Episode frequency - time for a change? (Discussion)

I agree with you partially with this. I also miss older mechanics. I’ve said many time in many threads that the mechanics from older raids are more engaging and more fun. FoS2 and even khandaq are 2 of my favorite raids and one of them is the starting raid. I also love paradox and nexus. These were amongst my favorite raids because mechanics were engaging and not braindead block or die, mind control, or percentage based attacks. Raids had actual mechanics that actually needed to be done. And I’ve also said multiple times that sadly a large chunk of “elite” players today wouldn’t even be able to beat those raids either let alone a lot of the casual community.

This is why I actually enjoyed this dlc. Yes it was easier than recent dlcs but the mechanics actually were better and more engaging than the braindead mechanics of recent dlcs. So difficulty and engaging mechanics don’t exclusively go hand in hand. Should they? I don’t know. I personally enjoy harder content. But I’m not gonna ditch my league to only run with elite players to do it. People seem to forget that this is a game and not a job. Couple weeks ago I ran a FVe with an “elite” league and I won’t say who. All the dps in the league were Prec SS gadgets. None of them wanted to do mechanics either. I’ve even seen some of them turn gorilla attack the gorillas and turn back without going to the platforms to hit a button. When someone died near them because mechanics were building up cause they wouldn’t do mechanics they wouldn’t stop attacking to pick them up even thou they were right there and their were damaging fields around other paths. We ended up wiping multiple times because no one wanted to do mechanics and no one wanted to pick up. Eventually we beat it and the rest of the raids didn’t go as smoothly either. We wiped more times in the second fight and we eventually beat the raid.

Difficulty of a raid is very subjective and is something for the devs to discuss not us. Most of the players discussing difficulty are just being bias and screwing facts to prove their point. What isn’t subjective thou is the quality of the content. I’d rather have better mechanics then rushed lazy mechanics. Does that mean more episodes? I’m not sure. We can’t really give to much input on quality of mechanics because of the way the devs have test servers set up. We only have 2 weeks to test and find bugs. So if it hits test server than they won’t make any drastic changes since it’s already scheduled for launch. Having more episodes a year won’t change that. Having less episodes a year won’t change that year.

If FVe forced us to use the gorilla platforms more it would have been acceptable. Even on release 2-3 times and then you only really have to clear the blue damage circles because the adds aren't enough to kill the solo tank and the repulsers you just have to avoid. The blue eradication circle is the only restricting factor in the fight. Final fight if that buff wasn't there or reduced in effectiveness it would just be a simple tank and spank from range etc. FFe the only mechanic that changes along the tiers is the drones that come out and explode and they can be more RNG based anyways because if both are in the same area their radius can kill you regardless of what you do. Besides that it is just the same mechanics that are increased in damage really. If something actually changed with the room each level and added it to the fight that was different than it would be a different story with FFe.

Difficulty is certainly subjective but as i've said before there is not a single raid mechanic that can't be easily explained and broken down to a player. The issue is always whether or not that player will care enough to just put forward enough effort to have the personal accountability. That is what we can't teach in game, effort.

I sometimes wonder to what degree (if any) DPS comping is considered in designing the raids. Because it sure seems like there's a reluctance to do anything that will require the DPS to stop burning and do mechanics. There are mechanics where the DPS can choose to be helpful, but nothing that outright requires them to do it with no way around it.

Interesting that there was no "programming" problem through my system

experienced players probably do need to have a little more patience though, certainly while pugging, some can be pretty quick at losing their ****, but I agree.

Gotta be willing to coach em up!

In some cases it is a hardware issue.

From recent experience, playing DCUO has run far more smoothly for me since I went to Playstation 5. It's not perfect, but a lot of differences between PS4 and PS5. I don't get invisible fire AOE on Trigon in CUE like I sometimes would on PS4, and things render a lot faster and you can get out of the way of some things a lot easier. There's also stealth with gadgets players, where lag was major on PS4, and now I get virtually no lag at all from other players using Stealth since I started playing DCUO on PS5.

For some PC players performances is even better still.

It's weird that the primary platform for DCUO couldn't run Nexus properly yet people still wax rhapsodic about it being so wonderful. I did love a lot of that DLC but Nexus on the game's main platform was a bit of a mess.

I loved it. Best 2 raids ever in my opinion (the way they were day 1 i mean, not after being tuned down).
They were VERY beatable if the group communicated. Mics were a requirement in my runs. No mic to communicate, not getting in my group

I know. I remember your participation in the debates on the forums over its difficulty at the time.

Yea a huge part of it for me is the required communication.
To accommodate all, im a fan of the text on screen (we had a deaf guy in our old league).

But as a general rule, one of the main sources of fun was the friendships made an that really only
Comes through communicating.
For me, i miss that communication was pretty much a requirement. The raids were so much more fun back then (and yes way harder) but so much more fun. I mentioned in another thread “who remembers yelling pancakes?” But really thats the key to me. If people didnt yell pancakes into the mic (something so simple) it was easy to wipe in prime. Same for yelling “sniper” in FOS3. The act of simple communication got all 8 ppl immediatly focused on task.

I say wave an nexus were VERY beatable day 1 not to minimize how hard they were (because they were). Not to make anyone feel bad or weak or unskilled for not being able to clear. It also took time to figure out the mechanics because back then we had clues an such but there was no text on screen or clear audio spelling it out for you. “Dont stand in the geo pulse” its like, yea, no kidding smh. I think thats the biggest issue to me as far as instances go. I know this is now getting off topic but they have dumbed it down way too much. No one needs the game to hold their hand. If they do, then this game aint for them and really, no MMO is prob for them. I remember NEVER just Q’n up for raids. Especially relevant raids. Especially day 1.
To me, that would be a start as far as if raids are made well. Even normal versions should not be Q’able day 1. Even if u were max T4 an possibly max T5 you werent Q’n up for FOS2 lol. You were shouting an building a group or joining one. No one should just randomly Q for a new raid.
1) We should need to build groups an discuss ahead of time
2) Groups should NEED to make sure people know the mechanics
3) Make sure people have mic’s on
They want DLC’s to last? Thats how you achieve it.
Raids hard enough to require this would be engaging, fun, and have longevity etc.

I 100% agree that regarding dlc lasting longer is to increase difficulty for Elite raids they need to scale things way up like they did for OC that lasted very long due to their high difficulty not just mechanics but also just High HP bosses that deal alot of damage to the Tank/s. Boss fights should last longer then 5 minutes on Elite.. we are waiting 4 months for a episode just to finish a Elite boss day one in 2-5 minutes?

I litteraly gave up on this episode 2 weeks later why? I done all elite raid content with previous episode gear like many others so whats the point for me to waste my time and getting gear?

You want me to play your game? Then give me a reason to gear up if we are able to defeat elite raids day 1 with previous episode stats then there are some major scaling/buffing/difficulty issues the dev team needs to look closely at this issue broke this dlcs neck imo i hope the devs understood now how crucial high difficulty for Elite raids are.

There is a reason why OC did so well because it was difficult its so simple.. i dont think anyone here would talk about OC if it wasnt about the high difficulty raids.

Even the Ps4 pro suffers from some assets not rendering sometimes

Origin Crisis was difficult in itself, but this was at the tail end of the PS3 and alot of mobs wouldnt spawn, so youd get 1 shotted out of nowhere or had to block taking damage from lord knows many mobs that never showed up. Or the main boss in the first room would launch a ball attack that rarely rendered on the PS3 you had to keep a good distance away and know the animation start up frames to avoid it without ever seeing the (1 shot) attack itself. Origin Crisis difficulty came from the raid itself but also the hardware no longer being able to keep up.

I personally would like to see 2 episodes a year as I agree with the thought that that’ll increase episode quality.One thing for sure though imo the gear system needs to be reworked, the way achieving the best gear in t5 and t4 content was much better. I absolutely hate the idea that the only thing I’m running these raids for is marks just to buy the vendor gear. When in fact the best gear should drop from the elite Raids like in a
Nexus and Dox. During those raids the vender gear was just high enough for a person to confidently run the content but if you wanted to be fully geared you had to grind the raids which were worth playing over and over because of how much replay ability they had. The content today isn’t nearly as fun to play and often have mechanics that’s just tedious and annoying above anything. I think if you guys would take the gear system back to the Nexus days it would be much better and it would give a more incentive to replay the raids instead of getting burned out after a few weeks. When I say the raids dropping the best gear I don’t mean giving it out every fight but literally how nexus did it. The best gear was split between nexus and dox meaning you could only get a few from nexus and you had to run dox to get the rest of the set. On top of that the gear didn’t always drop it felt really great when you run those raids a few times then you finally get a purple piece to drop for you, or how good it felt to finally get that purple weapon it’s a much better gear system then the current one imho.

You we're right they only went half way there.... so far.

Lol

Well said.

Also want to add that ESO content from even years ago is still relevant and rewarding, which is why I am in favor of the removal of loot locks on precious episodes and making them giving more source marks at least. DCUO has a lot of content in general, but the stories feel kind of shallow in many instances and the endgame itself is relatively tiny in comparison to ESO. I.e the Blackwood expansion alone has one very large zone (much larger than any DLC zone DCUO has ever put out, including Gotham Wastelands, Patchwork Themyscira, and Central City and a bunch of quests like you mentioned.

But IMO, ESO also feels large because content from 2 or 3 expansions ago are still relevant. People are STILL running Cloudrest and Sunspire like crazy, and they came out 3 and 2 years ago, respectively. Essentially, every DLC in ESO is endgame while only 1 year or less worth of relatively moderate amount of content is endgame in DCUO.

Doesn't help that neither Legends or PvP are an enjoyable state in my opinion but that's a different discussion.

Edit: Also I would love to see more questing and story from DCUO. This is a comic based MMO. Story is massively important here. I know for me, I got into comics because of DCUO and not the other way around. I would love for the stories to be longer and more detailed so that I could really be immersed. I haven't tried Flashpoint, but the DLC with Hawkgirl and Birds of Prey kind of just felt like I was a sidekick helping the heroes with some important chores minus the raids (which I think DCUO almost always does well anyways).