Episode frequency - time for a change? (Discussion)

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by TheLQ-DCUO, Jun 27, 2021.

  1. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    I’d be lying if I said some of the talk in here didn’t have me quietly worried. You got me. :p
    • Like x 2
  2. zNot Loyal Player

    I do think that many players here underestimate how important veteran „elite“ players are to the game the ingame economy,replay badges general activity aswell as many other things such as spending etc is very high in this particular group of players from my experience and many regular players look up and learn from veteran players creating a goal for them to reach i remember regular players from 2-3 years ago that are now part of endgame leagues and have learned from them so discarding content (elite raids) to satisfy only the lesser skilled players is a shot in the own foot but i think the devs already know all of this.
    • Like x 2
  3. Pyrometers Active Player

    What if the developers make an event (in the event tab) that updates every dlc drop but that scales towards the next dlc. No cr requirement if you capable and believe your gear is sufficient enough you can try, but most likely would need the current elite gear since its scaled towards the next dlc . It could drop a special artifacts , past op item style that drop like the prime battle helmet, a battle active auras that only drops in that event, nth metal,unlock new iconic powers,a new personality , a new base layout, new trinkets something special that only drops from the event . It could be based off survival mode or like the anniversary raid but the event will aways be active and always scale ahead. It could give us a place to use our elite gear in.
  4. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Players don't think in terms of content "structure"; most don't even know what that means. So, to claim that is dishonest in itself.

    You made up your explanation of why people may have voted for OC (in a non-scientific poll, that didn't even attempt to ask players why they were voting for their favs), so anyone else can make up a just as plausible, and actually more likely, explanation. So I offered an objectively better one from someone who was here and based on feedback from people actually playing (leaving and staying) and offering feedback of that DLC at the time.

    I guarantee you more people voted for OC because Batman was in it, than because they "liked its structure". lol
    • Like x 2
  5. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    I saw lot of people saying they liked Batman being in it. It's right above the comments about the structure you're referring to. Hard to miss if you can see all those comments about its structure. Look more carefully. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    The only content Batman stars in since launch content is OC and there's extra versions/servings of him.

    Most people hated OC at the time. The content itself wasn't very fresh because it was so closely tied to the Brainiac story we were sick of after 4 years of his raids. It launched out of balance was tuned specifically for the vocal minority of "elite" players who had been whining for harder content at the time. It needed many difficulty passes to give it "normal" difficulty which took the Devs time from making new content because there was so much retooling to do after it. It drove players away who didn't come back until the next DLC came out. And for 9 months the people who wanted "hard" content and stayed, blew money on replay badges trying to finish the drop style thinking it was ultra rare and they'd finally have something in the game no one else had if it dropped for them -- only to find out at 9 months that the loot table was incomplete and the missing pieces were never even in the loot table. They were angry and felt ripped off by the Devs. They were all over the forums and ingame talking about why they hated OC.

    So, when Spytle (the Creative Director at the time) discussed it openly at SOELive as a mistake that they tuned difficulty around this niche part of the playerbase (less than 5% of players), it earned him some points from the community for owning the mistake and being authentic and transparent about it.

    After its difficulty was normalized and it was patched a million times people started playing it, but very few people "loved" OC. And the Twitter results were skewed from the beginning so, no, it's not reliable. But please, tell us more wildly creative stories about how people loved OC because they loved its "structure" in comments on Twitter.
    • Like x 2
  6. zNot Loyal Player

    I dont agree with this,did you not read what mepps said in this thread about OC? He probably has more knowledge about this then anybody else even that dev from 8 years ago about this topic.
  7. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Of course I did. ANd I replied to him asking for clarification on what he meant. Did you see that?

    Unfortunately, he hasn't clarified yet. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But depending on what he says when he "clarifies" (if he does) it'll be pretty hard for him to ask any of us to believe him if he wildly contradicts the Creative Director's official on-the-record explanation of events -- not only because Spytle was literally the guy in charge of the game, but because Spytle's explanation was in line with our own experiences of the DLC at the time.
    • Like x 2
  8. zNot Loyal Player

    I personally experienced the best time during OC which is why i wasnt surprised that it won the bracket list,i also think that mepps statement was very clear the fact that it still has all time records proofs this further. Also the top voted episodes have alot in common so i think it kinda shows the direction on what is popular
    • Like x 1
  9. ObsidianChill Community "Trusted"

    It was more so players voted against Origin Crisis because a lantern wasn't apart of it. All that anniversary voting showed was the skewed votes towards any content with lanterns and that players won't be happy until the entire colour spectrum is apart of DCUO for their cosplay needs.
    • Like x 4
  10. ObsidianChill Community "Trusted"

    Personal mileage will vary, bad players who show no interest in wanting to apply more than a D- level of effort into the game "hated OC" because they were presented with the only option to improve to complete the content. There was no "event" version where they could just press any button with 8 dps in the group and be automatically granted free rewards. Everyone had to level up to complete the content, which wasn't even hard mechanically, it was just very punishing if you didn't follow the basic mechanics. Story wise you even had two POVs from the hero lex luthors and the villain ninja batmans, not to mention the storylines of the alerts.

    The forums cannot in ANY WAY be used to judge what is popular because just as the "forums" want to refer to elite players as the minority or the 1% or 5% the forum posters themselves are just as much apart of a vocal minority of 1% where all that matters is nerfing content to mindless levels and mass producing anything related to cosmetics. Just look at the threads created over the course of a month or 2. They will fall into two categories 1) this _____ sux and needs to be changed 2) wish list for styles
    • Like x 3
  11. zNot Loyal Player

    I fully agree with you and its good to see what mepps had to say definelty a relief to me that is was indeed a good episode (breaking and still holding some all time records) and yes for sure many forum users simply cant deal with high difficulty and effort.
    • Like x 1
  12. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    It was a tongue-in-cheek reply (the sarcasm wasn't obvious admittedly) where I pulled that out of my butt to counter the previous poster's ridiculous explanation of the results. In reality they didn't ask our reasoning; we're all free to make up our own. I'd bet on "Batman" over the previous poster's answer about "structure". smh But to your point--a protest vote against Lantern stuff is probably a huge part of it too. Wouldn't argue against that.

    Your initial comments mirror Mepp's. It's funny since he also vented his frustration over players upset at difficulty and felt they were obnoxious for being expected to "be awake as a bare minimum" in the content or something. Paraphrased of course. Which is fine, since you're both certainly entitled to that opinion. Unfortunately, the vast majority of both MMO players and fans of the IP who constitute the bulk of the playerbase (or the 95%) don't play for difficulty. This has always been the disconnect. Having different ingame goals doesn't make anyone a bad player -- they simply don't care about what you care about.

    To your second point, the forums are a cross-section of the playerbase and always has been. Period. They're not the bulk of the playerbase and players certainly aren't monolithic, but we can extrapolate from it, within reason, because players who don't use social media or players who only use Twitter care about all the same things as players on the forums do. Pretending they care about different things just because of their platform would be silly.
    • Like x 1
  13. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    Holy condescending hyperbole, Batman!
    • Like x 3
  14. DamageControlPS Active Player

    I am not here to debate anything but me personally, we need more content not less. The fact the they release bugged content shouldn’t be brushed under the carpet and said “oh yeah oh well human error lol we love you” when there has been now 2 back to back horrid elite raid releases which have had people gear up fully day one because it was so easy due to bugged release.

    Now that being said bugged content will be there always but what must happen is the increased time in testing including letting players in the hardest raids to test out mechanics and everything is working.

    I’ve heard numerous things from people who test problem testing where the devs do U Turns on some mechanics and add something not even tested which causes more problems every release that also must be stopped, aka again going back to longer test time to test everything. Only then we get more content and less buggy.

    For me personally next dlc is make or break. Already cancelled my sub due to this dlc not providing enough challenge. And I am tired of fighting warriors on the forums asking for harder more engaging content.
    • Like x 3
  15. Magnificent Loyal Player


    From best I can tell they will sometimes re-use textures (like rock walls, for instance) but they appear to have such an abundance of each type as to make it extremely difficult to notice unless you are specifically looking for it.

    Maps are all individually different and if any character is re-used it's only because it's part of a storyline.
    • Like x 3
  16. Yass Queen Hyppolyta Dedicated Player

    Personally, I loved the "challenge" of attacks in the last boss of Nexus not animating or showing.

    Good times.
    • Like x 4
  17. Magnificent Loyal Player

    That DCUO is an IP'd setting is minor in this instance. What DC/WB is concerned with in storyline is that the story remains faithful to the characters, presents them in the light DC/WB desires and doesn't inadvertently give away spoilers in upcoming comic stories. That leaves a LOT of leeway for telling detailed stories, the only difference would be the extra time for the DC/WB folks to read the story synopsis (maybe adding... another 15-30 minutes to the process).

    A VERY Rough Example:
    Black Adam shows up in Fawcett City (or Philedelphia) and begins taking out the Marvel family. The hero player teams with Shazam and other Marvel family members to defeat him.

    DCUO version -
    Includes:
    *An open world with three or four daily and two weekly missions where the player has to defeat various soloable, Black Adam followers from Khandaq as well as some other non-combat items (putting out fires set by the Khandaqis, stopping a bank robbery, diffusing bombs, etc)..
    *A queable daily Solo with Shazam where you chase off Black Adam and his Khandaqi followers from attacking Mary Marvel.
    *A daily Alert where your team goes in with Shazam to chase Black Adam and his followers off from attacking Capt. Marvel Jr.
    *A weekly raid where you and your team, along with Shazam and John Constantine defeat Black Adam and free him and his followers from mind control by Mr. Mind.
    *A weekly raid where you and your team, along with Shazam and Black Adam, fight through four different wings of their base with each having one of the Savana's as a mini boss and then facing Mr. Mind and his mind-controlled Superman (or whomever) as the final fight.

    Deeper version -
    Includes:
    *An open world with three or four daily and two weekly missions where the player has to defeat various soloable, Black Adam followers from Khanqaq as well as some other non-combat items (putting out fires set by the Khandaqis, stopping a bank robbery, diffusing bombs, etc).
    *A mission line where you have to track down each member of the Marvel family (so five mission lines), defeating Khandaqi agents and possibly other mind-controlled NPCs along the way. Each mission contains it's own story which gives the player some background on each character while taking the player to multiple locations (up to 4) to accomplish various tasks. At the end of each mission line you move on to the next mission line.
    *Completion of each mission line gives the player access to teaming up with one of those characters (along with Shazam) in the queable Solo to fight your way through Kandaqi operatives to eventually confront a member of the Monster Society of Evil. Whaaaat? Why is Kull/Captain ****, etc here? Where's Adam? Hmmmmm...
    *Two daily Alerts in which the player and their team have to save a randomized member of the JSA from being abducted by the Monster Society of Evil. In the end the team fails.
    *A weekly raid where the player and their team, along with Shazam, John Constantine and one (or more) of the Marvel family defeat Black Adam and free him and his followers from mind control by Mr. Mind.
    *A weekly raid where the player, their team, Black Adam, Shazam and one of the Marvel family members confront Mr. Mind's minions, eventually confronting two randomized, mind-controlled members of the JSA then capture Mr. Mind.

    And that's just me spit-balling a hero side story into existence out of the ether as I sit here typing. Reading through that extra amount for approval takes little extra time.


    Previous combined DLCs have done just that but the best ones were often those which dealt with or closed out storylines from the original game (episodes 3 & 4, for example or episode 8) because the original game told much longer and deeper stories.
    • Like x 3
  18. ObsidianChill Community "Trusted"

    That is the thing though, difficulty was just the byproduct of Origin Crisis, it was the re-playability and engaging mechanics that was behind that DLC. Nexus your decisions in the 1st room dictated the rest of the raid and had multiple variations you could choose just as the artifact in the final room granted what 12? different variations of the final room. Paradox Wave you could close 1, 2, 3 or 4 of the siderooms or none of them and by choosing not to close etc would impact the final boss. Look what we have now? we just que up the same raid, nothing changes, its the same mindless mechanics and we just sleepwalk as we have to farm the raids 10-20 times etc. How is that engaging at all? All the attacks are the same, coming at the same time and from the same places. That is why raids like Nexus/Paradox/DWFE are so coveted by myself and like minded players because it gives us continual re-playability with the by product being a higher difficulty because of the mix of mechanics.
    • Like x 2
  19. ObsidianChill Community "Trusted"

    That doesn't sound like a DCUO problem, that sounds like a hardware problem :cool:
    • Like x 2
  20. Yass Queen Hyppolyta Dedicated Player

    Sounds like a programming problem :cool: