City of Heroes Issue 7 interview

City of Heroes is not only known as a heaven for spandex lovers and do-gooders, but also for regular free expansions that add hundreds of megabytes and hundreds of gaming hours worth of content. However, with the release of City of Villains it was obvious that the frequency of the expansions would drop. Thus the first expansion after City of Villains, which will be the seventh for City of Heroes (named Issue 7) has been underway for nearly half a year and is eagerly awaited.

We had the chance to sit down with Matt Miller (better known under his hero name Positron) - Senior Designer at Cryptic Studios and talk about Issue 7 and the state of the "City of" games in general.

Boomtown: Please introduce yourself briefly and let us know about your role at Cryptic.

Matt Miller: My name is Matt Miller, and I am a Senior Designer here at Cryptic working of the “City of” franchise. I am currently overseeing the development of Issue 7: Destiny Manifest and am working on future designs as well.

BT: If you look at Issue 7 what is the most important new feature – seen from your professional perspective and from your gamer perspective respectively.

MM: Obviously the most important feature is the level 40 to 50 content for Villains. This brings their level cap to be on par with Heroes. Not only that, it’s some of the best work we have done in terms of content. We have so many tools available to us now, that these missions each seem to take on a life of its own, and many have unique bosses and objectives attached.

As a gamer I love Recluse’s Victory. It’s a PvP zone which may not fit everyone’s tastes, but the mini-game contained within it is amazingly fun. Competing for control over a zone against your enemy is far more exciting than I originally thought it would be. It’s my favorite feature of I7.

BT: The Mayhem Missions must be another highlight of Issue 7 – can you tell us more about how they are going to work and how the villains’ powers interact with the destroyable objects?

MM: Players will access Mayhem Missions through Newspapers. Currently, as you complete Newspaper missions, you occasionally get a Heist in CoV. This is a bank job or casino robbery. Now instead of a Heist, you will be transported to an instanced part of Paragon City to cause destruction and mayhem, and maybe even pull off a bank robbery in the City of Heroes while you are at it.

Nearly every object in the world is destroyable. This means cars, dumpsters, mailboxes, bus stops, statues, crates, fire hydrants, everything. In addition, the physics engine work that went into the objects blowing apart will really set these missions apart from normal gameplay.

BT: Will the Mayhem Missions be available at any level and given out from any contact/newspaper or are they part of a special/limited story arch?

MM: They are available at any level you have Newspaper missions. So players will be able to access them at very low levels (below level 10).

BT: Can you give us details on the nature of the Patron power sets?

MM: Each powerset is flavored towards the Patron Villain it represents. So if you choose Black Scorpion as your Patron, you will get a Nullifer Mace, the signature weapon of a Bane Spider Commando. With this mace comes different powers (each suited towards your Archetype).

BT: After Issue 4, Issue 5 and Enhancement Diversification, players might have a well-founded worry that Issue 7 will come with another major change in gameplay spanning several or all types of characters. Is there going to be anything at all in Issue 7 of that magnitude?

MM: We have no plans for any sweeping balance changes tied to Issue 7. Masterminds are even getting a couple of advantages that will make them more viable in PvP, which will be useful in PvE as well.

BT: The new PvP zone, Recluse’s Victory is going to be very dynamic. How exactly is that going to work out and how can players affect the situation?

MM: Unfortunately I cannot get into this now. All of the details will be revealed in the near future, so stay tuned!

BT: For veteran CoH gamers there seems to be a some disappointment with every issue – no new end-game features (apart from PvP, which is not everyone’s taste). For example there is only one high-end raid after nearly 2 years of existence, no skills/crafting, two completely opposed and problematic economic systems (influence and prestige), different game rules for PvP, no significant PvP rewards and 75 toon limit for an SG - these are all aspects of the game design that have no synergy and undermine the value of having a level 50 character. What do you have to say about what some players feel is a lack of attention to level 50's?

MM: Making content for level 50’s is almost exactly as much work as increasing the level cap. You need to give them more “stuff to do” with more and better rewards. This can be accomplished by upping the level cap to 60, or giving them some repeatable content with cool rewards. And those cool rewards will soon become passé as soon as everyone has those, and the cycle begins anew.

We don’t like to slap together stuff like this, either. We have proven in the past that we take care and implement systems that are going to be liked and appreciated by the majority of players. We have plans for “end-game” content, but we need to get both games, Heroes and Villains, to the same point before we can see exactly what the players want/need out of it. Remember, the focus of Issue 7 is to deliver compelling content which brings CoV to up to level 50.

We've yet to see the level cap being raised to 60, but of course you needed to have CoV raised to 50 first in any case. However, the developers have been really quiet about the 50-60 step (if it’s ever going to be taken) apart from hints about the Legendary/Legends system. Can you give us a brief account about the team's thoughts about raising the cap, which possible issues you will face once/if you start working on it?

MM: As I said before, raising the cap is exactly the same as creating End-Game content. We are first working on getting some really cool End-Game stuff for the players, then we will see if the level cap needs to be raised.

BT: What is the current release window of Issue 7?

MM: Should be up on the US Training Room late March or early April, but the exact date depends on QA testing.