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

[Minotaur]

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."

You really could build stuff that against most mobs couldn't die from about level 35 onwards. I had several that died at most once on the way to 50 while picking up TF commander on the way so not AE babies. Certain powerset combos (katana/SR scrapper being one) really were very resilient even on SOs or minimal IOs. My ice/elec tank on my free account could solo +2x8 perfectly happily on SOs.

Outside of incarnate content, my scrappers and tankers VERY rarely died unless attempting something ridiculous.

[Samuel Tow]

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

Except that's what "straw man" implies. If you feel I've imagined it, then maybe stop throwing jabs my way? Because whether you realise it or not, it's intellectually insulting.

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."

Err... Play a Brute, really. Any Brute will do. Throw a dart at a board, pick a primary and a secondary. Done. You have that character. Oh, sure, if you crank the difficulty up to high heaven OF COURSE you're gonna' die without a very solid build. But I played the whole game at +0x2 and I did just fine. I hardly ever died and if I did, it was usually because I was watching TV while playing, or I stopped fighting to reply to a tell. At worst, it's because I went and aggroed the whole map. But group to group? You bet I never went down, and even if I did, I never "died" because I always had something to bring me back up and finish the fight without having to hit the hospital.

I honestly don't know what game you were playing, but in the City of Heroes I played, my Titan/Invulnerability Brute didn't die more than a handful of times all the way to 50. Most of the time I was in any real danger, there was always Unstoppable to fall back on. Even if I do everything at my absolutely worst, even if I screw up BIG, even if I forget to turn on my toggles... Nothing can kill me through Unstoppable, at least that I have fought. I went through Imperious' god damn army, fought something like 12 bosses and 2 elite bosses at a time, and they couldn't scratch me through Unstoppable. And that's not with some ultra-super Inventions build. This is basically anything Uncommon I could find on the Market without much regard for what set bonuses it brought me. I was just looking for enhancement percentages.

Basically, unless you went out of your way to MAKE it harder, City of Heroes has always been easy mode. Like I said - as soon as I realised I needed to slot more damage and actually put something in my defences, the game became easy, and it never stopped being easy until Incarnate critters started cheating and basically broke SR, as if that needed to be any worse. But for anything not defence-based? Pshaw! Fighting stuff my level designed for my team size of one was a walk in the park, and that's just how I liked it. If anything, the occasional x4 enemy spawns in x2 missions pissed me off for existing, because it's a cheap way to make a mission harder - yeah, just scale the difficulty without scaling the difficulty.

City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.

[sindyr]

City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.

I think I just fell in love with you a little, Sam.

[corvus1970]

City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.

1000x this, right here. Perfect! 

[downix]

City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.

+1

And exactly!

[Arcana]

An observation: it would not have been difficult at all for me to make City of Heroes significantly easier than it was, or more difficult than it was.  This would have required no change to the game systems themselves and really minor changes to the data in the game.  With trivial effort I could have automated the process.

I would think this is a very relevant observation to the question of whether either Plan Z project aims to be much easier or much harder or exactly identical in difficulty to City of Heroes itself.  In particular, it seems any such aim is highly premature.

[Mister Bison]

I would think this is a very relevant observation to the question of whether either Plan Z project aims to be much easier or much harder or exactly identical in difficulty to City of Heroes itself.

What about: the player is as free in Plan Z as (s)he was in City ? (I also loved the +AxB system when it came out)

[Samuel Tow]

What about: the player is as free in Plan Z as (s)he was in City ? (I also loved the +AxB system when it came out)

I'd go with that, personally. City of Heroes was as difficult as we made it. As Arcana points out, the game's difficulty doesn't need to be carved in stone. So long as at least part of what defines it is exposed to the player such that said player can tailor the difficulty, then I believe everybody wins.

Also: Thanks!

[DeathSentry]

Perfectly stated!

Well, this bums me out even more.  From the vibes I am picking up, TPP (The Phoenix Project) has a lot of support, but isn't apparently going to really be CoH, it's going to be some folks ideas on what they would do if they made their own superhero game.  And HaV (Heroes and Villains) seems to be the game I want to play, but doesn't seem to have nearly as much support, backing, and personnel.

So that's upsetting.

You see, the thing is, IMO City of Heroes circa Issue 24 was virtually PERFECT.  I mean, *practically* perfect - it had its issues, but it was fun, playable, awesome.  It was the pinnacle of not only superhero MMOs, IMO, but ALL MMOs - possibly all video games.  (Keep in mind that I speaking from my own perspective here.)

When you have something that good, you don't reinvent it.  You protect it and guard it.  Here a VERY *tiny* list of some of what I loved about the game:

-Always being able to get any recipe I needed, even the purps, on the market
-being able to take SuperSpeed, throw a +Stealth IO in it, and having full Invisibility.
-the way it doesn't matter if the baddie is level 50 and I am level 1, invis still works - ie, level range does not affect Perception.
-slotting IO sets for insane bonuses to Recharge, to Defense, Global Damage, etc.
-Being able to build a stalker that was Def capped to even Incarnate content.
-Being able to build a blaster that was Def capped to 1-50 content.
-franken-slotting IOs to get a lot out of few enhance slots.
-using mids and spending one or two weeks researching and building my character before even creating him in game
-bringing a character to an ultimate place with power selection and IO use to be able to basically have almost capped recharge and so much endurance (via +recov or powers like transference/stamina) that I basically can fire all my powers as fast as they come up, furiously
-having so many build choices, not just in terms of ATs but Primary and Secondaries that feel and play completely differently that although I had 20+ levels 50s, I felt like I could make another 20 without repeating gameplay experience, allowing me to design a character, take him from 1 to 50 (through both solo newspaper mishes which I loved and pickup groups), then permanently shelve him and start over again.
-And having amazing ATs with each being very different, unique gameplay, and interesting AT powers - like the latest Defiance or Domination.  (Domination, which I *perma'd*, btw.)
-and the Issue 24 blaster changes were going to perfect blasters!  More range, better snipes, crashless nukes, more survivability!

To put this all another way, I guess looking around at the other MMOs and such, I am not a standard gamer.  I don't want challenge, I want fun!  I don't want to be tested, I want to easily overpower my opposition.  And above all, I want my MMO deaths to be extremely rare *without* having to compromise my playstyle and act uber cautious or water down my xp/minute.

City gave me all of that.  With judicious power choices, clever slotting, leaning on IOs, and basically leveraging everything added to the game for the last 8 years, I could 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.  Even during pickup team teamwipes, I don't generally perish.  And not only that, with my Numina's and my Miracle's, with my 5 Luck of the Gambler's, my Kismet, my Positron's Blast sets and everything else, I got my powers enhanced to max (diminishing returns) while *also* getting amazing global stats.

I was able to build Blasters, Corruptors, Dominators, Brutes, Masterminds, Stalkers, and Controllers that in any other game would be considered way overpowered.

But in this game I could have my cake and eat it too.  With clever building, I could be extremely safe and extremely powerful.

And I think the chances of anyone making a game like that again from scratch are very very low.

One last example:  One of my favorite expereinces was in playing a Mind/Fire Dominator.  By level 8, I had Mesmerize, Dominate, and Confuse, meaning that when soloing in a newspaper (or radio) mission, I could immediately shutdown 3 baddies, and then begin beating up their helpless selves with FIRE.  While they could do NOTHING.

This to me, is fun.  (And when I finally got perma-dominate courtesy of Hasten and a lot of IOs, I could do that to bosses too!)

What's not fun for me is the anxious uncertainty of facing an in game challenge that I don't know I can powerfully handle.  No, City gave me the closest thing to godmode, and unless some makes a copy of City or brings it back, I am probably utterly screwed.

And that sucks.

[Segev]

Thanks Sith, that's helpful to hear.  I guess I am a little (more than a little) wary when I see all the other MMOs out there that are challenging and hard, but not fun - that plus how much I abhor dying, even with little or not death penalty.

Anyways, I *am* pulling for having that fun back in my life, so I want you to definitely succeed.

Just responding to this because I'm not sure it had been yet: Multiple of the leads on the Phoenix Project are the same sort of "non-hardcore" gamer you seem to be. We hope to have that difficulty slider that has been mentioned a couple of times to allow for anybody to have their fun, but if we must err, it will be (to the best of our ability) on the side of feeling super, not feeling "challenged." (Keeping in mind that there must be SOME game there. Nobody wants to play "You Have To Burn The Rope" or "Press Space To Win" as devotedly as we hope to have our players do!)

[DeathSentry]

Ah, now that I read through all of the posts, I like the response where we could make the game as hard/easy as we wanted to in CoX.  I for one was more of a semi-casual player, so had 18 level 50s but none had IOs and only a couple incarnates..just didn't have the time to work through the IO formulas.  So the game was still challenging for me because I didn't max out how I could have.

I do understand that we can't copy it too much given IP infringement, I'll just be happy to be with the community again.  One thing I would add is that it would be nice to have something like the Freeform AT in champions online where basically its classless and you can make your character totally custom from the ground up; if you make it poorly you suffer but its fun to do.  That is also the only AT that lets you fire off multiple powers at the same time (think War Machine with rocket launcher, beams from your hands, etc) and is probably the only reason why I've decided to play that vs. DCUO until Phoenix arrives.

And finally on costume customization, allow for things to be specified for just left arm vs. right/both arms, legs, eyes, etc.. pretty nifty to see.

[thunderforce]

Except that's what "straw man" implies.

No. What it says - not implies - is that when you write '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 is a straw man because no-one is saying that that is somehow wrong. That's all it means.

You bet I never went down, and even if I did, I never "died" because I always had something to bring me back up and finish the fight without having to hit the hospital.

Er, so, you never were defeated, and here's what happened when you were defeated? All is now clear.

And that's not with some ultra-super Inventions build. This is basically anything Uncommon I could find on the Market without much regard for what set bonuses it brought me. I was just looking for enhancement percentages. Basically, unless you went out of your way to MAKE it harder, City of Heroes has always been easy mode.

Always? No. You make it clear yourself you're discussing the post-Inventions world here (and after F2P, the post-Inventions world for a subset of the player base).

[Aggelakis]

Always? No. You make it clear yourself you're discussing the post-Inventions world here (and after F2P, the post-Inventions world for a subset of the player base).

As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.

[Phaetan]

As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.

I can definitely vouch for this as well.  Sam didn't use any IOs until he decided to run the Dark Astoria content (him checking it out is at least partially my fault, as I kept telling him that it was a good story) on a freshly-Incarnated character.

And he wasn't terribly happy with the thought that he might need IOs to deal with some of the challenges.  His builds were always conceptual constructs, as far as I observed.  He seriously disliked the concept of IOs (I, personally, loved them *shrug*)

Although he did cackle madly a little after seeing the insanely good +Hide Stalker ATO in action...

[Thunder Glove]

Let me add my voice here again.  CoH was a very relaxing game for me, because I could just log in and steamroll things for a few hours when I was feeling down.   I had a few frustrating moments here and there (becuase I did die, even on my favorite Brute - Invulnerability didn't protect me against Tarantula Mistresses or Carnival bosses), but it was not an irritating slog.

And if I thought things were feeling a little too easy, I could crank the difficulty up at my liesure (and I could crank it up with a system, and that system was descriptive.  I know what "change +0 to +1 level" or "fight Bosses even when solo" will do to make enemies harder, but I don't know specifically what, for example, changing "Normal" to "Hard" will do.  Most games don't have a difficulty slider at all)

Any "spiritual successor" would have to capture that same functionality: easy if I want it easy, hard if I want it hard, and I should know exactly what I'm getting into when I change the difficulty slider.

[Arcana]

As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.

If I recall correctly, the "post-inventions world" for Sam was like the period from April 2012 to November 30, 2012.

[HEATSTROKE]

I dont need a HARD game.. My daily life is MORE than challenging enough. I play a game to RELAX.. I agree with what most here have said. like CoH any of the projects should have the ability to make the game as hard or as easy as you want..

[thunderforce]

As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.

Er, well, you can't blame me for thinking "This is basically anything Uncommon I could find on the Market without much regard for what set bonuses it brought me" means Inventions.

But, also, I think that's beside the point. Sure, soloing with one of the more defensively minded ATs is not going to result in many faceplants. You didn't need Inventions to grind your way through mobs on a tanker, just persistence; but that's got a meaningful risk/reward result, low risk, slow rewards.

However, there's a bit of a difference between being able to solo on a brute without planting, and being able to survive teamwipes on a blaster! Then you've become a tank-mage - perfect defences and perfect offense.

[sindyr]

However, there's a bit of a difference between being able to solo on a brute without planting, and being able to survive teamwipes on a blaster! Then you've become a tank-mage - perfect defences and perfect offense.

Yes, that's the point.  In City, it is quite easy to become a tank-mage (or darn close to it) through many and various ways.

One of my favorite characters (out of many) was a Fire/Fire Blaster I made with 45.9% Def to S/L and 34% Def to Melee.  Council in radio/paper mishes basically could not hit him, so I used him to gather up a ton of them (20-40) into a pull around a corner and just AoE'd them to death after Webnading them all down - Fireball up every 6 seconds, Fire Sword Circle every 6 sec, Burn every 7 sec, HotFeet, Crazy Stamina plus Consume (every minute or so), Rain of Fire every 25 sec, BuildUp and Aim every 30 seconds (I usually staggered them, so use Aim, wait 15 sec, use BU, repeat.), SuperSpeed+IO +Stealth for full invis, and of course for the stragglers, bosses, etc, my ST attacks of FireBlast(1.3 sec recharge) and Blaze (3.3 sec), as well as Fire Sword (3.6 sec rech), IOed KB prots, etc.

THIS was godmode, or tank-mage, or easy-mode, or whatever you want to call it.  They inneffectually attacked me, to little or no damage - and I brought down armageddon on their heads. And these were not -1s, these were gobs of +1s and +2s.  And a ton of XP.  I was able to level him at a good clip, just as I like.

And this was far from my only character like this.  I had two untouchable Stalkers, Def so high even incarnate content couldn't hit them without cheating.  A Dom with PermaDom.  A FF/Bot MasterMind.  A Storm/Illusion troller (I think).  And countless Corruptors. A couple of Brutes, including a Fire/Fire.  And more.

All had tricks up their sleeve for controlling the fight, not getting hit (or getting back health fast), and dealing tons of damage.

For the last few years, playing CoX - if you were moderately clever and could afford stuff on the market as well as stuff off the CoH store especially, you could play with little risk of loss or death, and lots of fun, glory, sizzle, and kicking butt.

I hopefully look forward to more of that.

[Optimus Dex]

I dont need a HARD game.. My daily life is MORE than challenging enough. I play a game to RELAX.. I agree with what most here have said. like CoH any of the projects should have the ability to make the game as hard or as easy as you want..

True , I played to have fun and escape . City of Heroes  was fun because you could feel powerful and - fly. Spend any amount of time in a wheelchair and  the illusion of unencumberd movement is priceless.