Champions Online

It's such a shame. Probably one of the most mishandled MMOs of all time. Awful management...utterly tone deaf development team and a support team that's been here over a decade now that take ages to respond to dire situations. That is, if they ever decide not to gloss over your issue entirely. Yet...while I love this game and the community itself...the head developer doesn't seem to care at all what the community wants. The changes we want are not even massive or requiring some system overall. They are entirely too focused upon balance...and yet, they do not know anything of the gameplay despite having been a player themselves prior to getting the job. It's clear that they enjoy the suffering of others, it's literally within their title that they have in-game. We were free for a year and picked up briefly by a company called DECA. And, this is just a conspiracy theory...but I feel as though they were set up to fail by the current head dev. It wasn't a great idea to put in the person getting let go do the job of training the soon-to-be new devs taking that job. Utter conflict of interest. And yet, DECA had done a fantastic job. They listened to the community, which is paramount in such a small MMO. Every now and then, something would break, sure. But it was never something game breaking, it wasn't like things became unplayable. A few costumes have minor rigging issues. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Really fun gadgets, streams, devs who PLAYED THE GAME. However, that company was gone almost a year in, unfortunately. Picked back up by Jack Emmert's Cryptic Studios...who made the tone deaf decision to bring back that horrid developer (who was in control of Champions for ten years prior by the by). No one in the community was happy about this other than the few friends that she has since she's known since she was a player in the game City of Heroes. Unrelated to a point, but she made one of those friends a moderator in the Champions official Discord...and it was later revealed that friend was a pedophiliac. Who is still not banned from the game despite overwhelming evidence in-game of such deplorable behavior. The only way this MMO could possibly improve at this point, is to be ripped from the grasp of any sort of company only seeking to make a quick buck off of games. Being placed in the hands of the IP loving community itself would be golden via a private server. To have people who wish to play Champions Online and not just try and make it into some sort of City of Heroes clone. Otherwise...Champions Online has a great community, albeit shrinking rapidly. The costuming is fantastic and varied to a ridiculous degree. The combat does take some getting used to, as one has to remember this is quite an old MMO, so it lacks the formulaic mechanics of other MMOs...your rotation does not play itself and it will not be ideal to simply tune out on autopilot. In the late game, mobility is important, every role has its use. Creating a Freeform build is difficult as there are so many options available to a new player...but there are some build savvy folks still left in the community. An amazing concept that has survived to this day for very good reason in an age where MMOs are a dying breed...even when there were no updates for quite a long time at one point, fans still enjoyed the game for what it was. It's a pity that the current development team seems to wish to tear it all down. And Cryptic Studios refuses to see the value in a superhero MMO such as this where the market is wide open. Maybe one day it'll be freed with the release of the codes so its fans may finally have the game they were hoping for. Edit: And now things are becoming worse...a large number of players are getting banned from the official Discord who haven't even done anything to deserve it. One who was banned hadn't even said anything for over a week. I'd suggest avoiding Champions Online until this dictator-like behavior is settled. This is not okay and not the proper way to moderate.

step 1 log in step 2 create character step 3 make awesome character step 4 finish character step 5 "unable to create character at this time" step 6 realize you didnt save your costume step 7 uninstall because your mad

in order to read the real review, you must buy each word of it individually in the store. this is the kind of game where they've monetised every single possible thing they could monetise. i'm shocked i don't have to pay to accept quests! perhaps they just didn't think of doing that yet. by all means, you've monetised every other possible facet of the game into an unenjoyable heap, might as well charge for that too. p.s. i bought this game at launch, i had characters. they're all gone. i also had character slots and paid for some amount of subscription - that's also all gone. so thanks for robbing me! you can credit me with about £80 worth of the premium currency.

Yeah, no. look at my hours. LOOK AT THEM. I literally played this game since 2011, so please know that when I say do not play this game, I mean it. Maybe I'll change my mind if they wake up and figure out the issue with this game, but until them, I refuse to recommend this to anyone. Before I get to the sole issue, let me give you a summary on why it's a horrid way to spend your time. • Terrible new player experience the lead dev refuses to address; no variety, lack of options, tedious with how the energy economy is without good gear, and they think gear that'll reduce costs is a good idea when the issue is the literal cost of the powers themselves since new players don't have access to that gear • Other than like three important mods, everything you need in the game can be acquired by gambling your money away with lootboxes (the three mods I'm referring to have abysmal drop rates the lead dev refuses to address • GM moderation basically does not exist; this game has pdfs harassers and stalkers and the most unhinged people running rampant and despite how many times they get reported, nothing gets done. Lead dev was asked to handle someone harassing a woman on the official discord server and they ignored it, in fact, before this, they got someone to moderate the official discord and guess what? Turns out they were a pdf that got ousted, removed, and vanished. Additionally, the official server mass banned several people permanently, and all we can assume is that it was because the lead dev was criticized because despite being asked, wouldn't tell anyone why. Someone who harasses people but glazes the heck out of the lead dev never got banned despite insulting people left and right because they don't "score" as much in open missions still isn't banned for doing so • People have talked about how they dread seeing patch notes because all they expect is nerfs on nerfs on nerfs thanks to the lead dev having this weird idea people enjoy that for some reason. • Speaking of which, the community repeatedly tells said lead dev, don't do this, don't do that, stop nerfing this, don't nerf that. She does it anyway because [insert reason that doesn't really add up/she doesn't bother to prove/isn't relevant here] • Despite nerfing everything people like, none of those resources went into adding things people want or actually doing things fun or nice for the game. Mind you, the lead dev bragged about how they got soooo many resources this time around and how things would be different. They aren't. Things are arguably worse now. You may have noticed a lot of these bullet points involve a lead dev. That's because that is the sole issue I'm referring to. For whatever reason a dev that was laid off was rehired and replaced someone who was actually liked by the community at the time. Now that this old dev is back, it's as if they're leading some sort of vendetta against people who openly criticized their choices or just didn't like them for a multitude of valid reasons. This takes the form of them banning people from the official server, refusing to give a reason why, ignoring any requests to know why you've been banned, and basically being a PR nightmare for the company they work for. All while doing nothing to actually improve the game itself like the previous lead dev was trying to do. Sure, someone community requests were fulfilled, but when it came to things people DIDN'T want to have happen, that's when people started getting muted and ultimately banned. You CANNOT speak out against the lead dev in any capacity, or you will be silenced. I also cannot stress enough how odd it is that people aren't talking more about the fact that the lead dev brought on an ousted pdf to moderate the official server. Someone they claimed to have been friends with for over a decade. Somehow they get to keep their job despite all these negatives, and they continue to ruin the game as a result of this. I feel like this alone should've gotten them fired but as far as I can tell no one at Cryptic seems to care. Something like this should be taken seriously. After all, said lead dev removed content from the official server because it wasn't something the company they work for could support. For the record, the pdf left out of shame, they weren't banned. Oh, also the totally epic costume pieces that they add to the game are royalty free assets. There's a lot more wrong with this situation but I don't really feel like going on anymore. TL;DR don't support this game, don't waste your time trying to get into this game, just don't bother with it. It's not worth it.

I've played this game quite a bit and have enjoyed it for many years. However, the current developer is a huge negative who makes the game no longer fun to play. They have been aggressively throwing out unreasonable nerfs, and then banning many longtime players in the steam community and the game discord for daring to discuss the various nerfs. This developer has extremely clouded judgment, harbors long term personal grievances, and ultimately runs the game like a private server for an in-group of friends. It is a shame what happened for the rest of us.

Fire Kaiserin and get an upvote.

[h1]Champions Online: The Potential MMO[/h1] For the several years of playing this, I will have to say that the game has a really solid amount of features that can definitely be attractive to newcomers looking for a superhero fix or similar, however with the recent state of events, [b]I'd advise to steer away from playing Champions Online[/b]. This is 100% due to the negative treatment towards the investment players have made across years of playing this game. Spending money on this game as well as time can end up with experiences ruined due to content changes that basically kill playstyles for existing players or content that ends up being forgotten or removed due development changes that the players did not want. The game itself is an acquired taste to an extent, however, if you do manage get to the level cap in this game, your options for content diminish drastically and that is assuming you make it to level 40. In terms of gameplay, it's just an ordinary tab-target MMO with pretty simple mechanics all things considered. You can definitely play this game casually, especially considering the general difficulty across the game isn't too high itself. The game has a tutorial giving instructions and guides you through basic movements, however past that tutorial, you're not given knowledge on core mechanics that will allow you to excel later into the game. Additionally, leveling ends up being choices between running Grab Alerts (EXP queuing content) or running open world missions, with open world missions being mainly solo as the game doesn't really do a good job at enticing players to do these missions together. These are the primary options for leveling and there are other options to level in this game, however, [b]they are absolutely gimped in comparison[/b]. The development team for this game had lowered EXP rates for open missions which made most OMs less enticing to run for the sake of leveling. This results in a monotonous grind to level 40. If you've made it past level 40, [b]you're basically already at endgame[/b], the primary content loop are open world raids called "Cosmics". ten man content known as "Rampages" and Lairs if you're looking to gear up. That's it. You have events every now and they can give you some rewards as well. Problem is that there are powerful build defining items that can be locked behind events; this reads similar to Gacha games for those who are familiar. For some of these items, there is no other way to obtain these unless someone else sells them on the Auction House (very likely for an insane price). Once you get everything you need for content, you're at the mercy of the next upcoming patch as you don't whether or not the character you're made to this point will get gutted into obscurity. That's right, if a power choice or style of play is getting nerfed, it's basically being killed off with little to no way to recover. This is due to the nature of the game for the most part being in maintenance mode and since we can't reasonably expect content to scale up, we would have to, of course, scale down our players. Community-wise, most of your communication will be through the official Discord as the forums for this game have been retired recently. For any support requests, it ends up being a back and forth between requesting assistance via ARC or within the Discord itself for any in-game related issues. In addition to support, the discord houses sections for suggestions and feedback that sparingly are looked into. The biggest and most glaring issue with this is that getting banned within the Discord means that there isn't really too many ways to express your opinion on changes or get support. With recent events, a lot of vocal members have been removed for airing out their opinions regarding the state of the game and the Discord, general mismanagement from Development too. If there's one saving grace for this, is that at least it has costumes. The customization for this game is still amazing 15+ years later and it continues to do so here in this department. A lot of players that stick around with Champions Online tend to be really attached to their characters and the customization for this game definitely justifies that. If you're looking to try out this game, it has amazing customization and can be treated as side-game as post-endgame, you'll be waiting a lot for the content you'd want to run and likely AFK in the main hub. I, however, cannot recommend this game until the game's general direction has improved going forward. As it stands right now, Champions sadly does not empower its heroes.

Play City of Heroes: Homecoming instead