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

[General Idiot]

Sorry about that, thought there was such an option. Should've rechecked the info before posting.

[Samuel Tow]

To my knowledge, both of those are intended to be possible in the Phoenix Project. Guns and armor even comes in dual flavors - defense/range for all your ranged tank needs, and range/defense for the survivable blaster. Though the latter will of course likely do less damage than the 'classic' range/melee blaster build due to balance. There's also a defense/assault option, for those who want to tank at any range. I don't think there's an assault/defense though.

I'm vaguely aware of this. I was just saying that a flat recreation of City of Heroes isn't the best option because the game came with a LOT of problems and limitations borne out of being, quite frankly, the first game to try many of the things we now take for granted. The "holy trinity" of classes are one good example. You may argue that City of Heroes didn't have that, but this isn't because it broke the mould on classes so much as because it stretched each class's role such that it could fill a few others. At no point, however, was "range" and "defence" considered, because defence is a tanking job and range is a DPS job and if you put them both on the same character, it would be too much fun. We can't have that.

Any project that aims to create a spiritual successor to City of Heroes needs to take liberties with the source material, because the source material was FAR from perfect. City of Heroes was good, make no mistake, but it felt a lot better when compared to its competition because - let's face it - MMOs have always been very, very bad. Having an actually GOOD one was, and indeed still is, pretty much a culture shock.

[thunderforce]

It's all about the lore, and wanting to do it Better, or As Close As Possible Without Getting Sued.
All those ways you came up with to increase the size of your epeen, to be uber, untouchable, invincible?
No one cares.

I do, but not in the same way. I would say that sort of rampant munchkinism and the grinding of late game content is exactly what went wrong with City of X in later years. When I make a serious mistake, I want there to be consequences; faceplants and fat chunks of old-style debt. I do want the game to be challenging; and I want the players I share the universe with to be under similar constraints, because where's the fun in teaming with the immortal tank-mage? And, especially, I want this in PVP; if I lose, let it be because the other player was better - not more a more persistent grinder of PVP-IOs.

Interestingly, sindyr describes themselves as not a typical gamer - whereas I suspect it's me who isn't typical in the MMO space. Presumably City of X (and every other MMO) has that sort of grinding because it sells.

If either of the Plan Z projects is going to appeal to me personally, it'll be partly because it's hard to play; if I just need to fire off the right powers in the right order, no thanks.

[sindyr]

If either of the Plan Z projects is going to appeal to me personally, it'll be partly because it's hard to play; if I just need to fire off the right powers in the right order, no thanks.

*This* line of thinking creeping into either Plan Z is what has *me* personally worried.

I had a TON of fun levelling up dozens of characters in CoX. It worked beautifully for me.  Who know what a different take or "improvement" would do to the game experience I loved and cherish.

I am hoping - but also very worried.

[thunderforce]

I had a TON of fun levelling up dozens of characters in CoX. It worked beautifully for me.  Who know what a different take or "improvement" would do to the game experience I loved and cherish.

What did you make of the pre-Invention "take" on City of Heroes where you couldn't just grind to a point where nothing could hurt you?

[Samuel Tow]

When I make a serious mistake, I want there to be consequences; faceplants and fat chunks of old-style debt. I do want the game to be challenging; and I want the players I share the universe with to be under similar constraints, because where's the fun in teaming with the immortal tank-mage?

Actually, I have a very good example of this from right now. I just came out of a game of Saints Row The Third with NuclearToast. He got it gifted recently, whereas I've played through the whole thing and unlocked everything. This includes complete invulnerability from all damage (I have no health bar at all), infinite ammo with no need to reload weapons and all weapons upgraded to maximum. Basically, you don't get more broken than this in terms of game balance... And I can't say I've had more fun in years. And it's not because I'm so much more powerful than NT, not by a long shot. No, it's because I can afford to goof off completely and nobody suffers for it.

For instance, Saints Row is primarily a shooter. It has some melee, but it's not a fighting game. If you try to fight, you get killed, and fast... Except I CAN'T get killed, so I play Saints Row like I'd play City of Heroes - rush in and start dropkicking people. It's gloriously entertaining, because this is precisely how I've always envisioned a Super Strength/Invulnerability tank working. Now all I need is a way to figure out how to keep that "super formula" permanent which makes me run fast, jump high and explode cars with my punches!

And the real kicker is I'm not really making NT's game pointlessly easy. If anything, having me clowning around, handing out grenades like candy, suplexing random civilians and throwing enemy gang menbers into traffic "for the lulz" is making the game considerably more difficult since he's always dealing with at least a star or two of alert status. But the thing is - I never played Saints Row for the "challenge." I play it because I LOVE the empowering feel of the game's narrative, where my character can basically kick down the door to any place and start DDTing her enemies with impunity. That kind of experience really, REALLY benefits from being actually literally unkillable, and I'm having a blast.

Personally, I do feel that City of Heroes made a mistake with Incarnates, but I feel it's because the system was boring as all hell and all raids to boot. The actual end result of it, however, is precisely how I always wanted the game to play out - with us overpowered and never really having to worry about survival so much as about how to dispatch our enemies while looking the most awesome. I just wish it were easier to achieve.

[Arachnion]

It's good to see your avatar back, Samuel

[Samuel Tow]

I figured that since everyone was sporting pics, it must mean we have our avatars back. And I feel so naked without my Z

[healix]

I figured that since everyone was sporting pics, it must mean we have our avatars back. And I feel so naked without my Z

Samuel, how about one of these? LOLOL

[Mister Bison]

Samuel, how about one of these? LOLOL

That's a toe put "Samuel Tow" on one of this kind:

[healix]

I did it to make him laugh since they sound the same *ebil laugh*

[Megajoule]

In a single-player game, godmode is fine.  (Though I might make comparisons to certain other solitary activities.)  You want to run around tapping the "I Win" Button until you get bored and/or go blind?  Fine.  Whatever *ahem* gets you off.
When you bring other players into the equation, however, issues of balance, fairness and risk vs. reward enter the equation.  You may not care about such things, only about getting your personal power fantasy on, but the devs have to.

[therain93]

*This* line of thinking creeping into either Plan Z is what has *me* personally worried.

I had a TON of fun levelling up dozens of characters in CoX. It worked beautifully for me.  Who know what a different take or "improvement" would do to the game experience I loved and cherish.

I am hoping - but also very worried.

So, I'd like to point out that these *are* community projects.  You are very much welcome to participate in any and all discussions and shouldn't hesitate to jump in to them.

[Samuel Tow]

I did it to make him laugh since they sound the same *ebil laugh*

Feel free to make fun of the name, actually. I freely admit it's a stupid name Back when I made it, I had a policy of "the first thing to comes into my head, then stick with it" as a means of making names organic. Because really, names aren't something you "pick," they're something you get and then you have to deal with it, so it made sense at the time to just have people named "something." You know, as opposed to "Jack Slate" or "Hunter Steel" or something obviously engineered. Suffice it to say that a happier middle ground was required However, tradition being what it is, I'm stuck with Samuel Tow because I basically made the name my own.

In a single-player game, godmode is fine.  (Though I might make comparisons to certain other solitary activities.)  You want to run around tapping the "I Win" Button until you get bored and/or go blind?  Fine.  Whatever *ahem* gets you off.
When you bring other players into the equation, however, issues of balance, fairness and risk vs. reward enter the equation.  You may not care about such things, only about getting your personal power fantasy on, but the devs have to.

Well that seems a bit harsh in light of what I actually said. By this point, I've played a lot of Saints Row The Third with Nuclear Toast and he has never complained about my god mode. I've asked him specifically on several occasions and he hasn't had a bad thing to say about it. And, hell, how different is that from having your level 50 character exemplar down to, say, a level 3 character's mission in City of Heroes? Sure, it's not quite god mode, but it may as well be for how easy the game is.

Besides, this isn't about class balance or player relations. It's about the concept that a game has to be "hard" and have "consequences" for failure and that if it's easy and we can just go wild and kill stuff, it's somehow wrong. That I disagree with, because easily the best part of City of Heroes' combat system was that we were all basically overpowered. I like a game where I can just curb-stomp 99% of all encounters. It makes me feel more powerful, and it makes the very rare challenging fight all the more meaningful in context.

[thunderforce]

Besides, this isn't about class balance or player relations. It's about the concept that a game has to be "hard" and have "consequences" for failure and that if it's easy and we can just go wild and kill stuff, it's somehow wrong.

Straw man; no-one is saying it's wrong. But I think Megajoule and I are saying it is not what we would like. From where I sit, victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility.

[sindyr]

Straw man; no-one is saying it's wrong. But I think Megajoule and I are saying it is not what we would like. From where I sit, victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility.

And from where I sit, my experience of CoH did not include much possibility of defeat - and if these new projects change that, they will not be spiritual successors to CoH - IMO.

Or to put another way, victory is sweet, because it's *glorious* - not because it was ever in question.

CoX was the game for me because of this - let's see if the new one(s) prioritize "challenge" like all the others, or let's smart players with interesting builds go into the godmode we have come to know and love from CoX.

[Samuel Tow]

Straw man; no-one is saying it's wrong. But I think Megajoule and I are saying it is not what we would like. From where I sit, victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility.

If mine's a straw man, then so is yours, because what you're implying I'm saying isn't what I'm actually saying. You're arguing for game design and what you'd like to see in a game, or more specifically, what you wouldn't like a game without. I simply hold the complete opposite opinion that I wouldn't play a "hard" game because difficulty sucks the fun out of the game for me. I don't know where you got the idea I'm criticising YOU, when all I'm saying is I don't want to play a game like that. At no point did City of Heroes ever feel like that kind of game. Not once I figured out what I was doing wrong. To me, changing that would be changing one of the fundamental "values" of city of heroes, and I consider the proposal to change it one of the most troubling aspects of the whole project.

I don't believe that "it's the effort which makes it that much sweeter," at least as far as my enjoyment comes. Greater effort simply means I expect greater rewards, and thus inherently value what I'm getting for it less. "You get what you pay for," so if I go through a very hard fight, I expect to be rewarded greatly, and the simple fact of the matter is I never am. I'm much more likely to enjoy simple, easy fights specifically BECAUSE they are simple and easy and I don't expect that much from them. They're "cheap," thus the enjoyment I get out of them isn't measured by a very high water mark and feels better.

I lost my taste for challenge eight years ago, and I've been having lots of fun playing easy games and curb-stomping enemies. I want to play another MMO which allows me to do this, more or less. I don't want the Phoenix Project to "fix" City of Heroes' easy combat, simply put.

[thunderforce]

I don't know where you got the idea I'm criticising YOU

I don't have that idea. This seems to be something you've imagined.

At no point did City of Heroes ever feel like that kind of game. Not once I figured out what I was doing wrong.

I really don't understand this. The sort of munchkinism sindyr wants was only possible either very early on in the game with specific ATs and powers (pack 40 mobs into a dumpster with a fire tanker, rinse and repeat) or after the Inventions system (and if one was willing to dedicate considerable time and effort to Inventions - and, after F2P, if one was either a subscriber or had accrued enough vet rewards). For a significant proportion of the game's history - and for a significant proportion of the playerbase after that - it was simply impossible to "make a character that almost never died - that even had built in safety nets so even if *everything* went to crap, my character wouldn't die."

[sindyr]

Simply this:

The game CoX, as it has existed for the last year or two anyways, has been a glorious experience of trashing baddies with little to no risk.  I am not going to argue with anyone about which factors made that possible - inventions, etc - but it's true.

I have made dozens of characters that were highly effective.  Dominators with perma-domination.  Blasters with capped S/L def.  Corruptors with awesome synergies.  Controllers that by level SIX could sleep one foe, hold one, and confuse another, all at once!

And with the addition of the CoX store and the purchaseable boosts and other QoL items, it's even MORE fun!

You can say you didn't like what City of Heroes was when it closed down.  Me, I loved it.  It made each of my characters feel powerful beyond belief, and made each battle glorious fun.  Because I had an UNPRECEDENTED level of control over my character, his Def, his global buffs, etc.

Even something as little as getting SuperSpeed and dropping in a +stealth for toe-to-toe ghetto invis was a HUGE deal for me.  As was using paper/radio mishes, recycling through them until I got the Council enemies I wanted - which also let me avoid horrible cave missions.  And the progression was fast and furious, getting to 22 to be able to slot the good IOs was quick.

Say what you like, but CoX at time of closure was insanely easy and fun.  And the latest issue on beta, 24 I think, poured even more FUN fuel on the fire!

*That* is the challenge to any game that wishes to be called a spiritual successor to CoX.

[corvus1970]

Sindyr, samuel, I agree completely with the both of you. CoX was not perfect, far from it, but for my money it did what it did better than any other game out there.

I started playing CoX before issue 5 came out, and the game was indeed a lot more difficult in the early days than it was when it ended. A lot of factors came into that, and it wasn't just things like the adjustments to the level-curve, IO's and the like, but those QoL improvements that sindyr touched on: things like temp travel powers, the adjustment to allow travel powers before level 14, and the addition of things like Ninja-Run. Stuff like that meant I no longer had to use hover to cross Grendel's Gulch. Granted, that was a good time to go get a sandwich and a soda, but it got tiresome after a while.

I'm a casual gamer. Sometimes I would log onto CoX 5-6 days out of the week and play for hours on the weekends. Other times I'd slip in an hour here and there, and at other times I went weeks without playing at all. I loved the fact that I wasn't getting the short end of the stick for the times I couldn't play much, and the QoL improvements allowed me to more efficiently use my time on the game to have the most fun I could manage.

My first 50 was a Blaster, and while he didn't face-plant as much as some other Blasters I knew, he did it often enough to be occasionally frustrating. Coversely, the final new character I made and intended to get to 50 before shutdown, ILLYRIA, became my cherished favorite. She was a Street Justice/Invul Brute, and by the time the game wrapped, she had become a very tough nut to crack in any normal in-game circumstance. She was fully slotted with IO's (though not all of them at max strength as yet), and had all of her incarnate slots filled, two of which were maxed out. She was so much FUN to play, and part of that fun hinged on the fact that she was so hard to defeat during normal game-play.

As I've said before, and as I will doubtless say again in some form: I didn't play CoH to be slightly-above-average guy (or girl), I played CoH to be a Super-Hero, one who could leap tall-buildings and quickly send foes packing. That's exactly the kind of experience I want out of any spiritual successor to CoX.