Category: City of Heroes/Villains

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Oz Trail of Trials, Part 4 – The Role of Trials

On my last review, on Everquest 2, there were some very valid comments from players of the game today. They made the point that the trial is not all there is to the game, and that I did not experience many aspects that make the game worthwhile. It’s safe to assume that were I to review any game that has been out for over 6 months that I would get people who whole-heartedly support the game and find issue with any negativity. They are not wrong, and yet, neither am I, the reviewer. We all look at games differently, and this is the beauty of a trial – it lets you see if that fit is “right”. However, that said, the trial must be the best show of the game’s mechanics possible. If not, your potential subscribers will have a bad experience and go elsewhere.

Let’s get meta.

Continue reading Oz Trail of Trials, Part 4 – The Role of Trials

Precision Pulling

I can excuse having the archer pull. The arrow is silent, and orcs yell all the time, so no one notices anything when Grok’thar bellows and goes rushing down the hallway. He’s just like that. The same for when you bean an ogre: he may have been knocked silly, but shuffling about and drooling is normal for him. I can even buy the sniper rifle pull, because I assume a silencer.

My Sonic Defender pulls by screaming. Literally. Her attacks are Scream, Howl, and Shout. The guy five feet away does not notice anything. Once I got Screech, I could stun someone in the middle of a group, scream him to “arrest,” and then start on his friends before they notice. Let’s suspend disbelief a little further: you can focus sound waves similar to the way lasers focus light, so maybe someone nearby would hear nothing from a well-focused sonic attack.

What about the guy with the fireballs? When my Ice Blaster chucks a head-sized block of jagged ice at your friend, do you not even notice its hitting the ground? What if I pull a torso-sized chunk of concrete from the ground and knock someone across the room? “Bob’s running off down that hallway again for no good reason. Grok’thar, did you leave this concrete here?” Does anyone see the pitched battle with grenades and flamethrowers on the other side of the room?

At least my Psychic Blasts make sense for that. Only how does he know where to run when someone punches him in the brain? Maybe only the target can see the psychic bolt coming. City of Heroes has properly recognized that psychic power manifests itself in glowing pinkness.

: Zubon

Early, Middle, Late

For a game that depends on a stream of income from subscribers or RMT shoppers, the first hour of play must be the top development priority. This is where you hook players. After that, the endgame is important because that is where your players will be spending time indefinitely and where your game’s chatter will come from in the long run. Next is the early game, when you build momentum. The mid-game has already fallen this far down the list, as you have certainly seen in a lot of MMOs, and frankly few care much how good the late-game is because they are already fully committed and racing for the end-game.

I stand by my repeated claim that optimizing the new player experience is of paramount importance. You must grab my attention within five minutes, and you must deliver a satisfying hour or two for my first play session. Without that, any free trial is worthless, and you may even lose some people who have thrown down $50 for a box. This is the part of the game that every single player will see on every single character, and if you cannot do a good job here, I have no hope for the rest of the game. Yes, it is hard to make things interesting while giving the player only a few buttons to play with. Suck it up, we all have hard parts in our jobs. That’s why they pay us. Continue reading Early, Middle, Late

Oz’s Trail of Trials, Part 1 – Friday Night Tights

While it’s safe to say I’m an avid LoTRO player, I’ve found myself at a loss for things to do lately, even after a major patch (which took me under 4 hours to complete all solo/group content). So to keep myself from fatal burnout, I decided to take advantage of the City of Heroes/Villains free welcome-back weekend we just had. I’ve previously talked about CoX more than a few times, but I was more than willing to give it a run again. So I grabbed a frosty beverage, a bag of chips, and sat down to put on the ol’ cape once again.
Continue reading Oz’s Trail of Trials, Part 1 – Friday Night Tights

For shame

Nothing about CoX’s latest news? For shame, I say.

Issue 17 is coming. Do check the link. The skinny: Graphical update coming. Yes, the ‘Ultra Mode’ which was to be a part of the “Going Rogue” expansion this July will be included for free in Issue 17, along with Epic Archetypes available at level 20, and the usual host of classic CoX delicatessen. Namely, badges.

There’s talk of pre-orders starting in early March as well, but I haven’t read anything official myself.

Oh and yes, I’m still alive.

Names I Miss

One thing I miss from City of Heroes is that absurd names made sense. Back in generic fantasy world, the characters theoretically have the names their parents gave them. You might be able to justify Goblinslaya as a self-given name/title, but people like Roflcopter or Moocow are wandering immersion-breakers, implying either that we accept Theme Park YAFMMORPG as a game rather than a world or that this one idiot does not while the rest of us are pretending to take the setting seriously. WoW seems more conducive to silly names than The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢, but I maintain my persecution of names like Analfist or xXxShadowAssassinxXx.

Actually, I’d still hate those people in City of Heroes or Team Fortress 2. Seriously, “Analfist”? It’s not like I’m making up any of these names.

In City of Heroes, the names are intended to be self-given titles. Comic book characters get funky names; it is part of the genre. King Waffles is a perfectly cromulent hero name. Statyk Shok? Hey, I’ve seen worse alternate-spelling names in real comic books. People who use upper-case Is to look like lower-case Ls? Okay, they need to die.

: Zubon

DPS Population Imbalance

Step back from what you know about how popular certain classes are and reconsider the acclaimed LFG tool. The slots are for one healer, one tank, and three DPS. From a naive perspective, the non-DPS classes are getting screwed here. It looks especially absurd coming from City of Heroes, where support stacks nicely and groups are often more than half support classes, or The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢, where an ideal six includes an off-tank, secondary healer, and/or controller/debuffer. Cap the group at one, while the DPS classes get three slots? It would seem like you’d have a much easier time finding a group as DPS.

But no, the population is so absurdly slanted towards DPS that they are waiting. Tanks and healers queue and instantly get groups. This is still true even now that people know they can skip the queue by switching talent trees, and few groups are going to kick you for having lousy tank or healer gear. Granted, if you are a Mage or Rogue, you are stuck as DPS, but that Paladin could spec and queue as any.

A system that explicitly favors a preponderence of DPS is de facto the largest buff to tanks and healers ever. This mostly comes down to what I said about static groups: anything that makes grouping easier makes group-friendly classes and builds more viable. As the population has time to react, group-friendly classes and builds will become more popular.

The upcoming Star Wars has a different approach: the Jedi/Sith classes are the tanks and healers. If you want a shiny lightsaber, you don’t get to play DPS. Yeah, right, I say that, but you can already hear the forum wars mockery of all the Jedi/Sith that focus on damage. “DPS Sith lol. Can we get a tank that can tank?” Or, as DK tanks currently say, “But Blood Stance heals me!”

: Zubon

In the Future, We Will All Be Hybrid DPS Classes

One positive incremental change in the MMO world is the introduction of different character modes. That is, you can hit a button and switch the focus of your character. You can fulfill multiple roles, but not all at once, with a way to switch between them. Examples include Champions Online and DC Universe (no classes, just modes), dual talent specs and Druids in World of Warcraft, and the Minstrel and Rune-keeper in The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢. If you have the skill points and cash, you can also switch ships in EVE Online easily enough, which would be like hopping classes in another game.

These vary in their ease or extent of switching between modes. The two main LotRO healing classes need about 10 seconds to switch modes fully mid-combat. My WoW Paladin lost all her mana when switching. Other games might require you to go back to town to switch, which is still nice although certainly not the one-click, mid-adventure thing I am talking about. The effectiveness of doing so depends on how flexible other aspects of your character are. In LotRO, you must visit town to change your traits, and I know how I hate it when our healer is traited for damage. In WoW (late game), you would want to be carrying a second set of gear if you switch from Retribution to Holy.

Another way to implement modes is to switch focus within a role. A Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Hunter has solo and group DPS modes, the former with higher threat and mana costs, the latter decreasing them but losing bonus damage. (Solo mode: good for pulling targets off the healer, not worth much else post-Siege of Mirkwoodâ„¢.) Switching your Warcraft Mage from ice to fire is probably a less dramatic change.

While I love my alts, I am in favor of anything that will let you stick with one character. Let me stack all my options on one guy and switch which option I use, rather than switching between Zubon, Zuba, Zoobown, and Zupwn. While that will make hotkey management interesting, it saves me from having separate friends lists, guild rankings, vaults, key bindings… (You could also implement saved (and importable) or account-wide friends list, guild affiliation, shared vaults, key bindings…)

: Zubon

[Update: I see that Tobold just hit this theme from the POV of a DPS class in the post-LFG WoW world. Yeah, dual-spec does not seem like a huge boon for them. Having played ranged DPS in quite a few games, while I cannot address how WoW is this week, we are generally doing fine and soloing brilliantly, even if we are over-competing for group slots. I feel more for my healers, like my poor CoH Controller who fought bosses by putting his damaging hold (“stun” for WoW folk) on auto-repeat while I went AFK and waited for the pitiful DPS.]