The Digital Continuum: Champions Online launch edition
It's been about a couple weeks since Champions Online launched, and I've been enjoying the game through the good and the bad. Yes, there have been some rough patches – particularly for early start players whose characters were designed before the big launch-day patch. So let's talk about a few of the issues some people are having with the game. Namely, I want to address the difficulty complaints that some people have been voicing, because they're not entirely wrong.
During the early start program, Champions Online's combat was ridiculously easy. It was so easy that I regularly saw people solo master villains (Champions lingo for epic monsters) five levels above their own. Now, obviously this was far from the desired level of challenge. So Cryptic dropped a bomb of a patch on launch day that honestly didn't surprise me in the least. Was it ideal? No. Was it a rough transition for early start players who thought the entire game would be a constant cakewalk? Certainly. But here's the important question: Was it necessary? Yes, completely.
Some are concerned that the vision of a solo-friendly game has changed. It hasn't, but the extreme nature of that patch certainly did nerf character builds that, previously, were only working because the game balance was borked beyond belief. It's still entirely feasible to build a solo-focused character post-launch-patch in Champions, and with the free retcon you can now simply rework an early start character. I'd personally recommend taking teleport for your first travel power, as its PvE usefulness cannot be underestimated. As for abilities, it's as simple as making sure you've got a decent defensive passive power, a block power and some way of dealing with a crowd. Do those things and soloing will come much easier, most of the time.
I say most of the time because some encounters are designed specifically for a group to tackle. These are particularly tough missions that even inform a person they're best for a two, three, etc sized group. Thankfully, because Champions is a game that doesn't require a party to have traditional "roles" in play, all you need is another player of any variety. They can even be pretty much any level, because the sidekicking system allows everyone in a group to sync up to the same level. Set someone in the group to "Sidekick Champion" and then everyone right-clicks their portrait and begins sidekicking to be moved to the same level.
One thing that I'm happy to see Cryptic addressing is content gaps. Right now, if you open your mission window with the "J" key and press the button labeled "Crime Computer" you can find NPCs who're more than happy to give you missions. It's also important to pay attention to item drops, because quite a few of them offer missions. Mob kills give you fairly little experience so finding all the missions you can is an important part of leveling up.
The current problem of content gaps is something you won't start seeing until you reach higher levels. As with most MMOs, higher levels require more experience, which results in needing to finish more missions. Unfortunately, the spread of missions is a bit too thin right now, resulting in players having to complete missions above their level. With the changes to difficulty, this quickly turns into a headache for players with a less resilient character build.
Right now, I'd say the state of the game is mostly great. Sure, Champions has its rough spots – like the aforementioned difficulty/mission conundrum – but if there's one thing Cryptic has shown it's that they're both attentive and quick (in developer time, mind you) to issue fixes to problems. If there's one thing I've learned in my many years playing these games, it's that the best fixes take some time while the quick fixes are only best used in a time of necessity. I'm sure Cryptic plans on going incremental and surgical with any future tweaks, and as for new content – well those are going to be different teams entirely.
With Blood Moon and Celestial powers only a month away, I'm feeling very positive on the future of Champions. Soon enough, I'll do some commentary on PvP and higher-level PvE play as well as ongoing discussions on patches and game balancing. So keep an eye out, fellow Champions players!
