City of Heroes: E3 2006 Look Forward

Yesterday at E3 I had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Miller, Design Manager for CoH and Serdar Copur, Producer at Cryptic Studios. With Issue 7 just around the corner I had plenty of questions for the duo.

Issue 7, or I7, brings the City of Villains up to date with City of Heroes. Most of the content added is for the villain side, including 10 more levels of game play, a new 40-50 zone called Grandville, and new power sets. Both CoH and CoV players also have access to a slew of new costume choices and base items, and the new 40-50 PvP Zone, Recluse’s Victory. Note on costume choices, while wings aren’t appearing in I7, Miller told MMORPG.com that they will aiming to have them ready for Issue 8.

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First off, some good news for smaller Super Groups who are finding it hard to break into base building. Currently in the works are smaller, cheaper rooms, i.e. a power room that can hold nothing but one small power source. Miller and his team want to make it easier for smaller SGs to play around with bases and have a working base, but they don’t want medium and large Super Groups to feel like all their work was for naught.

As for the prices of higher level items, Miller said that the prestige numbers might be addressed in the future, but he didn’t think they were too off. The prestige numbers, he told me, had been determined by gathering data on kill rates on live servers, assuming that 70% of players were in Super Group mode. I also asked Miller about the availability of Tier 3 salvage in I7. Tier 3 salvage, which can currently only be found in Warburg, will be added in the new 40-50 zones.

I next asked Miller about the Patron Power Pools being added to the villain side. While the heroes have Epic Power Pools available to them at the same time, making the new Power Sets arch-villain related is “another stab at making the story important.” Instead of just choosing some cool new powers, higher level villains will be able to align with one of the poster villains for CoV – I have a feeling that Ghost Widow is going to be popular!

Some of the powers, Miller said, are more useful for soloers than for groups. Most of the Power Pool powers try to round out the character instead of following the general theme of the Archetype, a fact that is causing some grumbling on CoV forums. Brutes and Stalkers get ranged damage attacks, while Corruptors, Dominators, and Masterminds get defensive toggle powers.

With all the new power changes, Issue 7 will introduce two new respec missions for villains, one similar to the thorn tree respect and the other gained when you finish your Patron Power Pool story arc. As is CoH/V tradition, players will also receive a free respect when the Issue goes live.

I asked my hosts how they thought Focus Accuracy would effect PvP for stalkers in Recluse’s Victory, and if they’re worried about it being unbalanced. Miller and Copur assured me that they’re aware of the situation, and will be watching it closely to make sure it’s still fair. Realizing that a lot of their player base is more PvE centric, Miller said that they want to make sure that the PvP population gets the attention they deserve, too. And speaking of PvP balance, Brutes should be excited- the Fury generation in PvP was bugged, and with I7, will be fixed!

Lastly, I asked Miller and Copur what was cooking for Issue 8 (besides wings!). They couldn’t give me many details, but they promised that I8 would be pretty base heavy. Miller said that they realized there was a flaw in the system, and Copur added “only going to get better.”

Thank you to Matt Miller and Serdar Copur for the wonderful interview, and I for one can’t wait to see the new Issue!

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