Survival mode

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Cyro, Nov 14, 2017.

  1. OhSicks Well-Known Player

    My GF wants the pets. Can we get them placed in a vendor, lock box or something if SM won't be coming back?
  2. Hraesvelg Always Right

    The skill in any SM released now would be forming stacked Earth/Electric teams. Yawn.
    • Like x 1
  3. Gale Reaper Dedicated Player

    More than any of you know, this recent post got me insanely triggered. SM plays (or rather, played) a big part of my continuous support of DCUO. For the longest time it was represented the most fun in the game for me and where I could say to myself: " This is what DCUO is really about ".

    The "may return in the future" part ticks me the same way when they said the same about working on PvP and everyone knows that a whole lot of nothing came from that until they officially admitted that PvP will be left in the dust just because they themselves want to emphasize PvE content.

    Which brings me to the main point of this thread - since they want to "focus on elite content" there need to be serious changes in how it works.

    Survival mode proved that there doesn't need to be progression-tied reward system for content to be popular, instead rewards were exclusive and rare cosmetics based on your performance - for the large part it rewarded skill over gear. Top players would have both and were properly rewarded for it. Ever since the first elite raid (Throne of the Dead), that concept doesn't exist. You NEED gear to compensate for colossal stat bumps mobs and bosses have. You NEED gear to not get one-shot and use up your only "Life point" because you won't be getting up the second time.

    Survival Mode (except for very few bosses, think FoS Ursa) didn't have LUCK mechanics. The major luck mechanic of Happiness Home rounds +10 one-shotting laser got adequately fixed for it's next release. And even Ursa was beatable because of no artificial difficulty as mentioned below. Boss attacks were on set timer/rotation and players who could identify it would survive it. This is different than normal raids because normal raid mechanics don't even need to be avoided. Survival mode mechanics would likely kill you if ignored and that's perfectly how it should be. On the contrary example of Throne of the Dead, mobs would spawn infinitely and if half of your team gets banished at the same time, that's most likely it for your group. Moreover, a lot of times mobs attack whoever they like the same moment they spawn, making it impossible for any tank to humanly react and prevent the slaughter.

    Survival mode doesn't have ARTIFICIAL difficulty in terms of limited lives. When combined with luck mechanics featured in elite raids, it creates nothing more but a stressful and tedious experience, because hey, game wants you dead. This is the prime evil in Elite raids and as a feature should be gone as soon as possible.

    No, Mepps. YOU'RE welcome. Players have been asking for this since the first week of the first elite raid ever introduced and it took you TWO YEARS AND NINE MONTHS to respond to feedback? (Note Amazon Fury II was released February 3rd 2015). Boy, maybe in 3 years I can hope to have SM back if I start shouting now! And maybe even a repair bot added in 5 years!

    In Survival Mode, there is always bigger fish to fight. Elite raids are on a set difficulty and that's it. Can't beat it? Sucks to be you - here's nothing and wait for next DLC or two to have a chance at it. At least in Surival Mode you can earn the little something from earlier, easier rounds to not feel unrewarded. Want more rewards and harder bosses ? SM got you covered. Point being - Elite raids often have uneven distribution in boss strength, meaning first encounter may be the hardest in the raid so you can brace yourself to walk out with nothing if you can't completely clear it from the start. This is NOT to be confused with disgusting disparity in difficulty between God of Monsters and Olympus, where GOM was significantly harder than OLY which led to OLY being farmed to death and GOM left in the dust by majority of the playerbase.

    On the topic of a lot of, ahem, "unenthusiastic" community calling it rehashed and unrewarding content

    SM was threading a fine line before new stages stopped being released, and even then at least boss order was changed with new mechanics added. This indubitably brought some freshness players sought from the developer team. It's easy to bash the subject saying "Fix pls" without bringing ideas to the table yourself. Moreover it was where DPS powers were most balanced because at the time they were balanced around single boss fights.


    Conclusion: Using Survival mode as personal and friend favorite DCUO content example, it should be used as ground base to improving elite raids.
    This means REMOVAL of the following:
    - Luck mechanics no player could humanly react to
    - Artificial difficulty of limited lives per boss system

    This means ADJUSTMENT of the following:
    - Difficulty distribution of boss order (not hardest-easier-harder or any combination of the sort). Stick to streamlined difficulty progression of Normal-Harder-Hardest
    - Elite raids NEED to be beatable during the episode/DLC they are released with. Not Throne of the Dead unbeatable for up to 2 DLCs later.

    This means ADDITION of the following:
    - Rare and exclusive rewards. Manbat back-up trinket was a good start, but it could be built upon
    - Titles and feats for clearing respective elite raid X number of times (5-10?)

    Sincerely yours truly, Gale Creeper
    • Like x 14
  4. Fatal Star 10000 Post Club

    Make it naturally difficult without needing limited lives to make it seem hard and it'll be good. Elite should feel like higher rounds of SM.
    • Like x 2
  5. light FX Steadfast Player

    The only thing ill comment on regarding SM is the "there doesnt need to be progression tiered rewards for content to be popular" because i feel u may be right but may be wrong too. Let me explain that. It might have been true at 1st with SM that it was popular. But after each one came around for the 3rd time (except HH SM which only happened twice) i stopped bothering with SM. And i used to run it a bunch when it was up. I know many others that got bored with it too. I do know a few who were still running FoS when it was up last tho.

    I got the feeling that its not as popular anymore because nothing is changing as far as maps and bosses. Yea there was some slight change in bosses and boss order at 1st but 50% or 100% new bosses is what i feel is needed. And most of the base items had lost their value before SM went on this break.

    Point is w/out #s to show how many were running it and how often the last few times it was up we dont really know if its still as popular. The playerbase has also changed somewhat over the last year or 2. Imo a good % of players seem to want easy content. So idk if SM would be run as much. I could be wrong about everything im saying, its only my opinion.

    I do think a new SM or some changes to the existing ones could make it popular again. There has been many of ideas for new SM themes with new maps. Like an amazon fury one, a bat family one, etc. Personally id love to see a bat family one. Id run the hell out of that SM. Im really hoping they will think about creating a new SM or change some stuff with the existing ones when/if SM comes back.

    As far as elite raids i agree with everything ya said OP. I cannot stand luck based mechanics. Google the term "punishing mechanics in video games" or watch the video the extra credit guys did about it on youtube. Punishing mechanics imo are bad design.
    • Like x 1
  6. stärnbock Devoted Player

    i agree: the limitation for resurrections should go away IMHO.
    it makes elite raids not in any way more fun to play. its just tedious.
    i would be ok with the difficulty of those elite raids, without this restriction.
  7. Helios The Eternal Flame Dedicated Player

    But, I will also add that many stop running Survival Mode because the CR Differential made it much easier than the originals. Many people are running around with titles that wouldn't have, if the CR Differential was never introduced. Personally, it doesn't bother me. however many high-end players didn't like that and were turned off. The thinking is that SM got dumb-down due to CR Differential. I just now look forward to rounds 12 and up to get pets myself.
  8. coldchilln88 Loyal Player

    Honestly it's half the reason i barely attempt elite anymore. Im so worried most of the time just trying to avoid a random one shot or KO that i can't really focus on the content and enjoying the challenge. You're so worried about getting KOd and letting your mates down by being out permanently it takes away the fun and just makes it stressful not a challenge. The content should be difficult not have a finite amount of KOs to make it difficult.
    • Like x 2
  9. Celestial Powers Committed Player

    From what I could tell in the elite panopticon raid most fights have one shots which are easily preventable except for the Ultraman fight where he randomly drops agro and lunges at the group with a one shot, this would be fine if there was a clear tell for it since the only way to stop such a mechanic is for the boss to get trapped in a corner.

    I haven't ran the other raid yet but that fight where you face all three at once is bound to have something out of player control.

    I for one would like to see the life counts removed and have the actual content become more challenging - not through higher statted bosses but rather have a fight contain so much more substance to it. Paradox and Nexus didn't need to have so called life counters and they still were the most difficult raids created.

    This is the example of Ultramans one shot with no tell, with two lives how am i supposed to even anticipate the range of the oneshot when there is no indicator for it at all? The first time I had a shield, the second time I was a lot further away (2nd time 3:28)

    • Like x 2
  10. Helios The Eternal Flame Dedicated Player

    You are correct. We haven't really had random one shots since Nex and Dox at their height. Raid's like DWFE had certain mechanics, like the fire in the second room that did not render properly. But, in terms of random one-shots, that really doesn't happen. Fundamentally, many just do not understand the mechanic and what is happening.
  11. Celestial Powers Committed Player

    Paradox and Nexus didn't have random one shots either, just things which didn't load correctly which was the experience for many people on the PS3. All the one shots were avoidable in those raids since none of the bosses randomly dropped aggro except for Ninja Batman.
    • Like x 1
  12. Shark Dental Devoted Player

    Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't stats revamp supposed to eliminate one shots from the game? Did they just decide that wasn't going to be a thing anymore? Random one-shots are one of the stupidest things they ever designed for mechanics in my opinion. It's like telling the group, yeah, it doesn't matter how good your tank, healer or troll are, someone's going to die and there's nothing you can do about it.
    • Like x 2
  13. Celestial Powers Committed Player

    I think the goal was to eliminate one shots from bosses and ads randomly lunging or block breaking people but to retain them if players failed to respond to a skull attack or some room mechanic.

    Ultraman fight in the elite version is a deviation of this.
  14. Helios The Eternal Flame Dedicated Player

    No,....I disagree,....the Cyber and Future were monsters of the one-shot. Dox,. the orbs surrounding the room could one-shot. That was confirmed a while ago. Understand, I don't mind one-shots. I'm not as against them as much as others in the community. I think they have their place, just don't abuse.
  15. Coelha Well-Known Player

    I agree with everything you said. Elite is a artificial difficulty due to the death limit (which is sometimes kinda of random). Elite almost doesn't have new mechanics, and is the same as the regular raid except that the bosses have a ridiculous amount of HP and deal more damage, SM in the other side is completelly different, even using old content they made it feel special because each round had different mechanics.
    Elite atm is nothing more than a way to get more money from the players and have a excuse for when someone asks for a difficulty raid... And since we all know they don't like to lose money, i doubt they will change Elite in a way that requires less replay badges and more skill instead.
  16. Celestial Powers Committed Player

    Cyber and Future lex or batman? Batman I'm not so sure of because I was on the hero side.

    Cyber lex had that missile barrage which stunned you then oneshot, yeah if you didn't react in time and didn't roll away it would one shot but there was a skull for it, the bombs he threw out didn't have a tell but if you blocked in time it wouldn't one shot but you could argue this is a random oneshot, he also pulled people in which was down to your tank giving you an immunity in time so you could roll away.

    Future lex, can't remember much except he would look at laugh at a random group member and throw out a cloud which would appear after a delay.

    The paradox balls were there to keep you in the arena, easily avoided by not positioning near them but I agree it was a random oneshot thing because you had to go near them to free people from prisons.

    Whilst those mechanics were frustrating to deal with you didn't have this two lives system that they put in now, I'm not defending the design choices in those raids but most could be avoided, the ones that didn't well that was the merit of multiple pick ups - team coordination.
    • Like x 1
  17. Helios The Eternal Flame Dedicated Player

    I absolutely agree. Yes, I was talking about Future and Cyber Lex. As I mentioned above I believe that one-shots add an extra element and dimension to any fight. I am not opposed to them at all. Just don't abuse them with every piece of content. Team work and situational awareness can overcome even the most challenging content.
    • Like x 1
  18. BumblingB I got better.

    It was spytle's idea to do the 1 death thing. He used to watch all the players that streamed and was impressed by how they were able to do pickups, but he felt it cheapened the difficulty. Which I found rather amusing, that players that can do pickups right, means you are actually good at the content. But eh...

    Be glad they put it in elite content only, I spoke with someone at SOE live before elite raids were even discussed that it was going to go live in all content.
  19. light FX Steadfast Player

    That is also true. Forgot about that.
  20. Saint Nutella Loyal Player

    This post is spot on.