I have it on recommended but I get like 30fps tops anywhere that's not a solo instance, and even in some of those I get sub-30fps. Turning off the comic book outline helps, and I'll probably also turn down the shadows (especially since they aren't particularly great looking anyway).Macattk15 said:
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Champions Online Open Beta starts Monday
- Thread starter guggnichso
- Start date
I don't want to just toss this in as an edit since it's pretty long. I think Cryptic fucked up big time with stats. There is no reason not to use custom frameworks over the default ones for every ranged energy blaster because presence/recovery are useless for leveling (potentially useless for groups too, unless superstats only affect damage done and don't also affect healing done), and then select dexterity/ego as your superstats at level 5 and 13 if you want to deal damage and buy personal force field at level 8. Melee has a few more options, like you can go constitution/dexterity or you can go strength/constitution or strength/dexterity or strength/ego. Although really, the best stat combo for anyone if you want to be a damage dealer is dexterity/ego so you crit more often, crit harder, and boosting those stats also boosts your damage, but strength/dexterity is also good for melee due to invulnerability.
The thing I'm not sure about is energy forms for elemental blasters. They suck, but I don't know if they scale with specific stats no matter what (like str/con for invulnerability or endurance/ego for personal force field, or dexterity for lightning reflexes) or if they scale with your superstats specifically, because before I realized superstats determine your damage no matter what, I was picking superstats on energy blasters based on what the powerframe screen says those frameworks are built around. If they scale with superstats, and Cryptic makes them a little better, they could be worth using instead of personal force field. If they scale with the "recommended" stats for the framework, then yeah... they're going to suck until Cryptic figures out how to make those stats better, because for example, fire form is totally useless based off its suggested/focused stats (presence/recovery).
The real problems I notice are:
I probably seem like I'm totally bashing this game, but I actually really like it. I just think the stats need some work. I actually find myself more annoyed by the UI sometimes, just because of its lack of information. It's a lot better base UI than a lot of the other post-WoW MMOs I've tried, but it needs work to make it more obvious when some things have happened, like aggroing mobs, and it could use more customizable settings for combat text, target-of-target, and stuff like that. I also think the tutorial would be a lot better if you could train and/or be given a new power about halfway through it, but that might just be the MMO vet in me that gets adjusted to the basic gameplay by like, the third quest in the game.
The thing I'm not sure about is energy forms for elemental blasters. They suck, but I don't know if they scale with specific stats no matter what (like str/con for invulnerability or endurance/ego for personal force field, or dexterity for lightning reflexes) or if they scale with your superstats specifically, because before I realized superstats determine your damage no matter what, I was picking superstats on energy blasters based on what the powerframe screen says those frameworks are built around. If they scale with superstats, and Cryptic makes them a little better, they could be worth using instead of personal force field. If they scale with the "recommended" stats for the framework, then yeah... they're going to suck until Cryptic figures out how to make those stats better, because for example, fire form is totally useless based off its suggested/focused stats (presence/recovery).
The real problems I notice are:
- 1) recovery doesn't scale well at all. endurance will give you more energy return on auto attack and equilibrium falls too fast as you level, doesn't rise fast enough if you try stacking it, and also isn't even important enough for any energy blaster due to charged shots taking very little damage and auto attacks easily charging you up if you build your endurance (which you probably will just from equipment that meets any other stat needs you have). It's like WoW spirit all over again (launch WoW, mind you, as 5 years from now they managed to make it into a great stat).
- 2) dexterity/ego are WAY too important in their modifiers. critical severity can drop to 2% if you don't have any ego and if you don't have any dex, you can get a negative critical modifier. if you have a lot of dex/ego, you get an absurdly high critical modifier/severity modifier. Hence the reason any dps (especially ranged) should go dex/ego and why everybody who uses guns kicks ass without even having to learn the ropes beyond going for what Cryptic tells you to do.
- 3) every slotted passive sucks except for Invulnerability/Regen for melee, and Personal Force Field for ranged. When I say sucks, I mean they not only are much weaker than those, but they also aren't that exciting on their own. I thought slotted passives sucked until I tried PFF and then I realized they're really good when designed right. This probably changes quite a bit at higher levels/in groups because I notice the Might set's defensive passive is pretty much built to make you an unstoppable tanking machine that spams attacks, and energy forms give a big dps boost (but a terrible survivability boost compared to PFF), but due to the unbelievably retarded respec system, you aren't going to get those "better at endgame" passives at max level because you'll want to take the OP slotted passive for leveling, and as you level up you'll quickly be unable to drop that passive you took at level 5/8 for the one that will make you a better tank/dps.
- 4) presence seems useless. Even stacking tons of presence, you get very little difference in threat regen/degen. Maybe it's more useful for endgame tanks, but see the whole respec system complaint in 3. It also seems especially useless considering how Might is built more as a tank set by default, and it has a high-threat combo based upon taking hits and using the defensive combo skill.
I probably seem like I'm totally bashing this game, but I actually really like it. I just think the stats need some work. I actually find myself more annoyed by the UI sometimes, just because of its lack of information. It's a lot better base UI than a lot of the other post-WoW MMOs I've tried, but it needs work to make it more obvious when some things have happened, like aggroing mobs, and it could use more customizable settings for combat text, target-of-target, and stuff like that. I also think the tutorial would be a lot better if you could train and/or be given a new power about halfway through it, but that might just be the MMO vet in me that gets adjusted to the basic gameplay by like, the third quest in the game.
TheRagnCajun
Member
Invulnerability was really uber in CB. It got nerfed recently. I'm actually starting suspect PFF might be the most effective defensive passive now, but you gotta buff your ego.
Quite liking the beta now, need to read more about the game as I have no idea what I should be equipping or if my character is any good. I do like the single shard idea and to be honest every MMO needs to adopt it. I heard there wasn't much in the way of end-game at the moment but I'll probably jump in anyway, even if I only stick around for a month or two.
Nice to see the public quests from WAR and the lore book also.
Nice to see the public quests from WAR and the lore book also.
firex said:
Good criticisms in there. I have my handy Champion Builder up and, though some things may have changed, its a fairly recent build, so it should be mostly accurate. A couple of things to hit on:
1) Invulnerability scales with Constitution, regardless of your superstat. So if you let your constitution fall behind, Invul is going to drop in its effectiveness.
2) The Dex/Ego item is a concern, for sure, but remember that if you neglect all other stats, your leaving behind everything from energy to hitpoint boosts. Also, Lightning Reflexes is the only passive that boosts off Dex, which requires at least getting some Unarmed power.
3) Electric form scales with both Endurance (Damage) and Recovery (Resists), and boosts your equilibrium as well, but the resists are for energy damage primarily. For Fire Form, its the same except Presence boosts the damage and the resist is for elemental damage. Ice Form is the same as Fire Form.
4) For Personal Force Shield, the hitpoints scale from Endurance, the regen rate of the HPs scales from Ego.
5) I'm currently enjoying my telekinetics guy, and he will be getting Ego Form. Its reduction scales with Constitution, but the damage boost scales with Endurance.
6) You make a good point with recovery as even pumping it hard with boosts, by level 8 to 10, its below halfway. Now, if recovery also slows down energy decay, that's a big boost as well.
And that's the real problem here. Nobody knows what the hell what stats do for what. The Champion Builder is extremely useful in this regard (if its right), but the lack of tooltips, documentation, explanation, or tutorial on stats limit it to the large damage gain from boosting your super stats, when the interplay between your stats and the powers they effect can be far more useful.
Champions Builder Forum Post
EDIT: Added the link for the builder.
TheRagnCajun
Member
End/Ego has been working well with force. The PFF is actually quite uber when well buffed. I kinda miss having high strength for knockback tho. I"m at lvl 12 handling lvl 15 content solo so I guess I'm doing okay. The force blast does good damage when upgraded to lvl 3. Overall I'd say its probably the most defensive, least offensive out of the ranged blasting sets.
Open Beta is now public. http://www.champions-online.com/node/173002
I guess there is one more gripe I have with the game, although I think it's something they already said would be changing in the future, and it's just how a couple powersets are designed:
Sorcery seems like it has way too many powers (like you could spend everything there and still not feel complete), especially compared to a lot of other power sets. though I heard they are going to split it up a little anyway, which makes some sense.
I don't get why Telekinesis and Telepathy are separate power sets. It'd make more sense to me to combine and reduce those, too. Like keep the healing in telepathy, but make melee or ranged powers an upgrade path/choice for damage dealing, so you choose (maybe even at character creation) if you want to use the charged blast or the TK melee as your starting charge/energy use attack. Mainly I think this just annoys me because of the whole psychic/mind powers possible contradiction where TK users can lift stuff with their minds, but telepaths can't.
I also do think they need to revamp the respec system. At least make it so you can unlearn different powers in specific types, so you don't have to carefully train stuff in order to keep from having to undo powers you don't want to change. Maybe make it so it's more expensive to respec specific powers (like travel) but let you respec within categories, at least. I like the idea that you don't have to respec all at once, but it'd be better if they took this whole "only respec your last few choices" system and categorized it better or something. I mean I can see why they don't let you do a full on respec because if you build something and it's overpowered, and they nerf it, you shouldn't be able to switch on the fly to the new flavor of the month, but still.
Sorcery seems like it has way too many powers (like you could spend everything there and still not feel complete), especially compared to a lot of other power sets. though I heard they are going to split it up a little anyway, which makes some sense.
I don't get why Telekinesis and Telepathy are separate power sets. It'd make more sense to me to combine and reduce those, too. Like keep the healing in telepathy, but make melee or ranged powers an upgrade path/choice for damage dealing, so you choose (maybe even at character creation) if you want to use the charged blast or the TK melee as your starting charge/energy use attack. Mainly I think this just annoys me because of the whole psychic/mind powers possible contradiction where TK users can lift stuff with their minds, but telepaths can't.
I also do think they need to revamp the respec system. At least make it so you can unlearn different powers in specific types, so you don't have to carefully train stuff in order to keep from having to undo powers you don't want to change. Maybe make it so it's more expensive to respec specific powers (like travel) but let you respec within categories, at least. I like the idea that you don't have to respec all at once, but it'd be better if they took this whole "only respec your last few choices" system and categorized it better or something. I mean I can see why they don't let you do a full on respec because if you build something and it's overpowered, and they nerf it, you shouldn't be able to switch on the fly to the new flavor of the month, but still.
Rabbit Lord
Member
Played more a couple hours, seems like your basic MMO stuff. I liked it though, kinda sick of WoW atm, so I might get this for a change of pace.
The character creator is fucking amazing. So good.
Today was a great day for MMO fans. Got to try out Champions Online, new WoW stuff, and finally some really solid gameplay footage of Star Wars.
The character creator is fucking amazing. So good.
Today was a great day for MMO fans. Got to try out Champions Online, new WoW stuff, and finally some really solid gameplay footage of Star Wars.
So I just created my Nemesis and basically the whole system is the most awesome thing ever. You pick which powerset to give him (out of 18), choose which henchmen set (out of about 15, naturally I chose Lizardmen), which powerset the minions have (out of 6), and which personality he has (Mastermind, Maniac or Savage). I'm pretty sure each personality has separate missions.
The first mission had a ton of elaborate custscenes and such too.
The first mission had a ton of elaborate custscenes and such too.
I preordered the other day, with Aion coming out later in the month it works out perfectly for how I tend to play MMORPGs these days, just have as much fun as possible in the first month and just move onto something else. Did the same with AoC and had a blast, pretty much spent the entire month just killing anyone I saw, then just move to another instance and do the same :lol
So, tonight I fought a giant robot in the streets of Millennium city. It took about 10-15 minutes (once we'd shown up in the public quests, took a while to get to that stage) and involved about 15 people to take him down. I basically decided I wanted to fight him and it was very easy to put out the call and assemble a team of heroes; I told everyone where to form up and then we had the higher level people (like me) lead teams and take on the lower level players as sidekicks.
The first of us forming up:
As a major damage dealer, I drew a lot of ire. Uh oh.
I think a lot of people died when he slammed the ground, hence why there's a lot of fliers.
We start to do some serious damage:
He uses his eye beams to take down some airborne heroes:
We finally bring the metal beast to its knees:
The first of us forming up:
As a major damage dealer, I drew a lot of ire. Uh oh.
I think a lot of people died when he slammed the ground, hence why there's a lot of fliers.
We start to do some serious damage:
He uses his eye beams to take down some airborne heroes:
We finally bring the metal beast to its knees:
lol @ this latest patch. They just nerfed the fuck out of getting XP anywhere, so leveling is much slower and the game is harder as a result.
I did level a gadgeteering guy recently before this patch and went with int/presence as stats and that works ok. But I am annoyed at how useless a lot of powersets are. Like half the abilities are worth using in most of them, and the other half seem pointless. Maybe it's different if you go taking on lairs, like the game says you should be doing, but so far (up to level 17) I have yet to run into anything approximating a real group dungeon besides that 3 person underground boxing ring.
edit: I think the XP change is a bug, because some quests were giving XP like before, but I got freaking 110 XP for turning in the final canada tutorial quest. either that, or they only nerfed some of the quests so you aren't level 9 or 10 when you are done with the (full, not just millenium city) tutorial, which is lame anyway.
I did level a gadgeteering guy recently before this patch and went with int/presence as stats and that works ok. But I am annoyed at how useless a lot of powersets are. Like half the abilities are worth using in most of them, and the other half seem pointless. Maybe it's different if you go taking on lairs, like the game says you should be doing, but so far (up to level 17) I have yet to run into anything approximating a real group dungeon besides that 3 person underground boxing ring.
edit: I think the XP change is a bug, because some quests were giving XP like before, but I got freaking 110 XP for turning in the final canada tutorial quest. either that, or they only nerfed some of the quests so you aren't level 9 or 10 when you are done with the (full, not just millenium city) tutorial, which is lame anyway.
JoeBoy101 said:Hey Venture, Thanks for getting me in the picture in the last shot, TPing back from one of my numerous deaths.
Hah, which one are you/what was your name? I was Man of the World, the delightful fellow who started the whole mess.
EDIT: Cryptic says in retail you will level slower than you did previously but faster than it is right now. I think it's probably a smart idea to change it; I started missing whole chunks of content as I got into the 20s.
Nope it's not a bug, http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=778331&postcount=156, honestly it's making me rethink my purchase. I liked how it was before, you would do all the quests in the zone and it would lead onto the next zone perfectly, they better not be expecting people to grind to make up the difference.firex said:
Ikuu said:
Having gotten to 25, it doesn't lead perfectly. They say that the early game is too slow right now, but it was the higher levels they wanted to change. Basically, I skipped all of Arizona (including the level 20ish stuff), and now I'm starting to skip a lot of stuff in Canada and MC too. You simply level way too fast at 20 and onwards.
Ventrue said:
Vigor Mortis, I'm the purple/gray dude in the distance running up.
I thought your character looked familiar. One awesome thing about the open mission, if you participate and contribute points to a success, you get an item. I even got something from that mission and placed next to last with 3 points (I was only lvl 16).
firex said:
Well, for 1-10, most missions I did were below my level. That didn't change until I hit the mid-teens, so I think they needed to tone it down a bit. I will say, being 17 now, they need to ramp the later levels up a bit. I'm doing Snakegulch right now and all the missions con over my level. And I'm not skipping stuff. I got sent to this area by an NPC.
that place might be easier if you are level 17 or higher when you do it. my friends and I got it at level 15, so we just did it grouped up, after I had tried soloing it before on a different level 15, although we still nearly died. probably because pet pathfinding is atrocious (and pet controls are atrocious) so my healing drones get stuck all the time.
Anyway I liked gadgeteering a lot, but wow, it needs to be mixed in with something so I have more to do in combat, and the pet UI needs a lot of work. And playing might, it wasn't a bad setup after I bought invulnerability, but I've tried every melee except dual blades and they all feel like they're built to be played on a gamepad. Hopping between this and WoW, some of the UI stuff in CO is awesome, but (I assume this is open beta lag here) the UI is pretty unresponsive at times, or sluggish, and targeting is a pain, and I don't like how you have to re-toggle auto-attack every time you switch targets to a new hostile. Or more accurately, I don't get why using an attack skill doesn't re-toggle the energy builder for you.
I do have a lot of pet concerns, but it's because they behave more like Diablo minions and again, they didn't seem to respond to any of the pet commands. It also makes no sense to have healing drones and munitions bots tied to the same generic pet bar, and makes the drones really frustrating because I have to run up to someone with low health and hope the fucking stupid shits follow me and start healing them. I can't order them to do anything at all which is just dumb in this day and age. If a mostly terrible game like LotR Online can do its pet UI so nicely, there is no excuse for a game like CO. And if pet controls are gimped for the 360 port, then they'd better go redesign the healing drones and munitions bots' combat functions so they can be useful without having to manage them. They're just too stupid and frustrating now, especially the drones.
The rest of the game is pretty good. I assume it will get further polished once it's out and they're making money off it, so I might get it... just don't know if I want to jump in during launch and pick something that's fun now, or wait a bit and pick something that's fun after they fix up some of the issues. I get this bad gut feeling that the 3 really good slotted passive defense skills are going to get nerfed when instead they should be buffing the other slotted passives that suck.
Anyway I liked gadgeteering a lot, but wow, it needs to be mixed in with something so I have more to do in combat, and the pet UI needs a lot of work. And playing might, it wasn't a bad setup after I bought invulnerability, but I've tried every melee except dual blades and they all feel like they're built to be played on a gamepad. Hopping between this and WoW, some of the UI stuff in CO is awesome, but (I assume this is open beta lag here) the UI is pretty unresponsive at times, or sluggish, and targeting is a pain, and I don't like how you have to re-toggle auto-attack every time you switch targets to a new hostile. Or more accurately, I don't get why using an attack skill doesn't re-toggle the energy builder for you.
I do have a lot of pet concerns, but it's because they behave more like Diablo minions and again, they didn't seem to respond to any of the pet commands. It also makes no sense to have healing drones and munitions bots tied to the same generic pet bar, and makes the drones really frustrating because I have to run up to someone with low health and hope the fucking stupid shits follow me and start healing them. I can't order them to do anything at all which is just dumb in this day and age. If a mostly terrible game like LotR Online can do its pet UI so nicely, there is no excuse for a game like CO. And if pet controls are gimped for the 360 port, then they'd better go redesign the healing drones and munitions bots' combat functions so they can be useful without having to manage them. They're just too stupid and frustrating now, especially the drones.
The rest of the game is pretty good. I assume it will get further polished once it's out and they're making money off it, so I might get it... just don't know if I want to jump in during launch and pick something that's fun now, or wait a bit and pick something that's fun after they fix up some of the issues. I get this bad gut feeling that the 3 really good slotted passive defense skills are going to get nerfed when instead they should be buffing the other slotted passives that suck.
Kinda bored with the game now. Was having a ton of fun for a few days ... now I'm level 23 with my munitions guy. Does tons of damage, takes very little damage (thanks Personal Force Field) .. but it just feels flat now.
Quest upon quest to do ... all the same ... mindless rageeeeee.
Quest upon quest to do ... all the same ... mindless rageeeeee.
DaPHanTomMeNace
Banned
This game is so fun but I hate that I can only play in 1366x768 resolution. I have a Gateway Vista 64 bit vista with an AMD Phenom Tri Core processor 2.20 GHz and 4 gigs of RAM and thats the best resolution I can play at without stutters. I know I should be able to run this game at full setting I have a freaking NVIDIA Geoforce 9200 video card. How can I play at max resolution without stuttering?
CAW
Member
Some screens from the past couple of days. Maxed settings @ 1920x1080 (4890 OC):
Canuck:
This was either a bug or a GM playing around. I saw a GM present moments before this player 'expanded'.
Two other characters. I love the character creation.
Fun game for sure. I'll be cycling this and Aion for sure. Any GAF super groups in the works/planning?
Canuck:
This was either a bug or a GM playing around. I saw a GM present moments before this player 'expanded'.
Two other characters. I love the character creation.
Fun game for sure. I'll be cycling this and Aion for sure. Any GAF super groups in the works/planning?
that was a bug with that guy. I got that item too and lol it was awesome. You used to grow bigger than the giant bosses or most buildings for like 15 seconds. Now you just get kind of fat.
edit: anyway I don't think I'll get this game at launch, but probably a month or two after once they've taken some time to hopefully improve some of the power sets and the interface a little. Then I'll probably just make a guns guy because it's lol ezmode, or do power armor + a little gadgeteering.
edit: anyway I don't think I'll get this game at launch, but probably a month or two after once they've taken some time to hopefully improve some of the power sets and the interface a little. Then I'll probably just make a guns guy because it's lol ezmode, or do power armor + a little gadgeteering.
Hazaro said:
Not speaking on the behalf of this dude but...
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=11320682&postcount=2502
Akinos said:
So they levelled everyone to 40 (to level up, go to the commander on the Millennium City helipad) and spawned giant robots everywhere. I took the opportunity to take a peak at the end game (though it is not available in beta). From what I can tell, it works like this:
You join this high powered super team and get access to their secret lair. Each day there is a list of missions on the big board. If you clear your list of missions, you report back to HQ for a special assignment. You can teleport to all over the world to get to these 'hotspots.' You get rewards for finishing missions, which seems to include access to new instances.
Now, I'm not sure exactly what this means. My take is that they literally mean a day; that each day there is a list of fairly basic missions (e.g. go to Monster Island defeat frogmen) and when you finish your missions for the day you get a cool special mission. This is an interesting way to provide end game content--provide a certain amount per day rather than let people consume it all in one go (again, not certain this is how it works). If you wanted to do more each day, you'd play another character, or do teams/sidekicking/public quests/instances.
You join this high powered super team and get access to their secret lair. Each day there is a list of missions on the big board. If you clear your list of missions, you report back to HQ for a special assignment. You can teleport to all over the world to get to these 'hotspots.' You get rewards for finishing missions, which seems to include access to new instances.
Now, I'm not sure exactly what this means. My take is that they literally mean a day; that each day there is a list of fairly basic missions (e.g. go to Monster Island defeat frogmen) and when you finish your missions for the day you get a cool special mission. This is an interesting way to provide end game content--provide a certain amount per day rather than let people consume it all in one go (again, not certain this is how it works). If you wanted to do more each day, you'd play another character, or do teams/sidekicking/public quests/instances.