DCUO Problem Solving

Hi everyone. DCUO is and will always be a great game, however its heading down a dark road of late. One of the biggest problems its faces is the decline of support roles. Now we are becoming a game based completely on DPS. Now they went the easy route with WM for balancing powers, but I believe I could get around that. The problem now is that content is too easy and support roles are being downgraded tremendously. The reason being that WM overshadows everything including powers. I know that WM is here to stay but the problem still exist that DPS will be the only role. I can' t knock them right now on lack of content because we have to see what the future holds, but I do see some ways to fix the problem of lackluster content and obsolete powers.

1. Challenging Content
A. By challenging I don't mean just 1 shots or crazy health. I'm referring to Trash mobs that can do consistent amounts of high damage, that can CC you and debuff, that need to be cc'd and debuffed to be defeated, scripted detaunts (tank losing agro), and some who will heal their allies.
Think back to the days of FOS where you had to actually think before you just ran into a room. Where the hallways of FOS 2 meant death if ads weren't cc'd and debuffed before the party entered. Or Strykers where adds had different special attacks and stuns or actually healed themselves and allies. These took skill over brute force and made for some of the best content to date. There are others like this but these stand out.
This would also increase the need for healers and controllers because of the steady damage (not 1 shots) being done a healer will be paramount. Controllers besides power will be needed to keep ads constantly off balance to keep group alive, and Tanks besides tanking for the breakouts and proper positioning of ads.

B. Bosses that are non in human form.
I love nexus, A&B, and FOS 3 but the best and more difficult bosses are the non human ones I.E. Inner batcave, Outer 1st and 2nd bosses, PARADOX WAVE, and FOS 1 & 2. I know human bosses save data and that's fine but Larger than life bosses that don't act as predictable as we do are fun and always more challenging. There should be a balance, for every human boss you have there should be a monster raid boss too. Example: WHY O WHY did we not fight trigon physically in his own DLC??? THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT! (sorry for shouting)

C. Content that scales with user
One problem is how quickly we over gear content and then its easy mode from there. There is novice and expert but there should be a Legendary Mode for all content. What would happen is the computer would take the current difficulty and take the average CR of the group and add to the difficulty accordingly. For instance I'm full T6 but I want to run FOS1 Legendary. It would increase the difficulty to that slightly above a T6 raid to match my groups CR. All enemies health, Damage, defense and quantity would increase to that of a T6 raid.
The rewards from this Content would be universal items like Exceptional Recovery kits, Large amounts of money (500k-1mil per boss), large cashes of MOT, future crafting materials, and the rest are in my next suggestion.

2. Increase lvl cap to 60
The Legendary Content listed above would be the only thing to provide exp because it would always be a challenge for the player based on skill. Each lvl will give sp but every 5 lvs would be a pp. PP however will not go for new power selection but to increase the lvl of a certain power. Here is what I mean:
Mental:
Pyrokenesis -
Use extrasensory projection to force your target to burst into flames, stunning and damaging it over time.
(LV1)
Power Interactions: Inflicts Burning to cause damage over time. Dazed, levitated, knocked back, knocked down, juggled, rooted or stunned enemies take additional damage. Enemies in Ice, Nature, Mental, Light, Earth or Gadgets encasements will explode and damage other enemies.
Control Role : Reduces Healing In by 25% and Healing Out by 50%. Removes any Healer type shielding and Power Over Time effects. Stuns target.
Damage Role: Increases all damage by 45% until the hit counter resets.
13 Ticks of Burning Damage over Time

(LV2)
Damage role: Damage increased by 10%, Dot duration lengthened by 5 ticks, 15% Chance burning enemies will explode doing aoe damage
Control role: Healing in reduced by 35%, Healing out by 60%

(Lv3)
Damage role: Damage increased by 15%, Dot duration lengthened by 8 ticks, 25% chance Burning enemies will explode doing aoe damage
Control role: Healing in reduced by 40%, Healing out by 70%, 5% of damage dealt heals their target.

This would be for every power in the tree for all powers of course. This is just an example but If lvl cap was increased to 60 that would mean you would get 6 of the special pp. So builds would vary a lot and bring back a focus on powers a little instead of Superman using and axe all the time (WM).

3. Please make away for Playstation players to be able to test content like pc players.
I know its hard because of SOE and SONY sometimes but its like taxation without representation. Legendary players pay the same subscription fees, and both should have that privilege of testing regardless of console or pc. I don't know how you could make that work but something should be done.

4. Devs play content without dev controls
No offense to the devs but sometimes y'all say stuff a beginner would say and do but you made the game. I know being a dev is time consuming but take the time to play the game the way we do and you'll solve a lot of the problems before it even hits test server. Example earth tank release was the worst power release ever. Its advertised mechanic didn't work. Brick went down like a Donald's sterling friends list. You get the idea.

Sorry for the long post but I really want to DCUO to grow and be more competitive with games coming like, division, eso, and Destiny to name a few. Lets keep DCUO in for the long haul. God Bless

I can appreciate the fact you are aware that DC likes to take the easy way out with things (heres looking at you WM)

Most of those ideas are pretty neat, and would be awesome, but they know the playerbase they want to cater to, and I genuinely don't foresee them changing their plans to include everyone sadly.

As a troller primarily, I don't think its the lack of support roles, but the lack of KNOWLEDGEABLE support roles.

While I am typically against handholding, and this game has a great deal of it, I would advocate a crash course of the roles, and make it a requirement. The role descriptions on the character create screen are all well and good, but we have had 3 years to see the effect just that text has had.

Now its time for required tutorials

Says which dev where? Or to put it another way: Says who?

I am the who. Since I made the satement

Sorry PS3 cant handle those mechanics and lvl cap increase that you speak of.

I see what your saying this game does just toss you to the wolves and says good luck. Now though I'm pretty sure the next raid will be 5 DPS, 1 Control, and 1 Healer. I don't know if we'll ever get to 2-2-2-2 but I'll settle for 1-2-2-3. I would just hate to see a DPS only game, but you are right DCUO does need to visually teach players just the basics of their role

Yeah I know PS3 can't but I'm pretty sure PS4 can.

What keeps you from forming a group at 2-2-2-2 before entering a raid? Basically all you're saying is "I want to use the random tool AND I want it to work my way" - you don't have to use the random tool, you can for a group upfront though technically you will have to form a raid of course. Problem solved without any changes needed.

A bunch of players goes around thinking their way of gaming is the only one viable. So with current subscriptions we have millions of "only viable ways" in the game, and they are all paying customers thinking they "deserve" that. Newsflash: for your subscription fee you deserve additional inventory slots, additional character slots, additional bank slots, additional auction slots, more access to the vault, free acces to your ingame money and early access to new DLCs. It does not guarantee you a group build after your ideal idea of a group nor are you granted to be superior to other players.

Now if you come up with "LFG is full of spam and it's so time consuming to build a group of like-minded players in midst all that spam" - I'm with you and there are of course UI extensions possible for better and faster group build. However, trying to keep the players liking to burn fast through the grind from doing so - no, not ok. Devs or marketing came up with this current level of "challenge", and while it's bugged and seems unbalanced - and the devs are of course working on fixing the bugged-part - somebody decided it's best to keep the majority of the player base. Forum's just the place for the very vocal minorities

no offense but you made no sense I'm sorry. I said nothing about my way or the high way. But good luck to you in the game

No, you didn't say that, but you're trying to solve a problem that is concerning you. Not every player in the game. And you took the freedom to declare it's one of the most important problems of the game as well. Sounds self-centered enough to me

Good luck to you, too

The game allows for all players to be DPS. So if you want a role based game, you would have to lock a all roles and power, and then create a new power sets that is DPS only. I think this would upset a lot of people.

I think that if you want the game more challenging you give roles and buffs to the enemy as well.

You just described yourself because you said I was speaking for the minority which means you represent the majority. So are you in debate with yourself???

I don't want to rid dps. If you read my original post you'll see ways I believe would could increase the relevance of support roles. Dps would actually benefit as well. ITs for the whole game in general.

I'm going to take some heat for this but DCUO isn't a true MMORPG. Its has the basics there but there is a lot missing. The max raid party is 8 players and that is just a little small when compared to other games. What makes other mmorpgs a real blast is having 15-30 players working together to complete a task. It was tried with operations but failed. Leagues in this game is just another chat tab. My hopes are they add some to it with HOP but I don't see vast improvements. DCUO is a casual game where you can get things done logging in 30-45 minutes a day. No need to form a group work out a plan and attempt to run content. You log in queue up and zerg through the content in 15-20 minutes, Stop by the market place and buy some replay badges, run again, then log off.

I play DCUO BECAUSE it is a casual game. The minute I had to dedicate hours upon hours to set up, stratagize, then attempt a 30 man coordianated raid would be the day my subscription would not renew. IF I wanted that kind of action, I would still be playing an MMO that specializes in it and does it remarkably well.

When i was playing Ultima, EQ, EQ2, WoW, etc. I had that kind of time, but I am a grownup now. Work, family, kids, this is not condusive to a heavy raiding environment. DCUO's current environment (30 - 40 min actual running, maybe 20 min assembling or queueing) fits right in my schedule of an hour or two for playing in the early AM before anyone else is awake.

I see DCUO as a cross between Diablo and DMC.

You have the hack n slash dungeon crawl from Diablo and kick-*** awesomeness from DMC combat.

The only thing lacking is the ability to solo lower level raids and alerts. I.e. Tier 1 and pre-30 alerts.

I hardly see any teamwork required. Everyone runs off in every direction and brute forces everything.

When brute force fails, they quit.

The game would probably grow faster and better if SOE stopped supporting the game on consoles. I mean, any development would be hampered by the limitations of console systems. Besides, PC systems develop at a faster pace than consoles. I'm sure DCUO for PC could support 12-man (or woman) content, but not sure about consoles.

Its more than hardware with this game. The Unreal Engine is getting old and showing its age. It was old when DCUO came out. It could support 16-24 player content on the PS4 but there would be issues even on high end PCs.

There’s no shortage or support roles!!! People are just shortsighted in how they play DCUO!!!

Between unattuned gear, armories and Synthetic mods, people have all the opportunity in the world to play both the damage and support sides of their power.

But I’m beating a dead horse there and I’ll address the OPs other points more directly…

• Challenging Content and Non-humanoid Bosses: Agreed.
• Content Scaling: The issue isn’t the fact that the content doesn’t scale, the problem is that people replay weeks and months of content in such a small period of time that they become overgeared for it in a shorter amount of time than the devs could possible develop for.
• Level Cap: Not going to happen and is a dead horse since DCUO is no longer the kind of game that would have additional level and most likely additional cities.
• PS on PC Test: I’m sure it’s possible to give PS players access codes to the PC server but obviously this is not a priority for one reason or another, in the end we just have accept that a move on.
• Devs Playing DCUO: Would be nice but there’s no way to ever truly be sure this is happening.

I'm not saying that there is lack of support roles its that there relevance has been reduced. The recent push for 5Dps 1-1-1 has decreased the amount of playtime a person can have with there support role. Also the content scaling would allow for even if people replay 100 times in a day and enter legendary mode it will be just as strong as them. It would never be and easy mode for them unless they entered the normal leveled content.

its more SoE its games are known to have a record of being buggy