Work In Progress DCUO Development Update - July 2021 - Membership & Access Level Discussion

Is that Gene Wilder? He was funny.

XD lol what. that was hilarious, good read Ted, stuff like that shows the devs know how to have a little fun

@mepps Forgive me if it's been answered. I think I saw something about open world content being scaled the same with the same loot locks as open world. Is that the case? I know I may be in the minority here but my time is limited and don't get a lot of time to run the instanced content.

SOLID GOLD

No it doesn't, at least not this lizard brain.
You can only say, "we don't really know yet" in so many ways.

O.M.G. I think my monkey brain needs a banana daiquiri. Stat!

Well, at first I thought he was going after Proxystar but I’m glad I was mistaken.

I was simply looking for a compromise for people whose time constraints to play the video game don't mean they go without at least some of the reward they might have previously been getting i.e. at the very least enough source marks to maintain their mainframe every 60 days.

It may be that you're going to deal with this through daily log in rewards given players used to get a source mark from the vault each day that probably would've achieved the same thing.

With that in mind it wasn't realistically about maintaining "a rank of awesome" relative to other players at all, Because what I was realistically thinking was just some sort of small, nominal reward of source marks in non end game. Tt just felt like perhaps some players might struggle with the prospect of having to play arguably 'more' than they're already able, because source marks are split in to a separate area of the game.

Thanks anyway for the consideration

I recently made a similar post talking about how the human psyche will naturally fill "known unknowns" with speculation because without training one's mind to do so, it simply can't handle being consciously aware of an absence of information it wants. I was told I was being off topic, but personally, I think that applies to damn near everything we talk about in here.

The only issue I have with feats are the ones I can’t obtain on my own but requires the entire group to achieve. I have sadly been in more than one group where a mean person will deliberately mess up the feat for all of us. I do not know what the solution to this is other than strictly running it with people you can trust. But these are group feats not individual feats you can earn on your own.

So the main idea is to make the game fun. I know fun who would have guessed?
So how do we make augments fun? By adding fun things to it like classes and different types of powers.
Why should we make augments fun? To attract players, when players like something they want to play more. I have a few ideas for different ways to augment our characters in a variety of ways to make the game fun. Bottom line if its not fun no one wants to do it, and why waste time programming annoying things into a game. I reccomend the carrot over the stick when you want a horse to go. So here are a few ideas:


Superpower Classes/Introduce Multi Classing
Superpower games should be based on powers not necessarily exobits of nanotech so an idea is to phase in the ability to buy specialty classes like most RPGs have classes.
To all players giving 1 free class is suggested after that players can buy more with source marks if they like and want them.

So how does a player get a class? You can start studying with a mentor or multiple mentors of your choice but first you need to unlock your heritage by going to the source wall. Make taking a trip to the source wall expensive something like 300 source marks so players would need to really play and save if they want to take that trip to the source wall.

Your source wall trip should have some visuals as well it should look cool and be a personal moment for character growth. Make it a solo. At the end of the source wall solo have the player breakthrough to unlock their new heritage.

Using source marks can power up your new heritage you gain from the source wall. You pay mentors to give solo missions and help you train your new abilities. Of course school ain't free so you need to pay maybe with source marks. The more source marks you get the higher level you can rank your classes up.

Did he say train? Yes train just like feats count how many times you do certain things training powers should count how many times you use a power in a certain way. For example using your new super speed death punch to KO a villian or using a shield to block a skull attack.

These classes can represent different characters and be leveled up using source marks.
Source marks can be bought in the marketplace to level up your character class as well as farmed.

There should be no limit to the number of classes a character can level up on one character as each which would allow or a very diverse multiclass. This way the characters could keep leveling up new classes and increasing their characters customization.


If your character gains one class your character can begin ranking up the new class and fill out various skill trees on the class for different pathways the class can take.

The more classes and skill trees made by the developers the more players would want to try them. So with each DLC the skill trees should be updated with new milestones to reach.

Lets not forget those who will just buy sourcemarks on the marketplace.


Powers Effects
Passive buffs and active buffs of each class could improve things about the character . For example when you use a certain power other effects happen.

Special effects
Each multiclass can do some stuff for example assassins would do something ninja like every few seconds during combat that looked cool maybe have players assign which passive buffs they have activated for each of their classes. A kryptonian class could do some passive kryptonian stuff like a ground pound knocking things back or air hand clap.

These buffs could be passive or active:
Passive meaning they happen in randomly over time for example a 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%/60%/70%/80%/90%100% chance to do XXXXX.

Active and put on a loadout connected to a power and whenever you use a certain power the special ability also goes off. These abilities are instant and should not be channeled. The character should do a cool looking move or combo when they do the active moves. That would be the fun part seeing the character do something new and cool.

It would add customization so if someone wanted a kryptonian based character they could pick some of the various kryptonian classes provided for example
Kryptonian invulnerability(gives armor, elemental resistances, and hp)
Kryptonian super speed (passive continuous buff to movement speed, visibly dodges in combat, increases attack speed of certain weapon attacks)
Kryptonian Eye beams (beams go off every few seconds when fighting can add various trick shots)

Kryptonian battle cry that buffs allies and causes enemies to be knocked down that goes off every 30 seconds
Rending melee weapons deal damage over time
Fast Healing your wounds heal themselves
Damage Reduction
Great strength punch ground every 30 seconds knockback enemies
Power enhancement single target powers damage foes with damage over time
Leadership gain a special customizable sidekick
Teleport or dodge out of harm's way rather than being hit by death causing hit
Trapfinding ability to see traps
Toughness your harder to kill extra hp
Omega Eye beams deal more damage
Intelligence/ bonus source marks
Constitution/ Health
Strength/ Melee Damage
Agility / Dodge Skill
Ranged Weaponry
Attack Speed
Movement Speed
Dodge Chance
Charisma / the ability to grant buffs which inspire allies
Will Power (resist compulsions stuns etc)
Stealth (to sneak and be attacked less)
Gold / Cash Gain
Luck Treasure Find(Special Weapons and Gear)
Health regeneration
Health per hit
Health per kill
Power cost reduction
Damage Bonus
Invulnerability defence vs cold/fire/electric/quantum/mental etc etc
Invulnerability defence vs melee damage and ranged physical damage
Etc Etc Devs could keep on adding new abilities as they updated the game with new patches

Introduce Player Origins
Fun fact not everyone wants brainiac exobytes in them giving them powers. There should be a variety of methods to gain you powers as well as earn new powers.

How do you get an origin?
Time travel of course!
You travel back in time and create an origin for your character.
Yes you can travel back multiple times creating different timelines for your alter ego selves. However your character is the nexus.
As far as gameplay you play different solos and do missions for each orgin. Missions should be specific to each orgin.
Your character should also have an origin hall that tells their stories.

Players should be able to have origin stories for how they got their powers and skills unique to them.
Origins should be special missions which give special powers and passive skills and abilities unique to that character origin.

Origin Trees
By gaining source marks a character can create a story and make real origin choices in ones story which open different branches in the story. Like a skill tree but choices the character will make in their own personal story.

For example there would be over 30 different types of pathways to unlock per origin tree and each time you gain an origin you may go down a different path to unlock new powers and skills. Each origin will stack with the previous making the character more unique and customizable each time.

Each different origin tree begins a story from start to finish increasing in potency.
Different origins should stack.

Each origin should have a list of powers a player may unlock specific to the origin which will be buffs that powers and effects the player will receive for unlocking different paths of the origin as well as abilities.
These buffs should be improved with experience be permanent buffs.
For example a magic origin hero may gain certain abilities like random spells attack his opponent from the helm of Nabu or when blocking enemies take damage reflected in an explosive backlash.

Cosmetic Selling Point
There should also be cosmetic effects to these origins that can be applied as a secondary accessory and aura. if a character has multiple origins these powers and visual effects may stack. However you couldnt gain the same aura or visual effect twice.

A few origin ideas:
Human Ingenuity (Batman, Steel, Mr Terrific, Mr Freeze)
Physical Training (Robin, Green Arrow, Karate Kid)
Magically Bestowed or Cosmic Bestowed (Shazam)
God or Demigod (New God Orion, Donna Troy )
Alien on earth like Martian (Manhunter, Superman, Dawnstar)
Mutant (Chemical King, Kid Flash)
Found artifact (Blue Beetle, Green Lantern, Dr Fate)
Evolved Human (Beast Boy, Raven, Ultra Humanite, Vandal Savage)
Experiments (Giganta, Metamorpho)
Augmentation (Deathstroke)
Accidents (like clayface, Joker,)

Thanks for making me laugh as I read through the latest pages

Personally I AM exceedingly happy that rewards are being open to the entire game again, plus with source marks limit at 1 million we are as close to the mark of triumph days as possible....minus the month long lock outs (thank goodness).


I guess what I & many others are concerned about is this will be a another hard reset on our hard working characters.

I see this has been something set in motion for some time now, so I'm going to take you at your word right now that we truly will be (REALLY) powerful in lower content & not another harsh reboot of our toons b/c we earned our strength along the way.

All I ask is for you all (the development team) to be open to continued improvement on this forth coming clamp even extended beyond the short time it will be on test server to better guage the stat vs effectiveness difference of each tier for every role not solely dps.


We don't want another gu47 nightmare with issues like T4 & T5 players experienced some years back.

Nor do players want more then (HALF) their stats wiped AFTER we grinded for feats for years like revamp did.

Haha, it wouldve been fine either way, I wouldn't have survived this long around here without a thick skin around my Lizard brain

*Hugs*

Best writing I’ve seen in a while…appreciate the humor