Marvel Heroes 2015 Review ( Part 3)

GAMEPLAY

Combat, Environment, Movement and Targeting, PvP, Exploration, Progression, Achievements & Rewards, Learning Curve, Difficulty, Raids, End Game and Replayability
        MH is fast paced like no other ARPG, thrusting the player into a wild and crazy world of enemies ripe for destruction. Combat is fluid and fun with great physics of object destruction and ragdoll bodies flying through the air. Movement and targeting is more action and location focused than target focused. In addition to the crazy number of item drops, players are rewarded for exploring with treasure rooms and other events. The progression is smooth, and grows in speed with each character a player has to 60. There are tons of achievements and rewards to pursue, but the learning curve can be a bit steep. The game is very easy starting out, but grows in difficulty with the end-game raids and cosmic instances requiring strength and skill. There is a ton to do once a character hits level 60 and the replayability (at both 60 and for new characters) is the best I’ve seen in an ARPG because it all ties together.

COMBAT, ENVIRONMENT, MOVEMONT AND PvP

      The Combat in Heroes is hands down the most fun, crazy and nonstop action I’ve seen in an ARPG. The enemies just keep coming, hence the initial reference to Gauntlet. Remember the scenes in the movies where the heroes are in New York fighting vast waves of crazy enemies, surrounded by nonstop battle? That’s what the game offers. Head to Midtown Manhattan. It’s crazy fun. Not only do the enemies try to kill you, they also fight among themselves. Jumping into the frenzy of Midtown or the Industrial Complex is chaos of gang wars against demons against robots and numerous other Marvel Universe baddies. This game lets you kill things on a scale that I haven’t seen in any other ARPG. And fighting numerous super-villains only makes things that much more interesting, especially at end-game. The combat truly makes you feel like a superhero.

   
     The Environment is highly destructible. You can toss cars, destroy equipment and obliterate the area around you depending on your powers. The Havoc physics engine does an excellent job of representing things ranging from ragdoll animations of your fallen victims flying through the air to pieces of the crates you just landed on exploding in a frenzy of chips.

   
     The Movement is very fluid and focuses on running, teleporting, “pushing” (i.e. movement attacks that do damage) and jump/landing. There are so many enemies in the game that Targeting usually revolves around executing actions at a specific location rather than focusing on a single target; but for bosses and some cosmic toughies, single targeting is a must. In the end, it all depends on the hero and build one is playing. Some characters are designed for AoE placements on the ground while others are designed for maximum single-target damage.

     
      MH does have a single “beta” PvP area players can try out. While I queued up for a few PvP challenges, none of them “came through” and at this time, PvP is held as an unbalanced joke by the Community. The core of MH is about PvE and collaboration, so there’s no surprise here. It’s unknown if Gazillion plans on making PvP a viable option in this game, but the potential is definitely there as MH could easily embrace a similar League of Legends style approach with interactive maps and events. However, balancing the wide variety of skills for each hero to be compatible for both PvE and PvP would be a monumental task, which is probably the reason it’s currently not held as a viable play option. 

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EXPLORATION, PROGESSION, ACHIVEMENT & REWARDS

     When running the storyline, Exploration is a must as the maps do have a random layout (based on a core template) and entrances/events/locations can be moved around. The only way to find the treasure rooms is to explore a map in full, and due to the dynamic nature of the mini-events spread throughout the game, hunting them down can be a fun endeavor, especially for those who are looking to gain achievements (which is covered below).

   
      Hero Progression is very well-balanced. For each of my 60’s, I never felt as if I was grinding, and if I wanted to take a break from the storyline, I would just run the challenges or legendary quests. It goes by rather quickly because it is so much fun. It is also very nice to be able to level characters outside of the storyline through challenges. If you want to spend a ton of time in Midtown or the Holo-sim, you will be rewarded for doing so!

   
       MH added Achievements on April 30, 2015. There are 10 categories: Collection, Crafting, Enemies, Exploration, Game Modes, Heroes, Miscellaneous, PvP, Raids and X-traordinary Feats. Each achievement gives between 10-25 points (some a few more) and there are a total of 11,705 points. Achievements award Titles, Coffers (boxes that can be opened, some containing specific items), Omega Boxes (which provide Omega Points), Takedown Awards (which can award items you’ve been farming bosses for, a nice way to address people who haven’t found a specific item due to RNG), Miscellaneous Items (costume variations, and other random boxes/tokens), and new items only awarded through achievements (most being uniques). The complete FAQ can be found here.

     
     you want a game that Rewards you with more item drops than anything else, MH is for you. The sheer volume of item drops is crazy and often overwhelming to new players, but since items are used to level up crafters, vendors and companions, they are quickly either donated to a crafter/vendor or consumed by your pet (either through item vaporization settings in options, or by pressing J to have your companion “suck them all up” and apply the items towards reaching their special stats). The game also has a little bugger named Doop who is essentially a treasure goblin; when you kill him, he’ll explode with a variety of items. There is also Cosmic Doop, who drops many more items than his little counterpart and takes quite a beating (while dishing out damage as well). Cosmic doop only spawns in the holo-sim or in the world zones. There are rewards provided by the game for logging in every day, which is nice incentive. The game also features numerous boxes that contain random (and sometimes specific) items that are awarded a number of ways; through challenges, achievements, etc. There are also fortune cards, which have the chance of providing costumes and uniques.

LEARNING CURVE DIFFICULTY AND RAIDS

    The Learning Curve for MH is a steep one. While a player can quickly jump into the game and start playing, the tutorial is quite lacking, and it’s very easy to become confused on augmenting items, what to keep, what to toss, and how the crafting/enchanting system works as a whole. It’s important that players study the tooltips of everything the crafter offers so they understand what can be accomplished and what components are necessary. There is also a bit of a learning curve on playing your hero as it gets more powerful; while there’s no “perfect build” for each hero, there are standards that need to be met in order to enjoy end-game (cosmic, raids, etc).

    The Difficulty of the game didn’t really start to stand out for me until around level 40+. There are three core difficulty levels: Normal, Heroic and Superheroic, which are applied to the storyline. MH is actually quite easy the first run-through; but I think this is a good design. It exposes the players to much of what the game has to offer without punishing them too much. Beyond the 3 core settings, we have Greed, Red, and Cosmic for the instances. Cosmic is the most difficult and unlocked at level 60; and it’s brutal.

     MH has two end-game Raids designed for groups of 10 players, and they are extremely difficult (yet fun). They are Muspelheim (Green and Red) and Axis. The raids have much more complex mechanics than any of the instances or challenges. Much like MMOGs, players must work together in order to defeat the bosses.

ENDGAME AND REPLAYABILITY

     End Game is quite extensive and complex, not just due to hero outfitting, but also strategic selection of Omega Points and Synergies. An interesting note is end-game also includes building and leveling multiple heroes to obtain the Synergies, so one doesn’t have to stick with outfitting their level 60 in order to progress the overall strength of their account. Once a character hits end game, they generally focus on obtaining their legendary item, level 60 uniques (best in slot for the class), and the right combination of artifacts. There is also augmenting uru-forged weapons with runewords, enchanting unique items, and applying blessings to artifacts. After that players generally pursue upgrading the grade of their uniques with recipes (which take commendations) and also look to acquire custom crafted unique items (such as the Fragment of Twilight). Players also look to stack their relics (which can go to 1000) and strive to acquire the grade 80 version of their legendary (which takes 1000 odin marks). And that’s just for one hero. Players also re-roll their pet in order to get the best statistics; that alone can take dozens (and sometimes more) of rolls for each property.

    The Replayability of MH is fantastic because the game is designed to entice players to try and build different heroes while providing reward for taking multiple heroes to both 50 and 60. Add that factor to the above End Game details, and the fact that all effort goes into building Omega Points — a player never runs out of things to do.
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