Dcuo early game, The 1-30 experience

Does anyone enjoy the initial part of the game like I do, it never becomes stale. every time I start a new character to test something I always look forward to it, rather than it being a chore. There’s a certain magic that exist within the early game that’s still unparalleled when compared to todays content. So the questions that arise from this are; why is the initial part of the game so good, and do you think it should be replicated in some form

I haven't played it in a long time, but it was enjoyable for sure. I think it is mostly because it's not you waiting to get into a mission, or waiting for people to gather to finish something, you're just going from location to location, at your leisure, fighting enemies or cool bosses, leveling up, etc.

And yeah, I think it would be great if they added daily missions in newer DLC's in the same fashion as early game content. However it would difficult to replicate that same feeling as early game content.

The best I can think of right now is say if the new DLC has a open world, you start with talking to a NPC, which starts the dialog/story/daily missions.

It takes you to a specific area of the world to do story part one, you collect 20 items while taking down 20 enemies, or whatever they decide to do, which ends the mission(one daily mission) and starts the dialog for mission two to start.

Mission two takes you to another part of the open world, you use the items you collected to remove corruption/toxin/spell from infected people, or whatever they decide to do for that mission, which ends story part two(another daily) and starts dialog for mission three/the finale.

Once this mission starts, you have talk to several of the NPC's you healed to find out who did that to them, or whatever they decide to do, but once you do that short objective it spawns a mini boss on the map that you have to defeat it, which ends the story/daily missions.

I don't know though, it sounds alright I guess. However after reading it, it's not really too far from what the current daily missions do for us..

Anyhow, thanks for reading all that if you did.

That original team was magic.

I won't deny that the 1-30 process experience is a good one. It keeps you moving along and there's plenty to keep you busy without having to wait too much on others via queues.

But I think it's good to keep in mind that they had years to get all that made and put into place. These days, their available time on getting content made and into the game is nowhere near the amount of time they had at the start. Add in a player base that has gotten VERY used (if not a bit spoiled, let's be honest lol) to having that content come in on a regular basis and you're just going to get a different experience running the new content no matter what.

Not me. I've never enjoyed the 1-30 experience. But then I did it when the game was new, back when you HAD to BUY DCUO and then you HAD to PAY each month in order to play it.

And we were stuck on HORRIBLY unbalanced servers where the Hero Vs. Villain populations were ridiculously lopsided one way or another (my server was 90% villains so as a hero my playtime sucked BIG TIME.) The Megaserver had not yet been invented so there was no phasing or switching from one server to another. If you didn't like it on the server you started on you had NO CHOICE but to start all over from nothing on another server. And since the 1-30 experience sucked so much starting over on another server was never a viable option.

Now I will admit that I created a new toon recently just to try out a different powerset and saw how much the 1-30 experience has changed from the way it was in the beginning. But after reaching level 17 I had had enough and deleted that toon. I've already spent my time in Hell. I've already paid my dues. I have no interest in the abuse of leveling another toon from nothing. It's why I abandoned my XBox DCUO account. That and the controls on XBox are so clunky compared to PC.

But to each their own. It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round.

More of a nostalgic obligation. They have done some justified changes to the missions tho, which had most of the objectives halved and makes them feel more repetetive nowadays.
The big part of why it´s enjoyable rather than pure hell is the fact that you get to hop between various locations and even Gotham and Metropolis.
They made use of big-distance-travelling which, btw, I am an advocate for. You get to travel through the entire "original" maps of DC Universe Online and can pickups sidequests whenever you want to or feel the need to.
Hate them or love them, but I used to love the T4 Operations where they made use of the Open World rather than letting it rot in misery.

I really enjoy the levelling missions, except the ones towards the end. Once you get to the Faust one with the zombies etc. it just takes a nosedive for me for some reason. I also try to avoid making Tech mentored characters because I absolutely hate that final mission where you're up in the STAR Labs satellite or whatever it is.

all the original game still has the jim lee art or did in those cut scenes i always loved those story elements

Too many adds/always in combat/one hit resets turning a cog to complete a mission…..they’re not difficult- just annoying at that point. Same with Spectre. The earlier ones were faster paced, one to the next, then it gets slower and boring. I’m with ya there, my wife and I level up together a lot when we get bored and make a character to delete. Just since we love leveling the best and always say what you just did.

One of the things that made 1-30 feel special was the cinematic when you completed an instance. The production values of the game were on a different level back then.

I used to like it (or remember liking it), but I think that was because normally I'd be doing it with someone...either a friend/leaguemate or even sometimes just some random I'd meet working on a few of the missions. With CR skips, there seem to be less people doing the missions and most anyone coming back to the game wants to be at endgame...not level 14...so I'm doing it solo and grow bored quickly as I've done those missions too many times.

I started a new toon as I wanted one at T1 entry level to test clamping at that level going up vs being clamped down. Started him off shortly after clamping was launched.....he's still at level 27 as I grew tired of the leveling and abandoned it. Guess my rosey memory of the process is tainted by nostalgia.

I created a character with the same goal and at the same time and he is still at lvl 23 ... you have achieved more success than me ...

Some of the best stuff I would like for them to continue that but time and team size isn't on there side as of right now.

I miss telling people the game starts at level 30 and everything else was a tutorial.

Yes, it had some good stories, but I'd find myself not wanting to go back through it again. I actually think the experience was better before GU30, when they did linear progression and could jump around doing different mentor's quests. I did know many players that will just keep playing the 1-30 story and starting over each time. They don't do end game.

I'm a little sad there are several stories that didn't get an ending. Like the Black Adam storyline, it didn't get love at all. Even the Kahndaq raid wasn't a good ending to it. There was so much more potential.

The leveling experience is what makes this game and my other favorite, Age of Conan, fun. I do miss the original Brainiac ship opening mission. I would get my 100 hit counter feat every time just fighting the boss at the end. You can now in the room with all the robots where you get help from Green Lantern/Flash or Zoom/Sinestro but you have to keep up with the spawning robots. I also get the healing and red barrel feats as well. The only mission they either need to adjust or get rid of is the Gotham University mission but only the part where you have to change into a zombie. Whoever made this up probably likes to tear wings off of flies.

What I really like is the open world. I would love to fly around Metropolis, Gotham. What would be interesting was to have end game missions in these cities. I would like to walk through these cities and be challenged to face enemies with the same strength.

My suggestion would be to create a new version of Metropolis and Gotham with enemies in the current CR. And it could increase the CR of some areas according to new episode releases.

What makes 1-30 experience so good is that the story is rich and you don't depend on anyone to do your stuff. Past level 30, the solo content is either too shallow and generic, compared to the levelling missions, or you are stuck in alerts or raids to complete missions and get important rewards.

I know, I know, MMO, but this shouldn't mean being forced to socialize. Raids should be optional, not "do it or progress very slowly if any at all".

I've learned a lot about of backstories of superheroes via the level 1-30 missions. And most especially about villains.

Growing up, I always thought supergirl was superman's sister. LOL

Anyway, that's the purpose of the early missions - to learn stuffs for non-comic nerd players (are there any? lol). However, later in the game, I must admit I have learned still several more things. Like in the introduction of atlantis, earth-3, and even new superheroes from the "long live the legion" DLC. They lack backstories and I've a thread here about bringing back the video headlines but I enjoyed them still.

I think the difference with early missions is that you only get to do them ONCE (per character). The missions in DLCs are daily missions that are mostly repeats so they become boring after a while. Some earlier DLCs do provide varying daily missions but when you go do them daily, they still become boring later anyway.

I thought these were cool, but kind of out of place. You would defeat Penguin then get a video about who the Penguin is... That is not really so relevant now.

Edit: they do serve as kind of a neat book end to a storyline though.