Test Discussion Episode 39: Future Metropolis New Earth

Discussion in 'Testing Feedback' started by JackFrost, Oct 23, 2020.

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  1. JackFrost Developer

    Greetings! We're really excited about the new episode we've been working hard on: "Long Live the Legion!"

    We spent a good amount of time assessing player response to the Episode 38: Wonderverse Open World (as well as playing alongside some of you), and tried to build off what we learned and tried to improve on some of the ideas.

    Similar to last episode, we've built World Bosses in our new Open World zone: "31st Century: New Earth."
    There are 4 new World Boss fights. The final of those does not require that the previous fights are won. There are back-end changes to how contribution is tracked and granted for World Boss fights so players should be able to play in their roles if they'd like to, and not be forced to play in DPS role in order to get contribution.

    In addition to the World Boss fights we've made, there are daily and weekly missions.

    This is the thread we'll be monitoring most closely for feedback on anything you find in the "31st Century: New Earth" Open World zone. Any feedback will help inform our fixes and improvements while this new content is on the PCTest server. Note that there are a few things still being polished, and you can expect to see some improvements while the content is on the PCTest server.

    Finally, I want to give a shout out to all of the folks who've been playing DCUO, and especially those who give constructive feedback after testing or playing. We appreciate your input, and hope that you have fun with all of the new content!
    • Like x 5
  2. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Bug Report
    I'm thinking the "Validus and Emerald Empress" fight is bugged. The red cube and some NPCs appear, but absolutely nothing happens. Here is a demonstration:
  3. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Bug Report
    These broken monitors are really finicky about where you need to stand to interact with them. Depending on where you are standing on the monitor, you may not get the interact prompt:
  4. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Question
    Are the boss fights supposed to overlap? I noticed that the end time for the Cosmic Boy fight and start of the Saturn Girl fights can overlap.

    I saw the same thing happen with Saturn Girl and Lightning Lads fights. There was about a 30 second overlap where they are both active.
  5. zNot Loyal Player

    I respect the work you guys did for the DLC and like the new change with the OP item the rank up system.

    I did check the new raid out and i have to say i like the darkness feeling it has.

    I like the fact that this alert is short one because a 25 minute alert is annoying to do daily.

    What i dont like is that we only got 1 Elite Raid i can say confidently that most players want multiple elite raids (2 or more)with multiple bosses (3 or more) per dlc.

    The open world area aswell as the open world bosses look good but have gotten too much attention compared to the Only 1 Raid we have which the raid isnt even big to beginn with. 3 bosses is better then 2 we had last time but im not happy i expected 2 raids.

    No duo or solo is fine to me personally especially solos are probably the least longterm played content from new DLC“s.

    Open world bosses are a good thing to spend time on abit but cant give the feeling a large Elite raid does. Especially if the Elite raid is gonna be difficult and fun there is nothing better in DC then a diffiucult Elite raid which makes people excited.
    And Raids have the longest lasting popularity amongst the community,people still do old raids for fun and 8 player Elite Raids have the highest value content wise from my experince and many others i talked with.


    I would suggest to primarly focus on Raids next DLC“s this is what me and many other players seek the most in a new DLC.
    • Like x 2
  6. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Keep the comments on feedback and issues pertaining to the open world missions and bosses. Your stance has been made clear and heard. Thanks for your input. As we move forward there will bound to be variations of content structure.
    • Like x 4
  7. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    I was able to do the Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad fights in a raid group. We defeated Lightning Lad and managed to get Saturn Girl down to about 20% health. My initial impression is that both of the fights maybe a bit overtuned. The general consensus among the group is that both of those fights were much harder than anything we encountered in the regular version of the raid. The Saturn Girl fight in particular had a lot going on with additional NPCs appearing. Saturn Girl became untargetable at several points. I'm not sure if that was a bug or just due to the mechanics.
    • Like x 1
  8. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Question
    How does the healing mechanic on Cosmic Boy work? I noticed he was healing up large chunks of his health at certain intervals in the fight. Is the group supposed to stop attacking at those points? Trying to get all the PUGs in the zone to do that was impossible.
    • Like x 1
  9. BumblingB I got better.

    I came in on Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl and I have to agree. I think there is too much in the way of mechanics going on. Kind of like the Metal Manbat, makes it not so enjoyable to attempt to do. Then add on the timer. This is definitely significantly worse to do than WV bounties and then include lower population servers, this will be downright impossible to accomplish.

    Also noticed she became un-targetable. I think it was supposed to be a mechanic, because it was the same time Ra's Al Ghul came out as well as Joker. But this also makes it difficult to figure out what was going on, there are way too many adds in both the fights I did. It's like all the bad from the WV bounties was accented and expanded upon in this one.
    • Like x 1
  10. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    As a follow-up, the group I was in barely defeated Saturn Girl on our second attempt. We only had a few seconds left. The group was working hard to clear all the ads, but they would just keep respawning at prodigious rates. It was hard to make out what the untargetable mechanic was tied to specifically.

    I noticed Lightning Lad had a healing mechanic too. I wasn't sure if you were supposed to pull him to or avoid the lighted floor panels for those phases. Our tank for that fight didn't speak English very well which only served to complicate matters.
    • Like x 1
  11. Eve YouTuber

    That either briefing\investigation is not reachable
    [IMG]
    [IMG]

    It's like up there and you can't go up there.
    • Like x 2
  12. inferno Loyal Player

    First impressions of the new open world. Big. Just as I'd hoped. impressive. feels new, unlived in.

    When I say Unlived in, I meant, where are the citizens? The vehicles? I saw foot paths but no streets, so I looked up to see any flying vehicles, like in Back to the Future 2 but saw none. I know it would have taken more time and effort, so I am not surprised. But the thing that really makes the old maps of Gotham and Metropolis come alive are those people and car traffic. Even in later open worlds like Themyscira or Earth 3 Gotham; there are amazons or regular people in the map. I only saw enemies and the occasional Legion student.

    Aside from that little nitpick, this really is an awesome map for an Open World. Better than Patchwork since it's less confusing and it doesn't feel like certain buildings were borrowed from earlier content.

    I think I can easily compare this to Atlantis. When I first saw and played Atlantis, it felt right and I can say the same for this one. I see it and I can say that the look of it feels like it was the 31st century city that the Legionnaires live in.
    • Like x 3
  13. inferno Loyal Player

    Btw, I just noticed the use of Background buildings at the edge. That was a nice touch, it tends to be repetitive but only if you look close enough, but it magnifies the illusion of a bigger city. I did notice though, if you are at the edge of the map you can see that the bottom of the background image and it looks like a far away ocean, which is fine but you see the bottom of the graphic and it looks like the bottom of the buildings are submerged under water.
    • Like x 1
  14. inferno Loyal Player

    Game play and missions - Seems fairly cut and dry. Easy to find and finish. Thanks for bringing back the easy weekly mission.

    I'm not sure where to put this but one of the things I liked with Patchwork is the solo mission. Each section had its own version of the solo. It added to the variety of gameplay of the solo. I LOVE that you added the Elite version for the alert. I think it will be the most played content in the DLC but I really wish you guys had put in a solo, even if it was some thing re-hashed and short. Just something.
    • Like x 2
  15. KHALONofOGUN 10000 Post Club

    Thank you for mentioning this, I encountered this issue as well but forgot how to do screenshots on the PC. This briefing/investigation is impossible to get to.
    • Like x 1
  16. Dragon Power Well-Known Player

    The music for the city is awesome! Really gets the futuristic Metropolis vibe across. Also, the music that plays in the arena area with Emerald Empress and Validus is really great and gets you excited to fight but I feel that the area that the music is in is too small. The perimeter of the area that contains the music should be extended further out past the ramps to the edges of the buildings and street lamps or even further. Why? Well, I feel that the small size you can accidentally go out of it while fighting. Also, the perimeter should be increased to help lure players into the fight, make them curious as to why this music is playing and see what's going on in the area. It's a thematic thing and would help set the ambience more for the big fight.

    I agree and support this change, especially adding more daily world missions. The new zone is just so nice, let us have even more reasons to explore it and give us more marks to make up for there being no solo/duo/2nd raid.

    I agree and support this change also. The city is great but adding a few more "little things" and attention to detail would help make the city feel more fun and lively. Putting some more NPCs in the area can also be added for game mission reasons, not just to add a thematic ambience.

    There could be some more NPC Legionaire Freshman put here and there walking the streets and standing in small groups talking to each other, or talking on their cell phone PDA or whatever it is they use in the 31 century lol. The campus area student NPCs in OG Metropolis (I forget the name of the campus Metro U or something like that, it's next to the villain HQ if I remember right) did a good job at doing this and setting the ambience, that area should be used as inspiration. And, you can add all this stuff and tie it together for mission reasons, like there could be a daily mission where you help the students avoid being attacks by the enemies in the area or save a specific number of people. The metro campus area in OG Metropolis had similar mission where you helped save students standing/walking around from the parasite enemies. Not sure if adding car traffic would be possible in terms of time but would be a nice touch. And again, that can be worked in as a mission, like you save a specific number of cars from being destroyed by the Shadow Minions.

    I really like the new 31st Century mission "Legion of Hunted Heroes" where you help one of the Legion Freshman, she asks you to distract/fight the Shadow Minions while she shows you "what she's got" with her moves on the training dummy and they keep coming in small waves. lol that was kinda humorous and a fun and unexpected surprise when I walked up to her and started the encounter.
    • Like x 1
  17. KHALONofOGUN 10000 Post Club

    First off Charon, thank you and the rest for all of your hard work for putting together this content under less than ideal circumstances and as quickly as you all did. It's very much appreciated.

    I only got to do the daily missions once, so I don't know if they change up, but what I ran was pretty good. The space is used well and makes it easy to knock out all your missions since there's something for each one from one location to the next. As Zoe pointed out, there's at least one briefing/investigation that's located in an unreachable portion of the map. Same goes for a couple of collection zones (those are less of a big deal unless one of those nodes contains a low drop collection).

    My only issue with as far as missions go is the weekly 33 repair one (I can't remember the exact name at the moment). I get that it's a weekly mission intended to be done a few per day here and there. The reality is that we don't play that way...especially when you factor in alts. If this Episode were structured more or less like the Birds of Prey one this wouldn't be such a big deal. However we have open world bosses to run along with the Alert/Elite Alert, and doing 33 very spaced out repairs means we may not be able to complete the weekly on more than 1-2 characters. And if we do some here or there every day, we could easily lose track of which alt needs how many to finish it off.

    I would suggest either cutting the number down from 33 to 18 to make it more manageable (because just getting to that number felt long), or increase the total to 36 but have each cog/node count for 2. Doing the latter would effectively have the same effect as the former suggestion. If it remains at the current number I will likely only do it on 2 maybe 3 toons (I run 8 actively) and possibly all of them on double/triple mark weeks only.

    I am going to run more missions again later today, but if everything runs as smooth as it did yesterday, i'd say Bravo on binging us to the 31st Century.
    • Like x 4
  18. Charon Lead Content Designer


    JackFrost and Quixotic deserve all the praise. They busted butt on this. Keep all the feedback coming. Valuable stuff!
    • Like x 6
  19. HurricaneErrl Dedicated Player

    Solos are the most played in my group. That's where all the big ticket drops usually are
    • Like x 2
  20. inferno Loyal Player

    I've only had 1 chance to fight the bounties (it was Cosmic Boy) and with 6 other people; I was surprised that we were able to finish it with time to spare. I'll try to get in with a bigger group or different sizes to see if the fight adjusts accordingly to the size of the group. Maybe on Monday you can temporarily (somehow) limit the size of the group that is fighting the bounties, while you are there, and see if the combat difficulty is indeed working.
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