I was going to post a clear, concise account of my experiences so far, but I think it really all boils down to this. Please take everything I say as meant to be constructive commentary. I am signed up and playing, so you can be sure you did something right :)

Here 'tis:

Please, please please bring this game to life! The concept is great, the characters are fun as heck to play, but the enemies are so aweful it's just not possible to enjoy beating them. 1. They are ridiculously unaware of you - you can be standing 20 feet away and they do nothing, and 2. when they do something, they move and fight so slowly it's like they're in a time warp. Backwards.

I understand that this game dates from EQ1.5 days, and this was all set up to give crowds of clueless new players something easy to do just like EQ1 did, but dang, these are not those days. This game could be the most exciting, fun one I've ever played, but the enemies just don't present any sort of interesting challenge. And they're littered all over the streets just openly committing dumb crimes waiting for you to kill them.

Even when you turn up the difficulty (nice feature in theory, btw) that doesn't seem to make them any smarter or faster to act, just higher level. Turning rows of corn that you were mowing with a chainsaw into rows of trees doesn't make cutting them down more exciting lol, just more work.

A fight should feel like the enemy is trying to win every second, not be something you can only lose if they're way too high level or you run out of endurance.

What I'd like to see - less enemies, with a more realistic perception of you and much more realistic speed of attacks, but less HP's so they go down quicker to balance it out (and with proportionately less incidence of special hits from their attacks also for balance). Fast, fun fights that you can win because you're a superhero, but you can also lose because you didn't fight as well as you could have. That's the way to make the game hold people's attention - make them either give the required commitment to win or receive the acquire debt from the loss :D

I'd also like to see the enemy operating more realistically - gangs hiding out in alleys and running out to do evil deeds, then trying to escape, instead of just standing out there like rows of corn lol. Mission enemies acting like they're on guard, doing the kind of evil things usually seen in an evil lair, or just hanging out in the break room lol. Runners from the fight bringing a friend or two back with them, if not whole groups. Stuff like that. Maybe the mission editor thingy can help some.

Anyways, there's my thoughts as a first-timer. Other than that (and the old technology, but I forgive that if you give me fun) it's a great program. Awesome UI, characters are great, contact system and radio and storyline missions are set up well, excellent auction system - nice work. Put some excitement in the fights, and you have my sub for a good long time.

Woot

Originally posted by wootin

Even when you turn up the difficulty (nice feature in theory, btw) that doesn't seem to make them any smarter or faster to act, just higher level. Turning rows of corn that you were mowing with a chainsaw into rows of trees doesn't make cutting them down more exciting lol, just more work. 

Nice analogy!

/signed

im sorry but your expecting every minion ranked enemy to actually be able to beat you? a superhero? no sorry. bosses i can see being able to but they already can. they have minions and lutenients(bad spelling i know) and they are pretty tough to beat. the point of minions is to die not to give heros a challenge. and the 20 foot thing is agro range and sure it makes no sense...but please please dont make it longer. running around areas like skyway is annoying enough without every abberant trying to kill me just for walking by, so seriously fight a elite boss or archvillian if you want a serious one on one challenge

Originally posted by BOYVIRGO666

im sorry but your expecting every minion ranked enemy to actually be able to beat you? a superhero? no sorry. bosses i can see being able to but they already can. they have minions and lutenients(bad spelling i know) and they are pretty tough to beat. the point of minions is to die not to give heros a challenge. and the 20 foot thing is agro range and sure it makes no sense...but please please dont make it longer. running around areas like skyway is annoying enough without every abberant trying to kill me just for walking by, so seriously fight a elite boss or archvillian if you want a serious one on one challenge

I'm sorry but the purpose of minions to beat down any would-be heros and serve them up to the boss on a platter. That's why the villain hired them, to take out any annoyances that would interfere with the evil master plan, right? So they're INTENDED to be tough enough to challenge the hero, and it's the player's job to prove them wrong. Not the game developers' job.

Sorry but I really want us to do better. I want groups of enemies patrolling the villain lair, actively looking to put the smack on intruders, instead of more trash mobs just hanging around so you get the recommended xp/loot level for the "dungeon".

I don't want swarms of trash mobs just hanging around on the streets and in the lairs. I want them ganging up and hiding in the alleys and buildings, then jumping out to do their dirty work and running away after. So heros have to monitor the police scanner, catch and defeat the bad guys at their crime before they run away, or lose reputation with the police and have their missions downgraded on the police scanner.

There are lots of ways to make a much smarter, more fun game out of this, just by changing up to the "non-noob" leagues. I'd recommend doing it a little bit at a time- speed up the enemy's attacks and movement by 10%, lower their HP's and chance of a special hit by the same, and see how it plays for a week and adjust player abilities to eliminate any rough spots and roll it out to live.

Rinse and repeat until the veteran players are saying "PERFECT!" and new players are saying "OMG this is a GREAT GAME", then launch your new marketing campaign quick and announce a sequel in the works before Champions comes out :)

Originally posted by wootin

Originally posted by BOYVIRGO666

im sorry but your expecting every minion ranked enemy to actually be able to beat you? a superhero? no sorry. bosses i can see being able to but they already can. they have minions and lutenients(bad spelling i know) and they are pretty tough to beat. the point of minions is to die not to give heros a challenge. and the 20 foot thing is agro range and sure it makes no sense...but please please dont make it longer. running around areas like skyway is annoying enough without every abberant trying to kill me just for walking by, so seriously fight a elite boss or archvillian if you want a serious one on one challenge

 

I'm sorry but the purpose of minions to beat down any would-be heros and serve them up to the boss on a platter. That's why the villain hired them, to take out any annoyances that would interfere with the evil master plan, right? So they're INTENDED to be tough enough to challenge the hero, and it's the player's job to prove them wrong. Not the game developers' job.

While I still generally agree with wootin on the realism, I do have to agree with BoyVirg on the minion thing.

In keeping with CoX terminology, all the signature heroes of the DC and Marvel universes have their signature villains - the baddies who give them their biggest and/or most frequent challenges. Many of the villains (Lex Luthor, Two Face, the Kingpin, etc.) have minions who really don't pose a threat to the hero. Come on! A mere human standing up to Superman? No contest. A mere human equipped with a Kryptonite energy blaster designed by Lex Luthor? Might be a bit of a problem.

Minions are there to distract the hero. To try and overwhelm them through force of numbers. To slow the hero down while the villain escapes or puts a plan into motion. To do the things that are 'beneath' the head villain. To serve as meat shields. Not to actually be effective in one-on-one combat.

Originally posted by wootin

Originally posted by BOYVIRGO666

im sorry but your expecting every minion ranked enemy to actually be able to beat you? a superhero? no sorry. bosses i can see being able to but they already can. they have minions and lutenients(bad spelling i know) and they are pretty tough to beat. the point of minions is to die not to give heros a challenge. and the 20 foot thing is agro range and sure it makes no sense...but please please dont make it longer. running around areas like skyway is annoying enough without every abberant trying to kill me just for walking by, so seriously fight a elite boss or archvillian if you want a serious one on one challenge

 

I'm sorry but the purpose of minions to beat down any would-be heros and serve them up to the boss on a platter. That's why the villain hired them, to take out any annoyances that would interfere with the evil master plan, right? So they're INTENDED to be tough enough to challenge the hero, and it's the player's job to prove them wrong. Not the game developers' job.

Sorry but I really want us to do better. I want groups of enemies patrolling the villain lair, actively looking to put the smack on intruders, instead of more trash mobs just hanging around so you get the recommended xp/loot level for the "dungeon".

I don't want swarms of trash mobs just hanging around on the streets and in the lairs. I want them ganging up and hiding in the alleys and buildings, then jumping out to do their dirty work and running away after. So heros have to monitor the police scanner, catch and defeat the bad guys at their crime before they run away, or lose reputation with the police and have their missions downgraded on the police scanner.

There are lots of ways to make a much smarter, more fun game out of this, just by changing up to the "non-noob" leagues. I'd recommend doing it a little bit at a time- speed up the enemy's attacks and movement by 10%, lower their HP's and chance of a special hit by the same, and see how it plays for a week and adjust player abilities to eliminate any rough spots and roll it out to live.

Rinse and repeat until the veteran players are saying "PERFECT!" and new players are saying "OMG this is a GREAT GAME", then launch your new marketing campaign quick and announce a sequel in the works before Champions comes out :)

um...you do know what your asking for is...you know impossible? its an mmo not a virtual reality simulator with steven hawking class AI. your asking for something that no video game will even attempt to have for like 50 years at least

Originally posted by BOYVIRGO666

um...you do know what your asking for is...you know impossible? its an mmo not a virtual reality simulator with steven hawking class AI. your asking for something that no video game will even attempt to have for like 50 years at least

Sorry but I think your input has reached bottom with this.

This was a post about what I'd like to see in CoH. As the thread title says " Post your suggestions! " Not "Post your suggestions and back them up with beta-quality code or nobody will believe it's possible!"

So I'm done. You can have your opinions, I've got mine, and my suggestion and supporting reasons are posted, which is all I wanted to accomplish.

Originally posted by wootin

Originally posted by BOYVIRGO666

um...you do know what your asking for is...you know impossible? its an mmo not a virtual reality simulator with steven hawking class AI. your asking for something that no video game will even attempt to have for like 50 years at least

 

Sorry but I think your input has reached bottom with this.

This was a post about what I'd like to see in CoH. As the thread title says " Post your suggestions! " Not "Post your suggestions and back them up with beta-quality code or nobody will believe it's possible!"

So I'm done. You can have your opinions, I've got mine, and my suggestion and supporting reasons are posted, which is all I wanted to accomplish.

i thought suggestions had to be reasonable is all.

let me be upfront: not one of your suggestions will ever make it into the game, this game has been around for far too long to get any kind of gameplay changes.

also i have no clue what the comparison to eq1 is there for, eq1 was a really tough game, practically nothing was doable solo while in coh you have no problem doing practically anything solo. also no mmorpg to date has any kind of intelligent ai, all unscripted encounters simply attack you, cycle their skills, maybe stay on range first and then maybe flee, i challenge you to show me a mmorpg that doesn't work like this.

and lastly, coh is supposed to be a game where you kill masses of enemies, it's just how it works, like tabula rasa, this is not supposed to be the classical mmorpg where every enemy is tough and could kill you.