The real problem behind DCUO

I agree with anyone trying to have a respectful conversation. Most of the posts have been really constructive.

I understand the point that the OP is making, but I have to disagree that this is the real problem. The real problem for me is the constant fiddling with powers and mechanics. I have a lot of alts - at least one for each power type. I rotate through them regularly. The two things I run into all the time are 1) I take 2 characters through the same open world content, same CR, same SP, same weapons, and my mental character (for example) waltzes through whistling a happy tune, while my celestial character (for example) chugs half a stack of soder to squeak through; and 2) MORE IMPORTANTLY, the way my powers and weapon attacks are affecting NPCs change day-to-day. I've put a lot of tome (some might say too much ) into learning how to play my characters. IMO, the absolute best thing the devs could do would be to spend several months balancing the powers on the test server, put it on live, fix what goes wrong on live, and then leave it alone! Don't worry, there are plenty of other aspects that they can develop -

I like this list (I highlighted my top 2). Not all of these are my top priorities, but there is a lot here that would be so great.

Or how about the total neglect of open world content all due to them worrying about the PS3.

Devs need to take a chance and go for it. Make that open world content. I think the playerbase is getting tired of constant instanced content. The solo is a start but not really.

Yeah, I forgot the power balancing, but if it is possible. I hope it can be. I'm really tired of this FOTM. It shouldn't be there, even if they make money with it, it doesn't help the game. They can find others way to make money like more hairstyles, make us pay to play pvp so they can fix it and make it more enjoyable with new stuff, etc.

I understand both points of the “Customer is always right debate going on.”

The truth is “A well informed Customer is normally right. An uninformed / ignorant Customer is rarely right.”

Here is an example of the customer being wrong. I work for a major transportation company running a massive national retailer account.
I was contacted today about a pallet of goods that “Major Retailer” failed to load on a trailer. They requested I set up another 500 Mile trip to deliver a single pallet.

They are the customer, if I went by the motto the customer is always right, I would have failed at servicing my customer. Creating an extra trip for them would have worked out in my self-interests, because it would have been more profit for my company short term, and more money in my monthly bonus check. However it would have also have been taking advantage of the customer, because they did not actually know what they needed and they did not know the best options, or the consequences of what they were asking. That could have cost us the account at a later time.

They were very adamant about having the pallet delivered because they didn’t want any leave behinds on their end of day report. I get that. Someone would probably get talked to and written up over it. However they made a mistake and there are consequences for those mistakes.

I got more information from them and found out it was just a pallet of paper that was missed and not time sensitive. I told them, I couldn’t put together the load for them, because it was not in their best self-interests. We have loads going to the same location every day, that pallets could easily be loaded on the trailer leaving tomorrow.

It would have cost them almost $2500 to deliver a pallet of goods, where they profit margin on it would have been a about $146.00 total. If I went by the motto “The Customer is always right” They, as a company, would have lost over $2350 because of a minor mistake, rather than just shipping it out the next day.

Honestly, we are for the most part that uniformed customer. We don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. We don’t know the numbers, or costs behind certain things. We just want that pallet delivered, wether it is good for us long term or not.

We don’t always know what is in our self-interests, even when we think we do. We have to trust the Devs to a certain extent to know what is best for us as players, the long term health of the game, and to do what is best to maintain the longevity of our accounts. We can all be rather short sighted at times. We don’t see the big picture. They do, and we have to trust them on it.

Much easier for them to buff 1 power 1 month than to make a new hairstyle. Plus fixing pvp is more work than giving us a new UI. So I am pretty sure fixing pvp went on that shelf that holds all the things the game needs.

Many people are tired of FOTM. However it is still a large portion of DCUO revenue.

In a thread that's striving for civility, your multiple insults of those who don't happen to agree with you aren't helping.

The concept of "the customer is always right" is a very old one and has NOTHING to do with "right" in the moral sense. What it means is simply this: that if you do NOT keep your customer pleased/happy/satisfied you will LOSE that customer to a competitor. If this happens often enough, you will FAIL and go out of business. This principle is very applicable to the current discussion concerning DCUO.

At what point did I insult anyone? And I understand the idealism. The fact of the matter is if you truly follow that policy then they will walk all over you and destroy the whole point of the business.

Of course you want to try to keep your customer happy, but you have to do this within reason. It of course will always matter who truly is right in the end.

All fair and valid points.

The trouble is that people who wise up to the system, don't stick around and protest it. They do the intelligent thing and bail. It's only mugs and fools like me who stick around fighting a losing battle. Their replacements don't know any better.

I don't care about the FOTM so they won't get my money from it. Never gonna use a respec power.

Using the term "idiot" and claiming that those who disagree with your view need to use "intelligent thought" aren't usually seen as compliments.

Really, because last time I bought gear I could see how much the gear cost and there is an area that showed how many marks I had. That was a couple of days ago though, things could have changed.

Loool thank God someone gets it!

I don't get it.....

Sorry for double post hit wrong button.

Anyway to answer to the MARKS ( single or not ) i had posted a while back about a system that would work alot like REAL life.

I had used the CURRENCY that they used to use in the ol' imagination game of DUNGEONS and DRAGONS.

Let's make it simple this time so EVERYONE understands:

Using REAL money instead of COPPER, BRONZE, SILVER, and ETC.

Tier 1 : prices would be in PENNIES ( COPPER )
Tier 2 : prices would be in NICKELS ( BRONZE )
Tier 3 : prices would be in DIMES ( SILVER )
Tier 4 : prices would be in QUARTERS ( GOLD )
Tier 5 : prices would be in LOONIES ( if in CANADA LOL ( PLATINUM ))
Tier 6 : prices would be in TWONIES ( if in CANADA AGAIN LOL ( DIAMOND ))
will come back to Tier 7 +

BREAKDOWN OF EXCHANGE RATES:

in D & D they simplified every monies by making them 10 of the next.

10 COPPER = 1 BRONZE ( 10 PENNIES = 1 NICKEL )
10 BRONZE = 1 SILVER ( 10 NICKELS = 1 DIME )
10 SILVER= 1 GOLD ( 10 DIMES = 1 QUARTER )
10 GOLD = 1 PLATINUM ( 10 QUARTERS = 1 LOONIE )
10 PLATINUM = 1 DIAMOND ( 10 LOONIES = 1 TWONIE )

Now let's see how we can do Tier 7:

At one point and time we used to use 1 MARK and 1 SYMBOL to buy certain gears, well this is how i see FUTURE DLC'S to happen:

Tier 7 : prices would be PENNIES and NICKELS ( COPPER and BRONZE ) ( prices subject to change but value should be the same ).
.... : what i mean by that last statement is if we look at something like the norm for say the CHEST piece ( 60 MARKS ) this would be like something like 50 NICKELS ( 50 BRONZE ) and 100 PENNIES ( COPPER ) which is by exchange rate STILL 60 NICKELS ( BRONZE )

Now before i show what FUTURE DLC'S could be like let me explain how EXCHANGE works...

So to START off and MAKE NOTES that the DEVS do NOT want us to BANK marks for FUTURE CONTENT.

So here is what i propose:

CAP ALL MARKS at 100. This leaves OUR EXCHANGE rate viable as they work in 10's or 100's.
We can EXCHANGE MARKS however WE choose AS LONG AS it does not EXCEED the 100 CAP.
We can EXCHANGE either UP or DOWN.

BOTTOM LINE: I hope everything i mentioned at LEAST makes sense but the BIGGEST thing i see to a system like this IS that ALL CONTENT is RELEVANT ALL THE TIME. So if i need to at TIER 7 get my PENNIES I COULD EITHER RUN low level TIER 1 CONTENT to obtain PENNIES OR I COULD EXCHANGE marks like NICKELS OR DIMES to get my PENNIES, EITHER way i am SPENDING my marks or EARNING my MARKS... I AM NEVER HOARDING MY MARKS.

NOW let's go back to Tier 8 : prices could be PENNIES and DIMES
Tier 9 : prices could be PENNIES and QUARTERS
Tier 10 : prices have to change a bit here as we want to keep the prices ( value of the same ) could be NICKELS and DIMES
AND SO FORTH AND SO FORTH.

2nd BOTTOM LINE : Sorry for long posting BUT i hope what you READ makes SENSE.

^^ This very much, the game has always needed a solid financial model (as all games do) but the degree to which that model has been allowed to obliterate secondary and tertiary concerns such as player investment, involvement and fun is disgraceful and it has massively escalated in recent updates with clear consequence on the population.

Power balance is in one of, if not its worse state ever, story involvement is non existent and due to a direct change in structure now really prejudices player choice and freedom in how they are able to participate, open world has been neglected to the point of abuse, pvp has become something of a farce (divorcing pvp from pve within the same system was always a crazy and impossible idea).

Sadly it seems the priority has simply not been to address the issues that affect how the game plays, or those we keep asking about, but almost exclusively to patronise the financial model, hence a minuscule fraction of the game has been left open to us to earn our keep and progress, vast swathes of the game have been left with no reason to visit or populate, new armour arrives only to render old armour worthless while content gates itself to ensure that we never really develop, content is locked in a rigid and inflexible cycle that all but denies creative input into the future, a raid by any other name is always going to be a raid its not 'new' and it adds nothing to our experience (acutely so today when it also exists to devalue or close off a previous piece of content - Mark relevancy exists at the direct expense of choice and freedom the two cornerstones of satisfying gameplay).

What the OP talks about is a shared issue across all games, one of the ones that cannot be resolved but can only be influenced, and that influence is determined by the philosophy behind the game's design - as always you reap what you sow .

As someone who is on hiatus I feel that there are somethings that should be said. A different perspective I offer.

Out of all the reasons, for why I decided to take a break from the game, exactly zero of them stem from a player requested feature/action(s). Every issue I have with this game stems directly from Developers promoted decisions.There is nothing a player can do that will make quit a game that I have payed for and have invested in.

End Post

Go try to buy the 78 gear with 70+ marks when you have a combat rating less than 70. Can you buy it? Does the gear tell you why you cannot buy it?

Just to provide an example of exactly what I was talking about with our discussion a few days ago:

Okay I have a noob question about buying PVE stuff.

On the subject of the single mark system, i would have preferred a dual mark system. One for gear, and one that could be used for rent (generator, utility belt) and possibly styles. Possibly with a 1 way conversion allowing gear marks to be converted into rent marks, but no conversion in the other direction