Thinking about combat in CoX got me wondering: what was it about combat that made it so darned FUN?
In every other MMO I have played, after the initial shine wore off, I often actively avoided combat if I could proceed to a goal without it.
For all 7 years I played CoX, I actively sought out combat, regardless of the AT I was playing.
Other MMOs: "Sigh, guess I actually have to fight these guys."
CoX: "Look, more enemies! Mua ha ha!!"
(Yeah, I know: 'mua ha ha' sounds villainous, but it's the best expression I can find to describe how I felt in CoX combat regardless of alignment.)
I'm not sure exactly why this was, and whether I'm alone in this feeling -- but I definitely I hope CoT can give me that same experience.
—
Spurn all ye kindle.
- Most Visual and Sound FX were convincingly good.
- Each AT was balance enough, no real fear of Con lvl groups taking you down so easily.
- Enemy Groups were'nt Too Cleaver, so its never a Gamble. Just Jump in Head 1st. NP. ;)
- Inspirations. :)
- etc...
All of that, plus it wasn't "marionette" combat where you control every single movement and twitch of your hero. More like you were making choices for him/her and watching them enact your choices in awesome superhero action. Much more fun and relaxing.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
For me, it was about applying my heroes' strengths to different combat situations. My priorities in combat would vary from hero to hero. For instance, with my Ice/Storm Controller, my priority was to lock down enemies and use Herdicane™ to corral and contain the battle. With my Beam/EM Blaster, my priority was to seek and destroy the biggest and baddest baddie in the group. With my Plant/Emp Controller, my priority was to toss out controls and keep buffs rolling on as many teammates as possible.
Each combination of powers and attributes allowed me to play the game in very a different way. It's that kind of variety that kept me so interested in rolling alts and teaming up with other players. The freedom to play the way I chose to play and still be an asset to a team was very inspiring.
I liked that it was non-twitch combat - and the animations and fx made the combat feel more "solid" and powerful.
I was thinking about an aspect of this, this morning. There were two key elements that kept combat interesting for me (although they did not always apply, or apply equally, of course):
1. 'Click' powers that allowed me to be pro-/reactive. I mean specifically such click powers that are optional, rather than 'you barely qualify as a tank/DPS unless you use this power on cooldown' powers. I want the, "Oh, crap, there are [i]two[/i] EBs in this group?! OVERDRIVE!" powers.
2. The standard attack chain doesn't use all the attack powers available to the character. There may have two or three (or four) powers that the average player only uses when fighting bosses, or against large groups, or whatever. It was not the sole factor, but I can fairly precisely pinpoint the "bored now" moment, when I decided to leave Champions Online, to the time I realized that my level 24 (IIRC) powered armor character already had the full attack chain that I'd be using from then on out.
Bonus:
3. Many of the powers had fairly to very cool animations.[color=red]*[/color]
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[color=red]*[/color] Between the animations and long cooldowns, I never really could do much with the psi sets.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Well for me:
1) Crowd control actually had teeth. A specialist in crowd control could completely debilitate multiple opponents indefinitely. From that point on, the outcome of the fight was inevitable. Even someone with secondary ability in crowd control, like an ice/ice blaster, could perma-mez an opponent or two.
2) With the right choices of powers and equipment, passive defenses could be entirely sufficient for most characters. No blocking, and no spamming of self-heals for characters whose concept precludes such things! Aside from the overly campy tone, this dependence on constant blocks and self-heals is what bothers me most about Champions.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I liked the non-twitchy combat. I'm old. Not that good at twitchy.
I liked that each AT and sometimes even different sets within the AT played differently and I'd use different strategies. It kept the content fresh for me.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Thanks, folks -- you've all helped me define my feelings better. I agree with everything everyone has said. Some really good insights here -- stuff I never really thought about before but realise now was really at the heart of what made combat special for me.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I am not as agile as I once was> Not very good at the twitchy stuff anymore.
With mezzes and pets> I can let strategy do it for me.
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That's true, there Was a strategy involved in attacking mobs. You could 'show yourself' to a fraction of the enemy and have some control over aggro. You could attack 'outliers' and whittle-down a large group, or snipe-and-duck, or Taunt. You were not 'forced' to jump in and accept the Alpha Strike from the whole group.
(Alright, yeah, my Incarnate Tanker could and Did enjoy jumping into the middle of a large crowd and soaking up everything they could throw at him. BUT he wasn't 'required' to do that.)
By the same token, groups would not simply ignore you shooting at the guy they're playing cards with, like in some other games I've played.
And, yeah, I'd like to reinforce the issue of 'crowd control with teeth'. A Controller, or a character with strong controlling side-effects could lock down the enemy and take them out... after a while. It took time and strategy, but it was a valid method of defeating the enemy. A Controller could solo most content without fear. I've not seen the like in any other game, even ones that tout their 'crowd-controller' classes or specs.
Be Well!
Fireheart
The best part of the coh combat was the graphics and the ability to set in my recliner with my daughter in my lap and just play. There was no jumping around hit a now press b bull. I could set there with my daughter and run end game stuff without having to be so emersed into the controls that I needed to throw her across the room. That and yea the animations and effects were great ;)
"Gotcha!"
1. It's non-twitch (i.e. it has reticle-targeting instead of FPS-style crosshair targeting, and how fast or well-timed you click has no bearing on success or failure), and success past the weakest enemies depended to some extent on actually using your character's abilities. Champions feels like I'm just spamming my strongest attack until I'm out of endurance (or whatever they called it in CO), then spamming my end-builder until I'm full again, repeat until stuff is dead. DCUO felt like I was just mashing buttons in general, and the fact that I couldn't pass one part of the tutorial for the life of me (which I eventually figured out was because I didn't have certain gear equipped)-- actually made me want to quit before I even completed the tutorial (which I did eventually complete, then gave up before doing anything in the main part of the game).
2. The character building system.
-- AT's each had a clear-cut main point behind what they did, plus 1-2 minor roles on top of that. You knew how to expect the character to perform when you picked your AT.
-- Powers were tailored to the AT... For example, depending on whether you picked a ranged, melee, or control AT, "ice powers" were a totally different beast for each even though they all had an inherent slow/sleep effect.
-- I didn't have to lock myself out of certain powers just because I wanted to add stealth or some other commonly-available side-effect to my character.
-- The concept of each power having predetermined effects that are all present when you choose it the first time and then using enhancements to augment those effects for each individual power you had seemed much more intuitive than, for example, CO's system where you were trying to figure out what powers were affected by what primary stat and by how much (which also played into which piece of gear was better than another, etc.), and adding more levels of the same power to give it added effects, damage, etc.
-- All of the general mechanics/formulae used behind-the-scenes were complex enough to keep the player engaged, but simple enough that you didn't have to do the equivalent of calculus homework to understand how the game works.
3. NO FREAKIN' LOOT! At least not in the way it's normally thought of. I hate the idea of a game being designed with the idea that every player is expected to persue and/or compete over the most rare and powerful random loot in the game that requires doing the exact same thing over and over again (i.e. killing the same specific enemy, running the same mission, etc.). When CoX first came out, they approached loot with an "all-inclusive" philosophy-- everyone had access to the same generic enhancements, and all of it could easily be bought from stores. Even when they later added Inventions that were random drops, they made it so any enemy could drop any of a large pool of recipes, and the way the player-driven market was handled still meant that even if you didn't get what you wanted as a drop, any sort of playing could still be viewed as working towards what you actually wanted just by collecting inf. (directly from kills/missions, or from selling what you did get as a drop). Add in tickets and merit rewards, and you really can't go wrong with the "loot" system the game had.
4. Despite it being an MMO, significant progress could always be made by soloing, even if some builds did so slower than others. I tend to have a completionist when it comes to games, so I often don't want to do whatever makes me level the fastest just so I can max out 15 different alts in the shortest time possible. I could get away with this in CoX because much of what I wanted to do didn't require other people's help, and when something did (like TF's), those on the team didn't have to be of a certain build or all that high of a competence level... except for maybe any Master-of run of the higher-end TF's (Of course, those are what ultimately caused me to quite the game, but that's another discussion).
I don't mind playing in groups for some stuff, but I don't want it to be a requirement to make basic progress.
More good stuff. I agree with all your points, sigma. 2 is especially interesting.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I read this thread like a week ago but wasn't sure of the answer. But I've thought about it and think I have my answer.
Secondary effects of your abilities were noticeable. That might seem minor but it adds to the "special snowflake" factor. In games like GW2 most SE's are so minor they might as well not be there and if it has a lingering effect that's very noticeable it's likely the main purpose of the skill.
In CoH you could bank your strategy on those effects and they were noticeable. You could get some nice burning with fire powers, slow effects could stack a lot with ice, when you swung around a Titan weapon it felt like it, and dark powers could make you untouchable. You could build off strategies with your power combo's secondary effects, like my Shield/Dark tanker stacked -acc, +def and a heal attack to survive well and shield ' ability to do greater damage when in the thick of combat and dark's soul drain ability.
Finding your combo's synergy and learning how to capitalize off that made learning how to play your character a part of developing the character itself.
That's another excellent point I hadn't thought of before.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Wow. That really is a key point and it never occurred to me. It added a fun layer of complexity of build and role and enhanced the game in many subtle but profound ways. Great point.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Thanks for the agreements, I put a good deal of thought into that answer. It also brought back a lot of memories of my old characters. It's even doubtful I'll be able to remake most of them because their abilities seem tied to CoH style.
I also started feeling like a wannabe-Stan Lee, going on my 3rd dozen set of characters all with some unique role in my story Tapestry
Same here, dude. Me, my son, and my wife each had several characters in their own mini-story within the CoH Universe- I guess like the Avengers within the Marvel Universe. It's all about the story. It's all about the story. I just haven't been able to find a game that really lets me tell a story down to the game mechanics like CoH did.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
What made combat FUN?
[b]>>-----> SCRAPPERLOCK <-----<<[/b]
No other game that I have played has either allowed, or supported, [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Scrapperlock]Scrapperlock[/url] like City of Heroes did. Heck, City of Heroes made Scrapperlock [i]the way to play[/i] for an entire Archetype.
With Scrapperlock, it was not only possible [i]but expected[/i] to have a single hero/villain dive into a dogpile, beat the snot out of ALL them, and then run to the next group to do it again! And again! And again! And just keep the steamroller going.
Most games work on a 1v1 or 1v2 basis as the normal encounter, with 1v3 becoming a potentially life threatening challenge and 1v4 often being very likely to be fatal. City of Heroes often didn't even *start* to get dangerous until 1v5, and with Controls and Debuffs could even neutralize 1v10 under the right conditions. All of this led to [b]Target Rich Environments[/b] in which the Players were ALWAYS outnumbered ... and the Players were still usually victorious. All of that contributed to a sense of (small i) "invulnerability" that played right into the entire super mythos of being powerful (and with the Incarnate system, verging on $DIETY-like).
But really, the cornerstones of what made City of Heroes such a combat rich and combat welcome environment was Scrapperlock and Controls/Debuffs that mattered.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Another very good point I had thought about in the past but forgotten (maybe cuz it's been so long). This enemy-to-character ratio even applied to squishies, albeit starting out low, but increasing vastly as they levelled.
I now recall the first few MMOs I tried after CoX and how weak I felt because I couldn't handle more than a small number of enemies. Even with SWTOR, which is the only other MMO I've played to max lvl, this ratio didn't seem to change much as one grew in power.
Spurn all ye kindle.
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1 Hero in Terra Volta.
10 Sky Raiders hunting autographs.
Guess who won the fight with the Mind Controller using [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Controller_Control.Mind_Control.Telekinesis]Telekinesis[/url] (before it got nerfed into the ground by a Max Target cap of *5*!)?
Ah ... Ms Givings! I still miss you ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I totally agree. I loved rushing in with my tank and just causing havoc with uppercut on the most dangerous target and stomping my foot and knocking down all the enemies. Yet there were smaller groups like Malta that could give you problems if you couldn't lockdown or take out the sapper(s). I remember getting stuck in combat one time because the sapper drained all my endurance and was stunning me yet he couldn't do enough damage to actually hurt my tank. I had to have a friend teleport me away.
I also agree with you that I have yet to find an MMO where I'm looking at a huge mob of 'whites' sprinkled with a couple of 'yellows' and suddenly this evil grin comes across my face as I target one thinking 'They're all going down!'
Scrapperlock is Heroic. Not the only way to play. Not the only way people effectively played in CoH. But it IS an Heroic playstyle.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
<<
"Gotcha!"
For me, what made CoX combat so awesome, was the great special effects for superpowers.
Energy Blast looked like it should...powerful blasts of energy; you could smash people around. it looked good.
The travel powers support this; the game let you look like a real superbeing.
I used to love putting Power Burst on auto mode, and watch it fire off and obliterate enemies while I was in combat.
Too bad the game didn't have real-time lighting so your fire could make shadows dance or so your energy blasts would paint the room the color of your energy pulses.
That is one thing that I loved in Tabula Rasa... your weapons and the effects that they had gave off a surrounding glow on items and nearby scenery.
Sure, they didn't cast their own shadows.. which I can understand for technical reasons, but it was nice seeing the glow of your flaming sword on your armour...
options.
they were yours.
you tooled with the powers. each one.
once you had picked out some, you still had others in reserve. it was your invention. and when it worked, it was not a mass of hit points that won, it was your strategy. your design that won. found a way to hold a boss that no one hold can by layering tons of holds? awesome. knock down that 45 foot tall monster? awesome. how awesome can you make yourself?
What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau
I liked the way the UI was setup, I also like how I could stack 3 rows of powers. Star Trek Online has something similar, sadly Champions Online does not (not that I can find).
Control of the character felt natural, the game almost felt like a FPS when in combat. AI often attacked differently so for the most part "binds" did not work as effectively as manually choosing the order to use your powers to attack.
Finally, a great community. Always there was someone higher, or just passing by who would give me a free buff or heal, or help take out a group I agro'ed by accident, and cannot defeat. Teamwork and community was huge and totally awesome in CoH/CoV. It seems to be less so in other games, even CO.
All I do is get spammed to join super groups or whatever they are called in various games. For the longest in CoH, it was very rare to be spammed to join, and it felt more like an honor to join a group. But this is just my experience.
To find out what really made City of heroes/Villans combat feel so fun, try looking up some old videos of game play/combat. That should refresh your memory.
I am so sad I did not take more photos, or any videos. Also, I am sad my one Hard Drive with most of my photos was damaged. And I was unable to find a similar drive to replace the circuit board.
+1.
What where those MMO's and what sort of benefits did joining their SG give? (ONLY the SG?.. not so much the new players that joined up?)
I dunno, I got spammed more for team invites in CoX than other games, even when I was set my note up to be saying "soloing right now". I didn't want to block team invites *fully* though, just in case a friend needed help and quickly slung me an invite. Yeah, blocking those caused some embarrassing moments.
Notable exception being World of Warcraft, where I got spammed with a guild invite *as I logged in* on a newly created toon.
In terms of benefits for guilds, the ones that spam out the invites tend to be more of the dubious nature anyway in my mind. They generally want to increase the "status" of the guild quickly and easily, and so therefore send out these invites rapid fire (typically via an addon, although you can do something similar just by being in the starting area and having a macro setup and targeting people as they log in. I could write a macro which invites the target to guild...)
Once in the guild, anything you do ends up sending money/reputation/guild XP out immediately, which means that the guild can then spend that on various benefits. However, the money that they get (which is a percentage of what you earn off every drop) could well be looted out by the officers... and then possibly sold later on for real money.
But then again, the auto invites *sometimes* (not always note) are the ones who don't spam their guild ad's in the global chats.
But seeing as I generally avoid the random invites from anyone that I don't recognise, no matter the game (even in CoX), it was just something for me to click off the screen.
At least in Wildstar I can set it up so that *by default* you have to disable an option to join a guild by a stranger (ie non account level friend/circle member), which is interesting when you are inviting alts to the guild... you have to remember to disable that option.
Animations.
I was once again trying to get into TSW and reading a thread on their forums about why people don't like the combat and someone said "most of the complaints I hear are actually about the animations, not the mechanics".
And then I thought about why I didn't like Champions or DCUO, and, while there was more than one reason, I realized a really big one--perhaps the biggest--was that even though in Champions I got to where I was quite frankly OP ( as much as I was as an Incarnate in CoH), nothing ever LOOKED or FELT powerful.
No bass. No rumble. No careening bodies or entire rooms locked under ice. No truly satisfying feeling animations.
In DCUO I felt like some guy in tights running around with a pop-gun, and in Champions, while I was tremendously powerful, I never FELT like it. And in TSW, while it's a brilliantly conceived game, you feel like a scared little rabbit (which is probably what they were actually going for).
So, a big part of the answer to this thread is what one insightful player noticed about the vast majority of people's complaints about combat in the TSW forums.
Animations.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
++++1111
Not just that, but a stone tank with Granite on SHOULD FEEL like he/she takes 10 years to traverse one Zone. ;)
For me, everything came down to the control I had over my enemies, and the way I could take it at my own pace without having to worry about positioning and active movement.
When I say "Control", I mean the ability basically everyone had to stun, toss, and otherwise debilitate their enemies, and that's before we get to actual controllers. Classes like that don't really exist in anything else I've played, and all of the status effects seem to be directed at you instead of controlled by you, and the ones you do aren't very noticeable and don't last long. CoH wasn't like that at all. Barring a few special abilities bosses had, everyone seemed to play by the same rules.
I was playing another MMO just today, and thought "Hey, isn't it annoying that if a badguy walks directly behind me or to one side of me, it tells me I can't see him and my attack fails? Wait, didn't City of Heroes just have my character swivel around by himself, thus mitigating that annoyance entirely? I mean, he was already targeted, it's not like I forgot where he was."
And in most other MMOs I've played, the characters are constantly being beaten down by groups of under five guys, while it was possible to nuke/wade through swarms and swarms of groups single-handedly in CoH. CoH really made you feel POWERFUL.
I am not a clever man.
+1 to what spectral said after herding a mob and then having 3 blasters all nuke at the same time made my smile curl like the grinch
Someone I know paid for lifetime sub during CO's beta, then ended up almost never playing it after the nerf-patch that hit in the first couple of days. Not because they cared about how fast they could level or anything of the sort. Rather, one of the side effects of that patch was to apply a *severe* set of target caps to nearly every AoE in the game, most of which had previously had caps high enough that you basically never hit it, or no cap at all.
The problem with this is that it is one of the very fastest ways to make someone feel 'not super' *plus* incur cognitive dissonance / break suspension of disbelief, because there are folks being visibly unaffected by what you just threw (which is only really acceptable when facing something on the "OMG it is 60 feet tall we're all gonna DIEEEEEEEEE" sort of scale).
The most canonical example I can think of would be the Force PBAoE, which was very clearly designed and animated to have you visibly "turtle" while charging up the attack, then come up and *BOOM* at the same time, sending folks flying every which way but... actually, just every which way. And since Force is all about the secondary KB effects, as a rule you *really* sent people flying. Until the patch, at which point you sent five of those folks flying, and the other five are standing there like nothing happened.
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[color=#ff0000]Developer Emeritus[/color]
and multipurpose sheep
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Really easy one for me to answer.
Power interactions done right plus a huge pool of power sets = much more interesting and varied group combat. That's where CoH really shone for me.
CoH's power interactions made sense. Immobilization cancelled knockdown. Put a knockdown field (eg. ice patch / slick) under a field which made mobs sensibly would try to escape from and you'd turn that aoe fear into an aoe DoT.
Every other MMO where I've seen developers try to do power interactions, they've done them really stupidly on two fronts.
1) The power interactions are often completely arbitrary (eg. TSW). Some power inflicts a state and other powers do more damage against mobs with that state.... for no apparent reason.
2) The power interactions are often effectively compulsory (eg. TSW). Rather than changing how a power behaves (like in CoH) they make certain combinations of power use unequivocally better, so if you want to play your character optimally (don't most of us?!) the combos restrict gameplay. You have to execute powers in that predetermined order. That's much less fun than in eg. CoH where interactions change the effect of powers but don't make them "better". You use powers with or without their interactions depending on what you want to achieve in that moment in combat.
One of the things I enjoyed a lot about CoX combat was tying random sayings what my character did. I had a number of files for each ability and emote with tons of sayings in them. Launching the ability or emote would also launch a random saying from its file.
Some of it was heroic, some malevolent, and most of it was cheesy. Like my fire-wielders doing taunt emotes and saying things like, "You are toast now, bub!" Or saying, "Feel the burn!" when they launched an attack. I would usually turn off those chats when in large events so people didn't tire of them.
It was an awesome way to personalize attacks that added a new dynamic to my gaming. I have never been able to duplicate this in other games.
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To me, the beauty of combat in CoX was that you really felt SUPER. Most MMOs I've played you can take on one or two enemies, maybe a small group for a short amount of time. In CoX, well enhanced and knowing how to play your character, you were a god. You could face an army of enemies for a prolonged period. It really made you feel like a superhero/villain.
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
The number of trash enemies debate keeps ringing in my head.. I like being able to take on massive number of mobs.. but I have to say I'm loving Wildstar's approach where a 1 on 1 fight with a mob enemy (not a boss) can feel really dangerous if you're not careful.
I liked Champions Online's general formula of 3 mob spawn to one hero on basic setting and 5 (with a stronger villain) on harder settings.. but then again I really REALLY had fun when I had a whole bunch of them to go through (like when I was grouped).
I think a 4 to 1 would make me happier for average combat each with a above trash NPC to them.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
My only disagreement with that comes from my perspective as a Controller, or even a mastermind, or a tank. We flourished under those harsh environments with numerous enemies. All of those ATs didn't feel like they lived up to their potential with smaller mobs unless there was an Elite Boss in the group. Groups were our specialties.
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
And there is the new ship hand mission, which at the end has you fighting hordes of mobs at the same time.
I have only done it on my main character, who is almost entirely GA decked out (and one or two pieces from Datascape) and most of them die very quickly. I have still died though!
But it was fun mowing down the skeech in droves (and ending up with a killstreak of over 120...)
I love how we had multiple attacks to use while others where recharging. Yes, generally you'd want to just use what made for the better DPS, but it just felt different than the games who use a GCD system. No idea why.
I do know it felt much better than CO's system where I really only have to use two attacks on a lot of builds.
Next, CoH let us build to beable to mow down the common goons! Then work to being able to handle those who were supposed to be tough. Superheroes don't generally have problems with the minions. It also gave us more enemies than CO does where we run forever and ever to the next group! It felt much more non stop and fast paced!
Word. Power-tripping was definitely part of it. In the Avengers movie, even Captain America took on an endless sea of alien troops.
And there's the other shoe. While mowing Zergs and simultaneously sweating to handle major opponents, there were constant positional and power choice strategies and tactics that changed from situation to situation and enemy group to enemy group that kept things moving and engaging.
It wasn't twitch (I know people are tired of that word) as much as real-time positional and power-choice strategy and tactics. While watching your hero enact truly bad-ass action like a good Superhero movie.
Just frickin hella fun.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I am pretty sure I know the Shiphand you're talking about. I fugging LOVE it!! I play a Medic/Controller there with almost no attacks or heals and in a team it's great being able to make the mission manageable!
I love the same thing in Marvel Heroes because the HITS KEEP COMING!
Crowd Control Enthusiast
As an AR/Dev fan I lived for huge spawns that let me take full advantage of my AoE heavy damage. Oh Full Auto, how I miss spamming you...
Team size is something I think contributed to the fun. Nothing compared to being on an eight person team, whether running an ITF, regular missions, or even street sweeping. whether you were a team made up of diverse ATs and power sets, or even a all emp/archery Defender team you felt unstoppable.
How I wish GW2 had a larger team size, not just for levels of mass destruction, but because a friend or two ends up left out of the party.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
"one of the very fastest ways to make someone feel 'not super' *plus* incur cognitive dissonance / break suspension of disbelief, because there are folks being visibly unaffected by what you just threw..."
Animations are important. It's okay that you miss some people or that knockback doesn't work on a boss, but I'd like to see some animations to reflect that. Hit a lieutenant with a KB power that he shrugs off? Have him stagger, or knock a shoulder back like he felt it but it didn't do the deed. Can't knock down a boss? Have him take a knee, then hit you back. If it takes two knockdowns to bounce the boss then once to a knee and next to the ground feels better.
Just show the effects of the hit. I loved crowd controls in CoH. I loved group knockdowns, like bowling pins being scattered. Being able to show that everything you did either hits or misses, rather than "hits but target is totally unaffected" would make it even better.
Because it's the group effects and one-on-many fighting that make superhero games more super than fantasy ones. For some reason, most of the fantasy MMOs out there are content to let you simply fight one on one, maybe one on two. Star Wars requires you to have NPC backup in order to fight even small groups or bigger opponents.
I'm still hoping for fights in this game to have their own ragdoll physics, so that fights look more like this:
[img=320x250]http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/1969178/81467914.jpg[/img]
and less like this:
[img=320x250]http://pad3.whstatic.com/images/thumb/0/00/Play-World-of-Warcraft-Step-9Bullet3.jpg/670px-Play-World-of-Warcraft-Step-9Bullet3.jpg[/img]
But I don't know what's possible in the engine, or with time. As long as effects are visibly felt by those targeted and we're not on the one-bunny approach to combat, I'll be fine. ;-)
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I'm also hoping that the Momentum that was talked about in terms of turning fights around (or making them harder to turn around because somebody's on a roll) will also pay off in animations and status upgrades.
Maybe as Momentum increases it's easier to get knockdowns/knockbacks/stuns, or the obviousness of the "he's been hit" animation becomes more stark, so they look like heavier shots that he's taking. Maybe Lts. or bosses who cannot be knocked down or back under normal circumstances CAN be knocked down with the right attack with enough Momentum behind it. Finishing blows on bosses while the hero has a bunch of Momentum at his disposal become across-the-room knockouts instead of just having the guy fall down.
All those things help with the feeling.
And when it's the boss with Momentum, and I'm getting pummeled across the room I'm going to sit up and take notice, too. It adds something on both sides.
Flim-flam artist, occasional author and reknowned altoholic.
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I will start off by saying Character Creation. You start off by being faced with thousands of options and variety of who you want to be and how you will define yourself. Everything you chose would define how you were viewed by the world around you. This process(for me) was a many hour process that when I was done, I was invested! When I first entered Atlas Park, I saw this super hero world through my characters eyes. With the colossal Atlas holding the globe across the path from me, the sense of scale was real. Everything was so beautiful and yet at the same time with NPCs walking around it was just a normal day, This made you feel at home with the game and that even though the world looked intimidating and large at first, everything was going to be alright.
You walk up the stairs and talk to Miss Liberty and she starts you on a path that will change your life forever. You receive your first power, overwhelmed with anticipation like a kid at Christmas you go look for the first thug and punch his face in and return your first purse! This gives you a feeling of accomplishment and encouragement to save more DID's(Damsels in distress) and try your luck at even more difficult foes. With each new power your skills and finesse with the art of fighting became more clear. Every movement made was an eloquent dance and was a thing to behold. Once you fully mastered the skills you walked around like a titan. Confronting enemies went from tickling their face to smashing skulls with your shield charge. Every fight that you took part in became more epic and more powerful. You became so entranced with how far you've come but you never forgot where you started from, making the whole journey something that you want to have over and over again.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
To answer this question more point of fact. Everything movement (visual and audio) were correct to what you expected and to what the movement should be. Even more so the control system was brilliantly designed and executed. It allowed for such a variation in gameplay tactics, you could be a button masher or the most tactical strategist on this side of Independence Port.
It seems to me that most games today are focusing really hard on(I guess it's called the twitch system as I have been reading on here) systems that require your full attention and if your attention lapses for a second your dead. I can't speak for everyone but that style of gameplay burns me out and it becomes more of a chore than a fun exciting experience. One thing that makes the combat and overall gameplay amazing is that there are options to how invested your attention needs to be. As one person said, you can split your attention and still have fun. For the case example, you can watch/play with your children and play the game both successfully, you don't have to choose between one task or the other.
You could be consumed with the action giving 100% to every choice, or you could give 10% and still have satisfying results. You could be in the middle of a heated battle with your team, get a telephone call on the land line and literally get up walk over, answer it and walk back and still be alive and continue on where you left off.
The fact that your full attention doesn't need to be on your every move adds to the realism of being super. I believe if any situation required full attention, it should be not with the character, but the characters surroundings. This could be a villain lowering a DID whilst monologuing "we're inside a volcanooooo. We're surrounded by liquid hot magma"
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
Yes.
Also, after a rough day, when you log in and play, you're subconsciously thinking about how co-workers screwed you over, and All the while you're pounding on the Tsoo! Scrapper Lock. Brain Deflates! Stress Releaf! ;)
There were so many factors that made CoH combat great. It was like some special recipe with just the right amount of each ingredient to get that perfectly delectable flavor. It's mixture was so precise, that apparently even the game's original developer (cryptic) was unable to replicate the recipe (I'm looking at you CO).
I think a lot of good points have been made here. All of the things listed in this thread were certainly contributing factors in how fun CoH combat was. Solo combat was great, Team combat was spectacular. But I guess you guys already know that.
My personal take on a few things that made the combat so awesome wasn't just to do with the animations or even our characters. For one, the custom UI the game used was, in my opinion, the best I've ever seen in an MMO.
With CoH being my first MMO, I wasn't aware of "normal" MMO conventions like activating powers via number key, etc.. but CoH made it wicked easy to play while clicking on powers to activate them. It took a little getting used to, I remember, but then it just felt natural.
When the city shut down, I tried a lot of different MMOs, and every single one of them felt uncomfortable. Even after a year or more playing some of them, the UIs can be aggravating at times. I never really felt that aggravation in CoH.
It wasn't just being able to click powers to activate them. the position of my character on the screen in CoH just seemed... better. I know that sounds silly. but to go into Icon now, after playing say, CO.... In Icon when I zoom for a close up of my character, there's just more there. it seems larger, maybe?... more detailed. In nearly every other game I've played, it's so hard to get a good up-close view of your character (without cutting off their feet or legs anyway). The character/camera positioning or whatever just seemed better in CoH.
The camera functionality was great... It was easy to go from a 1st person view all the way out to a MOBA view. It was easy to check an area for surrounding mobs, look around corners etc. and it all served to add something to the combat experience (at least for me).
Beyond the UI and the camera angles, there were the enemies. The enemy groups were diverse enough that for almost every power set in the game, there was an enemy, or enemy group that was its bane. Quite a few groups had multiple problem enemies too (Arachnos, Malta, PPD to name a few). I loved the fact that you could trick out a character with IO sets and make them nearly unstoppable in 90% of the game, and then run into that one enemy or group and get your a$$ handed to you in a paper bag.
I saw Leo_G mentioned the secondary effects of player powers, which is spot on, but the same is also true of the enemies secondary effects. I learned early on that the Circle of Thorns -tohit debuffs were no joke, for example. Sure you could counter it with leadership and other buffs later on in some cases, but while coming up it was another story all together (especially as a newbie). The recharge debuffs from Psi and Ice powers, not to mention Caltrops, could get REALLY nasty, even with hasten or a /Kinetics super boost... or both.
I had times when all my power icons were little needle points in my tray... recharge debuffed by KoA Caltrops to a point seemingly beyond saving. That was on my Invuln tanker fighting Knives of Artemis at +4/x8 difficulty solo. that fight was a stalemate for soooooo long. They couldn't kill me b/c I was S/L resist capped and defense soft capped with 1 enemy in range. I couldn't make a sizeable dent in them for an unreasonable amount of time. There is no other game I know of where I could do something like that.
By the same token, I made the mistake of doing a +4/x8 solo run against one of the psi-heavy groups (I forget exactly which group it was) where I ultimately got my butt kicked by running in carelessly.
The enemy groups in CoH were all well designed and put together. Every group felt unique, even when one of their members used the same or similar powers as a member of a different group. Mook Capo's and Freak tanks, Fortunatas and PPD Psi officers, They had similarities, but they didn't FEEL like it was the same enemy with a re-skin. There was a lot of diversity in the groups. Fighting Mooks was not the same as fighting Sky Raiders, was not the same as fighting Malta, was not the same as fighting Arachnos and so on.
Now take a look at a game like Neverwinter. At level 10-15-ish I'd be fighting Battlescarred Orcs and Eye of Gruumsh mages... fast forward to level 50-ish, and you're fighting the same orcs/mages re-skinned and renamed as Spellplagued or whatever. Point is, the diversity in the CoH enemy groups helped flavor the combat, so it didn't feel like you were fighting the same thing all the time.
I sincerely hope the enemy groups in CoT are as diverse and original as the ones that inhabited CoH.
Regards,
D. A. Cross
CEO of Phoenix Rising
CoX: @Mystic Cross ; @Pareidolia // CO: @Deadman-X ; @Citymystic // CoT: @Cross ; @D.A.Cross
I hadn't really thought much about it until I read this post. It's quite true though. When it comes to that mysterious "game balance" that everyone has an opinion on, I have yet to encounter any game that got the formula as close to perfect as CoX did.
One mission you'd be plowing through enemies like they were nothing but paper dolls and then in the next mission it would take every bit of tactically thinking you could muster just to make it out of the entry room.
My characters often felt superpowered in CoX, but they never felt overpowered.
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I think it was the old style tab targeting combat, combined with the spectacularness and thematic aptness of the animations and visual and audio fx, combined with the ragdolling, combined with the clear and straightforward build system (again with clear thematic distinctions).
I think the rhythm of mob types and mob density was also important - you had your minions you could plow through, then you had your tougher mobs, and your tricksy mobs. The menu gave you moments of feeling godlike, but moments of being challenged too (if you weren't on your toes).
Oh yeah, and scrapperlock :) I only ever had 2 scrappers out of a roster of a couple dozen heroes and villains,but boy, that old "hit F and kill, rinse and repeat" thing was just sublime.
To put it in a nutshell, I think developers get too hung up on "challenge" as a concept. Actually, you need a rhythm of alternating being in a trance (where you do moreish actions again and again mindlessly - like eating a bowl of cherries unstoppably) and being stopped, brought up short, and challenged (where you have to actually think). The balance must be hard to find, because no other game has hit the sweet spot as well as CoX did.
OTOH, we might be a special crowd in demanding this - I know lots of people who hated CoX combat, so go figure.
Lots of games since have had tab targeting - SWTOR has tab targeting, but it's fairly crap in so many other ways, it hardly matters. Apart from a few spectacular jedi moves, the animations, fx, etc., are too lacklustre.
But I think the subtle thing is this: yes, tab targeting is in some ways more "boring" than the action-orientation that many games have gone for (a modern action game that I particularly enjoy is Warframe).
But you know what the advantage of tab targeting is? [b]YOU CAN CHAT WITH PEOPLE WHILE FIGHTING!!![/b]
And that, my dear friends, was one of CoX's several secret sauces. The "action" of combat gameplay, 7/10 involved not just the action combat click/keypress actions, but also a bit of rp-lite in the way of chatting to each other about the mobs and about their behaviour, as if they were really real. i.e. the virtual world came alive partly because of human-to-human interaction talking about the virtual world. Even if you yourself didn't feel like saying anything at any given time, you could guarantee someone in every team, in every PUG, would be quipping, or saying something amusing. IOW, the team would feel like a team of superheroes, not just because of the combat, but because they were really talking together.
That you could do spectacular things with a few clicks, while chatting about it, was something I've never seen in any other game since. Modern games have you doing spectacular things, but you're so involved in the twitch action that does it, it's hard to chat about it. On the other hand, other games that have tab targeting, you can chat about it, but it's hardly worth it because most of what you do is pretty "meh".
I've always enjoyed using TAB for "nearest enemy" and CTRL+TAB for "next enemy", but I've never really thought about the relationship between targeting and chat. I have to say, you are absolutely right!
CoX was a very social game with a fantastic community. Dropping in and grabbing a PuG in CoX was an absolute joy, whereas in absolutely every other game I have played PuGs were a nightmare. The TAB targeting design discouraged boatloads of "hardcore" players, sending them instantly scrambling to other games with more complex targeting systems (and boatloads of PvP) where fast reflexes and high dexterity enabled them to PWN at will thanks to their self-proclaimed "m4dsk1llZ".
The swarming combat was complimented by a simple targeting system that left players free to RP, chat about their favorite sports team, or argue tactics even as they were being overwhelmed by hordes of enemies.
A sublime balance between social tools and combat tools with an absolutely brilliant character creator. That was the foundation of CoX that set it apart from everything before or since.
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The difference I find between CoH's combat and others (not counting CO) is they have a global cooldown, that they're still generally going 1-2-3-4-repeat (minus the use of secondary powers). CoH was pretty much the same way, though you had to either grab all the attack powers or build around it with +Recharge. :p
For those used to the global recharge, CoH seem to feel antiquated, because global cooldown wasn't usually that long and they got to just use the powers.
I remember saying this before in another thread but the reason why CoH's combat was well liked is because it made you feel powerful which very few MMOs on the Market will do. As mentioned before CO and DCUO didn't do this all that well despite being superhero MMOs.
The only exception of course being Arch Villains or Giant Monsters
Formerly known as Bleddyn
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Yeah, I think this was a bit of a "hump" for quite a few people I've spoken to over the years about CoX. They didn't realize the advantage of no GCD, and couldn't get past that early period where you only had a few crappy powers, to the level where you could build several chains of really powerful combinations to fire off at will.
I've never been able to stand games with GCD very much ever since playing CoX.
I do enjoy CO/DCUO/Warframe action styles of combat, but I think the combination of tab targeting PLUS spectacular abilities with no GCD, by the endgame, just made for this special situation where you could be doing amazing, cool things while chatting away merrily.
Many people who tried the game just sadly didn't get to that point, never got to experience the sheer spectacle and teamwork of 8 high level heroes, or the sheer steamrolling might of 8 high level villains.
Endless nom nom candy.
The best part about it was speed. I could superspeed into a mob, throw an attack then teleport around a corner then start dropping AOEs all over the place. Integrating extremely rapid movement with attacks is essential in City of Titans. I loved being able to Super Jump, activate Fireball, "plant" and start superspeeding away. Even with movement suppression it was still incredibly dynamic.
Another important part was you got to decide combat speeds. On my Ice/Rad Controller it was sloooooooooooooooooooow...sooooo sloooooooooooooow, but eventually I got there. On my Plant/Psy Dominator I melted mobs. One of my favourite pastimes (and money earners!) was farming Black Scorpion's Nemesis base mission (in Shadow Shard through Nerva Archipelago) where I would throw a small attack, everything would clump up and I'd just ran creepers, Psychic Shockwave, Incarnate fireball and teleport my dead friend around for Vengeance bait! XD
Basically I want the mobs to be somewhat resilient punching bags with their own defences, but once you figure out the defences you steamroll most "normal" mobs, with special task mobs requiring more work.
+1
Also, higher levels, as an example: Dont have just a Sapper. Every so often, a mob could have a Slower, Instead of decreasing End, decreases speed. And the like.
This will make it a little more difficult for players that use auto targeting macros or other keybinds. I feel You Should Struggle a bit to get to a SPECIFIC target. Otherwise, playing gets dull faster if you have an EASY Button.
As the game gets more and more baddies, and things get more difficult, then targeting can adapt to meet the challenge.
As long as it doesn't feel like its set on Easy. :(
GDC suck. There I said it.
Inspirations that you could take as many as you wanted as long as you had them. it wasn't take 1 potion and you cant take another until the first is done or if you do it overrides the first potion. Who cares if I burn all my +Dam Insps in 1 go to simply decimate the next mob. At the next fight I'll have either no more Insp or maybe 1-2 new ones from that mob. Its my choice to save them, use some or use them all. If I use them all but I need more for the next fight then I'm out of luck (or spend time running back to a vendor outside of the mission to buy more (tier 1 only) or AH (T1-3). But seriously I only did that when I was trying to solo content that was very difficult for that character and I'd died a few times already).
Knowing that taking on 5 bad guys didn't mean death. Taking on 10 bad guys didn't mean death. 5 Bad guys at con +2 = no problem.
In other MMO's you see 3 giant rats (at con 0) and almost crap yourself.
I remember at level 1-3 when first starting out on a new character you could take on 5 Helions (con 0) without a worry. I maybe needed to be a bit agile depending on the AT but it wasn't a run-for-your-life situation.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
GDC shouldn't affect as to how often you can take Inspirations... that is something separate in my books and should be handled differently and accordingly.
GDC however would put a limit onto "how fast" abilities can fire though. And the thing is, in a GDC orientated game the cooldown on the fast majority of abilities was FAR less than what the cooldown on CoX abilities were. They also tended to have abilities that could only be used *after* a crit/deflect/something else that happened in game.
CoX had something similar with Dual Blades (as it were) where if you fired off abilities in a certain chain, you got a different effect. But there was a limit as to how fast the abilities could fire, and that was tied to the animation time and the recharge of the power.
So to an extent, it had it own form of GDC. When one ability was firing off, you couldn't fire off another. That is all that GDC really does in my eyes.
And yes, I am fully aware of abilities that can ignore/remove GDC in other MMO's....
Some people like the "Longer animation time" of CoX abilities, other prefer the shorter animation time (and quicker recharge). It is a matter of taste.
And there is nothing stopping GDC orientated games from using longer animations in the slightest...
Global Cool Down...
Be Well!
Fireheart
I have one thing to say.... Ragdoll mechanics.....
When you pummeled a villain into the floor by knocking them into the middle of next week, they reacted to their surroundings. If they fell on stairs or a ramp, they slid down them. If they were hanging off a wall, they'd (often slowly) slide off.
It would be interesting if you had a mechanic so you could RP the true heroic by pulling said unconscious (because we're heroes, we don't kill, dammit! *heroic pose*) individual to 'safety'). I appreciate that's pure sophistry, but just a little something different. Not that this last part matters as they don't really die.... Honest...? :)
We all have it in us to be a hero to someone,
Super powers are optional.....
Part of the Phoenix Rising Initiative.....
Proud to be a hero. Prouder still to be a member of [url=http://www.watchfire-online.info]Watchfire[/url]
Cooldowns and global recharge is fine, but I would like to queue powers whether on cooldown or not, and have them be skipped (or waited for, user option) if not cooled down by time to fire.
In other words, cooldowns are perhaps to slow down fighting, fair enough, but having to wait for the cooldown just to click is irritating. Lemme queue it, thanks, and let the server (or client) handle the rest.
tl;dr Who cares about cooldowns if you can queue their next fire?
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
I quite strongly dislike games with global cooldown, because they tend to cause certain key powers to be used repeatedly. If all powers are disabled and then ready again at the same time, there's a tendency to just spam one good attack, which I find extremely boring. (Bad memories of CO are coming to mind...)
CoX's individual power recharge times meant it was more likely (and beneficial) to rotate through a set of powers. That's something I haven't really seen done as well in any other MMO.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Agreed. Talking to some COers who hated that about CoH, also didn't seem to be able to handle waiting level to get more powers/recharge. They just remembered waiting for their attack and brawl to recharge, so wrote the game off. :p
Agreed with both of you. So, is there a way to make the initial levels easier on those who can't handle it? Some temporary powers or mechanics that smooth out the initial levels.
For example (just throwin this out here, didn't think it through), what if rather than just brawl, characters had a variety of non-super moves like brawl punch, stomp kick, push (that just repels the mob a little for some distance) etc., that they can click away and that are a valuable supplement to your few super powers at low levels, but that aren't that useful once you develop more real super powers?
Or what else could we do to get the newbs past the low levels?
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
If i recall, MWM was planning on making the 1st few levels a little easier to level up. I dont recall how high up before it starts to level off, but i'm hoping its around level 8, so even Tanks types can spam 2 to 3 melee attacks, if they get one shield, or two. ;D
So long as everyone can opt to obtain two or three attacks in the first few levels the majority of players ought to be happy. At the low levels in most games a good offense is far superior to any defense.
Any game that has to rush me through the first five to ten levels, to get my character to the point when they're considered competent or fun, has got poor design.
- - - - -
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You mean like the origin powers that CoX had.
Of course, then you had the vet rewards (sand of mu, the black wand, nemesis staff) which undoubtedly made it easier/more tolerable as well
Make sure that the early levels of the game gave out enough abilities to avoid this problem. So it could well be a case that the lower levels have a far faster rate of power acquisition compared to the later levels.
CoX had this as well, where for the vast majority of the levels, you gained an ability every other level, however that slowed down post 40 to one power per 3 levels(ish)
So making it faster than that *could* be useful, but then again, without actually getting our hands on this so that we get a good feel for what the progression is like... we are just throwing idea's out there.
Aye, I thought that was specifically designed to ensure we had a decent number of powers at earlier levels.
I do agree with Darth Fez that I don't want the game to rush me through the early levels, though I am probably perfectly happy with fewer powers at lower levels than some.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Small point- those did help but I didn't like how non-customizable they were. If it's not too much work for the devs, something like that but with a bit of customization to fit theme would be good.
Agreed with Cinnder and Fez that it didn't bother me personally and I don't think rushing through levels is the best answer.
I think a few "free" initial customizable attack powers that become obsolete would help. But CoT will be for the most part a niche game, and it's a fools errand to try to please everyone.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
All all of the above.
To me, each and every fight was a puzzle. A game of chess. I could just jump in but, why? Surveying, prioritizing, positioning, assessing, ranging, timing with tab-targeting and two rows of skills, cool animations and sfx and no twitching. But, then again, I could just jump in if I wanted to. Oh! And I could chat with my friends from all over the world at the same time. And, that was just solo.
for me there were a few things that made it special
1) it starts in character creation. There was no SKILL TREE
-when i see skill trees in MMOs i die inside. it means to get skill x i need to chose a, b, c which means everyone with skill x has skills a, b, and c
-so there is almost no flexibility in character builds in other MMOs. what COH did right was level capping skills instead. As a result my Fire/Regen scapper is probably different from most others, so there was a lot of flexibility and chose
2) building on skill choice, you had secondary effects for your skills were significant
-when i see a -0.25% effect on something in another MMO i vomit. Who the heck cares about that effect? yet the whole MMO those are the only secondary effects you can get
-in coh not only were those secondary effects meaningful, but you could use enhancements to make them stronger too. Which meant you could build around the secondary debuff/healing/buff/damage effects of your powers. this meant there was a lot of FLEXIBILITY even between two fire/regen scrappers, in short your character always was unique enough that you felt like you "owned" him
3) powers were not built on a limit
-apart from taunt, no AOE effect was limited in numbers of foes effected, simply the AREA it affected. Almost all MMOs limit the number of foes you can hurt/damage with your AOE attacks. COH didn't
4) Weight
-this was mentioned before, but simply put, when you hit something it had a visible effect to both their health and model.
5) CONTROL
-coh did control like no other game in history. Control effects existed in every single character build, and they all were FIELD CHANGING. the propper control effect could turn a close fight into a curb stomp. and this isn't even talking about the class with the name control in it. Controllers simply don't exist in other MMOs. Which is a shame, because they make the unmanageable, manageable. They also can make handling overwhelming ODDs possible. combined with the control of a Tanker's Taunt, you often had target rich and IMOBALIZED fields for more vunderable DPS to go to town on
6) AOE
-most mmos limit AOE to one or two attacks, or number of foes targeted, or drastically reduced DPS. Combined with the control aspects in COH and the fact AOE was available to every build, there was a significant "motivation" to gather large groups of foes and use AOE to waste them. As a result AOE builds like blasters and scrappers WANTED the controlling classes like tankers and trollers to set up the field for them to cause the most damage. It was this symbiotic relationship between the DPS and the Control, that made team play so fun, seamless and generally encouraged.
7) Team play
-teaming up in other MMOs is a drag. It rarely happens except. In COH you could team up from lvl.1 to 50, and never be at a loss to find someone to team with or a fun raid to join. This was because the classes built upon each other in such a way as to encourage team play, furthermore it was MORE EFFICIENT to grind levels as a team, as you could face and destroy more foes at a faster pace, which meant more XP, even though it was reduced, then you could solo.
-lack of competition over drops. i can't emphasize this point enough, but this really made teamplay attractive, because you fought more enemies in a shorter period of time you got more LOOT then you would solo.
8) NO LOOT PICKUP
-this is probably the no.1 reason why combat was so fun in COH. there were no glowing loot drops you have to hunt after every battle. no one leaving battle lines to hunt down loot, no loot rolls... just random chance automatically dropping stuff into your inventory. This made battle fun and cooperative. it also sped things along. Nothing slows down a RAID on other MMOs then loot drops and the conflicts, dice rolls and trading that goes with it.
9) you're simply better then the average MOOK. as a result even alone your hero feels like a hero
Well said, azanimefan!
Spurn all ye kindle.
My scapper sought out the hard stuff -- the groups with the sapper, or ring mistress, or dark rm, or the Paragon Protector (before the shameful, shameful nerf because most of you whined like a baby about it) or the fire blaster with imps in Steel Canyon, similarly shamefully nerfed.
I want a wild server, with a care bear server for most of you, where wild has rude invasions that interrupt Joey 14 Year Old's cross-country journey to level with a friend.
I want a world that is real rather than just a bunch of theme parks populated by static groups waiting to get executed.
This by necessity must be a new server type because too many will whine about it. At first. Then I will be proven right.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
What you're describing as 'real' doesn't exist, except in places that nobody wants to go. They're on a list of places that tourists are warned about.
We're only going to have one server, so the concerns of 'most of us' carebears will support 'Joey 14yo' and you will never have a chance to be 'proven right'. Perhaps when you're a multi-millionaire with a mansion and a yacht, you'll be able to fund the development of this 'new kind of server'. Unfortunately, I won't be playing with you.
Oh, and what I loved most about combat in CoH was that I could manipulate crowds of enemy into a series of stupidly mis-matched situations and beat the snot out of them! Well, or just plunge into the mosh-pit with my Tanker and make them all fall down... eventually. Or taunt the one idiot into trying to beat Me, while turning his back on the Scrapper, who naturally starts the involuntary organ-donation process. Teamwork is grand!
Be Well!
Fireheart
+1. Hehehe.
That belongs in a Signature. ;D
They donated so many organs, I was so proud of them for their service to the ill...
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he was talking about me most specifically...using the character in my avatar...
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The enemy kept being distracted by my brightly shining smile and forgetting a very important rule!
- Always, always, ALWAYS know where the Scrapper is!
I mean, teams should remember it, too, but it's hard to keep track, when the Scrapper is soooo easily bored!
"Alright, are we ready for the next one?"
"Yeah, good to go."
"Oh shite!, Where's the Scrapper??"
*sounds of screaming from the other side of the map*
Be Well!
Fireheart
I've seen too many of those places out here in the real world. In a MMORPG, I much prefer the "theme park populated by static groups waiting to get executed."
They don't need to be static, though. They can be playing dice, beating up a citizen, selling drugs, selling illegal guns, breaking into a warehouse, stripping a parked car, etc. Shucks, they can even scramble in four different directions when I drop into the middle of them. My point is, when I do drop into the middle of them, I enjoy knowing for absolute certain that even if I make a foolish mistake and my character goes down for the count, nobody really dies.
If you want a "wild" server filled with nearly unbeatable enemies, then I am certain you will be able to set up your own and invite all your "wild" friends and allies to join you. For me, "carebear" is just fine. I've seen too much of the "real" stuff out here in the real world. I don't need to see it in a game.
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At the risk of necroing my old thread, I had an epiphany recently that breathed life into the way some others have described CoX as a 'relaxing challenge' (or words to that effect).
I visited Ocean City, MD, earlier this month, spending most of my time, as I used to, in the water. I hadn't been to OC in over 30 years, with most of my sea swimming since taking place in the much calmer Mediterranean, so I had forgotten the relentless nature of the waves of the North American east coast. But after a few minutes I got back into that zenlike state I can recall from days of my childhood spent in those waves, before the advent of video games. And I realised how similar the feeling was to that I experienced when playing CoX.
Sure, to an observer, both activities are just an endless procession of waves/mobs, but to the participant, each requires observation and adjustment. An entirely passive participant will soon be overwhelmed. The smallest waves were like minions, requiring only a minor shift in centre of gravity to overcome. Then there were the medium/Lieutenant waves, where facing became more important and sometimes a jump was required to get over the top. And once in a while the boss wave came in. You could see it was a boss from a distance, but still you had to observe it closely as it approached, because not all bosses pose the same threat or can be dealt with in the same way. Do you swim towards it to get past it before it breaks? Would it require a dive to avoid its wrath? Perhaps ride it in? Or would it peter out as it reached you?
What all this helped me highlight is that CoX hit a sweet spot that I hope CoT can aim for: where not every encounter is a life or death situation for the player, but one still has to pay attention and assess the threat of each mob, adjusting responses accordingly, if not drastically in every case. Just enough challenge to keep the mind active, but not enough to invoke adrenaline for every enemy.
Spurn all ye kindle.