While this isn't a review per se, I'm going to structure it similar to my reviews as it seems to make the most sense.
Love
- Being a hero. The game does a remarkable job at making you actually feel heroic... at least in certain builds. City of Heroes never really seemed to grasp this for me; I'm not quite sure why. I always just sort of felt like I was playing an MMO with super heroes as the characters rather than actually being a super hero. Champions definitely steps it up a notch and has some really heroic powers (the AoE force blast is definitely one of my favorites).
- Character creation. Champions is made by Cryptic, which is same studio (new name) that made City of Heroes. And it shows. They basically pulled every good feature from City of Heroes, especially the character creator. It is ridiculously rich in features and allows you to create all kinds of different looking heroes. Of the three I've made so far, one is a skeleton with wings (that actually flap when he flies!), the other is a very traditional looking hero with a cape, and the third is some sort of amphibian looking character than actually moves on all fours. I'm blown away by the number of different options there are (this coming from somebody who played CoH), however I will say that same categories are really limited, such as cowls and neck pieces. Generally speaking though, you can make a hero who looks like just about anything or anyone.
- Power house. The power house is one of those things that once you understand it, it makes so much sense that you wonder why nobody has ever had something like it before. Basically, when you need to level up, you go there and purchase your powers/advantages/stat boosts, etc. Then, you can test out your powers on various levels of dummys, lasers, obstacle courses, etc and decide if you like them. If you don't, you can undo the purchases and try something else out. Once you find something you like, you leave the power house and lock in your purchases. I can almost guarantee that this is a feature most future MMOs will borrow (if they're smart). It is amazingly good at helping you find things that work and are fun.
- Travel powers. The travel powers in Champions are excellent. There are also quite a few more than in City of Heroes. They range from various types of flight (normal, fire, hover discs/earth/ice) to tunneling and even include things like teleportation (my personal favorite) and swinging Spider Man style. Also, they give them to you at level 5, which means you only play the game for about an hour before getting them. I've never understand why games make you play for so long before giving you traveling powers/mounts. This is something that Champions definitely did right.
- Retcon (respecs). I have NO idea what they are thinking here. The respec system in its current form is completely broken. First of all, there are no full respecs. You can only undo the last 10 choices you have made. These include not only powers, but all stat and advantage choices. You can VERY easily mess up your build and not realize until it is too late. If that was the only problem, however, it wouldn't be that big of a deal though. The absolutely game breaking issue here is the cost. In my opinion, respec costs are about 10x what they should be. For example, you get new powers every 3 levels. I went to the power house at level 8 and checked the respec costs. Respeccing just one skill was 500+ resources. Then they increased backwards from there. At this time my total net worth was right around... 500 resources. Basically, in all the time I've been playing, I've never had a character that could afford to respec more than 1 to 2 powers. While I would hold out hope that I could do it later, the respec costs increase as you level, and you still can only go back 10 actions. Cryptic promised to drop the prices of respeccing when the game officially launched (yesterday), however the changes were so minuscule, most people couldn't even tell the different. The respeccing system is so bad, it makes every choice you make a time of actual stress and has actually caused people to call customer support and cancel their lifetime subscriptions. (NOTE: Looks like they patched this again just today. I'll write another post tomorrow with my new impressions on it).
- Tutorial zones. Every character you start plays through about 6 levels in the first tutorial zone, then the next 3 or so levels in one of two "Crisis" zones. While it is nice to have some option between the crisis zones, that very first zone gets old VERY fast. I've only taken 3 characters through it so far, but I'm already absolutely bored by it. When you compare this to a game like WoW that has so many different starting areas, it really doesn't stand up well. Also, Champions is a game that sort of begs you to make alts. The power sets are so different and the character creator is so fun, that I think everyone will have at least 3-4+ characters, even people who are generally anti-alt like me. They desperately need to give you some other tutorial zone options or at least let you skip that first zone altogether and spit you out in a Crisis zone at level 5.
- Where are my villains? It took a standalone expansion to get villains in the City of Heroes universe, and it was something I REALLY thought they should have done at launch here. It would have provided some more starting zone options, helped out the overly simplistic PvP quite a bit, and even just allowed for some variety in general. I've got a horrible feeling that they will add villains in an expansion, but quite honestly, I don't think I'll still be around when that happens.
So far, I'm definitely having a pretty good pile of fun with the game. Other than the retconning issue (which it sounds like they are working on), I don't have any big beefs with the game. I'm really curious to see how it progresses as I level up and will definitely be back here filling you all in.
Posts
Though the name says Plissken, this is Draenoth :). I have to agree with pretty much everything you posted, except the tutorial part. While I agree it would be nice to have more than one zone to level 1-5, it's kind of nice once you've done a few alts; you can just breeze through it in no time.
ReplyDeleteRetcon is still WAAAYYY too expensive, and I have a sinking feeling they are going to keep it that way, but let you spend real cash in the C-Store to respec in the future. In fact, I see a LOT of stuff getting "fixed" by making you buy it via microtransactions. I think I'll play this for the free month, but I don't know if I will subscribe.