The basics of gameplay in City of Villains will be familiar to City of Heroes
players. Various contacts dispersed around the game’s zones offer missions that
can be undertaken alone or in groups with other players to earn experience and
infamy, the game’s equivalent of currency. The zones are also home to wandering
enemies that can be taken on for experience. This gameplay is not only quite
similar to that in City of Heroes, it is too similar. As a hero you could patrol
the city clearing gangs from the streets. As a villain you basically do the same
thing, except that in this case you’re doing it to take out rival gangs as
opposed to doing so to protect the populace. It’s a semantic difference at best,
and doesn’t let you get into the evil skin of your character as would, say,
terrorizing the common folk, destroying property, or even taking candy from
babies. Even the missions have a striking similarity to those in City of Heroes.
City of Heroes missions that had you taking out a criminal appear in City of
Villains, it’s just that you’re now doing it in the name of professional rivalry
as opposed to justice. Some missions do have you robbing banks or stealing data
files, but there is something missing in the evil department that will rarely
have you feeling that you are really, really bad.
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| Battling Arachnos lackeys. |
City of Villains does have an entirely new element of play in the supergroup
bases. Supergroups will be assigned a base that they can design to their liking,
from setting the floor plan to filling it with traps, defenses, workshops, items
of power and more. Supergroups can raid other bases too, and if they manage to
defeat the base’s defenses and any defending villains they can make off with
some of the defenders’ items of power.
City of Villains is not entirely a separate entity from City of Heroes. City
of Villains introduces special player versus player (PVP) zones where heroes
from City of Heroes and villains from City of Villains can both roam the
streets, complete missions, and even battle against each other. The PVP zones
add an exciting element of play to City of Villains (and City of Heroes as well)
as it a lot of fun to fight against other players, especially the do-gooders of
Paragon City. Losing a fight to a hero won’t cost you the experience debt you
would get from being defeated by an NPC mob, but the game does track your
reputation in PVP battles so you’ll want to avoid losing if at all possible.
There are several PVP zones in the game and each is restricted to a set range of
player levels to keep things fair. In fact, once in the zone every player will
have his/her stats boosted so that he/she will fight as if at the highest level
allowed by the zone. Unfortunately if you don’t also own City of Heroes then you
won’t have access to the PVP zones, and the only opportunity that you’ll have
for competition against other players is in the game’s arenas. Also unfortunate
for non-City of Heroes owners is that the arena system is not very
well-implemented. It’s very difficult to figure out and succeed in even getting
yourself into a match, and when you do the payoff hardly seems worth the effort.
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