Cryptic's Bill Roper on balancing powers in Champions Online
by James Egan 
Jul 8th 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Super-hero, Game mechanics, Interviews, Champions Online
When news came in of the Champions Online launch being delayed to September, a few of the writers at Massively were despondent. It's always better for a game to launch once it's solid rather than release in a buggy state, though. While we wait for the re-scheduled September 1st launch, we're keeping up with the news and interviews surrounding the upcoming superhero title. In fact, we've just come across an MMOCrunch interview with Bill Roper, executive producer of Champions Online you might be interested in.
Roper gets into how some of the game mechanics in Champions Online will play out, and explains a bit about how travel powers like flight and teleportation can be countered by those without such capabilities. (For example, how does a ground-based melee character engage a kiting opponent in flight?) He also touches upon the game's sidekick system, which will allow newer players to temporarily boost their powers to keep up with higher level friends. Alternately, the sidekick system will give advanced characters the ability to tone their powers down to the level of their appallingly weak lower level buddies.
Roper also addresses criticism of the heroes-only approach to Champions Online by saying, "We do let you design a villainous foe with the Nemesis system, and some day we might even delve into the darker side of superheroes." Whether they'll one day allow you to play a villain is still far from certain, but on the topic of villains in the game, Roper adds, "We also are going to be expanding the Nemesis system in the future to accommodate multiple Nemeses on a map, which will completely kick things up a notch!"
Have a look at what Bill Roper told MMOCrunch about Champions Online and see if you agree with him.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
WALL OF TEXT said on 9:31PM 7-08-2009
They mentioned balancing issues before somewhere on the champions site. It was along the lines of: You activate a melee attack that continuously grows stronger until you finally get in range to use it. It's designed to be able to equal up to the DPS dealt by a flier. Still, these things always work better on paper than in motion, so we'll see.
Also, I hope they don't make villains playable. That started off alright with CoH, but ended up killing it for me as CoV was the only side getting any new content and CoH only got rehashed, blander versions of those updates. Also, every hero side power seemed to continually get nerfed for the sake of PvP which, again, didn't help me to maintain my interest.
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wolfsterne said on 10:34PM 7-08-2009
My buddy at Paragon tells me that CO will be pushed back again until Feb 16th 2010, there is a lot more work that needs to be done on stability and end game...and the beta testers I know seem to confirm this.
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kaion said on 11:11PM 7-08-2009
well sometime in the last few days the devs said they are getting ready to go gold so another delay isnt likely
steve said on 10:58AM 7-09-2009
Paragon is that not the creators of city of hero's which has nothing to do with Champions Online? in which case they would know nothing about champions online?
linky http://www.paragon-studios.net/
wolfsterne said on 11:45AM 7-09-2009
Silly Paragon is many of the former Cryptic developers, they have a lot of first hand knowledge about Cryptics current project..heck some are even helping to test it. If you knew anything about the industry it isn't secret hush hush..it's more like an ol boy network where everyone knows everyone else s business.
Brian! said on 11:21PM 7-08-2009
Sidekicking is an ok workaround to let friends at different levels play together, but I wish MMOs would just remove the overarching level system all together.
I am all for advancement and unlocking powers. But I think that your first power, say an energy ray, should be just as deadly as someone with a ton of powers. The difference is that the newbie just has the first couple of powers unlocked where an experienced player has many more powers along with enhancements to those powers.
Then you don't need sidekicking, because it is just the same thing as having a big level number.
The big advantage there is that the developers can focus only on "end game" because everything is just that. Again, I love character advancement and rewards, but I don't think they need to be tied to one big level number that has too many negative gameplay elements requiring systems like Sidekicking to get around it.
Looking forward to Champions, even known Paragon punked me with a summer release date.
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Firebreak said on 12:16AM 7-09-2009
I could not agree more with you. It lets the game be a lot more open ended.
Lougi said on 12:54AM 7-09-2009
I'm expecting them to stay with the Sept. release, but another delay
would be beneficial given what I've heard as well.
For the love of all that is holy I hope that they give this game the
time it needs. The last thing we need is yet *another* MMO pushed out
the door early with buggy, unbalanced, unfinished content, that grabs
mass box sales but has absolutely no retention past the first couple
of months.
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ScytheNoire said on 2:34AM 7-09-2009
Any time I see anything mentioning Bill Roper I get this bitter feeling inside and want to run away screaming.
I guess I'm still a little jaded about him and the whole Flagship thing. Mythos gone. Hellgate gone. Founding subscribers ripped off.
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Zen said on 11:38PM 7-09-2009
I empathize, I was one of those suc...er, 'Founders.' >_< I'm just confounded that Cryptic chose Roper to be their mouthpiece directly from his last high-profile job. I don't begrudge people a second chance, but there simply HAS to be someone else at Cryptic able to speak to media? The man is everywhere!