CoH reactivation until Sunday?

[Zarcath]

I got an email from CoH today saying they reactivated my account for free play until Sunday. Anyone else get one?

Calling all heroes and villains! The latest free content update for City of Villains™ and City of Heroes® is live and available now! Villains will find they can now climb to the upper echelons of power, reaching levels 41 to 50, and encountering the PvE zone Grandville, and the dynamically changing PvP zone Recluse’s Victory. Villain content includes patron powers, mayhem missions, new power sets, new costume items and much more. Meanwhile, Heroes also get cool new costume items* and can also access the PvP zone Recluse’s Victory, where they must defend Atlas Park™ against the villains’ assaults. The ultimate battle between good and evil has begun.

Your account has been reactivated and will remain active through the end of the weekend, Sunday at 8:59pm PST / 11:59pm EST. Log-in to play now!

I'm not sure if I'll be able to play CoV also? I never purchased it.

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

I got an email from CoH today saying they reactivated my account for free play until Sunday. Anyone else get one?



I'm not sure if I'll be able to play CoV also? I never purchased it.

Most likely not, if you use a free trial CoV code you can play your old CoH characters for free durring the trial too though.

Guild Wars Factions and Auto Assult come with free trial keys.

[Northerner]

Ha! That prompted me to check my junk email account and see. Sure enough, my free trial of CoV was enough to get the same mailing.

Sadly, I don't think even free again can tempt me. The game certainly wasn't the worst I've ever encountered but it isn't enough to bother with a reinstall.

[eqjim]

yeah, i got one today too.

but not interested enough to play it again.

[Dyscord]

They seem to have added more stuff with they're physics engine. Things like shell casings now remain semi-permanent and can be kicked around, etc. Its funny fighting the mobsters with the tommy guns. When they go full auto the ground gets carpeted in the things. I also like busting parking meters in the mayhem missions, it showers quarters everywhere. I really hope they take it further and add destructable environments elsewhere.

Its kind of a shame they're only offering back the CoH trial, because I think CoV is more fun to play. The environments and enemies look better than the clean, canadian paragon city. The heros are more 'powerful' because almost all of them are 'pure' classes. Villains are more fun though because almost all of them are hybrids, so all have good to outstanding dps. Especially the brutes. Brutes are like the Juggernaught, once they get moving don't be in their way. They build fury just like warriors in WoW, except the only way the fury goes down is by not attacking or being attacked. Fury at 100% is a 300% damage increase. Tank defense with rogue dps. Insane.

The game I think is slowly moving in a good direction towards highly skilled single group content. The newest patch included for the villains Lord Recluse's task force. Basically you fight 4 of the famous hero's of paragon, then you fight 5, then you fight all 8, including Stateman (think superman). The Hero AI is devilish. You can't pull em, and you can't seperate them (when one gets hurt badly ALL the other heros rush to him), and they use some of the very powerful abilities players have. Suffices to say, no one's beaten it yet.

I bought CoV a month or so ago in the midst of a WoW slouch (I HATE AQ, full clear - visc and only 5-6 items don't get DE'd). I really enjoy the game as a DIVERSION. I seriously can't recommend playing this game as your primary MMO, but its definately an entertaining game if you can stomach two monthly fees and don't want to log in to your primary MMO for anything but raids, I wholy suggest it.

[...]

Is the 'till sunday reactivatoin' only CoH? If so that bites. I'll definately log in and superjump around, maybe tanker some things up.

[dak]

A lot has changed in this game since I last played...

Are healers actually needed now for regular content?

Do scrappers/tankers actually wait for mobs to be debuffed?

Is there a reasonable pull size or do you just throw your tank into a room and mow down everything?

Can my DM/Invul scrapper still solo task forces while controllers/defenders either hang back semi-afk or end up dying repeatedly?

For CoV how cool is the base building feature?

[...]

Originally Posted by dak

A lot has changed in this game since I last played...

when did you play? I played after CoV launch but before Issue 7 (the present update). If i've played more recently than you, I can attempt to elaborate. I probly haven't played in 5 months or so.

Are healers actually needed now for regular content?

I'd say no for most things, but they're damn handy. they nerfed the balls off of the tanker a while back, then threw down enhancement diversification on top of that so they arn't invincible as they were long ago. I THINK controllers were likewise nerfed in some way. This has lead to a little more healer demand as fights arn't as garunteed as they were before, but most tankers just use more inspirations now.

on the CoV side of things there is no primary healer and no primary tank, so the need for a few folks who can heal is more paramount. the big problem there is that all the folks capable of healing have other primary functions which wildly differ from the standard healer and lead to blaster like characters who forsake their healing. The 'healers' are corrupter blaster/healer, and mastermind minion/healer. their healing output is smaller than the defender, but that's okay as all villians have less hp than their hero counterparts. I' actualy use the medicine heal on my mastermind on missions because alot of corrupters don't.

Do scrappers/tankers actually wait for mobs to be debuffed?

Not realy. While debuffs are still pretty awesome there's almost nothing that requires you to 'wait' for a condition to start thrashing goons. I consider it a good thing.

Is there a reasonable pull size?

what do you mean? as far as I know pull still consist of every goon that wants to join in the fight. If memory recalls when soloing you get 3-5 goons and maybe a boss. In an 8 man team you some times get mobs of up to 15-20. not too much to handle with a good group. the villian side foes (long bow) feature alot of nasty aoe's though, so they can eat through the far slimmer (hp/defense wise) villians fast.

Can my DM/Invul scrapper still solo task forces while controllers/defenders either hang back semi-afk or end up dying repeatedly?

I seriously doubt it. Like i said, they clipped the balls off of the the tanker powersets, resists in general, and then slapped enhancement diversification (every enh of the same type after 3 gives retardedly less effect. so folks don't have nearly the resist/damage they did before). though most of the time I was tanking back when my tanker still had balls, the healer folks spent most of their time keeping squishies alive from stray hits

For CoV how cool is the base building feature?

It's pretty neat. you can build up a base for rp atmosphere. The big problem is that they pretty much designed bases to serve as pvp battle arenas, where one sg fights another for relics. Most CoH players arn't big into pvp, so the feature kind of didn't have the impact I think it was intended to have and I think it was wasted on the playerbase. I havn't looked into it, but it looks like they may have added some more pve functionality to the base with I7.

[Dyscord]

I can't say with any sort of authority on the high end max level game, but from the mid level game (28 rad/rad corrupter) the game seems fairly well balanced PvE.

Healers aren't nessecarily NEEDED in normal content per-say... but you definately want someone who can do it. Villains are well... villains and don't do the healing thing real well. No empathy skill set. Because villains have such high DPS, a good group of brutes/controllers/masterminds etc can still make due without a 'healer', its just dangerous. But like I said, villains aren't good at healing, they're good at debuffing, and masterminds are good at using their pets as sacrifice tanks (very in character in my opinion). If you want to do something hard though... bring a healer. Several. 1-2 per brute/tanker almost.

You can pull in this game. In fact a lot of strategy in serious play revolves around the pull. Mobs stand still in groups and some wander about. Pulling the wanderers is how you wittle group size down (adds come if they see you pull them LoS). Almost all debuffs in this game are 'infection'. You target one villain and he becomes the anchor, as he debuffs everyone around him. This is where the main pull tactics derive from, as how you get all the mobs to bunch up around your anchor (and not kill the anchor for god's sakes).

As for difficulty... well thats up to you. They've added the ability to 'set' difficulty for your mission. You can now set the difficulty two ways. Talk to a NPC who will make the mobs in your missions a higher level/spawn more, or add more players. The more players you add, the more/higher level the monsters in the mission will be. Sometimes smaller is better... as I've seen people fill up all 8 group slots and zone into a mission to find groups of 15 mobs with 5 bosses per pull. The alpha strike is absolutely murderous.

And scrappers/brutes still solo well... really well. But soloing arch villians and maybe even elite bosses is over. They've made AV's and EB's MUCH MUCH MUCH harder (so much so there's a lot of bitching that they're way to hard, 10 minute fights).

As for base building, thats for guilds only. You can't build your own personal base unfortunately. Basically, now when you enter 'super group' mode, you get prestige instead of influence/infamy (money). Prestige is used to pay base upkeep and to buy more rooms/equipment. Bases are used for holding items of power (think DAOC relics) and other things like a hospital/teleports to zones/etc. I haven't played around in a base because I haven't joined a guild yet. As far as I can tell though, the whole base raiding thing doesn't occur much. In order to qualify for base raiding you have to beat a very difficult trail as a guild, and not many can do it (the player base is kind of stupid/casual from what I've seen). Right now the base thing is just a teleport/hospital thing, but they still adding functionality to bases etc... so whatever.

[Dyscord]

From what I've read, players aren't big into pvp because heros are retardedly better than villains. Scrapper heros have super high dps and super high defenses. Brutes don't have that kind of dps till they build up their fury, which of course doesn't happen in the joust heavy pvp battles.

Squishies in pvp are... way to squishy. Think of a mage in WoW. Without blink. Or frost nova. Or mana shield. Or any protection whatso every against the melee coming for you, who just so happens to have 315 resist to everything you throw at him.

I think part of the problem is the villains haven't learned how to work together as the hero's have, but every time I've tried to pvp the villains are getting rolled by super scrapper death squads, supported by a controller or two to make sure you can't escape (controllers are better than dominators (the villain mez class) since controllers are 'pure' enchanters).

[Malakie Torsade]

Did they ever fix pet zoning for Master Minds? I really liked the class, but the "Summon, Buff, Summon, Buff" shit everytime you zoned killed a lot of the fun for me. That and there was no option to summon swarms of deadly bees as your minions.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Dyscord

From what I've read, players aren't big into pvp because heros are retardedly better than villains. Scrapper heros have super high dps and super high defenses. Brutes don't have that kind of dps till they build up their fury, which of course doesn't happen in the joust heavy pvp battles.

Squishies in pvp are... way to squishy. Think of a mage in WoW. Without blink. Or frost nova. Or mana shield. Or any protection whatso every against the melee coming for you, who just so happens to have 315 resist to everything you throw at him.

I think part of the problem is the villains haven't learned how to work together as the hero's have, but every time I've tried to pvp the villains are getting rolled by super scrapper death squads, supported by a controller or two to make sure you can't escape (controllers are better than dominators (the villain mez class) since controllers are 'pure' enchanters).

I mean.. sure it doesn't make for a balanced game and all, but that does have a certain elegance to it. What kind of comic book game has the villiains kicking the shit out of the heroes?

[Kasonic]

This is the third time I've had my ancient trial account reactivated, and the third time I've failed to care.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Dyscord

I think part of the problem is the villains haven't learned how to work together as the hero's have, but every time I've tried to pvp the villains are getting rolled by super scrapper death squads, supported by a controller or two to make sure you can't escape (controllers are better than dominators (the villain mez class) since controllers are 'pure' enchanters).

How can you base pvp on what you have either heard or haven't experienced? The game is very different at the higher levels than it is at 28. I have played Coh since beta. I have tried just about every AT on both the hero and villain side. Also, when the RV event allowed us to level up any char from one to 50, I rolled up 10 or so chars to level 50, just to try out the game from different viewpoints and evaluate both heroes and villains in PVE and PVP.

If anything, fighting favors the villains. Take stalkers, for instance. They can't be seen if done right. And when they strike, they can hit in pvp for 50 to 75% on any charachter (tankers are a bit tougher). A good stalker will hit from hide with assassination strike for 50 to 75% of the health bar, and then follow up with a few more hits. Most heroes are dead. The most complained about AT on the hero side is stalker. A good stalker can wreak pure havoc in pvp (I know, I have one). And even worse was the all stalker pvp teams. Want to see a dead hero group? Let them encounter a very coordinated team with one or more stalkers. The stalkers both AS, and then the rest of the team cleans up what is left. And don't get me started on a retarded stalker combo like energy melee and regeneration. Sheer ownage in pvp that you won't see on the hero side. A friend of mine named his stalker "3 Hits," because he claims he can kill any hero in 3 hits including tanks (about 4 secs).

As far as brutes, they really aren't weak in pvp. I took my 41 invulnerable/energy melee into rv, and ran into a same level energy melee/ energy aura brute (the zone put us both at level 50). This char I have played since beta (we got to keep our charachters from the weekend before the launch of Coh). I have tanked +4 mobs with ease. Pre-nerf, I could easily tank 200 mobs (at +2) when we were herding. My point is that this type of tank usually is still left standing when everyone in the group is dead. The brute and I fought for probably 20 minutes, and ended with a standstill. Everytime I hit him with my best alpha strikes, he would use Aid Self. And his energy drain would take 1/3 of my energy bar in one hit. I was really surprised that we fought to a standstill. I rolled up an EM/EA brute after that. I suspect that brutes are not bad in pvp once you learn to play. For instance, during the RV event, I rolled a level 1 to level 50 char (Super strength/Eenergy Aura) that owned. Since most scrappers are not afraid to fight a brute toe-to-toe, I would let my rage bar go to full. Then I would use superjump and the chaos from a big fight to get away from the scrapper, and with full rage go around one and two shotting everything. And this is with super strength, which is probably last in dps on the villain side. A brute that knows what is doing in pvp will probably get more kills than the rest of his team (in a long fight).

Also, some of the most retarded combos are on the villain side. Yes, just about every AT has decent dps (which on the hero side tankers, controllers, and defenders have pathetic dps). On the Coh side, the devs made sure to go the typical MMO route of tank - dps - mezzer - healer - crowd control. But on the villain side, you can mix these and make a tank mage? What the hell? For instance, an ice dominator has crowd control and aoe attacks, with little to no risk? It's like combining a wizard and an enchanter! Or corrupters, they can combine dps with heals and buffs? It's too overpowered. On the COH side, if I am a controller (crowd control) or a blaster (ranged dps), defender (buffs) or tanker, at the higher levels, I am going to be forced to group to make any type of decent xp rate.

Once you get into the upper levels, and both side are using SO enhances (at level 28, you probably have villains using DO's), the game is much more balanced. And I have seen coordinated villain teams steamroll uncoordinated hero teams in less than a minute.

If they ever implement side-switching, I will be switching my dominators, stalkers and corrupters to the hero side. I like those AT's more than the controllers, scrappers and blasters on the Coh side.

P.S.: During the RV event, I think the two most overpowered AT's were Energy Melee/Regen stalkers and Mind/Psionic Assault dominators. The EM/Regen stalker is overpowered for obvious reasons: EM at 35+ starts to own and any regen is hard to kill. But the Mind/Psionic dominators played right was probably the strongest. Between terrify at lvl 28 and Psychic Shockwave at 38, both of these powers are mostly if not all unresistable! Terrify doesn't make the players run away, but cower in fear and unable to attack back. Add in Psychic Shockwave (an aoe with a very strong brawl index of 4.5, a very cheap endurance cost, a recharge with haste easily going to 4 seconds, and unresisted damage), and a Mind/Psi dominator can easily take out a group of heroes pretty easily. Also, with other powers like Mass Confusion (which makes the opposing team attack each other and not the villains), it allows the villain team to attack the hero team unanswered?

The minute they allow side switching I will be making one of these and switching to the hero side. That's if Mind/Psi doms don't get nerfed (supposedly there's been some talk as if the mind powers may be more resistable in the future).

The villains have some of the most retardedly powerful sets available to them, if they would L2P. The problem is that too many villains try to use dps and ignore their secondaries. My tankers or scrappers would laugh at most doms or corrupters that are going to try to use their dps powers only (which many villains do). But if the villains start using their debuffs, and my scrappers get owned and tanks get a bit nervous.

[Hachima]

The Ageia physics capabilities seem pretty cool. Although there isn't a lot of support to justify forking out the cash for it yet I expect support to grow for it in the next year.

http://www.ageia.com/physx_in_action/index.html for CoH

and http://www.ageia.com/physx_in_action/footage.html for some live footage.