Allies as bad story-telling

I might be at disadvantage here, but I love the ally system. It's my most favorite thing from EP41. I'm a huge DC fan and I love having Iconic Characters with me and fit them to my characters.

it's ok if you love the Allies.
No one says you can't love them.

But.....

How much more would you have loved having your favorite character with you all the time instead of the Robot Sidekick??

We've been practically begging for a RSK re-skin for, well, since the rsk lol.

This speaks directly to the main point here. How is this game allowed to turn The Flash into some punk who tornados in for like 5 seconds and then runs away leaving me in only slight less danger than I was before? That's no super hero behavior I've ever head of.

"Oh hey guy, I see you're fighting a world ending threat here. Let me give you a hand." *whirlwind hands*

"Oh wait, hold on, gotta save a schoolbus full of blind, mute, and deaf kids with puppies on board. Then I need to help build an orphanage for them afterwards and a school afterwards to help them become productive members of society. See ya!"

The Licensed DC game argument..... after seeing what they did with Superman in Fortnite..... not sure that argument holds any water anymore.

Protecting the Superman license did not seem to be much of a concern with Fortnite.

So.... not sure that argument can really work anymore.

As for seeing dozens of Batman and Superman..... I have only one word for that.......

Multiverse.

The very first thing the game does is introduce players to the concept of the Multiverse.

Earth..... the center of the Multiverse......

Heck that is how I got the name of my channel with a discussion like this one about multiple versions of the same character in game.

Heck 2..... in the House of Legends..... DCUO has finally started to embrace the concept of the Multiverse... or so it seemed at the time.
Blue Lantern Flash.
2 versions of Captain Atom.
The Council of Batman.
The various WW..... Comrade DIana.....JSA WW....Star Sapphire WW....
Blue Lantern Power Girl...
Green Lantern Martian Manhunter....

......And more.

So.... having Multiple Batman running around.... not really an issue.

Heck 3.... we even have Batman Inc to explain multiple Batman.
With Batman Inc we had Bruce and Dick being Batman at the same time.

So..... having multiple version of one character..... not really an issue for quite some time.

I neither love them nor hate them. they're an enjoyable-ish little diversion. I like having the passives on me main ( gots to admit, though, that Zoom's got me running 'round like I'm off me digital nut on something or other. . . ). & I only ever use the Bot for attack outside of group content. I've got Nubia equipped on me secondary, but I'm in no rush. they're little bits of fun fluff in the game. that said, I levelled up the Bot, Zoom, & Cyborg, & never spent a real penny doing it. I can certainly understand the disappointment someone might feel dropping proper cash on the MP for them. it wouldn't kill them to up the out time to about 30 seconds. but that would be a sodding nightmare in any group content. can you imagine???

you know ( I've said it enough times ) that generally they just don't fit my idea of my toons in my head, so I'm unlikely to get seriously into them. I'd much rather we'd had updates to our existing sidekicks ( even if that update was only to allow us to customize their look ).

Not practically.

We have been begging for it.... a lot.

But they decided to give us the Allies instead.

I'm not sure were talking about the same Flash. The Flash I'm talking about is free to stand around for days doing nothing at the top of the Iceberg Lounge in Flashpoint Gotham.

Oh, he's totally busy handing out "requests" to unsuspecting exobyte infusees because it's utterly impossible for him to handle it on his own in like 5 seconds.

I’m usually one of the first in the queue when it comes to criticising poor game development around here, but I don’t really see that it matters much.

I mean, I know what the OP is saying, but the threshold for ‘realism’ for player equipment is pretty low. Character equipment conventions are progression based rather than story-driven. I don’t think Batman and Superman buy gear from a vendor, or ‘drop’ gear in fights, or drink soda to heal, or carry artifacts like amulets and sceptres around. The only story-driven aspect is the whole exobyte system, harking back to the original storyline. For gear and progression and so on, I really don’t think realism is much of a consideration. It is a video game, not a movie or a comic.

I would have preferred some sort of system where we could have summoned our alts rather than iconics, but even then, the whole do-one-hit-and-disappear-after-5-seconds and then be summoned again 90 seconds later would still be silly, if we are applying either real world or in-universe logic.

If you feel that allies spoil your immersion in some particular way that some of the other features I have mentioned don’t, you don’t have to participate in having a combat ally, it will make very little difference to your character’s performance in content.

It's not just the immersion aspect, its the lack of fidelity to the characters I've loved and admired since childhood. And some of the characters are far less bothersome than others. Oracle and Calculator popping in and the popping out a second later---that seems about right. Cyborg and The Flash? Not so much.

That argument with DC licensing still holds water. What another game does is entirely different and even then the higher ups still decide what can and can’t be used even if we disagree and or don’t understand. What if there’s only two versions of Batman and I don’t like the other one for example BWL, just because it’s the multiverse I shouldn’t have to choose him. This mindset will surely be in our mind and we’ll definitely see many of the same Batman’s running around despite the Multiverse concept. Why not just have a sidekick as our ESO companion version and our Allie’s can have the summon duration of the sidekicks/henchman?

At the same time you forget that all we gained from the exobytes is their abilities, and not even the full set at that. The best our characters would have so to speak is durability to not flat out die from getting punched in the chest (and then having a hole where your sternum used to be), but wearing nothing but spandex like Boy Scout does for example isn't an option when it doesn't offer him anything except aesthetics.

Meanwhile Batboy makes his own gear but has far too many things tucked into it for us to be able to replicate realistically (for example having a full body taser so he doesn't get hammered by some mug with a crowbar or bare handed). And don't rule out batboy to not have a health drink, mist or something similar considering he has a contingency plan and tool for gods-trigon everything.

As for dropping gear, how often do you see him pick up those batarangs he throws willy-nilly every time he fights someone? We already know he does worse than that (I forget who it was, maybe Waller mentioning that they "found Batman's DNA all over Gotham" in one of the media forms) no less.

There's plenty of things that we can see them do that makes some of the things in here passable enough to believe, even with game mechanics in play.

Hold water is not quite the right words.... but can't find the right ones.

Yes... if DC says no to DCUO.... DCUO cannot do it.

But once upon a time.... DC did not want us to have Green Lantern emblems.
It took a while.... but they finally said yes.

If they can say yes to a sacrilegious version of Superman in Fortnite....
if we keep on asking and asking..... maybe we can hope against hope to have what we are asking for in DCUO......

.... assuming that it really is DC saying no.

What if it actually is the DCUO Devs who say no???

Like people have been asking and asking for a Nightwing emblem.... or a Robin emblem.... or our friend Geoffrey asking and asking for a Cyborg emblem.
I strongly doubt DC are the ones who decided to give us cute cartoon faces as emblems.
Pretty sure that came from the DCUO Devs who somehow thought it was a good idea.

So... not sure blaming DC is always the correct option.
Sometimes the Devs seems to have a strange idea of what the customers want.

Best I can explain.

As for the Multiverse.....

How do you know it's the same version of Batman??
One could be Batman from Earth 53.... another Batman from Earth 344.... and another Batman from Earth 2838398939.

Same for BWL.

Just because they wear the same costume and are both called Batman does not rule out that it is 2 Batman from different Earths.

No, but if you’ve ever fought Validus in a packed world and seen the 16 robot sidekicks in the same place doing the same attack…or the 24 void gazers all hanging in the same spot…it would start to really be silly if they were Batman…not to mention the size difference…

Personally, I think it’s more to do with the tech they have and the processing power of Unreal 3…they’re reaching a point where they’ve squeezed out a heck of a lot over 10 years. Just wondering if they would skip 4 and go right to Unreal 5…

They tried working allies in as combat pals in the Flashpoint duo…either they realized it is not worth the effort or that further tech upgrades are needed first before they add another layer of complexity to the game. Maybe it’s a “to be continued…”

Oh, I don't know if I could rank them over all the style vendors! But I like that they don't stay for too long, pets and power graphics are enough for me.

Flash is DC's most successful villain. He ruins time. Time. Itself. Repeatedly. And people still think he's a hero. Very successful villain right there.

Who's the Villain now Flash??!!! Who's the Villain??!!!