Frustrated so far.

[darkquill]

I started off playing CO after the closure.  After the horridly slow and confusing tutorial (no sprint???) things seemed to pick up. All the rest of the costume pieces became available, and I just bopped around and did stuff and didn't worry too much about my gear.  Tried out all the different free ATs on the double-xp weekend to see which ones I could tolerate.  But then TSW went on sale on amazon, so I went ahead and bought it, since I enjoyed my 5-day trial. And when the 'free-to-play' launched, I applied my game code to get my 30 days since there was no use in putting it off any longer.

I'm settling pretty well into TSW despite the lack of keybinds for "lookup" and "lookdown." (I prefer to avoid moving my hand to the mouse whenever possible.) I like the double-tap dodge and the white ground effects warning you about Big Boss Attacks much more than Champions' "hold down the shift key and hope" mechanic. (Of course, I prefer CoH where you didn't need to worry about any of that.)  TSW is pretty spooky, and, obviously, magic-oriented. I'd have preferred a 'post-singularity' game with outbreaks of the future everywhere and secret societies trying to contain fringe science, but I've got an imagination, so I can deal with it.

I like the classlessness. I like that I can get skill points forever and eventually learn every single skill with every single weapon. I dislike that the 'level-less game' still locks you out of content until you skill up to get higher level gear. But exemplaring down is easy -- just equip lower-level gear. Sidekicking up is harder (impossible) -- all you can really do is tag along for the ride and hope you don't get hit by an AOE.

I'm enjoying the voiced content and cutscenes. I enjoy my RP buddies. But the game is a hoss. I don't have any of the harddrive churn you had, Houtex, but a lot of COH-usable games would, I can easily see. CoH was a 4gb install. TSW is 36gb.

I hope you find a game that works for you, Houtex!

Oh, EK, TSO changed a lot since beta.

[AlphaFerret]

I've been playing CO and LOTRO since the shutdown.  I played both of these games in beta, so I decided to go back and see if they had improved.

CO:  once you get past the fact that it does not behave like you want it to (like Coh, the best game in the 'verse), it is quite enjoyable.  Keep that energy builder going, and spam those self-heals, and your toon can grind away in MC.  The primary downer is the lack of teaming.  Hopefully, the influx of us CoX refugees will improve the situation.

LOTRO:  the community is very helpful.  The existing player base wants you to learn and enjoy the game.  Unlike CO, teams are common and readily available.  The downside is that the graphics and animations look very dated.  However, if you are like me, and prefer story/lore/adventure to shiny things, it's not a bad game to get invested in.

Too many games, not enough time...

[Victoria Victrix]

CO:  once you get past the fact that it does not behave like you want it to (like Coh, the best game in the 'verse), it is quite enjoyable.  Keep that energy builder going, and spam those self-heals, and your toon can grind away in MC. The primary downer is the lack of teaming.  Hopefully, the influx of us CoX refugees will improve the situation.

What are these things of which you speak?  The absolute lack of help in any way there is keeping me from getting anywhere.

[BobMc]

My and my wife are trying our way into Champions also... she's 71 and loved CoH.

If you find another game that does it for you VV let us know...

We've made it to level 10, so not too far yet.

The energy builder attack is your first attack, it build up the endurance bar (or whatever they call it there) as well as doing damage, not sure about a self heal, I don't think our chars have one yet. and MC is short for Millenium City... we are from the Detroit area, so getting thrown a bit by the geography... such as distant hills... its very flat around here in reality.

WE are  greatly missing the "click on a mission" or on the "map for a thumbtack" and give a set of goal distance numbers to run to... the only game I've noticed that does that other than CoH is The Secret World for some goals.

[Tenzhi]

What are these things of which you speak?  The absolute lack of help in any way there is keeping me from getting anywhere.

As mentioned:

The energy builder is your very first attack.  The one that builds energy (or, to put it another way, the one that fills the blue bar).  Even if the text in the tutorial doesn't explain how it works, it's pretty clear once you use the two powers that you start with that the first one fills the blue bar (unless, perhaps, you start with Celestial and don't target an enemy but in that case you would clearly know what a self-heal was).

Self-heals are powers that heal the self.  If you're playing a free-to-play Archetype rather than a Freeform, I'm not sure when you might get such a power.  If you're playing a Freeform the powers have detailed descriptions when you're selecting them - given that you specifically select your energy builder before starting the game, I assume you're not playing a Freeform since you didn't know what your energy builder was.

I believe the powers have brief descriptions on mouseover that could grant one this rudimentary knowledge.  The menu for power selection gives detailed descriptions, but I'm not sure if someone using an Archetype ever sees that menu.  There's also the wiki linked from the game's page that contains all sorts of information (albeit not necessarily thorough or updated).  And you can access the detailed power list for the Archetypes when you're selecting them, though I don't recall how detailed the mouseover info for the powers is on that list.

MC is Millennium City.  The zone right outside the powerhouse once you're out of the tutorial.

[Xieveral]

Substitute game gripe thread? May I?

CO:

• No villain faction
• I hate the style
• Setting:Neo-Detroit or something...
• Red Banner Cult being engrish speaking stereotypes is bad taste 
• Annoying, adoring public
• No villain faction
• I am unable to recreate my characters in a manner resembling their CoH originals
• Owned by Perfect World Entertainment (6 years and I am still bitter about their namesake game)
• The survey method of earning Zen cheats me %90 of the time
• No villain faction
• No villain faction
• No villain faction
• No villain faction
• No villain faction

I had fun with the combat system but from an RP standpoint I absolutely hate the game and don't see it being worth paying for.

DCUO: I'll start by saying the DC universe has never been my cup of tea, but I figured I'd give it a try. Uninstalled shortly after trying character creation, poor variety in pieces and color options, lowest setting breasts were still too big in my opinion

TSW:

My cabal sucks, the founding members are cliquish and the leader only drops in once a week to stroke his ego and talk about GW2 with the other founders.

• Founders RP like we're Templars (it is a Dragon cabal, its not in the factions nature to act in such a strict and organizes manner)
• MANDATORY UNIFORM FOR ALL RP GATHERINGS (a cluster of Dragons wearing Pattern Imago in London is doing it wrong for so many reasons)
• above mentioned clique gets bent out of shape when we peons try to organize a world boss fight, farming group or NM runs our own
• Cash shop clothing is still per character
• Templars still have the advantage in PvP
• London is still like wading through molasses in lead armor
• Content still lacking (can complete new issue stuff within a week of release then its back to grinding NM...)

The game issues I could live with but there aren't many options for a cabal as Dragon and the one I'm in is one of the biggest

WoW:

My guild is nice but the raid leader (how she got that position is beyond me) still lacks raid awareness, and discusses politics as loud and obnoxious as ever.  "We don't need shadow, but you can heal" (I hate healing but that's my only ticket into a raid) I do however, enjoy the Harvest Moon thing going on with Halfhill and Pandaria overall but that wasn't worth keeping my subscription going.

PSO2:

Doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor, can't mix and match clothing as freely as you could in PSU (its all 1-piece unless you're a Cast), no field lobbies, to speak anything other than Japanese is to risk getting banned (playing the game outside Japan is technically against the rules but there's no region lock or requirement to prove citizenship when creating an account like other games), You have to jump through hoops to buy AC for the previous reason, LOTTERY SYSTEM FOR CLOTHING AND FURNITURE (and most of the time you get crap like a grinder or monomates) 

Being a freebie player is suffering...

• no room
• no trading
• no shop (unless you win a ticket for temporary use through lottery
• can't reset Mag if you mess up the stats (unless you buy a respec ticket with AC)
• Can't reset your talent points (unless you buy a respec ticket with AC)
  
• Limited lobby options (think: 7 out of 10 servers are VIP only, if the three freebie ones are full... too bad)
• Premium set (which is like a subscription) still has limits that require you to make cash shop purchases but it allows rooms, trading and shops

The biggest complaint of all with these games is that I have little to no CoH friends to play with. In fact, about the only game I can play with my CoH friends is Left 4 Dead.

It drives me crazy. Now I'm waiting for FFXIV (how long until I ragequit after getting abandoned by my husband because he made a cute little corsair to raid with his JP friends?)

[Tenzhi]

PSO2:

Doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor, can't mix and match clothing as freely as you could in PSU (its all 1-piece unless you're a Cast), no field lobbies, to speak anything other than Japanese is to risk getting banned (playing the game outside Japan is technically against the rules but there's no region lock or requirement to prove citizenship when creating an account like other games), You have to jump through hoops to buy AC for the previous reason, LOTTERY SYSTEM FOR CLOTHING AND FURNITURE (and most of the time you get crap like a grinder or monomates)

PSO2 is a sequel to PSO.  In that respect, at least, it is leaps and bounds beyond its predecessor.  From what I've seen of the combat, it looks more fun than PSU, but I reserve judgement until I get to play it.  Speaking of which, it's supposed to be coming out in the US - I'm waiting for it rather than dealing with the aforementioned obstacles.

It drives me crazy. Now I'm waiting for FFXIV (how long until I ragequit after getting abandoned by my husband because he made a cute little corsair to raid with his JP friends?)

I may check that one out, but as bad as the last Final Fantasy MMO I played was, I'm not expecting much.

[Xieveral]

PSO2 is a sequel to PSO.  In that respect, at least, it is leaps and bounds beyond its predecessor.  From what I've seen of the combat, it looks more fun than PSU, but I reserve judgement until I get to play it.  Speaking of which, it's supposed to be coming out in the US - I'm waiting for it rather than dealing with the aforementioned obstacles.

Oh yeah, the combat system is super fun but I feel the original PSO was superior in characters and story.  But they're starting to get into the Dark Falz stuff so maybe things will get serious from here on...

PSO2's story feels more like a PSU2. Its Teenage Space Mercenary Academy: the anime: the game (now with %300 more moe!)

I'm hoping the NA/EU release is handled well but its already been said that the game will be different from Japan's version. I worry it will go the way of PSU where we're 3 months/6 months/1 year behind Japan in updates and we don't get the events and items they do (or any content at all).

[Madadh]

Can I get an acronym cheat-sheet?

PSO/PSO2
PSU/PSU2
JP
FFXIV
NA/EU (oh, wait, I think I know one finally!)


Thanks for taking the time to clarify for those of us a little less versed in all the other MMOs out there.

[Adelante]

I have played a lot of the games out there, and I can safely say that there is no replacement for City of Heroes.  There are other games, each with their own pros & cons.  The key thing to remember is that no game will have the same feel of City of Heroes but you can take a part of the spirit of CoH with you wherever you go if you go with friends.

For those that miss the player-created content of CoH I would recommend Star Trek Online.  I believe some of the CoH devs have even stated that it's the closest out there right now.  Don't quote me on that though because I might be mixing quotes up.

For those that miss just being a "hero" there are of course DC Universe Online & Champions Online.  I have had difficulty connecting with either one, but I feel that is largely because my friends did not move to those games.  As such I can not give an unbiased review of the two except to say that they are not only different from CoH but different from each other as well.

For me, the game I'm mostly involved in right now is Guild Wars 2.  I know many of you don't want to play it, and I don't blame you.  However it is the game my SuperGroup from City of Heroes moved to after trialing many other games and we found that the spirit of co-operation and adventure in Guild Wars 2 most closely reflected that of City of Heroes... so it's our new home, for now.   I rather like GW2 for various reasons.  I like the 'questing' system of Renown Hearts, as they are all public and shared.  I like how there is no such thing as kill stealing, everybody works together and gets their share.  I like how there is a constant sense of progression as pretty much everything you do in the game will grant you experience towards leveling.    I like how there are discoveries to make and exploration to conduct.  I like that it's not all hack & slash, but there are varied goals.  I like how they did not follow the "Holy Trinity" of healer/tank/DPS, every character class can do a bit of everything depending on how you specialize their traits & equipment.   On that same note I absolutely LOVE that character respecs are dirt cheap so you can experiment almost freely.   I don't like that NCSoft holds the reins, but that may not be so for much longer.   Maybe.  I'm not sure.  I do like supporting Arena.net however.   I also like how the World vs. World vs. World content is so interesting.  Laying siege to castles & keeps, raiding supply stations & caravans... and how everyone on your server is your ally.  It makes for  good community-building ...  you wouldn't know that from their forums, though.

[Dollhouse]

TSW:

My cabal sucks, the founding members are cliquish and the leader only drops in once a week to stroke his ego and talk about GW2 with the other founders.

• Founders RP like we're Templars (it is a Dragon cabal, its not in the factions nature to act in such a strict and organizes manner)
• MANDATORY UNIFORM FOR ALL RP GATHERINGS (a cluster of Dragons wearing Pattern Imago in London is doing it wrong for so many reasons)
• above mentioned clique gets bent out of shape when we peons try to organize a world boss fight, farming group or NM runs our own
• Cash shop clothing is still per character
• Templars still have the advantage in PvP
• London is still like wading through molasses in lead armor
• Content still lacking (can complete new issue stuff within a week of release then its back to grinding NM...)

The game issues I could live with but there aren't many options for a cabal as Dragon and the one I'm in is one of the biggest

Oh, gosh, it sounds like your Cabal is horrible. I play almost exclusively with a small group of Pinnacle refugee roleplayers, and the Dragon characters in that group have a small cabal (none of mine...I bought into the dev vision of faction commitment pretty hard...I play only Illuminati), but I suspect it's too small to serve your needs - I'm talking like a half dozen members or so. I hope you can find something better. We don't really pay a lot of attention to Cabal stuff...we mostly just use the Cabal Bank feature.

I'm also a bit annoyed by the character-specific costume purchase stuff, although it doesn't make a huge difference to my three characters (the two females have very, very different style preferences and the third is a male with no inclination to cross-dress.=P )

PvP had been swinging to Illuminati in the battlegroup the Arcadia RP server is in for a while...but not so much in the last week or so. Still almost exclusively Fusang, too...El Dorado and Stonehenge hardly ever "pop" for anyone.  PvP, despite stated developer intent, remains something of a sideshow in TSW...mostly because it's still pretty factionally imbalanced.

I don't have lag/FPS problems in London any more, except at the "corner" at the clothing shop near the auction house. And sometimes iin the Horned God when it's really busy. But I also got a shiny new system (albeit a mid-range one) a few weeks ago...made a huge difference everywhere in the game, as my old one was under recommended minimums. Slowdowns in London don't bother me as much as they would if I was in combat...but they're still an immersion-breaker.

I agree, re: content...but for a game this new, it's a decent amount. The rate at which new content is appearing is fantastic compared to most every other MMO...especially considering the stellar quality of the writing. The Mayan event is a PITA, though...

[Mistress Urd]

The best substitute my group has found so far is Diablo 2. Yes, the old ancient game where teaming is a big benefit. You also have Paladins much like CoH's defenders are very wanted for team play.

With a little bit of prodding I tried a couple of other MMOs

CO: No Comment other than "no thanks" after a few minutes.
SWTOR: The game visuals are pretty good. The interface is ok but a bit small and not as easy to get around as CoH. Class choices are bit limited too only 4 (per side and seem to be re-imaged for faction). Team inferface isn't great. Not happy with no movement powers, its star walking. I see other design flaws like spawn camping etc. Game feels a bit too linear. Then I figure out that position doesn't mean much in the game, just point your blaster and stand out in the open and outgun your target! Bleah. If my friends and I wanted to play the game as a group, we would have limited choices as the rookie zone(s) only cover 2 or the 4 classes. So to get overlap you have to be either one of the two Jedi classes or a trooper/smuggler. There are also, "solo only" missions much like Praetoria. Those were a mixed bag because people didn't like breaking up a team because of them....

I played some other MMOs, GW, DDO, EQ and AC but the only game other than CoH that kept me more than 3 months is EvE Online (3 years). I play MMOs for teaming and teaming should be catered to and a benefit or why not play a single player game offline? These other games feel like solo MMORPGs.

[Optimus Dex]

Last night I was desperate so I downloaded Champs Online again after 20 minutes I was so disgusted I uninstalled it again. I tied D&D online it just did not do it for me. DCUO was pretty but hard to play on the PC. I'm pinning my hopes on one or both of the games being planned here. But at 59 I hear the clock ticking.

[Electric-Knight]

Can I get an acronym cheat-sheet?

PSO/PSO2

Haha, I had no idea either... However, it looks like it stands for Phantasy Star Online (I had no idea about any of this, but... I've never played any of the Phantasy Star games anyway).

PSU/PSU2

NOT sure... Same as PSO or maybe not!

JP

I am guessing Japanese?

FFXIV

Final Fantasy stuffs...

Hiya, Madadh!!!
*waves cheerily*

[Tenzhi]

Can I get an acronym cheat-sheet?

PSO/PSO2
PSU/PSU2
JP
FFXIV
NA/EU (oh, wait, I think I know one finally!)


Thanks for taking the time to clarify for those of us a little less versed in all the other MMOs out there.

E-K mostly covered it.  Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe, Japan, Final Fantasy 14.  I'd like to play MHO on XBL but it's also JP only, and there's not really any getting around that one.

[FatherXmas]

Only played PSO back in the days of Dreamcast.  A group would haul our Dreamcasts over to one person's house to lan party since he acquired four Dreamcast ethernet adapters.  He also had two Sony TVs that could do split screen between two sources (actual split screen, not picture in picture).  This same guy heavily documented raising Mags, use to joke that it was too bad it wouldn't count toward PhD work because if Mags were real, he would be one of the leading experts.

[houtex]

"FFXIV"

I had a complete moment of awesome and read this in my head not as "FFX... no, that's, uh, Final Fantasy.. um.. X is 10, V... oh, Final Fantasy Fourteen."

Nope, I read it straight up in my head "Final Fantasy Fourteen". 

And then I rechecked my Roman maths to be sure, because, well, did I just read Roman numerals without having to translate/add/subtract and all that?  I did!  AWESOME.

/There are that many FFs?!  Goodness... Is it like a Mass Effect sort of continuing story line thing?
//Didn't play either, so... yeah, I'm clueless.  I should maybe wiki FF...

[Kaiser Tarantula]

PSO/PSO2
PSU/PSU2
JP
FFXIV
NA/EU (oh, wait, I think I know one finally!)

PSO/PSO2 - Phantasy Star Online, Phantasy Star Online 2.  Space-age MMOs set in a faraway/alternate dimension.  An action-RPG that uses a lobby/dungeon system.

JP - Japan.

FFXIV - Final Fantasy 14.  MMO-like entry in the Final Fantasy series.

NA/EU - North American/European

[Thirty-Seven]

*anti-TSW rant*

I feel like you have a lot of misconceptions of the game based on not really giving it half a chance.

For one, the reason the game lets you pick any ability is because you can eventually unlock ALL of them.  And ALL of the skills.  So, in essence, you could be an Elemental/Chaos/Blood/Pistol/Hammer/etc. all on the same character and once you have Skill Points in the given weapons, you can use (slot) ANY of the powers you have taken.  Also of not is that the Passive powers can (usually) be slotted from any weapons regardless of which weapons you have equipped.  What this gives you is tremendous amount of variability in the way you can craft a build.  Early on, it can feel like you've "messed up" but in the long run, it is impossible to mess up a build: simply unlock more powers and switch out the "mistakes."

The other thing you have to get used to in TSW is that missions do NOT lead you from one point to the other very often.  Many many many missions require some deductive reasoning, learning about the game world, investigating via Google and Wikipedia and then applying what you have figured out to the game.  In other words, "Finding information about the fog" is exactly what it sounds like... it is NOT "travel to the giant X where you find out about the fog."

The one point I have to concede is related to the Graphics requirements: they are high.  I have not had any of the problems you have listed... because my system is pretty new and runs TSW like a dream.

I guess to sum up, give it another go with a truly open mind, and don't think about CoH or how it did things as you go.  It was my inability to do that that stymied my enjoyment in CO.

[Hyperstrike]

What are these things of which you speak?  The absolute lack of help in any way there is keeping me from getting anywhere.

Okay not ENTIRELY awake.  These "day off" things have screwed up my sleep schedule.  So I originally thought you were asking about hooking up to the proxy servers.

Remember the advice in my brain-dump about flipping over to CoH-style "Take everything" patching, rather than streaming patches dynamically?

On the launcher:



Upper right-hand corner.  Click Options.



Snag the dropdown for Proxy and select US.