City of Heroes Issue 9 review (PC)

What can make heroes return to their call? What can make villains more evil than ever? Neither the promise of glory or riches nor the promise of saving the World or reducing it to shambles could. No, the thing that turned out to be the biggest attraction of all was inventions.

In other words, the newest (free) expansion for City of Heroes/Villains, which introduced a crafting system called inventions, has proved to be exactly what the games needed. Not since the first double XP weekend have the servers seemed so crowded and the sheer amount of online players create heavy lag every time you approach the auction houses, where inventions and ingredients are traded or the universities, where crafting basics are being taught.

The path to happiness

The expansion is titled Issue 9 Breakthrough and has been quite controversial, since the City of games always have been heralded as crafting-free. You didn’t have to spend 100 hours mining that precious metal just to create a special sword that would be obsolete 10 levels later anyway. You didn’t have to meticulously learn new crafting skills. In City of you could just have fun, even if you only had 15 minutes gaming time. So would the new Inventions system ruin everything? No, it certainly does not.

The developers at Cryptic have created a brilliant system that fits on top of the existing game. You don’t need ever to bother with inventions if you don’t want to – you’ll still be just as cool as you used to be, the real difference won’t be felt till you reach the higher levels anyway. But if you do dig into the system, you’ll get a new flood of options that will make any hero/villain player happy.

When I grow up, I want to be an inventor

Inventions need ingredients called salvage and you get salvage by defeating enemies, completing task forces and more. Those ingredients can then be used for making recipes, which you also acquire during normal gameplay. Salvage and recipes are grouped in different categories and can be common, uncommon and rare. Repices can be used to create enhancements for your powers, which especially after level 30 are better than the standard enhancements, that can be bought in shops, temporary powers and costume pieces (so far wings and boots). The brilliant idea is that many of the enhancements (which often have two or three different effects themselves) go into sets that give you even more bonuses.

The Nightmare set is a good example. The set consists of six enhancements. As you acquire the recipes for all and put them into a fear power (for example from the Dark Miasma power group), you get extra bonuses on top of the individual enhancements. Already after the second enhancement (say fear/accuracy and fear/endurance) you get a special bonus that makes your fear power last longer.

If you don’t wish to use your recipes or salvage, you should go to the new auction houses. Here you can trade any object and especially the costume pieces rake in exorbitant amounts of game money. In first few days after the expansion went live, some costume pieces like rocket boots would net you at least 30 million influence/infamy. It’s clear though, that heroes have been around longer than villains. The prices on the hero side are much more steep than for the villains simply because most high-level heroes have tons and tons of game money. However, the trend is clear – prices are coming down as even the most rare recipes are being put on sale often already.

Bad players need not apply

The two other big new features of Issue 9 are a new Hamidon encounter and the Statesman Task Force. I haven’t been able to join a raid on Hamidon, yet, but it’s been completely redesigned and villains can now also attack him. Hamidon is the big end-game raid and Cryptic’s programmers have struggled since the raid’s introduction, as the player base was able to think of strategies that turned the raid into a bore instead of the challenge it was thought to be.

However, I did try the Statesman Task Force and to me it’s clear that this is the pinnacle of what you can do in the game right now. Every mission is challenging and requires a different strategy and the Task Force is much more versatile than the Recluse Strike Force, which is the ultimate mission series on the villain side. Contrary to the RSF nearly every type of hero can be used for the STF, but there’s one thing you can’t be without: Every player on your team has to be not just good, but excellent. Teams fail and will continue to fail because of bad leadership and bad players. I even had our only defender go AFK (away from keyboard) during a fight with the arch villain Mako – one of the toughest opponents in the Task Force. If you’re on a good team, the STF will last 3-5 hours and afterwards you’ll be exhausted and proud. The fight against Lord Recluse is brilliant, tough and fun. Best of all: You do feel like a hero once you defeat him. Well done, Cryptic.

New life to the franchise

As every other issue before it, Breakthrough comes with tons of small improvements that just make life better. Take the trainer in Peregrine Island (cool-looking Castle) or the fact that you can now sell enhancements in Kings Row. The City of experience feels smoother than ever. There can be no doubt, though, that Inventions have not only put life back into the "City of" franchise, inventions have also secured the games as a whole. No new zones or archetypes could have had such a big impact on the community, which is buzzing right now and that is always something that draws new players to a game.

Cryptic will be clever enough to expand the system from now on with every new Issue that comes out, because they really hit the nail with this one. The tons of enhancement slotting options create a diversity and nearly unlimited options for creating your own superhero/villain and best of all – it also finally gives the big nerf two years ago known as Enhancement Diversification some kind of sense. My only concern is that the players find to use the new invention enhancements to create toons that are way too overpowered in the developer’s eyes making another series of nerfs necessary. Hopefully the system is designed well balanced to make such harsh adjustments unnecessary. It could potentially ruin the great feeling most people in the "City of" community have right now.