Champions: Testing Powers
I know I haven’t been talking Champions Online much lately — it’s still high on my radar, I’m still psyched, but I’m just surviving the summer first. That said, the first public “State of the Game” is out on Champions Online’s site (previous SotG’s were beta views only), and it contains one of the cooler ideas I’ve seen in a MMO:
Within these discussions, the idea was thrown out that it would be cool if you came back so you could try out powers before committing to them.We heard you, we listened, and we’re going the extra mile to make it happen.
We’re now making a specific location, a “Hazard Vault” if you will (no, not the final name, please reserve your comments), that heroes can access from numerous locations in the world. This common area will have test dummies set up so that you can try out new powers and see how they look and work before making them an ongoing part of your character. This is also where players will come to Retcon their powers, advantages, and so forth.
This is excellent. It truly is. For most games, this sort of testing ground isn’t needed — you’ll either get all the same spells/skills/powers as everyone else in your class, or you can easily swap between them. But what about games where your character development is based around the selection of powers from a huge pool? You just don’t know how they’ll pan out until you pick them, and by then, it’s probably too late.
I suffered from this a lot in City of Heroes, although the power choices there weren’t nearly as varied as Champions “pick anything (within reason)” design. Some CoH powers are substandard or outright gimped, and other powers just aren’t what you imagined them to be. But by the time you find that out, too late, you’re stuck — until you manage to get a respec.
I really like the idea of stepping into a special room and taking powers for a test drive, to decide which ones I’ll like best for my character. Descriptions are one thing; seeing them in action is another. Kudos, Cryptic!
- Posted in: Champions Online
That sounds like a pretty cool feature. I’m pretty excited about this game. I’m wondering if it is going to have any sort of big PvE raid-like challenges.
Agree, I love the idea. On top of how awesome the “peril enclosure” idea is (and the idea that a respec is a “retcon” of your comic book heroe’s powers), it seems like the developers are very responsive to the community, have a good sense of humor, and are committed to the comic-book themes and using them in cleaver ways. This game has a lot of promise, can’t wait for it to come out.
Definitely a nice move by Cryptic. I’d love to see that in other games, even for say, initial character appearance. There have been so many times in AoC or WoW were I’ve deleted a character straight after creating it just because it didn’t look the same as I thought it would.
I’m looking forward to CO. I played CoH a little and quite enjoyed it although it lacked too much depth for me.
Wow, that is pretty cool. I’m actually concerned about not getting spells that “look right” for my character as much as I’m worried that they work. So this will help me big time.
Yay Cryptic!
Yeah, this is a nice feature. I hated the old Diablo II skill system (which Flagship kept for Hellgate London) with its’ “haha, you will never get that skill point back” method for trying new skills.
Hey syp, I wasn’t exactly sure to contact you, as I seem to be struggling finding an “email” button. =\
In any case, I’ve been a long time reader, and occasional comment poster and wanted to drop you a line.
We all know that WAR isn’t doing too well for itself at the moment, although LotD will of course artificially increase its figures for a while again. ^_^
But I was kinda interested to see that the Warhammer Alliance forums, the main community forums because no one actually seems to be using the official ones, are having similiar issue.
After a massive banning/locking spree a number of users rose up and decided to try and find a way to talk to the WHA staff and see what could be done to improve mutual respect and perhaps find ways to address some of the community concerns.
This went on for a few pages and afterwards all recipitients were banned and specific posts deleted or reworded. Seeing as how most people don’t consider the official forums to be a real alternative, this is stirring up some controversy on the forums.
Here’s a link to one of the threads:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295264
That’s a great idea. I share Hatch’s appreciation for the cool concept of “retconning” a character to make revisions. Very genre-appropriate.
I’m very excited about CO’s promise.
Indeed, this sort of “try before you buy” is a huge improvement over pretty much any other MMO out there. Kudos!
I seem to be the only one who thinks this is yet another slide down the “No consequences or decisions matter, ever” race in MMOs. How long until we can change the powers of our characters at whim and will? We don’t seem to be all that far from “Why should I have to level another alt to see what a Level XX plays like?”
“Try before you buy” is definitely a better approach than “Unlimited free respecs”, but once you get past the originality of the idea, does anyone really expect this to improve anything? The “Hazard Room” will likely be limited in scope, and not able to demonstrate real effectiveness of powers, or how well they synergize with others, or how they don’t work so well against Opponent X. I expect that slurms’ use – cosmetic – will be the only one that actually satisfies anyone.
But I’m obviously on a cynical kick regarding MMO players this week, so take it with a brick of salt.
@ Beerd – Hm, I’m reluctant to comment on this in a post, mostly because I have been away from reading WHA for a while and I do have a high level of respect for their staff. Taking either side would be from a position of ignorance on my part, but it does bring up a great discussion of how unofficial forums should be moderated, how difficult that is, and how much is too much/too little.
Yeah, taking a side would be pointless anyway since the entire thing is already over, and people are getting infractions from just mentioning who got banned (a significant number of people).
But it’s interesting to see how they react to criticism, especially when they can’t shut up someone through threatening to ban them.
In any case, I do apologize for hijacking your comment section like this.
I just couldn’t find a “contact me” button, and wanted to share this with you.
On topic: I’ll definitely have a look at Champions online (teleporting travel power? Yes please!) and this does seem to add a much requested and intriguing feature.
The only thing that worries me slightly is that one of the major selling points (different powers etc) are instantly available to play around with. At least, if I interpret this feature correctly. Thereby reducing the replay value somewhat. Perhaps it’s just me, but I habitually think to myself “Oh, I wonder how they implemented (insert class/feature here), why not roll a class specifically for that and see how I like it.”
The progression of seeing my powers develop, visually as well as in terms of potential is whats keeping me interested, if I enter a danger room and see what ALL powers look like at the click of a button, I’d have less incentive to roll different setups/classes. But then again you can just ignore the feature if you don’t want to use it, so why not?
Actually, Buhallin, I’d prefer a “unlimited free respec” option. In a class-based game, I want to be able to change my class any time I blasted well please, not just respec or fiddle with talents or feats.
It’s not about choice and consequence, it’s about respect and not abusing players’ time. If the actual choices of powers (or talent spec in a WoW-like) are interestingly limited, like Guild Wars’ eight slot “active” build system, you still get plenty of “choice and consequence” for how you build your character and how it’s played, but you eliminate the alt grind and stupid time sinks that come from making choices *that you don’t have good enough information in-game to make intelligently* and can’t change. (Or need to grind up money or an alt to “change”.)
It’s long past due for MMOs to be charging by content and how much fun it is to actually *play* the game, rather than forcing people to endure time sinks in order to garner more sub money.
That’s the problem, Tesh – MMO players don’t want content. That’s the whole point of this discussion.
MMOs, as a genre, are pretty bad games. There’s very little to them which is actually fun. Think about how a vast majority of players play MMOs: They rush to the end level in the fastest way possible, ignoring anything which slows them down. The gameplay is about 95% AI exploitation, and people do the same thing over and over and over and over looking for a minuscule percentage drop item so they can go back and do it again with 107.4 DPS instead of 106.8 DPS.
As GAMES, MMOs suck rocks. They’re a combination of social networking and crack. Every MMO ever created has been nothing but a time sink, and players WANT IT THAT WAY.
Unfortunately I can’t remember where I saw it linked (might have been here) but I read an interview with an MMO designer a while back, where he basically said that the popular quests had nothing to do with how interesting they were, or the sights, or the challenge. It was all about the reward. I completely believe that.
If you want MMOs to be about content and fun, start with the players rather than the devs.
*Some* MMO gamers don’t want content, Buhallin. Those happy to plunk down $15/month for a pretty Progress Quest aren’t the ones I’m interested in. I’d suggest that there are plenty of players on the sidelines who actually do want something different, including content.
And yes, I do blame the devs *and* the players. Devs have created the system that players adhere to, and players try to dumb it down in a positive feedback death spiral. Even so, that’s just the players who are *currently* happy with the genre. We just don’t know much about those who aren’t buying in, except that they don’t like what is currently offered.