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City of Heroes Issue Four Released
The fourth free expansions pack for City of Heroes has been released, and it's quite a doozy. Included in the latest release are a ton of new costume options, new content, and (most significantly) large coliseum where heroes can battle it out in PvP battles. Statement by Jack Emmert from the article: "I believe PVP will supplement the game while not detracting from City of Heroes' missions or story arcs...I see the PVP arenas as a way for players to hone their skills and as a change of pace from arresting villains."
It's an MMORPG, like Everquest or World of Warcraft -- but with superheroes and more focus on casual gameplay (no loot, instanced missions instead of spawn camping, sidekick system so you can fight across levels, etc.)
It's a lot of fun, been playing it for a year. To play devil's advocate, because it's casual oriented, it's not as deep as other MMO's; more like Final Fight than Street Fighter, swapping action and simplicity for pacing and depth.
There's a lot of contention over what Issue #4 has done to the game, good and bad. Lemme give a brief overview of the changes.
1. A PVP arena. It's really an amazing piece of work, a huge addition to the game. The question is, will you really want to play in it? Certain classes ("archetypes") have innate advantages due to higher offense and defensive mixes, while others suffer because they don't have enough of either. Odds are more balancing will take place as the days go on; they've come far from when the beta of the arena went up, but still have farther yet to go.
2. New costuming. The costuming system in COH is already top notch, and this adds more elements to it. Mostly it's asian-themed items but there are other generic items in too. Some have clipping issues which will need to be resolved, but it's not too shabby. It also introduces body physique / face sliders like in Star Wars Galaxies.
3. Power changes. The alien archetype they introduced got serious boosts, other powers got little boosts... but as with ANY MMORPG IN THE HISTORY OF TIME, some changes are going to be downward rather than upward. (You can't "buff everybody, nerf nobody" without ending up in a nuclear arms race.) So, if you hit COH forums you'll see OMG sky is falling type posts from folks who now have to change their play style. But... again, to be fair, some of the changes are really phenominally heavy handed. The devs have admitted that they're looking at alternate ways to get the effect they want without harsh penalties, and they're starting to analyze the archetypes one at a time to bring them into balance. It'll take time.
Like any MMO it's got plusses and minuses. Each issue releases new toys to play with and new changes to deal with. City of Heroes gets a big fat recommendation from me; even with the issues-with-its-issues, it's still a lot of fun and very good for casual gamers who want to try an MMO but don't want it to be a second job.
So... can you be evil? Can you mow down civilians?
Not yet. That's in City of Villains, which is due out later this year / early next year / dunno. It's practically ANOTHER MMORPG, rather than an expansion pack, since villains have their own areas, own missions, own power sets, etc.
I kinda doubt they'll let you wander into Atlas Park and start ganking 1st level heroes and civilian NPCs, though. They've said all along PVP will always be consentual; and Arena PVP definitely is.
I play City of Heroes and it's a fun game, especially for people who don't have a lot of time to play every night and just want some villain-bashing action.
The weird thing I've noticed is that a lot of the new costume options are restricted to one gender or the other for no real reason. Quick background here, most costume options are unisex, but there are some obvious ones, like metal bikini-thing, that are restriced.
Some of the items restricted in the new patch include:
Wooden sandals (simple, flat, wood and leather) are female-only
"Student Cap" (looks like a police hat) is male-only
Shoulder mascot (think of a pirate's parrot) is female-only
Catlike ears (think Felicia or Inu-Yasha) are female-only
I could probably come up with a few others but you get the idea.
I know game designers can get some odd gender-roles in their heads sometimes, but these choices seem a bit random. Anyone have any inside info or personal insights as to what may have been going on there?
The Arena is fun, I'll give it that. The intuitive easy gameplay remains. There's a bit of a fly in the ointment, in the sense that right now, there's "loot" unbalancing the game. Specifically, "Hamidon Enhancements". Enhancements boost a power in CoH, and come in 3 varieties: the +8.3%, the +16.6%, and +33.3% variety, available as you get higher level. The raid reward enhancement (for killing the Hamidon) is +50% to *2* aspects. So the best enhancement available to most L22+ players is, say +33% accuracy or +33% damage. A "Hami-O", as they're called, could be +50%dmg&+50% acc.
I have about 30 myself. Experimentation has shown that when I'm fighting in a lower weight class, the power of the hami-Os may scale down, but they're still obviously WAY too good and I absolutely terrorize people I shouldn't be able to.
So for the casual player vs the hami-O laden veteran, there's a serious mismatch.
Otherwise, it's a blast.
There are definitely some great new options in the costume department - lots of jackets, several types of martial arts gear - pants, shirts, even kung fu shoes.
There's a lot of crying over nerfs right now, as scrappers took a hit to their defenses in I4 for the most part, but game balance has improved if you ask me.
Really, while the arena is great, it is obviously also laying ground and gathering data for City of Villains, which has Villain vs Hero pvp as a real theme. It's not mandatory, but it will obviously play an important part for those who are interested. This is a good first step to making sure that is not unbalanced.
I don't play MMORPGS. Not because they don't look like fun, but because I don't have the time to commit. However, watching the genre is always interesting.
To me, it seems like COH has been much quieter about its game than EQ2, WoW or SWG. While not drawing much attention to itself, it has done a good job of giving most of the people who play it what they are looking for. EQ2 has the criticism that it is still just a huge grindfest. If it wasn't for WoWs stability issues, it would have probably built up enough steam to send EverQuest2 into the night. As far as SWG goes, just do a search on here for articles. It seems like LucasArts and SOE can't go a month without finding a way to piss off a userbase that will do anything to play StarWars.
COH sounds like they are just trying to make the game fun without being overly complex. It will be interesting to see what the reaction is to City of Villains is when it comes out. It would create a totally different model where actual characters create work for the Heroes.
Regardless of whether or not I ever play it, they are still fun to follow.
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