Test Discussion Episode 41: Save the Universe

I‘m not sure if you really asked that, or what’s your intention behind that. Play on Test-Server and you see what gets adjusted.

I did but stopped after looking at the patchnotes i wanted a clarification before i invest time into Testing where the feedback isnt gonna change anything.

They have been adjusting the difficulty. For example in the last set of patchnotes they adjusted open world bounties to have less defense and less health, but do more damage. That's a difficulty adjustment.

I meant difficulty adjustements for the Elite raid (Power Core) thats supposed to be the highest difficulty since it replaces a new raid for this episode that we didnt get.

What is happening with Prestige? Are we going to get full credit ( we are not now on test server) on old content now that there is stat clamping? Or is the prestige level going to stay the same for the older content? We are now getting source marks, pretige should increase also.

Science Spire Elite HUGE difficulty increase??

Dang you really went overboard with Captain Venz?
His Heat Vision perma stun until your done.
When he punches the ground... instant one shot.
And his Allies .... dang.

Not to mention that most of the time... you can't even pick up the Kryptonite chunk anymore.
Either Venz goes full auto making you drop the Kryptonite.... or preventing you from picking it up.
Or on of his Allies prevents you from picking up the Kryptonite.

Will have to pretty much forget about picking up the rock and come up with a new way to win this fight.

Although.... I use Quantum..... probably is much easier with other powers like Fire. Will have to give it a try.

Just tested if the elite solo science spire became much harder, still easy to finish when beeing DPS around cr300...would probably work even below. While the last run i did was in Tank role with dps gear item level 183 (210 cr) without mods, without artefacts, no base mods, about 140 skillpoints set but keeping supply trinket, orbital, soder. It becames slightly hard with the adds on top, otherwise bosses can be countered really much, specificly first boss. It has alot to do with knowledge on how to avoid specific attacks. But yeah, healer or tank powers will have it easier but takes longer. Run took 42mins, i´ve basicly tried to much adds at the same time with cr210 there.

But as you can see there are player with different perspectives on difficulty. I´m still thinking it needs to be harder to be called "elite".

BTW, work with space and time, with that you can do things which seem to be impossible. Cause those 2 factors are the most powerful (Just look at Pyramids)

Elite doesn’t mean it’s for the elite players btw. In dcuo elite is just enhanced version. Players see elite and think it must be only doable but the elite status players.

You´re right, i just fear that the player base with everything maxed out won´t have a challenge at all. Them having everything on max means with high chance that they support the game financially. Now what happends if you have no challenge, what i´ve expierenced so far in other games, they´re leaving. It´s not like there wouldnt people come back who support, i would try to include both. I mean it´s good that they´re already making it slightly harder, from my perspective it still would need an increase, it can´t be that the adds do more damage as the boss itself, my opinion.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually enjoy harder content. However I do think a balance is needed overall. Make it to hard and most will just avoid it all together which also hurts the game. Making it to easy and you have the same effect for the other side of the spectrum. A balance is needed. Even thou this past dlc was on the easier side I did actually enjoy it. The reason being that the mechanics weren’t cheap mind controlling or similar mechanics. While these mechanics were easier it’s a step in the right direction of interactive mechanics. If you look at brainiac for example one change that would’ve made it more difficult would’ve been to give brainiac a basic attack sequence on top of mechanics. He was essentially just a walking mechanic boss. But overall it’s a nice raid. FVe first boss was about following mechanics. It became hard the more people ignored them and easier the more people follow them (grodd) which was refreshing.

So all I’m saying is that a balance is needed.

Just being curious here but why are you testing the elite solo at CR 210 or 300 when the entry CR is 327?

Because the average forum user feels like that elite content should be doable by anyone with minumum gear and skill on day one and you will be called elitist if you disagree.

Many left on episode 40 and each dlcs this happens cause for some reason the elite raids are no more then average difficulty not sure if its intented or not,I thought the last episode proofed that a good elite alert and duo cant even come close to a good elite raid episode 40 had a mass exodus of players due to easy elite raids and the good elite alert and duo didnt save it. By good i mean highish Elite difficutly.

Playing the elite solo with cr210, even did with cr161 is to show you in numbers how far away from a challenge it is.
It also means it isn´t even minimum difficulty, the key factor there, since im looking at the game as a whole now with stat clamp, you dont need to get mods, skillpoints or artefacts. I mean the stat clamped content is even more a joke and will turn out as the opposite as what they wanted, since its way to easy (you dont need anything there aswell) which means people are not forced to get any mods, artefacts whatsoever while even giving them source marks for most stuff you can buy, in other words they already going to lose alot of money that way, since even styles you can buy with source marks. And those marks also needed to increase Artefacts etc. which means even those players will have them when beeing at end game content, making it even easier to finish elite content where you can run it without. It´s taking away all challenge and giving you everything you need for free, while that´s not only a whack business move in terms of money making, it also is psychologically due to humans quickly losing interest in things they can get easily. It might will work for the first weeks but after that...good luck keeping this game alive.

What data do you have to back this up? From the numbers that I could find episode 40 brought back a larger amount of players compared to recent dlcs? The last “popular” dlc was JLD. Cant remember exactly who posted it but someone did show numbers in a thread. I could pull up the steam charts and show the rating for that server alone. Won’t give a full picture but it can show a pattern. But the myth that “people left episode 40 because of difficulty” is just that, a myth. If you have proof by all means show it.

No the stats clamp will not make progression useless. That’s not how stats clamp works at all. You still need the minimum cr needed to get into content. The last 3 dlcs at any given time are not stats clamped either. For the instances that are clamped stats outside of gear will still bleed through. As for doing it at cr 210 please give proof. I could say I beat X content with 30 cr and it won’t mean it’s true. Am I saying it’s impossible? No. But claims like that need to be backed. The devs made these elite a little harder because of actual feedback that they could see.

Tried it with fire, managed to get him to 1/3 of his health bar left, he had 4 allies at that point, got knocked down to the ground by them, the kryptonite despawned, survived the ground punch, healed back to full health, got knocked down again by his allies and as soon as i was getting up his heat vision melted my health bar down to 0. Forgot to check the combat logs but will try it again and try to at least get some screenshots from it. Also pretty sure the only reason i survived his ground punch was bc i was in tank role.

The method on how to avoid specific attacks you get for free

Oh good lord, it´s elite content and you dont know that you have to lunge heat vision?! I mean, you probably even have the counter symbols activated. That´s why it all becomes way to easy, when you dont know what you have to do, forcing them to make it easier.

S

so you’re showing how to beat it using the environment to your advantage to avoid most attacks while also being in tank role and using fire to self heal any splash damage. Fine easy fix. Have the devs make you grounded and have certain areas off limits so that you can’t avoid it. Making them do more damage or making them take less damage won’t change anything because you can do those things.

You’re literally saying make it harder while also doing things like what you showed in the images. Do you really see nothing wrong? Instead you could’ve just as easily asked them to block these areas so that the mechanics can’t be cheesed. Would you be able to say it’s easy without doing those tactics?

Ran the updated Science Spire Elite solo. CR339, 200 trans/strat/solar, 40.0 gen mods, 302 might origin augments, not sure about episode augments (Dom something) and 400 some odd skill points.

The bulk of the diffuculty on the first boss comes from whether or not he does the eyebeam. If he does, it's a much harder fight. Still don't see that attack as being properly balanced. Without the eyebeam, fairly straightforward assuming you follow basic survival tactics (soder, supply, shield).

Last boss not much of an issue. Shield made getting a bomb easy. With the bombs removed as a threat, it was a fairly simple fight.

All things considered, it's in a pretty good spot. Solos are some of the most forgiving and approachable content in this game, and rightfully so. This is well beyond what a "normal" solo is and requires some survival instinct and combat awareness. It's not too easy, you actually have to try to survive. And not too hard if you follow mechanics.


Slight side note. Going tank stance and dropping CR while proceeding to use cheese tactics during boss fights to survive proves very little about the actual difficulty of this instance. Does it still take skill to not die repeatedly? Sure. But it ignores the intent of the instance.

I'd say that the pillars on the first boss and terminal on the last should be looked at in terms of balance more than anything.

You do understand that is why RTX did & said that right. He's purposely trying to find cheese and point it out so that the devs can possibly rectify the situation.
Thats how testing games is suppose to work.
That is also how you make content harder. Remove the cheese.

If you're against cheese and apperently you are.
Why would it bother you the rtx points these cheese issues out?