CoH and CO: How do they compare?
Posted by nefchast on October 21, 2009
It has been a busy time for me recently and the gaming has suffered. Recently I’ve reactivated my City of Heroes account as a friend jumped back into it. This has allowed us to level pact!
Champions Online is still going, too. Lifetime subscription and all. So, what do I think of the two after playing them side-by-side?
The obvious winner of the two: City of Heroes. Why start with that? because I can! CoH should be the winner, anyway, as it has been out longer and had time to balance/develop more content. The difference between the two is like night and day — CO still has a long way to go.
This isn’t to say CO is terrible and not worth playing — I wouldn’t have a lifetime subscription if it weren’t — it’s simply new and a bit different. CO is suffering from a lack of content at the moment, and the developers are trying to remedy that. The graphics are wonderful — CoH’s are definitely dated and old — and the custom frameworks are great. I like the customization. The downside is that most of the powers right now are DPS oriented… Celestial will help change that.
Grouping seems to be far less in CO than CoH… Even after all these years I still get group invites in CoH within minutes of logging in — even at *3 A.M.*. That’s awesome. One thing that I’ve noticed in CoH that helped me understand CO’s patching direction and the developer’s comments — the nerfs to various powers, the inclusion of Celestial are there to try and get more grouping. CoH is a pain in the ass to solo in when you’re a Defender… At least as my Archer/Empathy that’s totally group focused. I literally can’t do anything solo, but I get group invites all the time so it doesn’t matter. The difference between the two games when it comes to grouping? Classes. With the customization and the ‘individualization’ that can be done in CO comes a complete lumping together of players in the eyes of grouping — everyone’s pretty much the same, you just need warm bodies to do group content.
World layout is another aspect I noticed in CoH/CO. CO has varying climates and environments to explore, CoH has city districts that vary, but are still city elements. CoH, however, feels better laid out — a bit more… ‘natural’? When I run around I notice the zone content more, and the feeling of running/jumping/flying over various buildings, through various alleys and such is more enjoyable. I can’t really tell *why* it just is… Perhaps not a good reason or a positive/negative to either.
Leveling Pacts! This is what sealed the deal for me getting back into CoH. I had a good friend jumping back in and wanted to hang out with her — using leveling pacts we can keep the same level even if one of us can’t play as much. Leveling is a bit slower solo, but it’s fine when we’re both together. For couples/friends it’s excellent.
Missions. In CoH missions are almost all instanced and there’s many contacts to get them from — often you’ll never get all the contacts in one go through. Add in AE and paper/radio missions and you’ve got even more to do. Then slap on any task forces/midnight squad/what have you that’s ‘special’ and you’ll have more missions than levels or time. The best part of these is that you can profit from them even if they’re not yours or you don’t have them. How cool is that? Never having to keep track of who has what or needs what done is excellent and *really* promotes grouping. CO should take note of this, and it seems they kind of have with the newer content being added to Monster Island — with the Lost Caves and whatnot.
One last aspect, the C Store. CO’s microtransaction store… I like it. They’ve added a few new costume sets and some account stuffs so far. The costume sets I’ve liked, and gotten. This really isn’t much of a surprise to me though as I’ve also gotten the costume packs that NCSoft sold for CoH. (those were a bit more expensive, if I remember correctly…) Looking forward to more additions.
Anyway, just a quick update while I have some downtime at work… I hope to get writing more in the coming weeks, if not this blog then at least NaNoWriMo stuffs.
Canazza said
Funilly enough, the one thing that put me off when I went back to CoH shortly before CO was released was the fact that as an Empath/Telepathy Defender,I could only get a group for boring grindfests created through the mission architect. Those ones with huge groups of enemies that they only need an empath for buffs rather than any kind of healing. That was when I could get a group in the first place. I found it nigh on impossible some nights to find anyone who was looking for people to play with. Maybe it’s the European servers that are lacking in people, but I found that for the three weeks I went back to be devoid of any fun.
Aside from the obscene amount of content availible to CoH players (which people seem to ignore in favour of grind-fests), Champions is still looking the best to me, it just needs time.
nefchast said
I don’t have any experience with the European servers, so that may be it… I also played lower level characters (starting from scratch again) so that could factor into it. But yup, CO does have the most *potential* growth at the moment… unless NCSoft decides to really kick CoH development into high gear and do a lot of upgrading.