The future of elite raid stages

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by TheLQ-DCUO, Jan 8, 2022.

  1. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Hello all!

    With the recent endgame population drop circumstances have changed a bit with regard to how often players are running the elite stages.

    I still personally would like to see elite+ in some form, but I would rather see two raids with a regular Stage 1 elite, and a Stage 5 equivalent elite version respectively, than having 5 stages of elite.

    For example:

    Episode
    - open world
    - solo/duo (Elite versions)
    - alert (with Elite version)
    - raid (With elite S1 and S5)
    - raid (with elite S1 and S5)

    5 stages of elite seems unnecessary in my view, you need the progress point in order to do the next elite raid stage - or someone who has can vote the stage while you are out of the instance and then invite you after the vote has initiated. There are a few issues with this however:

    1. There aren't many players running the elite stages. Stage 4 especially is barely touched unless people are doing feat runs - usually the top endgame groups/leagues (or those left).

    2. Having more stages splits up the amount of groups, and there is only so many players to join said groups. At the busiest time of the day, you could have one LFG group shouting for Stage 1 SDe, while another may be trying to get a Stage 3 group together.

    3. The tank shortage. Especially with a raid like SDe, you need very experienced tanks who need to be alert to every skull and counter in order to succeed. On EU there are maybe at most 6 tanks who will run Stage 4 or 5 on the server.

    4. The need to run the higher stages. I have been naive in the past and have stated that harder content could be added with no reward. I take that back. There HAS to be a need for players to run said content or barely anyone will run it. SDe as is stands has a few 1 star feats. No special rewards.

    I know ahead of time this is going to be a very interesting discussion with lots of different inputs. But my question is this: Do we need 5 elite raid stages?

    And to the developers: Is making a Stage 2, 3, 4 of a raid taking more time from you that you could be using on a new piece of content for that episode? Are the completion rates of data for the respective stages worth it?
    • Like x 2
  2. zNot Loyal Player

    3. I dont think theres a tank shortage at all its just that your endgame groups expect tanks to play godtier. You guys need to deal with the fact that tanks need difficulty which means yes many will die from skull attacks,its okay its normal the same way pug dpses arent able to move from orbitals on first boss.

    2.i agree that stage 2-3-4 is not needed and takes aways ressources that could be used to make a extra boss in a raid maybe just call it „Nightmare“ version but its the same difficulty as stage 5.

    4. Yep i said that too there needs to be rewards for the most difficult content in the game.
  3. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Op is on EU so it probably is that hard to find a good tank. Plus pretty sure villain side too.
  4. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    It's more noticeable after the suspends. I am working on my tank character at the moment (got her manacles and mystic to 200 with the bonus week with the artifact XP I had saved and catalysts from running seasonal vault). Even still to be alert to every skull by every sniper (especially if 2 or more are present) and Lois takes a lot of concentration. Not expecting to be a good tank overnight but I do feel a strong need to get better at tanking for the sake of the server.

    Scrapping stage 2, 3 and 4 makes sense. Keep stage 1 for the regular endgame players and players who just want loot/renown. Stage 5 for the completionists and those who want a challenge. More traffic towards two versions of the elite raid rather than split up across 5 versions. It is also bad in hindsight, who will run FFE S3 or S4 now? After the episode. It isn't sustainable long term to keep the middle elite stages.
    • Like x 2
  5. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    On both hero and villain side on EU. Fairly dead on both sides currently, especially for running or trying to run elite content.
    • Like x 1
  6. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    I think a lot of the population thinks it’s on the tank to get the lunges. Assuming 2 tanks, then yes the lunging is on 1 tank BUT 100% should be being backed up by the troll. This raid has really shown good trolls vs bad. If that 1st fight is terrible with a lot of snipes, we blame the troll before the tank. Even in the other fights, they are big rooms and the troll needs to be on point to get cc/ stuns going. Same with 3rd fight and even a little in the 4th. Trolls need to get the stuns since the room is so large and if the solo tank, they’ll lose aggro on the boss if they have to get all the way to the other side of the room.

    We can plow thru that raid with our usuals. If we bring in a random troll, it’s almost always a wipefest till we get one of our own/ someone switches to an alt. Trolls wanted to be important again and now they are but they’re dropping the ball constantly.
  7. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Cross post from a similar thread since i've only had one cup of coffee so far and too tired to word that post differently.

    ====
    We're still finding the sweet spot with Elite+. The first time it wasn't really to anyone's satisfaction. This time we swung for the fences with more mechancs unlocking rather than just stat increases. It was probably too much on our end. My thought is to do max of Elite 3. So it's elite, elite 2, and elite 3 This makes it more manageable on the team.

    There will be new chase items dropping from these raids that some will only drop in higher levels. We'll likely add more feats too with our bonus content update, across all pieces of content. We do think it's not worth it to do 4 new elite levels and knocking them down to just 2 more elite levels gives us options to incorporat that into at least 2 of the raids.

    The next iteration may pan out to be a more involved open world with more solo and weekly content, no solo/duo (adding the rewards you'd get here as more conent in the open world), an alert, and two raids. Maybe some secondary God Ring with hopefully less grind to an extent, but that may come back in ep 44 instead. There are a lot of potential bosses in yonder desert open worlds.

    We're still in the planning stages as we attempt to get some design debt upkeep out of the way for the remainder of the year - getting vaults set up, HoL Foyer decorations and quest NPC/Vendors set up for each Seasonal, episode conversions into Omnibus Tiers, etc. so it doesn't derail us in the middle of development for episodes. Example, we'd get sidetracked having to support Vday, St Paddy's Day, April Fool's Day, and maybe even Spring when we're trying to work out content for EP43, allies, artifacts, etc. The derailment doesn't help anyone.
    • Like x 7
  8. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Thanks for your input, Charon!

    I think unlocking mechanics was a great step forward and that should stay. 3 would be fine, although there will be the middle stage that less players will run as those who have finished the highest will only do that or the regular elite for loot, and the regular elite players will just do the regular elite. Having a S1 equivalent and a S5 equivalent would be better all round, then you could use whatever resources you would have used on the middle stage for something else, or have S1/S5 (and whatever the S3 equivalent version is) for two raids as you said. But I'm just a player, that ball is in your court :p

    I do look forward to seeing what you will add in the bonus weeks.
    • Like x 1
  9. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    This is true, the controller or heal (or the DPS) can lunge snipers. It gets tricky if there are 2 or 3 snipers at the same time, I can lunge one and then another can kill me as It was a different sniper targeting me (both skulls at similar time). This has happened a few times.

    You then need that communication if a support role is handcuffed as well.

    Also especially during the add waves, I have at times done ST damage on the snipers (holding L1 to target lock) to kill them faster rather than just my brawling WM on all adds. Target lock isn't well taught in game in my opinion, I only learnt about it early last year and I have played DCUO for nearly a decade now. It helps a lot!
  10. BumblingB I got better.

    Hi Charon,

    I tried to reply to you and accidentally did a weird reply to zNot. So I'll post again, but this time on my computer and more words.

    Charon, please think about the complexity of normal when it comes to Elite+. In this raid, it really has no difference between normal and event version, where the most difficult encounter was Superman. Which isn't even from him, but really the adds that spawn. The game is going in a direction that lacks challenge for the above average player and this just drives it more. Plus, there is no circling back anymore to gain the feats in Elite once it is in the EEG Clamp. Please address this too.

    Removing the solo/duo elite element from daily grind pushes out the players that struggle with elite raids, but can accomplish getting renown via dailies. The solo/duo elite was a very nice change post Legion. I loved FP's Duo.

    This is understandable, but does this mean that elite is the primary resource hog when developing an episode? If so, what is the percentage of elite completion that makes it where more elite is preferred?

    I really like the Elite+ content idea. It does help give a challenge to those requesting more challenge. With slightly better reward odds. It's a good balance, but there is that area above Normal below Elite that is completely ignored.

    Thanks,
    -BB
    • Like x 6
  11. GregTheFarmer Active Player

    But wait a minute, I thought it was just about the challenge?
  12. Pinky Well-Known Player

    Dear Charon,

    please take care of your health.

    Remember: health is wealth.

    Really appreciate what you're doing here. But don't push yourself till breaking point.

    Mental health is important too.
    • Like x 2
  13. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    This stemmed from a comment I made in an earlier thread. Given the recent change in circumstances (especially regarding the endgame population) that idea was naive in hindsight. Challenge for the sake of challenge would only work for maybe an extremely small number of players, and even then that would be temporary, and would be abandoned later in the episode, or certainly after the following episode releases.

    If we had a significantly higher population then it might work out. But as it stands it wouldn't work in DCUO, especially with the 5 elite stages. I went over this a bit in my original post.
  14. Proxystar #Perception

    I think the crucial question is

    Why do the stages of elite or even elite for that matter need additional rewards over regular content?

    Your answer to that might be yes and you wouldn't necessarily be wrong in saying so, however;

    Someone could alternatively say you actually don't need additional rewards because what you're after is the challenge and the challenge itself is the reward along with the satisfaction that comes from overcoming it, that position equally wouldn't be wrong.

    That is why in my opinion, items obtained in elite should always be reasonable and balanced, in my opinion at least, entirely cosmetic.

    An exclusive representation of the achievement always serves the purpose in my view :)
    • Like x 1
  15. GregTheFarmer Active Player

    Still though, these people say they want challenge challenge challenge and its all about the challenge of the challenge and not rewards, but yet some of them not limited to just the other guy ask for rewards for the challenge. So things like the tell me its not just about the challenge, its more so they want some kind of status symbol to distinguish themselves from everyone else so they can puff of themselves up like Ben Stiller in Dodgeball.
    • Like x 1