Phases Locked This Strictly Was A Horrible Idea

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by AV, Aug 1, 2020.

  1. AV Loyal Player

    With this change, it's now basically impossible to do the solos in between bosses without losing our phase. After a walk-in, I exited into a different phase and can no longer re-join the group. Takes something that was fun and non-stop and forces us to sit on our hands, hoping we don't lose phase. Just forces us to waste time we could be spending in the walk-ins and spending replay badges.

    I get why you did this, and people were abusing the party system to stack phases, but this is really, really unfun and asinine to deal with.

    Edit: Not to mention, how the hell are we supposed to LFG now? People will be constantly joining groups for phases they can't enter. This went from one of the best-implemented ow grinds, with the timing fitting perfectly to allow for a solo run for marks/catalysts/ambrosia, to the worst by far overnight. Unbelievably myopic.

    Edit 2: Please roll this back until we come up with a better solution. I agree something needed to be done but this is just absolutely godawful.

    Edit 3: At the absolute bare minimum, don't force someone out of the phase when they do a walk-in. Or extend the bonus marks from the augs to the open world. Realistically though, this should be a soft-cap with a grace period, not a hard-cap. Ie. if someone disconnects or does vault, their slot should be reserved for 5min or something to ensure they don't get screwed over by an arbitrary phase gatekeeper.
    • Like x 18
  2. Malivic01 Active Player

    See my thread from six hours ago?
    Major issues with the update.

    And fyi, clean your inventory. There's no such thing as going to your base and brb
    • Like x 3
  3. AV Loyal Player

    It also exacerbates some other issues, eg we have almost no control over the quality/roles of the other people in the phase and even before this change I've ended up in a few phases where I was one of only a handful of DPS. With nothing ig telling players their Orbital Strikes are throwing the Hydra fight for the entire phase, this is really, really annoying and the overall phase balance can shift dramatically in general.

    Edit: And then there are the people who do want more skeletons to spawn to get kills for the feat.... despite the fact we get the feat naturally anyways after like... no time. The Hydra mechanics are troll-heaven in general.
    • Like x 2
  4. dresserball Dedicated Player

    Yes there is. Just because you can't get in and out of your base in a timely manor doesn't mean others can't.
  5. AV Loyal Player

    Would it be possible to at least get it fixed so that doing a walk-in doesn't change our phase? This went from a really fun, full-efficiency, gogogo grind with a minute break once the solo was done to an absolute "let me waste your time" slog where I feel like I'm being held hostage due to not being able to do walk-ins or leave phase for any reason. Basically puts two rounds in the back of the fun-factor's head. Am literally looking for other things to do now in between bounties because the ability to play the game as designed has been removed. Feels so bad. Makes it feel as though it's much slower even though obviously the same amount of time passes; time just flew by when we could do the solos and now it feels like my brain is rotting @_@.
    • Like x 2
  6. KHALONofOGUN 10000 Post Club

    What you actually want them to do is to put you back to your original phase. Every instance (whether it's a solo, duo, alert, or raid) is it's own phase/instance. Whether it's possible to do that is another story altogether.
    • Like x 1
  7. AV Loyal Player


    Yes, that's what I mean. We shouldn't lose our place in our current phase for entering a walk-in and especially if it's these walk-ins, since they're placed and timed precisely able to be done in between bounties. Perhaps a temporary placeholder could be used or something but something should be done, as the quality of the grind overall has gone to hell now despite the relative improvements to phase performance. Would much prefer we be able to stay engaged consistently if we want to than be forced to do nothing while waiting for pretty mindless fights every 5min.
    • Like x 1
  8. Hraesvelg Always Right


    And your complaints don't even factor in trying to get INTO a good phase that's hitting all of the bounties well enough to do the Hydra in the first place. It's like an onion...the problems has layers on layers now, LOL.
    • Like x 4
  9. AV Loyal Player


    Yeh it looks to be pretty much impossible to join a phase until after Hydra dies, then can sometimes get in before the next cycle starts.
  10. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    If you are in the group and did the walk in solo, vs breaking group and doing it via on-duty, you should always be able to re-phase with your group members. That's how people are able to get into the mega phases once they are full...get a group inv and suddenly you can phase with them.

    If you are dropping group, or not in a group currenlty...yeah, getting back in will likely be impossible without a re-inv. Personally when I was 'killing time' between bosses and already had the dailies done, I went and helped invisible planes launch or busted up turrets on the boats, so tried NOT to get out of phase unless I was grouped.
  11. AV Loyal Player


    Sounds like you haven't been online yet today to see the change D:. Phases are now hard-capped regardless of whether you're in group or not. If you are in a full phase and do a walk-in, you will not be placed back into that phase on exit and can no longer phase to your group members to join a full phase.
    • Like x 2
  12. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    ? Ok...no I have not been on yet today, not at least in the new content. Well that sounds like a bucket of poop if true. Yeah, that will need to go...it makes a bad situation worse.
    [IMG]
    • Like x 4
  13. HurricaneErrl Dedicated Player

    I had to leave at least 3 groups and find a new phase each time this morning due to trolls dropping orbitals on hydra and laughing in chat. It is such an easy fight, but like you said, a troll haven
    • Like x 3
  14. AV Loyal Player

    We even joined a PVP phase pretty much from scratch with friends and it's already full, so we can't even try to force a situation where a walk-in is do-able unfortunately. We're kinda walking on eggshells to avoid anything that will get us locked out.

    This has also had a pretty immediate impact on the economy, as people who were running the solos every 5min have now had to stop and supply of certain things has dried up.
  15. Proxystar #Perception

    and dealing with unplayable lag, your loadout going red, bosses not rendering, not getting credit because of lag and general overall instability is fun?

    I sympathise with the frustration but the experience at the other end, if it was left the way it was, is equally asinine and unacceptable despite some people thinking smashing a boss with 500 people even when it can't render might be fun.

    My suggestion is that the developers put a phase counter in the top right hand corner so players can see exactly how full a phase is and plan and accordingly in terms of forming groups in LFG and even as leagues.

    This restriction is clearly needed to improve the performance experience.

    Once you're in a group and phase with the right number of players the experience is by far better, certainly far better than the hot mess that I experience in over populated phases, despite what some might assert.

    Sorry I don't agree with you, well not entirely anyway :)
    • Like x 4
  16. AV Loyal Player


    Except now it can take up to a full cycle to be able to join a phase with people in it, and if you get disconnected or forced out for any reason, you generally have to wait for the the cycle to end to have a chance to get back in. This has happened to people all day and we're in a PVP phase.....

    Not being able to run the cycle the way it was designed isn't "better." This is a lateral move at best. A strict hard cap combined with being forced out of phase for doing the walk-ins that are the exact length and placement they can be done between every bounty is not an improvement. Also, some people still sometimes can't target the bosses at times.
    • Like x 4
  17. Proxystar #Perception

    I can't speak as to your experience about not being able to target the boss, I'm currently even right now in what appears to be a full phase and the issue isn't present, so I appreciate you may have experienced something different.

    I'm not quite sure I agree with your sentiment about doing a walk in while also farming bounties, I know you're trying to be time efficient but you only run the solo once, why are you doing it at the same time as running bounties so much? How much of an issue really is that if we're being honest?

    I certainly better appreciate going to your base to get something and not being able to get to the phase again, I agree with that and so agree with your suggestion as well that perhaps your spot in a phase could be reserved for say 2-5 minutes. :)
    • Like x 1
  18. Iconic Simulation YouTuber

    This wouldn't be a problem if they weren't on a timer/in an order and the Hydra wasn't a extra boss.

    Change my mind.

    It's not like you cant try again... Sure but you gotta kill a few another few bosses... Yeah not happening. I was in 3-4 phases in 3 hours and they either failed on murk with his constant charging or crazy amounts of adds or outright kept failing the Hydra...over and over.

    The bounties clearly don't scale enough for just about any group which is the most glaring flaw.
    • Like x 2
  19. AV Loyal Player

    Not happening to me but has happened to people in my group today. I likewise can't substantiate your issue with not being able to get credit before, as I didn't have an issue with that.

    The solo walk-ins are directly beside each bounty and take less than 2min to do with there being a ~4min gap before each subsequent bounty spawns. I'm not "trying" to be time efficient, this is how it's designed. If you don't want 50marks/hr + catalyts + ambrosia + getting your coloured crystal feats done, cool... but people shouldn't be forced to not run the content in the most obvious manner in which it flows.

    It's also not just walk-ins. People can't do anything that could take them out of phase. A game forcing players to play less on threat of getting kicked out of the same phase is an issue. Having a hard time grouping with friends in an MMO is an issue.

    Edit: Now, instead of running content we get to play the "phase with" game, where we spam the phase button to try to get into a phase that's not empty. Such fun. Or people can spam-fill a phase til it's full, which is the exact problem we had before only now it's participation-gating the playerbase. It should also be noted that's now the default means of forming groups, since full phase = tons of half-formed groups = tons of ppl in lfg trying to fill their groups out = cycle of full-phase bs.

    Exactly. I'm not saying steps shouldn't have been taken to stop the "thanks for the invite, now I'm gonna keep making full groups and dropping to make more full groups" crowd that was intentionally crowding phases, I'm just saying there need to be common sense measures to: a. allow people to still join phases with their friends, or anyone, as it seems like the options are "full phase" and "ghost town" with no in between (and the scaling is pretty poor). b. play the game without fear of being removed if they're out of the phase for <5min.

    Edit: In addition to the other problems I mentioned, once a phase dies, trying to get into a workable phase with your group is also a complete pita. This is simply bad design. We're now sitting here clicking "phase with" to try to get into a phase that has -anyone- in it now after people in our old phase had to log, There's no excuse for this kind of implementation. It makes forming/maintaining a full grp in general a challenge.
    • Like x 2
  20. Brit Loyal Player

    It was poorly implemented from the get-go.

    They need to reduce the health on the bosses to the point that they are challenge appropriate for an 8 man group. They were supposed to be an alternative for the missing raid. Making them require 16+ people to beat the timer means that they practically mandate players stack the phase with larger groups. And putting them on those narrow 3 minute fight timers with a 30 minute respawn means that many players are going to be unwilling to hang out in phase, unable to leave, and just twiddle their thumbs for a half hour while waiting for another try. So phasing to another shard becomes the expectation in order to get the things that you are hunting for.

    Make it an encounter appropriate for 8 people, the way it would have been as a raid. Then the fights play out basically like every bounty from every previous episode. Then people don't have to super-stack the phases. Then players aren't crashing due to being overpopulated.

    Basically, the problem is not with the phasing technology that has been working well for nine years. The problem is with the concept of making 30 man raids that the game's servers cannot handle. We learned this with Hands of Fate's open world operation garbage; when content starts to require much more than 8 players, it gets laggy and the game crashes. So you have to reduce the boss's to be 8 player appropriate encounters.

    And, I love DCUO so, now that we've tried the same open world stuff for a second time and we're seeing the exact same issues that we saw with Hands of Fate, let's not get cute in the future with the "open world raiding". It doesn't work.
    • Like x 7