City of Heroes: Going Rogue Announced

[modeps]

http://evavhost.com/i/news/goingrogue.jpg

City of Heroes first saw a huge expansion with City of Villains (now part of City of Heroes). Today NCSoft has announced their next huge expansion for the super superhero MMO. Titled Going Rogue (http://www.cityofheroes.com/goingrogue/), this expansion will bring about a mirror universe and a new alignment system. Massively (http://www.massively.com/2009/05/12/ncsoft-announces-city-of-heroes-going-rogue-expansion/) has a brief summary, and a video:

For the first time ever, Heroes can become Villains, and Villains can become Heroes. This is yet another groundbreaking game mechanic that the Paragon Studios folks have introduced in a recent whirlwind of exciting new features. Look out Champions Online and DC Universe Online; City of Heroes is raising the standard of superhero MMOs.

Sounds cool to me.

[Demo_Boy]

Fantastic emo trailer.
Seems pretty easy featurewise

Great that COx is maintaining the feature expansion especially to maintain competitive vs. CO and so on.

[Duskfire]

I love CoH, but they are going to take a hit once Champion Online comes out. Hopefully this expansion keeps people around and even boosts up their numbers.

[bean19]

I'm not able to watch the video right now, but I'm interested in the concept. Hopefully they'll have worked out my problems with the game by then:

Slow advancement (you get levels fairly often starting out, but after level 30 it is a huge grind. . . particularly since at that point the levels that give enhancements don't significantly improve all character types due to the enhancement nerfs that came out with CoV).

Lack of endgame - The purple invention enhancements are neat, but the endgame bosses aren't nearly as interesting as those in WoW or other MMOs. Instead of requiring a variety of group strategies based on the boss, they are nearly all tank-and-spank.

Attrocious PvP - Okay, PvP is broken by travel powers and incredibly powerful crowd control that is thus countered completely by inspirations (without the counter the control powers would leave non-controllers constantly locked down and unable to act. To counteract this the counter to crowd control makes crowd control worthless. . . add in incredible travel powers and suddenly you have PvP where you can't lock people down and the only way to win is to assist-train with spike DPS. This works, but it is annoyingly one-note). I honestly don't know how to fix this, but I hope they do.

You can go to arenas, but they don't create auto-matches. Instead you sign up for events made by other players. This makes the process slow and allows the makers to cherry-pick. The other forms of PvP are in the PvP zones, but the goals inside them are to fight PvE mobs instead of being focused on fighting other players while meeting some goal. They need to remove the PvE focus.

Unrewarded PvP - You can get temporary powers that are pretty neat from the PvP zones by doing PvE, but there is no xp or inf given for winning in PvP. This makes sense due to the problems mentioned above. It is easy to cherry-pick. They need to make an arena-mode that auto-teams and has non-deathmatch goals (as well as deathmatch) in order to make PvP more interesting, fair, and thus rewardable.

Honestly though, I've given this feedback on their forums off and on for ages. Now that they have WoW and WAR as models of how to do it right, perhaps they'll finally listen. . . but then again, perhaps not. These fixes certainly weren't a part of the teaser for this expansion.

[Demo_Boy]

But I dont see PVP as the target COx player.
End game raid encounters sound pretty compelling... but niche...

What other PVE features could they add at this point? They have a crazy amount of powersets and basically infinite mission types. So what else?

[Chimpbot]

But I dont see PVP as the target COx player.
End game raid encounters sound pretty compelling... but niche...

What other PVE features could they add at this point? They have a crazy amount of powersets and basically infinite mission types. So what else?

They could add the ability to do things other than grind. I played CoH when it first launched and initially loved the lack of gear...but then I quickly realized I had nothing to fight for other than levels. I couldn't spend an evening working on tradeskills to make an item I'd like. I couldn't run through dungeons with the primary goal being a specific drop. The only thing I had to look forward to was getting a cape and some alternate costumes.

Unless things have changed drastically since the first expansion launched, the primary "fix" they need to make with PvE content is to simply add more things to do other than grind up to the level cap only to kill the endgame bosses with no real goal in mind other than beating them.

[bean19]

But I dont see PVP as the target COx player.
End game raid encounters sound pretty compelling... but niche...

1. I argue that they need PvP exactly because they need to attract all types of customers. If you give up on 30% of your possible customer base because you have always put your game's PvP features on the backburner and do not seem to understand what motivates players who enjoy PvP (fair matches, equal rewards for their effort, etc.), then you are giving up 30% of your potential income.

They have already put the time into creating these features. Modifying them to not suck wouldn't be that big of a deal.

2. They don't need just PvE "raid encounters". They have endgame archvillains that are suitable for group-play. The problem is that these archvillains all can easily be beaten with tank-and-spank. They do not require that players change the way they play in order to beat them. If you've played WoW's endgame then you will know what I mean. PvE in WoW is a joy because it contains boss mobs that require players to figure out and execute strategies beyond the basics.

What other PVE features could they add at this point? They have a crazy amount of powersets and basically infinite mission types. So what else?

1. The mission types are all the same with extremely minor variations. Aside from the differences between mobs (which can be fun), the missions are basically the same. Clicking a glowing object or slowly walking back through a mission map with a "hostage" that follows you at a very slow pace doesn't make the missions significantly different. The missions are never the focus of the game anyway because the game is not built to reward beating missions as you can gain much more xp from clearing mobs (unless you are cheating, but that's another big issue they have not yet fixed).

2. The powersets and moreso the archetypes are varied and contain a ton of different power choices. It is legitimately fun to build up new characters in these sets to about level 32 (when the game becomes a grind). After that point, the advancement is so slow that playing up different powersets for fun is only suitable for players who are either cheating (as most longtime players do) or who do not find the game to be a grind despite very slow comparative advancement.

[gojira]

I think there's things to do now in CoH.

1. Play the market. You get good stuff -- high end stuff -- from IO Sets now and you can try to assemble a set by buying the pieces or making ("crafting") it yourself. Figuring out what's most useful to you can be fun too.

2. Higher end content has costume rewards (Rikti War Zone and Cimerora). You can get these from almost any activity in these zones.

3. Mission Architect is fun to mess around with.

4. Make a base and decorate it.

5. Badge hunting can be fun too. There are several Giant Monsters in each zone that give you a badge for defeating it. Other things like exended missions (Task Force/Strike Force) give you a badge for completeing it.

I don't see much difference between these and grinding to the end of a dungeon. However, I'll definitely agree that the instanced missions ("dungeons") in CoH are very boring. No variation, no imagination. I wish they'd fix that.

[bean19]

You can only decorate a base if you are a supergroup leader or a long time member given permission by the SG leader. It is a sign of how little there is to do in CoX's endgame that you mention browsing the auction house as a gameplay feature. . . and badge-hunting and/or hunting for extra costume pieces are features that are appealing to only the very small number of players who are completionists (many more enjoy PvP or exciting/interesting PvE like the 5/10/20 man dungeons/raids in WoW).

I don't see much difference between these and grinding to the end of a dungeon. However, I'll definitely agree that the instanced missions ("dungeons") in CoH are very boring. No variation, no imagination. I wish they'd fix that.

Have you played WoW since the expansions? I hate to say it because I am such a PvP fanatic, but they have done an outstanding job making dungeon/raid content exciting. While each dungeon usually has at least one minor boss that can be killed with tank-and-spank, the majority of them have special powers or scripts that make the battles incredible. A troll boss summoned tons of snakes and required a mage to sit way in the back and throw aoes the entire fight. One end boss used some sort of psychic mirror to make it so you were isolated with the rest of your group but they had turned against you. We had to survive our group's evil dopplegangers for the length of the spell or take them out. Players who take them out are able to help those still stuck in the nightmare.

That's the kind of thing that could elevate CoX's PvE endgame to something special, and it does require a lot of work. They may not be willing or capable.

Making the PvP endgame fun is easy. Simply switch up arenas to have an auto-join feature that randomizes the type of the map and the goal and give people xp for kills and for completing rounds. Balance the xp gained by comparing it to the xp time of advanced players grinding quest xp. For endgame, start giving players that have reached max level PvP points instead of xp. These can be turned in to an arena vendor for Limit Breaker Enhancements that take up one of the six slots on a power but remove the enhancement nerf softcap.

[gojira]

The servers hold 12 characters. It's not like you can't just start your own Super Group. Yeah, grinding Prestige is a bear, but as long as you just play, it's not so bad. Coalition with your regular SG to get all the advantages of being in the SG but have your own base. And yes some of us (me) like playing the market, or getting all the costumes. That's a player thing though.

The other points, I totally agree. Gameplay is very repetitive, and really the thing holding CoH back. More scripting, special encounters, etc. would make the game much more interesting. Given how obvious this is, I don't see why they haven't done it.

One issue would be powers, however. In CoH, everyone has AoE, including the tanks. Your snake spawning boss would be "tank-and-spanked" just like all the other mobs. The doppelganger thing sounds cool though. And high end raiding doesn't seem to work well in CoH. Hami is lonely most times.

(And also I don't play WoW. Sorry.)

[bean19]

The servers hold 12 characters. It's not like you can't just start your own Super Group.
Not true. You need at least one other person to help so that you can invite all of your alts. Plus, in order to afford to build (and pay rent on a base) you need people regularly playing in supergroup mode.

[gojira]

I've helped random strangers with SG invites. Just broadcast in Atlas Park/Mercy, that's where everyone who hasn't joined a SG yet is at.