So..how much has changed since 2016?

Old player here, stopped playing around the time War of Light part 3 came and went, so year might be wrong but, eh..

What's changed since then in DCUO?

Well the devs tried to make pets that we had to feed and water. I was the tester for it.......it did not go well. Sorry Fluffy

Can’t say there was a wotlp3…as it was meshed with other stuff in crazy monthly stuff. Let’s see, a lot has happened. Skill points got renamed to stat points, but yet still says skill points in game. Adaptive augments. Origin augments replaced mod sockets. Artifacts. Redesigned skill point tree, includes a focus, and is trash for progression. No more advanced mechanics. Still have wm. All stats got nerfed but the power creep is still there as an exponential curve. We got clamped once again in all content. Nature still sucks…oh nvm that didn’t change. Nature healer got nerfed and is now completely useless as a power. Tanks only have one group immunity power. Nobody wants 2 trolls, maybe one or none is now preferable. Exobits got renamed. Got rid of monthly stuff. Time crapsules became a thing. Crafting op items. Easy content to a point you don’t need a tank, just a healer and 7 dps. Gear now increases by 10 instead of 2-3 each dlc. Membership got redone. Daily rewards. Power pool now regenerates power automatically and not vit. There is something called a leg mod, whatever that is for. I think the game has been bought out a few more times, nothing new there I suppose. Bunch of new auras, chromas, and other useless floating garbage. There’s more but that’s a good chunk of it.

Every update something changes. Knowing this game is like counting stars, it’s impossible.

You missed the 2017 stats revamp, stats, weapons and powersets saw a major overhaul. Water powerset. Artifacts. R&D overhaul. Exobits were replaced with exo-material. Old exobytes were replaced with new exobytes that you obtain from salvaging gear and episode specific exobytes are loot drops. Equipment stat mods were replaced with Augments. Iconic NPC refreshes. Heroes and villains can talk to each other but not queue up. Combat pets exist in tiers now: T1, T2 and T3. Everyone is clamped in old content. Combat relevancy was removed. Loot locks were removed from old content. Allies.

Pretty much everything The Lorax explained. The game has changed a lot and I started 2016 myself.

I can link you a few official articles that will give you the basis about the artifacts and augments systems:
https://www.dcuniverseonline.com/guides/dcuo-augments-guide-2018
https://www.dcuniverseonline.com/guides/guide-artifacts-dcuo

Time capsules are also a thing. The old Promethium Lockboxes got removed and their items got placed in Fate's vendor. Everyone hang in the House of Legends now so this is where you will find the vendor. The currency for it comes from the Daily Rewards you can get each day, as well as another currency called "Destiny Tokens" that can help you with leveling up your artifacts. Day 21 has a special reward each month, and you have to log in exactly 21 days to get it. Oh yeah, ALL content is completely free to play. No more buying no more membership required! Powers, Skimming movement and shield weapon are still a market place purchase.

Read on Membership levels here because membership got a big update, as well as July's and October's development updates:
https://www.dcuniverseonline.com/news/dcuo-development-update-july-2021
https://www.dcuniverseonline.com/news/dcuo-development-update-october-2021

Allies system is very new so I suggest taking a read here:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/introducing-the-allies-system.316938/

Just fyi that if you look to get Nubia as ally you have to open 25 Wondrous Time Capsules. She is really good, but requires a lot of resources as a Legendary Ally. Additionally, you can now get Legendary allies from Cyborg's vendor in the House of Legends, so you do not have to pay to get them.

For builds and the such I suggest looking up Obsidian Chill on YouTube, he has very good guides on each powerset and he updates them yearly as far as I can tell.

And yeah, being clamped in old content aswell and all that which by your signature you seem to like the idea.

It's good to give the game a try now if you want to come back and start playing again! Welcome back if you do!

I have videos that go back allllllll the way to 2015. So yu can take a look and them videos if you want to know more.

The latest BIG change was pretty much the House of Legends.

The game is going in the right direction id definetly recommend returning the communication between certain devs is really as good as it can get,i just wish the companys in charge of dc would invest more money into the game interms of more devs so we can get more/bigger updates and content/episodes also a server merge would be a great thing.

Sheesh, so many changes...guess I need to do some homework before blindly running back in..

Thanks for the responses everyone, and the links and videos as well Magneto and Zoe.

The in depth is appreciated as well Lorax.

These are some very helpful responses. I just returned too.

On the whole, a lot of positive changes. I think that the game was largely directionless from 2012 to 2017 with a ton of experimenting that seems to have stopped (we were getting Large vs Small group content DLCs, monthly DLCs at one point, etc). But now you can kind of know to expect a raid, alert, an instanced open world with daily missions and bounties and potentially a duo/solo instance as well. Additionally the best gear comes from the vendors. 2016 the game was very much “run the raids, hope for the good drops, and that’s it” and there was no point in running the rest of the content once you had feats. No longer the case and there is much more of a reason to log in and play all daily content every day. Everything feels like it helps progress my character.

The removal of “classic” gear mods in favor of Augments is great as well. Simultaneously giving me a reason to salvage gear and having it make tangible progress on my toons is great and gives drops that would have previously been garbage meaning. Artifacts I’m still up in the air on. On one hand, I do enjoy having a greater selection of loadout options and things to grind for. On the other, they are a miserable slog to level up, and pretty necessary to have for competitive DPS. Great concept with poor execution IMO.

Powers feel more balanced and the scoreboard reflecting boss damage is a wonderful change. There is and always will be a meta, powers you can’t keep up with, but I don’t think it’s nearly as out of whack as it was in previous years.

Stat clamping has breathed new life into old content for me. I think your mileage may vary there, but I’ve been pretty pleased with the difficulty in older content. It’s no longer high level toons 1 shorting everything in existence, but it’s also not TRULY difficult and one person can will you through 90% of content.

Overall I think it’s in a significantly better spot than 2016, though I have my gripes with the new episode that dropped and some of the overly blatant cash grab items (Time capsules and artifacts being the main culprits here)

These got everything covered I just wanted to say welcome back

Welcome back.

Outside of all the technical changes (artis are way more important, we have augments, allies, stats revamp, power changes, AM and WM are gone) I'd say the overall biggest change is the fact that 'casual' gameplay is no longer an option unless you A) don't care about being endgame or B) don't mind spending money (a lot of money).

In 2016, (maybe 2015 or so), if you played 3-4 days a week you could 'keep up' especially if you did a replay run on raid night, or had some leaguemates willing to 'carry' you through a few runs you needed. So much of what we do now is based on grinding materials, xp, marks, SP, scaling CR gear...or buying our way to those things... it's more job than game it seems like.

It's still 'fun' but it's full time... I don't know anyone who has come back to the game who hasn't stated that was the biggest cultural change (on top of all the technical changes)...as long as you know that going in, you should be fine if you come back.

Not much outside of micro transactions. And now were in this Inescapable loop of dlcs that features batman who laughs

Artifacts. These dominate the determination of your power level. Everything else is negligible in comparison and yes you can buy your power, or very slowly progress them with time and playing the game.

Also yes Metal DLCs. Still not as obsessed as the Lantern stuff years ago though

Your signature ;-; <3

Instead of listing everything that changed I figured I'd say key areas to the game now so that you can catch up here instead of trying to look through multiple threads. Starting with:

Artifacts.

There are many artifacts that will greatly impact and change how you play. This includes all Roles. You can have up to 3 artifacts equipped at any given time and they have a max rank of 200. Artifacts gain stats as you rank them up and most have added percentage bonuses every 20 ranks. In addition to the stat boost they give, they also give added unique effects at specific milestones. These are at 80, 120, 160, and finally 200.

To rank up an artifact you will need Nth metal that drops from defeating enemies or collecting some nodes like exo nodes. This has an internal cooldown before you can get another to drop. After you feed enough nth to an artifact you will eventually need to get through a break through. These happen every 20 levels. To break through you will need catalyst for artifacts. These are Dionesium, Quantum Field Energy, and Paradox Energy. Higher milestones have a decreased chance of success for breakthroughs. You will eventually want a Seal to protect your investments (catalyst). There are 2 types of seals. Seals of preservation will save your catalyst if a breakthrough fails. By doing so the Seal is used instead and you will need to attempt a breakthrough again. Seals of Completion will guarantee that you succeed the breakthrough. Both seal and catalyst are used when doing this. A rule of thumb is that you want to use seals of preservation on early breakthroughs and use seals of completions for hire ranks.

There are a lot of different artifacts. There will always be a meta set up but for the most part you can use what ever you like. If you want more information I have wrote out more info on artifacts HERE


Next up: Allies

Allies are the new shiny toys. Similar to artifacts you can have 3 equipped at the same time. Unlike artifacts 2 will be equipped for their passive abilities and 1 will be for combat. Calling in your combat ally will have them come in to do an attack and then they leave. They have a 90 second cooldown before you can call them back in. They also do not give base stats for having them leveled. Instead they have passives which do different things based on who you have equipped. Rare (blue) and Epic (purple) allies have 1 passive. And Legendary allies have 2 passives you can choose from. Only 1 passive can be used per ally. So having 2 Legendary allies equipped will still only give you 2 passive instead of 4.

They are ranked up using Ally Favor and they also have their own catalyst too. to breakthrough you will need Rare Alliance and Epic Alliance. Legendary Allies will also need Legendary Alliance to do a breakthrough. Similar to how Nth drops for artifacts, Ally Favor also drops from defeating enemies. Unlike Artifacts, the chance to breakthrough a milestone for Allies is 100% so no Seals are needed for Allies.


Next: Augments

You no longer need to mod gear for stat boost. Instead you have 4 Origin Augments for each stat. 4 Might Augments, 4 Precision Augments, 4 Dominance Augments, 4 Restoration Augments, and 4 Vitalization Augments. You can have 4 Augments equipped at any given time and it is recommended to have all 4 of the same stats. These Augments can be leveled up to a cap. The cap is increased every DLC.

To level up Augments you will need Exobytes. You get these by salvaging gear. The higher gear score the gear is the higher rank the Exobyte you get is. Just like Augments you have Exobytes of each stats (might/prec/dom/resto/vit). However there is also a colorless Exobyte. If you feed a might exobyte to a might augment you get a boost to the amount of experience the exobyte gives. But there is no penalty for feeding wrong colors. Colorless exobytes do not give any bonus experience. Exobytes have 2 types of rank. Their MK rank and the rank of value. Within an MK rank you can have 3 values. Flawed (grey), Solid (green) and Pristine (blue). As an example if you salvage a piece of end game gear you will get an MK 16 exobyte. The exobyte can be any color (red/might, yellow/prec, purple/dom, resto/green, vit/blue, colorless) and can have 1 of 3 values. Colorless Exobytes do not have any bonus experience towards any color, however colorless exobytes can have their Value increased. So a Flawed exobyte can be turned into a solid exobyte. And that could also be turned to a Pristine exobyte. To rank them up you will need exo material. These are the shiny orbs scattered around the map. Metropolis and Gotham are the best places to get them.

In addition to Origin Augments you also have Adaptive Augments also called DLC Augments. The function the same way as Origin augments with the difference that they also give DLC specific effects.


Anything else I am forgetting?

Batman Who Laughs was not in Save The Universe, was not in Flashpoint, was NOT in Legion, was not in Wonderverse, was NOT in Birds of Prey. That's 5 episodes in succession where Batman Who Laughs was not in. Your definition of "loop of DLCs" is WAY off.

They've pretty much covered everything. I'm guessing you're wondering if the game is fun to play. I've been one of those players that has played for roughly a decade, with year or two long breaks here and there. It's about as balanced as possible now, with some minor adjustments here and there needed. It will not take forever for you to catch up in gear (combat rating), and depending where your skill points were, it might not be hard to still feel strong.
Artifacts and augments are where you'll feel behind, but it doesn't take much to get them where you might "need" (not want) them to be.

If you return, welcome back.

The only change is everyone now hacks, cheats, & exploit as there gameplay. Many leagues with there own personal speed hacker etc

I stopped playing, The game has no integrity and the community is werid for taking enjoyment from cheating. They don't realize there just wasting time instead of having a meaningful experience

With this said I wont even mention any improvements the game has made because its no longer a game because of above

I came back myself and joined a league for this new episode and 2 days in they were like Hey "We have a Farrari run for feats wanna join" I left that league then I joined another to find there doing the same thing except its in a closed group, Even in open world I would see them speed hacking away the bounties its shockingly common at endgame that is why I'm taking such a hard stance and not call it a game because an mmo runs on integrity

Not to mention the recent 800 artifact ban. The thing is alot of things has been going on all this time that the devs don't know about and not taking care of there game with strict enforcement

Its sad to even admit some of my friends now actively speed hack because its now so common and no bans has been made I actually hope my friends get banned sadly its been going on for months and in multiple leagues its the dev's fault for not investigating and taking action against these prohibited actions now its widespread and its all most know

I even reported my own friends yes indeed and all they said was we will investigate yet no bans