Category: MMO

Looking for Another Game: More WoW Thoughts

So I’ve been playing more WoW (solo) whilst pining away for my wife who’s on a business trip.  After Les duoed with me to 10 with a Pandaren, I did some solo play with different races (Gnomes, Dwarves, Draeni, Worgen, and Night Elves) in an array of classes (hunters, warriors, druids, rogues, paladins).

Each of the races I tried has its own starting zone, and its own story (apparently influenced greatly by which expansion set they came out with, or when they were last revamped by another expansion).  The result are some very highly flavored starting zones that not only give you plenty of practice with the mechanics, but give you a strong story and sensibility for the race in question.  The starter area missions don’t drift radically from the standard “go hunt/kill X things” / “go gather X items” / “go take a message to X over in the next town” types of things, but they do mix them up pretty well, tend to  group the missions nicely (there are very few “jog 30 miles over there, find something, and bring it back to me” / “that was great, now go bring back three more” sorts of missions), and wrap them up in as much story text as you could want.

I haven’t gotten into any crafting/auctioning yet (is that actually available for F2P players?), but I’ve done the (borrowed pretty straightforwardly by LotRO) resource harvesting.  Not so much my cuppa, but the money’s good.

The screen layout of trays gets pretty darned busy, especially since the tray icons are so small (and there are smaller ones beyond that).

Though non-instanced for the most part, I’ve not had significant problems with interminable waiting for things to respawn, so far at least (LotRO had more problems with that, as I recall).

I’ve resigned myself to having to loot, but at least there’s now an autoloot option in WoW. Though, unlike many other interface options, you have to turn it on for each alt.

Though I’ve not played with any of them, Les mentioned any number of helpful UI mods to help tailor the interface to the game.  Definitely some room for research there, if this is the (a) way we go.

I like the WoW graphics, for the most part. I can understand folks wanting highly realistic stuff, but the more animated feel of WoW is fine by me.  I’m less sanguine with the “everyone dresses almost exactly alike for the first Nteen levels because they take the same missions and get the same costume rewards” feel to the costuming (even at 15th level, Les and I looked like a brother-sister combo whose grandparents had bought them matching outfits for Christmas …). By the same token, it’s a shame when you find something you like, then have to change it because it’s obsoleted by newer, better loot you picked up.

Based on Les’ and my run through the training levels (through 15) on Panderia, I’d say the game certainly is duoable. Looking forward to see what Margie thinks of all this.

NCSoft to CoH Fanbase: Please stop writing us letters!

NCSoft issued an official press release today to all those City of Heroes fans who’ve been trying to save the game.

Short version: “Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!”

Long version:

City of Heroes® Players and Fans,

We wanted to let you know that your voices have been heard and your concerns have been taken into serious consideration. We appreciate the overwhelmingly constructive and positive messages in the emails, notes, and packages you’ve sent in support of the game. It has not been an easy decision for us to close Paragon Studios® and prepare to shut down City of Heroes. We’ve exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful. City of Heroes has a special place in all of our hearts, and we want to ensure its reputation and the memories we share for the game end on a high note.

Once again, we will be holding events throughout the process of preparing for the game’s end, and we encourage players and fans of the franchise to join forces and enjoy their time in a game that we’ve enjoyed supporting for more than eight years.

The NCSOFT® Team

Um … yeah. Right. I call shenanigans.

I’d really love to know what NCSoft considers “exhausting all options”. What actual offers of selling Paragon Studio (which has been officially disbanded already) or the CoH IP have been entertained? What actual interest does NCSoft have in selling the property, rather than taking a write-off on their taxes? Whom did they consider, and what offers did they entertain?  What (ballpark, even) would they consider a reasonable offer?

In short, I don’t believe a word of it.  It’s a PR release designed to placate people and convince them to stop sending sad, angry, or demanding letters, to stop getting articles printed in the media, or getting celebrities who enjoy CoH to speak out.  It’s a “Run along, kid, show’s over” message.

I didn’t expect other result, to be honest. But I would have liked some basic honestly and integrity in the message. E.g., “We have decided to consolidate our operations in Korea, rather than have American and European studios. This is a strategic business decision. City of Heroes has been profitable, but maintaining it is a distraction from other games we hope will be much bigger.  That said, we have no interest in passing along the game to anyone else, given that it has been profitable and would only benefit the purchaser. This is not meant to be a slap in the face to loyal players of the game, but the cold, hard, business facts behind this decision.” It wouldn’t earn them any friends, but it might earn them some modicum of respect for being open about it. It would move decisions about being a future NCSoft customer away from emotion and over to simple business decisions.

But instead they blow smoke up our ass.

Well, guess what? Yeah, I’d been still toying with some of the recent and on-the-boards NCSoft games.  But, y’know what? Screw it. I have plenty of other places to put my money and spend my time than on a company that makes a calculated financial decision to destroy a popular and profitable game that I dearly love.

Looking for Another Game: World of Warcraft

Yeah, I know.

WoW has been sort of the EVERYBODY’S PLAYING IT, SO YOU SHOULD PLAY IT megalithic giant that people either love, or love to hate, or both. Maybe it’s still cool or maybe it’s not, but it still has 9 million subscribers or players or some metric that means a lot of people play it.

I dabbled briefly with WoW over at Lee and De’s house, oh, about seven years ago (while trying to decide if this new “City of Heroes” was thing was where I wanted to be, when I heard all these great rumors about “World of Warcraft”).  Under Lee’s tutelage I rolled up a Tauran warrior and went hallooing off into the wilderness.

And, about an hour later, decided I’d had enough cross-country racing when I was in junior high, so I darned well didn’t need it for my MMORPG. Plus, kinda dull and boring missions. Plus weird stuff about being dead and either having to run (again) back, or wake in the graveyard and have something bad happen to your stuff, or something.

WoW became the online gaming Microsoft (or IBM or Apple, depending on your hi-tech era of Nine Hundred Pound Industry Gorillas), and I enjoyed making fun of it and not giving it a second thought.

Until Les, of Stupid Evil Bastard fame, offered, in my CoH Grieving, to introduce me to the game and escort me from first level.

So … WoW is free and pretty un-gimped up to Level 20. So, good for toying with.

And having someone experience to walk me through (chatting via Skype) worked out okay, though, to be honest, I think I could have figured most of it out.  WoW uses a lot of industry standards (many of which, in fact, it probably set) in terms of interface and the like.

We rolled up a couple of Pandarens because, well, who wouldn’t? I played a Hunter, Les a Monk.  My female Pandaren was nicely zaftig. Les opined his male one actually mirrored his own body structure.

And, y’know what? I had fun.  The basics are pretty familiar, the intro zones in Pandaria are nicely laid out, with good stories. I like the graphics. It seems like they’ve filed off some of the dullness and grindiness that the game used to have for beginners.  We played for a couple of hours, dinged to 6th level, and parked it (I had other plans), and I really enjoyed the mix of missions and activities. And the setting /story was also quite nice.

Too early to apply my checklist, but things look fairly promising.

I think I’d like to play some more. I don’t know if it’s The Game I’ll Be Playing, but I definitely want to play more (and get Margie trying it out, too).

Not sure if I should be thanking Les, or plotting some dark and bitter vengeance toward him … but I’ll settle for a thanks for the moment.

Looking for Another Game: Dungeons & Dragons Online

So, our first serious look at something to replace CoH. DDO has been out for a while, and seems to be doing decently.  It has a limited (to level 20, I believe) F2P model, with microtransactions galore.

Pros

  1. Graphics appear competent.
  2. If you know D&D 3.5, this is a simulation of it.
  3. Quests, maps, all that, seem decently crafted, at least in the initial island area. (I’ve read things in the “real world” behave a bit differently).
  4. Duoing seems possible, esp. with hirelings to fill in the party’s functional gaps. (The latter is what I’ve read.)  It’s also a lot easier with both of us in the same room.
  5. Having fun.

Cons

  1. Two toons, but you can buy more.
  2. Paper dolls limited to heads (facial expressions, a few scars, decent number of hairstyles and colors, skin colors, eye colors).  Costumes determined by swag you pick up.
  3. I can see that encumbrance is going to be an issue. Plus I can see it measuring weight, too, which is even worse.
  4. If you don’t know D&D 3.5, there’s a lot conceptually here you’ll be floundering with.
  5. The initial tutorial system doesn’t really help.  For example, I’m a cleric. While I got some basic drill on “here’s how you hit things,” I got nothing on the spells I have, how they relate (or differ from) Wizard and Sorcerer spells, what (if any) components they take, cool-down periods or mana usage or anything like that.  Feeling my way through, and I’m actually passingly familiar with the system.
  6. Apparently the entire min-max / twinky / feats and multi-classing mess (or opportunity) that 3.5 was is possible here. That’s actually a pro, if you’re into that.  But it’s a bit daunting checking out the boards and seeing, “Why, yes, of course you can do that, if you have the particular build here that I’ve taken.”  That’s not necessarily different from some of the extremes of the CoH boards, to be sure, but for a noob, it’s not a positive thing.
  7. Advancement seems slooooooow.  Also, it seems easy for a duo to get out of sync.

I don’t feel like I can give it a grade yet against my checklist, but we’re both interested in playing after Margie gets back from her trip, so that’s good news.

Dollars and ZENts in Champions Online

ZEN does not make me relaxed and contemplative, I'm afraid.

“ZEN” is the pseudocurrency that Perfect World is using across all of their games.  Which is very nice, but some of the “microtransactions” it enables are not so micro.

1 ZEN = 1 cent (USD)

$50.00 = 5,000 + 300
$30.00 = 3,000
$20.00 = 2,000
$10.00 = 1,000
$5.00 = 500

So you only get a discount break in $50 increments (where you get $53 worth of ZEN).

But what does that give you?

So we were looking at our different options here, if we want to continue playing CO.

A F2P account gets you a soul-cramping 2 character slots.  Worse, they are restricted slots — you are limited to a one of 10 canned archetypes / power paths, scattered amongst the five roles (ranged, tank, melee, hybrid, support). Another 2 dozen or so are locked.  Each of those is about 1125 ZEN, say $11.  So if you want a blaster, you can get a fire, bow, or rifle blaster, but not an electricity or TK or etc. blaster without ponying up the bucks.

As well, those power sets need slots to go into, beyond that initial 2.  You can buy slots 2 at a time, for $14 ($7 each).

But if you want a Freeform slot — letting you mix and match power paths and primary/secondaries — that costs a whopping $50 (on sale this weekend for a low $25).

It’s hard to put this cleanly into CoH terms.  Paragon Market Points were 1.25 cents each.

  • Each player had a dozen character slots on each of a dozen servers.  144 character slots, right there.  Additional slots (for a given server) were $4 each (in packs of 5). But each of those slots could be almost anything.
  • While not all archetypes were F2P, most were (everything except Mastermind, Controller, Kheldians and Arachnos). Those were available for $15. Further, within all the archetypes, nearly all powers were available — so if you were a Blaster you could be any of the dozen different types of blasters, Primary and Secondary.
  • Additional new power sets were $10 (800 pts), about equivalent of the archetype power sets in CO — but that $10 in Nature Affinity, for example, could be used for a Defender, Controller, Corruptor, or Mastermind.
  • The combos of Primary and Secondary (plus Pool powers) provided much more freedom than the fixed archetypes in CO.  While not quite as freeform as the Freeform slots on CO (which lets you make pretty much any sort of combo you want), they are still much more flexible setup than most.

Bottom line, CoH was a much better bang-for-buck than CO in this category.

Beyond that, we have “real” account full of 8 characters, levels 9-19, all of whom are considered “freeform” by CO (back in the day there was no penalty, and lots of discussions of the best secondary powers to take with primary sets, with the few canned archetypes of the period considered substandard).  There doesn’t seem to be a way to access those characters as a F2P character (you can only buy new freeform slots, at $50/pop, not activate old ones), unless we re-up our subscription at $15/mo.  And, honestly, not feeling the impulse to do that yet.

Trying Champions Online again (Part 2)

Comments:

  1. For all that the NCSoft launcher used to hang up on my machine while not in use, it did do a fabulous job of updating content while I was away. It seems really primative to have the CO launcher start off by saying, “Nope, can’t play now, gotta download N mb of updates first, sorry.”
  2. Ran through the tutorial again, and, yeah, a lot of the side missions have been removed for some reason (to keep people from leveling up too fast?).  And it still seems like there’s a lot of info that isn’t covered well.
  3. The character creator has a tendency to let you pick things you can’t, and then not warn you before you try and save your character.  Hilarity and “character creation failed” messages ensue, dropping you back to square 1.
  4. While I like the UI assistance for finding where your next mission is, I find the ability to end up with many, many missions to be distracting (especially since they seem to age so quickly).
  5. I like that you are not necessarily stuck on rails down a mission. On the other hand, it sometimes seems like there are too many directions to go — random new contacts pop up (while you still have a full tablet of missions), and often your missions send you to contacts (or back to contacts) offering you a few more missions.  Option paralysis …
  6. I’m already finding the uneven application of (sometimes dubious) humor to be irksome.  Not that CoH was unrelentingly grim or serious (e.g., the names of the detective pairs in each of the zones), but its humor was a raised eyebrow or perhaps a wink while taking the drama seriously. CO does all but a fourth-wall breaking mugging for the camera.  E.g., the cut scene meeting of all the criminal gangs in the West Side with the mystical Oriental villain being unable to pronounce “Millennium” …
    7. Force of Will - a character I'm not playing because I'm stuck in F2P.
  7. Travel powers are immediately available — but the fact you get slowed to a crawl if you draw any aggro makes anything except flight (and sometimes not even that) a royal pain in the ass.  Which is a shame, because Superspeed is much more practical in Millennium City than in Paragon (or the Rogue Isles) … and the Acrobatics travel power is awesome, visually.  (Margie is really disliking Superjump.)
  8. Action is faster than in CoH, which is probably a good thing.
  9. The userid/login security stuff is … not as friendly as it could be. Between Cryptic vs Perfect World IDs, and verifying computers, and all that (and, yes, I understand the whys and wherefores), Margie’s had a heck of a time getting in to even play. Which is not encouraging.
  10. I like build-up powers, and spew-out powers. It’s a nice mechanic. I am seriously unfond of having to “block”.  Really.
  11. There seem to be a dozen different leveling mechanisms — powers pop in, attributes to powers can be added, new little extra powerlet stuff can be incremented.  It all feels very nickel-and-dime … incrementing a few percentage points here and there with no real sense of major achievement when you level,  just nudges and tweaks to what you have.  And maybe part is the F2P (which doesn’t let me choose non-railroaded classes), but that would make things even worse.
  12. On the other hand, it’s nice to be able to level without being at a trainer.
  13. Sure seems like the population is a lot heavier. Which on the one hand is encouraging. And on the other hand makes going to hero-populated areas (Renaissance Center, the Power House) irksome.
  14. Inventory slots.  Multiple and different types of inventory slots.  Yes, CoH had slots of various sorts … but if I was on a mission and was picking up stuff, or even being given temporary powers … it didn’t impact anything else I was doing.  I’ve never liked inventory / encumbrance limits, in any system, and CO seems to have them a-plenty.
  15. I do still like the graphics, though fading over range seems much more obvious than it was in CoH.

I’m finding CO moderately entertaining, but not gripping.  Part of that may be because we’re struggling with the constraints of the F2P system. Perhaps it’s the rampant (voluntary) P2P in the streets (heroes? really?). I dunno.

I’m enjoying what I’m doing, but am I enjoying it as much as I’d like to? Or as I (cough) did with CoH?  No … not really.  And does that make me want to renew my subscription (and access all those other characters I had rolled)?  Not … sure yet.

Trying Champions Online again

Looking for our City of Heroes replacement (mutter mutter mutter), Margie and I loaded up Champions Online.  Rather, I loaded it back up; Margie still had it on her machine from our last go-around.

Very initial thoughts:

  1. We are former subscribers. Trying it F2P, we eventually found it a lot easier to simply create new accounts. That’s because our accounts are “full” of our previous characters — which are unplayable as F2P players because they use freeform archetypes.  CO doesn’t make this very clear up front or during the whole process.
  2. It was also kind of messy distinguishing between our old Cryptic Online accounts and the new Perfect World accounts, esp. since sometimes you can use either, other times you have to use the PW account, and in both cases they really don’t want you to have the same display name for the forums and onscreen as your account name, and both are limited to just characters and numbers, no spaces or dashes or underscores.
  3. The new character tutorial has been trimmed down a bit in terms of what adventures are available during the Qularr invasion. That got us out of it faster, but also lost some of the more fun bits.
  4. There’s also still that sense of mad rush with attackers attacking even as little tutorial bits pop up to help you through what you’re desperately trying to mash keys to avert.  Blocking wasn’t really discussed, and the whole need for energy buildups, etc., either flashed by without my spotting any info about it.
  5. There are some nice on-screen button prompts for things you can do in proximity (Talk to X, Open Door Y).
  6. There’s additional narration / dialog to frame the whole invasion and all, which is nice. On the other hand, we lose the big salute/parade at the end, which is sad.

We didn’t get much beyond that in our first play with two newly-rolled characters (fire blaster and strength tank). We’ll continue trying, though. I’m anticpating how the level-up process has evolved, if at all, as well as how level-balanced things work out in the non-instanced field of play.

So, what about those other super-hero MMOs?

The super-hero genre is one that I enjoy a lot. It allows a lot of individual variation  in very dramatic fashion for the various toons. The thought did occur to me that, in moving from City of Heroes, I might think about shifting over to Champions Online or DC Universe Online again.

Then I checked my old posts on the blog:

Transitions (Mar 2010)

I just came the the realization that I have next to zero interest in ever playing Champions Online again. Which ticks me off to no end since (as I’ve said a dozen times) there are so many things about the game I like. I just find the overall experience an awful, not-terribly-fun grind.

Because occasionally I feel like I should post something other than tweets (Feb 2011)

Never signed up for DCUO after doing the beta stuff — bright and shiny but annoying non-instanced missions and overly combat-oriented.

Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang (Dec 2011)

  • Champions Online: She was bright and shiny and promised so much but gave back so little.  We had some fun times, but ultimately she was never someone I could settle down with.
  • DC Universe Online:  Another try at rekindling an old relationship, but it was just too much of the same old grind.  I keep thinking I might give her a call some day, have some coffee, no strings attached, but I can never quite work up the interest.

    • Margie had an extensive post on CO experience here. And I had one here.

    So … for anyone who’s been playing those, has any of that criticism actually changed? Are these actual games we should consider picking up again?

    Guess I’m still in that “Depression” stage

    Or maybe the bottom line is that advancement in CoH was more about the achievement  and reaching the goal than the journey. Because I confess I am utterly uninterested in hopping onto CoH and doing any gameplay.  Which I feel like a kick in the gut whenever an opportunity that would have previously been, “Hey, I’ve got some time, maybe I’ll do a bit of CoH” or “Hey, Honey, want to do some Game?” comes up.

    I have gone in to take some character screencaps, and I want to do a server-by-server “In Memorium” set of posts.  But right now — I can’t bring myself to go in and play with any of these people who will be evaporating in 2+ months.

    City of Heroes and the Five Stages of Grief

    As formulated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross relating to how people react to terminal illness or to any other personally catastrophic news.  I saw all of these in the CoH community since the word came down yesterday that the game was being shuttered — including all of these comments or variants thereof (well, not much of #5 yet).

    1. Denial — “NOOOOOOO!” “I don’t believe it!” “I feel numb.” “This makes no sense.” “It’s a fake to increase interest in the game.” “Someone else will buy the game and keep it running.”
    2. Anger — “It’s not fair!” “NCSoft is screwing us!” “I’ve put all this time and effort in and now they just take it away? Unacceptable!” “Why are they doing this? I demand an explanation!”
    3. Bargaining — “Isn’t there anything we can do?” “Petition NCSoft to keep the game running!” “Petition NCSoft to make the game open source so someone else can keep it running!” “Petition Sony to buy the game!” “Can’t they just let the servers run without any extra change or growth in the game?”
    4. Depression — “I’m never going to play a game again.” “”Nothing will ever be as good as CoH was.” The game will be over soon, so what’s the point of playing it with any of my characters?” “I’ll never be able to think of how I met my spouse in the game without being sad now.”
    5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.” “There are other games out there — what is everyone else moving to?” “It’s had a good run and I’ve enjoyed it. Time to move on.”

    On why NCSoft is killing off City of Heroes

    It’s the money, stupid.  The game is doing okay, but in context, it’s not in NCSoft’s interest to keep it up and running.

    Based on their Investor Relations report (PDF) of August 2012:

    1. NCSoft considers CoH an MMOG, which has a life cycle of 5-10 years.  Introduced in 2004, that makes CoH 8 years old, close to end-of-life. (p. 4)
    2. CoH revenues are a tiny fraction of NCSoft’s income, vs. Aion and Lineage 1 and 2 — about 2% of sales. (p. 7 and 13)
    3. North America and Europe sales are a tiny fraction of NCSoft’s revenue (p. 13)
    4. CoH saw a tiny increase in sales over the last year, but as  The Escapist notes, that with the change-over to the blended business model “City of Heroes Freedom,” which was meant to significantly increase revenues — which didn’t happen. (p. 13)
    5. NCSoft profit and net income is way down. (p. 20)
    6. Company focus is on two big launches this year, Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2. (p. 16-18)

    Bottom line (so to speak), City of Heroes and, more importantly, Paragon Studios, was a distraction for a company in financial trouble and focused on upcoming releases. The revenue stream was small and going nowhere.  From a purely business standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world for them to pull the plug.

    But it still sucks big-time for the players.

    What I’m looking for from my next MMORPG

    Okay, while I’m still in mourning about City of Heroes, I want to set down what’s made it so special, in a way that looks forward to the next MMO Margie and I get involved in.

    Because, yes, while there are any number of pragmatic reasons why this provides a good opportunity to kick the habit and turn all those hours into something more “productive” … playing CoH has been such a very nice thing for Margie and me to do together that I want to maintain that experience. Though, obviously, sadly, in a different game.

    So … here’s what I’m looking for the next thing (and, it goes without saying, I’m looking for specific suggestions from my vast reading audience as to what that next thing should be based on that).

    1. It needs to be soloable and duoable. That’s how we play. If the significant content and advancement requires you to belong to a guild of some sort in order to access it, that’s not for us.  I don’t mind mass events or the options to do such a thing, but this is about Me and Us time.

    2. I’d prefer minimal grinding. One thing CoH got away from over the years were a lot of the “Go shake down 20 Council and find out their next target” kind of things. Those missions still existed, but they were a minimal part of the action in more modern content.  That sort of busy-work was one of the things I disliked about LotRO, too (“Collect 30 Neek-a-breeker wings! Great. Now go out and collect 40 Fruit Bat Eyeballs!”).  That leads into …

    3. I want to be a big damn hero. This was another place where I always felt LotRO fell short. I never felt heroic, in the sense of being a person of extraordinary skill and ability, able to do incredible things (and faced with incredible things to do).  Sure, I was a cool character with a sword, but I was fighting other guys who were also cool and who could take me down at any moment. I’m not asking for a walk in the park, but feeling extraordinary, not just another guy with a sharp axe, is important to me. Travel powers are definitely a part of that (something LotRO has partially solved with more pony-power options) — if I spend the majority of my time running across the landscape to the next content, I’m not being heroic, just persistent. And bored.

    4. I’m an alt-aholic. The system has to have a high “paper doll” factor in terms of letting me try a wide array of both appearances and abilities.  And I don’t want to be limited to just a few of those as my sole build(s) (“Man, I’d really like to try this character concept, but I only get four slots so I’d have to drop someone else.”) And, by definition, that means a high replayability factor in terms of content and approaches to tackling it.

    5. Instanced missions are okay. In fact, preferred. One thing I always disliked with Champions Online was the “Okay, go defeat XYZ” … who is standing in the open and thus gets gacked by a series of people on the same mission and you have to stand around and wait for your turn to do it.  Going through a mission door and being on our own to defeat the bad guy(s) is a big improvement, in my opinion.

    6. Decent scaling. I seem to recall LotRO had (has?) this problem — a very narrow band of mission levels suitable for your character. Take one a level or two too hard, and you’re dead meat. A level or two too easy and it’s drop-dead boring.  CoH, over the years, really added a lot of flexibility to tackle content above and below with appropriate scaling, as well as being able to set global difficulties for your character (bump up/down the opponents X levels, multiply the villains X much).  As a sidebar to this, appropriately scaled missions are also important — Champs Online felt way too uneven, as though one mission was way easy, then the next nigh-impossible.  I like a constant and consistent challenge.

    7. Not so much with the crafting, please. Though I eventually got used to it on CoH and enjoyed playing games with it, in most systems crafting is (a) a time sync, (b) a way to keep you from exhausting content, and too often (c) a requirement for advancement. I don’t like any of those options.  If I want to worry about a day job, I’ll worry about my real one. This was another place where LotRO failed for me.

    8. I’m investing my time and, probably money. Likewise, please. So now I’m skittish about getting involved in a game only to have it yanked out from underneath me.  Call it commitment anxiety.  My inclination is for a game with something of a track record, and certainly from a company that’s doing well.

    9. Trying things out. I don’t mind a subscription model. In fact, I’ve kind of liked that with CoH.  I wouldn’t mind starting out on a F2P format and be able to graduate to a playing player once I’m convinced the game style is what I want.  But I’m open to a variety of options, as long as it’s not too microstransactional (“Welcome to Level 5. Please deposit 35 BlastCorp Bucks to continue playing!”).

    10. I’m looking for RP Lite. In line with the Solo/Duo thing (and the Alt-aholic thing) above, I don’t need something that’s highly social, but I would like to stand out a bit in a crowd, and have a backstory concept that’s reflected in how I can behave. I want to feel at least some level of role-playing in the design and naming of the characters. If every toon is simply a set of characteristics and standard abilities, and there’s a sense of  “Oh yeah, well, every Blue Elf is like every other Blue Elf,” then it’s just mixing and matching numbers and not nearly as much fun.

    I’m not particularly tied to any genre — I’ve done a lot of supers, obviously, but fantasy or SF or whatever are certainly viable settings.

    I suspect it’s not going to be easy to find these things all in one bundle. They’re what I’ve loved most about CoH, and obviously no other game is going to have quite the same level set in these attributes. But, as I said, options and opinions are welcome.

    The End of City of Heroes

    Well … dammit.

    This morning we announced that Paragon Studios will be taking to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time.

    In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world’s first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year. As part of this, all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately. We will have more information regarding a detailed timeline for the cessation of services and what you can expect in game in the coming weeks.

    That … just … SUCKS.

    It’d hard to express in words how much City of Heroes has meant to me.  It was the first MMORPG I ever played.  I met folks there. I ran a supergroup of friends and acquiaintances.  I gave a sub to my wife for Valentines Day, and the two of us have logged weeks worth of  time over the years.

    I came in at I3, when things were in a nascent stage.  I remember mad dashes through the Hollows … go-hunt-killing Skulls in Kings Row … endless jogs through Steel Canyon to the missions before hitting that magic Level 14 when you could get a travel power …

    The expansion of content, of character types and powers, of Quality of Life features kept it all fresh and new, yet still familiar.

    We had a stable of characters on different servers, spanning everything from toons in their teens (level-wise) to retired Level 50s, and in an array of powers and synergies that playing the same missions back to back (e.g., the Signature Story Arcs) never felt like a dull grind, but a series of wargames with differing conditions.

    I wrote a novel. Well, half a novel.  That I still plan to get back to.

    We tried different games — DC Universe Online, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and (and Margie and Kay still play this, too), Lord oft the Rings Online.  But we always came back to CoH.

    It made us feel super. Especially together.

    And now … after, what, 8, 9 years? … it’s going away.

    The team here at Paragon deserves special praise for all that we have accomplished over the last 5+ years. These developers are some of the most creative and talented people in the gaming industry. By now, we’ve all been given this news internally, but to anyone who may be reading this message after the fact; know that your hard work and dedication has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed. To any potential studios looking to grow your team; hire these people. You won’t regret it.

    The Dev community on CoH, including their accessibility through the forums, was always one of the cool aspects of CoH.

    To our Community,

    Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You’ve been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn’t have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don’t dwell on the “how” or the “why”, but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

    Thank you, and I’ll see you in the skies, one last time.

    I don’t blame the Paragon Studios folks. The direction for this is clearly about NCSoft. I’ll be curious as to what news comes out about what’s driving this decision.

    Regardless, it’s sad. Depressing. Grief-making. Like finding out the restaurant you liked so much, where you go every few weeks, where you know the staff’s names, where you proposed to your wife … is not only closing, but being torn down for a WalMart.

    Ugh.

    COH Signature Story Arcs

    Okay, I admit it — I have a bit of Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior viz City of Heroes. Such that, as the various Signature Story Arcs have come out, I’ve been insistent on our running through them with all of our alts who qualify.

    Which, given that they tend to ramp up in level, has limited the scope.  We have 13 “high-level” alt pairs that we run — defined, loosely, as level 25 or higher.  Some are Legacy Consortium Heroes on Champion, and a few high-levelers on a some other servers. Several were part of the Great Praetorian Boom. Still other were the Final Level Pact Rush.

    But 25 or so only gets you (on the Pandora’s Box SSA) so far.  I think the first installment is level 30, and the second was 35. The third (just out) is 40+, which restricts us to six duos to run (we’ve now done four), though we hae twom ore that are in the 38-39 range and could be advanced with a bit of focus.

    What’s actually cool about the SSAs is that they play quite differently depending on who’s going in on them. We have an array of variations in our duos (scrapper-or-brute/troller of various flavors, blaster-or-corruptor/tank ditto, scrapper duos, mastermind duos) as well as variations on their difficulty settings.  Given that we can usually plow through one of the SSA installments in an hour (after the first hero and villain run-throughs, where we actually read the dialog), that’s not too bad a way to kill an evening.

    The current installment (2.3) is actually pretty darned good.  Malta is always a challenging mix of firepower and debuffs, but the final installment does a nice job triggering some status quo changes that are due out with I24.

    I look forward to the third SSA. And, as well, to our herd of level 5-20 duos we have growing up on Exalted qualifying for these adventures …

    I24 Overview and Musings

    Why it seems like only yesterday when I was talking about the upgrade from I3 to I4 (PvP! Body part sliders!). And here we are, a scant seven (!) years later, talking about I24:

    Issue 24: Resurgence is the next major free City of Heroes Freedom™ content update. Issue 24 provides new story arcs for a variety of character levels, ongoing power and Enhancement upgrades, and continuing premier content for our VIP players. Now that the Praetorian War is over, former adversaries work shoulder to shoulder to rebuild in the aftermath. As refugees from Galaxy City and Praetoria flood the streets of Paragon City, fresh conflicts bubble to the surface and new enemies emerge, setting the stage for a coming storm.

    If I said I haven’t been involved in the Praetoria War, does that make me a bad hero?

    Power and Enhancement Upgrades

    Blaster Upgrades:  Blasters receive a substantial increase to their damage and toughness. All Blaster secondary power sets now include a new element: Sustain. The Sustain attribute grants increased regeneration and recovery to upgrade to the following Blaster secondary powers; Touch of Fear, Blazing Aura, Chilling Embrace, Cloaking Device, Lightning Clasp, and Conserve Power. Blasters who already have these powers do not need to respec in order to benefit from Sustain. The attack range of some powerful Blaster attacks has also been doubled, while all Snipe powers can now be instantly fired under certain conditions.

    My blasters will certainly enjoy this — instantsnipe (if you have a high enough to-hit bonus going) will be really keen on teams, where the build-up time for snipe powers is often difficult to make happen.

    Having the short-range blasts become standard-range is pretty awesome, too. Sounds like it will be time for some respecs for Torchielle and Miss Crackle, among others.

    Power Pool Customization: Players who have unlocked tailor access can now change the colors of their Ancillary, Patron, and Power pools, allowing customization of powers such as Super Speed, Hasten, and Soul Tentacles.

    THANK YOU, JESUS!  Or whoever decided to prioritize this.  Assuming that I can actually choose “Minimal FX” for things like Hasten and Superspeed.

    Power Pool Upgrades:  The Concealment, Fighting, Leadership, Medicine, and Presence pools have received an additional power each. They are trainable at level 14 if you own two other powers in that pool. Each power pool also has a new fifth power that can now persuade opponents to disregard a character, transform into an unrelenting berserker, or dramatically improve a team’s Endurance recovery.

    Power Pools haven’t been touched since practically Day 1.  The changes that have been discussed (more details elsewhere) will also trigger some serious respecs, for all characters, I suspect.

    Improved Enhancement Set Bonuses: Invention Origin Enhancement set bonuses, such as XP debt reduction and specific mesmerization/mental control resistances, have been replaced with more useful set bonuses. These new set bonuses provide more powerful resistance against a broader variety of damage.

    That’s … probably good.  Though no doubt it will throw the markets into a tizzy for a month or three as people buy the new hot thing and decline to buy the old, not-quite-as-relatively-good thing.

    New Invention Origin Sets: Four new Invention Origin Enhancement sets debut with Issue 24. Annihilation (targeted AoE), Unbreakable Guard (damage resistance), Reactive Defenses (defense), and Preventive Medicine (healing). These new sets all offer different and specific bonuses, such as decreasing an opponent’s resistance, increasing a character’s maximum hit points, improve resistances, and even granting an absorption shield.

    More IO sets are definitely a good thing (see also, “markets in a tizzy”).

    New VIP Bonuses

    Martial Assault and Martial Combat (Free for VIPs): Dominators and Blasters can now combine ranged powers with melee martial arts attacks. Martial Assault combines ancient weapons with deadly physical attacks. It is available for all Dominators. Martial Combat focuses on using the energy within to perform remarkable feats. It is available for all Blasters.

    As previously noted, blapper-tastic!

    Actually, it should work well for a variety of purposes, as some blasters and doms just don’t need “powered” secondaries for their character concepts.  (I have several that have Energy as their secondary, simply for the “go away!” first level punch — which Martial Combat now has as well as other useful things.)

    More Lore Incarnate Abilities (Free for VIPs): Level 50 Incarnates can now craft new Lore abilities that let them summon powerful members of the Banished Pantheon, Knives of Vengeance, Talons of Vengeance, or the Tsoo as allies in combat.

    Still find the Level 50 Incarnate stuff confusing as hell (yes, what we need is another power / crafting system).  So no interest here, aside from thinking the above concept sounds cool.

    New Incarnate Story Arc (Free for VIPs): The majority of Praetoria except for one last bit of civilization outside of the city has been destroyed. This tiny corner of civilization crumbles from constant attacks by the Devouring Earth, and its days are numbered unless someone with the power of an Incarnate fights against the forces of Hamidon! Characters who are ready for this great challenge can contact the Vanguard scientist Number Six in the Rikti War Zone.

    Wait, what?

    Oh, man, did I sleep through the world being destroyed again?

    Have to wonder, what does this actually mean for Praetoria (as in “can I still run characters through Praetoria like before, or is that whole zone now gone?”).  I’ll have to ask the CoH G+ team on Friday …

    New Tier 9 Tech Knight Costume Set (Exclusive to VIPs): Tier 9 VIP players in the Paragon Rewards program can unlock the new Tech Knight Costume Set. The Tech Knight costume set fuses cosmic energy and high-tech power, allowing players to create truly fantastic warriors for good or evil.

    New costumes = always good.

    New Stories and Adventures for All Levels

    Kings Row in Crisis (Levels 7-20): With Galaxy City destroyed, the displaced and homeless flood into neighboring Kings Row to find shelter, work, and protection. The beleaguered Paragon Police Department already has its hands full, and the fallout is that the city’s gangs are thriving and enlarging their turf. Back Alley Brawler and the Regulators have put out a call for a new team of Heroes to stop the villainous gang members and to protect the refugees.

    Good to see a new reason to go back to Kings Row.  Now if only the Hollows weren’t a ghost town …

    The Giant Monster, Paladin, is also taking advantage of this chaos to try to destroy Kings Row. Paladin and his minions now rampage throughout High Park, seeking to claim it. The heroic Shining Stars stand up against Paladin’s mechanical might, but they need help from the Heroes to finish Paladin off.

    Oooh … nice to see the Shining Stars mixing it up, plus some sort of way of duking it out with Paladin that doesn’t requiring finding a critical mass of heroes in KR?  Nice.

    Brickstown’s New Alliances (Levels 30-50): The remnants of the Praetorian Army now work with the Vanguard in Brickstown. Forging an alliance of Praetorians and Heroes from Primal Earth, the Vanguard seeks to fight the emerging threats from both Praetoria and Primal Earth. All interested Heroes should contact Provost Marchand in Brickstown.

    Hmmm. Okay, makes sense. Bricks is sort of a dumping ground at the moment, so giving it a new feel is worthwhile.  Wonder how that will work in conjunction with the Zig?

    To add to that, the Praetorians are not the only issue to worry about in Brickstown. Prisoners have broken out of the Zig maximum security prison! In the new Prison Break zone event, Heroes have their hands full with stopping fugitive super-powered criminals from wreaking havoc throughout Brickstown.

    Ha! Asked and answered.  This makes great sense, and sounds like it should be fun.

    St. Martial’s Secrets (Levels 30-50): Arachnos has set up a portal to Praetoria with the intent to loot that devastated world. However, Villains have determined that they can slip into the war-ravaged land themselves to loot Praetoria before Arachnos does! What Villains discover in Praetoria surprises even them and may turn out to be something that helps their ongoing schemes in the Rogue Isles!

    Adding to the mayhem in St. Martial’s is Family Raid, a new zone event. Longbow has discovered that the Family, a criminal organization, is holding illegal weapons throughout its casinos in St. Martial. Longbow is staging attacks to recover those weapons, but Villains with foresight can stop the attack and even steal the weapons for their own use!

    Don’t have many active redside characters, but these sound like fun additional material.

    All in all, a worthwhile Issue, I’d say.  Game on!

    What’s the Matter with Penelope Yin?

    The Paragon Studios team does a “Freedom Friday” weekly quasi-chat on Google Plus, answering questions that people pose, etc.  Today, after getting my actual game question answer, I made the following observation:

    Just some feedback on the current splash screen, btw: it’s awful.  Not only am I less than thrilled with young Penelope Yin going from t-shirted and jeans-wearing teen to not-quite-dominatrix-geared hero, but you have her up there in one of those stereotypical super-heroine twisted-spine positions so that the viewer can conveniently see both her butt and her boobs.

    Bad show. I expect better from Paragon.

    Here’s the image (reversed, as it’s the current background for the cityofheroes.com site):

    So some background. Penelope Yin first shows up in the game as the heroes are hitting level 15 or so, in Faultline.  She’s a t-shirt-and-jeans teenager trying to deal with some problems in that zone. She also can psychically control Clockwork.

    Over time it’s developed that Penelope is one of the most powerful psychics in the world, and with recent events she’s joined the Freedom Phalanx as a full-blown hero.

    She’s also managed to pick up an awful costume. It’s not quite dominatrix-wear.  Not quite.  But between the thigh-high red high-heeled boots, the not-really-bare stockinged legs under a red bikini bottom, and the gartered crop-top bare-belly look above the waist … it’s just a silly costume, almost as though she were trying to find a parody of a Sexy Super-Heroine Outfit to show off in.

    And then there’s the picture above.

    On the splash screen (which I couldn’t find an image of), she’s  leaping forward to go toe to toe with some villain (on the web page, he’s off facing the other direction to match her).  But look at it.  First off, her legs are impossibly long. But secondly, she’s in that all-too-stereotypically awful Contorted Female Super-Hero Display Pose.  The one where, through a twist of the spine, she manages to be pointing both her butt and her boobs toward you.

    And this was a teenaged girl not very long ago, and now is one of Paragon’s pre-eminent heroes.  A role model, in-game and potentially for other teens (or tweens) in real life.

    And this is now the splash screen that pops up for the next N months (until the next issue) every time you go into the game or change servers.

    As Margie phrased it, “Probably not appropriate and an ugly costume.”

    As Isaac Sher, a commenter on the same thread, put it:

    Again, let’s set aside how her costume looks — her face does not say “I’m about to fight a dangerous foe”, it says to me “Tee Hee, I’m posing for a swimsuit issue photo shoot!  YAY!”  It’s really out of place.   Also, her body is, as others have said, twist so that she’s thrusting both her posterior and her breasts towards the camera, and it just looks grotesque and unnatural — and just seems like she’s there to Look Sexy For Male Players rather than Be An Awesome Hero For Justice.

    Yeah, I actually engendered a reaction — a couple of commenters and some +1s on my remarks.

    Now, I certainly don’t mind a bit of cheesecake (mmmmmm, cheesecake), though in general my heroines tend to be a bit more covered up.  But there’s two things going on here that bug me, and they’re somewhat intertwined:

    Penelope in her more teen-aged, less thigh-high-boots days.
    Penelope's new outfit, as rendered in the game.

    First off, it’s just an ugly costume. And silly.  I mean, thigh-highs, and the bikini/stockings, and the armor bits on her arms and shoulders and face … and then a bare midriff (with straps holding up her pants?).   Nice costume pieces, but the whole is much less than the parts.  And it — especially as painted (and posed) above, just comes off as a tawdry sexualization.

    Which even then wouldn’t be horrific (just a scosh distasteful in some fashion), except I still think of Penelope as a teenager.  I have no idea whether she is or not (she’s a “teenager” and a “girl” in the Faultline thread, and it’s ostensibly now 4-5 years later — though you can still find her there, I believe), and certainly she has gone through a lot of big experiences since then.  But I still associate her with being younger than I should be leching after (or being hinted that I should be leching after).

    And even if it’s just “I knew her when she was young and innocent,” it still just jars seeing her in that splash screen every time I fire up the game, angling her butt and boobs at the viewer.

    And what did Paragon have to say?

    Thanks for the feedback! We’ll convey your thoughts on the art back to the dev team. We’re extremely happy and lucky to have a team of talented artists working on City of Heroes Freedom, and we’re grateful for all the hard work they put in to make City of Heroes an even greater game than ever before.

    Um …

    To which I replied:

    The art team’s certainly talented, and that’s part of what makes the game a deserved success.  I just think in this case (and esp. for something as pervasive as the splash screen) there was some bad judgment (aesthetic and otherwise) involved.

    Which, apparently, was ’nuff said, since the conversation faded out after that.

    For more on this kind of contorted female posing thing, check out More super-hero posing goodness and Contorting a dead, sexy horse, two entries on my main blog from a few months back.

    Level Pacts and the Future

    Participated in a Freedom Friday with Paragon on Google Plus today, and finally remembered to ask my favorite question.

    * * *

    Me: So … when will Level Pacts return? My wife and I do a lot of duoing in the game, and LPs made this a lot more fun (we could solo while the other was away, one of us could opportunistically hunt, etc., without worrying about getting out of sync with leveling).

    We still have a number of toons from when LP was put in, and they function just fine. It’s just the ones before (and since) that it’s a problem with.

    I understand there are some difficulties with it being abused, but surely there are some ways it could be restored on a restricted fashion. Though I’d also like to see it available at any level — I’d be willing to have my lvl 20 drop to lvl 18 to get pacted with someone at that level.
    Collapse this comment

    City of Heroes Freedom: +Dave Hill : We’d really like to get level pacts working, but they’ll take some time to work out right, and we don’t have an ETA for it at the moment. Hopefully soon! I can understand your desire to have them back. We know they were really popular.

    Me: +City of Heroes Freedom – Thanks, I’m glad to know they’re still on the map. Is the problem a technical one, or dealing with unintended (and abusable) consequences? I assume it’s the latter (since the existing LPs were allowed to continue), but it’s hard to believe the latter couldn’t be handled through some limits, cool-offs, etc. I’d rather have a reasonably limited way of doing it than not have it at all.

    Je Saist: +Dave Hill: they were disabled, if memory serves, in order to prevent abuse of the pact-system by F2P players. There were also comments that Level Pacts were being envisioned as a VIP benefit only, and I also believe comments were made that the underlying leveling engine itself would need some work in order to isolate level-pacts to VIP’s only.

    City of Heroes Freedom: +Dave Hill & +Je Saist : This is roughly correct, though I’m personally fuzzy on the details. I believe there were technical issues involved with level pacts when there were multiple tiers of players, and we need time to work these out so that a robust system can be created.

    Me: Fair enough. I’m surprised it’s difficult to ID VIP (or F2P) players, but I’ve done enough development work in legacy systems to be not too surprised.

    As I said, I’d settle for a less robust, basic system in the interim than one that’s as polished and powerful as we’d all like to see. But I also appreciate you guys wanting to do it once and do it right. As long as it’s on the docket, I’ll try to be patient. After all, its an excellent game even without it. 🙂

    * * *

    I certainly don’t know about CoX internals, but if there are “technical issues with level pacts when there were multiple tiers of players,” then simply don’t have those for the moment (if I understood completely what that means, of course) until it gets fixed.

    CoH Issue 23 Overview Goodness

    Word is out on City of Heroes Issue 23 and the changes it brings.

    The Praetorian War comes to a dramatic conclusion in Issue 23: Where Shadows Lie! The Heroes and Villains of Paragon City, still reeling from the deaths of the legendary Statesman and Sister Psyche, must rise to stop the ruthless Emperor Cole of Praetoria before his mad plans can shatter the dimensions.

    Night Ward Environment
    Why is there ... a red ... police box ...?

    New Zone: Night Ward

    • A Realm of Magic: Dark forces hide in Night Ward, threatening to destroy the world. Night Ward is a Level 30-35 co-op zone where characters encounter strange magical allies and foes. This Praetorian zone is connected to First Ward, and is a realm trapped between the land of the living and the world of the dead.

    I have to confess, I’ve not completed the First Ward zone stuff yet.  I’m enjoying it with our “Cow & Chicken” team, but not wildly so.

    • New Mystical and Undead Enemies: Encounter the creatures of Night Ward: the Animus Arcana, sentient spells that crave power; Drudges, who seek to guide souls (living and dead) to the realm of the dead; and the Black Knights, who run the eternal prison that is the Night Ward. The powerful Arch-Villain Shadowhunter also prowls this realm with his deadly army of beasts.

    Ooooh … I know what power set he took!

    Blockbuster Conclusion to the Praetorian War

    • The Magisterium Incarnate Trial: The dimensional war against Emperor Cole comes to a climax in the new Magisterium Incarnate Trial. You’ve defeated all of Emperor’s Cole’s lieutenants and strongholds, and will now use knowledge gained in taking down Diabolique in an epic showdown against the Well’s Champion to determine the fate of two worlds!

    So … how will this change how Praetoria (and the Praetoria story arcs) all behave?  It’s one thing to pull Statesman out of Paragon … it’s quite another to pull Tyrant out of Praetoria.

    Quality of Life Upgrades

    • Improved Free Player Chat and Grouping: Now all players (VIP, premium, and free) can join a new serverwide Looking for Group chat channel that allows them to communicate freely with each other. Free and premium players can also now join Super Groups, regardless of their status in the Paragon Rewards program.

    Yes. It’s about time.  Plus, they need to take the step off adding that channel to everyone’s coms.  Really.  Get the invite/LFT/LFM chat off of Broadcast and Help.

    • Easy Portal Travel: The new Interdimensional Tunnel System makes getting from one world to another quick and easy. Get to outlying areas like Praetoria and the Shadow Shard easily with a quick dimension jump through conveniently located portals.

    Once again, the devs realize that nobody likes traveling anywhere for longer than they need to.

    “I remember the old days, when you’d arrive in Steel Canyon and jog downtown to level up … uphill both ways! … past level 50 mobs! … and like it!”

    Kids these days.

    New VIP Content and Benefits

    • Signature Story Arc Series 2: “Pandora’s Box”: Both Heroes and Villains are being supercharged with new uncontrollable powers. Heroes team up with the remnants of the Freedom Phalanx to discover the secret menace behind the chaos, while Villains lay the groundwork for a new organization to rival the power of Arachnos.

    The first SSA was pretty good. I look forward to more.

    • New Mecha Armor Tier 9 Costume Set: The Mecha Armor costume set turns you into the sleek giant robot or high-tech warrior you’ve always dreamed of. Select from a new sword, rifle, backpack, and wings offered in this latest free costume set available only to VIP players as part of the Paragon Rewards program.
    • New Chain Mail and Leather Armor Costume Set: All VIP players have access to the Chain Mail and Leather Armor costume set. Look the part of a crusading knight, yeoman archer, or a rowdy barbarian in this versatile set.

    More costume pieces = good stuff.

    • New Incarnate Powers: Level 50 VIP players can now unlock the Hybrid Incarnate Tree, which grants them new powers based on the core Archetypes in City of Heroes®. You can choose a style that shores up a weakness, or one that further strengthens existing abilities. The Assault Tree increases your damage, the Control Tree raises your ability to lock down foes, the Melee Tree increases your defense and status protection, and the Support Tree grants bonuses to you and your teammates.

    I … guess that’s good.  We’ve done a little bit of Incarnate play with Psy-clone and Amorpha, and, damn, I really have no great desire to learn a whole new advancement/purchase mechanic.