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What makes CoX different?
antiquities
Member Posts: 12
I would like to hear from fans and the like. Why is this game different? What makes it stand out from every other MMO out there?
Feel free to comment on any aspect of the game that seems unique, or more fun. But one thing I would particularly like to hear about is if there an actual story, that is engaging and unique, and isn't just a pathetic vehicle for XP? I am so sick of walls-of-text that don't actually say a damn thing.
I plan on trying this game out when it goes F2P. I would try it now, but the idea of revamped starter zones sounds appealing.
Comments
CoX is different because you can run around really fast, fly, hover, teleport, super jump, heavily customize your character, get rich off the AH, do player made missions, run random radio missions, get away with "non-standard" groups.... probably a few I left out. It has many things in common with most mmos but is definitely different!
Oh and about the super jump.... first time I did it I'd have to say that was a personal top 10 mmo playing moment for me!
I played CoH/CoV for nearly 4 years so I believe I can comment on the game reasonably.
CoH to me was and still is the best superhero game around. I've played Champions and seen and read alot about DCUO, but they don't compare.
Alot of improvements have come to the game over the years and I recently re-subbed because I have a whole stable of characters that I feel I can really maximize now with all the new things in game.
I'll see if I can list what things I believe CoH/CoV brings to the table.
1. Very diverse power sets. From function, to look, to animation they are all unique and nowadays you can alter the color of most powers whether they be attacking powers or defensive powers like auras etc.
2. Solid class differences. Each class really does feel different in playstyle. A brute feel nothing like a corruptor and a Mastermind feels nothing like a defender etc.
3. A. Unique and in-depth upgrade system. Powers don't come in ranks even though they increase in strength as you level up. Each power can be individually enhanced. Things like increasing accuracy, damage, recharge time, debuffs, heals and many more are all possible. Generally you upgrade a power the way it benefits it the most so a single target hold power is gonna likely be slotted for accuracy so it hits, hold duration so it lasts longer and then recharge and endurance reduction depending on whether you need it up more often or need to reduce the cost of using it. This applies to all powers.
B. That is just upgrading using the classical single origin system. Then there are basic invention origins(IO's) which are generally a little stronger per given level, but never lose their effectiveness and you level up vs regular single origin enhancements which have to be upgraded every 5 levels if I remember right.
C. THEN you have invention origin sets and this is where it get's in-depth because these are sets that offer bonuses for slotting X amount of the same set enhances into a given power and every one of these invention sets(there are ALOT of them) offer multiple bonuses depending on how many you slot.
This allows you to greatly tailor your character to what you want it to be or do. I'll use a melee class the scrapper as an example. The scrapper does high damage and has medium-high survivability. Perhaps using invention sets you want to increase his global damage bonus and recharge so he always hits harder and his powers recharge faster so he maintains a higher sustained dps. You can do that. But, perhaps you would rather shore up a weakness of his. Let's say your character is using the regeneration secondary. The secondary is generally about sustained healing and spike healing itself with little to no defense or resistance. With invention sets you can acquire global defense bonuses that can greatly strengthen the character overall.
D. This is basic explanation of the advancements you can make on a character as you progress through the game. A little while ago a new system was brought into place called the incarnate system that adds another layer of power/diversity to your character.
The game also has the most complex pet class in any game I have every played. It's called the Mastermind and I say complex because of the amount of control you have over your individual pets. A level 30+ MM typically has 6 pets of varying strength and abilities out all at once and you can individually command each pet where to go, what to do etc and well as all pets at once and more. If you like pet classes MM's are like the ultimate pet class imho.
As for story the game has story all throughout it. There is alot of text to read and no voice over as this is an old game. There is reason for every thing in the game and backstory behind it all to varying degrees.
This game also has alot going for it for the collector type of player. The game has a badge system that can be quite addictive similar to WoW's achievement system.
The character creation system in the game is still probably the best all around character creation system around. There are myriad ways to make your character unique in the game visually.
That's about all I can think of atm, but there is alot more. The game has taskforces aka raids and group content as well as plenty of solo content.
The game is definitely worth taking the time to play it. The best advice I can give if you do decide to try it out is to come up with a character concept whether good or evil, a short backstory(that can be read by other players) and then decide what powers best fit this character concept. Then play that character up to lvl 22 when you can slot in single origin enhancements and get a better feel for the character. Also don't be afraid to re-roll a different character with different powers as the sets are all quite diverse and while I may hate radiation blast powers you might love them etc etc.
Wow! Two great posts already! Thanks a lot.
With all of that customization of powers, do they do a good job of explaining it?
I don't mind about reading text (or no voice overs or cutscenes). I just hate reading text that will not tell me anything about what is happening in the game world - or why I am helping/hurting people. I need lore and story to keep me engaged. A good example of doing it right is FFXI. A bad example is nearly every F2P game (minus LOTRO and DDO), where no one reads the text because there is no reason to. They aren't telling you anything except, "Oh I hate those monsters", or, "Oh I need some magic beets", "here's a bunch of xp and money now go help my friends who have the exact same problems".
The folks posting above me have it all right. Listen to them. But I'll chime in with my own thoughts as an old time player of the game, through launch and its first year.
1) Character creation is very fun, and has become even more fun with the additional options they've tossed in for how your character will look. The styles, features, and so on are just crazy. If you have a fairly unique hero or villain idea in mind, you'll be surprised as to how close you can tweak things to approach the look you're after.
2) I'm an old school paper and pencil RPG player, and I used to min max pretty hardcore when it came to planning my characters out and how I would advance them. I grew out of that (thankfully), but the first thing I noticed about this game was how much it caters to that min-max school of thought. Let's pretend you want to make a Strong Guy sort of character, or a Distance DPS style of character. The game gives you all the tools you would possibly need in working out your main powers to reflect what you'd see in a comic book, but then just adds more and more power possibilities and means of improving them.
Let's pretend you want to make a sword wielding ninja, just as a rough example. You can end up with more than enough hand to hand combat powers, stuns or crowd control effects, an array of personal defenses or recovery, AND have room for added stuff like invisibility, teleporting (yourself, friends, enemies, or all three), leaping, etc. I mean, they let you cram a LOT of powers on a single character, and you pick everything every step of the way. It's leaps and bounds more diverse than the average class based MMO because of this.
3) To answer your question about quest text, or lore, or having to read stuff - because it's a contemporary modern day setting, it's a heck of a lot easier to relate to the things you'll browse through while adventuring as well as keep track of the plots. It adheres to comic book style events and so forth, so it's not especially deep, nor does it try to be. The later stuff you can dive into towards the mid-level state of the game and further on, yeah. There's some very compelling storylines going on.
But I sorta chuckled and was hooked on my very first week of playing when I read that I was helping to track down some thieving clockwork automatons that had ripped off the parts of an old teacher's electric wheelchair for a project that they were in a rush to complete. I was all... "that's funny and harsh at the same time."
Imho, the main difference you can notice from CoX to the others mmo is that the team gameplay is a lot of more casual and fluent. Crowd control and debuffing take a roll equal if not bigger than the classic holy trinity(damage/tanking/healing). In short, you can get away with many combinatios of characters on a team.
Tanks are sturdy and barely loose aoe aggro, controllers hold/root with certain and long time minions and decently long lts and minor bosses. Buffs and debuffs make a huge difference in combat. This allow the teams to fight groups almost nonstop without worrying of dpsers get creamed or healer get creamed because too much aggro or tanks to get overwhelmed in damage.
While this could look negative, is actually not. It leads teams to have more often than not, areally enjoyable game experience.
The enhacement system while interesting, due to enhacement diversification it limits a bit the possible configurations for each power. I have to agree that the set bonuses from inventions is a pretty good idea and I am guessing that incarnate system should make this even better.
The only 3 turn offs I have are:
1) Cooldown system for almost every power makes the combat to be perceived a bit slower than other games.
2) Body design and specially face design feels a bit dated.
3) while there are a lot of powerset combinations, ATs gives a kind of template in which has to fall each powerset. For instance each mastermind AT gets the formula 3+2+1 pets with 2 buffs. Of course there are exceptions like illusion set for controllers.
Anyway, provided the game will have a freemium approach there is no risk in trying it and obtain the answers you look by yourself.
Group play has always been really fun in this game. You can carve out a lot of niche roles if you want to and still be a nice asset.
Character customization is really nice even if the visuals themselves are a bit dated.
Character planning can be simple or pretty complicated; enhancements really help in letting you build the way you want.
Ouroboros missions are a blast.
It seems like roleplayers are given a much better nod here than most games if that's your thing.
The story arch missions are excellent.
Travel powers. Travel powers. Travel powers. No more horse riding!
If they do it right, I think CoX will be one of the better free-to-play titles.
Warning 1: this is a long post with no "tl:dr" version ( ' ;
Warning 2: this is an edited version of an older post from 4+ years ago
Warning 3: I am biased in favor of CoX but I will try to be as fair as possible.
I think City of Heroes and City of Villains, collectively known as CoX, is the best mmo on the market (although it comes with all the trappings of the mmo genre as well.)
It still has arguably the best customization of character appearance going, breaking down the body into multiple parts that can be mixed and matched with an ever-increasing number of models and 180 colors (as well as color patterns). Your toon is recognizable. By default, for each character you are given 4 costume slots, with the possibility of adding a fifth with salvage (drops) from a Halloween event. You can create totally different costumes as well as change an existing one at a tailor. Lastly, if you join a supergroup and enter supergroup mode, your character can customize how the supergroup colors appear on your costume. Unlike most other MMOs, there is no problem of running into 30 people who look just like you...
It has 14 different classes (Hero: Tanker, scrapper, blaster, controller, defender, plus Hero Epics peacebringer and warshade; Villain: Mastermind, dominator, stalker, corruptor, brute and Villain Epics: Arachnos Widow and Arachnos Soldier). Each non-epic class breaks down into a group of 5-6+ primary power sets and 5-6+ secondary sets making for a ridiculous number of combinations alone. Couple this with the fact that you can further select powers from up to 4 different power pools (that each contains 4 different powers) and an epic power pool set (with 4 different powers) -- does this sound like there isn't that much diversity? Unless you hit upon the truest of min/maxer (basically the fire/kinetics controller), you won't often see similar builds and even then....
Character creation: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_Ds0MlN2l2Y
Powers are further customized with Enhancement slots, upwards of 6 of them, that can affect damage output, knockback, hold duration, recharge time, etc. With the 9th (nineth!) free issue, inventions were implemented into the game. Inventions, among other things, combine different power enhancements (like accuracy and damage) into a single slot. Furthermore, like other games, you can have sets of enhancements that bestow additional benefits as you acquire more of them.
I say this again and again -- combat in CoX is arguably the best, one of the fastest, and most epic in an mmo, short of not being a first person shooter. There is no attack queue, you are absolutely active and engaged. There is collision detection for all objects -- tanks really do tank and prevent melee mobs from breaking through the lines, going straight for the squishies. There is a Z-access! In addition to multi-level battles, air battles are not only possible but the norm. As a hero, your toon is designed to be able to take on roughly 3 even-conned mobs....meaning group battles can entail 25+ mobs at once. Of course, where's the challenge of that you ask? Well, aside from mass numbers, those thugs have lieutenants and bosses ordering them around... they're stronger and quite capable. Of course, we shouldn't forget the Villains, Arch Villains and Giant Monsters (the latter most usually takes a raid-size group of players to take down.) For example (http://youtube.com/watch?v=xFpNMZde-mE)
The AI in the game is pretty decent. Someone (Anofayle?) had a great post on it but to summarize: At the lowest levels, you'll see thugs basically switch between ranged and melee attacks and occasionally flee. Bosses will start using status effects. Eventually, as early as the mid-teens, you'll encounter mobs like the Tsoo sorcerer who ninja heals his comrades. And then later on you see Sky Raider engineers plunking down shield generators to protect his comrades while duking it out. Incarnate trials have started shaking things up further with various unique status effects that challenge the players to find alternate solutions to combat.
Although you can effectively solo any class based on its own capabilities, CoX shines as a group game. Everybody has a job -- crowd control, pets, buffers, tankers, damage dealers. When players come together, synergies naturally come about (unless you have a few weenies in the group -- can't stop that after all....) Need another perk? Perhaps it's the hero mentality, but the community is among the nicest out there and pick up groups (PUG) are EXCEPTIONALLY easy to find. Given the powerset diversity, there's also no formula to a group (i.e. NO trinity!). Largely any combination can be plugged in (although 8 controllers in a group might be slow going...before level 32)
CoX may have been the first to address the problem of outleveling your friends. They implemented a sidekick/exemplar system that allowed 2 players to pair up, either boosting the existing powers of a lowbie up to his friend's level or reducing the character level of a player back down to his lowbie friend's level. This sytem allows xp to be doled out reasonably well and everyone can still participate. The system was further enhanced (Super-sidekicking!) so that the entire team now scales to the mission holder’s level with rewards scaling as well.
Because of how easy it is to get a PUG, the game is casual friendly. There is raid content at the end, namely the Hamidon encounter, issue 10 also implemented zone-wide conflicts in the form of Rikti alien invasions and the Rikti crash-site encounter. There are also a few dedicated PvP zones including Recluse's Victory whose graphics changs as control changes hands between villains and heroes. Then, of course, there is the new Incarnate content for level 50s. Otherwise, the game is storyline driven with several missions per story arc per level as well ad-hoc, randomly generated missions (from police scanners and newspapers for heroes and villains respectively.)
Because it's the superhero genre set in the modern day, it can pull in any storyline without breaking continuity. We have purse snatchers, cultists, mobsters, mad scientists, aliens, supernatural beings, mutants, ninjas, ghost pirates, Bizaaro villains in parallel dimensions – they’re all looking for a piece of the action in Paragon City/"Primal Earth". The lore is rich, independent, ever-evolving and, at times, thought-provoking with the introduction of the morality system and the ability to change sides from hero to vigilante to rogue to villain (and back). There are both minor and major story arcs, and for those that really dig lore, they’ll be very satisfied with how interconnected the game is (the developers maintain a lore 'bible'.)
Technologically-speaking, the game is fairly sophisticated with very nice graphics (not photo realistic though), excellent sound and music, as well as real-world physics rendering (regardless if you have a Phys-X card, software can render everything if you have the cpu.)
The game is heavily supported by the developers and they do interact with community. Cryptic Studios first, now Paragon Studios has opted to release roughly 3 free issues/updates per year (this is year 7.25, free issue #20.5 just released) rather than go the expansion route, with the exception of the City of Villains and Going Rogue games. And these aren't piddly little updates -- Epic character classes have been introduced, new powersets implemented, inventions and the consignment house have been released, new zones and revamps of old zones to keep them fresh as well as new costume parts, bug updates, etc.
So, what's the down side to all of this goodness? Well....
the biggest complaint against CoX is that it is repetitive and grindy. So far as gameplay goes, you can attribute that to any MMO out there -- I think it's a matter of how well you can immerse yourself into any game. There are simply a set number of mission types: patrols, kill x, defeat this mob, retrieve this, talk to him, escort so and so -- every game has them but I think the comic-book fan wants a bit more. If you play 5 hours a day, every day, you will burn out the game. Honestly, I don't see how anyone can do that in any game. I took an extended break (I'm an 78 month veteran, the 84 month award just came out) to follow my friends to WoW, but came back for CoV and have thoroughly enjoyed myself since. One last note about repetition is that even though most missions in CoX are instanced, the diversity of maps is quite lacking, particularly cave and warehouse maps. New maps get slipped in with updates but it's noticeable still.
the second biggest complaint is that PvP hasn't lived up to expectations (Vajuras has posted about this quite a bit). PvP was first introduced with Arena battles as the game was heroes only initially. With the release of CoV, there are 4 dedicated zones for pvp. Supergroup raids don't really happen that often. Many of the old-timers blame the implementation of PvP (even with arenas) for the nerf bat that has been taken to some of the classes.
CoX end game is still thin on content. With the exception of the Hamidon encounter, the Rikti Warzone, some PvP in Recluse's Victory and a few Task Force missions, the introduction of Incarnate content has been very much welcomed but it pales to the likes of WoW which has chains of Raid Level content. Here I think, CoX is more about the journey than the end. There are multiple story arcs that you can't necessarily see with just one toon (unless you use the flashback system) and the diversity of skillsets (and character design) lend itself to making multiple alts. It's not a long-term solution for Hard core players and Achievers but it's a very satisfying one for explorers and casual types.
Many people left after the issue (issue 4) that included "enhancement diversification". Essentially the developers implemented diminishing returns on enhancements if you slot more than 3 of the same type in a power. You still get a benefit, it's simply not a straight-line calculation any more. Many people put this on par with the Star Wars Galaxies NGE in terms of radical change to a game and the way the developers thrust it onto the community. If you came in after the fact, you would never know about it and with the Invention system, it is totally mitigated, but some of the old-timers still complain that this happened to the game mechanics and the community.
Lastly, some people need loot and the outwardly visible, eye-popping ways to see how a character evolves. Enhancements for powers have always dropped but that wasn't deemed enough. With issue 9, the developers introduced salvage drops to create invention enhancements as well as costumeparts that otherwise were inaccessible. As mentioned earlier, you can change the look of your hero/villain at any time by visiting the tailor but it won't happen because of direct accomplishment. Furthermore, some people need to get the Sword of Slaying that is popular at the moment or else purchase fireball 4 after fireball 1, fireball 2, and fireball 3. In CoX, as you acquire powers, they scale up in effectiveness as you level and use enhancements rather than simply get replaced -- that was the design decision made on how your character evolves in the game.
But that's it, like anything else, you take the bad with the good --For me, I think the good far, far outweighs any of the bad and people looking for a new game ought to give it a try if the genre appeals to them, especially now that it is going free2play. After 7 years, CoX still runs with a healthy population and (even with fanbois padding vanguard and lotro) still ranks in the top 10 games list here at mmorpg.com. It doesn't aspire to WoW numbers; it's a niche game that won't appeal to everyone but it's made many people very happy, even for brief spells. Aside from the dedicated masses like myself, even the people who leave say that for the 1-6 months they played, it was great. Considering the game has a free trial and can be purchased on the cheap (including your first month free), and it’s going free2play, you would be hard pressed to say you did not get value for your time and money.
Whew....
WOW! Talk about a good post. Thanks for all of that.
I definitely want to play this game now, but I really want to wait until Freedom to get the revamped starter zones and new beginning content.
No many people LEFT because of the grouping trash incarnates became. They left for Champions Online, you can solo the raid content in that game and there's so many people playing it, there's multiple zones for each city. That's why they left. They talk about it all the time in global chat. I wasin CoH last nigh to check and yeah around midnight to 5 am there's 14-20 people on of various levels on 3 of the servers i played. Not enough to ever group and I never should have to anyway. for years it was fine until war pig got bumped up. It's sad really. I had predicted the game failing and going F2P thanks to m y inside connections I have SHOWN on the official CoH forums before. F2P will fail too, unless they let people solo e v e r y t h i n g . In champions a lot of people talk about wanting to go afk or not devote a lot of time to sections and you don't have to. You don't have to wait on others or anything. In CoH you do, if you can even find people online playing.
lol. Posting drunk again? ( ' ;
Amateur response. No, it's all facts. Why don't you go play both and find out for youself. Oh wait you probably do or have, but currently can't prove you do now. Believe what you want, it's always wrong.
Being unable to find a team easily on off hours before a game goes F2P and is admittedly suffering from a decrease in population doesn't really call for doom about not being able to find a team across the board once the game goes F2P and is readily available to more players. The idea that the only way to make the game survive in the long-term is to make all present and future content trivial and soloable by anyone is just laughable. Seriously, CoH has what, TFs and Trials that you need a team for and that's it. Really not a lot of forced teaming and the folks who don't want to become VIPs won't even need to worry about the trials.
Like all F2P titles CoH will most likely succede or fail based on the quality and pricing of the content available in it's cash shop. The speed at which they revamp the old and admittedly often repetative hero-side content and maps will very likely factor in somewhat as well.
Also, as noted on the official forums there are servers that have higher populations during the hours you're looking to play. I can understand not wanting to transfer your characters or not wanting to start over with a new name. Heck, I can even understand not liking a specific chunk of the server's 'popular' crowd and not wanting to play with them. They are there though.
It should also be noted that Positron is the man behind the trials (and is the current lead dev) and not War Witch. Just so you know who to propperly complain about.
Travel power, that actually integrates with combat, like you can super fast run through a dungeon. Super fast run+cloak means something that works.
No loot, autolooting of whatever trivial things that drops, trivial in that you can generally buy something similar, which is not very vital to power throughput till end game.
Very very fancy character creation, you can customise and create something very unique looking.
Fast combat.
But very very limited endgame playing. Not much to do.
Now I will put in my two cents worth on this. I have played COX for years, including back when it was just COH. I have also played many other MMOs, including WoW, Guild Wars, etc. As others have very skillfully posted here, there are numerous things that make this game different. So rather than try to make a list, I want to say a bit more about just the one thing that, for me, has always been the biggest advantage that COX has over other MMOs.
The community.
Just to scratch the surface here: As a low level character, you are in a tough street fight. Another character who is not on your team and doesn't even know you from Dr. Adam is running by, and either heals you or buffs you as they pass, often without even waiting to be thanked. This is a very common in-game occurence. High level characters (50s in particular) frequently hold costume contests in starting areas and give out piles of influence (in-game money) to the winner. I have actually had a high level character hand my lowbie a pile of influence for no particular reason! These sorts of things are a bit less common in the COV and Praetorian areas, but generally players there are more experienced players anyway, plus those things DO still happen in those areas, just less often.
The community is, as a whole (although of couse not everyone), more tolerant of and helpful to noobs than you will find in most other MMOs. (Yes, I still remember what it was like to be a noob, even though I was young back when dinosaurs roamed the earth). Helpful tips from fellow players - not to mention forums like this - abound.
Ok, Ok, the old guy will now get off of his soapbox and shut up.
I earned my 36 month vet reward badge before I quit this game, and I think I'll dabble in it again when it goes free to play, so here are my impressions of the game.
The powers and power customization are really easy to understand and get a handle on. It's a complete contrast to Champions Online, which I just found difficult and confusing. The system CoH uses is really unique and quite simple to understand while at the same time having quite a bit of built in complexity that lets you really customize how your character plays.
The story is actually pretty good IMO. Nowadays I rarely read quest dialogue, I mostly find it to be absolutely worthless in MMOs as the writing is almost a universally ignored aspect of the genre. However, with City of Heroes I found myself reading almost everything I could simply because the story is a lot more complex and deeper than the average MMO story. There are major overaching storylines, like Incarnates and the Well olf the Furies, Praetoria and their invasion of Primal Earth (our Earth is just one of many, many different Earths that exist in many, many different dimensions,) the Hamidon, and the Coming Storm, there are big storylines like the Wheel of Destruction mission arc, and there are many minor storylines. The heroes are well developed with unique personalities, and you get to be one of them. The villain groups are interesting and have neat histories, some of my favourite include The 5th Column, Arachnos, and the Carnival of Shadows. There is a rich history and lore that covers dozens and dozens of superheroes that have lived in, defended, and even dies for Paragon City (Galaxy City is named after Galaxy Girl, Talos Park is named after Talos, and each of these heroes has a unique history you can discover throughout the game.) The story even ties in with the excellent and addictive Badge System where you learn exploration badges that tell you a little about the zone you are exploring and history badges where you read stuff around the city to learn about the history of Paragon City. I also think that Arachnos is one of the coolest supervillain groups I've ever encountered.
Another way you can tell that the story is deep and memorable is the number of references that get worked into casual conversation on the boards for the game. You'll often find refrences to stuff like Fusionette (the most inept superhero ever,) Hami, and "It's a Nemesis plot!"
The story became hugely m ore complex and deep with the arrival of Going Rogue. Your hero or villain can now switch sides and you can navigate the complex moral tapestry that is Praetorian Earth. The story keeps getting better and better IMO.
City of Heroes is primarily a group oriented game, that means that it is far easier, far more rewarding, and far more fun in a group. There is absolutely no excuse for finding a group in the game because of the super-sidekicking system, the vwery friendly community, and the fact that there are pl.enty of people playing it.
You looked for groups from midnight to 4 AM? And you wondered why there were only a few people playing? I've been playing CoH for years and in my experience midnight to about 8 or 9 AM has always been the slow time and is not at all an accurate barometer of the game's population.
Further, those who want to solo everything are welcome to Champions Online. I've tried playing it on three different occassions and IMO it simply isn't a very good game, especially when compared to all the awesome stuff you can do in CoH.
I also severely doubt your doom and gloom predictions for F2P. I think CoH is a viable game now, and will be even more of a viable game when Freedom hits.
I think you both are taking the things to the extreme. About grouping, it might be a server issue, some servers are friendlier than others and also being on a SG helps.
Each game(CoX and CO) has done some stuff better than the other, it is a matter of how much you value each aspect. Now that it is going f2p I think I will hang out a bit at CoX, I should have a few additional character slots from time as subscriber. However, I am not sure how long I will stick long, since STO is going f2p and I will definitely try it. So many games so little time to play them.
I've played many MMORPGs. While other posts here have already outlined the reason why, I'll add my vote for CoX being the best MMORPG available currently. The only reason I'm not subbed right now is that after playing five years worth of the game, you need a change pace.
How is combat in CoX? Is it tab target only? or does it have multiple options like Champions Online? I like the way it goes auto target centre of camera =
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Depends on the type of attack. A pure AOE is just targeted at the gound somewhere within your range. For a single-target or AOE/cone attack, you have to pick a target by TAB or click. Generally, a targetted AOE attack (that puts an effect on the ground around the target) wont fire if the selected target is not on the ground.
So its the same as most MMO?
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Honestly if i were reading other peoples descriptions of combat in the game i'd be inclined to think the same, however that doesnt account for how the combat feels in CoH compared to other MMO's. Personally i think it feels a lot faster, more action orientated and less boring than in most games. I wouldn't say it's the best combat in MMO's today but its far from the worst.
As an example I tried WoW after playing CoH at launch and it just felt so stale and restrictive with how the combat felt in comparison, I just couldn't abide the staring at a bar filling up for 2-3 seconds before the skill went off in it and other games. CoH still has some time for skills to activate but they use animations rather than cast bars which make it feel all that more fluid. I still make the same comparison to this day with most games that release.
It is however tab and lock on targetting which sounds like something you don't like so all I can say is give a try when it goes free as you may well just enjoy yourself in spite of your preferences.
Yea I'm just doing a bit of research on the game now.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
In some way, it works similar to some wow classes. In CoH dps is mainly optimized through attack chains, which are a series of powers queue in such an order so the maximum dps or dpe can be achieved. The main reason for attack chains like happen in wow is that most key powers have cooldowns. My only gripe with this system is that sometimes attack chains include powers that are clearly not meant to do that kind of damage, like doing an AoE power to a single target. Another side effect is that the combat might be perceived as kind of slow at early levels.
CO system, on the other hand, is based mainly on powers with no cooldown, the main limitation is energy. The optimization is based mainly on keeping gaining energy through some combos, to avoid going to the default energy source the low damage energy builder. Due to the lack of cooldown the combat might be perceived a little faster than CoH especially at the early levels.
Both combat systems are enjoyable, I would say it is a matter of taste.
I've often wondered what it is about CoV that makes it such a blast to play with other people. In most other games, I avoid other people like the plague because the community is so meh. When I play CoV, it's quite the opposite and I'm rarely disappointed by even random PUGs. I even go out of my way to group up for even the most mundane stuff like street sweeping.
The game has a lot of great things going for it, but community was always one of the best of them. The Pyriss story arc is up there too. I still feel guilty about it, even after all this time.