One of the things I like about swapping MMOs is discovering new little innovative ideas that make the game better. City of Heroes has a cool little built in feature called a 'leveling pact'. It's easy to set up, you just right click on the person you want to create a pact with and activate it. From there on in, all experience gained on either character is shared between the two, even if the other person is logged off. If the pact was enabled when both characters are first created (i.e. level 1), they will remain the same level all the way to end game, unless the pact is removed or significant death penalty is incurred.
Now, why would I be so excited about sharing my hard earned XP with someone else?
My girlfriend and I have two different types of play styles. In simple terms... I'm a little bit more hardcore than she is (just a tad). This means that I'm most likely going to hit level 20 around the same time she hit's level 14. Unfortunately this creates a bit of a level gap, which kinda ruins the fun of playing together. My only choices up to now were to either play slowly (which is fine, but destroys a bit of the fun for me), or to have an alt which I only use when playing with her.
But not any more!!!
Thank you Mr Leveling Pact!
What an awesome example of a simple game design idea, that solves the leveling gap problem when playing with friends or family. It also means that a utility class has a way of gaining equal XP to a DPS class. This makes it's easier to concentrate on healing people, and not having worry about making kills just to get XP.
It would be nice to see some other leveling based MMOs incorporate this feature. I think it absolutely rocks! ;)
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6 comments:
Dude, I know! We need to sit down after getting a bit more experience and write a list of all the awesome stuff CoH brings to the genre that other games haven't even heard of.
Vanguard has a similar system, including a system where you can form a "caravan" with another player. Not only will you share XP when the other player is logged off, the offline player will also be moved together with the online player. So no more leaving your partner behind somewhere.
I love the pact myself. The wife and I have a pacted scrapper/tank duo up at 32. Fantastic as like yourselves, I'd play a bit harder than her.
@Melf
Dude!! I've already discovered about 5 things that CoX does better than other MMOs and I haven't even reached the PvP sections yet. I'm definitely going to be signing up. I'm a little reluctant to pay $15 for a sub fee, but the game seems to be worth it.
@Petter
I never actually played Vanguard. For some reason it was never marketed well in Australia and so I only really found out about it through reading other blogs. If they have a free trial, I might check it out.
@Ardua
I think the leveling pact is the greatest thing ever for allowing couples to play together. I don't have to worry anymore about stealing her kills or rushing ahead. It's such an ingenious idea. Very pleased ;)
i really gotta give this a try. am off to see about a trial if available.
;)
You can find the trial here:
City of Heroes Trial
I definitely think it's worth checking out... although I haven't got past level 13 yet :(
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