Whats Going wrong in DCUO [from a player of 4+ years]

I thought I'd just put my thoughts on the forum here in terms of where I think this game is/has gone wrong in the past 12 months or so, maybe longer, hopefully we can get to a point where we can bring back some of the nice things.

Difficulty Level

It seems that ever since Origin Crisis the difficulty level of this game has been compromised, ocassionally you even see a glimpse of it come back from time to time, but then it's all washed away again, so quickly it's then again forgotten.

Something I noticed from Origin Crisis is that, in that content, it was difficult, you had to gear up before running content, you had to run small content first in a 1-1-1-1 format before progressing to the raids. Even then doing the raids was difficult, but not impossible - there was a challenge to be had, all the bosses were hard, not just the last.

There was a glimpse of this returning when "elite throne" came out and it posed an actual challenge, then when Happiness Home elite came out all that was washed away with a raid that was practically the same difficulty as the normal mode. Here's a hint, "adding just one extra boss" to a fight that is merely tank and spank to a large degree doesn't necessarily increase difficulty. Then the last fight was virtually the same as normal.

To be honest every piece of elite content since then has been exactly the same "a repatition" of normal mode where the bosses have a slightly higher CR.

It's so bad that as evidenced in the last Episode people were just spamming the first 2 bosses of a raid to get elite gear, because you haven't even made the loot tables different there's no motivation to finish.

Also a bit of feedback in terms of some last boss fights recently. It's not a satisfying experience to see the illusion of difficulty being put in the game by just making a bunch of random adds spawn every 10 seconds where you have to burn them down before one of the adds randomly kills 2 people in the group with a one shot.

This isn't my idea of difficulty, it's not a fun mechanic it simply feels like lazy development, we can't think of a fresh mechanic so we're just gonna make heaps of adds spawn.

There needs to be some difficulty added into the game again; some real difficulty like we saw in the likes of Origin Crisis.

The key message I cannot stress enough, is even if you are pumping out new content each month, people don't have to finish that content within the month to want to move on to the next. it's like you're trying to push stuff so quickly you're not even giving anyone time to breathe.

At the moment people are spamming content day 1 they're completing the content within the first day with nothing left for the other 28 days.

We've got the opportunity to cater to both audiences the "elite' and the "casual" but at the moment it just feels like the elite content is being used as a "tool" to cream the population of more replays.

Replay Badges

It's not my place to say "how a person should spend their money". If a person wants to spend their money on replays in a game so be it. But this needs to be balanced with "protecting the integrity of the game itself" along with "making money for the company".

I get it the company wants to earn money from replays, that's fine. but it's becoming a bit of a farce, when a person doesn't gain strength in the game via commitment but rather through how willing they are to open their wallet.

Replays have been a part of this game for the longest time and it's difficult to pinpoint the exact point where it became a "viral problem" for lack of a better phrase.

I feel "replay badge sharing" has been somewhat detrimental to the game because it takes away any "personal expense" you get people suddenly real world trading replays in game and people then have an ability to spam content even more without the personal restriction of "being accountable for how much money you can afford to spend".

This is somewhat problematic too, because you have people with lifetime accounts, not even original owners of those accounts, claiming their replay badges every month, selling them and not even continuing to play. They have a main account elsewhere and they're moreso just hoarding the money away - having somewhat of a detrimental affect on the economy as a whole as well.

This "replay attitude" is evidenced by the fact the content is being spammed day 1 and you end up with people having full elite gear before the new episode has even dropped for premium players. They're then taking off, not hanging around, thus creating or contributing towards an overall population decline during certain periods of a month.

The "over use" of replays or over accessibilty of replays through sharing of them is also evidenced through the fact people are "prepared to blow replays" to only farm 2 bosses of elite content to gear up, they couldn't even care less about finishing it. This was not an attitude present during "origin crisis" or even "throne of the dead elite" because gear was restricted to certain bosses, a motivation remained to finish.

Clipping, Weapon Mastery, Advanced Mechanic

This game originally started off with a fast paced combat system that involved "clipping" "jump cancelling" and the like. This combat system attracted a certain type of player. I was a green lantern for the longest time, sometimes not very good at it, but it was fun anyway.

This type of combat system was fun to some, required skill only some players had to master, while others struggled with it.

Then came Weapon Mastery, it was decided that an alternative combat system would be invented to "revolutionize the combat in game" and provide players "who weren't good at clipping" a viable alternative to be competitive. It was sold as "clipping wouldn't be changed" but that "WM" would provide a viable alternative to players who chose to go down that path. (oh how we were mislead)

jump cancelling got nerfed with the dovetail animation, clipping got largely speaking removed and the damage performed through WM was so insanely better than "clipping damage" that it became no longer "viable".

it wasn't the "alternative" to "clipping" that we were sold, it was the complete covert removal of clipping and effectively an overhaul of the combat system as we knew it.

during this stage too, despite in my opinion there not being a real problem, weapons began getting nerfed because bad PVP players complained about imbalance and suddenly "haymaker" WM for example was nerfed into the ground. Also having a flow on effect into PVE. Who cares though right, as long as it stops the people crying in PVP...

Then came the almighty "AM" it was decided hey it's a super power game so lets let people "enjoy their power moves" and watch them in all their glory. Through this process "clipping" has become virtually non existent bar a few moves, while people go through a 1-5 rotation of powers (with most AM's being completely cookie cutter with very little variation from a designated power sequence).

I mean I'll let you in on a little secret here dev's from my perspective. We've got 2 large trees of powers in any power class, however; in any AM there's basically only every 5 viable powers in an optimal DPS rotation. I mean really? why are the other powers even there? It's almost like you may as well. It's almost like you may as well hand players 6 powers in a preset loadout when they choose a power type and tell them at the start of the game to just press 1-5, it'll save a lot of headache.

You then get people trying to enjoy themselves, using moves they think are cool, only to find they do garbage damage, treated like trash by the community because they can't go outside the 1-5 cookie cutter and then the rest of the community gets blamed for being toxic when you've created the 1-5 cookie cutter AM scenario in the first place.

The main question here I'll express is "why can't we be given what was originally sold"?

"Why can't we be able to "clip original style", "use WM" or "use AM" and have it generally speaking balance out in terms of damage? Why do we have to be forced to use whatever concept is being shoved down our throat when there is the potential for there to be the "three viable damage options". keeping all sides happy.

I do not see why each and every "subsequent combat technique" had to destroy it's predecessor when all we're talking about here is a mathematical balancing act.

Player v Player

Good god, this needs to be fixed and needs to be fixed quickly. PVP has and always will be a driving force of population in this game. When this game was "alive" for lack of a better phrase, the PVP server was booming.

Villains and Heroes would war out on Hospital Roof top, nightclubs, Police Stations, Superman Park... Now it's a wasteland.

You'd go into the WT in PVP Phase and the place would be teeming with life and players dueling each other. Now it's a wasteland and this is because PVP is neglected at the expense of the "PVE cash cow".

Devs I know you can sit there and justify not doing anything with PVP because the players are a "picky bunch" and want everything done a certain way, but that doesn't mean you should just sit back and not do anything.

PVP gear is obsolete, it is absolutely destroyed and pointless. PVE gear has so far outstretched it that it's meaningless. This should never happen. It's almost "toughness" means nothing. Except it's supposed to be the "be all and end all" of PVP defence.

PVP desperately needs a new season and it needs it as soon as possible. It needs something to freshen up the PVP community, new styles to strive for, new feats, new weapon styles, new exclusive content just for PVP.

If players then want it, they have to be motivated to do PVP to get it. We should not be sitting back and letting what is effectively "half of this great game" go to waste.

Also I feel another aspect that has ruined PVP is the "automatic scaling". If people wanted to be good at PVP, they had to PVP, they had to learn how to fight and they had to learn how to counter.

it was a rough road to begin with going up the ranks and you often did it from losing and losing repeatedly, but as long as there was enough of a reward in doing so, people would persevere.

You earned the gear and eventually became better. Now you get people with zero gear, going in effectively being "given" gear, scaled to the level of their opponent, making the whole "pvp chase" quite meaningless and frustrating" for the serious PVP players. It's like you're slapping them in the face and saying "hey we know you earned this, but here we're going to handicap you so you can't be too mean on this little guy?".

The question I'll ask though, why does it matter, pvp doesn't cost them money, it's not like they're losing money by losing in pvp.

Another questionable "heavy handed" move "threatening to ban people because they throw matches". This never really was a problem it's just a small vocal minority that got a bit upset because people would go into lair battles and throw a match or two if they knew they didn't have a chance of winning. Instead of taking the "surrender" as a compliment they got all upset, complained on the forums about people throwing matches. and if nerfing the marks in lair battles wasn't enough, it was decided in "wisdom" to start threatning people with an almighty algorithm that if you threw a match on purpose you "might cop an account suspension". That is not a way to encourage people to "actually pvp".

The other thing I'll say about pvp, is that it was a mistake to bring "all the maps" back into rotation. There are maps some players don't like as much, but might only play if they're whats available that week. Now with everything available, there are maps that are just never played.

I think it could be beneficial to go back to a "pvp map rotation" that changes weekly not fortnightly and never has the "same maps" from the preceding weeks, so there is always some freshness. I feel this would help speed up queues.

Lastly I feel like it could be of benefit to somewhat disable "AM" from pvp. I know people have often gone as far as saying get rid of 'WM" as well but the thing with WM is these combo sequences are easily counterable.

AM's are not as easily counterable due to their nature. You've got certain AM classes that are just absolutely unbalanced in pvp such as "lantern" "nature" and "celestial"

The stuns on these powers are just insane. Not only are you fighting not to be "one shot" by the first AM crit hit, you're trying to avoid being "controlled" by every second construct or "plant trap".

There needs to be work done on ensuring "crowd control" is not overwhelming and that pvp can once again focus on "combat technique" and timing, rather than who can do the biggest crit first, while your face is also spinning on the roof.

Gear

It feels to me that gear is being pushed above all else. There is too much speed in which gear is changing.

I stated this in an earlier post that quite often you'd have best gear hanging around for up to 6 months, now we're only getting 3 months out of it and not only are we only getting 3 months we're getting 2 sets of "desirable gear". rare gear and elite gear.

This has created an "intense rat race" in terms of getting the gear before it has a chance to become obsolete, you also want best gear to increase your chances in the likes of survival mode, and we all know everyone wants that platinum SM shirt or a vanity pet.

A suggested solution, maybe have the "elite gear" last longer than just a three month period and spread the elite content out a bit further, or maybe have only 2 pieces drop from each elite piece instead of 4, reduce the drop frequency and make the 8 pieces remain relevant for longer? I don't know the exact math behind the proposal, but it's just an idea.

More Tradeable "Iconic items"

This game hasn't had any significant tradeable iconic items in forever, this game used to have carrots to run content that went beyond the gear chase.

The Captain Cold Hood for example. It feels like there has been nothing like this since moving on from the "base game".

It would be nice to see more items like this drive your "replay carrot" then just the simple "drive for better gear".

I'm sure people would replay content if there was a chance they'd get a "heatwave chest" or something that they could sell or trade.

Skill Points

Skill points desperately need to be made meaningful, I know some people would go "but all I need is 77 to max my dps". That is quite frankly a stink attitude" it shouldn't be ok to just get the bear minimum and then say "ok i'm done attempting to better myself or my player.

People should and need to be rewarded for grinding out feats or having the necessary skill to get challenge based feats, it should never be possible for a 77sp player to match a 250sp player, it just makes no logical sense. Previously in this game a "good 250sp player" would destroy a low sp player; and that's how it should be.

If you're one of those 77sp players saying "but I've done enough to deserve to" my answer is "no you haven't" if you want to be on par with a 250sp player then you need to get grinding and stop making excuses not too.

Skill Points need to matter again!

Long post I know, I'm sure some people may disagree with aspects of it, which is fair enough, but I felt it would be good to express some constructive feedback from my point of view as a long term player, who has actually bothered to stick around through all the changes, despite the negative ones, because at the end of the day, I love this game like many others in this community do too, but it pains me to see it "failing" in certain aspects which were once "flourishing".

I'm not a fan of clipping personally. I actually largely enjoy WM.
Clipping feels too "metagame" and weapon mastery is more...overt.

That being said, advertising that weapon mastery would be an alternative and then making it the only viable option does indeed feel dishonest and misleading. If clipping is going to be replaced with weapon mastery, I think it's better to outright say so.

I do enjoy AM, but I hate how DPS focused most of them are. I also hate how set in stone they are,
not really allowing much creative control.

To me, it doesn't feel like replay badges have been around that long at all, but yes, they are a problem.
It's like, alright, I got my subscription/I've bought the DLC, I have access to all the content, but what's this? ANOTHER paywall?

some of us barely can afford our basic living expenses. I don't like pay to get ahead games. It's not fair.

As for difficulty, I prefer toggles. If you wanna play hardcore content for extra rewards, that's AWESOME, but some of us don't find that enjoyable. Easy, Normal, Hard, Hell difficulty toggle. Easy gives you less reward, normal gives you the expected amount, hard gives you a tad more, and hell difficulty is the most rewarding.

I mean, if I'm in the mood for a challenge, and I got a good group together- YES.
However if I'm gonna be pugging it, or if I got a headache that day or something...

Accommodating everybody, from casual to hardcore (to fickle people like me) will be the best idea, most likely.

For taking the time to write all of this in a constructive matter, I agree with everything 99%!

i have nothing but respect for this post...
everything is completely correct and well said...
agreed on every topic..

Yea, I completely agree.

Elite content, hasn't been the first attempt at "hard content" and "easy content" either.

You'll know all about "FOS expert" for example and "FOS Novice".

I just see no reason why the "elite content" has to be so easy, like it is. People shouldn't be queuing in and "beating" normal content so easily day 1, let alone commencing to destroy and farm "elite content", that's just ridiculous.

If it's called "elite" people shouldn't be going in with an attitude of "it'll be a cakewalk". I mean it's called elite right..

You only have to look around the WT and the fact that "everyone is rocking 6+ pieces of elite gear to see that the entire concept of "elite content is a farce".

I mean, I mean this with no disrespect to anyone of course, but are we all really, this "elite"? lol

Yeah, they gotta step it up a notch. It can't just be a little bit harder. It has to be an entirely new level of difficulty.

They have got to find a way to discourage pugging in the later content...
like, making it so you've got to have a fully formed group, or at least 3 out of 4 in a 4 player alert,
or 6 out of 8 in an 8 player raid, with the appropriate roles and gear.

That way they don't call for a nerf when their party gets wiped because they went in blindly.

I disagree. Four good players should be able to beat an alert, even if they're not in the same league - a skilled individual can work well both with a team of people that they know and with a team of people that they do not, provided that those people also know how to work. Encouraging 'league mandatory' content furthers that unpleasant elitism and in a world where we can't even fill an entire Alert without crossfaction placement, it's a bad idea.

Besides, working with new people is fun and I'd hate to see it discouraged.

Just gonna throw this out there, clipping did not require skill it was easy, it was go on Youtube and copy what you see exactly like it is now (only it was far more buggy and messy). Now it's been officially implemented in the game players don't feel as "special" for going outside of the base game mechanics and you confuse that with skill.

going to youtube for a lo should only be a start.. people need too learn the power for themselves..
there are some good lo on you tube but most of the time it is still not the best damage..
people are jus lazy and want everything handed to them without the effort the few of us enjoy putting in to learn a power..

the reason for the difficulty downscaling is simple.. replay badges..
the easier the content is the more replays players spend farming it.. its ridiculous


when UM was released on ps servers the raid was hard and the drop rates were really really low..
people spent hours in the raid and replayed it to spend hours in the raid to get nothing but marks..
when they released it to the rest of dcuo (non legendary players) it was nerfed and the loot drops were raised..
this was a spit in the face to every legendary member that spent a replay badge.. even the ones who didnt

i am losing faith... i truly love dcuo... but at this point they need bigtime improvements or they wont have a devoted population to sell replay badges too

I think what DCUO really needs is a player base that is actually willing to undergo the changes it complains about wanting without complaining about the results they get.

The vast majority of all "Devs You Should Fix ....." threads aren't suggesting anything new, The #1 complaint by the player base in any given area is "the game is no longer the game it used to be". It expanded and it grew.

Bless you Proxy. Preach sister. I all but forgotten about PVP and how glorious it was. And Clipping with Jump Canceling with my HL toon

I appreciate that Mepps comes over to the PvP section every few months or so to keep us updated on the progress of looking into PvP, that is after all his job, to make sure the community knows whats going on.

However, he isn't a developer. Like you said, PvP needs SOMETHING as soon as possible. Even if it's just a developer-made thread speaking on paths to take for the future of PvP, a discussion thread where we can all chime in. That would satisfy me because only then will they know what we want most and how to go about implementing what we want. It saddens me that a few months back, Mepps actually came into the PvP section and was clueless about the many downsides of PvP. That showed me that our section had been neglected and the most important threads in that section were made for nothing. It's very sad when the thing you love most about the game is blatantly ignored.

What I'm afraid of most is developers implementing a PvP "fix" that nobody asked for, because they haven't been reading through the right threads. Sometimes, when they think they are doing something good, it is actually the opposite, which most of us dedicated PvPers constantly try to prevent. Which in result ended with Mepps stating that WE AS PVPERS DECIDED THAT WE DO NOT WANT OCCASIONAL CHANGES TO PVP. No, that is false. We didnt agree with one change and somehow, this got twisted into developers thinking we don't want any changes. Some of us are so frustrated with the state of PvP that we slander the devs, the company, and the big boss..whoever that may be. It's wrong that we slander the people who create this game, but it's almost justifiable considering what's been done to the aspect of the game we love, and what's currently being done to fix it (Nothing). It's basically at the point where anger is the expected reaction, because we've already tried everything else.

Like I said above, I appreciate Mepps commenting in our section every now and then. But it just isn't enough, we need more than the community relations typical comment. We need to dicuss steps of improvement with DEVELOPERS.

It doesn't help that literally the only consensus regarding PVP is that "Other people should be playing the game like I play the game".

People that liked grinding for EQ insist that everyone else should HAVE to, people that think it makes the game unapproachable cry foul if you DO use the stuff you worked for, the 'One Hit Certain Death' crowd demonizes any PVP changes that occur as a result of PVE balance changes, and the never ending Clip Cancel / WM / AM argument will never die.

Not to mention that, aside from literally installing a switch in your character that locks you into a certain playstyle forbidding use of the others, there is no actual, effective way to balance all three of those things since the level of variables involved is too high. We can't even get AM and WM to cooperate without people insisting that we HAVE TO make one of them 'the loser'.

I'm so sleepy to read this. I bookmarked it for now.

I disagree with the difficultly level post, hh on villians was never easy, black Adam was and is a OP pain, much deadlier than superman, zoom also was a pain as he would never stay still and regularly pull people around, stompa would jump around like crazy killing everyone if people didn't lock her in a corner defying tank abilities, lashina reflect kills many aswell as 1shotting tanks with her spin or stun. In NGN 1st boss it still proves difficult for many, NGn lb u need great dmg to kill adds or they will build up and cause a wipe. In UM it was a major struggle for many, in BD many could not beat LB for ages, difficultly is even in duos like flash museum where people struggled for a while. You cannot state there is no difficultly when you play with fotm powers at top cr, powers like ice make content so much easier.

You are right about the HH for villain side, Black Adam was a lot harder than Superman, for no logical reason. The other points you stated are just correctly implemented mechanics your group needs to work through. When NGN first came out, that first boss really defined what it means to be a good tank. It took skill to solo tank that first boss, especially as rage earth or fire. Ice had it super easy with that DLC. All of the UM runs I have ran were with pugs, I have not seen any problem with that raid so far, it always went smoothly every time I was in there. To the overachievers and the (I hate to use this word but it works) competent playerbase, the game is too easy. Fact is, when set up with the right group of people who all know their role, all have communication, and all have one common goal (to finish the raid), nothing is hard once the challenge is beaten. It really isn't about fotm powers.

One of, if not the best post I have read in years.

Everything was dead on, but the sad thing is nothing will come from it other then a ton of well deserved likes from the forum community.

you get one yourself!!!