Guru Impression of CoV - City of Heroes Forums

Grae Knight · 10-14-2005, 01:21 PM

I figured I would start a thread of Gurus first impressions of CoV.

All the lag and bugs aside....CoV costume creator was great. I like alot of the new options and can't wait to see them in CoH. The ATs were okay. I was very disappointed when I went to the power set selection screen and saw alot of the same ones from CoH. Mastermind was pretty cool but that was to be expected.

Breakout was a nice change. Would have liked it more if I could have bypassed it but I suppose they needed people to test it for bugs. Also I would have liked it if there were two low level areas to start in (similar to Atlas and Galaxy) probably would have alleviated some of the lag.

The starting missions were more of the same, but there aren't too many variations of "go to area, defeat all enemies" you can do. Visually the indoor missions looked good. It was nice to see some new maps. I was a bit concerned after the power selection screen that we would see alot of the same indoor maps.

Bases are sweet. I like the creation and raids seem to go pretty nice. I love the new SG management. Introducing 5 titles/ranks for SG members is pretty cool and the activity requirment is nice as well. I liek that you can disable the chest emblom and still stay in SG mode, will make prestige easier to collect since for some reason there were people complaining about having to run around with SG chest emblom.

Overall I give CoV a C+ ..it is above satisfactory but nothing jaw-dropping amazing. I am sure I will play it and enjoy it but not like I do CoH I am sure. It will probably be a casual character for me much like alternate servers are. I am more excited about what it will be bringing to CoH. Also, need to play it to research how I can better PWN all the villians in the PvP areas with Grae Knight!

suburbanhell · 10-14-2005, 01:51 PM

I'd give it an A if the bugs can be all eliminated before the scheduled launch date.

Grae Knight · 10-14-2005, 01:57 PM

You are quite generous Burb

bpphantom · 10-14-2005, 02:22 PM

Missions are at least more varied than the usual "defeat all" missions. And if you come across one that too tough for you, open the paper and see what's avaiable to cut your teeth on.
There are a lot more Elite Boss types at the lower levels, and that means more teaming, which isn't bad unless you don't know where anybody is in Beta (grrrr).

The cape mission is/was (when I did it), freakishly hard to solo. Add an Energy Melee/Invuln Boss to a solo, villainous mission... man that was undoable for me.
There are still numerous glitches and bugs in missions that will get worked out and fixed as they go. Some of the most annoying are when your mission door is stuck somehwere you can't get to without a travel power, or someone with a travel power and recall friend. Pretty Good for now

Once the server populations drop to CoH levels and I can turn up my settings again, it looks beautiful. Just fantastic. The bloom and distance fade effects are top-notch. I love the feel of the area as well. It reminds me of a slummy, non-tourist Cuba... which it should. (Great).

AT's are good, all new really despite what people said. None really play like a CoH AT. The Mastermind is totally new and while I've not tried one yet I hear good things. Perhaps too good. (Good)

The powersets are mostly good. Some really shine while some bloom a little too late in my opinion (ie: Mind). Some are brand new (Plant, Thorn, Energy Aura), and some are tweaked versions of old standby's, (Psi Blast, Fire Domination). There does need to be tweaking done to powers to develop a baseline, but that will come in 1-2 years. Pretty Good.

Costumes are fantastic, mostly. There are a few glaring problems, (no stone boots, no 2-tone skull boots), but there's an entire thread dozens of pages long about the costume bugs (started by Xan), and another about costume suggestions. A metric tonne of new costume options including exposed brains, lots of skulls, cloven hooves, chain and barbed wire wraps... too many to go over really. Very Good.

So, let's see:
Missions - Pretty Good 6.5
Graphics - Great 9.0
AT's - Good 7.5
Powersets - Pretty Good 7.0
Costumes - Very Good 8.0

Averages to a 7.6. Good, on it's way to Very Good. If they keep working at it the way they have been it will be Very Good, on it's way to Great by launch.

Me likey.

suburbanhell · 10-14-2005, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grae Knight

You are quite generous Burb

I'm quite impressed with the game, and the mastermind powerset is insailably fun, I love the new features, the new costume pieces, the whole "read the paper and find your crimes" thing with the brokers, the temp powers I've gotten, the bases, etc...the only thing I'd really like to see is a tram-type system of transportation added, going from ferry to ferry gets a tad annoying. Aside from that the game is full of bugs. They get a C right now, but again, if they can get the bugs out by the launch date I give them an A

UnSub · 10-14-2005, 03:41 PM

I don't think they'll get the bugs out before launch, but give it a month or two and things are bound to be a lot smoother.

suburbanhell · 10-14-2005, 03:42 PM

I agree. There's far too much to fix between now and the 31st...

Edit: And that's just stability wise.

UnSub · 10-14-2005, 03:51 PM

I totally agree - stability is terrible and I wonder about why the release date was so etched in stone.

In fact, so I don't derail this thread, I'm off to start one on that very topic.

Morcalivan7 · 10-14-2005, 04:54 PM

Aside from the fact that every time DS gets an 8 man team going (every 5 minutes), we end up going into a mission and right in the middle of kicking ass we end up all crashing and the game shuts down. Always in the midst of the most explosions and biggest battles. This results in only a small number of missions being finished, but still hours and hours of straight combat.

Bases are amazing and though we won't be able to get them as fast as heroes will, at least not raid capable. But getting a medical facility and generator to power it will be priority. After that once you have enough for a base you can sell everything and recreate it in it's entirety to your vision. I've already mine planned out, especially in the defense portion of attacking enemy invaders as soon as they port in as it's not gonna be they porting into the entrence but instead into varied sections of the base hallways/doorways and especially, chokepoints, for chokepoints is all I'm going to have. Force Fields, Mines and Turrets are gonna make it hell for any intruders when they first arrive.

Krypto · 10-14-2005, 05:08 PM

That cape mission was freakishly hard. You think an Inv/Em tank is hard, try an Elec/Elec blaster that flies after you, and completely ignores the aggro of your minions.