This is part 3 of a 5 part preview of a paid expansion and game update for City of Heroes / City of Villains titled Issue 13: Architect. To read the review from the beginning, select the link at the bottom to part 1.
New Cimerora Missions
This new zone went over like a lead balloon. The gameplay is the same as in all the other zones, and most people have finished it completely in a few days or weeks. More missions in an already dull zone does not excite. This zone has ultimately boiled down to a place you go for a few hours to unlock costume pieces, a Task Force you do maybe once or twice, and then you never go back.
Adding new missions without adding new forms of gameplay will not make this zone any more exciting. It will just add to the reskinned warehouse mission feel of the place.
The Merit Rewards System
This feature has some promise, so I'll quote the summary:
The Merit Rewards System is a new game system that allows players to earn tokens by completing Trials, Task Forces, Strike Forces, Raids, etc. The most challenging and time consuming tasks grant the most reward tokens, which can be redeemed throughout Hero and Villain zones for recipes, enhancements, salvage, costume pieces, badges, inspirations and other game items.
Matt Miller added:
"hopefully see the end of "necessary" Task Force farming trying to get that one specific Recipe you have been dying to get."
This sounds like it is a way to get things like Miracle IOs without having to farm lower level task forces. This is nice, but a better idea would have been to create versions of those vital IO sets that scaled up in level.
The real crux of this feature is what you do to earn these merits. If you earn them from doing the same old missions, this will accomplish nothing. The problem with CoX is a lack of fun, interesting things to do - not a lack of rewards for doing them. My concern is this is just a slightly more expansive version of the Vanguard Merit system that basically fell flat a year ago.
Other Features
In addition to those "major" features, the issue promises:
New Invention Origin Sets, new Costume Sets, a Patron Power Respec, Zone Refinements, and more!
These are nice, though they basically fall into the fluff category. I have no idea why it took 2+ years to get Patron Power Respecs into the game. This was needed from the beginning. It is a shame they do not also plan to make the PPPs more interesting and varied at the same time.
Most IO sets are pretty dull, so new IO sets is hard to get excited about. Costume Options are always nice, as the character creator is still the main USP (Unique Selling Point) of CoX).
Zone refinements sounds like vague language designed to make readers fill in the blanks with their own imagined improvements. Speaking of which...
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Michael Hartman maintains a hub for articles about City of Heroes and City of Villains. If you would like to read more of his articles about this game, visit:
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