So, just to get this out of the way…I realize that my tag says “New Player,” but that’s kind of misleading; I’ve been playing this game on and off since beta (mostly on, if I’m being honest). I do read these forums – also on and off -- I’m just not much of a “poster,” frankly. For one thing, I’m a professional writer, and I find that once I start posting on forums, social media, etc…my creative mojo gets depleted pretty quickly. It’s a lesson I have to learn again and again, apparently. Lol. Part of my professional writing career, long ago and far away, included writing and designing a couple of games. I say all of this only to to avoid being immediately dismissed out of hand as a “noob.” I’ve been a fan of comics all my life. I played COH, and to a lesser extent, Champions Online for years. I don’t want to be one of those guys who whines about how much I miss COH (okay, maybe a little). That said, I think DCUO has some big things over either COH or CO: the stable of characters, the combat system and the graphics.all leap to mind. Whatever myopic aspersions we all might feel free to cast in the direction of the developers, the truth is, if we pull back a bit and take in what’s already here, it’s pretty hard to argue with what they’ve accomplished. Still, there’s no denying one thing: there's something missing. And there’s been something missing from day one, at least in my opinion. Fear not, though…this isn’t one of those annoying “Goodbye, cruel DCUO” posts. I actually think anyone who takes the time to author one of those (frankly pathetic) rants on these forums should be forever honored by having one of those NPC “jumpers” permanently named for their character. Wouldn’t that be great? Trying to talk “Sp1dermanMarvel25” off a ledge? Come on. But I digress. I actually think this is a pretty great game, a game that I’d really like to see rise to it’s full potential, because…I don’t know…I suppose I just like it when a creative endeavor succeeds. Okay…okay…I’m sure many would argue that the game has, and continues to succeed, while COH is long gone. And you'd be right. But that’s not the point. As far as I'm concerned, success is more about striving to make something the very best version of itself than anything else. So what’s missing? From the beginning, I’ve always thought it boiled down to one thing – a lack of community. Yes, it’s been said before…I know, I know...over and over. But the real, and I think, largely unaddressed question continues to be…how do you encourage people in a game do be more“community-minded?” It’s a feeling, really, more than anything, right? It's all mist and vapor - an undefinable something that you either have it or you don’t, right? Well…maybe. Anyone who played COH knows that that game had a real sense of community, and it had it like no other I’ve seen in my somewhat limited gaming experience. And not only does DCUO share a lot as far as its oeuvre and its style of gaming, but from what I’ve read here, it’s also got a fair number of old COHers like myself. So the question is, what’s the difference? I feel like the biggest problem – and something that could prove very problematic for the game down the road -- is the divide that exists between new and long-time players. The world that a new players enters into is one where they’re really, for all intents and purposes, on their own. Higher level players want nothing to do with them, so the friendly atmosphere and even that feeling of “mentoring” you got pretty quickly after landing in Atlas Park is all but non-existent here. And that “every man/woman for yourself” feeling, once established, is difficult to shake loose. There’s a sort of codified aversion to more team-oriented aspects, like role-playing, for one. And it’s in this area, I think, that the devs have been a bit short-sighted. Instead of trying to shore up the community, they’ve opted for quicker fixes. So…that’s a lot of verbiage leading up to a couple of pretty simple -- albeit broad and I’m sure controversial things -- that might be done to begin to remedy this. ALL LEVELS OF PLAYER SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENJOY PLAYING TOGETHER. COH had both “side-kicking” and npc scaling. These aspects encouraged playing together, essentially putting everyone on the same level, as it were. It set up a situation where all content could be challenging, and “older” players could help “younger” ones – and feel kind of good about it. Right now, DCUO excludes lower-level players from too much content. The content lower level players are able to play is often “invaded” by some beast with a 189 cr who’s only in there to complete it as quickly as possible, probably to farm styles or salvage. For obvious reasons, this takes most of the fun out of it for lower-level players. Like “side-kicking” in COH, lower level players should be able to play higher-level content…if they’re “accompanied” by a player of the appropriate level. Does this raise concerns about “power-leveling? I don’t know. Power leveling took place in COH – I even benefitted from it. But I, in turn, helped other new players. Does this threaten impact Daybreak’s profit model? Possibly…in the short term. But the benefits for the health, life and profitability of the game in the long-term – players helping each other, forming in-game friendships, a feeling of community – far outweigh this. Whether it means NPC scaling or stat-clamping, make lower-level content challenging and rewarding for all players. It’s worked for events rather well, I think, so I’m sure it can work for the rest of the game. People will object…people always object…but it’s definitely better for the game long-term. It’s just more fun. GET RID OF ROLE-LESS BUFFS. I’ve got nothing against DPSers, but for whatever reason, they seem to be the in-game personification of this problem. The fact is, it will be MORE FUN to be a DPS when everyone else isn’t one. Role-less buffs just cater to anti-team/anti-community sentiment. The game isn’t -- and shouldn’t be – made for people who would basically solo every piece of content if they could. Whatever problems with queue wait-times will be cancelled out by making more of the content appealing to everyone. That said, for those who prefer to solo, make as many walk-ins available as you can. But the game shouldn’t be built around those people. Come on. It’s an MMO. Anyway…anybody who got to the end of this deserves to have a street named after them in the game. Get on that, too, will ya, devs?
I agree but only in part, here's how I see it. There have been many over the years that complain that there is not enough content not coming out fast enough. SSSoooo the current state we have is are these 'Major Events" which are "Designed" not to be completed in one go round (no problem with that) BUT the problem is now they coincide with seasonal's, with DLC'S, with feat hunting, etc. Now MORE content is better than less however players now by nature are forced into one of 2 choices: Spend $$$ on replay badges to run through content or run as many alts through the content as possible, farm, grind, do whatever to keep up. With that said, part of the spenders reasoning is they don't have the time to grind so they spend where they can (fine with that), while the other group is spending all their time running alts through content to get what that need (fine with that also). The result of this is most players don't have time to help new players, hell people in my own league barely have enough time to help each other even with end game content with everything that's going on. Everyone is plugging away trying to further their own character in game weather its CR or SP or Gear or Style etc. And rightfully so, we all know that if your not MAX CR your going to get blow back when running content. Hell I was in DWFR on my alt and got told they need 191 cr not 189. So by nature players are doing everything they can to "Further themselves" with little time left to mentor or help new players Truth is this game suffers from what all games suffer from......... competition. Competition from other games (do I play DCUO or some other game) competition from other forms of entertainment, competition from life. While I agree if the community was stronger (in the days of FOS's and Inner Sanctum) it would drastically improve game play, but under the current model we have there no way to accomplish that. The only possible way, of even attempting to do so is implementing a mentor feats (help a new player "X" amount of times) even still there's is just to much to do to try and keep their character relevant to end game content.
