A week into it, and my highest character right now is a munitions/gadget/psi Chow Yun Fat wannabe. I liked some of the blaster trees, but munitions seems to really cover everything in terms of capabilities that soloing content with it is fun (even without the mind-numbingly awesome mini-mines). Plus, swinging is the best travel power by far in terms of being able to interactively guide your way through the areas. Being able to swing in and out of alleyways whilst still dropping in on a group of mobs is terrific.
How are the melee power sets, specifically the might and martial arts sets? I’d like to get one going, but I’m afraid it will peter out in the mid-teens.
Finally, the XP nerf hurts around level 20. All I’ve had from 19-22 are missions at least one, if not two levels above me. Luckily, I’ve been able to handle most of them. Aside from the emergency missions (which seem to offer half the normal XP of other missions), this is a big problem as I’m starting to get mainly level 25 missions and that is getting a bit more problematic.
The lack of varied leveling paths is the greatest weakness of the game, imo. I haven’t gotten past 17 with any of my alts yet, but I’m not looking forward to following the exact same linear progression with successive characters.
I long for different starting zones like LotRO, Warhammer Online, and WoW. For a game this alt-intensive, that should have been a design priority. Instead we get what feels like a rehash of CoX’s tutorial zone. It also doesn’t help that about 80% of the ingame sound effects appear to have been lifted straight out of CoX.
I can only pray that the game will survive long enough for the devs to greatly expand the low level content.
I hardly if ever group because I usually have time to just zip in and do a little and zip out.
Could someone who’s playing let me know if this is worth picking up for single player PvE?
Mordrak
1784
You have to remember, some of us make characters according to concepts that we enjoy playing rather than what kills everything in one shot.
Edit: Here’s a costume bingo board, which is pretty funny… Luckily I only think two of my characters fit those descriptions. Well… maybe three.
There’s also a character creation contest on the main page only open to US. I’d prefer 17k in cash to a Scion. shrugs
Moore
1786
I’d agree it isnt, but I hate MMOs. I play for 30 days and then stop. CoX had me popping in here and there for a month to see if they fixed anything.
idrisz
1787
No No, you build your character skills than make the story around this characer, which IMO is way better than building a character then pick the skills.
Fozzle
1788
Oh I think it is. Even if you only play for a month, you can zip in and get about anything done in game in a small amount of time, and even if you only play it the one month free, you still got a month worth of gametime out of a pretty game with a good feel to it.
Murbella
1789
What is wrong with trenchcoat munitions (if you’re munitions, you’re almost certainly going to be using at least one pistol ability)? I assume it is a matrix thing which would mean i’m safe if the character is female?
ah i lucked out, my red demon doesn’t have a tail, woot!
My munitions hero does wear a trenchcoat, but other than that i don’t think any really fit the bingo descriptions.
I do want to try making a space marine hero though kind of.
balut
1790
Let’s see, my characters fit costume bingo with:
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Another Video Game Character: Nekomata (based off of Taokaka)
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Ninja or Pirate: Otohime (ice/dual swords ninja)
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Space Marine: Adeptus Mechanicus (WH40k Techmarine)
idrisz
1791
only one I see there that fits is female with bikini.
Mordrak
1792
Yeah, it’s a better way to make characters if you’re 13…
Seriously that’s a fine way to make characters, and if you’re doing for PVP or just from a game perspective if challenges require it, you really don’t need a backstory. That’s just not as much fun for me.
Anyway, the bingo board… it depends on what we consider counts.
Demonica is a demon, but she’s purple not red.
Supper Saddam is power armor, but is that enough to be considered an Iron clone? Saddam does need his suit to live which is a key feature of the Iron Man story.
I don’t have anyone in a bikini, but demonica wears a very short skirt… does that count? Heh, so 2-3 ish on my end.
balut
1793
I gotta agree with Mordrak on character building. Anyone can min/max a build, then try to build an actual character and backstory around that, but for me it’s more enjoyable to create a character concept first and build off of that.
Characters done that way are rarely as interesting.
I would argue that the mechanics aren’t strong enough to make it a terribly compelling month without the “massively multiplayer” part going on. If you love character building, though, I could see getting your $50 out of it. The editor is pretty sweet.
I like the mechanics. It’s got more variety in viable character design than any MMO I’ve played, even with the balance issues they’re ironing out. I like the action much better than CoHs cooldown rotation too.
idrisz
1797
Actually it’s much easier to build a character and back story, then to think up an original one after you pick your skills, it forces you to come up with original ideas if you are giving limits.
since I picked mostly Ice + archery, it’s much harder for me to come up with an original character design than someone just happens to think up power armor saddam.
Mordrak
1798
It is nice, but it’s not really much more than CoH’s Builder 1.5. After seeing the APB tools available to players (vector drawing program in game, free placement of decals, hair modifications, etc), it’s not quite as impressive. Even being CoH 1.5 it’s woefully lacking in combinations that should be available as well as missing quite a bit of variety of color/pattern designs for tights and cape options. They really need to offer a stylized African and Asian head model with the same sliders. You can make some nice faces if you put some work into it, but it’s mostly bound to European varieties
They should also open up the hulking and vixen stances to women and men respectively, while offering a meaningful pec slider options for guys and maybe splitting women’s waist slider into waist and hips, because you’re really not changing her waist with that slider.
Absolutely. Characters designed around mechanics then tacking on a story are rarely as interesting as those done the other way around.
Of course, going story first means you’ll have to toss out designs that just don’t work mechanically, and will likely have to take /some/ liberties to make heroes work, especially when it comes to special effects and animations.
Fortunately Champions makes this less painful than other MMOs, but it’s certainly more difficult than in the PnP; well, except that it doesn’t take an experienced GM and an hour plus to work out characters’ game mechanics…
Hahaha! As if it’s that hard to come up with a lame backstory that lets you take all the best powers.
Dude, it’s alright! We’re not going to castigate you for power-gaming. ;-)
