What's the difference between Heroes and Villains and the Phoenix Project?

[Segev]

Curse you, Arcana, for making me wish harder than ever before for a "thank" button on these forums. 

[wei yau]

Curse you, Arcana, for making me wish harder than ever before for a "thank" button on these forums. 

I AM THINKING THIS POST WITH ALL CAPS UNTIL SUCH MOMENT AS A "THANK" BUTTON IS PROVIDED

[Blue Pulsar]

Might I ask what it is, specifically, you loved in CoH that you fear is to be left out or downgraded in the Phoenix Project? I'd love to either lay your fears to rest or to take them into consideration as we move forward, as our goal is NOT to make something that is unfamiliar to this community and its members.

Essentially, the thing I care the least about is the lore. The stories, the towns, the characters, the mobs, the NPC groups... They were all great in CoX, but I am not as attached to them as I am everything else.

1: I really don't want to see the Archetypes changed, and
2: I really don't want to see the powersets changed. To me, those were the backbone, heck, the entire skeleton of them game. I've heard tell that there were some plans to rethink these.
3: I fell in love with the UI and it only got better as time went on. Nearly everything was adjustable and every power you had could be in a tray.
4: The leveling system and style is just waaaay to familiar to me and I haven't found a game quite like it. It was simple, straight forward, and not overbearing.
5: It would be super-awesome-amazing-sweet if the crafting and incarnate system were also there. If not for those, I doubt I'd have continued to play after the shutdown announcement. They really kept the game alive for me.

I normally don't offer my thoughts to people working on a project, but I was asked. /e shrug

Edit: I'd like to clarify a few things that I thought I should say after I read this post of mine again. I do understand that the names of powersets, powers, NPCs, archetypes, and many other things can not be used for copyright/intellectual property reasons. I also understand that this can actually extend to the way powers, costume pieces, and even the UI can look. So, I understand that neither of the Plan Zs may never be quite like CoX. I guess the best I can hope for is like an alternate dimension of CoX. Where everything works the exact same way, but it just looks different and everything is called something else. Basically, I want to be able to log in and do the same things in the same way, regardless of what brutes are called or what ice blast looks like.

However, I am fairly decent at naming things, so if you want help with that, I'd love to toss some ideas out there.

[Thunder Glove]

Random thought here: I liked CoH's powers system better than, say, CO's freeform system.   I liked having a primary powerset and a secondary powerset to define my character and give him a coherent theme, and then I could dip into Power Pools on top of that for a little flavor (with epic pools and even Incarnate powers allowing me to further support my chosen theme, or break with it for variety).

In CO's fully freeform system my characters feel slapped together, because the powersets aren't adequately balanced against each other.  So while what I want is to simply recreate my namesake Magic Origin Electric Melee/Invulnerability/Energy Mastery Brute, what I'm forced to take is some Might powers (for the "Melee" and a pseudo-Fury power), some Electricity powers (for the "Electric"), with other powers taken from Power Armor (for Invulnerability), Supernatural (a big heal with a long cooldown, a la Dull Pain), Martial Arts (a heal-over-time with a very short cooldown, to simulate CoH's constant health regen, which I sorely miss), and Gadgeteering (an energy unlock, to simulate Stamina and Physical Perfection), all thrown together willy-nilly.

I don't want that sort of mish-mash character in whatever Plan Z project or projects make it to completion.

[Aggelakis]

I don't know a thing about H&V, but the Phoenix Project has both freeform (like CO) and guided (like CoH) mode.

[downix]

I don't know a thing about H&V, but the Phoenix Project has both freeform (like CO) and guided (like CoH) mode.

Er, no, it doesn't.

[Aggelakis]

Er, no, it doesn't.

Uh. So that was thrown away since moving to your own site?

Well, that's unfortunate. Looks like my interest just went way down.

[downix]

Uh. So that was thrown away since moving to your own site?

Well, that's unfortunate. Looks like my interest just went way down.

No, nothing thrown away. Freeform is not like CO, it's a different beast is all I mean, more flexible without becoming flavor-of-the-month builds.

[Aggelakis]

No, nothing thrown away. Freeform is not like CO, it's a different beast is all I mean, more flexible without becoming flavor-of-the-month builds.

I didn't mean "TPP is doing freeform EXACTLY THE SAME AS CO" I meant "TPP is doing freeform {an example of freeform is CO} and guided {an example of guided is CoH}".

[downix]

I didn't mean "TPP is doing freeform EXACTLY THE SAME AS CO" I meant "TPP is doing freeform {an example of freeform is CO} and guided {an example of guided is CoH}".

Oh, ok. nevermind then.

[Blue Pulsar]

Yeah, the freeform character building style is not really what I am hoping for. I've tried CO, The Secret World, and a few others and freeform just feels odd.

I will say that I can't see freeform style inhibiting FoTM builds. On the contrary. Archetypes in CoX were designed to be balanced and in PvE, there was no real go-to FoTM build for average play. Even in PvP there was a huge range of good builds. But without a system of checks and balances (my option of what ATs were), it seems as though people will eventually just pick the best powers for a character and that's that.

Also, to me, the ATs in CoX offered different ranges of similar playstyles. For instance, defenders were great for buffing, healing, and debuffing. Unfortunately, that's all they could do in 90% of the situations, but they were REALLY good at it. Even the debuffs in their blasts had better debuff numbers (ie, dark, rad, sonic). Then you had corruptors come out. Many of the same powers and a similar playstyle, but more damage oriented.

Even more so; Tankers, brutes, scrappers, and stalkers. A lot of shared powersets, and the first three have, again, similar playstyles. All of them could roll as DM/DA, but each one made the sets something very different. I just don't see that happening in a freeform style.

[Thunder Glove]

Yeah, exactly.  Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers, and Stalkers all looked the same on paper, but they played very differently even when using the same powersets.  I loved that.  There were so many choices.  I don't feel like I have choices in other games.