Pattern Ghost

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Ok, I decided to go with an overall theme of Golden Age/classic heroes. So, armored type is out. Screenshots of my characters are in the sticky thread for character names. (Did Steve ever get a Hero supergroup started btw?)

I've decided on Behemoth and Grimoire for my two free to play classes. I bought 3k points, and picked up the three adventure packs, two more character slots, a moon base, the Golden Age costume pack, and the Inventor archetype.

I like my Inventor so far. The secondary effects on the attacks are nice, and so is the fact that you can move while charging both the single target and cone attack. The healing nanites at 8 were nice. I put my first Advantage points into leveling them up. The power set looks like it's pretty well balanced and will be fun for solo play. Not to mention turning your enemies into teddy bears is fun.

I picked Behemoth for my melee character, because they seem to hold up much better than the squishies, and the damage doesn't (at least at level 6-7) feel like it's much less.

I went with Grimoire for my third slot, because it looks like it has a lot of the same strengths as the Inventor, and playing characters with a good number of options is always fun.

Saving my fourth slot for buying another archetype later. I probably won't heavily invest in the cash shop (in it for 3k pts now), but I'll likely pick up a couple more bases, the pulp costume pack when it comes out, and another archetype (or two) once I get the first three leveled up. Probably pick up adventure packs too, depending on how much I like the first three. I keep reading that they're a bit better overall than the standard content.

Re: List Your CO Heroes!

I'm @patternghost

I've got the following:

Ingenuity Girl, lvl 29 Inventor:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40074[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]40075[/ATTACH]

Liberty Star, lvl 12 Behemoth:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40076[/ATTACH]

Citizen Arcane, level 10 Grimoire:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40077[/ATTACH]

I'm saving my fourth slot in case I buy another archetype later.

Due to the medical stuff, my play times are irregular. I've also got my attention split three ways between CO, CoH, and DDO.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

Wow, two total? That's a little harsh. I still think their overall model is pretty decent, though. I'll have to make a free to play account to check it out from that POV.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

Looks like free to play went live yesterday!

Re: So Which Hideout are you looking at?

I picked up the Moon Base tonight. It does include some shared storage, so that's cool. More importantly, it has a giant freakin' laser.

Re: Can you recolor the Kirby dot Heroic Power flight?

Well, they do need more incentives to go Gold, I won't fault them that. But I also won't be buying stuff that's out of theme with some of my color-themed characters.

What's this about a core costume purchase? The parts I was using -- at least the ones I remembered -- were showing up under three or four separate costume packs. (Which is more like 10 or 12 bucks, so I was exaggerating a bit on the price.)

I'm not too concerned about the lack of options, though, as they're giving a good amount away for free.

^^

Fixing to spend some Cryptic points. Wondering if I can customize the color on the Kirby dot Heroic Flight power?

Nevermind, just found out Silver accounts can't customize power colors.

Now, if they had that option in the store, they could have made THREE sales off me potentially.

Re: So Which Hideout are you looking at?

Is the shared storage included with the base, or is it something you have to unlock in game by spending game currency? Because if the base comes with shared storage, I'm definitely in for that. Huge convenience.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

I think I responded to this thread a looong time ago, about my experiences at launch. I guess I should give an update. I'm now playing as a Silver status account.

First, my impressions of the graphics for the character models hasn't changed. They still pretty much suck. However, since I'm now actually able to play the game, I've noticed that the MS that the females suffer from isn't quite as obvious when they're in motion, so at least that isn't too distracting. I was annoyed that when my high tech character whose costume took me a couple hours to tweak back at launch was converted to a Silver archetype, almost every single costume piece was removed from her model. With NO warning dialogue. Apparently, the parts I used are now parts of various costume packs. Since those were all parts that shipped on release, I call (NSF)

on that. I paid for the box to subsidize the creation of those parts, they could have taken the high road and only put NEW pieces into their freaking costume bundles. I'm not going to spit out another twenty bucks worth of points to rebuild a costume. If I even could. Damned thing took a lot of digging through their menus to make.

It seems like some of the major game engine performance problems I experienced at release have been smoothed out substantially. I think they may have also overhauled the combat system, too, as it seems much more fluid now. Overall, a MUCH better experience in controlling the characters.

As a returning player, my character was moved out of the desert and into the city. (He was only level 6; the game was virtually unplayable for me before.) I really, really like the look of Millennium City. It looks BIG. Until you hit a wall and it all turns into black and white. Which is ALSO cool. I still don't like the models for the vehicles much, but I suspect if you get enough STR you can throw them around, and that may have been a concession for that purpose. CO does have a lot more diversity in vehicle models than CoH, though, and slightly more realistic numbers of them to give an impression of traffic. Overall, I like the graphics for most of the stuff in the world, and the impression of it being a world.

My current system is a 24" iMac that's going on 3 years old. It has a mobile gForce 8800GS with discrete RAM (I think 512MB), and an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8mhz. It's not exactly a beastly system, more like what used to be a beefy notebook, really. The video card is not as good as my now dead desktop PC, but the CPU is MUCH faster. So, I'm not sure how much performance to attribute to better hardware (i.e., whether this is a CPU intensive game or a GPU intensive game), but it's running quite well on pretty modest hardware.

I've heard the game still has some bugs that need to be fixed, but I haven't been playing enough to notice any. I'm pretty much still on the tutorial stage, running a few of the archetypes through the tutorial and a little in MC to see how I like them. (They all seem to play well enough, given they only have 3 active powers at level 6 plus the travel power.)

As for the free to play model: I think they may have screwed up a little. The only real incentive to go Gold seems to be free form characters. They already have sixteen archetypes available. Every archetype they release just gives casual players who don't want to learn the character building system another reason not to go Gold.

And going Gold is important in this type of hybrid model. Pure cash shop Asian MMOs get a good influx of money because of their HUGE player bases. Some of them make WoW seem puny by comparison. However, the hybrid model that was started (or at least started the trend of A-list games going hybrid) by Turbine is meant for games with a lot lower populations.

There's no way any studio can produce enough new content to satisfy its players. Once everything is bought, then the player is ahead of the subscription. Since companies live and die by repeat business, a game company with a smaller player base needs people to convert to subs. Players already know that it's more cost effective to buy up all the parts of the game that they want or need versus a sub. So the subscribers need to have a very juicy perk to get those conversions.

Now, Cryptic undoubtedly has the numbers on this, but my concern is they will reach market saturation with those who want free form, since the more serious or hard core players are usually the minority in an MMO population.

I think what they need is more gated content, as well as a perk or two more for going Gold. The reason I went VIP (sub) on DDO is that I like having access to all of the content. I could simply buy all the content packs, but it's easier on the budget to spread out the cost, plus I can get it all NOW. Maybe time will take care of that one, as it takes time to produce the content.

As far as the store goes, I'm kind of ambivalent. While on the one hand, they seem to be giving away too much (for example, the comic book missions could have been gated content), they also seem stingy. The example above about making costume parts that were available on release unavailable for a former box purchaser is one example. There is no middle ground between totally free player and subscriber.

Turbine has Free, Premium, and VIP. Once you've spent some real money on the game, whether by buying points or by buying a boxed product. That Premium status gets you access to more stuff than a totally free player, like lifting chat, auction, and e-mail restrictions, raising the money cap, additional character slots, continued access to content that shipped with your box purchase (!), etc. VIP gets you access to almost all gated content, all race options, and most class options. This gives people at least some incentive to make that first point purchase and spend real money on the game. CO lacks that.

Another peeve with the CO model is that they don't give any discounts for purchasing larger point bundles. Every point you buy will cost you $0.0125. I haven't been paying attention long enough to notice if they ever run sales on Cryptic point bundles. The lack of any level of bulk discount makes them look cheap, even while they're giving away the farm.

Overall, their cash shop system is kind of odd, and I'll be interested to see if they can make it work, or if they'll tweak it. On the other hand, they give away quite a bit for free, so there seems like plenty to do for a Silver account, which is nice. I do plan to spend at least a few bucks on the cash shop, because I still have some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, and because I'm pleased with the improvements that have been made so far, and hope they can fix anything else that needs fixing.

Re: So Which Hideout are you looking at?

I'm trying to decide if I want to get a hideout. (I have my eye on a barely-used moon base.) I read on the CO wiki that they have a crime computer (what does it do?) and tailor access points as convenience features. I heard mention in game that they have shared storage. Are there any other convenience features? Do these come with the base, or do they require in game currency to add to the base? What about customization/decorating? In game currency, drops, crafting?

Re: Interesting Graphic on NPC Heights

I don't know why they don't just change the numbers on the height slider in character creation. Just add a foot. Then if you make a tall character, it may actually appear to be tall. My main is like 6'5" but looks like a kid standing next to most of the NPCs. Same thing in CoH. If you aren't 7' tall, you aren't going to be seeing eye to eye with most of your contacts.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

But when someone can avoid the "binding arbitration" by simply choosing to not buy the game' date=' can it really be called "forced"?[/quote']

 

If you can't access the license before buying the software and attempting to install it, then yes. Even if you can*, in the case of MMOs, the license can be updated at any time, and if you want to continue to play the game, you're forced to agree to the new license. Keep in mind, they can change the license after you've made potentially substantial expenditures on their product. By changing the license after the fact, they're essentially manipulating that sense of investment in the product to their advantage. That's unethical to say the least.

 

It's all very shady business. As far as I know, click through licenses have yet to be tested in court.

 

 

*And in the cases where you can, I've never seen it possible at point of sale. It's almost always somewhere on the company's website. Before the web was prevalent, it was usually impossible to read a software license before buying the -- nonreturnable -- software.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

 

I think somebody needs to adjust some laws so that binding arbitration can't be forced on a consumer like this.

 

When one of these gets tested in court, I'm suspect we'll find out that they can't.

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Yeah, I've got a Behemoth, pretty fun. For my armored assassin/espionage type, I think I'll just go with Blades and save the points on another archetype for character slots instead. That'll give me two more slots for ranged/support types.

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Looks like it's a one time deal for the tutorial, second character through didn't get any pts. Ah, well, guess I'll pick up a few pts.

Do they run sales on points? Do they offer you any one time incentive to buy some points like Turbine does?

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Nothing super interesting. Just a hard suit/stealthy type character with high tech gear, inspired by Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex. So, shiny metal tech armor with the single lens face mask, tech backpack and a couple of pistols.

I was thinking about the psychic/energy blades or another weapon set instead. Weapon doesn't really matter much, just something high-techish.

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Also, I owe Nolgroth rep, it says I've been giving it away like a two dollar hooker for the past 24 hours. (Man, they need to edit that error message . . . )

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Thanks. Maybe another archetype would work better for the character. Is there a way to edit your existing costume in game? I'm thinking I can get rid of the pistols on the costume to make it fit another archetype better.

@Enforcer84: I just put a new character through the starter zone. I went from 400 points (for the first/existing character, or maybe just got that because I used to have a subscription) to 480 points. So, it's possible to grind points through the starting zone be creating/deleting a character in one slot. It's probably much more cost effective to go earn the money to buy some points, but it looks like it's possible to at least grind out some, if slowly. About to make a new character and go through again, to see if it'll work.

Re: Interesting Graphic on NPC Heights

Yeah, it's kind of funny. CoH must have had the same spell cast on it.

I was reading a thread about the (extreme) height of the NPCs in CO, and one of the game's artists posted this pic showing the heights of various NPCs:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2147/5704258452_27088133c7_o.jpg

I thought Sapphire was just a tad on the tall side! (How tall is she in 6e Champs? Did she put on a growth spurt? )

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

If it's 400 per character through the beginner zone, that's cool. I was under impression it was only for the first one. I'll test that out when I can sit through the beginner zone again. =)

Re: Picking a Free to Play Archetype

Thanks! That's some good info. I've already converted my one character who was basically going to be a flying brick to a Behemoth. I think I'll just try a few of the other choices for my other character slot(s).

Is the Specialist worth buying? I have one character I like the costume on that I wanted to convert, but want the two guns. Provided it doesn't suck too badly. I'd have to buy at least a small bundle of points to get it though. I only have the 400 they give you for doing the tutorial or whatever. (You still can't get points in game, right?)

Re: Reality Storm/SAS

Thank you. That may not give me a hard and fast answer' date=' but it does give me enough background to base my own tweaks/interpretation on.[/quote']

 

If you need more info I can PM it to you. Just didn't want to paste large chunks of text on the board.

Re: Reality Storm/SAS

The origin story states that she found a mystic weapon, embedded in the Iron Duke's chest. The future Green Ronin popped up just after she first touched it. They wrestled for control of the weapon, then it melted away into a silvery liquid metal. Red Phoenix got most of the power, Green Ronin the next biggest slice, and Iron Duke absorbed enough to recover and get a strength boost.

The part Rachel is described as getting gives her partial armor and an energy sword.

Later in the origin, it states that she can summon the mystic armament and transform into her amazonian bod with just a thought.

The following powers are bought through an Item of Power: Armor, Enhanced Stat (Body), Flight, Force Field, Immovable, Special Attack (Phoenix Blade). I'm guessing these are what was intended by the IIF. Maybe they figured the armor was removable? I dunno. I'd go with OIHID for these personally.

Her powers outside the Item of Power are: Alternate Form: Red Phoenix (boosts physical stats and combat abilities), Dynamic Power: Magic, Reincarnation (Not for Rachel apparently, but for a new manifestation of Red Phoenix, in the form of the next "heir"), Special Defense (age, disease, poison, hunger, pain, sleep).

Since the text explicitly states that she transforms AND summons the sword/armor, and doesn't mention her being able to do either independently (though her write up seems to indicate such), I'm inclined to go with OIHID. I don't think given the background (no physical object mentioned after being covered by the silvery metal stuff), that she should have gotten the Item of Power for the sword and armor. It's pretty vague. She's covered in silvery metal stuff, a big flash happens, she's now in armor with an energy sword, and later she can transform into her hero body with the armor and sword on. That strongly implies the weaponry goes away when not in use. It could also mean she has a Witchblade type arm band or whatever, but none such is mentioned.

Generally, the SAS book and rules are pretty fast and loose, so you could interpret it either way. I remember in the beta test trying to get a firm answer on just what the Powerlifting skill does in game mechanics terms, and the authors refusing to give a real answer. So, you can lift stuff with a minimal chance of injury. So, what are the rules for injuring yourself by performing feats of strength? Oh, there are none. Why buy the skill? Flavor? I can just write down "good at feats of strength" in my bio and save the six pts per level on the skill. . . and the six point level is "This is appropriate for Skills that define a particular campaign setting and will be vital in nearly all aspects of a story." So vital, they lack supporting game mechanics? Not that the game's terrible, but that's an insight into their design philosophy, so feel free to improvise to whatever actually makes sense to you.

I haven't really sat down and tried to learn to play CO since it's gone FTP, but figured I may start a new character today. I've only got access to the 8 free to play archetypes: Inferno, Mind, Grimoire, Marksman, Glacier, Blade, Behemoth, Soldier.

Are any of these better designed overall than the others?

Are any of these so badly designed that they should be avoided?

Are any of these early bloomers or late bloomers? I prefer early, since I'll probably level fairly slowly.

Are any particularly suited to or unsuited to solo play? I prefer solo capability, since I play for very short sessions a lot of the time due to the medical stuff.