Game designers are disconnected with players

This isn’t a specific rant about the dcuo designers but game designers in general. They must think we are all 25 year single males that work 9 to 5 and our social group exists solely online. The lack of co-op games out there has almost completely vanished. When I say co-op I mean someone playing on the couch next to you. When I was a kid my whole family could legitimately play 4 player co op on the Atari. It was a family game system. Sega came out and had plenty of two player games like double dragon. Then the Genesis gave us streets of rage, Golden axe, and madden. Nintendo 64 came out and 4 player game play exploded with Goldeneye then playstation improved that and Xbox and Xbox 360 with PlayStation 2 game us peak co-op gaming on a vast level that was amazing. You would have a party and people come over drink beer, 4 people playing games together switching out with others while other people bbq and socialized. Video games use to actually be social. However game designers realized they could do more with their games if people played co-op online for more processing power and more games became co-op online only, almost completely killing true co-op. Designers sit next to each other in areas reminiscent of our old couch playing days but with individual consoles amazed at the game play and fun. Meanwhile I’m turning off all online communication so my daughter doesn’t see or hear the vulgar stuff said on there. I place online alone at night because my family isn’t interested watching me play a game that they can’t participate in. So I play during non peak hours on content that needs lots of people online in order to beat it. This is vastly different then the game designers experience and how they must think the rest of us experience it. I have a daughter she like likes dcuo but she just wants to play with her dad but can’t because of no split screen (which I understand regarding an mmo). Those with playstations and laptops can enjoy couch play on the dcuo. Even if I get another Xbox for her she would have to play in another room. However if switch joined with Xbox that would fix part of the problem. Mostly we play Minecraft due to it being one of the few true coop games we can still play together with split screen. When friends come over we either whip out a game from a previous decade or just forgo gaming all together since most people don’t want to watch someone else play a game. I don’t hate people online but if I can’t see you in person you’re not really my friend and I want to be able to play with my actual friends and family not strangers. I prefer less processing use for added real socializing. We don’t have areas in our home we can play at where each individual can play have their own tv and console like the designers.

Well games like anything evolved into what majority of consumers seemed to wanted.

This was really hard to read without proper spaces. I understand where you are coming from, but to me and for example my league we take our friendship as more than just online friendship we are family and it doesn't matter to us that we can't see each other.
I'm not sure if DCUO can add a screen split, and this seems like a frustrating issue indeed. But I don't think It's a game problem - I think It's a platform thing.

The way a PS4 or PC is designed to be for one person solely, and not a group of people. Personally I don't mind it, I rather be in my room and play my games without being bothered by family members. But it changes from person to person I guess.

Yeah

I understand this is am mmo so I’m not expecting dcuo to get split screen but I think they should reconsider what it means to be a player in this day and age. The average player has aged with gaming and if you want to usher in gaming to the next generation then there should be a way to connect the two generations in one household. They also should understand our abilities finically, we don’t make the big bucks that they do. I think the next system that knows how to bring back effective household play will be the next big system. Just look at what the wii did when it came out. It was very household friendly.

No, technology evolved and players made concessions for gameplay. Some of the most iconic games to this day were co op. Mario cart, Goldeneye, Halo, Call of Duty, Madden. Halo 5 got rid of its couch co op for the first time and it hurt it sales comparatively to its previous games. Don’t get me wrong there are some awesome single player games out there that should be single player only but there’s just a lack of quality co op games today. I mean I can’t even get Family Game Night on Xbox one as couch co op, it has to be played online now.

Do a Google search, dude! There are literally tonnes of local co-op games on the PS4!

Broforce, Rocket League, Streets of Rage 4, Rayman Legends, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, Crash Team Racing, Moving Out, Unravel 2, Minecraft Dungeons, Alienation, Diablo 3, A Way Out, Cuphead, Resogun, Overcooked 2, any of the Lego games....

I mean, I could go on, but you get the idea. There isn't a shortage of games you can play on a sofa with friends, you just gotta look for them

You convinced me! Tomorrow I'm going to look for a friend!

I've noticed this a bit myself as well. My son and I wanted a good couch co-op game to play together. Both the X-Box and the Playstation seem to be built largely for online play, with most games not having a local option. And I didn't want to have to buy multiple Playstations and multiple copies of the same game so that my son and I could sit in different rooms and play games on different TVs.

There are a very few rare co-op games. "A Way Out" was quite enjoyable. But it feels very rare to find a good game that can be played with a friend on the same sofa.

I am convinced that gamers are getting older. The Nintendo generation ARE the parents now. We would love to have games that we can play with our kids. But gaming companies seem to want to make games (and consoles) with the anti-social teenagers in mind, instead of the parents who are buying them.

This isn’t a specific rant about the dcuo designers but game designers in general. They must think we are all 25 year single males that work 9 to 5 and our social group exists solely online. The lack of co-op games out there has almost completely vanished. When I say co-op I mean someone playing on the couch next to you. When I was a kid my whole family could legitimately play 4 player co op on the Atari. It was a family game system. Sega came out and had plenty of two player games like double dragon.

Then the Genesis gave us streets of rage, Golden axe, and madden. Nintendo 64 came out and 4 player game play exploded with Goldeneye then playstation improved that and Xbox and Xbox 360 with PlayStation 2 game us peak co-op gaming on a vast level that was amazing. You would have a party and people come over drink beer, 4 people playing games together switching out with others while other people bbq and socialized.

Video games use to actually be social. However game designers realized they could do more with their games if people played co-op online for more processing power and more games became co-op online only, almost completely killing true co-op. Designers sit next to each other in areas reminiscent of our old couch playing days but with individual consoles amazed at the game play and fun. Meanwhile I’m turning off all online communication so my daughter doesn’t see or hear the vulgar stuff said on there.

I place online alone at night because my family isn’t interested watching me play a game that they can’t participate in.So I play during non peak hours on content that needs lots of people online in order to beat it. This is vastly different then the game designers experience and how they must think the rest of us experience it.

I have a daughter she like likes dcuo but she just wants to play with her dad but can’t because of no split screen (which I understand regarding an mmo). Those with playstations and laptops can enjoy couch play on the dcuo. Even if I get another Xbox for her she would have to play in another room. However if switch joined with Xbox that would fix part of the problem.

Mostly we play Minecraft due to it being one of the few true coop games we can still play together with split screen. When friends come over we either whip out a game from a previous decade or just forgo gaming all together since most people don’t want to watch someone else play a game.

I don’t hate people online but if I can’t see you in person you’re not really my friend and I want to be able to play with my actual friends and family not strangers. I prefer less processing use for added real socializing. We don’t have areas in our home we can play at where each individual can play have their own tv and console like the designers.

There i fixed it for you.

I don't have too much to say other than the idea of a Dad wants to play split screen next to his daughter is adorable/sweet as hell. Takes me back to my childhood days playing local co-op with my sibling.

The younger generation gravitates towards the flashier graphics. The fact that a parent recommends this superhero game to a kid, is pretty nice.

- I love that game. I recently got the remastered version on the XB1....sadly they patched some of the glitches I used to use lol. But that was my game. I had matches with my friends growing up, we took that game too seriously lol.

It would be cool to have a co-op dual mode on DCUO. I guess that would entail a split screen for that to happen? Anyways if that was possible it would've been done years ago. Too bad kinda cause it might make trying to put groups together a bit easier since you've got two players already locally.

A recent funnish game on ps4 I've played with relative is knack , knack 2 came out in 2017.

It's mainly quiz trivia ,retro fps , tennis court and isometric games like lego that only use splitscreen nowa days.
Company's realised after Cable era that online play is profitable so offline play features get pushed to back of the list and forgotten at the directors drawing board before games go into development .

Maybe they could do a legitimate sidekick mode. You can create a sidekick playable in split screen slaved to the main character. Naming can be anything since it’s dependent upon the main character lvl and style are unlocked by main. You would have a radius that you could only go so far from the main for rendering purposes. Let me say the real magic words to make this happen: I’d pay to have that extra! If they can’t do it now maybe they can if they ever make a dcuo 2.

As a former game designer, developer, and community manager, I would say that part of the reason why gaming has changed so much is because the communities which the games were aimed as have changed. Over the years, and more pointedly, since online gaming has become the major staple in the gaming industry, the community has become increasingly hostile towards itself. Part of it is cultural as younger and less mature gamers "invaded" the online space and older, more mature gamers either evacuated the same space or capitulated, either joining in with the social hostilities or marginalizing themselves to the fringes.

One can generally see this change in how people address one another online, either in chat or through voice, the language used (a lot of it either blue or demeaning), and the "attitude" shown by many as "it is what it is" instead of calling out bad or negative behavior in the community as a whole. I've seen this across the entirety of the gaming industry, particularly when it blew up publicly with "GamerGate". While that controversy has long since died down (but not died off), the ripples of it continue to plague the communities which it disrupted.

Because of this, it is more complicated to create cooperative environments and game mechanics in-game or design entire worlds around the concept (which, at its inception, DCUO was meant to be). Another thing, which is different from back then to now is that most comic book fans are fans of singular entities, whether that be Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, the Flash, or any other single hero and not necessarily team books. As an aside, this community is more anti-heroic in their approach to things (core beliefs) than the are either altruistic or villainous. That also impacts what the developers, designers, and writers can use to create compelling content for the masses.

My take on this goes back to when I first got into this industry back in the early 90's where game development was less complicated and more time could be taken to build the software. Now the development turnarounds are ridiculously fast and the expectations, graphically, are more overwhelming than any real want for challenge. That means that longevity, especially in a game like this one, works against it. While it would be nice to see certain changes in the game, most of what I'd like to see is more mechanical and less cosmetic. It is the litmus test I use for most of the games I've worked on and / or put down money to play.

I enjoyed this take a lot.

I'm curious; could you elaborate more on this aspect of what you wrote please? It would probably be more illustrative for myself and the avg reader to learn about this distinction.

What's your evidence for this?

You could Google comic sales and see that singular character titles are doing as well or in some cases better than established team-up titles.

Fair question. Most of my evidence comes from those players who talk to me about the comics and shows they read. Most of them, I'd say about 85-90%, read singular character books or gravitate more towards shows which depict singular heroes. It seems like it's the culture of today's readers and, by extension, players that they do not look to readily group up in leagues aside from the stat benefits.

I don't say this as an accusatory thing at all, just as an observation which makes me rather sad because I've always been more of a team person. Not everyone wants to be Batman... or Lobo.

With regards to mechanic, I'd like to see less reliance on artifacts, for one. I think that while artifacts are a great addition to the game which gives the players more options, much of the content in the game seems to now be more reliant on having one (or more) artifacts at a substantial level to really be able to play at the highest levels. Hence it adds to the argument of "pay to win" especially when artifacts can be used in place of skill points to make up missing stat points in game.

Another aspect I'd like the devs to address mechanically is better game balance between all the powers. This has been an ongoing issue since new powers began showing up in game past the original six. Not all of the powers have decent power integrations and a lot of the older ones either feel diminished or are triggered so infrequently that they aren't helpful. By addressing these, I feel like maybe the game will become more interesting to play while maybe convincing newer players to spend more time going through the older content to get their skill points up.

Other mechanical changes which I would like to see include further call backs to older game mechanics like what was done in Kahndaq, less randomization of adds and drops in content (like what happened in Origin Crisis), and maybe a feat for completing all of the collections, briefings, and investigations in a given episode (like in Battle for Earth). My preference for them is far greater than my want to do endless numbers of bounties. While I enjoy getting after bounties every once in a while, my feeling is that this feature has become overused and un-fun 5 episodes down the line. Maybe a rotation of these sorts of feats would work better?

I also want to make clear that my preference for more emphasis on mechanics over cosmetics is not a slight against the art team (who has done some phenomenal and fantastically beautiful work). It is more that the mechanical side of things -- the actual gameplay side of things -- feels stale and more like wash, rinse, repeat more than maybe it should. I can say that I truly enjoyed figuring out some of the more layered mechanics the game has to offer (like the big ecosystem puzzle that was the Lightning Strikes Central City setting) and would like to maybe see more of it or, at least, a call back to some of it.