Dear Devs:- so my concerns with this new DLC/structure of the game.

Ok, so I just wanted to express concern about the overall direction of the game, content expansions.

By the time this new content comes out it will be 6-7 months since the last piece of "permanent content".

First - it's sad that I have to use the term "permanent content" because content has now been reduced to "permanent content" and "time limited events".

Now this is where I'm primarily worried - Our memberships are being diminished at the expense of trying to entice free and premium players and increase "micro-transactions".

During the events you're now pushing people to replay to attain all the feats, you're overlapping events putting more pressure on people to play more or replay more..You're on top of that releasing time capsules, still with feats in them every 8-9 weeks.

It's like the lessons of monthly content - where you developers said you understood the "rat race" feeling seemingly haven't learned anything at all, as you've not eliminated the rat race at all simply created other means of doing the same thing.

You've restructured the maze (I'm sure there's an Ranx joke in there somewhere) but the pressure to race to the other end has remained the same.

Now where I'm concerned too is that you're giving away free DLC to people for a month and clamping people (apparently all people) in open world while this is carried out? How is that fair to paying members or people that have bought the DLC because you want to give it away for free, when the whole DLC structure in itself is paid for by paying members and DLC buyers?

This is where the dicey line between trying to entice free players while also respecting your paying players meets the asphalt on the highway and when do you cross the center line?

It really feels like "as of late" paying members have been subsidizing free players, while at the same time being neglected; just look at the starro event for example, we were supposed to get an exclusive member aura, but it's trade-able, we got a member raid sure, but the mask mods are trade-able (sure we get some extra spores, but still...) - I'm not actually opposed to these being trade-able, they're just not a "member gift" or "perk".

There are all these incentives being pushed towards free players, but I think we need to remember "they're not paying" meanwhile the "paying subscribers" continue to be pushed to spend more on replays, continue to be pushed to spend more on time capsules, while at the same time being left to feel this way.

Why in the entire time of this game haven't there been reviews made to the membership perks, they largely speaking haven't changed in 6 years? why not?

And in relation to time capsules - still seemingly no end in sight in terms of the fact they're incremently increasing skill points and going to get worse as more come out, no signs of improved drop rates and what makes matters worse is I can't help but feel resources are at this point being diverted to ensure there's enough content to push out in these to the absolute detriment of "actual DLC".


Why is no work being done on a "time capsule vendor" and reward system to help obtain these feats in a more free and reasonable manner?? such as awarding a currency etc. It doesn't matter if you re-release the capsule as drops, less people are opening them and this is certainly not fair on new players or even players that want to change powers but are reluctant to do so because they can't get a "critical head mod" etc.

For example how many resources are spent making styles for capsules as opposed to styles for DLC's??!?

From a customer perception™(lol) I felt I had a duty to express the frustration that I'm seeing and likely others are too and felt it should be shared with you.

Preach. Man. Preach. Like I told you in game, I share your same view points. I will NEVER buy those capsules ever again. I spent $100 to get nothing but ********. It's better just to accumulate money from another source then buy into those items from the boxes. The capsules are an infection on the DCUO community. I am thinking about unsubbing since I maxed my inventory already. I don't even know if I want to do the next DLC.

They can afford hella nice earphones to easily block out your complaing from the $$ they obviously rake in from every1 who supports pay2win shortcuts and gambling.

It's not fair. It's also not fair that the only permanent DLC someone who bought a membership exactly one year ago got were KCT and AFIII.

What's worse about time capsules for me is that over time these are going to keeping adding and adding each cycle, until the stats revamp comes out and there's actual noticeable differences between individuals who have a 40 sp gap between them. Playing the broker isn't what these skill points should come down to for the people who don't have wads of cash laying around. I've gotten most of the feats, but I know many who are burning out/burnt out trying to get them.

I'd also love to hear their take on why they believe the membership benefits are good the way they are.

One last thing. I know it's been like this for ages, but tying regular and elite raid loot locks together kills a lot of the fun in the game after the first 2 months of a new DLC, and is a very flawed system when not taking into account replay badge sales. After the initial month, the next 4-6 months until the next permanent DLC are filled with people breezing through reg raids fully geared every week since they have little incentive to run the elite versions. The current stage of the game is evidence of this, as people are completely bored of AFIII, since it is quicker to run through these raids than a majority of the LPVE stages.

What im having a real issue with is the people who sub get all the rewards the episode has to offer and its being implied that its a perk. Its not. For the past 5 years if ya sub u get all the content in the dlc/episode and all the rewards. So getting the same thing we have always gotten is not a perk just because part of the content and rewards is being offered to f2p/premium players.

Over and over on here people have been saying the member perks need an update/revamp but instead perks get offered to people who spend the least or dont spend at all Some days i feel like supporting the game is meaningless. Im not going into my other concerns but ill say i agree with proxy a lot. There has been a direction change going on for the last year and some parts of it are very concerning. The sub feels very devalued to me. Open episodes, stabilizer keys i get that are extra because of my sub mean nothing because of the bad drop rates, no new legends, being stat clamped down to the level of a f2p player, etc. The only real perk im getting is no cash cap and content. But content seems iffy to me now. Im not sure whats coming in the future with that.

This last TC i acquired 95% of the TC rewards from the broker. I had 31 keys saved up. From those 31 keys i got 1 piece of the gear and a few common collections. Everything else i bought off the broker. The 2nd TC was about the same for me. But i was planning on subbing for 3 months for episodes only going forward but after seeing the announcement today i can say im going month to month now. 1 or 2 months for the episode and i wont sub again until the next one. I cannot commit to dcuo like i used to until i feel im getting my moneys worth.

Lastly i have to question why this is being done with the new episode? Obviously its to entice people to sub or buy the episode. I had 3 people on discord today say "it reeks of desperation." Now that is just their opinion. But it made me think. If enough people were subbing/buying episodes would this be happening? Needless to say im really worried going forward. I will be sticking around for ep28 but after that i can honestly say my dcuo days might be numbered unless things change.

Perception. Like you said, members always got the full rewards etc. And other players did and do not. So it is a perk, just not a new perk. There have always been cases where DLC buyers/premiums were not able to get all rewards/content coming with that episode, for example when vendor listed plans were exceeding the money cap in pricing.

You are totally right about the needed change in direction. DCUO is still preferring to punish non-subscribers over rewarding subscribers. They still go the "make the non-payers feel bad so the subscribers can feel better"-road. And the result is a near toxic openening post like the one we have here, that can easily be reduced to "Devs, don't you dare to give the other folks any more free stuff!" or "I pay and thus I demand to have a significant advantage in game over non-paying customers" as in "please keep the pay-2-win parts we can argue away so we paying subscribers can feel sooooooooo great and stop doing the free event stuff so them who don't pay can't close the gap."

And that blatantly ignores the population development that goes away from subscribed players. It blatantly ignores that Daybreak has no problem with moving away from the vets and long time players as well. If someone feels like the subscription is being devalued: cancel your sub(s), make sure it's all of them. And realize how Daybreak will not react to that, and thus how unimportant you are to them. Maybe even feel miserable about it, whatever. DCUO is an outdated game in about every aspect of itself, and to all the people still firmly believing that it should continue the ways it abandoned years ago in order to survive, that it should focus on subscripiton and a few thousand hardcore players etc - please send me something of that stuff you're consuming, since there are days when I don't like reality either

One reason I feel the game simply is not worth it anymore. I understand trying to get the freemiums to sub up and stop being stingy bastards, but they're doing it wrong. They're overdoing micro transactions and cutting down on legendary benefits at the same time. Sure you can bring up the long list of benefits, but in today's day and age it's certainly not enough to entice someone to sub up. Hell not even owning all the dlc is enough anymore because freemiums will just be able to increase cr through major events and dlc previews. What's the point of purchasing dlc or subbing to progress anymore?


If you're gonna steadily remove incentive to spend money on the game, you need to replace the benefits that you're killing
off, in example, time capsules should be free for legendary players with a drop rate similar to lockboxes. People who sub should not have to worry about micro transactions to keep up, end of discussion. Over 90% of your player base has never spent a dime on the game and this is how you're getting them to try to spend money? With handouts?

The game closer is on the mound closing the game out with cash grabs before the plug inevitably is pulled. Just a guess.

^^^THIS. This is reason #1 I had to take a mini hiatus.

Hang on a second, I'm paying money to play and support this game in the form of an ongoing membership yet when I want to complain that my membership is being diminished so that "free players" can get more that equates to me "being toxic" I'm sorry but I absolutely refute that and honestly think you're tad out of line with that comment.

If I'm paying to play this game then there is no unreasonable sense of entitlement here, I'm actually 'paying' to play unlike a "player catching the free ride'.

That expectation is in absolutely no way toxic.

It doesn't even sound like you're playing or paying anymore and I've seen some pretty negative comments from you lately telling people almost "outright to stop playing".

That is horribly non-constructive.

This^^^^^^^^ whole post..... never agreed with you more!

But btw am I the only one who wants quarterly content back? It's waaaaay better than whatever we have now. Waiting 7 months for permanent content... well I really hope it's not the same size as AF3/other quarterly content because that might make or break the game for me.

alot of what you just voiced is why I dont really play this game anymore.

I think the major events should be dlc as well to be honest. It would just be dlc for all players regardless of cr instead of just for end tier.

I wouldn't totally mind that IF it were permanent.

Af3 was a joke as it was same size as quarterly but yet 2x as long plus. If this aj is same thing...then they need a refresher on content size vs time till next dlc.

Consider this. Most TC's are purchased and opened during the 1st month of the DLC.
Getting F2P players in on the Grand Opening of the DLC; sells more TC's.
Everything is about TC's.
The DLC will be stale in a Month; F2P's will be gone.
Members can twiddle their thumbs, until new content with a new TC comes about.
This is the new norm.

I completely agree. We're waiting longer for less content, to then have our sub mean less and for us to be pushed towards buying Replay Badges or Stabilisers. It's an awful system.

Member neglect
Capsule feats
Time limited content

... no concerns about this new DLC. I was mislead by the title that this would be a new conversation. Interestingly enough, where I had doubts, you've convinced me that some of the changes are actually drawing in new players, and getting all players to play more, without costing me anything.

If you pay to support the gaem, the value you get back is its ongoing existence. That value hasn't change since the game still exists, If you pay to get perks on the other hand: the only "perk" that changed is the "new content" access, since the release schedule changed. Yet, that change was announce, and because of it there was a membership sale at a very reduced price about 8 months ago.

So I suggest you stop trying to present yourself as some shiny knight with noble motives and try to come again.

I consider every customer who knows the deal, pays for it, and then tries to negotiate a better deal afterwards a jerk. And yes: pointing fingers at a certain group of players at explain "I don't want them to benefit from me 'supporting' the game!" is toxic. But you showed already in other threads that you run with a very "unique" perception and definition of "toxicity" around these forums.

Correct, that's my line of "comments". However, it's meant as piece of advice I give to people dissatisfied with the game (and its projected direction and I agree that there are a couple of reasons even to be pissed off as a paying customer, yet you pitched none of them in your OP nor in this answer). The core of that advice is: if you are not happy with a product, stop buying. Words are cheap and will never change a single thing about a product.

If you buy a blurayplayer at amazon, you know the price and what you get, and you can write as much of a bad review as you like about the player, it's jerkish to do so because you expect/want an extra bluray with it that was not part of the deal when you bought it - no matter if people who bought it a week later get that bluray and 10% off the price. If you donate 10 bucks to animal shelters to support them you can't tell them to not care about cats (or dogs or cattle or any other specific group of animals) either. Yet, your behavior here is a combination of those two examples, depending on where you put your motives first.

And yes: it is actually more constructive to stop paying (and playing) if the product no longer suits you. That way Daybreak gets feedback they can account, and they can react to. Point is, what I already posted: That way might end you up with noticing that your idea of how the game should be is unimportant, unprofitable, unrealistic etc. and Daybreak might not even notice you cutting your sub. You don't have influence about the change Daybreak makes, but: with enough people quitting, there for sure will be a change. There is however no "enough" for people ranting on the forums that will force Daybreak to act in the game, because acting on the forums will do the trick already.

If you want some changes, you quit, and maybe leave feedback about the why. Quit because the subscription is no longer worth it? Yup, that's an OK statement. Quit because the game is buggy, server access/login gets worse and worse, quit because you do not like the concept of feats behind paywalls that come additionally to the membership payment, quit because the content does not provide a challenge? All OK reasons, yet some of them may touch points that Daybreak will not change because the number of players attracted beats the number of players lost when accumulated as income. So there may never be a form of DCUO that attracts you again, depending on your main reasoning.

Pointing at other players demanding that they should not get certain stuff: totally toxic attitude.

Hope this clears things up.

You guys keep posting the same type of threads everyday. Without fail. Nothing is going to change with the actual business model. Nothing is going to change with the direction of the game.