Things that could & should change about DCUO

DCUO itself is a good game. It gives players the opportunity to make their own characters that can interact in their favorite events with their favorite comic icons. But the actual options in the game make it very limiting. The character creation and overall world puts the players in a position where they can't really expand on their creation, especially those who do RP. Too few powers and weapon sets were put in when the game first came out, and still too few are here and a lot of the players can't use them. Along with these limits the way you can make and customize your character is very limiting. At first there were only the three body styles and those are still the only three, except you can now make them different sizes. Compared to other comic book games (Valiance, City of Heroes, Champions Online) DCUO has fallen far short of what it could be. Take a look at Champions. In that you can not only use many different types of skins, but you can build the body of your creation to almost anything you want. Small eyes, giant hands, over 7 or 8 feet tall. The possibilities in these are endless. Although DCUO does not have these same features, it is still more than can be said for Marvel Universe, which forces you to use their icons instead of making your own.

Aside from all this, there's problems with the maps you can explore. It's not that they're too small but that there aren't very many of them that people can explore freely. Gotham, for one, should not be an island but instead it should have open country that you can walk into and explore for thing like collections and player briefs. DCUO should also have more cities that you can go to and even start in with different mentors. For example, if I make a speedster I would want to be able to start in Central City with Flash as my mentor. Or maybe I want to start in Opal city or Oa with Starman or Green Lantern as a mentor. This just goes on with how limited a persons character really is when they make them and how it's hard to come up with an idea for a character when you're limited to powers that are free-to-play.

The real problem I see with DCUO is, of course, the powers and weapons. It could be a huge boost to the game if more weapons were added, such as boxing (Not brawling or martial arts. But a weapon where you just throw a series of quick, powerful punches.) Another feature that could be put in is that the weapons themselves are actually the powers. Such as in City of Heroes where using bows, pistols, or rifles were your actual powers, with trick arrows or multiple types of ammo. But there should also be a larger variation of powers (and not just the same movements and attacks with different skins). Elastic (Plastic Man) would really be a great addition to the group.

Since what I'm saying would be a lot harder to do in a game that already has a setup like this. So really what would have to be done is what Everquest did. Make a new game. DCUO2. With this you can add all of these possibilities and many more that other players have talked about on the forums. If you're a player, tell me what you think. If you're a Dev, well just do the same thing really. Thanks in advance to those of you that post.

One thing that I forgot to mention was new movement mode and variants. For superspeed you could use what CoH did while it was up with the energy skateboard thing. And for Acrobatics you could change it to where it looks like acrobatics and not, i don't know. But I do know that you could also make it's variants something like super jumping.

As far as the look of characters, while I can understand wanting to have more options, that doesn't always mean it's going to look good.

I played CO for quite a while, and when DC took over as my super hero MMO I recreated a couple of my characters here. Here's how they looked in CO.



And here's how they turned out in DCUO.



Granted, what's aesthetically pleasing will vary from one person to the next. But while I had more options to work with in CO, my characters just look better in their DCUO incarnations. To me, they actually look like they belong in a DC comic, whereas the CO versions just don't measure up to that standard.

Full disclosure, I've always been a fan of Jim Lee's art style, so I'm sure that factors into my feelings considering the HEAVY influence his art style has had on the game.

Yes, they do look like they actually belong in DC comics, but another part of it is the actual options from CO to DC are going to be different. You can make the muscle in CO look one way, but while in DC you only have the ability to make them look a way that's different than others. Like if there were a list (not like the body size they have. but a list for everything like face shape, eye color, or skin tone. things like that), Muscle Type 1, Muscle Type 2, etc. But from game to game, they are going to look different to everyone.

You are talking about a game made for PC and this one, which has to "get by" with PS3. That system is more than a decade old, and there is no way they can improve this game to that degree without dropping PS3. We all know that already, and have for years. So as much as I would love to see more powers, character creation options, and story, it cannot happen until PS3 dies the death it deserves.

And before people on console start saying they are the majority and blah blah blah, I know. I know that most money still comes from that dated console. It still does not change the fact that it is inferior and is the main reason we cannot get real upgrades like other games.

That's actually pretty interesting because I didn't know that they still did PS3. I thought that they had at least moved to PS4 by now.

Majority is on PS4 now, and PS4 is just as strong as some entry to mid level gaming system and considering DCUO is on Unreal 3 engine from 10+ year ago, PS4 should be able to handle almost anything DBG can throw at it. PS3 is the limitation right now.

Am I the only one completely disappointed with this games' combat system? To me, it should change into something more fluid and movement friendly, rather than slow down to a crawl. You can stay in one spot and spam powers until you win, blocking occasionally. I wish powers were combined with movement mode/style in a way that it would enhance the capabilities of players in a more diverse way, adding new ways to combat enemy types or opening up new strategies for group content.

I also feel that roles are useless in a setting like this, if you were able to move and fight like actual heroes/villains there would be absolutely no point. Instead we get sluggish battles that quickly get boring because there's no alternative to the "sit & spam" method...

Edit: Also, we should have been able to chose a base layout as well as theme... Disappointed at that too.

Very true. A ton of the game has no smooth movement like when you move between movement modes and combat mode. Something that I've also thought about is that you should be able to attack while moving at full speed. It would make a lot more sense when you have brawling or martial arts being at super speed on extremely tough enemies would be amazing.

As I've been fooling around today on the game I kept thinking of things that really need some renovations in the game. Emotes, skins & emblem styles, so many things that would have been great additions. If you have any good ideas about things they can put in continue to post them here.

People are also forgetting that CO and CoH are old games. CoH was a 2004 game and it managed to deliver more things than DCUO has managed to do in the last 5 years. That's a 12 year old game that looks and runs better than DCUO only wishes it could be.

i think it would be a good idea to show CO in 1080 or higher

http://imgur.com/ih8HNwn
http://imgur.com/GQD5sQ5

this is whats impossible to do in Dcuo, but ill come back with my quantum pic in a bit

and my current favorite dcuo

ue3 is more powerful than dcuo is showing, depending on how they put it all together, they could bump up most visuals, gfx, make every power more well, proper(CO depth). but if they set it up wrong for post upgrading then they would break the game with one line of code.(im guessing they released the game with safety approach to everything)

however, there is the second approach that would enable them to next next gen the game with little effort, and thats importing everything under the hood into a ue4+/cryengine and have it connect to existing servers as the old game

A different resolution isn't going to change my opinion, though. I stand by what I said:

I'm fully aware of the possibilities available in CO. I spent quite a bit of time playing that game and more than a little time tweaking and creating outfits for characters. But even with all that time spent there (including a revisit to get some screenshots of the various outfits I made) and all the options available in CO, my DCUO characters look better to me.

To me, my DCUO characters look as though they either belong in or have just stepped out of a comic book. I honestly can't say the same for my CO characters. The outfits I came up with were interesting, but they never had that "belong in/stepped out of a comic" feel I get from my DCUO characters. There's just some quality to the character design in that game that just misses for me.

City of Heroes wishes it was still running.

(Too soon? )

To tell you the truth dc graphics is a step up from co, but you have way more variety and freedom from champion online, I actually like both displayed pictures equally.

i agree. i made a similar post a few weeks ago. it still stupefies me how much my characters match up to how i imagine them to look. I'm always going to want more styles. Shame female toons have gotten such little attention in game. All my male toons have static looks. With the exception of changing a few auras my main toons look has only changed once back when cosmic skin first became available and it hasn't changed it since. My female toons on the other hand all have their 'classic' looks built into armories...but i love playing around with their styles and coming up with new looks. I've been going crazy with the cosmic material. I'm actually going to buy a couple of extra armories just to store styles i like. We need to add a few new slimline styles, new emblems, new material textures along with some new hairstyles, shoes, capes and masks to the market place. So much untapped potential with all of it generating income the game apparently sorely needs.

the one thing i'm always going to ask for is more randomness in content. I like instances with a rotating cast of ads, sub bosses and bosses that may have different objectives to accomplish to get to the end. if done right rehashing old content becomes new, new content becomes more exciting and more life is brought to the game.

good examples of this include the two 4 man origin crisis operations. I just love these alerts. They were tough, they moved fast, you had to fight several iconic dc heroes and villains, you got help from the flash, there were alternate evil versions of superman and batman, you time traveled and trans versed the multiverse. this is also one of the reasons why Amazon Fury 2 was such a great dlc.

Some of our recent content would have benefited with a little more randomness thrown in particularly the solo instances.

i want more bounties and open world content. i would love if if we could somehow turn all those heroes and villains you have to encounter for the fanboy/chew feats into actual top tier bounties we have to fight. i would love it if bounties were placed into instances, i would love it if activating a bounty poster automatically aggrod them with them seeking you out when youre in their area.

there is so much unused space in gotham and metropolis. i'd love for the open world to be more involved.

yup. DCUO2 is what is needed. love that idea!!!

That wouldn't be good for DCUO.