Champions Online
User Rating:
  Log in to rate this game!
ESRB:
Blood,Fantasy Violence,Suggestive Themes
Publisher: Atari Genre(s): MMORPG Home Page: http://champions-online.com/
How to Make a SuperheroChampions Online does steal a few things that worked well from City of Heroes and parts of the initial character creation process feel instantly familiar. If you have ever created a character in CoH you already know how the system works for costumes. Champions Online costume creator has so many options and sub-options it is easy to waste hours while figuring out what kind of tights you want to wear. Note that if you are unhappy with your initial creation, you will be able to tweak it at a tailor shop as soon as you get out of the tutorial - it'll cost you, but the costs are very reasonable. Biggest problem I have with the costume creator is that it is very hard to get colors just right as the creator lights the character very differently when compared to the game. Like in City of Heroes, your visual appearance is tied to your costume and most of the equipment doesn't change it, with the exception of some costume piece unlocks that you'll come across - and even those won't do anything unless you go to the tailor and change your costume. In time you will unlock additional costume slots and eventually you can have four different costumes, available at any time with a press of a button. If you are a member of a Supergroup, you even get a fifth, Supergroup-specific outfit slot.
A superhero also needs some superpowers. Starting out, your hero will be decisively un-super as you are thrown in the tutorial with just two basic powers, one being your basic "autoattack" energy builder power that does little damage and fills your energy bar which then allows you to use all other powers. Your pair of starting powers depend on the Power Framework you choose at character creation. Currently available frameworks can be broken down to six major types with 21 different subtypes in total:
Sorcery is a bit of an oddball out - all four types of Sorcery share the same initial pair of powers (Eldritch Bolts and Eldritch Blast) and they continue to share a number of powers but each subtype also has it's own specific powers as well. Each framework is tied to an Innate Characteristic that sets your initial stats - 12 points in two designated superstats and 5 points in the rest. So after picking a framework, you get two starting powers and a set of stats and off you go. Alternatively you can choose to start with a Custom Framework and just pick any single energy builder power, any single "tier 0" superpower and any of the available Innate Characteristics. This is mostly for advanced players that have already figured out the minute details of the power system and wish to customize everything. As a word of warning, it is theoretically possible to build something gimped through Custom Framework that may take some effort to level up to the state you want it to be. I'm a Healer/DPS/Tank! As you level up, you unlock up to four build slots - solo, tank, dps, heal... switching is easy. Character development is unusually freeform. There are no real classes - people may mistake the frameworks as such, but that is not the case. All power sets include basic offensive capabilities and as you can freely mix and match powers from multiple sets, there is no "tank class" or "healer class" as such - it all depends on the actual powers you pick. When you want to change your role, you just switch your stance. Guardian is the default "solo" stance, Protector buffs up defenses for tanking, Avenger ups your damage output at the expense of defenses while Sentinel gives bonuses for healing powers - effectively you can swap between Solo, Tank, DPS and Heal builds on a whim and the switch can also be set to change your quickbars, costume and equipment at the same time. At level 40 you will have fourteen powers in total - so many that it is perfectly feasible to have powers for all possible roles. Tanking, after all, only requires you to have an attack power or two modified to generate extra threat and a passive defensive power and a block upgrade to keep you alive. Same goes for healing - pick one or two healing-oriented powers and you are good to go. As you can get the highest tier powers already between level 20 and 30, depending a bit on how focused your picks are early on, the rest of the way up to maximum level is spent on picking powers that expand your multi-role capabilities. Considering that just stacking extra offensive powers is pretty useless (you can't use them all at once anyway), it is easy enough to be "dual spec" by 30 and "tri-spec" (capable of tanking, healing and doing damage, depending on your equipment and role) by level 40. I'd say an average build at level 40 would include two travel powers, one energy builder power, one block upgrade, 5-8 damage powers, 1-3 crowd control powers, 1-2 healing powers and 2-3 passive slot powers. I'm sure many will min-max for a specific role but I'd say you can work out at least a "dual spec" build without giving up anything. Unfortunately there is one wrench in the machine - stats. While offensive powers are simple enough - your damage output scales with your level and your superstats (those two stats that got +12 from your Innate Characteristic), there are some powers that scale with specific stats. As you tend to spend a good chunk of your later stat-increasing talents on the superstats to increase your offense, those powers that scale with some other stat will always be slightly less effective than when used by a character with superstats matching the powers. Obvious offenders are some defensive powers (scaling with Endurance) and most heals (scaling with Presence). Also Intellect is the stat that affects pet damage - in theory, important for pet-heavy builds. Added confusion comes from the fact that some stats have changed during the beta. For example, there is massive confusion on Strength - it either adds to melee damage or it doesn't, depending on who you ask. The functionality of Recovery and Endurance also confuse many - Endurance raises your maximum energy while Recovery raises your equilibrium - your energy automatically regenerates only up to your equilibrium point and to get it above that requires you to use your energy builder - both are important for just about any build, giving advantage to builds that use one of these as a superstat. There are also serious questions floating around on the effectiveness of certain stats - it seems that while each stat does offer benefits as advertised, in the benefits of stacking just one or two stats sky high are dubious. Overall the stat system is pretty confusing and I'm almost willing to place a bet that it will require some redesign at some point when the min-maxers "break" the system in some way. It just doesn't feel very intuitive.
Related Stuff Games: Champions Online
Games: City of Villains
Tags |
 
 
See if your PC can handle the latest games:
 
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
