DCUO Holiday player population

Ok so player population in this game has really really dropped the last few weeks. Obviously that can be explained with some holiday reasons like people are either travelling or busy elsewhere but it's also technically the time of year both students and office workers etc would be more at home and playing this game too. The HoL and other maps feel like ghost towns. The LFG chats other than goldbots are pretty quiet. Ques for things like even current episode or seasonal are kinda slow. Broker isn't selling items as much. Leagues and friendlists aren't online. Gotta say it's really feeling slow on all fronts and I get we're now in a post pandemic time where there won't be as much players home and playing but still... Just really frustrating trying to stay logged on when no one else around.

Based on what schedule? When I was in school, we had finals (college) or preparation for finals/projects/etc. (grade school) until a few days before Christmas, especially when Christmas was on a weekend like this year. Now that I work, we're swamped until that same weekend. The bulk of time off is usually Christmas through New Year's.

It's not just DCUO but the population is noticeably down on FF XIV too. Since there is only like a week & half till Christmas, I guess people are really just to busy to think about gaming. I don't believe it is indicative of any looming issues faced by any one game over the other. Up until today, I have had to work late every night since Sept. It's just a busy time of year.

Agreed, many leaguemates and friends are inactive. Even by accounting the holidays, a daily run of the seasonal and episode content already takes at least half an hour, and then you have people running the same content with multiple toons so there is definitely a burnout. The current episode also doesn't have much to offer now that many people already maxed their renown and gear and gotten all the feats, we just have to wait till either the anniversary event, or if there are new episode vendor items or another world boss to get activity rolling again.

It's early-mid December, people are still finishing those big bursts of work before their real time-off begins at this point, both in work and in school. Plus: It's Christmas time.... when people are trying to spend time together, go out, get and prepare gifts, arrange gatherings or parties, etc. Yes, people get time-off during Christmas time, but there's a lot of other stuff people are gonna wanna use that time-off for during the holidays than just their video games and other hobbies. Time-off doesn't necessarily translate to more gaming time when there's other stuff going on that for most people is gonna take priority over said games. This is actually not only not weird or concerning but actually quite expected IMO. And as others point out: Christmas breaks don't always start quite this early into the month for a lot of people. Heck, not everyone gets Christmas off because maybe they don't celebrate it so it's just another workday to them or maybe they're in a job like a hospital job that can't give everyone holidays off because of the high necessity of the work. I, a student, am already done for the semester but my parents, both professors, aren't and still have work to do (my dad even still has to go into campus for his work). It's currently December 15th, and a lot of people don't go on break until much closer to the actual holiday(s) they celebrate. Not everyone's break, if they get one, starts at the same time. Plus there's people in other countries where it may not be celebrated as much so people in those places may still be going about work and school as normal.

Well today in dcuo , I saw the at the character select , the Q waited time was longer. so a lot people playing dcuo today

This is the sad fate of DCUO, it is a game that does not retain its players over time, the DLC has already been completed by far wild players, now they are on another game by the time the new DLC arrives. If there were not this ridiculous token repeat system the activity on the game would be in my opinion more regular.

Not to mention the loss of many players banished because of glitch abuse that had not concerned the devs when he knew about it, but it finally turned out to be viral for the game once deployed....

Are people still in denial about the games population? This game has a very low player base. Regardless of what some of these “MMO tracking playerbase” websites say, the proof is in the pudding. Switch is rotting in the grave, Xbox is on life support and PSPC is in retirement. It’s been a long time since the game was in it’s youthful weekend partying and daily gym going phase.

The game lacks enjoyable replyabity. Emphasis on the enjoyable part. Plenty of content, but it’s all reskinned “kill monster x amount of times” and fetch quests. Add into account weekly loot locks on the latest content, business wise maybe a smart decision, but as always that doesn’t coincide with a happy customer base. Old content may not be loot locked but plenty of players have run old raids and alerts hundreds of time in the years they have been out.

Add in a lacklustre DLC after a 6 month content hiatus and an absolute mountain of mega studios releasing their games over the holiday season and the playerbase drops even further.

I’m not saying the game is completely dead, but it’s not body popping on the disco floor. It’s just the reality.

Is this another "DCUO is Dying but I won't share any ideas at all about how that could be fixed" threads?

Kinda looks like one.

Clearly, one solution is to abolish holidays.

It's because every DLC is always the same, every seasonal is always the same, 14 years, always the same.

The seasonals are never expanded in anything other than rewards (except the Anniversary event), nothing has been added so they appeal to no one other than new players.

The DLC's are worn out now, 2 years of repetitive dark knights content did a lot of damage, the lack of base core DC content like classic Batman, Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, Superman, Lex Luthor just astounding.

The game feels like DC Fringe Magic Character/Wonder Woman Universe Online at times.

It needs to go back to its core, it's lost its way and that's why its lost its appeal.

It also doesn't help that the game has been crashing A LOT more recently. I don't know about everyone else but when I go to teleport and the game makes my PS5 shut off, I really don't want to restart it and log back in to have it happen again in 10 minutes.

In an industry that lives and dies based on the new shiny, an MMO lasting 12 years, and still having an active enough player base that makes all content still playable is a credit to the devs.

We'd all be a lot happier if we could just have more content. It's really what it boils down to.

It's funny to think that way back when the game launched and I made it to level 30 and was zipping around the watchtower picking up my daily missions I thought that we'd be getting different solo missions every day not just the same ones over and over. could you imagine?

The game would benefit from a little more random. Something to mix things up a bit. Don't know how that would be accomplished. An alert that mixes up ads and bosses each time you go in.

As it is I'm "done" with this dlc as far as my main and top alt are concerned. I've got full renown and elite gear on them both, toons three, four and five are getting there soon. I like that I'm bringing up a few of my mid tiered characters, pleased with their progress...but I do wish there was more to do. Running around the open world to get the new briefs reminded me of how much potential there is in every area of this game.

As usual I would love to see some new characters brought into the mix. Some different Flash and Batman villains, the Doom Patrol, some silver and bronze age inspired instances, more Legionnaires...

I remember the first time I discovered the portals to raids, and wandering into the Inner Caverns raid before I knew what a raid was. Standing at that tunnel, and thinking "Ooh robots!" and then being swiftly killed, and beating a hasty retreat, then a week or so later getting into a raid party and going "aaah"!

This is the problem though, the repetition that sinks in. When I came back in spring of '21, I looked forward to logging on every day, there were new open worlds, raids, and alerts. 18 months later, after I running my weekly raids, and my bounties, I only have about 30 minutes of daily activity, 40 minutes if there's a seasonal. By Sunday, I'm bored.

They used to do that with random Alerts in what you got as bosses or maps could be multiple choices in episodes/DLCs like Starro and Riddled with Crime. They dropped that after and haven't done that for a long while. Ok wait there was the Wonderverse Solo yeah so since then. Since the mass Dev exodus I honestly don't know if we'll get that randomness in missions ever again. Ok I stand corrected for a second time in Godseye Pyramid Alert it shakes up which Monstrosity we fight first and which we fight against Isis so ok. But yeah more random instances in at least the Solos/Duos/Alerts would go along way to curb episode fatigue. Oh and getting the same missions in the open world every day sucks too. There was a bit of a mix up on the rotation with Death Metal and working five dailies to get a extra weekly one but for SoBA nope same old missions every day. Super underwhelming there

They made a Hotfix recently for the PS4 that addresses the crashes but I'm assuming it's not so easy a fix for PS5.

I think the Metal storyline might've been a good idea for something "different" for DC content and I'm assuming it was done to be more in line with what storylines were going on in the comics at the time so it makes sense but probably not to us non-comic readers. But I don't think anyone figured that this Metal stuff would go on multiple years for multiple episodes, so yeah? I mean for crying out loud the original dev Nerd of Prey who was into the Metal stuff hasn't worked for Daybreak for years and I think Metal ran longer than her tenure there so um yeah most of us were pretty happy when it finally ended mayhaps?

Did I write any of that? Did I type DCUO is dying? And myself and lot's of others in multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple (you get the idea or probably not given your post) threads have shared our ideas but that doesn't mean it'll change the way the game is developed. I'm just saying what anyone who plays this game knows is that population is down and given it's the holidays that's looking pretty suspect for the future of this game, just saying.

Yeah I think with all the other games releasing their new stuff and how short DCUO came up with the Black Adam episode it's not even a contest for attention from other games. Most endgame players are probably playing a ton of other stuff given this less than overwhelming update.