Chylde Roland
May 12th, 2004, 11:10 am
Here’s a rather lengthy post about my experiences in City of Heroes so far. Keep in mind that my heroes are still young, and I haven’t experienced the level 10+ game yet. These are more like early impressions based on about 15 hours of play.
Straight off, there's a couple of things I don't like. First, there's no capes, overcoats, etc. in character design. This seems like a major missing element to me, but it's not a show-stopper. It would be nice, though. Also, once you create your hero, there's no easy way to change appearances (yet), so be sure you like what you've built.
There's also some rampant kill stealing going on. More often than not, I'll be fighting a group of enemies, and some other "hero" will come along to "help" me out. I think they forgot that other players are heroes too, and usually don’t want, need or appreciate the assistance. I generally PM them to let them know I don't appreciate it, or I call them jerks on the public chat channel, and they usually go away. I think this issue will ease as characters start to spread out across the city, and across levels. There's still a LOT of low level characters running around, and I think that's mainly because people are doing a lot of experimentation with different combinations.
Anyway, that about covers what I don't like.
The rest of it is awesome.
The character creation interface is terrific, if a little unclear at times. This is acceptable though, because there are so many choices. You can customize something in the neighborhood of a dozen uniform items, and you can change the colors of any piece of your hero, right down to skin and hair tones.
When you create your character, you choose from one of five “origins,” indicating the source of your powers (mutant, natural, science, technical, and magical). You then select one of five archetypes, or classes (blaster, controller, scrapper, defender, and tanker).
There’s a character ID screen, and in this you can type up a bio for your character as well as adding a battle cry. I have yet to do these portions, because I’ve been thinking about what to write.
When you enter the game, you run through a tutorial session that gives you a good idea of how things work, and also nets you your first level. From there, you choose to go to either Galaxy City or Atlas Park. You are also given a contact, which is someone who will give you missions.
There’s a large variety of missions you can do, which I won’t get into here, except to say this: they’re entertaining, and some of them introduce you to a story arc, which is very cool. The story arc missions give you good background around the different enemy factions, and it’s very deep and detailed. Trust me, if you like comics, you’ll love this part of the game.
Here’s a bit about my characters.
I have a level 7 mutant scrapper called Kitana Jade. Her main weapon (obviously) is a katana sword. She’s an expert in close range combat, and has secondary abilities centered around healing arts, so she’s a good solo character. By level 14 she’ll have super jump capabilities, and will be able to clear buildings in a single leap.
I also have a level 6 natural blaster named Chylde Roland. He’s a “gunslinger” type character and specializes in assault guns. His secondary abilities are in a fire-based group, so he can “cast” different fire powers. He’s a ranged fighter, and blasters aren’t well suited to melee combat, so soloing is a bit different with this guy. The difference in tactics from Kitana make him a lot of fun to play, too. I recently took the “hover” power, and it’s very cool. I think hover is more of a combat ability, because movement is very, very slow. It opens the door for me to take flight later, which is a high speed version of hover, allowing you to cover vast distances in a short time. There’s even aerial combat, which I’m definitely looking forward to.
One other thing about powers: while you fight, you sometimes win enhancements, which are a way to enhance your powers. Each power you select includes one enhancement slot (you can add slots to the powers of your choice as you level up) and you can attach these enhancements to powers of your choice. Some enhancements are broad in use, like a reduction in a power’s recharge time. Others, like flight speed increase, are very specific and may be useless to you, so you can sell or drop them. Enhancements are a good way to increase your overall power, and they can be won or purchased from other NPC heroes. You can also sell or trade them to other players.
The economy is based on something called Influence. As you defeat enemies you gain both XP and influence, which is kind of like how well-known you are. You can spend influence on new enhancements, or you can buy inspirations, which are one-off enhancements (like a heal, or temporary damage/agility/speed/defense increases).
Finally, there’s the social aspect of the game. It seems pretty good, but I haven’t actually grouped with anyone yet. I’m having too much fun on my own right now. :): You can create short term teams of up to eight heroes, you can also take on a sidekick, which is a “legal” way of twinking one of your buddies by using your high level character to help him or her fight enemies they normally couldn’t handle, and gain reams of XP while they’re at it.
You can also form super groups of heroes, but you can’t do this until after level 10. You can’t form or join a Super Group until that level. When you do, you register with the city (lol) and add everyone’s names to the registration form. You can create an insignia, and add team colors. This is the only time you can change your colors, as you can elect to do this when you join the team.
And that’s about it for now. If I missed anything, I’m sure some of our other resident heroes can add to this.
On a final note, I thought it would be kind of cool to create our own GMv Super Group. If any CoH players here would like to do this, let me know. We can pick a server and our roles, and start from the ground up. Personally, I think it would be a blast to do so. (thanks to Gary V. for the suggestion!).
And thanks for taking the time to read this lengthy message!
-CR
Straight off, there's a couple of things I don't like. First, there's no capes, overcoats, etc. in character design. This seems like a major missing element to me, but it's not a show-stopper. It would be nice, though. Also, once you create your hero, there's no easy way to change appearances (yet), so be sure you like what you've built.
There's also some rampant kill stealing going on. More often than not, I'll be fighting a group of enemies, and some other "hero" will come along to "help" me out. I think they forgot that other players are heroes too, and usually don’t want, need or appreciate the assistance. I generally PM them to let them know I don't appreciate it, or I call them jerks on the public chat channel, and they usually go away. I think this issue will ease as characters start to spread out across the city, and across levels. There's still a LOT of low level characters running around, and I think that's mainly because people are doing a lot of experimentation with different combinations.
Anyway, that about covers what I don't like.
The rest of it is awesome.
The character creation interface is terrific, if a little unclear at times. This is acceptable though, because there are so many choices. You can customize something in the neighborhood of a dozen uniform items, and you can change the colors of any piece of your hero, right down to skin and hair tones.
When you create your character, you choose from one of five “origins,” indicating the source of your powers (mutant, natural, science, technical, and magical). You then select one of five archetypes, or classes (blaster, controller, scrapper, defender, and tanker).
There’s a character ID screen, and in this you can type up a bio for your character as well as adding a battle cry. I have yet to do these portions, because I’ve been thinking about what to write.
When you enter the game, you run through a tutorial session that gives you a good idea of how things work, and also nets you your first level. From there, you choose to go to either Galaxy City or Atlas Park. You are also given a contact, which is someone who will give you missions.
There’s a large variety of missions you can do, which I won’t get into here, except to say this: they’re entertaining, and some of them introduce you to a story arc, which is very cool. The story arc missions give you good background around the different enemy factions, and it’s very deep and detailed. Trust me, if you like comics, you’ll love this part of the game.
Here’s a bit about my characters.
I have a level 7 mutant scrapper called Kitana Jade. Her main weapon (obviously) is a katana sword. She’s an expert in close range combat, and has secondary abilities centered around healing arts, so she’s a good solo character. By level 14 she’ll have super jump capabilities, and will be able to clear buildings in a single leap.
I also have a level 6 natural blaster named Chylde Roland. He’s a “gunslinger” type character and specializes in assault guns. His secondary abilities are in a fire-based group, so he can “cast” different fire powers. He’s a ranged fighter, and blasters aren’t well suited to melee combat, so soloing is a bit different with this guy. The difference in tactics from Kitana make him a lot of fun to play, too. I recently took the “hover” power, and it’s very cool. I think hover is more of a combat ability, because movement is very, very slow. It opens the door for me to take flight later, which is a high speed version of hover, allowing you to cover vast distances in a short time. There’s even aerial combat, which I’m definitely looking forward to.
One other thing about powers: while you fight, you sometimes win enhancements, which are a way to enhance your powers. Each power you select includes one enhancement slot (you can add slots to the powers of your choice as you level up) and you can attach these enhancements to powers of your choice. Some enhancements are broad in use, like a reduction in a power’s recharge time. Others, like flight speed increase, are very specific and may be useless to you, so you can sell or drop them. Enhancements are a good way to increase your overall power, and they can be won or purchased from other NPC heroes. You can also sell or trade them to other players.
The economy is based on something called Influence. As you defeat enemies you gain both XP and influence, which is kind of like how well-known you are. You can spend influence on new enhancements, or you can buy inspirations, which are one-off enhancements (like a heal, or temporary damage/agility/speed/defense increases).
Finally, there’s the social aspect of the game. It seems pretty good, but I haven’t actually grouped with anyone yet. I’m having too much fun on my own right now. :): You can create short term teams of up to eight heroes, you can also take on a sidekick, which is a “legal” way of twinking one of your buddies by using your high level character to help him or her fight enemies they normally couldn’t handle, and gain reams of XP while they’re at it.
You can also form super groups of heroes, but you can’t do this until after level 10. You can’t form or join a Super Group until that level. When you do, you register with the city (lol) and add everyone’s names to the registration form. You can create an insignia, and add team colors. This is the only time you can change your colors, as you can elect to do this when you join the team.
And that’s about it for now. If I missed anything, I’m sure some of our other resident heroes can add to this.
On a final note, I thought it would be kind of cool to create our own GMv Super Group. If any CoH players here would like to do this, let me know. We can pick a server and our roles, and start from the ground up. Personally, I think it would be a blast to do so. (thanks to Gary V. for the suggestion!).
And thanks for taking the time to read this lengthy message!
-CR