I picked it up last night. A few friends were playing it during the weekend with their pre-order keys. Figured I'd give it a shot. I haven't played City of Heroes in about a year I think. I used to LOVE the game until they started doing some really dumb over nerfing, which I've learned they re-adjuted back up proportionally. That, with some friends that got tired of the game, I found myself soloing alot. MMORPGs that you solo in are BORING! So, I quit. Hopefully, this time around, I found a few friends playing, on a different server then I played before, I'll be able to stick with this game. I found this game much more fun compared to most other MMORPGs. Like WoW for instance. All my friends play that game, so in turn, I've been sorta playing it. Well, not really, because I get so frikking bored with WoW. Which is neither here nor there, I'm just not a big fan of WoW.
So, back to the original topic, picked up CoV and it's quite fun. Similar classes from what I can tell with one completely new class. Here's how it breaks down.
Brute = Tanker
Stalker = Scrapper
Dominator = Controller
Corruptor = Blaster
Now there is no equivilant to the Defender. Infact, there is no major healing skill set at all for the bad guys. Buff powers are sprinkled throughout with no one power set dedicated to buffing at least. The bad guys emphasize damage and pain over defense. Tankers still best out Brutes for example when it comes to maxing out defensive skills, but can't match their damage. Stalkers and Scrappers seem identical to me with stalkers having even less defense. Many of hte old power sets have been retweaked and revamp with some really dumb powers being removed for new stuff I haven't tried out yet. So there's something to look forward to.
The new class is called Mastermind. This is a pure pet class. I decided to play one because, it's something new for me. Although it seems like EVERYONE is playing a mastermind. You get to choose from 4 different primary pet powers:
Commandos line = Well you get soldiers with guns, grenades, rockets, and what not to attack for you. Kind of lame if you ask me.
Ninja line = you get ninjas with bows, shurikens, and martial art moves to attack with. The last summon power you get is a martial arts demon which is kinda cool.
Undead line = Zombies, skeleton knights, and a lich are at your command. The zombies are all melee with some puking ranged acid. The lich is a big blaster for the most part.
Robot line = these things get bigger, badder, and more explosives you can shake a stick at. I picked this line.
Unlike controller pets, mastermind pets can be commanded to do things. You can make them talk with commands, do emotes, re name them, have them attack or not attack or make them do whatever you want. You get control over your pets. Kind of ironic that controllers can't control their pets but masterminds can.
Anyhow, the basis for being a villan is you start out in prison on the Rogue Islands. This is the place where all the really bad guys are sent from Paragon City. A secret bad guy organization is formed, called the Archanos, and is seeking especially powerful villans to recruit to get revenge on the heroes of Paragon City. They bust people out of the prison that have potential, like yourself, and then "test" you constantly (ie with missions) to see if you are worthy to be in their ranks. Your missions basically consist of beating up other bad guys trying to take over the Archanos, or cops, or Longbow, or factions with Archanos. You also get to do missions like robbing banks and such too.
It's not all great stuff. I found MANY of the same "pieces" for map building with just different textures still there. It's annoying still being able to go into a mission and know the map in my head from start to finish. There ARE new map "pieces", but not enough. There are new enemies, like the snakes which are cool too. Then again, there are quite a few oldies there as well.
Now on to the really bad. When I was picking up the game, the guy at the counter told me there was an problem with City of Villans new "graphic engine" that breaks something with ATI cards and causes the performance to go into the toilet. I was like, I hope not because I'm using an x800xtpe card at 580/600 speeds.
I get home, install the game, and no matter WHAT resolution I set it to, the max FPS I get is 38. Sometimes my system CHUGS at 10-15 fps. I was like WTF? I have a 2.5GHz AMD 64, 2GBs of ram running at 250 MHz as well with 2.5-3-2-7-7-13 timinings. I have 4x74GB raptors in RAID 0 running in my system too. There should be NO WAY any game currently out makes my system chug. This game does, and it's not even all that graphic intensive at all compared to games like FEAR, HL2, or Q4. Heck, Doom3 runs better on my system then this. I literally tried setting the resolution down to the minimum and turning off any bit of eye candy I could find in the options. Nothing helped.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to check the official forums or support last night. The website said my account was still deactivated, despite me reactivating it and being able to play. Seems like there was a disconnect there. You can't go to the support or forums without an active account which the website was too slow in recognizing I had one. So I wasn't able to read up on this problem in further detail. Has anyone else heard about this?
Unfortunately, if this issue isn't solved soon, I may have to cancel this subscription AGAIN for the third and final time.
Oh yah, I'm also pissed that I was BILLED for the first 30 days already despite the box saying when I bought CoV that I would have a free month to play. What kind of crap is that???
So, back to the original topic, picked up CoV and it's quite fun. Similar classes from what I can tell with one completely new class. Here's how it breaks down.
Brute = Tanker
Stalker = Scrapper
Dominator = Controller
Corruptor = Blaster
Now there is no equivilant to the Defender. Infact, there is no major healing skill set at all for the bad guys. Buff powers are sprinkled throughout with no one power set dedicated to buffing at least. The bad guys emphasize damage and pain over defense. Tankers still best out Brutes for example when it comes to maxing out defensive skills, but can't match their damage. Stalkers and Scrappers seem identical to me with stalkers having even less defense. Many of hte old power sets have been retweaked and revamp with some really dumb powers being removed for new stuff I haven't tried out yet. So there's something to look forward to.
The new class is called Mastermind. This is a pure pet class. I decided to play one because, it's something new for me. Although it seems like EVERYONE is playing a mastermind. You get to choose from 4 different primary pet powers:
Commandos line = Well you get soldiers with guns, grenades, rockets, and what not to attack for you. Kind of lame if you ask me.
Ninja line = you get ninjas with bows, shurikens, and martial art moves to attack with. The last summon power you get is a martial arts demon which is kinda cool.
Undead line = Zombies, skeleton knights, and a lich are at your command. The zombies are all melee with some puking ranged acid. The lich is a big blaster for the most part.
Robot line = these things get bigger, badder, and more explosives you can shake a stick at. I picked this line.
Unlike controller pets, mastermind pets can be commanded to do things. You can make them talk with commands, do emotes, re name them, have them attack or not attack or make them do whatever you want. You get control over your pets. Kind of ironic that controllers can't control their pets but masterminds can.
Anyhow, the basis for being a villan is you start out in prison on the Rogue Islands. This is the place where all the really bad guys are sent from Paragon City. A secret bad guy organization is formed, called the Archanos, and is seeking especially powerful villans to recruit to get revenge on the heroes of Paragon City. They bust people out of the prison that have potential, like yourself, and then "test" you constantly (ie with missions) to see if you are worthy to be in their ranks. Your missions basically consist of beating up other bad guys trying to take over the Archanos, or cops, or Longbow, or factions with Archanos. You also get to do missions like robbing banks and such too.
It's not all great stuff. I found MANY of the same "pieces" for map building with just different textures still there. It's annoying still being able to go into a mission and know the map in my head from start to finish. There ARE new map "pieces", but not enough. There are new enemies, like the snakes which are cool too. Then again, there are quite a few oldies there as well.
Now on to the really bad. When I was picking up the game, the guy at the counter told me there was an problem with City of Villans new "graphic engine" that breaks something with ATI cards and causes the performance to go into the toilet. I was like, I hope not because I'm using an x800xtpe card at 580/600 speeds.
I get home, install the game, and no matter WHAT resolution I set it to, the max FPS I get is 38. Sometimes my system CHUGS at 10-15 fps. I was like WTF? I have a 2.5GHz AMD 64, 2GBs of ram running at 250 MHz as well with 2.5-3-2-7-7-13 timinings. I have 4x74GB raptors in RAID 0 running in my system too. There should be NO WAY any game currently out makes my system chug. This game does, and it's not even all that graphic intensive at all compared to games like FEAR, HL2, or Q4. Heck, Doom3 runs better on my system then this. I literally tried setting the resolution down to the minimum and turning off any bit of eye candy I could find in the options. Nothing helped.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to check the official forums or support last night. The website said my account was still deactivated, despite me reactivating it and being able to play. Seems like there was a disconnect there. You can't go to the support or forums without an active account which the website was too slow in recognizing I had one. So I wasn't able to read up on this problem in further detail. Has anyone else heard about this?
Unfortunately, if this issue isn't solved soon, I may have to cancel this subscription AGAIN for the third and final time.
Oh yah, I'm also pissed that I was BILLED for the first 30 days already despite the box saying when I bought CoV that I would have a free month to play. What kind of crap is that???