End Game content: The Unappealing Rat Race

One thing I want to say is.. I agree with about 90% of everything said but I feel like with the replay badges and the grind and new content r lease every month I feel like it might be hard for DC to change the path written without losing even more of th community they have on DC.. I have been playing this game for 4 years also like some others and all I can say is what everyone else has said.

The game gets to a point you log in and you don't want to do anything because it's not there is nothing to do.. No one wants to constantly grind the same content over and over again. Yet you feel force to because most want to only do the same thing over and over leagues want to spam same thing over and over its just not fun.

I miss the good old days but I must live with the fact that is gone but I feel like DCUO doesn't have a bright future..

Just my opinion

I'll take a stab at Mepps question.....

Played the game since launch, minus the SOE hack and a six month break.

Outside of the six months off, I play less now then I ever did. Maybe I've out grown the game I don't know. I still come back for events watch the live streams but I play less and have less of a desire to play.

The game does not seem to be advancing, it's the same old ODALOOP, second verse same as the first.

I'm not advocating for a change but I'm not spending money either.

As many others have said, it's essentially the pace we're taking now. While 3 month content with new gear everytime doesn't work perfectly either, this is mostly an issue with replay spamming creating gaps in activity. Obviously this is also something that cannot be just dropped or ignored but it is more or less out of the devs control short of eliminating them.

Now we have a setup that forces the replay spammers to wait longer to complete a set but it causes those of us that do not spam or those with bad luck to fall behind. As stated before, the game was more fun and active back in the t4 days when gear lasted 9 months or more. Then we had t5 with 6 month longevity of gear which also seemed to work keeping people entertained. I remember people still bragging about finally getting all purple from OC when wotl1 was released.

What changed? First, starting with wotl1 we started getting a new gear set every DLC instead of gaps between. To me this is part of what started the replay spammers, as suddenly you only had 3-4 months to get the gear. Also, gear at this point was exponentially growing in stats and therefore started eclipsing other "carrots on sticks" leaving us with just gear grinding.

I would propose going back to quarterly DLC cycles though with the same structure we have with monthly, though gear will last for 2 dlcs. Now, we need to address gear drops and vendor gear. Let's assume we start DLC 20 at cr 200. A FULL set of DLC 19 gear gets you to 201, missing any piece is 200. Now solos and duos open at cr 199 or 200, alerts at 201, and raids at 204. A full set from solos/duos will net 204 cr, though alert gear can speed this up.

Alert gear possibly netting you 206 cr(recommended raid cr) could work or maybe 207. Now for the raids we need a couple changes. First, they need to be hard. At 204 cr only the top 1-5%(which I can admit I'm not in) should have the skills to beat it. At 206-207 cr 1 of the 2 raids should now be approachable by about 50-70% of the end game players, though it will be tough. The other raid though should be a little harder and more approachable after getting a few pieces from the first raid, though still tough.

This is mostly like the OC style with the raids, and they should work similarly. By this I mean give use back different level gear from side bosses and final bosses again, which would help with people only beating the first 2 bosses in these instances. Raid 1(easy) should have gear from side bosses netting 208 cr when fully equipped, and 209 from last boss. Raid 2(hard) would be 209 side bosses and 210 from final bosses.

Now vendor gear is tough. I believe that the vendor gear should have a cr requirement equal to that of the raids (forcing you to gear up through solos, duos, and alerts). This gear should also be equal to the 210 gear in cr but should have lower stats(wotl1 style). One change would be; more gap between the two pieces(like 5-10% Stat difference), but since cr is so important now with scaling, it will not make it irrelevant.

The other change involves the next DLC when elite gear is introduced. Instead of elite gear, let elite raids drop rare socket items(a new slot outside ht and mods) that upgrade normal gear to elite status. These can be piece specific but not necessarily, which could help control drops as only 1 drop is for elite gear(no duplicate elite pieces). Also, only DROPPED gear can be upgraded to elite, not vendor gear(another non cr advantage.

This somewhat lays out my plan for DLC 21(2/2 for gear cycle). Same structure and same drops as DLC 20 except with elite raid/alert, though maybe some small changes in the "extra" drops. Possibly stuff like 1st DLC has normal mods 2nd one expert mods. Difference base items, but mostly this DLC is for elite and testing the gear you've earned in new content with a mostly similar though maybe slightly harder difficulty. Obviously elite will be much harder, but the rewards would be worth it.

Lastly, we need more fluff. We need bounties and side quests and the like. Bounties need to be more important than feats and a mark, maybe very rarely dropping a new iconic piece(obviously joker would drop a joker piece not just random iconic pieces. Maybe another new game type could help as well.

Maybe pve rival mode. This would require some upgrades maybe but have 2 raid groups race to beat a big boss(like 20 to 30 min fight at least). Each group would be in separate fighting zones but fighting an identical boss. Then to add some pvp elements have various cogs pop randomly(though at a set pace) with different options to harm the opposing group.

Like 4 cogs could be a role debuff for 1 member of the other team requiring 2222 setups as the other team could say nullify your healer for 30 seconds or one of your tanks or trolls. You could also have other cogs with environmental challenges like add mode, damage pools, damage auras, etc.

Just throwing ideas your way. I'm sure others here may agree or disagree, but these are just some ideas that have been rattling around up there. Anyone else feel free to pick it apart or make adjustments to this if you like the basis of it and maybe we can get something implemented at some point.

All in all though, to you guys Mepps; I do love this game and have since I started playing. I appreciate all the time and effort that you all have put into the game. I love that you always try to please at least one portion of the community, as most games I've played devs were more or less non existing to me as a common player.

But, as others have said, it has just gotten to a point where I log in and end up standing around because I can't force myself to run that duo again for the hundredth time, my cr is too low for the next piece of content because scaling, and yesterday's raid is already obsolete. Even so, you guys have made an excellent game, maybe we can get back to that game again soon.

i get ya appo,

Greets Dibrie

Game should just be shutdown and fixed given a full revamp and released a year or 2 later like FFXIV and ESO.

I wouldnt see it that drastic There just needs to be vision not revolving around replay-sales that finally gives people something worthwile their time and money outside of gear chasing. Every aspect aside from "gear up to gear up even more" has been neglected to a point where it basically feels like playing only kind of the "base frame" of a MMO (gearing/progression) which naturally makes people being burned out. Weekly/elite lockouts further artificially reduce "wothwhile" playtime (of paying customers/subs!). Not for the sake of limitting progression (since you can bypass them by throwing out-of-whack money at the screen on top of your sub) but to make an already small playerbase pay more and more instead of attracting a wider audience. While this very concept seems to be working out just fine atm its in no way sustainable. I still like DCUO for its combat and uniqueness but paying a sub gets harder to justify each month passing. Finally fixing PvP and getting rid of weekly lockouts (atleast for subs) would be a step in the right direction.

Bottom line is that the game needs to be about more than just gear.

There is masses of potential to mine and some is quite easy to achieve if the focus was but a bit wider. Content really needs to explore and exploit the theme, deliver some genuine satisfaction in what we are doing, offer some encouragement toward individuality in both character design and factional input (sub factions within each of the sides, reinvent the reputation engine) and/or furnish us with goals and objectives that don't simply get obliterated each month (ongoing tasks that earn temporal events and challenges - give the players a chance to influence and change the day to day experience).

The structure of the game atm only compounds redundancy and pointlessness, stories are simply too distant and generic for the player to be engaged, the nature of choice is lost all because one lone element overwhelmingly obliterates all alternate forms of reward - gear stats rule all to the detriment of everything else and every reason to stay online.

Freedom and choice are the ultimate rewards in any game but atm DCUO plays the exact opposite we power beyond content far too quickly and leave ourselves fewer and fewer choices, which is simply both disillusioning and disheartening. Stats need to be more balanced in where they are derived from (certainly SP should be more influential than at present), the consumable element of stats could be escalated but critically the effectiveness gained from gear must be scaled down. Additionally the linear nature of stat increase needs to cease, progression should always make us better but the gains should be smaller and smaller the higher we go...in effect acquiescing toward some upper limit that ensures that older content challenges and remains relevant for much longer....giving upper level players the whole game to reward and as such the whole game to enjoy.....the ultimate incentive surely?

I'd love for DCUO to have more content outside of dungeons/duos/raids. some open world content. SOme content we can play while drinking coffee and not using teamspeak carefully coordinating everything and screaming at those who mess up.

That I highly agree with. It also needs more promos, MP items and Open world content.

Progression is just extremely fast and needs a revamp to slow down. All the other games have slower progression. People can go from lvl1-cr142 in a week, that's not good.

Tutorials should be a must, and after watching a few vids for FF and ESO I saw that their content is continuously challenging for players to feel accomplishment, yet DCUO is continuously dumbing down content. This new alert next month looks easier then DCe. Unacceptable. Every week, BD gets a small nerf here and there, it's ridiculous.

My personal opinion is that all this is just to hard to do whilst the game is live, and it should be put to rest for a year like FFXIV, that way they can fix the bugs glitches and recreate and tweak more complex stuff, give graphics revamp etc. Look at FFXIV now, it's an awesome MMO. DCUO came out before the main MMO era arose. It needs allot of tweaks to become competitive again.

As a recent PS3 player converted to PS4, as much as I understand, the PS3 just has to be cut to expand the possibilites like the other games.

But this is just my opinion.

I have two highend characters and while i enjoy most endgame content. I missed the early game content where you had to solo most of it yourself. Of course in open world you have people jump in randomly. Mark relevancy at lower levels is counter productive. It limits what you do and pushes you higher whether you want to or not. Also, an unintended consequence for cr of equipment not equipped affecting cr is any support role gear jumps you higher just being in you inventory. Other than that i am enjoying giving a rest to my two main charaters and enjoying early game content.