PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:$19.99 | Pay Type:Subscription
Desktop Client | System Req:
City of Heroes System Focus: Looking at a Colorful Future - Issue 16
MMORPG.com City of Heroes Correspondent Cecil Adkins writes this look at Issue 16: Power Spectrum, and what it adds to Paragon Studios' original superhero game.
By Cecil Adkins on September 25, 2009
Let me start by saying that at first I was prepared to consider Issue 16 a "light" issue for me. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I thought it might be disappointing, but the biggest feature of the issue - powers customization - is one on which I never placed much importance. Obviously, many other City of Heroes players have talked about it, wanted it, for years now. For me, I always thought that the developers' time could be better spent creating "real" content for the game instead of just giving us the "fluff" of recoloring our powers. However, I realized the need for City of Heroes to include this feature because something very similar is a big selling point for newcomer Champions Online.
Wow. After seeing powers customization in action, I cannot believe I could ever have been so indifferent. The feature breathes new life into this game, just in time for the arrival of its first real competitor in the superhero MMORPG genre. There are an incredible amount of options for nearly every power in the game, and the interface with which you sort through these options is done really well. From minor tweaks to major makeovers, everyone is sure to find some use for powers customization to bring their character closer to what they envision them to be in their minds. The screen on which you pick colors and alternate animations for your powers also gives you a preview of the animation for each power, so you can see from character creation how every power in your chosen powersets will look.
Powers customization brings with it a redesigned character creator. City of Heroes already had the best character creator among MMORPGs, and now the best just got better. Champions Online may have more costume options, but that's the only area of the character creator that's arguably better than City of Heroes. City of Heroes' character creator has always been easy to use to generate a unique, nice-looking hero or villain. With Issue 16, the interface gets tweaked to allow jumping between any portion of the creator without losing progress. Want to select your power colors before your costume? You can do that. Need to check to see if a name is available before you get too far in the creation process? Now you can do that from within the character creator itself. Decide on a different powerset? You can go back and pick a different one without worrying about losing the incredibly detailed costume you just spent a half-hour putting together.
Speaking of picking powersets, Issue 16 includes the next phase of powerset proliferation. Introduced several issues back, powerset proliferation means opening up existing powersets to archetypes that previously didn't have access to them. Issue 16 features Radiation Blast for Blasters, Electric Melee and Electric Armor for Scrappers, Thermal Radiation for Masterminds, Archery and Trick Arrow for Corruptors, the long-awaited Claws for Brutes, and much more. With fourteen powersets now in the hands of archetypes that couldn't use them before, combined with powers customization, there should be no problem in finding a combination with which to create new characters.
)
Ancillary and Patron Power Pools (special "fifth" power pools heroes and villains gain access to at level 41) have been redesigned somewhat. They each now have five power choices. This is an attempt to balance the pools against each other, as some had powers that made them obviously much better than the other choices. There's also been a new Ancillary Pool created from scratch for Scrappers, who had less pools to pick from than other archetypes. Blaze Mastery is the perfect complement to Fire/Fire Scrappers, or any Scrapper who just wants to add a little sizzle to their power selections.
Another big feature in Issue 16 is the so-called "Supersidekicking." With this feature, putting teams together is easier than ever. There'll be no more "mentor Tetris" as people try to make sure they have the right mix of mentors and sidekicks for everyone to get experience. With Supersidekicking, everyone on the team is sidekicked or exemplared to the team leader or mission owner. To facilitate teaming with members of various levels even further, the developers are doing away with level requirements for most "hazard zones." A side effect of Supersidekicking is that bridging - having members of specific levels in order to powerlevel the lower-level characters - will be a thing of the past.
There are yet more features of Issue 16, including enhanced difficulty options and changes to the Mission Architect, but suffice it to say that this is a much bigger issue for which I at first gave it credit. Not everyone is going to love everything about Issue 16 (some people, especially those who utilized bridging or the MA to powerlevel their friends, may even hate much of it), but overall this is a huge issue in terms of quality of life features. Between this issue and the upcoming Going Rogue expansion, City of Heroes fans should have stuff to keep them busy for a good long while.
)
Thanks for this excellent review!
I left CoX after MA was launched when I saw the horrifc exploits it was causing in terms of PLing.
I was banking on CO being "The next big thing." For many reasons well known in the MMO community far and wide it was certainly not the next big thing....unless that big thing was to be a flop, in which case it was definitely that.
I have been considering going back to CoX to check out I16 it sounds like the exploits have been fixed and the power customization options sound great!
I was also really looking forward to the release of the expansion and couple with I16 being as good as the writer says, I may well be giving my subscription funds back to NC Soft for CoX as it certainly won't be going to Cryptic next month when my first free month is up of CO.
while i never canced CoX i have to agree. With the Daily power balances in a game i am PAYING for CO feels like "Pay-To-Beta-Test"
CoH desperately needs new dev made content. New systems are like a coat of paint on a car that's otherwise neglected. The ITF was the last really good thing to come out of CoH. I hope Going Rogue can exceed that or it won't be worth retail prices.
Jer
Great so they are going to just play catch up to Champions now by adding features that should have been in the game a looooonnngg time ago. Glad i quit this game back when i realized they had no clue how to add end game content.
Considering that it took an expanded dev team a year to set up Power Customization, there would have been a lot less content added had they done this a LOOOOOONG time ago. Blame the original coding for making it a painstaking exercise.
It does look great now. And it was always better looking than any of it's competition.
Word is that the Going Rogue expansion will have some things in it to deal with/expand end game content.
Pretorian heroes
Good masterminds
Villianious Defenders
Pistol Blasters/Corrupters!
Demon Summoning Masterminds!
Snazzy new costumes.....
It's surprising how much mileage you can get from something so simple as changing you power FX.
I-16 breathes new life into many of my characters. Invulnerability isn't nearly as obnoxious looking as it used to be, and Super Strength and Martial Arts really benefit from a choice of new animations. Can't comment on the changes to AE XP, don't use Architect much and farming is pointless in this game. Supersidekicking and the new difficulty settings for missions have been great so far.
All that being said, power customization is something that should have been done YEARS ago. And, no, I never considered "WAAAH! It's too much work" to be a reasonable excuse. Now that there's some competition, we'll see good things from this game. The Devs need to stop sitting on their hands and they know it.
CoH got much better after Emmert left, and considering he apparently hasn't learned anything from his past experiences, City of Heroes is set to bulldoze CO if they're willing to put the work into it.
to give you a point of reference, before 16 was complet,e like 2 months before Back Ally Brawker posted the work...
over 1,200 animaion changes...
So yes it WAS a lot of work, it took them a long time to get it where it worked. Long before CO was in closed beta. Want to blame somone, blame cryptic for the orginal engine.
I resubbed after a long long (years!) vacation and it's been more fun than I thought possible on a game this old. Seriously I was expecting a light distraction for a few weeks and I find myself drawn back into coh like it was my first time around. The changes in the last few years are superb and the temp powers make leveling from lowbie to 50 and much more pleasant experience (no more travel power requirements!! ). I'm playing my first blaster past 25 and it's been great. Radiation/mental blaster is pretty much the most addicting thing I've ever experienced 8 ) 2 damage/accuracy buff powers stacked with 4 or 5 aoe damage powers is just a reduculous amount of damage and debuffs ... I've never felt so super.
CoH is still a great game, and I'm glad they're adding all the stuff players have been asking for for years. Every issue improves this game to a great degree.
I've already played around with the powers customization and I like it so far. My ninja stalker now looks more realistic, as I imagined her, with no colours that light up with her ninjistu power set. My spines scrapper looks far more deadly with metal spikes instead of giant bananas. Love it.
I wouldn't say they are playing catch up to CO. Power customization has been asked for since before CO was even announced and back in the day it was brushed off as nearly impossible due to the coding issues. Although, I don't think it was a coincidence that issue 16 happened around CO's launch.
I wouldn't say they are playing catch up to CO. Power customization has been asked for since before CO was even announced and back in the day it was brushed off as nearly impossible due to the coding issues. Although, I don't think it was a coincidence that issue 16 happened around CO's launch.
The conspiracy theorists would say NCSoft been planning this since CO was announced (or maybe before) and were just keeping the card up their sleeve. ***shifty eyes***
I left this game when the Mission Architect was released. In one foul swoop, they destroyed the game for me. The zones were virtually empty and the only teams you found were farmers. After playing the game for four years, they finally made it unplayable for someone like me. I returned a few months back and noticed that nothing had changed. The only team invites I got were from farmers at the AE.
CO has kept my attention the last two months. The devs have shown their incompetence a few times, but no where close to the laziness that was the Mission Architect. I find myself attached to my toons once again, like I used to be in CoX.
This being said, I'm very happy that CoX is still getting some love from NCSoft. It was a fun game. I just don't think they can gain my attention back. CO still has a lot of features that CoX doesn't. The larger maps, the open-world quests, being able to choose any power, the overall graphics, and other features are just things CoX doesn't have, stuff that I enjoy. CoX has a lot of catching-up to do.
My best wishes to CoX and those that play it. I could just never go back now.