City of Heroes gets crafty

By Robert Purchese Published 7 March, 2007

New features added.

NCsoft has announced it will be adding crafting to City of Heroes / Villains by introducing a new Invention System, which will allow players to equip user-created items to enhance a character's super powers.

"We tried to think of new, exciting things that enhancements could bring to the game," said lead designer Matt Miller.

"We determined that adding mini-powers to your existing ones had a lot of potential, as the sky would nearly be the limit on what we could accomplish with these new enhancements."

Each new item will be created from recipes and ingredients that will be mugged from your enemies. Different types of Invention Salvage will be stripped from different types of enemy, so magical foes will produce magical salvage, and science-based opponents will drop science-themed loot.

Meanwhile, there's now an option to create Invention Sets: groups of enhancements that all slot into a single power, and which increase in potency as you add more items to the set. All of your super-power boosters will permanently bolster your spandex hero's powers, and some will add new bonuses such as extra health or faster endurance recovery.

'City of Heroes gets crafty' Screenshot charty

An orgasmic chart to illustrate proceedings.

"These bonuses are powerful, they are always active, independent of the power they are slotted into, and encompass your entire character giving them things like Defenses or Resistances, or an overall boost to their Damage," Miller added.

The better the invention, the harder it will be to come by, and unique enhancements are only usable once per set.

NCsoft hopes this will give you a myriad of possibilities to slot and build your character, making personal decisions for your character and playstyle.

The new addition will be tested behind closed doors for now, opening for public scrutiny when NCsoft deems it ready.

Miller continued: "We are proud of this new system and not only do we hope that our existing players will love it, but we also think this is a compelling reason for new players to get in and check it out!"

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • bigjimbeef #1 5 years ago

    This actually might entice me back to CoH/V..

    I only played it for a few months, but the lack of depth was what really put me off it. That and the fact that I just kept creating new characters so I'd get to play with the character creation tool :p

  • InfiniteFury #2 5 years ago

    Mmmmm, just started playing this myself as a break from WoW and a bit of crafting would help spice it up no end.

    Hope it's out soon.

  • gkscotty #3 5 years ago

    The current estimate among CoH fans is for theinvention system to hit test in a few weeks, and be released on live in April.

    I'm personally looking forward to it, CoH has a GREAT combat system but not much to do outside combat, and the inventions could really shake up some of the cookie-cutter builds and power slotting. (I'm looking at you, three-slotted Stamina)

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #4 5 years ago

    Look, there's a chart!

  • gnarl #5 5 years ago

    As someone that has only had a casual glance in the direction of CoX, about the only word I understood there was crafting. So it may be good for the existing players, but it's unlikely to entice this new player.

  • spongebob #6 5 years ago

    Where's the powerpoint presentation? No pie charts? Seriously, that's bad PR.

  • MrChuckles #7 5 years ago

    COH has the best combat, best character creation, but the worst item set/drops. When playing it, i just miss finding a new sword instead of 'Accuracy 15'...yawn.

    Hopefully at some point, someone will take all the best bits of all Mmorpgs, then we'd have 'City of Guild Warcraft'.

  • FunkyRenegade #8 5 years ago

    Looks good :]
    Some new stuff should make it even better for me.
    I've only just started it, for a similar reason to InfiniteFury, to have a bit of a break from WoW :p