One Death in Elite Content No Longer Needed?

There's ways to say things though and ways of saying things...

You can say "I really like the content Charon designs", but should stray away from saying "I think Charon should be the only one that make the elites content - effectively cause he's the only one good enough to do it."

That's why I said we should avoid being inadvertently disparaging, I wasn't suggesting you were doing it on purpose or with malice, just that it can come across as offensive when worded in a certain manner.

That point aside, I quite appreciate the fact all developers are involved in the content because even if it means there's different levels of difficulty at times it prevents the content from becoming similar, because again developers have a certain style and if only one developer were to be doing the content every time it would risk slipping into a repetitive pattern of similarity through no fault of their own.

Multiple people being involved means more ideas and more innovation.

Please leave the exclusionary dev talk to another thread. Content has to go through approval, if a dev creates a piece of content, someone above them has to check it off. Sorry if you think only two can do it, but that is not how that works. End it there.

While I agree with you, if we are talking from a difficulty perspective, Charon and Quixotic's content is clearly more interesting and challenging than everyone else's. Compare running Phoenix Cannon (Elite), False Idols (Elite), Darkseid's War Factory (Elite) and H.I.V.E. Reborn (Elite) to most other elite raids in the game. You will likely notice differences.

JackFrost can sometimes do interesting content/boss fights too (Fatal Exams alert, Blackest Day (Elite) last boss, Monsters of Metal (Elite), Fellowship of the Arcane (Elite)), and though his content may not be as difficult at certain points he does bring mechanics and his own flavour to new content that we get.

All the content devs do a decent job - but when it comes to more interesting content and content with some level of difficulty - some will fare better from that perspective. In a way it brings something for a wider audience of players.

Regarding the one death thing, the mechanics would need to compensate in elite content for the lesser difficulty from removing the death cap. Some devs will be better with this than others, and it may result in elite content having virtually no difference from normal content - bit like the Batman Save The Universe content we have at the moment. For any elite players being for this idea, you might be shooting yourselves in the foot. The ball with this is completely in the developer's/content designers court.

Again, this is not a thread about which dev is perceived as better than others. Please leave it out and it irks me that it is trying to derail the thread by adding it in. You all obviously don't know how they handle content, so stop trying to force it by excluding devs.

Regarding this thread, i defiently dont think the death counter should be removed for Elite content.

We already have SM (not even counting the regular content) that has no death counter, it adds abit different flavour to Elite raids or Elite in general having a death counter.

I don't disagree with what you said about the content above, but see it's done without saying "Only one should do it from here on out" lol

Also I appreciate what you're saying about the death counter as well, I would however expect elite to have additional mechanics and the like that clearly make it different from normal, the other option as well of course is that the difficulty slider could allow the entry level of elite to relax the death counter and incrementally increase it as it goes up, just throwing that idea out there but haven't really given it meaningful thought.

Of course if it's possible to have the difficulty slider switch differentiate between each escalating parts, I'm okay with that too. It would go with the pick your own elite. And hear me out, THAT option would also take a load off the devs, where they really only need to make one piece of content and one gear set. Which also is tossed out there and haven't really given it meaningful thought. Just bounced off your idea.

In the end, I'm okay with more difficulty created to give challenge while still maintaining accessibility for more player base and skills. Two raids, normal for the general, but a slider elite for the ones who are able to find normal not challenging enough.

The reality is, if the conversation is regarding taking out a key element of elite content - one death only per group member in a boss fight - I guess what this leads to is whether elite content is still a thing.

Some elite content there will be mechanics added in which won't be in the regular version of said content. This would work with the idea suggested by the OP. Some elite content however is barely any different from the regular version, besides rewards, having (Elite) in the title of the raid, and the one death only thing.

Elite content would need to have more than its own thing going on compared to regular content - mechanics either layered on top of each other or mechanics exclusive to that elite content that wouldn't be in the regular version. Elite content would be an experience in its own right and not just a copy paste of the regular. Too often lately have we seen elite content be a copy paste of the regular version.

FFE - Only really the extra adds and exploding adds in the higher stages compared with regular. Also the defence buff.
FVE - Gorilla Grodd you have to pay more attention to the mechanics and turning off certain of them. Otherwise not much difference.
CUe - Not much difference at all, but riskier to die because of the death cap. Most things that KO in elite do in regular also.
FGSe - More layered mechanics, the hammers are more of something to watch out for also in Grail fight. Damage check is much harder to pass. Zeus fight, mostly different in last phase due to source storms. Effigies at start with roles. Going big plus the bombs. You have to stay around the edges of the room whereas in regular you can be in middle.
CTe - Pools are a big difference in last boss, though they were there originally in regular also. Adds at end of lb you have to be careful of also.
FBe - not much difference, just be more careful of charges and air strikes.
PCe - First boss red ball phase. Last boss you have to do mechanics or die, like ring of light, blocking Drowned laser, not using supply/orbital while Merciless is out, tether, and more.
FIe - First boss adds are much tricker, you have to separate them, especially phoenix and minotaur at the start. Watch out for satyrs. Second boss mostly same but everything hits harder so more strict on mechanics and doing them. Last boss prayer phase and archers.
MMe - Again stricter on mechanics. You pretty much have to go behind a tree during Poison Ivy skull, whereas in regular you can survive it with sufficient heals. Merciless on LB is more risky with his slam, especially if you decide to run the barrel rather than KO him.
FOAe - Everything hits harder, otherwise not much difference. Teekl on last boss. Croatoan mechanic more of a priority.
SGe - Everything hits harder, which coupled with Madness mechanic makes this more of a heal check. Last boss Mark of Cain stack mechanic. Tricky with one death only but may not be as hard otherwise.
Throne E - Not much difference, everything hits harder again.
CoT E - Not much difference, everything hits harder again.
Machine E - Not much difference, everything hits harder again. Can be tricky especially DT phase but that phase can cause issues in regular also.
Hive E - Not much difference, more strict on Deathstroke/terra with Supply/Orbital. Everything hits harder which especially for last boss makes things tricky with gas phase.
TTBE - Not much difference besides Aquaman tentacles/damage check.
SSe - More strict with Manta bomb phase - you have to do this mechanic or you wipe - but even in regular that can happen. Otherwise everything hits harder. Maybe a little tricker with add waves during puzzle but this is a damage check and the person in the water doing the puzzle as efficiently as possible.
Escape E - Superwoman's Mind Control. Otherwise everything just hits harder.
Pano E - Everything hits harder.
Zoo E - Everything hits harder. Also extra boss on second boss - more of a focus on positioning due to tornadoes and charges.
US E - Everything hits harder. Most of difficulty comes from the death cap relative to regular version.
JFAE - Everything hits harder. More emphasis on mechanics on 1st/last bosses maybe.
Olympus E - Athena/Hecate barely any differences from regular. Zeus has bird mechanics, also more emphasis on the lightning rod mechanics and consumable.
GOM E - More bosses on first two bosses. More of a tank check if anything and takes longer so more room for error. Last boss not much difference, everything hits harder again.
DWFE - Everything hits harder again. Regular version was hard so most of the difficulty here comes down to the one death only thing especially with feats like Omega and Omega.
PBE - Mostly the same, just everything hits harder.
BDE - Everything hits harder, which can be tricky last boss with adds.
UME - Everything hits harder - again like DWFE even the regular could be tricky at times on release.
HHE - Everything hits harder. Also second boss you fight two bosses rather than one.
TODE - Ares adds could be disguised punishers/bowmasters, so be careful when to attack adds. Everything hits harder, therefore more emphasis on not dying.

For a lot of these you might notice everything just hits a little harder than regular. This can work with certain mechanics, however in many cases without the death cap having an elite version seems questionable.

No offense, but I think you're maybe guilty of perhaps over thinking it all a little.

I was picturing it as simply reverting to a "Nexus, Paradox" type scenario where the content that is designed is the elite and if anything a scaled down version is created for normal, not the other way around.

No one seems to have an issue within elite circles of Paradox's difficulty and it didn't have a death counter.

Thanks for the impromptu guide to elites, I’ve saved it for future reference.

Maybe, but it’s been terribly useful for some of us.

Not necessarily.

Without the one death limit in elite content, most of it apart from a few raids or boss fights here and there are just cases where everything hits harder. And in the artefact focused metas we have currently that won't be noticed much by many players so it begs the question of whether elite content is worth staying. *If* this one death limit disappeared of course.

No worries!

Come to think of it, no-one really does elite raid guide videos or anything like that nowadays.

Even having a wiki page with each boss in the game and mechanics might help.

FFXIV example: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Eden's_Verse:_Fulmination

I don't run elite stuff because of the death count. I find it to be cheese mode to make it harder instead of making it challenging.

I’m still hoping to get headlines for some of these eventually, so you accidentally helped me out a bunch!

Also you might find my recent YouTube series useful. I compare DCUO mechanics with FFXIV mechanics, while explaining what they are and giving examples.

There might be a few videos here that may help you out on certain things.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyEPK5bKqj_nE4M-XucChJQXbJnEZuB6u

I don't think that this is a bad thing. in order to complete the elite content, you should be forced to use all the tools at your disposal.

I do think that Movement powers should have universal abilities like phase dodge so switching isn't mandatory. However, everyone has access to Amazonian deflection. Asking players to put use to an ability in instances such as Elite content is not a tall ask in my opinion. That's the entire point. You should be talking strategy with your group on how to win. and with how easy it is to respec in between fights why wouldn't the developers encourage it's use. Unlike Heat Vision or Freeze breath which has overtaken standard rotations (which i think is bad for power set diversity), having a universal defensive cooldown allows the devs to have mechanics that every powerset can adapt to on some level.

It always was an artificial difficulty increase but do you honestly think DCUO can get to a point now, where elite raids would no longer require it? I know you like the wait and see approach but we've done plenty of that over the years and seen how episodes have gone and even the release of HoL. Both save the universe raids were broken at release, PZE was unplayable for almost 2 weeks if not more, the daily log in rewards is still not working as intended, don't even have to mention allies.

Since May 31st 2017 there have only been 3 Episodes with raids that could qualify for the death counter to be removed.

A day in a DC world:



A day in DCUO StU elite content:



“Hand me that 3/8ths phase dodge wrench!”

You started this, how can you possibly think making a thread about removing the key component of an Elite raid creation and then not allow the conversation to segway into how elite raids are created, as that would have to foundationally change to remove the death counter but we can't talk about who actually creates the raids that we are talking about needing to be changed.

A completely ridiculous request...