Champions Online -- Enter The Friendly Necromancer

The other day Nimgimli from DragonChasers was musing about Champions Online and showcased a screenshot where he hadn't logged on to the game for 3,731 days. It got me so curious, I decided to log on and see what I could see as well.  He had me solidly beat, I only had a level 2 character (game didn't stick for me at the time) and it had only been around 2,100 days since I had last logged on.

Why is it that "fire" as a super power always seems boring or cliché? 

So, since I was logged in, I decided to make a new character.  I was instantly drawn to "The Tenebrous" or Darkness powerset. As a class it's labeled as a support character, but I was drawn to it because . . . necromancer, hello! 

horns upon horns upon horns

There we go, now that I actually liked my character choice, it was time to give this game a go! Several hours later, I was finally level 12. If I was to sum up my first 10 levels in this game in one word, it would be "strugglebus." 

Welcome to the portal that leads to strugglebus central

1- I was getting knocked out left and right by boss types. The game attempts to teach you about the block mechanic, but it's a little vague about just how much you're going to rely on blocking damage when it comes to bosses.  It just didn't click for me and timing attacks and blocks is an acquired skill.

2- The game has a "star" system for performing at your best, which is a little strange. The game wants to encourage you to go grind on little feeder mobs until you're powered up to 5 stars, and then take on the bosses when you're powered up. It's super weird, y'all and took me a while to grok what was even going on.  I hate this mechanic so much. I hate that if you fail, you become more apt to fail because you've lost stars. I don't get it. Seems like you're just setting people up to fail and fail some more. Of course, you can "buy" stars . . . so . . . seems like a feels-bad-mechanic.

3- Because I was losing to one particular boss and my only quest was to defeat him, I was lost in my quests and felt stuck, so I started wandering . . . and that's exactly what needed to happen. That searching around and exploring finally led to some new things to do. How completely old school, right? Eventually this led me to "UNTIL missions" -- United Nations Tribunal on International Law. 

Just wait until I finish this UNTIL mission.

The UNTIL missions at least gave me something to do even if the final boss was super super difficult and I just couldn't beat him . . . it was a frustrating experience that took a long time to not complete, and to be left failing over and over at the final boss was demotivating.  You know what it felt like?  A multiplayer mission that I was trying to solo -- even though the quest clearly stated that it was cool to solo this quest. *shrug* so I backed out of the mission and went back to the main town.

Now that I had gained a few levels, I was finally able to take down that original level 7 pesky boss I had kept dying on and then I was suddenly drowning in quests, which was great. I'd much rather have a dozen things to do than feel stuck on one thing.

Overall Champions Online is in kind of a weird state right now since the anniversary celebration is in full swing. My inventory was overflowing with Water Balloons, Disco Balls, and pieces of cake, which leads me to the next strange thing about this game . . . where . . . is . . . the . . . vendor . . . to  . . . sell . . . stuff  . . . to?  I found plenty of vendors that wanted me to buy stuff, but none that would actually buy MY stuff. I ended up finding a bank and chucking everything in my inventory in there just to make room until I can actually find the vendor I'm looking for.

It's a slammin' party though in Millennium City

So, overall, it's been a frustrating challenge playing Champions Online so far. I like it though for some strange reason. Maybe it's just because it's a bit different from the usual fare.  It's definitely not as sleek and smooth an experience as DC Universe Online. On the other hand, I'm not bound to run into Batman as an NPC. 

Imma keep riding the struggle bus here for a while and see where it leads me. If you have any hints or tips for a new player, leave them in the comments below.

Happy Dueling!