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Behind the Mask: It feels so good to be bad
Playing bad guys in an MMO is one of those features mostly unique to the superhero genre. In other games, there are factions and these factions are vaguely good or bad, but it's kind of rare to see players clamor about playing an evil faction as much as they do in superhero games. One of the reasons behind the lack of true villain factions in most games is that the hero factions in other MMOs are a touch more grey than the good guy factions in a superhero game. In World of Warcraft, both the Alliance and the Horde have their faults; the Alliance are stuck-up bigots and the Horde are ruthless and somewhat bloodthirsty. In Aion, the light and dark factions tread equally on the thin blue line that separates good and evil (although it's somewhat less obvious as an Elyos). One of my biggest grievances with getting into Champions Online was the lack of playable villain content at launch. I was unwilling to test drive City of Heroes at all until villains were playable, and over half of the characters I've made in Champions are bad guys. Even my non-villains aren't heroes (at least not in character). I have a certain infatuation with being a bad guy.
Behind the Mask: Six editions of legacy can't be all bad
Before we get into today's discussion on the merits of Champions Online's lore, I want to do a quick brief on the pet pass and the Demonflame update for those not hounding the forums. Demonflame is a little under a week away on PTS and about two weeks on live; you can get the skinny from Poz here. The pet patch is currently on PTS, and it's not bad, but it still needs some work. If you're interested at all in bashing out pets I strongly advise getting on PTS, going to the boards and dropping some feedback. A few other things have been tweaked too. This week on Behind the Mask, we're going to talk about lore. I'm not talking about the game's lore, although I'll cover some of that too. I'm talking about the book lore! I finally gave in and picked up the PDFs (you can buy them from the Hero Games website), and I browsed through a lot of the lore content. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the content in Champions Online consists of parodies of comic and MMO culture, and those elements dilute the serious and interesting lore content that is available. If you've read the lore entries that you can find throughout CO, you'll find that most of them actually sound kind of cool. Unfortunately, that lore is scattered and doesn't show a lot of the big picture. Fortunately, I blew a ton of cash on PDFs (including even the rulebooks) to get a good sense of the game's lore.
Behind the Mask: Ritual pets don't suck
Way back in Champions Online's beta, I looked on at the Sorcery pets with a little bit of disdain. They didn't do as much DPS as a pair of Munitions Bots, and many of them were tied up in annoying ritual circles that you had to constantly stand in. Being required to stand still isn't a huge problem in many MMOs, but Champions has a very fast-paced, mobility-intensive combat system. Melee heroes need to move quickly from enemy to enemy and often have to chase down runners. Ranged characters are best served by kiting during battle to elude melee foes. In this kind of fast-paced world, who has time for a pet that forces you to stick around? Naturally, I ate my own words a month or two ago when I discovered the Primal ritual. Originally I chose the Primal ritual because his huge AoE Snow Storm was pretty darn good at thinning mobs and gathering aggro. I also really liked that he had a travel-disabling lunge. After my crazy PvP antics at the anniversary event, I also noticed a lot of other goofy things about him. I asked myself the question: Are the other rituals this good? The answer is no, but for the most part, all of them are worth taking. Unlike most pets in CO, rituals are pretty strong. I'll be pretty sad if the devs change them too much.
Behind the Mask: An anniversary well-spent
Over the last week, I've been spending a lot of time playing Champions Online's anniversary event. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it rekindled my enjoyment for the game. While I've been playing CO, here and there, I think like many players, I suffered from a little burnout. The anniversary event itself wasn't really what cured my ills. The extra things involved in the event were just little fun add-ons to the game. The main tasks in the game were still there for me: run Serpent Lantern, run NemCon, maybe level an alt, mess around on PTS, and roleplay. Even the "big bang" Destroid attacks were only a decent diversion for a half hour or so. What really got my excitement going was the increased socialization. A lot of people claimed "the zones are empty," but that couldn't be further from the truth. I logged out one night in Millenium City #7 and logged in the next afternoon to Millenium City #20, with most of the lower instances completely full. That's close to 2000 players in just MC alone. I participated in a lot of roleplaying and hung out with the CORP guys during their RP event. I added over 10 people to my friends list last week. The main reason my burnout was cured? I gained an optimistic look at where the game is headed.
Behind the Mask: Two layers of toppings
"Microtransactions" is almost a taboo word in the MMO community. Everyone has a different opinion on it. Even here at Massively, our ideas on microtransactions vary widely. But perhaps even more frightening than the label of "F2P" is "double-dipping." Some games continue to charge a normal subscription, while still having some content featured as microtransactions. All of Cryptic Studios' current games support a double-dipping model, and Champions Online is no exception. A lot of players think this is a terrible, terrible thing. As a gamer, I understand that players want things to be free. I also understand that developers have to strike a real balance between content that's given for free and content that is sold as paid expansions or unlocked via microtransactions.
Behind the Mask: The keyboard is mightier than the text bubble
In roleplaying, everyone has his own preferences. Some people like simple, character-to-character interactions without a lot of heavy plot. Others love in-depth storylines and lots of character drama. One of the most heated preferences in roleplaying, however, is the way that characters should resolve conflict. Roleplaying is strange in that player characters get into fights about 3000 times more often than people do in real life. I'm a former US Marine, and I've been in less than a half dozen fights (including the kind involving guns) since I turned 18. On the other hand, my roleplaying characters tend to get into serious, earth-shattering battles involving guns, high-voltage electricity and psychic strangulation powers on an almost-weekly basis. Because I play Champions Online, this should be sort of an oddity. There are no playable villain characters in CO, so most characters should be do-gooding champions of love and justice. Even in comics, we rarely see heroes go up against other heroes except in strange circumstances. Isn't it a little odd that heroes would beat the heck out of each other all the time for no real reason?
Behind the Mask: Play nice with others
If there's one thing everyone here at Massively enjoys, it's playing MMORPGs with other people. Teaming with people makes almost anything fun. I have friends who play EVE who somehow claim that even mining can be fun, if done with friends. Unfortunately, Champions Online has a big problem with team play. It's hard for a team to share objectives, and the rewards for teaming are otherwise horrible. It feels a bit like World of Warcraft, yet much worse. WoW has real incentive to get into teams and run instances at the lower levels, and although many of these dungeons are skippable, WoW's focus on loot advancement encourages players to team up and get the best stuff they can use at any given level. This is just not true for CO. Many players just skip lairs entirely, even though lairs give great rewards. There are no "random missions" like there are in City of Heroes, either. Still, lairs are fun, because you get to play with other people.
Behind the Mask: Focusing on characteristics
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I wrote an article about Champions Online's gear mechanics. That article kind of assumes a few things about how much you know about stats. Unfortunately, it doesn't go into great detail about what exactly stats do, or what are the best choices for your character. In other articles, I've made suggestions such as "stick with your passive" and "get END, REC, and CON, because they're good." Admittedly, there will be some of that here too. However, the focus this week will be on the best ways to make use of other stats, particularly STR, DEX, EGO, and PRE. I'll try to keep things simple. You don't need a lecture on exactly how Enrage works to know it makes STR a good stat. If you're having trouble with the stat system and the previous article on loot, this is your lucky day.
Behind the Mask: First look at pet update
Two weeks ago, we looked at some basic needed changes for Champions Online's pet masters. The first pet patch has finally hit the test server, and quite a bit of what was suggested happened. My prediction that the devs would do something completely different and strange has held true, and anyone familiar with most of the previous pet powers is likely to be thrown for a loop. In this issue of Behind the Mask, we take a look at the new face of pets, including their new energy and rank up mechanics. All of the stuff thus far is in a wide state of flux, so while I will make little comments on where the balance is right now, we can expect that to change quite a bit in the coming weeks.
Behind the Mask: I'd like to catch some of them
It's a little irony that pets have already been the focus of another column this week on Massively. Still, the "pet patch" is coming very soon for Champions and I'd like to go over what I think should happen to pets and what probably will happen to them. Pets have not been a big focus of the developers. Balseraph has publicly stated that "Pets are a big problem for a small number of players" and more dev attention has been pushed at fixing Force than making pets usable. In their current state, pet builds are unplayable. Pets deal poor damage, but that isn't the worst problem. Pets are extremely annoying to use and maintain. Fortunately, the devs are looking at some ways to fix things.
Behind the Mask: Pushing buttons is fun
Last week, I teased that this week's column would discuss Champions Online's energy mechanics. That, however, is only half of it. This week, we're going to discuss energy mechanics in general, player perception of resources, and the core central idea key to all video games: pushing buttons is fun. The actual concept isn't hard to explain. Doing things in a video game is entertaining and not doing things is boring. This is a simple, fundamental concept that anyone can understand. Resource mechanics like mana, energy, or Vespene gas limit the things we can do before those resources have to be replenished. Running out isn't fun, so we reduce our resource use or maximize our resource returns. The issue of CO's dreaded energy mechanics is only partially the developers' fault. The rest lies with us.
Behind the Mask: The exploiter's dilemma
It's tough being an exploiter, especially in a game like Champions Online. It carries a certain social stigma, somewhere above catgirls but below most other castes of players. I feel like the exploiters have a bad rep, because other players misunderstand and misrepresent us. Exploiters are the players who find bugs and ultimately discover FOTMs or gimmick builds and strategies. Because most people consider bugs and "flavors of the month" to be bad, the people who work to discover these things tend to be treated badly. This is unfortunate, because exploiters are basically explorers. One might think that they are achievers or killers (as the end result of finding exploits is granting unfair advantages), but exploiters are explorers at heart. While other explorers journey through lands that have been charted by other players (except in the case where the game or feature is new), exploiters explore the landscape searching for things that other players haven't discovered and might never look for. The thrill of learning something new drives the exploiter, rather than the material reward of an imbalanced build. After the jump, we'll talk about some previous exploits in Champions Online and the ways they impacted the playerbase.
Behind the Mask: The plight of a healer
Last Sunday, I got to meet up with some of our awesome readerbase and try out the Serpent Lantern adventure pack with them. We also made the Massively supergroup, originally named "That One Massively SG." If you'd like to join, send a message in the Massively chat channel (titled Massively); everyone in the SG has invite privileges. As always, you can also send a message or friend request to me at @Auspicious. Either way, our run through Serpent Lantern was cut a little short, mostly due to personal stuff (people have lives too!), but it let me make a lot of observations about the team dynamics in Champions Online. I'm not new to teaming in CO, but even I was surprised by the way the Serpent Lantern handles big teams. The short answer is that playing with other people is fun, but feeling like I have no control over whether or not I die is not fun. After the break, we'll go through the long answer.
Behind the Mask: Some things experience points can't buy
Last week, I talked about survivability in Champions Online. I mainly talked about passive defenses and stats -- things you can plan for. Anyone can adjust a stat build to be more effective, and anyone can get a defensive passive to adjust survivability. This week, I'm going to talk about something you can't get from a drop or gain when you level up. I'm talking about player skill. CO is one of the few MMORPGs out there that rewards player skill greatly. The game engine itself is reasonably well-suited to tactical decisions made in the heat of battle. Being able to react quickly to things occurring in a fight also often means the difference between taking an opportunity to attack (thus ending a fight) and having that opportunity wasted by standing around and blocking. How do you measure up? We're going to explore an issue that persists between MMOs and even between genres. The magic that can be produced by dexterous bashing of keys is obvious, and yet often overlooked. Hit the jump, and we'll figure out why.
Behind the Mask: A glass jaw is not an advantage
Last week, I asked you guys if anyone was interested in a Massively SG. Well, the comments and emails seemed pretty positive, so I'll be forming one up; send a PM or friend invite to @Auspicious if you're interested. I also made a Massively chat channel, creatively named Massively. Feel free to hop in and use it to socialize with me or other Massively readers while you're smashing down villains! I'll be on this weekend and we can think of a suitably "super" SG name. This week, we're going to be talking about survival. A little bit of tanking info will be included, but I am hoping that Cryptic changes the currently screwy aggro mechanics. Right now, they require tanks to constantly attack everything in a given room at the same time -- certainly a difficult prospect even at the best of times. Staying alive, however, is universal. Everyone hates dying, even in Champions Online. Not everyone has to take hits all the time, but when those hits come, a little bit of survival sure helps. A lot of survival helps even more.
Behind the Mask: Taking a knife to a gun fight
In the long history of MMORPGs, there have been two mighty class divisions vying for supremacy. The melee damage dealers, lead by the mighty rogue (and in the olden days, the monk) showed us that the raw speed and power of melee damage output was of dire importance. The ranged damage dealers, led by the mages and wizards, did not have the staying power of a rogue who might be subject to random AoE at close range. They had to rely on the incredible fury of their spells and the relative safety that distance brings in a battle. In Champions Online, that division is magnified. Ranged and melee characters can select all the same defensive powers, meaning that melee characters must, by the very nature of close combat, expose themselves to more risk. The advent of superhuman mobility multiplies the divide even further -- while a ranged character can flee at incredible speeds, melee characters require special advantages to get in close and stay there. The Super Power Pack came out a while ago and while I talked a lot about it in its early stages, I didn't get a chance to cover how the devs' final answer to these problems worked out or what the landscape of melee is today. That's changing now.
Behind the Mask: Lighting the Lantern
This week, we're covering Champions Online's Serpent Lantern mini-expansion, currently available on the Public Test Server. Hot on the heels of the Super Power Pack, the Serpent Lantern added in a new story arc dealing with the international crime syndicate VIPER. As an additional perk, VIPER agents received a massive facelift and are now more interesting and challenging opponents. PvE in general had a few exciting changes. Teaming with friends got a moderate experience buff, and players can now set their mission difficulty to afford even tougher challenges while in instanced maps. Also updated in the new patch are the game's energy-generation mechanics, which have been heavily changed. Energy-per-second from attacks has been standardized, and energy gain from blocking was significantly altered. There's a lot of things to go over this time. Hit the jump and we'll get started.
Behind the Mask: Ten things I hate about RP
As luck would have it, the Serpent Lantern patch went to Test on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I had already written large parts of this article by then. Also, I need more than a day to adequately cover everything, like the new teaming mechanics and the energy building changes. So next week, we'll look at Serpent Lantern (which will likely have had a patch by then). In online roleplaying, there are always things that drive people crazy. Sometimes these things are irrational, like most people's hatred of catgirls. Others are outright rude behaviors that most people get furious over. Whichever the case may be, here's ten of my least favorite things present in Champions Online's roleplaying playerbase. Most likely, you hate them too. And hey, if you don't, you can always make fun of me for being an elitist roleplaying jerk.
Behind the Mask: Who cares about balance?
Balance is one of those nebulous things in MMORPGs. It's as flighty a term as "good guild" or "fun content." When people talk about their game, it seems a foregone conclusion that they don't think their game is balanced. A balanced game seems almost mythical to me at times. People complain that Guild Wars and StarCraft aren't balanced games. If even the pinnacle of real-time strategy isn't universally considered to be balanced, what is? All MMORPG designers face this problem, but it poses a unique issue for Champions Online. Each Champion can freely select powers from any available ability in the game, with only a handful of exceptions that are mostly circumvented by the game's middle levels. Any character can select cross-archetype synergistic powers, even if the function was not intended for their archetype. A tank can select Miniaturization Drive (considered to be a support power) to make his foes less threatening while a ranged damage dealer could pick Enrage (considered to be mainly a bonus for melee) to provide a consistent damage buff. This is made even more chaotic by the inclusion of extreme in-combat mobility and in-the-moment gameplay. This isn't EVE Online, and a lot of the overarching planning and strategy that takes place in other games is replaced by blocking, active defenses, and spur-of-the-moment decision-making. And yet, CO's designers try to balance.
Behind the Mask: Roleplaying in a modern way
This week on Behind the Mask, I faced a startling dilemma. On the one hand, the developers have proposed the most universally disliked gameplay change ever. The issue is very troublesome, and I could probably write a pretty convincing argument on the subject. My hope is that the devs give in to the wailing voices of the playerbase begging not to implement the changes. If these changes hit the test server, Behind the Mask will be right there with the coverage, but it's important to not jump the gun too early. Instead, we're going to talk about roleplaying. Champions Online has a very unusual roleplaying culture. Unlike other MMORPGs, Champions is pretty respectful of the people that don the roleplaying hat. It is not strange to find a group of roleplayers journeying through Millenium City or one of the other hot zones for heroes. The devs understand the plights of roleplayers, and a lot of the various features that are implemented in CO have no real "value" except as roleplaying tools. Often roleplayers can be seen as "losers" or "nerds." Not so much in CO. Hit the jump, and we'll explore the place I call "IC."
