer to avoid exploitation. Better rewards in xp and gear are really needed to motivate people to do them.

#2 SG features. I would add coalitions for the moment, anything else would be pretty much attached to bases and/or too complicated to implement atm.

#3 More team based instances. This part is quite difficult. I would fill the existing ones with procedural pre or post content. Make the instance either scalable or force to be 3+ players.

#4 Improve lower level experience. I kind of disagree here. Improving open missions should be enough to make the low level experience more enjoyable. Maybe decreasing the level required for the first nemesis to 20 would help

5# Improving PVP. I am not going to comment on this one since I dont pvp much.

Now, I think there is a six important one. The nemesis system. It hasn't been exploited to the maximum. Since it is actual user generated content it should be an integral part of the leveling. Sharing nemesis among members of SG would be also pretty cool. Making the nemesis to be more active would add more enjoyment to the game.

No Playable Villains did it in for me. Fighting in Arenas only goes so far. You want a real Nemesis, introduce player controlled Villains. Give Champions something to hate, to fight. Hopefully DC Online will do this. Not saying it will be any good either, but one can hope for a real challenge rather then NPC garbage that CO has.

 I honestly don't think CS will do anything serious for CO in the way of making the game better in any way. CS certainly never put any real effort into CO's beta in the first place. CO was obviously created just for cannon-fodder to fuel funding for STO. Sad & lame, but true I believe. the real victims are the ones foolish enough to waste money on lifetime subscriptions for CO just to get beta acess to STO when CS STILL hasn't given the large majority of them acess yet. CO will be around long enough for STO to launch and then CS will most likely shut the servers down on CO quietly. 

I doubt CO is going to get any attentiion until after the first of the year.  Most devs go on vacation now.  Those left at Cryptic are crunching on STO.  STO will be the focus until its launch.  Hopefully resources can then be shifted back to CO for quarter to maybe address one of those points of this artical.  IMHO

All very good suggestions. My personal emphasis are 3 and 4, MUCH more group instances and much better lower half experience. I'd also say a Villain player part is much needed. CO has a good basis to work on, but they need to add a lot. And STOP swinging any nerf bat. They must make a halt and forbid the nerf of any single power for, say, 6 months. People need to feel more Super again.

And indeed a bit onlaught is to come. STO from themselves, the WOW expansions, SWTOR sometimes 2010 likely, the DCU and the Agency and several others.

Originally posted by Czanrei

 I honestly don't think CS will do anything serious for CO in the way of making the game better in any way. CS certainly never put any real effort into CO's beta in the first place. CO was obviously created just for cannon-fodder to fuel funding for STO. Sad & lame, but true I believe. the real victims are the ones foolish enough to waste money on lifetime subscriptions for CO just to get beta acess to STO when CS STILL hasn't given the large majority of them acess yet. CO will be around long enough for STO to launch and then CS will most likely shut the servers down on CO quietly. 

*sigh* That sounds quite bleak and pessimistic... but it may be so. I did not see real effort in beta nor now. In the long run it will be likely only with small tinkerings here and there. I am just so fed up with Sword and Sorcery atm, so I wished they would push it. Making two MMOs at the same time was bad. Very bad.

[quote]Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com's C.A. Thomas writes this list of overall improvements that need to be made to Cryptic's newest superhero MMORPG, Champions Online.

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Currently, there is a very large and vocal group of people who view Champions Online as a disappointment for dozens of documented reasons.....

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First of all, I don't know about other people that play the game but I hate it when any blogger, journalist or any writer generalizes things like this. Actually, it should be mentioned that there is also a large and vocal group defending the game, if you look in the forums of the game itself.

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... Can it bounce back from the widely demonstrated distaste seen not only in the general population of MMORPG players....

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Again with the generalizations, written as if to say the whole community of players feels this way not the case at all.

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...but within its own community, where the unrest seems to be strongest?

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Not the strongest, but  where the most discussion of the game itself takes place, of course its amplified (on both sides)

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Or is the game doomed to fail, having suffered major issues and controversy from the very moment they switched on the live server with the now-infamous Day One Patch?

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Now that last one is the clincher. WTF?! Does anyone really believe its doomed to fail? Writing off a game in its first months is harsh anyway but silly to do so when the game isn't failing, its just got roughness to work out. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The mmo scene has way too many critics and not enough true players that are out to have fun. The community as a whole wastes so much energy scrutinizing every little detail, that I don't understand how they could have even had a chance to play at all!

The redeeming fact in this article is that there are legitimate points and things that could be improved upon. I just hate the tone that was set, and.. well I already ranted enough. ;)
 
 

I think Cryptics big mistake with this game is assuming that because they were creating a super hero mmo they could do an action based game with little depth and that people would just be content with the more action oriented focus of this game.  Just a bad assumption to me.  I think COH suffered from the same lack of depth but just not as visible as it seems to be in CO.  I just hope in the end they don't make STO another game lacking both depth and content as they seem to have done with CO.

The problem I believe stems not from Champions but the current resources allocations.

Cryptic might say that they have more then enough folks working on Champions and  Star Trek, but knowing how  priorities are worked out from Top Management down. Atari is probably putting MUCHO pressure on Cryptic to make sure that STO launches with great success.

STO is such a large IP. With a HUGE fan base that they cannot fully focus on Champions till after a few months from STO launch date. You can point me to any source from so and so saying that they are not cutting resources on Champions to STO, but any person with some understanding on corporate standard business practice knows. You always focus on the cash cow. You never want that money to stop rolling in. STO will be a HUGE cash cow for Atari and they are making sure it gets fed well.

I've wanted to love this game from the start. On the main CO boards I was vehement in my defense of Cryptic and the game until I burnt out on it and realized the number one person I was trying to convince is myself.

Here's a list of what I think needs fixing:

1) Improve the learning curve: The game's open-ended, classless skill system makes for fantastic uber-powered skill combos (which tend to get nerfed to bejesus), but also make it possible to really gimp your character to where gameplay is difficult. Every set has 3-4 (or less!) very useful powers and the rest are junk, for the most part. Buffing many of those weak skills (and properly balancing OP ones) to where there is little or no chance of making a "broke" character is the first thing they need

2) Stat simplification: The game has a bajillion stats. Understanding which ones you need (and let me assure you it really DOES matter) is difficult. I wrote a guide to it on the forums (as did others), but lack of official documentation makes it hard.

3) Content. Look, there's JUST enough content to get 1-40 right now. Maybe a little more than just, given the new additions. First off, much of the quests are chains; you can miss tons of xp just because you missed a radio mission 5 levels ago that opened up 15 other things. Secondly, the low amoutn of content leads to every single character having the exact same level up progression, which is boring. Two or three more zones, especially in the 10-25 and 30-35 range, would really help.

4) Social function. Twitter. In-game blogs, SGs, IMs. Email. Honestly this game has more communication and social options than most MMOs, yet no one uses them. Mostly due to the clunky UI, but also due to Cryptic not pushing them as much.

5)  Clunky UI: Nuff said.

6) Lack of team content: The article NAILED it here.

7) Communication: While Daeke and crew have made massive strides at responding to the community, there's still a long way to go.

The STO devs once joked that maybe people may be able to one day play Champions Online in an in-game holodeck.

It doesn't seem so funny or unrealistic anymore...

I just want to point out if the two major issues with the game are content and balance - adding more content as the blog suggests will tend to cause futher balance issues.

To a certain degree I do agree with the authors assertions but I joined CO about 2 weeks after launch and to this point in time, the issues that I and many others face are one not just of content but of hardware/software stability. Customer retention is one thing but if the customer base is too low then this would definitely effect the revenues of the company. My sincere belief is that Cryptic must focus first on securing a viable customer base before focusing on customer retention. This is basic for all start-up companies or in this particular case, a start-up MMO.

Customer retention is for games which have already had their presence established in the market for a certain period of time, e.g. WoW, EQ, LOTRO etc. Once the customer base reaches a point whereby revenues can be (moderately) guaranteed to sustain the operations of the company, then the company can focus on customer retention. Unfortunately for Cryptic, I really do doubt that they have reached that break-even point yet.

For the past 2 months or so now, quite a few people have been plagued by (1) Launcher failures, (2) Server crashes (granted, not many but the one which occurred a couple weeks ago during the STO beta launch was horrendous), (3) severe lag, (4) Rubber-banding (a symptom of the lag I would assume), (5) Long load times, (6) graphic issues or even simply an inability to log into the game for unknown reasons and (7) server downtime/maintenance that do not seem to fix anything. Sadly, all these have been ignored by CO with the exception of the proxy server proposed fix, which for many were not a fix at all.

And before all the various flames start coming in from current players of CO on the above, Yes, I do realise that the majority of the issue can be attributed to ISPs and also to Graphic Card compatibility issues. But if one does take the time to check through various threads on the Technical Issues forums, one will find that, again, quite a few have done their 'homework' and attempted all the fixes proposed to no avail. ISPs were contacted and responses were received that there were no issues with the ISPs. Graphics cards were replaced, drivers were upgraded, and in some cases, downgraded. The fixes worked for some, while not for others. No reasonable explanation was ever provided, or at least none that I can find or accept. Statements such as "It's your ISP, or your graphics card. Get a new card or don't play." is unacceptable for a company attempting to sell a product to the general public. NOTE - these comments come from the general public on the forums and not from Cryptic representatives.

In my case, it has reached a point where I would casually attempt to log in a couple times a night and if I can get in then I will play and if not I will simply go do something else. This should not be the mindset that Cryptic should want to cultivate in their customer base if they want their product to be successful.

The issue is not with the grunts working on the game, I believe the issue comes from senior management of Cryptic where, for some unknown reason, they have chosen to focus almost completely on content and balancing over the hardware/software issues. This needs to be addressed by Mr. Roper and the rest of the senior management of the company.

Mr. Roper, at the end of the day, it's really very simple, i.e. there is no need to focus on customer retention if, you have no customers.

More open Missions?   I play that game too damn much and always choose the populated server unless doing solo missions to avoid kill competing/stealing.   I rarely see people doing the open missions.   Unless it a time zone 12 hours difference from pst.  But then again I end up playing then too. 

Early level is great the way it is.   There is a learning curve but when people decide tonotice the reasoning behind stats, levels, powers and how they interact,  Its all in their forums under powers and builds, they will blow thru the first 15 levels in a few days.   I take that back.   The first character should always go thru the tutorial, it takes an hour or two to level 5.  Its the character creator that eats time once you discover all the details available.

Team based stuff I cant comment on.

PVP I Tried once in very beginning before I discovered there is a reason for the stats, levels, powers and how they interact and compliment each other when you read how and why.   Havn't noticed the type pvp their is.  Like capture the flag or other team based games other FPS games have.

The guy who made that article didnt even add the playable villains as a needed feature. WTF? IF there is no serious pvp, i wont play Champion. They have to give us reason to fight all around the world. I dont want to do those bullshit arena or BG's. They dont even need to add villains, but a pvp server where we can fight everywhere would be needed. A politic system that can affect the world over guilds vs guilds would also be cool. You know like there could be a guild name justice league, marvel alliance... With pvp goal that are set around the world, it would be great. There also need to be a risk vs reward system for pvp. Can be anything, but i need a reason to kill random players.

Currently, if i had to chose between city of heroes/villains or champion online, i would just COH/V. Even my friend still play COH/V because of the pvp.

Grats Thomas on a outstanding suggestions and review list of improvements for CO. But heres the thing, if they are copy pasta`ing COX to CO why even play it when the features you want are already in their first title?

You would think that CO would be a break away from the features of Cryptics first incarnation and more towards the future of what can be in MMOS. To me you sorta except the fact that CO is more so, or exactly like COX? Why bother?

If we as a player and customer base want change and want originality why do we keep paying for games that basically are the same as the last ones we played?

The common MMO player will say "well, thats the way it is". But, it doesnt have to be if we stop paying for games that basically take on the exact same characteristics of the last game we played, with little to no real difference in mechanics and systems.

Time to stop "settling" for mediocre MMOS and demand that the developers of the industry start spending more time creating something for the future and stop worrying bout making enough money to own a 100 acre circular driveway plastered with Mercedes as driveway ornaments!

Say it with me......."HELL NO, NOT IN MY MMO!"

"It's a bit confusing why something so big in their first game, namely the supergroup base feature, is nowhere to be seen."

Because CoH/V's supergroup bases were implemented during CoV and are generally seen to have fallen far short of their development potential.

• Bases required you to be part of an SG - not everyone was / is.
• It limited who could actually design the base to the SG leaders (could be changed from this default, but not that many SGs wanted everyone tinkering with the base).
• Because bases were instanced, they were invisible to everyone else. Players wanted to be able to show off their bases.
• It took a long time for base costs to hit the point of being affordable for smaller SGs.
• Apparently a lot of developer time was spent on bases, but player feedback was that bases fell far short of being what they wanted. For ChampO I'm sure a lot of time will need to be spent on building a similar system (hopefully character housing over SG bases, though) which probably isn't the best use of resources at this point in ChampO's life.

ChampO obviously needs a lot more content, but I don't think bases would really be a great thing to implement at this stage.

They promised new content every 3 months.

So far they delivered.

Granted, they were one power set short, and the idea of 'holiday content' that goes away seems like a poor choice of priorities.

City of Heroes didn't start out with bases, pvp or villains. Give it some time.

The theory is solid and the spirit of this article is to be applaunded however it misses what are imo the deepest and most fundamental problems with CO - the total lack of player involvement in the world, the absence of any genuine mechanical variety in any task, the overly rigid and inflexible journey that every quest demands, the complete lack of illusion of interaction or reaction in the world, and most seriously the inconsistent and mostly irrelevent application of the core theme.

There seems to be a delusion that just adding yet 'more of the same' will somehow disguise or bury the bland and lifeless experience that faces you outside the avatar creator, they are even adding restrictions and requirements on content to encourage (read force) group interaction...but this world is already dangerously restrictive and inflexible, it is a world with no variety of reward.

If the desire is to simply appeal to the same people this may be enough but If the intention is to broaden the games appeal their approach to quest and world mechanics/design is going to have to radically alter, it desperately needs an influx of imagination, it desperately needs some conviction in the theme....stuff that makes you care about what you are doing beyond the souless perpetuation of your own avatar, then it might appeal to more than those currently playing.