I see the Mac client is available as a Beta. Hmm it has my interest definitely.
But I still have some basic questions. If the game lets you pick a specific hero, like Spiderman, then can you team up with a friend who also is "another Spiderman"? I find that…. odd.
Also, sticking with the "I choose Spiderman" example. Can I customize my Spiderman? Can I choose if he is a Yellow-shirt or Blue-shirt Spiderman? Or do all Spidermans look exactly the same?
And skills. Does my Spiderman have an individualized skill-tree to select/choose/handpick from? Or when I level up, does the game already hard-determined exactly which skills any given Spiderman will always have?
Customizability and replayability are my concerns above.
I will try to answer as best as I can, also being a new player.
You can choose from one of 6 free starter heroes. Spiderman isn't one of them. When you choose your character, thats it. It is like one character per account BUT you can unlock all the others, about 30+ i think. And switch between them at will while still in the game. Takes about 6 seconds to switch.
You get the other characters by a few different ways.
a) They drop as a rare item
b) You spend some of the in game currencies called Splinters and buy a hero that way (i did this)
c) You buy one for real cash
Now, apart from getting a new character there is something called Team-Up which is a completely different way of using a character, your other purchased characters are not team-up characters, you buy them separately using the same method above. They join you in battle and are AI controlled. You can configure them to fight for you in different ways, e.g. just supply bonus stats, defend me etc.
The amount of configuration for the characters is quite complex. There are Omega Points which is a hex grid tree based skill boost system, synergy points, power points per character which are your main skills and you put into them as you see fit. Weapons that level with you, crafting, enchanting etc.
You also get costumes, these change the way your hero looks. For Hawkeye I have 3 costumes "Old Man", "Default" and another one, can't remember but I guess they match the comic styles. You can enhance the costumes by adding buffs to them via the crafter.
Speaking of the crafter, he is unique to you account and you level him up by dumping junk items on him. You can level your NPC enchanter, weapons, armor guys separately. As they level up they unlock new things they can do for you.
The best way to learn the game is via youtube as they seem to want you to discover things for yourself. The omega points baffled me up to a few days ago.
Edit: Each character has their own set of skill trees. It is like having 30 classes to choose from. You get 3 branches of skill discipline and can mix and match the branches or just concentrate spending your xp into one branch (lots of different builds).
When you switch to a newly acquired hero, he starts at level 1 and you level him up.
One thing I really like is that there is a teleport system called body slide that all characters get at level 1 that gets you back to the nearest hub (like a town) to sell junk, offload items for other characters that you find etc..and can optionally send you right back to the spot you teleported from. It has a 7 minute cool down so you can whiz back and forth while questing with very little downtime when you bag gets full or you need to teleport elsewhere using the hub teleportal gateway thingies.
There are supergroups (guilds), friends lists, create a party too
You can party up with the same heros, e.g. 3 supermans.
Not sure about the Team-Up system if you can buy your own character as a team-up character to join you though.
You unlock your character skills as you level up, it is up to you if you spend points into the new unlocked skill though.
Oh, almost forgot. Use the steam version of the client, not the standalone Mac Client. Steam will keep it updated for you and you get to talk to your friends via steam too. It's just a nicer management system imo. I have two copies of the game on my mac, will delete the standalone version in a few days.
Hope that helps.
Anim
