20+ QoL ideas for 2020 and Beyond (A manifesto)

So, I sat down the other day to write out a few Quality of Life ideas that I have either came across, thought of myself, or in general, just feel that this game desperately needs. That post turned into literally a 10-page manifesto. So I realized that I better sort it better. So let me explain (In color coded sections to make it easier to read). Also, I added links, so that if you don't want to read the whole thing, you can just go to the section you are interested in:

Origin of this post:

I love this game. But, there are just some things that desperately need to be fixed or improved upon if it wants to survive another ten years. In the past few months (and in some cases a few years) I have come across an idea in the forum that I just thought was the cats meow. Unfortunately, since I only started writing this now, I have no real way of seeing who came up with what idea (and in some cases, I know that many people have been asking for things) so I apologize if you feel that an idea is stolen. I'm not. This is more of a list of what needs to (and what I would like to see) happen.

In all honesty, I would be perfectly fine if we don't see another episode in the next year if they just spent the entire year fixing these items (I know this will not help them make money, I'm just saying...).

You can add to this list:

If you want me to include something, please comment and give a description on how your QoL item would be implemented, and if I (the almighty arbiter of this post) like it, or if it gets a lot of positive feedback, I will add it to the list.

If one of these ideas gets panned (I doubt because almost every one of these ideas had generally positive feedback when suggested the first time) I will remove it from the list.

This list is a living document:

I will keep monitoring this list. As Devs make changes to the game, I will add, remove, or change items on this list to reflect what is happening in the game.

I will also check off anything that actually gets added.

QoL necessary items:

1. Fix PvP <LINK TO CONTENT>
2. Make old content relevant <LINK TO CONTENT>
3. Reorganize the feats and collections <LINK TO CONTENT>
4. Fix the game economy <LINK TO CONTENT>
5. Continue to replace old textures <LINK TO CONTENT>
6. Fix legends PvE <LINK TO CONTENT>
7. Player Character Naming fix <LINK TO CONTENT>
8. Fix roles and role buffs <LINK TO CONTENT>

QoL Wish list

9. Make open world relevant <LINK TO CONTENT>
10. Add more open worlds <LINK TO CONTENT>
11. Make a new streamlined Watchtower (Hall of Justice maybe) and hall of doom <LINK TO CONTENT>
12. Add significance to your base <LINK TO CONTENT>
13. Create alternate movement modes for super speed and for acrobatics <LINK TO CONTENT>
14. Add vehicles <LINK TO CONTENT>
15. Move EQ slots enhancements to the augments tab <LINK TO CONTENT>
16. Every functional item must be able to be acquired in game <LINK TO CONTENT>
17.More music in background (iconic music) <LINK TO CONTENT>
18. Sidekick system <LINK TO CONTENT>
19. Create a LFG system <LINK TO CONTENT>
20. A nemesis system <LINK TO CONTENT>
21. A faction (hero/villain) swapping system <LINK TO CONTENT>

1.Fix PvP

Why PvP?
First off, this to me, is critical if you want to reclaim old players, or maintain a stronger player base. A lot of people I used to know in this game loved PvP. I love PvP but haven’t done it in more than two years in this game. The game itself strongly lends itself to the idea of battling the other side. Heroes vs. villians. But we have been relegated to playing with each other against NPCs despite not even being able to communicate. There are many people who like to stick to PvE and that is fine, but I guarantee there is a majority of players who like to do both or prefer PvP. Fixing PvP will significantly strengthen the game, and potentially bring back old players. A broken PvP system has been a lag on the player base for at least 6-7 years, and will severely cut into growth if never addressed.

I understand that nobody can ever agree on the perfect PvP system (which is why, from what I understand, the devs abandoned this) however, sticking with something that almost no one likes and is very broken is not the answer, which leads to the next section…

How to fix PvP?


I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. I would love to see people seriously chime in with how to go about fixing something that no one has yet able to solve. But I do have a possible starting point. I would go back to how it was originally. When the game first came out, healers wrecked tanks, tanks wrecked trollers, and trollers wrecked healers. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it had some balance, and it allowed for people to play their roles. A tank can pull aggro from dps and absorb, but a healer can break their shield. A troller would then peel off and go after the healer, and so on. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fun. We go back to that, and we can maybe implement changes from there.

Again, everyone would be open to a new and better system, so chime in! This is just my thought

2. Make old content relevant

Why do this?
The answer is pretty obvious, but I’ll go through the list of reasons anyways. First, new players can no longer properly advance. Its hard enough to run the duo’s let alone raids for anything lower than tier 9 at this point. New players have no choice but to run the event over and over to finally get caught up. This shouldn’t be the case. Second, old and returning players who missed feats have a heck of a time going back and completing them. Third, there has been a lot of great content put in this game, but it is largely abandoned because there is literally no reason to go back. I’m sure there are a plethora of reasons, but these are the big three.
How to make old content relevant?

There are several ways, but the way I have thought that would be the best would be a system I dubbed Syndication. It goes something like this:

Group all old content into syndicated episodes (every time a new full episode comes out, the episode that gets transformed to source marks will go into syndication). Full episodes that contain a warfront, several raids and an alert or duo will obviously go together (Earth 3 for example), and any that don’t include all of that can be combined (for example Wayne Manor and Iceberg Lounge). Episodes that did not raise your combat rating will be excluded (episodes like Death of Superman or Last Laugh). Raids, alerts, Duos, and challenges that are not part of an episode will be grouped together in a way to help tell a story (for example, Watchtower and area 51 can be grouped with Outer and Inner caverns). Each syndicated episode would run for two weeks before moving on to the next episode.

The event tab will now be sectioned off into 4 categories: Legends PVE event, Current Episode events, Syndicated episode, and other (which will include stabilizer duo, seasonal, and anything else you want). (This will help clean up the event tab).

Each Syndicated episode will now include a whole new list of feats (not a significant amount of feats, maybe add 2-3 more per raid, duo alert etc.), and can also allow the player to get old feats as well. Vendors will include new collections, base items, and possibly new styles, to go along with the old styles that some players are missing. Also, a Syndication vendor will sell OP items and specialty armor (armor that you may want instead of the cookie cutter stuff you get for new episodes, like stats that help you run more efficiently as a battle Troller, or special effects for a tank or healer, for example).

The drops in a syndication would be equal to the current episode. For example, if you are running the event version of the syndicated episode, you would get gear in the style that exists in that particular raid or alert, but the CR would be something like 10-230 (I think that is the current event level gear). If you are running the end game version, it would be something like 10-243 (again I think that is current end game level gear). This would be a good place to drop some random styles that don’t fit any particular episode or theme (like some sports styles, or and 80s styles).

Like all raids, currency would be a big part of Syndication. Players will earn one mark of the most current currency for the final boss fight, the standard amount of source marks for all boss fights, and syndication marks equal to the amount of source marks (as it is currently).

If the player does not meet the CR of the Syndicated episode, they will be stat clamped up to the lowest CR required. If they are above the maximum allowed to earn marks, they will be stat clamped down to that level. If they are in between, they would not stat clamp. Warfronts will work the same way. As is currently, players will not be able to enter warfronts in which their CR is too low, unless that warfront is part of the current syndicated episode.

Vendors will still sell whatever they currently sell in that episode, however, new base items, and collection items. A new vendor will exist that sells the OP items, and specialty armor.

Doing all of this will solve the issue of allowing new players and returning players to play through all the amazing content, and making everything relevant again. Old players will need to run through everything for new feats, earn old feats, and earn op/specialty gear.

3.Reorganize Feats and collections

Why do this?
Have you looked at the feats and collections lately? The feat screen is too much for me. As someone who had to take time off, I have no idea which alert goes to which episode. I don’t know where to look for anything. It’s all too much. For a new player, this can even be more daunting. I never even look up feats anymore. I simply ask my league what I need, because I just don’t know where to look for anything. It is time for an overhaul, and Syndication is a perfect time to do it. And the way Collections are sorted now makes no sense at all.

Resolution for Issue 3: Now, I am not saying to scrap the current feat screen. There are a lot of players who know exactly where to look for each feat. But for new and returning player, it is just very difficult to look for feats. So, there should be two screens, an original view, which will show you the feats as they are currently sorted, and a modified view that will sort the feats in a way that can help a new or returning player.

First, put all duos in a duo section, then put each feat that you can get in a particular duo under the name. Same for alerts, challenges and raids. I don’t know, for example, which episode the Happiness Home raid is. So, when I run that raid, I don’t know where to look to see what I need to do. But if I can just click on Raids, then click on Happiness home, I will be able to know exactly what I am missing.

Same thing can be said for Warfronts, collections, Styles, base items, etc. Currently, sometimes a feat is in the episode, sometimes it shows up in styles, for instance, if a player is caught up, this isn’t an issue. For those of us who aren’t, this can be impossible.

Making things like this less daunting for new players will make them more apt to stick around.

4. Fix the game economy

The in-game economy is currently under construction as everyone sees, but I included it in here because it is likely that whatever they do will not sufficiently address the economy issues.

I will not include any current fixes to the economy based off the glitched money. This will be more of something to do to make the economy stable for the future.

First, there needs to be better money sinks. Several vendors should be placed throughout Gotham and Metropolis, who will sell rare items for large amounts of money. The items are one and done (so once one player buys the item, its gone), and is constantly changing. I will reference this again in a future section.

Second, I think that there should be an Auction house either added, or to replace the current broker. An auction house can better take money out of the system by taxing both the minimum starting amount and the final sale. It will allow for more items to be sold (not just the last one sitting there) It will keep whales from being able to control the market through fixed pricing, and you can additional features like buy it now, or reserve price that if not met the item will not sell, all of which will cost extra, and help take money out of the economy. Like I said, we can have both, or the auction can just replace the broker, but the broker by itself does not do enough to help stem future inflation, nor does it do a great job of protecting against issues like price fixing.

5.Continue to replace old textures

The game is starting to show its age. Fortunately, the Devs do understand this and have already begun replacing older textures. However, I think that they need to put a priority on this.

A lot of former players complain that the game looks outdated. While I personally think the graphics look great considering this is a comic book game, they do have a point. I don’t just mean the characters either. When I am way above the map, the grass is clearly copy and pasted, which looks bad. The pedestrians all look the same and have no real character to them.

A fresh coat of paint on all of this can do wonders for first impressions.

6.Fix legends PvE

Legends PvE is a joke. It should be one of the more fun things in this game and, well, it just isn’t. Its tedious, and the feats accompanying it is ridiculous. This is a pretty easy fix, however.

First, make the legends stronger. This will make the fights faster. When I play as Superman, I want to feel super.

Second, make the mobs stronger. This will make the fights a bit more fun. Not only am I hitting harder, but there is more of a sense of urgency.

Third, bring the feat requirements down to a manageable level.

Fourth, add a currency special to LPvE. Something that will allow you to buy items like base items, or costume items. Maybe even collection pieces. This will help prompt more people to participate.

7.Player Character Naming fix

Naming characters are starting to become a problem. There are three simple solutions to this however.

First, allow a second space. This will likely make most people happy, since they can now allow for a more creative name.

Second, is name reclamation. Honestly, a free character who hasn’t played the game in YEARS should not be allowed to hold onto a name. If you never sunk any money into this game, and have been out of the game for, say, four years (pick a number, the number of years isn’t relevant to the point), you shouldn’t expect to have your name if you ever come back. I know I don’t. There are games that I did pay money to that if I have been gone for so long, I figured my name is probably wiped.

I also think that the same goes with premium players. If you spent less than, say 100 dollars, or was a legendary member for less than 6 months, then after, say, six years of inaction, you are at risk of losing your name.

If you were a legendary member for 6 months or longer, or paid $100 or more, your name is safe forever.

Third is to allow for some special characters. Not all of them, but a few extra ones, like !, $, or @ can add a whole new set of unique names to the game.

8.Fix roles and role buffs

Roles are a staple in the MMO genre, and playing your role is a big part of the game. DCUO, in an attempt to make queues pop better, introduced roleless buffs. There is nothing wrong with the concept, but the implementation has made trollers and tanks pretty much worthless in most alerts. The roleless buff should stay in the game, but I think everything needs to be adjusted so that if everyone plays their proper roles, then the content is easier. Currently 3 DPS 1 Healer is the go to. But the alert should be made easiest if 1 Healer 1 DPS 1 Troller 1 Tank.

Also, I believe that both trollers and Tanks need to be significantly adjusted. I think the troller’s need their buffs/debuffs to be enhanced. Right now, people would rather just run with 1 troller in raids simply to make sure everyone has enough power, and an occasional debuff would be nice. If it were enhanced so that buffs and debuffs are more important than what it is currently, then it would give running in a troller stance a higher demand.

Tanks need to feel more like a tank. Kiting is the worst, and that is the best current form of tanking in today’s DCUO. First, Tanks should be incredibly resilient to knockbacks and stuns. They should get that feel that they are the stalwart, the wall in-between the bad guys and their team. Second, melee and ranged attack damage should be flipped for tanks, so that the ranged damage is harder than the melee, thus making kiting a thing of the past.

Also, two powers for the mental trollers are just not working as originally intended. Invisibility, and Telekinesis. Take Invisibility out, since you have admitted that there is not a proper fix that can be implemented without changing the entire code, and make the interactions just normal powers. For Telekinesis, can you please add breakable, moveable items back into the instances? The most fun character I made was based on Telekinesis, but once you get past 30, it is straight up boring, since throwing things at people no longer seems to exist in the game.

9.Make open world relevant
No one plays in the open world anymore, for good reason. There is nothing going on in the open world. Everything in this game is so instanced. They need to bring people outside again. I think that can be done with a few tweaks.

First, random open world events with mega-bosses. Have Imperiex, or Doomsday, or Darkseid, or some Alien species attack Metropolis or Gotham once or twice a day. Have a full instance mission counters (something like __ of 2000 aliens defeated, __ of 25 ships destroyed, __ of 50 computers hacked). When all of the missions are satisfied instance wide, you will receive an award depending on how much you contributed, and then the main boss will attack. By beating them, you can earn rewards like a couple stabilizer shards, or a handful of quarks. Maybe an incredibly low possibility of a seal of preservation or a piece of a seal of completion (more on this later).

Second, as stated earlier, you can put small vendors all over the cities. Each with a possibility of selling one random incredibly rare item. It would pull people into the world just to try to scavenge for rare items, along with creating a money sink.

Third, put all of the functions that exist in the Watchtower/Hall of Doom in the city as well. Adding the broker, the bank, the mailbox to certain areas of the city means that you don’t always have to go head to the watchtower to get whatever you need done.

10.Add more open worlds
To piggy back on the first idea, adding more worlds would be a great way of adding the feel that you really are in the DC Universe. This step currently isn’t really all that necessary, but if they add the functionality of my first idea, it would really enhance the game.

They already have a great start with Central City, Atlantis, and now Thanagar. If they just expand these cities, that would be a huge sandbox to play in. Coupling that with the idea that each one can be attacked by their own specific baddies in open world assault would be a lot of fun.

11.Make a new streamlined Watchtower (Hall of Justice maybe) and hall of doom
The Watchtower and the Hall of Doom are just stupid big. There literally is no reason for these locations to be this massive. Everyone just groups up in the middle, and the rest is all pretty empty. These locations should be changed to a smaller venue that is more compact. (Plus, after 9 years, the place has gotten boring.)

I actually think they could make two pretty sweet episodes out of the change. Make it so that we are now at the Hall of Justice, and that Dominators have taken over the Watchtower (which makes for a great setting for alerts, raids and instances). Second episode, Atlantis has discovered and raided the hall of doom, forcing them to move somewhere else (I don’t know where, but have it similar to the Hall of Justice)

12.Add Significance to your base
I know they have already tried to do stuff like this, but only on a pvp level, but maybe they could make it so you can put your base up to be raided, and you can set it up to have defense mechanisms. That way, it adds to what you are putting in your base.

For instance, you can toggle your base to be raided. If the person is successful, then they get whatever prize you wagered, if unsuccessful, you get the amount you wagered. (minus fees. This could be another money sink.)

You could put instant kill traps down, set minions to be sprung, put down turrets, etc. Place a target down that the player will need to extract. If extracted, the player wins.

You can even have it start out outside your base (making where you put your base now more relevant.)

The more you wager, the more powerful the bad guys are.

13.Create alternate movement modes for super speed and for acrobatics (like skimming for flight)

Skimming was a cool feature added to the game, and while it probably did take a lot to make changes to the animation, it gives players a great level of customizability. However, there should be an alternate selection for both acrobatics and superspeed.

Acrobatics seems like an obvious one, have the options to run on all fours like an animal. We already have animal looking toons. You wouldn’t even need to change the look for climbing.

For superspeed, have a rocket propelled hoverboard or something like a skateboard with rockets. It wouldn’t even take much to modify the animation, since you are basically standing on the hoverboard / skateboard.

And speaking of movement modes:

14. Add vehicles

Vehicles are a huge part of the superhero lore. The Batmobile, the Invisible plane, Ghost Riders motorcycle, Thanos’ helicopter, just to name a few of the most famous ones. Obviously, you can’t make them functional in the game, but you could make them function in the open world. (again, assuming you make open world relevant). Just make it so it’s a trinket. You use it, and boom, you are in the vehicle. It could either make you immune to attack, or you get attacked, it can knock you out of the vehicle. (I would love to make it more immersive, but I know the game has limitations). Either way, it would be more for fun than anything.

This would, I guarantee, be a huge money maker for the game. Throw it up there for $10, and everyone will want at least one.

Add a base item replica with the purchase, so that when you are in your base, your vehicle is stored in there somewhere as well. I mean, come on, how has this not been done yet?

15. Move EQ slots enhancements to the augments tab
To me, this one is likely the easiest, and most obvious QoL enhancement that can be done. I am so tired of every single time that a better piece of gear drops, I have to put an equipment slot enhancement in it. Why not just move these to the augments tab? That way I also won’t have to swap out every time I use my armory as well.

16. Every functional item must be able to be acquired in game (even if made excruciatingly rare, or difficult to put together).

This is what the original game creators intended, and I feel that Daybreak has kind of drifted away from, just a little bit. The belief that EVERYTHING that is functional to the game can be acquired in game (this is not referring to styles, toys, etc. as long as no feat is attached).

Time Capsules are (despite what many on the forums say) fine, since you can open them, and while I would think that legendary members should be able to acquire more stabilizer fragments in other ways, technically, it does not go against this line of thinking. So, what am I referring to here?

The most obvious items are seals. I do understand that this is a great revenue source, however, the fact that they only exist outside of the game is just wrong. While I do think that it would be ok to make it insanely rare, thing like this need to exist in the game.

I would argue that a way to keep them rare and valuable as something that I would still purchase, is make it so that you have to put those seals together. Like 12 seal of completion fragments, and each fragment has like a .01% chance of dropping from a boss. Is it still something you can get in the game? Yes. Will you likely still buy it? Yep. But at least there are other options.

You could even attach them to the aforementioned mega-boss from the open world, if that was implemented.

Same goes with nth metal detectors. These are very useful, but only found outside of the game. Again, make it incredibly rare, but possible to get. (Besides, the more people use these, the more likely they will buy them, since they like the results).

17. More music in background (iconic music)

Alright, so this one is way less likely, and I understand that. But the music has become insanely stale in this game. I like how some music has been added to the new instances, however that music will also get old quick, and all music has or will become mind blowingly repetitive. We need a change up every once in a while, audibly speaking.

I know that using iconic music has rights issues, but could this at least be looked into? Having Superman’s theme or Lois Lanes theme, or the old batman theme play every once in a while, will have an amazing effect on the player base. Nothing makes things more emotional than music, and nothing makes you more emotionally attached to something than music. So using some of this would have a hugely positive emotional and psychological effect on your player base.

Even if you can’t use iconic music, there needs to just be some more variation to the music. I used to love the music in this game. I hate it now. I just heard it too much. Please, allow for some more variation to the music.

18. Sidekick system

It would honestly be great if there was a way to allow for newer players to team up with experienced players. I hate bringing up other games as an example, but City of Heroes had a perfect system for this. You could either have the new player be one level lower than you, or you could become the same level as that player (as long as the lower level player stayed close enough). This way everyone can still play with each other.

A system like this is long overdue. Sometimes, we just need one more player to queue up in our league, and the only ones left are too low. This will fix that problem. Sometimes, players want to run old content, but still want a challenge. Problem solved.

I know that there would be issues that would need to be worked out, but a sidekick system would be huge for this game.

19. Create a LFG system (more so than just a chat channel that most new players don’t know about)

I know, we already have a channel for that. But that is not what I’m talking about. First, the current system is not necessarily user friendly, and not the default, meaning, there are a lot of players who just don’t know it exists, or forget to use it.

Creating a separate screen (accessible from the menu like the on duty menu) where you can toggle yourself as lfg, put your role/preferred role, put what content you want to run, or even add a short comment (like “first time running content” or “speed run preferred”). Others can search through this and find people who fit what they are looking for.

This way, there is no confusion and it can reduce the spamming in chat. It would also be easier to use for those who don’t know about, or don’t like to use the LFG chat channel