Dev Discussion Update: Time Capsules, Quarks, and Costs

You're trying to justify time capsules and all this BS, FEATS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE BOUGHT! This is ridiculous. Why don't you listen to your community for once instead of trying to milk money out any way you possibly can??? If you actually listened, you'd probably make more money and perhaps old players would come back? It isn't right, and I don't think any mmo has ever went this far on the money grab train. Correct me if I'm wrong tho!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

Justifying robbery doesn't make it less so, it's still robbery. Players have begged for years for quality of life improvements, challenging meaningful content, exhilarating gaming experience...instead we were handed time capsules. We complained, that led to more time capsules, we complained louder, then more time capsules...

When can we expect to start seeing some of the things that aren't seemingly tied time capsules?

Scenario: A "player" joins the game. Spends a couple thousand dollars on stabilizers and maybe pays gold sellers to get enough cash to buy time capsules. Opens capsules. With the gear and feats they are at end-game without having played more than the tutorial.

How is that "optional"? How does that not undermine the entire game?

DCUO is going to discover that whales are an endangered species, and once the whales are gone, the game is gone.

it sounds good but could we also get a vendor like vendor00 where there are the gear, emblems and auras from the previous time capsules for we can complete those feats? Even as legendary, I can open a time capsule after every 3 days but at the end of the month, they change to a different time capsules. So at the end, I can only open 10 a month, even then I may get 1 or 2 piece of gear from those.

I actually like the content we've been getting. I definitely like it more than the content the post you replied to mentioned. I'm just annoyed at how rushed and buggy everything is right now.

Feats have to go. You keep trying to keep them there to make them valuable to Daybreak, not the players. Players have been saying since the beginning of the year, remove the feats!

Last year, no one had this kind of hate for them. You keep saying the goal is to make them more valuable. Sorry, but that is very subjective. I have no issues with the systems being put in, but you all need to take a step back. This is the SECOND TIME IN TWO MONTHS you've lowered marks because you all thought we'd pay the prices. How much is being heard? How much of this thread will be heard?

I'm all for new ways of supporting the game, but like others have said over and over. Where are all the profits going from these TC? Obviously I don't need to know specifics, but things like broker lag this last YEAR! Every DLC players have asked for improved broker stability, but nothing has been done. I was lagging so bad last night, the TC I opened with my free stabilizers timed out before I could even find their value. This is unacceptable as a paying customer while at the same time spending money on an addition to the TC system. It just looks like to us players that it's not supporting the game, but rather padding someone's pockets.

I really hope very little time is being spent on this. Players are still waiting for the PvP update that was promised, more QoL updates, style sharing, etc.

To sum it up, remove feats from any further TC and/or quark vendor, PvP update, QoL updates that shows TC are supporting the game.

Executive A: Let's price this new shiny at $300! We'll make a fortune!
Executive B: Are you crazy? The community will riot at that price!
E A: Fine. Price it at $500 at release then claim to listen to the community's concerns and reduce it to $300.
E B: Genius!

If its rushed, buggy, and rehashed... it cant be that good.

^

Well the content itself is fine, but they release it prematurely and it goes live with loads of bugs. The content is great as long as it functions correctly, does that make any more sense?

I keep seeing people talking about "where's the return on investment?"

We just a had nine month revamp that fundamentally changed the game. What do you think paid for that?

Time Capsules. Time Capsules paid for it.

AoJ was built WHILE the revamp was going on. TCs paid for that too.

Water was completed WHILE the revamp was going on. TCs paid for that too.

How you feel about these things is subjective, sure, but to say you haven't seen any benefit to the game from TC revenue is really just not true. It is not a fair arguement to make.

No, it's not OK to reuse the same maps over, and over, and over. Where is all our subscription and TC money going? More TC crap, not QoL upgrades, more content, better content, and challenging content.

I'm going to hold off any excitement until I see the reduced prices.

I understand "loot boxes" are apart of a lot of games, and are some what of a "standard" practice. The difference between DC's and other games, such as Destiny and OW are that their boxes don't contribute to making my character stronger. They're purely cosmetic items. That's not the case with TC's. They're directly impacting the strength of my character and it no longer becomes a choice in whether or not to participate. If you want to make your character as strong as possible, then yes, you HAVE to complete every TC or else you will fall so far behind, as there are a lot of feats in each TC.

This is not the kind of progression I want. I want to support the game. But this is not how I want to do it. I want to spend money on buying cool things. I do not want to feel like I'm being ripped off.

I see Assumptions.

If we're going to the same locations then why not use the same map? All of those dlc's everyone loves reuse maps, too.

The addition of the quarks vendor is fine, many would rather DCUO use the market place for direct selling of styles and they definitely wanted a way to buy the old TC collections, without spending all their time trying to game the broker to earn just a few more million. Which is why we suggested a TC vendor in the first place. Either way the quarks vendor addition in and of itself is alright.

The pricing of the quarks vendor is more than a bit extravagant. Pricing was obviously set for players who buy extra stabilizer keys and not players who at best, or worst, open only the free time capsules and always choose the extra quarks. At that rate I believe others have mentioned it would likely take a player with a membership about 3 months to earn one of the average styles.

Feats in the vendor at all are a bad idea. What this will do is push players to not get a collection item they can sell on the broker for other players to use for their collection completion. This in turn will raise pricing potential drastically -again- on the broker and could at worst make the broker so expensive for any collection item, not just the final almost never drops item, that TC collections will be something that is only completed by in game billionaires. I do see the gold sellers getting a lot of business off of this despite the chance of players getting banned.

Which leads us back to fact that feats in the TC’s should not exist. Booster bundles sold and sold well without feats attached to them. Why? because people liked the auras in them and wanted them for their characters, or they wanted to sell them in game for cash. That is a bonus to the players just a style they can have that doesn’t affect game play in any way. Feats however mean skill points and skill points mean progression. Progression is something that should be earned through gameplay alone. Even the regular non-TC style feats or base item feats that exist are a part of the gameplay. You have to go into a specific alert or raid repeatedly to get a chance for what you need to drop. This is fine because while you are doing that you are playing the game. So when you get that feat and you get that extra skill point which allows you to become stronger it is because you spent time playing the game. Time Capsule and the Quarks vendor feats are given to those who have money sometimes in game but mostly not. Mostly it’s real money people are paying.

How this will affect the game long term as you add more and more feats for people who are not playing the game but paying the game is that the high tier player base will become worse at playing. They bought their way to the top and don’t know what to do when they get there, because they haven’t played this game. So it will be too hard for them. They will yell and moan about content needing to be dumbed down to ‘the strategy is everyone attack at once until the boss is dead’. Meanwhile your dedicated players, the ones that have been playing this game and grinding their way to the top, overcoming every difficult feat you throw their way. They are going to leave. They are going to leave because the game will be too easy and they have a difficult time finding competent players.


Recommendations in order of importance:

1. Add all time capsule content to the vendor.
2. Stop putting feats into TC or just stop making new time capsules we have more than enough already.
3. Take a good look at just how many skill points you are giving to people who only have to buy them. Most of the TC feats are 3 star if you are going to ignore our request to remove TC feats at least lower the bar to only 1 star feats in those capsules for less significance to progression.

Also a metaphor for returning the Avatar Bombardier style to the game this way.

Guy/customer walks into a shop, sees something he likes, buys it. Then the shop clerk sees said guy with a part of this item a few years later and takes it from him, without any real explanation. Then the shop clerk offers to return it, however to do so the customer must buy some deals in order to eventually gain the part of the item he bought back.

In other words, it makes no sense to remove a non-RNG style from the game and then return it with RNG. At the very least allow a free way that players can acquire the Avatar Bombardier style if they haven't already as well as this vendor thing.

SMH.

There are no assumptions there. TCs served as the PRIMARY revenue for this game while there was virtually no content for nearly a year.

You just don't like it because you asked a question and didn't expect an answer with verifiable additions to the game funded by TCs.

I get it, you disapprove. But why?