(Untitled)

[hdimagination]

Well, as of the 25/12/2006 it's been a year since i've played CIty of Heroes/Villains.  As such it seems a good idea to reflect on the game and post up a little bit of a review.  After all, most of the reviews you see of MMO’s, either online or in magazines could never really do these games justice.  It’s only after the long hall can you really say

Comments

[uselessinfomine]

There is a levelling slump at levels 26-30, and again (apparently) levels 36-40 and 46-50.
However, these tend also to be the times that the Task/Strike Forces appear, and doing a TF can seriously deal with the slumps.

Just an observation. :)

[imortal_fae]

I'm interested to see how the inclusion of new missions into CoH will effect the balance of game play between the two now, and if it has introduced the rapid game progression that can be seen in CoV.

CoV has a much faster game progression that CoH but does have much less content requiring more blatant mission farming every 10 levels or so.
Saying that Im guessing there is no such problem if you play in a group of four or more people regularly ( smaller groups tend to just blast through the contacts without geting the xp benefit of being in a large group).

Though I only managed to play a few mission of the new police band hero missions, I was noticing at how weak heroes are when fighting Arachnos.

[hdimagination]

It actually seems to me that at the present time, CoH has got the edge. Admitedly, I am playing it more so my view may be biased in that direction, but i have never noticably experienced the '10 level Bumps' with Ninja Catgirl, as i did with Dark Twin. In the end i put this down to the fact that CoH has far more zones than CoV, and that means more contacts that you can get. In Villains I get to the point where I use up all the missions of my contacts in one zone, before i am high enough level to move on the the next.

To contrast this, it now seems that you get introduced to contacts via the police band/safeguard missions, and still pick up all the regular ones that you get through the old method of being introduced to them by your lower level ones.

[musoholic]

More zones, true. But a couple of them (Boomtown, Faultline) are so underused it's not funny. Unless this has been corrected recently?

One point of contention though - I actually found a fair amount of success soloing as a Controller in CoH. It requires a different, more tactical mindset but it's certainly doable. You can freeze 2-3 people in place while you deal with one individual and then move on.

Lacks the sheer fun of smacking hell out of things as a Brute though... ;P

[hdimagination]

Indeed it has, at least as far as Faultine is concerned:

http://www.cityofheroes.com/feature_update_issue_8b.html

it has been converted into a new city zone, for levels 15-20, with new missions, an overhalled landscape (lifts for easy access) and Arachnos as a PvE enemy at last. Some really well designed missions as well, one in particular occours in an abandoned sky scraper, so the whole map is at a 10 degree angle. That particular story arc has two missions in a row with elite bosses, so the XP is really good as well. It is akin to Croatoa now with a similar quality of design.

Not that I am trying to get you to play again you understand ;)