Champions *is* shiny...
Aug. 31st, 2009 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terrycloth...maybe I just shouldn't play betas. v.v I guess there weren't that many changes between the end of the beta and release, so maybe it's more that I should give games time to work through initial problems.
So, why I don't hate it:
(a) You can turn off the horrible cell shading, and it looks like a normal (if somewhat old-school) 3d game. This also helps it run at an acceptable framerate on my laptop.
(b) The server instability is gone.
(c) They fixed the most glaringly obvious balance issues.
(d) I figured out what the hell I was doing as far as character creation goes. At least for a few specific powersets.
(d) is a big one -- my god, the game is min-maxxy. You get two 'super stats' and the bonus from a stat being 'super' is much MUCH larger than your equipment or talents or starting stats can compensate for. +40 by 13th level (when you pick the second one). The stats interact in weird ways with the powers -- most of them do nothing unless you have specific powers that key off them, others are extremely valuable for all characters, and you have little guidance as to which is which or to which your powers are going to need since you can't look at powers until you're eligible to buy them.
This does make the freedom to mix powersets often a horrible idea. You need to mix powersets that rely on the same stats. Or pick powers that don't rely on any stats, which admittedly is most of them.
But once you've got a decent character, the combat's fun. The missions are all obviously intended for solo but there are some hints that they at least *intend* to scale for groups -- enemies are supposed to go get friends more often when you're grouped, and there are some CoH-style instances that may or may not scale. There's also public quests, which no one ever bothers with as far as I can tell because they're out of the way and the one in the tutorial gives crap loot (who knows about the others?), and PvP with rewards. PvP is a bit like PvP in any game ever -- you really have no idea why some people are unkillable monsters and other people just suck. Random powerups scattered around the arena don't help with that! Also, so far I've only been able to fight in steel cage matches which are chaotic and kind of boring; I hope there's more to it than that if they expect people to actually do it.
But the game's decent enough that I'll actually buy it and play it for a while. It'd be nice if I could find my friends who're also playing it, assuming there are any, but it's kind of solo-encouraged, like WoW, so, eh.
EDIT: Just in case, I'm @terrycloth
So, why I don't hate it:
(a) You can turn off the horrible cell shading, and it looks like a normal (if somewhat old-school) 3d game. This also helps it run at an acceptable framerate on my laptop.
(b) The server instability is gone.
(c) They fixed the most glaringly obvious balance issues.
(d) I figured out what the hell I was doing as far as character creation goes. At least for a few specific powersets.
(d) is a big one -- my god, the game is min-maxxy. You get two 'super stats' and the bonus from a stat being 'super' is much MUCH larger than your equipment or talents or starting stats can compensate for. +40 by 13th level (when you pick the second one). The stats interact in weird ways with the powers -- most of them do nothing unless you have specific powers that key off them, others are extremely valuable for all characters, and you have little guidance as to which is which or to which your powers are going to need since you can't look at powers until you're eligible to buy them.
This does make the freedom to mix powersets often a horrible idea. You need to mix powersets that rely on the same stats. Or pick powers that don't rely on any stats, which admittedly is most of them.
But once you've got a decent character, the combat's fun. The missions are all obviously intended for solo but there are some hints that they at least *intend* to scale for groups -- enemies are supposed to go get friends more often when you're grouped, and there are some CoH-style instances that may or may not scale. There's also public quests, which no one ever bothers with as far as I can tell because they're out of the way and the one in the tutorial gives crap loot (who knows about the others?), and PvP with rewards. PvP is a bit like PvP in any game ever -- you really have no idea why some people are unkillable monsters and other people just suck. Random powerups scattered around the arena don't help with that! Also, so far I've only been able to fight in steel cage matches which are chaotic and kind of boring; I hope there's more to it than that if they expect people to actually do it.
But the game's decent enough that I'll actually buy it and play it for a while. It'd be nice if I could find my friends who're also playing it, assuming there are any, but it's kind of solo-encouraged, like WoW, so, eh.
EDIT: Just in case, I'm @terrycloth
