I’ve been busy playing

What a fun week in gaming. I played the heck out of the headstart for Champions and have also been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. This has kept me busy but I wanted to post an update for Champions post launch.

I have found that there are clearly two types of players in Champions Online. There are those that have come to the game to create the hero they have imagined and will build everything around character concept. I am probably closer to this player than the later.

The other players are those who want to simply be powerful, or be a master of PVP. These folks pay very close attentions to statistic choices and build powers. They may have a loose concept in mind but typically that is only packaging. The folks are strategists and tactians simply wanting to be the best or better than others.

Personally, the reason I play a Super Hero MMO is because I have a vision of heroes I like and have created over time. I developed a couple of character in City of Heroes years back that I loved and translated them over to CO (Champions Online). Thus, I am one of the concept players.

Here are a couple of  videos (no sound sadly) of one of my concept characters (on Xfire):

Captain Kanuk Fights Crime

Captain Kanuk takes on a Villian named Rakshasa

NOTE: Both vids were from headstart before launch day patch.

Captain Kanuk and his Gageteer former sidekick, Kid Kanuk are concept characters built from an idea not a power build. The Captain is purely a Martial Artist and Acrobat though he does have superior strength and agility. This is a tough build in CO and provides some challeges but has been fun. The neat thing about CO is you can build just about any character you want.

Why do I bring this up specifically? Because of the day one patch of the game. It ratcheted up the toughness of Henchmen, etc while weakening some passive and active defense abilities. This patch, from a perception and marketing standpoint has created a potential disaster for Cryptic and they are in a tough spot. Some, the strategic builders, like the patch and have no problem with it. The concept builders hate it. They feel forced to build certain kinds of characters instead of what the want.

This impacted my concept character a great deal as Martial Arts is a tougher choice to begin with if you do not add some Might defenses for instance. Now Cryptic needs to find a way to balance this for both audiences and keep them happy.

I am still enjoying the game immensly and some of my other characters have NO problem at all completing missions and fighting off mobs . Captain Kanuk, however, is challenged and his sidekick, the Gadgeteer, has it a lot easier with jet boots and experimental blaster that can be upgraded to fire in a cone, healing bots, etc. I am sure it will be addressed but the lesson learned here is DO NOT put out a patch day one and test it with a variety of live players first. A test shard launched immediately and this will help the future but some damage has been done.

Either way, I am a fan and playing and enjoying the game though I am having some more frustrating moments then in the past.

Now go fight crime the way you like and take VIPER down.

Advertisement