Champions: First Impressions

Posted on Saturday, October 31, 2009
Filed under Champions Online

So on Dickie's recommendation, I installed Champions last night so I could give it a whirl over this free weekend thing they have going. Deliberately did no research into the game beforehand, which is a bit of a rarity for me.

Character Creations: Character creation was well done. There were lots of costume options, I didn't quite see as many as I'm used to, but comparing to the City is kind of unfair. Champions was still miles ahead of any non-City MMO I've played. I noticed some of the final options didn't seem to do anything, but I suspect that's more an issue with my computer then the game itself. My computer is kinda old and not built for gaming to begin with. When I was going the power selections I hit custom just so I could see what all was there, even if I was pretty sure I would end up going all electric (I did.) Main thing that struck me, not a lot of defense options. I get that you need damage to progress, but even up through lv 10 the only defense I've really been able to pick up works on energy/electric damage and I have yet to run into an enemy that does that damage. So at least for now I'm more or less embracing my role of "electrocute all enemies."

Gameplay: So gameplay has been somewhat iffy, but I suspect (once again) that it's mostly the fault of my computer. The game runs, but it feels choppy, and this translates to the camera so when I swing the camera around to change view (which happens often) I sometimes end up fighting to get it moved back out to where I can actually see again. I'm liking the energy mechanic, it throttles down my speed a bit, but not enough to actually make me feel slow. I think this is one thing Champions does better then the city. Early city has you waiting on attacks to charge until you can build up an attack chain. While most of the starting attacks recharge fairly quickly, Champions gets a nice pace right out the gate instead of having to grow into it. I had heard that movement during combat was a big thing (admittedly a while ago and secondhand) but I'm not rally seeing it. May have something to do with both my good attacks either wanting (chain lightning) or needing (lightning arc) me to stand still to charge/maintain them.

Crafting: Ahh the crafting system takes me back a little. I haven't ripped apart things for parts since Earth and Beyond, well technically I did enchanting once in WoW but that's not quite the same. Admittedly the Earth and Beyond comparison isn't perfect either, in EnB I would first be ripping it apart to learn it and after that I could rip it apart for parts. I find myself choosing some quest rewards based on "will I be able to rip this apart when I'm done with it" when I'm not seeing a clear "I seem best" in the stat department. Haven't done TOO much with crafting yet, but it made a good first impression.

Other: I went to Canada to start off and I rather liked the zone wide mission that goes on there. Did a few runs of it and even got some top scores for something besides potions. Admittedly I didn't USE any of those prizes, but one was an arms item so I could at least get parts from it. Overall I like the game's fast paced nature, and the moving you through a story via changing the zones is a nice touch as well. I'll be on more today (@Luigrein) so maybe I'll catch some of you on.