Champions Online

Gotta share the love for other fun games? Post about them here!

Postby CAPTAIN_BRUMBL3Z » Fri Aug 28, 2009 2:56 pm

This game is everything CoX should have been. The combat alone should be reason to play CO. I can see this game taking off quite well once it's established. Bugs will be swaushed within a couple months, we'll get some necessary balance, and then we'll probably get a real good content patch, hopefully with some sort of team oriented zone for levels 15 to 30 or so.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:48 pm

Since this thread's more appropriate for an overall discussion of Champions Online, I figured I'd post my thoughts so far here.

Last night I decided I'd give it a shot. I figured I might as well see what I think. So I dropped the $50 to get the game on Steam and installed it. Then was directed to the Champions site, where Steam was nice enough to enter my product code. I entered all of my information... only to be told that my registration was rejected, as apparently my sign up for updates (which has yet to produce any) counted as registering. Okay then. Once that was done they sent me to an installer, without bothering to mention this was superfluous. Same with Steam- it hadn't mentioned I was actually downloading anything; it said I needed to go to the Champions site to continue. So I ended up downloading the installer, which prompted me for a code I didn't have, at which point I went back to Steam to find out the installation was ongoing. Cute.

After it finished up, I went ahead on in, and after contemplating the splash page for a few seconds ("Oh hey. They're fighting a mind-controlled giant gorilla. Who's on fire. That's... different.") I got to thinking what I'd do for a character. And I was thinking to myself, "Stormcaller. Yeah, Stormcaller. Why not? It's appropriate. Storm-themed hero, that works. Wind and rain and lightning and hail and so on. Sure! I'll do a storm-themed hero, Stormcaller!" And then proceeded to pick my controls and decided to make a new hero.

...Where I found out the options were Electric blast, force blast, ego blast, fire blast, ice blast, eldritch blast, and so on. No storm set? None? Not even a little wind? Well maybe this custom set button will be the solution to my problems! Electric blast, force blast, ego blast, fire blast, ice blast, eldritch blast, and so on. So.. custom just means 'one from column a and one from column b. That's... spiffy. Well I suppose I can go with recreating my first City of Heroes character, an Electric Blaster. Yeah, I suppose that works.

I then went through the costume designer where there was a huge number of highly familiar designs. And then a bunch more that I didn't recognize but immediately wondered why you'd want to wear that. I ended up with a vague recreation of my old hero's appearance, upstyled a bit, and went into...

...A hybrid of Outbreak and the Rikti invasion. Okay. Well, the dialogue leaves something to be desired. Like... good dialogue. But let's go talk to this conveniently placed policeman. Who sends me to go talk to a data terminal. I'm having deja'vu. And next I go shoot conveniently arranged enemies, and get shot at to discover blocking, and oh hey, I get to level up now right? Where's a trainer? There's no trainer. So I'm level 2 and I can't actually train up to level 2. That's... special. Alright. This has to end soon, right? Just blast a few more bugs...

And a few more bugs.

And a few more bugs.

And get Clark Griswold his vacation tickets. Oh hey, you referenced a movie from the 80's. Cute.

And a few more bugs.

And discover the wonders of the non-instanced, wait for the enemy to respawn so you can complete the quest, quest. Which involved me beating up the big bad bug, dying, discovering someone else saved Kinetik, or whatever the hell his name is, getting beat up several more times, fighting things to get my stars back up to 5, and then beating up the BBB and getting jumped by drones while another team stole my completion again, and finally completing the quest twice. Once for me, once for another guy that I felt sorry for.

And then on to the public quest where we're supposed to shoot the mother ship, but don't. Which I suppose means that whole 'defend the gun' thing was at best unnecessary, and then into an actual instanced mission, where I basically followed Defender around watching him kill people. Until we got to Black Thorn, where I was told "You'll have to face Black Thorn by yourself" every time I shot Black Thorn. And I shot him a lot. Then back to Defender blasting more bad guys before I could defeat them, and on with the keys to the city and so on.

On to Northern Canada, where I'm told to take the teleporter. How isn't exactly covered. After a great deal of wandering around it finally pops up with the ever present impetus to hit z, and off I go. Where I then get another prompt to hit z, and off I go again to another loading screen. And at seventh level I get...

Two powers? A travel power and my choice of another electrical-themed power? That's it? Oh hey, I get upgrades to stats too. That's... great. I don't know why I care. I'll just focus on Endurance and Recovery, since they stressed those as an Electrical-themed guy. Sure. Whatever.

And let's see... my big ability as an Electricity blaster is I can arc attacks to secondary targets. Okay. Let's check some stats here. Chain lightning! Got that. What's the advanced notes say...

Ah. So Chain Lightning doesn't actually chain. Except 1 in 5 times. That's... special.

Well how about this other one. It says it's a continuous lightning bolt that will fry my target and can jump to other targets too! Sure, sounds cool.

Oh. So I don't actually have enough Endurance to do that for the full 4 seconds or whatever. And it... doesn't chain except for half a second. And Chain Lightning does more.

...

Well, at least I can fly now. Let's get these Rocket Boots going and go speeding across the...

...I'm not speeding. Wasn't that the point of these? Speed? Less agility in midair, but fastest of the flight options? I'm just sort of gliding. Okay, there's the second boost, and the third boost. So now I should... that didn't really improve things. Right.

So. I'll just go kill ice demons then.

And more fun with the '30 other people are trying to save the same folks you are, and there's only 2 respawning people to save' thing. And getting beaten up regularly by enemies, and discovering some of them I can't shoot because they're... what? Not paying attention? They're in range. I'm blasting them. But nothing happens.

Oh hey, and I got killed again, by ice demon zombies. In camp.

Well let's try this other mission. Just have to go to this plane and...

Oh hey, I got killed again, by ice demon zombies.

Well there were a lot there. I suppose a group of four equal level opponents might be a bit much. Let's try this lone guy here...

Oh hey. Defeated again.

And I just keep getting weaker the more I try this.

Right, what time is it? Yeah, I need to be up tomorrow morning. Goodbye Champions Online. If you don't hear from me... there's a reason for that.
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Postby Fenriswulfdemon » Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:40 am

Endurance is the amount of energy (blue bar) you have, and recovery is how much that bar recovers as a standard. You weren't increasing your attack strength, or your own defense at all, leading to your death problems. The travel powers don't get good til level 2, which you need to be level 20 to attain. You need to experiment more with your stats, and learn your attack strategies. Change your instance to a place with fewer people, vary your powers for the initial character so you know what kind of attacks you're gonna like/want later on. Don't get discouraged when fighting, team up with other people. It takes some getting used to. I've gone with an all Might character, and as I see it, that's a disadvantage but it's my style. Once you learn to really control your powers, you won't die so much, and you'll have a lot more fun. I see people flying all around me wreaking havoc on huge enemy groups, even though they themselves are low level. Take the time to read up on what the powers do, what strengthens them, and the mission level recommendation.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Tue Sep 15, 2009 1:34 pm

According to everything I've read, Endurance and Recovery are the two stats tied to Electricity powers. And I've looked for defense, but it doesn't seem to exist unless I want to play something other than an Electricity hero. So far, 31 people is the least number in an instance I've seen in two days of play, so I was already there, and my 'attack strategies' so far have been simple: I hit this button to build up Energy, then when I have enough, I hold down that button to use it. Then I hit the first button again. There's not a whole lot of options with three powers and the primary difference between two of them being whether I fire while I'm holding down the button or if I fire after I stop holding down the button.
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