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First thing, I'm not giving up yet. But now that I've played for a few hours and had time to think about it, I've managed to clarify what about the game counts as Big Problems for me, reasons why I'm less likely to put up with the little problems.
Okay, here's the little problems, just to get them out of the way. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's what bugged me once I got underway and that doesn't fall under the Big Problems. I expect I could overcome or get used to most of these if I keep playing.
All right, now for the big two reasons.
It's not a superhero game.
Yes, it has all the trappings of superhero stuff. Costumes, energy blasts, flight (although not right away), supervillains, etc. But that's just surface details. At its core, it follows the standard Campbellian Hero's Journey of a fantasy game: start out as a rube from the sticks and after long travails you're finally a Big Damn Hero. Pretty much all the RPGs I enjoy start you out as a Big Damn Hero and move on from there (Mutants and Masterminds, which still uses a Fantasy RPG level system, starts you at level 10...most other superhero games don't even use levels and you simply build a kickass character). Following the Hero's Journey from the start can be interesting in fiction, but that's because of the characters you meet along the way, not because of the grind. And games built around the Hero's Journey tend to keep the boring parts and lose the interesting parts.
City of Heroes, on the other hand, starts you out as a fragile rube from the sticks, better than the average human but not by a whole lot. Maybe a housecat can't take you down, but some of the mugging victims around Atlas Park might give you a serious challenge. As a result, chargen is not just the few minutes it takes to create a costume and pick out your starting powers...it's the several hours of grind required to reach the point where you get the powers you actually wanted to start with. Maybe if there were an option to start a character at any level I wouldn't mind this as much, but there isn't.
I don't insist on starting on top of the mountain, but I'd like to start somewhere on the mountain, not in a coastal village a thousand miles away from the mountain and without a horse.
And here comes a bunch of complaints that weren't in the "little problems" above because they are inevitable consequences of the fact that this is D&D in superhero drag. Things designed as encouragements and rewards for advancement become discouragements and punishments for starting players. Boring long travel stretches exist so that you can be rewarded with better movement powers later on, or encouraged to use team play to take advantage of taxibot specialists or team teleport. I've heard there are missions you simply can't accomplish solo, to encourage team play, but it discourages people who'd rather solo. A lot of powers and costume elements are inaccessible to beginning players in order to encourage leveling up, but it discourages players who want a flying character from the word go (maybe Superman had to "learn" to fly, but almost every other flying superhero had that power as part of their origin).
In other words, the whole fantasy RPG style of "start weak and boring, then become strong and interesting as a reward for play" thing is Not For Me. I want my escapism to escape immediately, not spend hours sawing away at the cell bars.
I can't ignore it.
I freely admit, I multitask a lot. But it's not parallel processing, it's massively serial. I'll do thing A, then thing B, then thing C, and maybe back to B, some more C, a little D, etc. And with the exception of watching live TV so I can comment realtime in chat with friends, pretty much every activity I enjoy for leisure is something I can arbitrarily set aside for at least a minute or so with zero consequences. And even the TV thing has blunted consequences, given the plethora of ways to see a show again after it has broadcast (i.e. Hulu, iTunes, reruns, wait for the DVD, YouTube, etc). In a tabletop RPG or wargame, I can excuse myself for a minute if I need to use the restroom or want to grab a drink, or my phone rings. In a MUSH, I can ignore the window for a minute if I have to, even in the most hectic of scenes. I can put down a kitbash and leave it for days, I can set aside a book as long as I want, I can zone out on a chat for several minutes without even being noticed.
But if I get into a mob fight on CoH, ignoring it for even ten seconds could get me a trip to the Hospital (followed by either long boring travel at low levels, or Debt at higher levels). Because it's Massively Multiplayer, there's no pause button. And while it's possible to go hide in a corner to take a break, that doesn't help me if my phone rings right after I've aggro'ed a mob. Especially if I'm teaming, and it'd mean flaking out on the teammates. And if I have to actually exit on short notice, there's that whole "30 seconds for them to beat on you unopposed" thing that's there to prevent abuse, but also prevents me from being able to control my own leisure time. In tabletop, even in the middle of a battle, I can ask for a time-out if I need one. But MMOs don't allow for that.
This also ties into the otherwise little problem of information overload. Not only can't I choose to ignore a mob, I can't slow it down if I want to think for a few seconds. And while some people enjoy being put under time pressure on a task, I get enough of that at work to satisfy any cravings I may have for such an experience.
If you want to be able to tell me when I can and can't ignore you and at what pace I have to deal with you, then you have to pay me, not the other way around. And if you're not paying me, you at least have to make it worth the hassle and aggravation in some other way.
So, that's the two big hurdles CoH is going to have to get over if I'm going to keep up with it after the gift subscription from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thandrak expires. Is it worth the several hours of real chargen, assuming I ever want to make a new character? And is it worth having the game tell me when I can and cannot step away?
Okay, here's the little problems, just to get them out of the way. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's what bugged me once I got underway and that doesn't fall under the Big Problems. I expect I could overcome or get used to most of these if I keep playing.
- The camera "loses" my character way too easily. It's not fun to be fighting in tight quarters and suddenly I can't see my character because I moved to the wrong place.
- Information overload. Yes, I know all the windows can be moved around and so forth, but there's so much I have to be able to keep track of, all at once, in a fight...and I don't operate at twitch-gamer speed.
- R'yleh geometry. I spent a few minutes stuck behind a desk because there were no paths out. I had to turn on a jetpack indoors and just smash into the ceiling to get out (oh, and the camera lost me while I was there, too, so I couldn't even see where I might be getting hung up). The jetpack also left me with head and shoulders merged with the ceiling a LOT.
- Exit lag. Yeah, I know it's there to avoid people abusing the system by getting into trouble and then logging out until the mob goes away, but it still annoys me.
All right, now for the big two reasons.
- It's not a superhero game, it's a fantasy game with spandex.
- I can't ignore it at will.
It's not a superhero game.
Yes, it has all the trappings of superhero stuff. Costumes, energy blasts, flight (although not right away), supervillains, etc. But that's just surface details. At its core, it follows the standard Campbellian Hero's Journey of a fantasy game: start out as a rube from the sticks and after long travails you're finally a Big Damn Hero. Pretty much all the RPGs I enjoy start you out as a Big Damn Hero and move on from there (Mutants and Masterminds, which still uses a Fantasy RPG level system, starts you at level 10...most other superhero games don't even use levels and you simply build a kickass character). Following the Hero's Journey from the start can be interesting in fiction, but that's because of the characters you meet along the way, not because of the grind. And games built around the Hero's Journey tend to keep the boring parts and lose the interesting parts.
City of Heroes, on the other hand, starts you out as a fragile rube from the sticks, better than the average human but not by a whole lot. Maybe a housecat can't take you down, but some of the mugging victims around Atlas Park might give you a serious challenge. As a result, chargen is not just the few minutes it takes to create a costume and pick out your starting powers...it's the several hours of grind required to reach the point where you get the powers you actually wanted to start with. Maybe if there were an option to start a character at any level I wouldn't mind this as much, but there isn't.
I don't insist on starting on top of the mountain, but I'd like to start somewhere on the mountain, not in a coastal village a thousand miles away from the mountain and without a horse.
And here comes a bunch of complaints that weren't in the "little problems" above because they are inevitable consequences of the fact that this is D&D in superhero drag. Things designed as encouragements and rewards for advancement become discouragements and punishments for starting players. Boring long travel stretches exist so that you can be rewarded with better movement powers later on, or encouraged to use team play to take advantage of taxibot specialists or team teleport. I've heard there are missions you simply can't accomplish solo, to encourage team play, but it discourages people who'd rather solo. A lot of powers and costume elements are inaccessible to beginning players in order to encourage leveling up, but it discourages players who want a flying character from the word go (maybe Superman had to "learn" to fly, but almost every other flying superhero had that power as part of their origin).
In other words, the whole fantasy RPG style of "start weak and boring, then become strong and interesting as a reward for play" thing is Not For Me. I want my escapism to escape immediately, not spend hours sawing away at the cell bars.
I can't ignore it.
I freely admit, I multitask a lot. But it's not parallel processing, it's massively serial. I'll do thing A, then thing B, then thing C, and maybe back to B, some more C, a little D, etc. And with the exception of watching live TV so I can comment realtime in chat with friends, pretty much every activity I enjoy for leisure is something I can arbitrarily set aside for at least a minute or so with zero consequences. And even the TV thing has blunted consequences, given the plethora of ways to see a show again after it has broadcast (i.e. Hulu, iTunes, reruns, wait for the DVD, YouTube, etc). In a tabletop RPG or wargame, I can excuse myself for a minute if I need to use the restroom or want to grab a drink, or my phone rings. In a MUSH, I can ignore the window for a minute if I have to, even in the most hectic of scenes. I can put down a kitbash and leave it for days, I can set aside a book as long as I want, I can zone out on a chat for several minutes without even being noticed.
But if I get into a mob fight on CoH, ignoring it for even ten seconds could get me a trip to the Hospital (followed by either long boring travel at low levels, or Debt at higher levels). Because it's Massively Multiplayer, there's no pause button. And while it's possible to go hide in a corner to take a break, that doesn't help me if my phone rings right after I've aggro'ed a mob. Especially if I'm teaming, and it'd mean flaking out on the teammates. And if I have to actually exit on short notice, there's that whole "30 seconds for them to beat on you unopposed" thing that's there to prevent abuse, but also prevents me from being able to control my own leisure time. In tabletop, even in the middle of a battle, I can ask for a time-out if I need one. But MMOs don't allow for that.
This also ties into the otherwise little problem of information overload. Not only can't I choose to ignore a mob, I can't slow it down if I want to think for a few seconds. And while some people enjoy being put under time pressure on a task, I get enough of that at work to satisfy any cravings I may have for such an experience.
If you want to be able to tell me when I can and can't ignore you and at what pace I have to deal with you, then you have to pay me, not the other way around. And if you're not paying me, you at least have to make it worth the hassle and aggravation in some other way.
So, that's the two big hurdles CoH is going to have to get over if I'm going to keep up with it after the gift subscription from
thandrak expires. Is it worth the several hours of real chargen, assuming I ever want to make a new character? And is it worth having the game tell me when I can and cannot step away?
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Many thousands of years ago, there was a post on the forums from one of the lead developers. He basically said that in most cases, when they felt they had to make a choice between gameplay and superhero atmosphere, the former usually won. That's the whole reason the Tanker archetype exists--management of mob aggression was considered a huge part of online gaming at the time, and they just couldn't imagine a tank-free world. Furthermore, they felt the tank had to do relatively little damage to avoid making them too powerful to ever get in over their heads (and it wasn't all that successful. In the first two years of the game, a tank could get the attention of every mob on a map and, if necessary, survive indefinitely while holding it). One of those concessions to conventional game design was the level system. As foomf said, the archetype/level combination made the game more palatable to players who would have fled in terror at the sight of the Hero System in 2004, and made it much easier to iron out a basic playable framework (the original alpha version of the game didn't have class delineations until they realized that more than half of the characters wound up with powers that failed so spectacularly to work together they were essentially unplayable).
To be frank, they made a LOT of design mistakes in the early days of the game (giving Controllers access to nearly all Defenders' signature powers, with the difference in effectiveness being minimal enough that I actually found myself booted from teams to replace me with a Troller since he could freeze the enemy as well as buffing/debuffing/healing). Some of those were fixed with the Villains expansion as they moved away from the EQ-standard classes to experiment more, others couldn't BE fixed without starting all over.
Frankly, I'm not sure it's really possible to make a game with any significant character progression that would give you what you want. Even the major offline Marvel and DC games have leveling up to unlock new powers (in Ultimate Alliance, Cap may have all his signature tricks at level one, but he can't ricochet the shield off multiple enemies until he's leveled up some), and without progression MMOs lose their siren song to the non-RPing masses.
Sorry if any of this sounded condescending--I'm just trying to explain things you couldn't reasonably be expected to know since you're not usually a video/PC gamer. To be honest, I got pretty burned out on CoH as a game a good two years ago--it's the fact that it's my primary outlet for roleplay, the people I've met in the community and the stories and characters we've created that has kept me going so long.