Well, I wouldnt be back in this game if my son didnt ask to see if it was hacked. He heard that PWE was compromised (again). Since he has no PC at his mother's house, he asked me to check if hi main was still there. Fortunately for him, it was and nothing was lost or abused.
While I was checking his toons, I decided to check and see if anything has changed, and a bit has. Mind you, I am barely past level 10 with my toon, but its a lot more fun.
1. Seems like the engine has been tweaked a bit more.
2. We have Alerts now (instances that grant you a little buff or bonus currency/xp).
3. Archetype balances have been tweaked more( more and more like archetypes more than free form).
4. We now have talent trees starting at lv 10.
I am finding the game a bit more fun with the F2P build more than I have had in the past. Only complaint I have is there still is no way to be a villain and PvP has remained the same. However, with the patch notes I have read, it seems like they been tweaking balances within the PvP they have for something more. Will it be what the Champions players want (playing the villains)?
I really dont know what future plans Cryptic/PWE has for their fans, but I must say Champions is getting better.
Looking forward to hearing your own opinions about the game. As many of my threads are, please no trolling or flaming. Keep it civil and any opinion is available for argument, so dont take it personal. __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________
IGN: D.E.D. M13 (Defense Enforcement Droid Mark 13)
I've actually just recently started playing, again, after learning abut Questionite. It still has flaws, but it's better than before.
One of the biggest debates was that Freeforms were basically superior in almost every way to Archetypes. Freeform characters can pick which powers they want, which primary/secondary stats they want, the color of their powers, and basically customize their character's abilities in every way possible for maximum efficiency. An archetype is a typical MMO class; the abilities and stats are picked for you based on a theme, with one or two minor deviations in the way you want to go, but following a very strict path. To be fair, the majority of archetypes are well-balanced, and function very well in the game's environment. But it doesn't compare to making the superhero that you want to make, not some pre-made archetype, and freeform characters are superior in PvP content 95% of the time.
To 'alleviate' this problem, they came out with alerts and made the two former adventure packs free. Twice a day, 'daily' quests are available. They require you to do these instance alerts to complete and each one has a queue to place you in a semi-random team of other players; simple scenarios like 'go kill this villain and his minions within 2 minutes' or 'make your way through the bank to stop the robbers' or 'stop the villain from killing the civilians'. These alerts award hour-long buffs that either give increased exp, higher money drops, or increased in 'crafting' item drops. And you can do as many as you want, as long as you want, but you only get to do the quests twice a day.
The point of these alerts is questionite. Completing these daily quests gives you 2000 questionite ore and all 'supervillains' in the game have a chance to drop a box containing 200-1500 questionite ore. You can refine the ore itself to obtain questionite, which is used in a special shop to purchase cool things like extra costume pieces or special travel powers, buffs, etc. There is also an exchange that allows you to trade questionite for zen (cash shop currency). This gives silver (non-paying players) and gold (subscription players) a way to get cash shop items without paying a penny.
However, there is a cap on the amount of questionite ore you can refine a day; 8000 per character. In the current economy, the exchange rate is 1 zen/178-184 questionite. Remember those freeform slots? Well, they cost 5000 zen. Yeah, you can do the math; it's going to take roughly 900k (900,000) questionite to purchase a freeform slot, under the best of terms. With a cap of only 8000 a day, this is a major time investment, and you are only guaranteed 2000 a day, the rest being luck and chance. Since silver accounts have 2 free character slots, you're looking at around 2-3 months under optimal conditions of work to earn enough questionite to purchase a freeform slot.
This feels like PWE dangling a freeform slot over the heads of silver players, just out of reach unless they work extremely hard to jump for it.
So yes, for the dedicated, you can now get a freeform slot (or anything else in the cash shop) for free. For the other 80% of gamers, you might as well just not play, especially if you want PvP, as a good freeform character is superior in PvP to archetypes. While archetypes are quite balanced, they just don't compare even in PvE content to a well-made freeform character.
Also, they've still done nothing about the money cap for silver players; there's not even an item you can get in the cash shop to increase it. This is subtly the largest injustice in the game and prevents silver players from purchasing the godly end-game equipment from others and prevents gold players from being able to buy godly equipment from silvers. Thus, money has often become a secondary currency, where trades can be done through items or equipment instead.
TL;DR - just read what I wrote. If you want to play the game, it's important information.
Champions Online: A visit back
