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Get that and start installing as the very first thing, because it can take a while. You won't need any sign-in information until after the patcher is complete.

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Codes last updated on: December 10, 2010

IMHO the Architect was a little over-weighted in recent developer efforts, but it's nice for what it is.

Here's the thing about Architect tickets and salvage prices. Yes, you can get good salable salvage with your tickets. But you can also apply those tickets to recipes instead. And the chance to hit the jackpot on recipes is much bigger. So most people put their tickets to work on recipes rather than salvage.

You can tell what's been getting more play lately by looking at the market prices. If more are playing the external missions there will be lots of salvage, including an abundance of uncommon-level stuff. When more move to Architect, recipes are overweighted as reward conversions and salvage starts to thin out.

I personally like the Task Force / Strike Forces. I always have, as they let you pick up a team fairly casually without the traditional "casual pick-up team" problems of people who leave after every mission or have no idea what being on a team actually means. They give you Reward Merits at the end, which are like Tickets but more valuable, and can be turned into some very hard-to-get recipes themselves. All as a bonus to the normal recipe and salvage drops that you get.

But anyway, they have been catering to fans and things that were long-requested, like customizing powers. Not only can you change the colors, but sometimes you can change the animation too. It's not really my thing, but I appreciate it. I personally like Day Jobs, which let me pick up bonuses for one character even while I'm playing on another. It's a nice dimension and something I always think about now.

The endgame has always been to make alternate characters. And I've never found a single other game that offers as much play diversity from one character to the next. (I tried WoW after CoH and was struck by how same-y it was. "So everyone gets a melee weapon, a ranged attack, and armor? Yawn.")

Also it's about a third as long to reach 50 as it used to be, so the "all that commitment to my one character" argument is weaker than ever.

[b]That said[b], they know the lack of an endgame is sorely hurting. The Going Rogue expansion (due out around June I think) is supposed to be directly focused on that. In fact, the lead designer (Matt Miller) chose to step down from running the whole company because he wanted to just focus on design, and specifically on designing the endgame system.

How it will play, I don't know. But that's how it stands. CoH was never intended to be a "one and only character" game, and doesn't have much of an endgame at the moment, but something big is coming soon.

I'm very curious about that too (AI) because I like to think it could be better but haven't played enough games to know what the standard quality is.

AI is actually better than it was years ago, they added some logic to enemies so they know to avoid clustering. Some will stay at range while their buddies wail on you melee. If you try to get them to follow you around a corner, some will take a wide turn and some will cut it right at the corner. There are ways to beat this of course, but it's not that stupid.

Of course pathfinding still needs work, but that's probably true in every game because it's always non-trivial.

Anyway, how would you like to see the AI be better? What should enemies do that they don't?

That's just what I was going to suggest, check it out after Going Rogue. Updated graphics, a focus on 50+ content, and whole new areas.

One reason there might be less activity in Atlas Park is because focus is shifted. This weekend "double xp" is combined with "welcome back", which they used to do separately. That means most players are spending more time running stuff than hanging around in Atlas being morons. (The default activity for Atlas Park.)

Also the Architect missions have been de-emphasized over the last issue or two, plus don't benefit from doubling. That's why people used to hang around in Atlas, for easy access to AE. They don't do that anymore.

But I have to agree, overall things have been quieter lately. I blame bad focus on the Architect system. The last FOUR issues have all be focused on that - creating, adding features, nerfing it, rebalancing different parts, etc. For those who don't really care about about the Mad Libs + dress-up approach to mission variety, there hasn't been much to see in the last 18 months.

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Originally posted by Axeion
Nice the influance added to emails wil come in handy for those of us with a single acount.

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The thing that surprises me a little is that they're still being stubborn about heroes and villains having a separate auction system and not trading cash. It makes even less sense with both sides merging via Going Rogue anyway. It's the sort of thing that they will obviously relent on eventually, making a huge announcement about the great feature, while we go "yeah, thanks, you couldn't have just done that 3 years ago?"

Ultra Mode is the real feature. The other stuff is pretty minor, and most of it wouldn't even have been announcement worthy back in the day. But upgrading the entire look of the game is a noteworthy addition.

Also while I'm being negative: animated tails? PvP is a mess, endgame barely exists, no new zones have been added since the dime-sized Cimerora, and bases still don't live up to the promises that were printed on the City of Villains box. And they're spending man hours on animated tails?

But that aside, it's nice to have an issue that's not just reversing the Architect decisions from the previous issue. Well, not JUST reversing the Architect decisions from the previous issue.

Dual pistols is finally coming, after years of requests. The mechanic for it is really cool: you get to change ammo to choose between different damage specifications (fire, ice, toxic, lethal) and different bonuses (DoT, debuff, knockdown).

They're still working the numbers a bit but it sounds very creatively cool, much like the way they made dual blades something different via combos.

I just responded on the (more active) Heroes forum here, so I'll refer you to that.

Vinque is right that you can get some very (sometimes overly) detailed build ideas in the official forums. The catch is that they tend to have the hindsight of a level 50 with a ton of cash. And sometimes aren't that good.

Also let met caveat that PvP might have a few more changes when the Going Rogue expansion hits. I don't know that it will, I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me since the devs have described the current system as "intermediate." The goal of these changes is to give most Archetypes a reasonable chance in PVP, so if you did manage to find the one perfect build that was demonstrably superior to the rest, well then any changes probably wouldn't favor you.

OK, with that out of the way...

Corruptors are fine for PvP or PvE. Actually most villain ATs are fine for PvE, so I wouldn't even worry about that. But range is very useful in PvE and so Corruptors are a great choice.

The difference between Fire/ and Ice/ is that Fire has minor DoTs on everything (they're on fire) and better AOEs. Ice has minor slow effects on everything and 2 "Hold" powers. For PvP you probably don't want AOEs since your enemies won't be kind enough to hang out all grouped up. So Ice is no worse there. (This is probably why you heard fire is better for PvE, because it's better to Fireball a dozen enemies than hold one of them.)

As for DoT vs Slow, you could make an argument for either. DoT is very handy at stopping interruptible powers like Aid Self, or stopping a Stalker from going into hiding. But slows are always handy since they keep the opponent from getting away, or help you get away, or slow the recharge on their powers so their good attacks don't cycle as fast.

And then a good Hold is always handy, but not amazing. It will buy you a second or two of activity as they stand frozen. Useful? Yeah I'd rather have it than not, but a hold is much less dominant in PvP than it is in PvE.

So given that I'd say yeah Ice is better than Fire. You'll be slightly worse off for PvE, but not terribly so. Possibly better when soloing, actually.

As for /Dark, yeah I can definitely see the appeal. A heal, a stealth/resistance aura, the ability to debuff an enemy's accuracy, a fear attack, and a hold of it's own. Even a pet, if you aren't moving around too much for it to keep up.

So yeah if that's your interest, Ice/Dark would probably be my pick. I'd recommend the Freedom server, because that's where you'll find the most PvPers.

They are no doubt counting on Going Rogue to pull in/pull back players. And I'm hoping it will too.

The last year has been slow. Issue 14 added Architect. Issue 15 added bells & whistles to Architect. Issue 16 nerfed Architect. And that's 2009.

So those (like myself) who sort-of shrugged at the Architect concept have seen very little in 18 months. This from an "always free expansions" game. And you can tell that it's hitting the population.

Which doesn't diminish the fact that the game is actually fun at it's core. But stagnation isn't healthy. I don't know if it's official that i17 will be the Going Rogue partner issue, but I suspect it will. Which means they're not making Q1 with that either.

As I say, the game is still good. If you want to try it (again), the fast combat and easy pickup teams are at least as true as they ever were. But for new excitement and new blood, wait for Going Rogue.

Well since someone else necro'd the thread...

Champions had a flashy entrance but the early swarm has already moved back to WoW and is waiting for the next new thing. (Whatever that is. Probably SW:TOR) Now CO is in the stage where they have to hold their population and let those core fans sustain them.

I could see how people would prefer Champions combat to CoH, favoring the blocking technique and prolonged combat. I personally prefer the 1 vs many approach of CoH and the fast pace, so that has appeal to.

I can understand that people who cut their teeth on WoW (or it's clones) would be more comfortable spotting contacts with (!) over their heads. I don't however, so a contact list and a map marker is better.

The single-server model is excellent however, and IMHO CoH should find a way to do that. One benefit of this is that names no longer have to be player unique. However, apparently at HeroCon they asked those assembled and those players said overwhelmingly that they LIKE unique names. Which is a bit of an obstacle to server merges.

(I would caution NC to remember that hardcore fans who attend cons don't necessarily represent the bulk of players.)

Other than that, CoH certainly has more but that's not a fair comparison. I think the two games can do well by appealing to different audiences, and perhaps help each other just by getting more attention to Hero MMOs in general.

First, let me suggest that you go talk to Ashley McKnight, a contact standing outside the university buildings in Cap au Diable. She'll give you an arc to run that will gain you access to the Midnighter club and thus, Cimerora. (Which technically opens at 35 but you can get access early.)

This is important because at 35 you can start running the ITF, a joint hero/villain Task Force in Cimerora which is rather fun and gets run a lot. To find teams for that and other things, I recommend joining some global channels. If you're on Virtue, you will want:

Virtue LFG Alpha
Virtue TFs
Virtuebadges10
Virtue's LRSF
VU2010

To join a channel, type /join "Virtue TFs". Then you will want to right-click on the different tabs of your chat box to change their settings until you have it positioned where you want it. The channels are great for making the game social and finding teams - especially specialized ones.

(I may be incorrect or out of date on some of those channels since I don't play on Virtue. Try joining them, or do a channel search for something similar, or ask around. Also if you find yourself joining one but unable to speak, look in the Friends list for someone with a star by their name and PM them to unsilence you.)

OK that aside, here are your answer:

30ish V-side you want to run missions in Nerva or St. Martial. But since the i16 upgrade you can gain xp with a team of any level, so don't sweat too much about that. Flag yourself as LFT or look for other people who are.

All archetypes are fine, if played well. Scrapper is the only one I've never seen specifically requested, but they're generally welcome whenever blasters are. (Under the heading "need more damage".) A well-played Controller, Defender, Corruptor, or Dominator is someone you can't have too many of. And most teams want 1 Tank or Brute, but after one the appeal of having them goes down.

If you specifically want a character that people will be requesting, "debuffer" is a good role to be. That's a defender, controller, corruptor, or mastermind with the radiation, dark, trick arrows, cold, storm, or kinetics sets. (Probably in descending order of appeal.)

Welcome back!

Sure. (I don't get to the forums that often, but this certainly deserves a response even if a week late.) I'll do grouping first:

Grouping
99% of the content in City of Heroes/Villains is instanced. The game world is large, and there are enemies to fight and citizens to rescue out in it. However, missions will send you to a building/sewer/cave/ship/etc entrance. As soon as you enter that, the mission will scale to however many members are on your team.

Every mission does this, throughout the game. Even outside instances, some zones will span larger groups if the the person who triggered the spawn is on a team. (Which isn't even necessary, because the few missions that call for hunts share defeated enemy counts between team members.)

The result is that teaming is never something you have to do, but always something you can choose to do. You can do that starting at level 1. (Though I usually avoid teams until 5, personal preference.) Additionally, the difficulty options are pretty detailed so if you need a harder or easier mission, you can arrange that.

The minor exception to this is that some content does exist to create special challenges. TaskForces are groups of missions that require multiple players and must be done start-to-finish with the same team. The first one is available at 10 but mostly these are more of an end-game thing (and even early ones if skipped can be done later).

"Quest/Achievement" is known as "badges" and CoH was doing it before anyone. Those Taskforces give badges, certain special missions you get on your own give badges, events give badges, defeating special giant monsters out in the non-instanced world gives badges, defeating X of a certain enemy type gives badges ... There are entire chat channels dedicated to people grouping up for, or discussing techniques on, acquiring as many badges as possible.

PvP
PvP is, ot be honest, not huge in this game. Maybe it will pick up in early 2010 when the Going Rogue expansion is released. But it's incidental and most players don't do it. Because of this, much (perhaps most?) PvP takes place on the Test server, because people can copy their characters there from whichever server is their main.

Freedom, Guardian, and Liberty are reasonable servers for PvP though, so I'll just assume you find people. Here's how it plays:

PvP zones exist for levels 15-25, 20-30, 30-40, and 40-50. Here's what that means: if you enter the first zone at level 15, you'll be scaled to the power of a 25. If you come back to that zone at 50, you'll also be scaled to 25.

Each of the PvP zones have normal door missions that you can do, quick little "rescue/kidnap the a hostage" things. There's nothing PvP about them, except that they exist to lure people to the zones. On top of that, each zone has special bonus challenges.

15-25 you collect pieces from fallen meteors, analyze them in a computer, and are awarded with a special limited-use pet power. PvPers can ambush each other at any point and steal collected fragments.

20-30 there are massive groups of NPC heroes and villains fighting a war against each other, in different "hotspots" that move around the zone. You can jump in and tip the balance, and by doing so your side gets to control the zone.

30-40 you rescue scientists who are trapped by mutant spider-people. Escort them home, and they give you part of a launch code. Get 3, and you can launch a nuclear warhead into space, and have the power to call it down at any time. PvPers can ambush each other and steal the launch codes. (This zone is also everyone-for-themselves, faction vs faction.)

40-50 is a remake of the hero starter zone, only villains have invaded and there are defense turrets scattered about. You fight to simultaneously control 5-6 of the turrets (I forget the number) and if you do your side wins control. Then you get credit toward a very powerful limited-use pet power and the zone resets.

(The second zone is my favorite, because the scale just seems so massive. Nowhere else can you see a hundred guys from each faction charge each other, and yet feel how much difference you're making.)

So yes, you can jump in and out at any time, 15 minutes is sufficient in most cases. (Maybe not for the missiles, that can be slow.) Again I can't speak to the number of people you'll find there, but the design is very friendly for short playtimes.

The other way people PvP is not in a zone, but in the Arena. These are planned matches between groups from 1 to 8. It's the most "pure" PvP, and team buffs can really matter. It's the main reason people transfer to the test server. But the main way to get into it is to join a PvP Supergroup.

Yeah it's not the first time they've done that together. It's generally after a play-changing issue where they want people to come try it out. In this case, the new SK system makes teaming easier and Exemplaring down less painful. It's worth experiencing.

However, it probably does say something about populations. If they were majorly worried about full server lockouts, they could have done the two promotions on separate weekends. However, if the concern is that people will come back and not find teammates, then you want to pack as many people in as possible to make the servers busy. They chose Plan B, so...

To the original issue, heavier dl periods cause slower speeds. If a lot of people are DLing, it will slow down for all. I've seen a full DL and patch take 4-5 hours during quiet periods, so I can only imagine how much worse it gets at a busy time. But that's easily the worst I've ever seen (for any game) and what I say is no excuse, just an explanation.

The Positron quote is a good one.

It has been stated or implied several times that they have an idea for how they might go about adding levels, adding a new dimension without simply extending the present system with more powers and slots.

However, that doesn't mean it's being put into effect, it's just an idea. That a new level cap might come with Going Rogue is a reasonable guess. But it's just a guess, they've said pretty much nothing about the new expansion yet.

(Actually it's so hard to imagine what this expansion contains for actual content that it would pretty much have to contain 10 levels of play to be worth it as a serious expansion. Consider everything City of Villains contained, and how much Going Rogue would need to have to even remotely approach that.

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Originally posted by Beatnik59
I think it would be a very wise decision for the level cap to increase from 50-60 in the next year or so.  Now I understand the argument that merely increasing the level cap isn't content.  That said, increasing the level cap makes the problems of content less severe.

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All of the things that function as endgame content now would no longer do. Level 50 inventions would have to be surpassed. Hamidon-enhancements would be near-worthless. The Hamidon raid, mothership raid, ITF, LGTF, STF, RSF, Barracuda, Kahn - all of this becomes obsolete. Also character builds were never designed to go above 50. They are at a good point where you can't have everything (forcing some decisions) but there are more than enough power choices available to perform whatever role you have effectively.

Most importantly, increasing the level is, as you say, not content in itself. What you want is more content - which is fine - but you're asking for totally the wrong thing. If they made it the goal to increase the cap, that would force 50s to go get which would take practically no time at all, and then we'd be in the exact same position but with zero endgame content instead of the limited amount now.

Increasing level cap has one purpose, and it's not what you think it is. Moving it up doesn't create content. What it does is force people to try the new content. Consider this: They add the Kahn TF, and players try it a bit, but then they go back to the more farmable ITF. Why not? They already know how to do it quickly, and you fight 50 enemies with 50 powers and get 50 drops. It's all the same.

Instead, what if they pushed the level cap to 60 and made Kahn a 60 TF instead of a 50 one? Then you can still run ITF in exemplar mode, but you only get 50 drops from 50 enemies using 50 powers. You'd have to do Kahn to get 60 IO drops.

See the difference? Raising the level cap doesn't create new content, it lets them maneuver new content to make people use it. Blizzard knows this, which is why they keep pushing the cap with their new expansions. It makes all the old raids and old equipment obsolete, forcing people to run the new stuff.

NC is working on a "Going Rogue" expansion, and I have no idea what's in it so it might actually push the level cap. I'm sure it will contain some new content, which I look forward to. But make no mistake, a level raise is not a necessary part of that and wouldn't be doing us any favors.

To be honest, population across the board has been drifting down. That's not a fault of Champions Online though. To be honest, word is that CO is not doing well and less than a month in people are already drifting away. In the words of one person I teamed with last night "I wish I waited for i16 to come out before I wasted money trying CO."

No, the population decay has been slow but steady for months now, and I think it's because there hasn't been anything to really enhance gameplay since the invention system came out.

This month's issue 16 is "Power Spectrum" and if you've always wanted to customize the color of your powers, you can. They even have some more interesting changes, like how you can mix up Martial Arts by changing kick animations to punches. So if you're a person who loves to spend hours trying out different costumes for each of your many characters (and you could, it's that deep) then you'll love it. But those of us focused more on the gameplay haven't really seen anything new.

That said, the population is by no means hurting. What I do recommend though is that whatever server you go to, find that server's main Badge Channel and join it. Not only are they home to the most knowledgeable players, but they are the best place to find Task Force teams, which are some of the best teaming experiences possible.

On Pinnacle it's "PinnBadges"
On Liberty it's "LB"
On Infinity it's "Inf Badge Seeker"
On Protector it's "Protector Watch"
and I don't know the others, but ask around (use help chat "/hc <message>") and you'll find out.

And they are working on a boxed expansion, with no announcement date yet so I'd expect early next year. That will probably push up populations at least for a bit, as it provides an excuse for a new marketing campaign.

With i16 set and out now, I will say yes, it absolutely did.

The AE is still useable (the original i16 approach would have killed it I think, but they refined), and I'm sure there are people farming on it. But there were 3 key changes:

1) Gimped custom-characters or boss-only (or minion-only for that matter) AE stories have reduced rewards, removing that incentive for using AE farms.
2) Sidekicking/Exemplaring is changed. AE used to be the only way to make a team work if the levels were spread all over. Now every team can work like that - you exemplar down to the level of the mission (or sk up to 1 below it) and everyone gets xp up to 50 even when exemplared.
3) Mission difficulty changed. If you want your mission set for 8 people, you don't need teammates or padders. Just go to the Fortunata and change your difficult to 8 people's worth.

The result is that when picking what enemies to fight, you get no benefit from custom-made groups in AE. If you just want a team, you can do any content anywhere with the same formation benefits as the AE teams had (and better rewards). And if you want to farm or challenge yourself, you don't need to recruit players to get the count up.

So if a farmer is still going, he's soloing a contact's mission in PI, rather than grabbing everyone availble for team in Atlas. And that's not just theory, we've been seeing that happen.

(There are still a few people of any level who go to Atlas to find a team, which is a bad habit they'll shake eventually, but bad habits die hard.)

If anything, Taskforces are the new farms. A lot of people are running Manticores and LGTFs since you can get 30-40 merits in under an hour. I personally am trying to get the 66-merit Positron down to 90 minutes. But those aren't so bad, certainly they're better than AE farming to 50 and never leaving Atlas.

I change my mind from day-to-day.

It's interesting that you say "I didn't figure out the tank-healer-dps concept" since it's that rigid line of thinking I prefer to get away from. There's nothing wrong with having that, until people start insisting you always have exactly that. I prefer to take a good team, see what you have, and find ways to make those tools work.

So to that end, for the likelihood of non-rigid teams, villains gets the nod. Sure sometimes you find people who absolutely postively have to have 1-2 brutes and a couple corruptors. But I frequently play the "tank" role with my Mastermind (as it was largely designed to do). And I was on a team earlier tonight with 2 Brutes, 2 Masterminds, and me on a Dominator. And guess who was always the first into combat? (Hint, not the brutes or MMs.) Because playing is looking at my tools, looking at the situation, and figuring out how to make it work.

Villains, by not being as clear-cut as actually naming ATs "Tank" and "Blaster", leads you to that flexible team situation more easily.

However, all Villains have an attack powerset - melee, ranged, or combined. Because of that, they're all somewhat "centralized". Oh not compared to other games, but compared to Heroes.

In Heroes, I can have big fun with a team of 8 Controllers. In theory that should be a horrible team - no Tank, no DPS, and potentially no healer. But with good players it's a great experience for exactly the reasons I described - because you're not just following the formula.

So if I were to casually hop-on and form a pickup group, I'd prefer Villains I think. But if I were able to play the game the way I want to play it, I'd prefer the more role-focused characters of Heroes, but with the team not so role-centered.

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As for content, at first I thought villainous stories would bother me. That hasn't been an issue, mostly because they're so hard to find! So many of the CoV stories start with "I wouldn't ordinarily ask you to rescue someone, but ..." And you do stuff like "get this item of power and hand deliver it to me." Or worse, "get this item of power and destroy it to keep it away from bad guy X".

Or the favorite for shared content like RWZ or ITF: "A new danger appears so threatening that the Heroes and Villains must band together to stop it." Yeah, every time. Where's the new prize so tempting that the heroes and villains must band together to steal it? Yeah I didn't think so.

There are some decent villainous missions, in that you do evil stuff. But the essential problem with villains, as I noted immediately when CoV came out, is that a villain is proactive.

What is Batman's day like? Find out what Joker, Penguin, Riddler, or any other bad guy is up to. Then go find them and stop it. Works perfect for a mission-based MMORPG.

What is The Joker's day like? Invent your own plan and put it into action. Pretty unlikely to come up with my own evil scheme to take over the world, and then go find some Arachnos agent who just happens to want to give me missions to do exactly that. So Villains ends up feeling like you are running errands for the real villains, with them occasionally telling you how evil you are. Insulting, really.

So story-wise Heroes gets the edge too. But I feel like Villains deserve a shot. The ATs are well-designed and although the population V-side is smaller, I feel like there's a slightly higher caliber there.

But of course the real answer is that most people have both.