Champions Online

Champions Online

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sng-ign Mar 23, 2017 @ 10:11pm
Quick-guide for new players
Saw a player attempt to walk up to different characters and chatting on LOCAL (white text) the other day.

Here are some tips:

• Use Zone chat (brown / gold text) for a faster response. It's free and isn't frowned on. You don't even need to move ...

• Long responses usually come back in the form of a Private Message (PM), also called a TELL (or Whisper) - the purple text.

• If you need to form a Super Group (SG), there are usually players who will drop their current SG (most likely their own) to help, then leave you to manage your SG. Some extra tips: request doing an SG from the Champions HQ (big purple building east of Renaissance Center / RenCen) so once everyone's temporarily joined your team, everyone enters the building to register your SG.

• Bonus advice - make an alternate back-up character you control to be the Leader of your SG - if there are no more characters in the SG, it dies. And should one of your characters leave the SG for any reason, your alternate SG leader can re-invite your wayward character, and promote him/her back to Leader.

• Quick exit any map (while out of battle) = Click the origami looking icon on the map (SOCRATES / Crime Computer), and an option for "Leave Current Map" usually appears if you are not under attack or being buff'd / debuff'd by an effect.

• Fastest way to increase your level (to access all available power slots, or your Archetype's skills) is the GRAB alert (unlocked at Level 10).

• Participate in the dailies / Daily Alerts from the "Alerts Coordinator" (Crime Computer) or Lt. Patil (next to Defender at RenCen). Finishing them (3x Grabs, 3x Bursts, 3x Smashes, or one of each for APB) awards Silver Champions Recognition (currency) and Questionite. Silver Champ recog and Questionite can be used for purchases in the Q-store (button under the map) or the Champions Recognition vendor (he is at the Recognition building at RenCen) for mid-tier gear.

• The Champions Recognition vendor also sells final-tier gear. Requires Silver and Gold Champions recognition. Gold Champions recognition pretty much requires you to be at L40 (most, if not all, of the missions dropping it are) and a team.

• Free accounts (Silver grade users) are limited to archetypes, which are fairly solid, but could be bettered y adjustments which can only be done in Freeform (FF). Freeform is available as a paid option by a single Freeform slot ($50, sometimes on sale, or given away in items via special events), or by subscription (Gold grade users). Besides picking powers from anywhere in Freeform, Gold users / subscribers can color their powers (individually) and determine where the power is emitted from (for the basic animation, not the custom animations, like guns, or weapons, or two-handed emittance).

• Subscribers get a recurring 500 Zen (bound to Champions Online) at the first of each month their subscription starts.
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Showing 1-5 of 5 comments
Marquise* Mar 24, 2017 @ 1:23am 
Nice tutorial :)
sng-ign Mar 24, 2017 @ 11:03pm 
TIL on CO 2day:

• BURST alerts don't get done unless it's "Radiation Rumble" (Pyramid Power takes too long for some veteran players)

• If an alert (usually SMASH) never starts, and hangs at 59 seconds with a bunch of "X"es where players are, it means it's "stuck" in the server queue. Someone mentioned that forming a dedicated five player party to run "SMASH" alerts will eventually unblock it for everyone on the server.

And some older stuff:

• GRAB alert preferences — City Hall (shortest), Bank (next shortest/fastest). Stitch in Time and Museum Heist take about equal time to complete (including cut-scenes).

• Dying and respawning yourself is an acceptable thing. The only time you need someone to revive your character (or revive yourself using a device or another power) is for special alerts / rampages where dying puts you in quarantine (the spawn zone, or you are locked out of the boss fight).

Do not revive yourself for these alert-type missions — Gravitar, Fire & Ice, Fatal Error: Cybermind (the one with the firewall, not the giant spider one), Harmon Labs Heist (Warlord). There may be a few more, but those could be special missions (meaning non-alerts) I haven't personally run through yet. If you do not have any player who can "res"/"rez"/"rev" (revive), then you'd best try not to die in those missions (although stuff happens LOL), or get yourself a power or device that revives you if you are defeated.
Last edited by sng-ign; Mar 24, 2017 @ 11:04pm
Stryker Mar 25, 2017 @ 10:03pm 
I was hoping this was going to say, "Play something else. This sucks. - end guide."
sng-ign Mar 26, 2017 @ 11:50am 
Originally posted by Strykerx88:
I was hoping this was going to say, "Play something else. This sucks. - end guide."
You sound exactly like Jeremy Dunham (Makaze whats his face).

If you don't like the game, don't play it.

This post is not meant as a review or criticism of CO.
sng-ign Apr 2, 2017 @ 2:50pm 
Each day, like many other MMOs, there are "Daily Missions" (or "Alerts") where the rewards for players are either substantial, or vital for the end-game route. Besides alerts, there are custom missions in the case of Rampages and such.

Alerts are started by speaking with Lt. Patil at RenCen, or from the SOCRATES Crime Computer under "Alerts Coordinator".

Completing daily alerts should be the first task(s) new players should do before resuming their story mission(s) — Champions Online's daily missions are accessible from where you currently are (although participating in some will boot you out of certain dungeons / maps). When playing an Adventure Pack (the missions limited to four times / day, etc.), you will not want to schedule an alert mission, as participating in one will force you to restart from the last checkpoint of an Adventure Pack.

You unlock access to these daily alerts and rampages as your character gains levels. Each of the three basic alert types will give you a IRL one hour buff to enhance your gain or drop rate for a paricular resource (XP, MODs, or Resources).


L10 - GRAB Alert - Used for XP gain. Most players will do nothing but GRAB alerts starting at level 10 until they reach level 40. Boring, but effective.


L15 - BURST Alert - Used for MOD gain. If you need to get a bunch of low rank MODs (Vehcile and Player Gear) for Fusion, you can do these alerts. While R5 MODs are almost never dropped here, you can get up to R4 MODs from a Burst ... and then fuse them. The MOD item drop buff from this alert is helpful right before you start a story mission that will drop better idems. Note that the rank of the MODs will scale to your level. You will typically not get higher ranking MODifications until you are into your mid-30s level wise in BURST.


L20 - SMASH - Used for Resource gain. Amount gained scales with your level (max is approximately 34,999 resources with the one-hour Resource gain buff at Level 40). This alert is one of the fastest, due to the timed nature - you have to clear it in less than 2 minutes, or you fail it. You can use the max resources gained amount and your subscriber/non-subscriber status (200,000 G subscriber vs 500 G for FTP players) to gauge how much to charge for an item in the Auction House (AH) or what to buy.


• L25 unlocks the custom missions (the special alerts used in the long-term daily called 'Vigilance'). Doing them all (they are all queued in order for a period of one week, so Vigilance typically takes about 7-8 weeks to complete) will net you 30K Questionite.


• L30 unlocks the Rampages (or was it L35?). Rampages currently include — Fire & Ice, Sky Command, Gravitar, and Lemurian Invasion. Each Rampage seems to have a chance to drop a rare currency (an item) used for end game gear sold by the Champions Recognition Vendor at RenCen's Recognition Hall.
Last edited by sng-ign; Apr 2, 2017 @ 2:50pm
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Date Posted: Mar 23, 2017 @ 10:11pm
Posts: 5