So, I’ve got a few days of play over with Champions Online and just thought I’d get a few thoughts comparing the two onto paper as it were…

Cinder Scorcher (as seen in Champions Online)

How They Look

To be fair, both kinda nail the comic booky feel to some degree. Yet, both look very different. Champions Online goes the cel-shaded route, with thick outlines and mostly solid colours giving a very comic-like look. City of Heroes, being the elder game by just a few years (5 years now…) using it’s simple shapes and texturing to give it a very unique super-hero-ey look.

Which is better? That depends really, Champions is technically superior given it’s use of normal-mapping and lots of other fancy-schmancy techniques and I prefer it. But CoH definitely has it’s charm too and for an “old” game, doesn’t look bad at all thanks to it’s art style.

Cinder Scorcher (as seen in City of Heroes)

How They Feel

It’s quite clear when you start to play Champions and create a character that their is some shared history between the games, the character creator takes the already stupendously great one from City of Heroes and adds a few new customisation options like character stances, different pieces on each shoulder/arm/leg etc… As it stands at the moment there aren’t as many costume pieces in Champions as the City of Heroes franchise but it’s still possible to make some seriously good looking characters.

Character Classes and Powers

City of Heroes sticks pretty faithfully to the unbreakable MMO trinity of having Tank/DPS and Heal/Support classes with it’s archetypes (CoH’s name for classes) matching up pretty well, Tanker being the… tank, Blasters and Scrappers being ranged and melee DPS and Defenders and Controllers making up the Heal/Support side. Within each of these classes you get to choose which 2 “powersets” your character will have

Champions however takes a very different route, there are no classes to choose from just powers. You basically pick a “framework” which gives you your starting powers but then you are free to pick from whatever “framework” you like. You are encouraged to keep your framework theme (i.e. Fire/Ice/Force/Lightning Elemental) by making higher tier skills unlock quicker if you stick to your basic framework but you are by no means forced.

This has both benefits and drawbacks for both games, for City of Heroes levelling up is more guided, you know which skills you can have and you simply choose. The game is designed around these sets so you can’t really build a “broken” (at least in theory) character. By a “broken” character I simply mean one that has powers that don’t gel well so you literally can’t kill things effectively to level up. The downside to this is that character power choices are a lot more limited, but generally you can still create a character that will fit most ideas you have.

Champions however is totally freeform which means you can, quite accidentally, pick up powers that can break your character so that it is almost impossible to level properly. This means you REALLY have to look what you are taking and play around with powers BEFORE you set them in stone, as reversing power changes is exceptionally expensive in Champions. But, with that responsibility comes great versatility and power. You can literally create characters that can fulfil Tank, DPS AND Healing roles if that is what you want to do. Not as effectively as someone dedicated to one role but it is never the less possible.

Combat is also quite different between the two titles, CoH is strictly in the old-school turn-based MMO style of click a skill, wait for effect. Champions tries to make it feel a little more action-oriented by having things like charge mechanics and having to tap a button to get out of stuns and the like, as well as having a block button (which you REALLY need to learn to use). And to be honest, it has some success, combat does feel more involved. For me though the stun mechanics don’t really feel right.

It’s definitely nice to see someone try something new though. I’m not sure it all succeeds but as a whole it feels cohesive, which is what matters I guess.

Okay, so this is turning into a wall of text when it’s supposed to be some “quick thoughts”, I’ll chop this now and do another “quick thoughts” post in a few days… gah, I’m not the most concise person on the planet it seems