Champions Online: The Nemesis

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’ll admit I haven’t been following Champions Online all that closely, so maybe this Nemesis idea has been explained somewhere. If so, can someone throw me a link?

I get (or at least, I think I do) that the basic idea is that you create a nemesis for your hero at the same time that you create your hero, and I presume that your nemesis “levels up” more or less parallel to you doing so. And I further presume that over the career of your hero, you’ll repeatedly have to do battle with your nemesis.

Assuming this much is correct, what I don’t understand is what the incentive here is. You can make a customized nemesis with all kinds of special powers, but given the opportunity, most players would make the wimpiest nemesis they could (special power? pillow fighting +1!!) so they could rush to cap that much more easily. In order to offset that tendency, I’m guessing there’s an incentive to making an interesting and powerful nemesis.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what that incentive is?

July 14th is the launch date, in case you somehow missed that news.

10 thoughts on “Champions Online: The Nemesis”

  3. Hudson pretty much hit on what I suspected, which is the game would give you something every time you defeated him and the stronger your Nemesis is the better your reward would have to end up being. So there would have to be some incentive to make him powerful. Remember, people want to get to End Game so they can get the shiny purples and if defeating a powerful Nemesis helps you achieve that in the end, well, everyone will be up against super bad guys.

  4. I guess what I was thinking is… if one of my hero’s super powers is resistance to cold, what’s to stop me from making a nemesis who has the super power Ice Beam? So even though your Nemesis is really powerful, he’s weak against you, particularly.

    But I’m probably over-simplifying things.

  5. People will always try to “optimize the fun” out of a system they have control of. Still, I’d rather have the control than try to fit a dev’s definition of fun.

    As such, I suspect there’s nothing stopping you from that sort of duality, Pete… but there’s nothing stopping you from making something crazy hard either. Smart devs will scale the rewards accordingly.

  6. “But I’m probably over-simplifying things.”

    I think you are looking for a perfect online game that will never be made. Perhaps we need Freedom Force 3 but offline only play?

  7. Pingback: West Karana » Web log 4/27 — the Calm Before the Storm edition

  8. Happened to show this to Boyfriend this morning and he pointed out something, at least in regards to your comment about an ice resist hero vs. an ice power nemesis. Isn’t that the way superheroes are supposed to be? If the most evil villain in the world used nothing but ice powers, wouldn’t you want a hero who could specifically combat ice powers?

    I agree that it’s possible people might make weak nemeses, but I think balancing the powers (heat resist vs. fire power, invulnerability vs. guns) is appropriate for the theme of the game.

  9. I guess.

    But here’s what I’m visualizing (and I’m not in beta or anything…I’m just naval gazing here…I’m sure they’ve thought of these issues and have systems in place to deal with them).

    Me = Ice Resistant. My Nemesis = Ice Bolt Thrower Power
    You = Flame Resistant. Your Nemesis = Fireball Thrower Power

    So if you and I are partied together, I have more to fear from YOUR nemesis than I do from my own. And that seems a little odd to me. I have special abilities to protect me from my Nemesis, but not from yours, and not from ordinary villains.

    And maybe that really is fine. Nemesis doesn’t mean “most dangerous” after all. And you’re right that if I’m a superhero and I have a nemesis, I’m going to do whatever I can to tailor my powers/abilities to take out my nemesis.

    But what if instead:

    Me = Ice Resistant. My Nemesis = Ice Bolt Thrower Power
    You = Flame Resistant. Your Nemesis = Lightning Bolt Power

    Now, your Nemesis is still scarier to me than mine is. But both our Nemesii (?) are equally scary to you. Do you get bigger rewards for fighting your Nemesis than I do for fighting mine? I hope so. You’ve set yourself up with a “higher difficulty rating” and I hope the game rewards that.

  10. They have stated that you dont get to do what you have stated here (i.e. match your strength with his weakness) but as far as a solid reference goes I can only say I’ve read it in an interview. Keep looking, you’ll find more info.

Comments are closed.