I saw City of Heroes/City of Villians at the EB today for $20, and almost bought it. But I decided to see if there’s a free demo first, and if I like it, I’ll pick it up.
So, anyone have useful advice or tips for me? How much are the subscription fees?
Subscription fees are standard for MMOs. It starts at $15/month with discounts for buying larger blocks of time.
It’s a good game. It doesn’t matter if you start Hero-side or Villain-side, pick whichever interests you more. I found Villain-side difficult to get into as a newbie, although I appreciated it once I was more involved with the game. You might find you like it, though.
For character creation, there’s no way to really go wrong. Pick the archetype (class, essentially) and powers that appeal to you, and you should have fun. I do recommend starting with a melee class (Scrapper or Tank on Hero-side, Brute or Stalker on Villain-side) as they’re a lot more forgiving for new players, but any other archetype will play well.
Also, when picking your initial attack (if offense is your primary, you’ll get two choices), go for the faster one, not the more damaging one. These aren’t special moves and there is no basic auto-attack; these are your attacks, and I guarantee having to wait 4-6 seconds between hits gets boring quickly, even if you level up and get new attacks pretty quickly.
Beyond that, any questions you should have off the bat should be answered by the game.
City of Heroes is fun. Sorta like mmorg-lite in some ways. Easy to solo if you prefer, best costume design feature in any game I’ve played, most missions are instanced (meaning no having to compete with other players to accomplish things for advancement), PVP is strictly voluntary, and with the new Day Jobs feature you get bonuses during time you are not even logged in.
Downside is limited loot and very little to do at end game. There’s a raid, and some high level Task Forces (series of related missions) but nothing like the raiding scene in WoW or EQ.
The player community is a little older than for most games, which in my experience leads to a more helpful and pleasant gaming experience. You can download a free trial here:
I recently came back to COH after a long time playing WoW and I’ve enjoyed it and learned alot of new tricks already.
As far as what kind of character to play, I recommend thinking about your play style and going from there. For a demo blasters are a lot of fun as they really shine in the low levels. I have a 46 blaster as my highest, and it gets tougher at that kind of level, but if you like to attack from afar, trying that might work. Scrappers and tanks also start out decently, but controllers and defenders tend to be more team focussed and start slow.
If you want to try something different controllers can be fun, and they are different from any other class I’ve seen anywhere. I’m not sure if demo players get to access villain side, since I started back before COV was around, but if you do, that’s a whole bunch of other things to try.
COH supports altitis, in my opinion. You can have tons of characters, and its a good idea to try out several to see what you like best.
When it comes to a server, if you want to play in teams a lot I recommend one of the biggest two servers, Freedom or Virtue. Freedom is the biggest, but Virtue (where I play the most) is reasonably busy and has a unofficial roleplay focus.
You can have characters on as many servers as you want however.
Since you had already bought it at EB, you should have the first Month Free. If you create a Hero character on Virtue, The Dope had a presence there. The Super Group is CECIL.
We also have a Global Channel cleverly named CECIL.
Ok, spent a few hours playing now, seems kinda cool. I created a hero scrapper yesterday, and a villian…something or other, today. I like the villian a little better since he has a long range attack. Got one super long range attack that can kill a lot of enemies in 1 hit, then a medium range dark blast, and brawl for when they get up close.
Couple questions:
What are these badges and what do they do?
How do you combine enhancements? I found a character near the start (I’m on Mercy Island) that will buy and sell enhancements. But I heard something about combining them, how do I do this?
They’re mainly mementos. Some badges are part of a set, which give that particular character special powers. There are also special badges called Veteran Rewards, each of these is a little somethin’ somethin’ for simply having a subscription and apply to each character on an account.
Except for Invention Origin (IOs), enhancements of a similar origin and type can be combined by opening Manage Enhancements and dragging the new one atop the old one.
And don’t bother buying any enhancements until you get to Dual Origins at level 12. I usually slot any I can use and sell the rest, but buying Training Origin enhancements is not worth the influence. Also, join the CECIL global channel, there is almost always someone on it that can answer questions.
Not only answer questions, but come play with you and show you stuff – we have lowbie characters on pretty much every server, I think.
I joined the Repeat Offenders global channel recently, and now a couple of my characters are in their SGs, plus I’ve been hearing lots of good advice on that channel, so I will join CECIL as well.
Just hearing the name of this game gives me the twitches, like a drug addict.
I need a hit, man. Just a weekend. No, really.
My advice, which may or may not conflict with someone else’s, is don’t lock in with a character you love until you explore the archetypes and powers with low-level toons. You never know what kind of set up will boil your potato. For me, it was a Regen Scrapper. In every other game, I have a Blaster-like character (Mages and Warlocks in WoW). But this game… Mmm. I have a big sword.