City of Heroes adds Invention System

[Dr.Finger]

Soming soon to beautiful Paradise City? Evil Genuises and Mad Alchemists. From Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=75889) comes news that the popular MMO will finally be adding crafting to the game. NCsoft has told Eurogamer the new Invention System addition to City of Heroes is "imminent", suggesting it's just days away.This free expansion patch will add a new crafting system to the MMO, which lets you collect ingredients and recipes from felled monsters to make powerful items. The update also introduces 10 new sets of wings: Angel, Demon, Dragon, Burned, Bone, Bat, Cherub, Insect, Tech and Fairy. I've heard from people for a while now that the only thing CoH/CoV was really lacking was a crafting system, but I have a feeling that this change will be controversial nonetheless.

[Heretic Machine]

CoH/CoV doesn't need a crafting system. It needs more heroic/villainous stuff to do in the city at large, rather than in instanced missions taking place in Generic Warehouse #56948. It also needs a way for heroes/villains to interact with each other outside of goal-based PvP zones and that stupid nightclub. It also needs to have the XP given out permanently modified to two or three times it's current rate. The crafting system is hardly a solution to any of it's problems.

[jpublic]

Perigon, we get it. You don't like CoX. Do you have to rant like this every time the game comes up?

[Heretic Machine]

Perigon, we get it. You don't like CoX. Do you have to rant like this every time the game comes up?

First of all, I have an active subscription and found that they did fix a few of the problems I had with the game, and may play for a few months. The game still isn't perfect, and in fact has quite a few problems that bring down the fun-factor significantly. If you have a problem with valid complaints about the game, then you should probably just go find a CoH fanboy-forum and lurk there. The Invention System doesn't make any sense, and addresses none of the current problems with the game.

[Psykoboy2]

Actually, he writes like he loves CoX, but recognizes that it needs to make some changes for it to be something enjoyable. He sounds like me, really. I loved the games. And still do really as they were my first and only MMOs. But as much as I love them, I can't help but see that they are flawed and need work, especially for me to get back into them.

[Deathwave]

A crafting system will add nothing to COX that will solve it's problem of becoming a boring grind. The developers, a long time ago, showed that they had no intention of adding what would solve the grind issue. They are intent on adding more fluff, not more substance.

[jpublic]

First of all, I have an active subscription and found that they did fix a few of the problems I had with the game, and may play for a few months. The game still isn't perfect, and in fact has quite a few problems that bring down the fun-factor significantly. If you have a problem with valid complaints about the game, then you should probably just go find a CoH fanboy-forum and lurk there. The Invention System doesn't make any sense, and addresses none of the current problems with the game.

I have a problem with the way that you consistently want to bring up the negative, and only mention the positive when called on it.

If that makes me some CoX fanboy - then so be it. I'll go pay my membership fee and apply for my first merit badge.

[BitterCupOJoe]

The Invention System doesn't make any sense, and addresses none of the current problems with the game.

Actually, it does fix, or at least somewhat fix, several of the problems I had with the game. Mainly, it gives a feeling of incremental improvement to characters. Previously, you leveled up, picked a new power, put a store-bought enhancmement in, and then played for another 6 hours in order to get another couple of slots, which were immediately filled, then played 7 hours for the next level, etc. At the very least, with the inventions, there's a chance of getting a drop that you're going to do somethign with besides vendor. People that want to can go and farm for for sets of enhancements, sets which actually have useful benefits, unlike most of the sets in WoW.

As a side bonus, it makes it so that slotting powers becomes much less of a rote activity. "Oh, damage resistance shield? 3 +damres enhancements and an end reducer. Yawn." becomes "Well, I could go 3 damres/1 endredux, or I could go with the 3-enhancement set that adds psionic resistance or maybe 2 damres plus the 2-piece set that gives +Health or..." There's a lot more options than there used to be in character building.

Of course, it doesn't fix that the grind is just way too long and that there's no real endgame, but one thing at a time.

In terms of "more heroic things to do in the city at large," that's a great idea, except that probably 90% of the non-instanced content goes untouched. Until they fixed it, there could be 2-3 of the Lusca giant monster out in Independence Port, because nobody cared to fight it. The ghosts from the ghost ship were ignored. Babbage regularly rampages through King's Row. The fires in Steel Canyon get ignored. The last time anyone really paid a lot of attention to outside events was probably when the Council beat down the Fifth Column,a nd that's because you simply couldn't avoid fighting them. Well, and because there was good XP in grinding the spawns. It's no better over in CoV, either.

I would love to see a cool, dynamic city that had events going on in it that heroes could deal with, either solo or teamed. It's probably just not going to happen in CoX, tho. Maybe in the Marvel MMO.

[Heretic Machine]

In terms of "more heroic things to do in the city at large," that's a great idea, except that probably 90% of the non-instanced content goes untouched. Until they fixed it, there could be 2-3 of the Lusca giant monster out in Independence Port, because nobody cared to fight it. The ghosts from the ghost ship were ignored. Babbage regularly rampages through King's Row. The fires in Steel Canyon get ignored. The last time anyone really paid a lot of attention to outside events was probably when the Council beat down the Fifth Column,a nd that's because you simply couldn't avoid fighting them. Well, and because there was good XP in grinding the spawns. It's no better over in CoV, either.

Well, the problem with the Giant Monster creatures is that they don't get in your face and do anything to provoke attack. Hell, not only are they not menacing the city, you could have a hard time finding the fuckers even if you know where their spawn patterns are! No rewards either, besides a badge. I guess I just wish that villains could somehow do a raid on hero-zones, and vice-versa. That would be a start. Also, if some large-scale enemy raids would happen every now and then, and not just for special occasions.

I have a problem with the way that you consistently want to bring up the negative, and only mention the positive when called on it.

If that makes me some CoX fanboy - then so be it. I'll go pay my membership fee and apply for my first merit badge.

Ok, you want me to talk about the positives? I guess I can, even though they're mostly (not entirely) the same positives that were there at launch.


Cool character creation system, encouraging creativity.
Intense, epic battles, involving a dozen mobs at a time.
Extremely robust character building system allowing for dozens of different builds.
An extremely large world, possibly the largest MMO world, ever.
Beautiful graphics that have gotten better over time, now featuring cool physics effects involving things like spent bullet shells.
Travel powers are awesome.
It is easy to get around the city, for free, with the tram and travel powers.
Excellent community, and interesting base-building feature for SGs.

[jpublic]

Actually, my problem with the GMs is how they de-leveled them. When I could go spank the Kraken in Perez or Babbage in Boomtown for kicks with a level 30, they at least got some use. And frankly, one hero vs. one monster is pretty damn heroic, isn't it?

Now, with the way that they are level-independant and you have to get a team to even have a chance, they're not used as much. I don't think I've ever been in IP and had someone announce a Lusca run.


The Council/Column fights were always fun - I'd like to see more of that on the streets. You see some of it in CoX, but...here's an example. Hollows is a battleground between the CoT, the Outcast, the Trolls, and Pumicites. In addition to the random static spawns, how about having a Siren's Call-esque confrontation happen at random times in random places.



As to Perigon's idea of villain vs. heroes stuff, I'd actually agree. Maybe set up some special way for a single villain (or group) to get into a zone like Steel Canyon and cause some havoc. I'm not sure how you could run it without there being a dogpile on them or annoying griefing, but it should be possible.

Or as an alternate, how about setting up some of those Mayhem/Safeguards where you can actually have a player as the hero/villain enemy? So a hero, let's say, starts the KR Safeguard, and when prompted chooses to make it PVP. Well the system puts him in a 60s queue, and waits to see if a villain starts the associated Mayhem and also agrees to make it PvP. If so, you've got a PvP mission happening.

(Yes, I've put forward these ideas a long time ago.)



The one thing I really want to see in CoX is more powers.


Edit: Okay, Perigon, I'll lay off. I'm sorry.

[bean19]

CoH/CoV doesn't need a crafting system. It needs more heroic/villainous stuff to do in the city at large, rather than in instanced missions taking place in Generic Warehouse #56948. It also needs a way for heroes/villains to interact with each other outside of goal-based PvP zones and that stupid nightclub. It also needs to have the XP given out permanently modified to two or three times it's current rate. The crafting system is hardly a solution to any of it's problems.

I agree with you completely.

[Moatman]

I receive my 36-month active account veteran reward next week, meaning I've had an active account the entire life of the game(minus a week due to my not noticing a billing issue) I was in both coh and cov betas, also. Just setting up where I'm coming from. I also am a comic book fan, so take that into account also.

CoX does quite a few things right, things that it does even much better than WoW and other "big name" mmo's. They include:
-Amazing graphics(at a cost of performance, though)
-Amazing sidekicking/reverse-sk system that *all* mmo's need a form of
-Fun and rewarding grouping(good scaling system, harder usually means more fun)
-Great looking for group system
-Global chat system across servers
-Optional pvp where you can chat with the enemy or ignore them
-Entire pvp zones with varied objectives/quests/settings
-Great variety in characters and classes(they feel totally different)
-Ability to make your character look how you want, separate from what loot is "best"
-Amazing character customizability depth
-Overall wow factor when first starting out
-Fun transportation(travel powers)
-Mayhem missions

The problem is, despite all of those great things, it has a number of holes that you start to see the longer you play. These include:
-Generic missions get old pretty quick
-Actiony gameplay rarely requires strategy on base difficulty
-Lack of anything to do besides pve and pvp(which issue 9 should fix)
-No economy(again, this will change with issue 9)
-Harsh grind soloing, much worse than any mmo I've played
-Runs very poorly for a 3-year old game(if you want to the game to look pretty at all)
-Often generic fights, even grouping, that feel tedious
-Huge "defeat all" maps(or any defeat all map, to be honest)
-Constant nerfs, we were told that we wouldn't need nerfs since we were "super" at launch
-Annoying pvp dominated by Stalkers or people who fly/jump away at any danger
-Poor pvp rewards
-Long delay between bug fixes and updates(cov was due to launch with super base raiding in october 2005, for example, and it's still not in)
-Less of an endgame than WoW
-Delays in features claimed to be "soon"(for years) such as server transfers, base raiding, flashback feature(to lower your level to do previous quests), and other things that never have seen the light of day
-Generic feel of enemies once you've fought them once or twice
-Hugely quick turnaround time compared to other mmo's(even the dev's admit this) meaning people try it and quick quicker than other games, but they also get a lot of new or returning players to offset this

Their nerfs are a bit overboard, I went from having a quite overpowered 90% damage resist and 95% defense(making me both really hard to hit and then those hits doing nearly no damage) to maybe 30% resists and not even sure how much defense he could get. He did very little damage but was just a good meat-shield to take aggro, now he does even less damage and has less defensive ability than even some of the high-damage classes. Just an example of how they over-nerf something(I fully expected a nerf down to maybe 50-60% mitigation and defense, but two nerf patches in a row make him totally unplayable with his low damage)

I play for 4-hours a week, twice a week we have a 2-hour play session with our group, we all enjoy playing together and we don't have any other game where we can be various levels and still play together, so it makes it easy for us. Sometimes I get in the mood to play, but the soloing grind really burns me out quickly.

As a group, we have all had our times where we played every day, those are just few and far between. Grouping ends up being the only time we have fun, the difficulty ramps up quite well and it can become a challenge, but even then it can feel like a chore. It's such a double edged sword because I want to enjoy it, it's not like I hate the game at all, it just seems to burn people out quicker than other games.

I will say that 75% of all the friends I've had play the game and quit have come back to play it 1 or more times, it does offer a lot of fun for a short period, but they never end up staying for more than a month or two.

Maybe this update will help give the game the depth it needs to keep people interested.

[Heretic Machine]

Two things I forgot to mention in other posts

1) CoH/CoV is the only MMO that I've found to actually incorporate the vertical environment well at all. Most just ignore it beyond some hills or stairs.

2) It is Paragon City, not Paradise City, please change the OP :p

[jpublic]

I got my Addicted Badge (36 mo) last week. :)

(I totally feel your pain on the nerfs. I have an Inv scrapper who went from being a Cuisinart to a Philishave)

I just went back and screwed around with my first 50 and I have to say, I do kind of see the point on Endgame now. I'd like to do *something* with him. Even if they give us the ability to reboot them into some kind of off-the-wall-uber-AT, like a base class that can take powers w/out level limits or something, and let me replay the game as a badass.

[bean19]

I got my Addicted Badge (36 mo) last week. :)

(I totally feel your pain on the nerfs. I have an Inv scrapper who went from being a Cuisinart to a Philishave)

I just went back and screwed around with my first 50 and I have to say, I do kind of see the point on Endgame now. I'd like to do *something* with him. Even if they give us the ability to reboot them into some kind of off-the-wall-uber-AT, like a base class that can take powers w/out level limits or something, and let me replay the game as a badass.

It's not that 50 = the end of character progress.

The problem is that because 50 = the end of character progress, Crypitc makes level 25-50 an extremely harsh grind that most people aren't willing to play through.

[Moatman]

I have to add another plus and minus together in the two epic classes you unlock by hitting level 50 with a hero. They are fun classes, very similar playstyle to Druids in wow in that they have a tank form, a nuking form, and their regular form that can do various things.

The problem is that when they nerfed how many of any type of enhance into a power, they lost a lot of utility in their regular form and it forced people into using the extra forms, instead of them being optional. They really underperform unless you are in a full group(they get bonuses based on who is in their group) after the nerfs. Enhancement Diversification really took the "Super" of of this Super-Hero/Villain game.

*Mourns Invuln powerset* Definitely needed nerfing, but not into being useless.

[jpublic]

It's not that 50 = the end of character progress.

The problem is that because 50 = the end of character progress, Crypitc makes level 25-50 an extremely harsh grind that most people aren't willing to play through.

I'd disagree with that a little - with Striga and Croatoa (especially Croatoa, that zone is fan-freakin-tastic) I'd push that out to 35-50. Especially 35-40, when I really notice some tedium.

OTOH, once you break 40 and can do all those missions that are chock full of AVs (or EBs for soloists like me) there is a lot of new life in the game.


On the gripping hand, I don't apply this so much to CoV. There's so much to do in that side it's only now getting tired for me. Heck, I practically soloed my way to 50 in villainside and I only ran out of missions twice. And the writing is of such vastly better quality than the CoH stuff, it's way more fun to play.

Probably the shining light of CoV is the 5-15 level range, where is actually more content than you can do without outleveling it. I think that's something Cryptic seriously needs to emulate in the rest of the game - have so much stuff to do that you drive obsessive-compulsive completists like me into fits.

[lockwoodx]

Coh/Cov has the most neumerous and massive nerfs of any mmo I've ever seen and has become a look but don't touch product I really hope does well, but I don't expect it to get any better.

And yes I'm one of those who've cancled and come back twice...once after launch because of the grind then back before the power slot nerf, then once after CoV to give that a try and it kept me amused a whole 3 weeks till the grind past lvl 10 made me think wtf was I wasting my time for when I could be experiencing much more content in wow in less time.

[bean19]

jpublic - You have the 3-year veteran rewards. Maybe you aren't the best judge of what people dislike about the game. ;)

I'll make a stronger case for my argument against the grind. . . I don't think it has anything to do with content. People just get tired of the content even when it's cool because there is just SOOOoooo much of it from level 25+. Having lots of stuff to do before you level doesn't mean that you shouldn't level until it's all done. It's the slow advancement rate that gets people, regardless of how much content is out there (and I also like Striga Island a lot - though I think the whole voodoo tie-in with the Fifth Column guys was kind of silly. . . well, no, I liked it, but I'd like to have seen them being fascists and not just horror-movie-scientists. . . annoyed me that you have a fascist group that I never feared in-game when these are the type of people that I fear the most in real life. . . something really scary about prejudice).

I led a very large SG (actually 5 SGs to get all the people in due to the 75 player SG cap) in the first 8 months of the game. My most frequent complaint: Not enough people grouping in the SG from levels 25+. The reason most people left the game: Bored with the grind. . . and always with people who were around level 30.

It's a really real for the reallies problem, and the game is obviously fun enough for people to make alts. I don't know why they haven't just doubled the xp earned yet. It would make the game a LOT better.

[jpublic]

I think I see your point about the post 25 grind. And to be brutally honest, most of my characters *are* pre-30.

But something like that true in all MMOs?

I mean, doesn't every game work on the principle that once you get to a certain level the time-to-advancement ratio starts to really skyrocket? What makes it different in CoX as opposed to other games?

[bean19]

I mean, doesn't every game work on the principle that once you get to a certain level the time-to-advancement ratio starts to really skyrocket? What makes it different in CoX as opposed to other games?

Yes, totally - but CoH/CoV is really bad about it. I'd expect the last 5 levels to be about as grindy as 30-35, but the rest of the game to scale from there. . . in other words, pretty much double the xp.

Another problem that CoH/CoV has is that there isn't any uber loot, and that is honestly really silly. How cool would it be if they gave you enhancements that ignored the enhancement nerfs whenever you did task forces? You could give those away from 25-40 because they would all be worthless by endgame. Then at the endgame you could still do them, but restrict it to one/power so that you could have 4 damages on attack powers instead of just 3, and then you could fill up that last slot with a crafted power.

My point is that in other games you can experience character advancement even when you don't level.

If I was able to redesign CoX, I'd:

1. Double the xp after level 25 and have a ramp up to it in levels 15-25. . . 10% more at 16, 20% more at 17, etc. so that the shift isn't so dramatic.

2. Give out "overcharge" slot enhancers that allow you to overcome the enhancement nerf in one slot on each power for the successful completion of task forces. I'd do this in endgame too. You could earn them for SG item of power runs or smaller raids (the bonus to the big SG raids would be the items of power in addition to the normal overcharge item).

3. Focus on PvP. You have a City of Heroes and a City of Villains. . . this SCREAMS PvP.

First, I'd have Statesmen and Arachnos have a huge battle that destroys Atlas Park. Paragon City officials get together and ask Statesman to invade the islands that CoV is set in. They do so and a large portion of the islands are destroyed. This is "bad for business" and Statesman and Arachnos agree to host a competition for ownership of zones. This becomes a war on every server to "take over" on both sides. Bring justice to more and more zones or spread your evil hand. Contacts would all be moved to cell phones and all areas of the game would be made available to both groups, but entering areas "controlled" by the other side would automatically put your PvP flag up.

The PvP battlegrounds/tournament held by Statesman and ARachnos would take place in different locations where you were ported. You can sign up with the people in your group, but you'd be auto-teamed and this would work across servers to keep queue times short.

Maps will be built with choke points and areas that prevent certain travel powers so that PvP actually occurs instead of being so hit-and-run.

Well. . . honestly, I don't know. . . I mean, they've kind of built themselves into just doing fan-service now, and I can see why. To really get a good endgame, you'd have to do PvP and they never built the game with PvP in mind. It works TERRIBLY as a PvP game.

[jpublic]

Hey, if we're talking about redisgning CoX, I'd tell you my fist step: Single player game.

That'll sorta tell you where I stand on PvP. I LOATHE PvP. Well, loathe is a pretty light word, but 'hate it with the blistering fury of a thousand exploding supernovae' is kind of unwieldy.

I like your #2 idea, but I'd present it in a different way:

-- Instead of 3 levels, I'd make four(or even five!). Make the enhancement values 8.3/16.6/25/33.3/41.6 (or 5/10/15/20/25) and make them upgrade at 12/22/32/42. Make the ED limits scale with level, so that someone at 22 gets less out of 3 enhancements than someone at 31 does.

But hey, what do I know?

[MaxDuo]

Hm. I played CoH when it first came out. I thought it was so awesome. I loved the character creation. I loved all the skills. I loved the massive cities. When I got a travel power it was the most amazing thing ever to me.

But yes... The grind was pretty horrible. I made a Ranger (wasn't that the ranged class name??) and got to about 18 and got tired of him. So then I made.. Something else. I don't remember what but I liked it. Then my friend who I was playing on the account of ended up quitting the game. Granted when he quit I had grown a little tired of it as level 20 was starting to get annoying. I didn't like how once you got up in the levels, to do any decent leveling at all you needed a group.

Then we played again when CoV came out. I made a Mastermind... A gentleman named "Mr. Diddles" who summoned ninjas. I thought it was hilarious. I loved the character. Had a great time playing him. I got in a great villain group and things were great. I made another character that I enjoyed and he got in another nice group. Eventually Around level 30 or so I got tired of things and stopped playing... Came back 2 months later and basically my entire groups had quit....

The game was fun but it just got boring when the only reward was leveling and new skills. I loved getting new skills but to play for hours and get no reward between annoyed me. The only items were short term instant enhancements and then the other little enhancements.... But I always quickly maxed out what I could and got bored of things...

I loved when you could have a massive massive fight, even if it got out of hand. It was always amazing and seemed so cool.

Just makes me sad that the game always lost it's shine to me after a while....

Also another huge annoyance to me was I didn't like when you reached level 50 and there was nothing else special to do. I had 2 friends who shared a character. They played forever and when finally at 50... They went around and looked at stuff... helped clan mates level... Did missions....but........ Nothing was really worth it so they got tired and made another character. Just sucked that max level was more like the end of the game. Or at least seemed that way to me.

A pity.... I did love that game. And wow....... Base raiding was never put in!?!?!? I thought that seemed so awesome....

[Heretic Machine]

Just wanted to point out that Issue 9 is live, as of today.