I may have missed the news, but has there been any sort of mention as to what Dimension Ink or Daybreak have planned for the future of DCUO in terms of player retention? I made a post a few weeks ago regarding the lack of players on the EU PC servers. Since that post, the situation in-game has become worse. During peak times of the game, you'll have the same 2-3 people spamming LFG looking to form a group for content with little to no luck. Getting a team for current end game content is becoming a lot more difficult, let alone teams for old content, bounties, etc. I cannot speak for the population of players on other servers, such as the US servers. I can only speak for EU PC servers, where the situation is disgusting to say the least. The game's USP is that it is one of the only games of its type available and has been for over a decade, but it has failed year after year to improve. The biggest problem from day 1 was always Replay Badges since they were the only way to get past the locked content. The stat clamp has removed this to an extent for older content. However, it is too late. I am not here to hear excuses, such as lack of developers after the recent employees who left the company. It's not their fault. I am here to hear about what is planned to keep current players or attract new players so that this game can thrive like during its prime days in 2011. To those who will inevitably say to join a league - that option is no longer valid since most leagues on the EU PC servers are pretty much dead. There are other MMO games available that have existed for more than twice as long as DCUO, but their player count is still in over 100,000 players daily, with an average of around 50,000 to 80,000 players playing actively at any given point. DCUO on EU PC is what - a guess of around 500 players at most? I know that a lot of players have completed the current content and so have left to play other games; that's not the right way.. A healthy game should not be running like that. As paying customers and players of the game, I think everyone deservers to know if there are any plans in place to eliminate the problem of lack of players in this game.
The EU side has been dead for years. It gets a small boost in players around the start of the new year, every year. It has done for years! They play for a little. Then realise… wait! This isn’t f2p. And off they go. It’s been this way for years! People being online, does not equate to people playing the game. I have two mains: totally maxed out (apart from sp) and 3 alts arhat are of moderate strength. Leagues are dead. Ones that aren’t, mostly play amongst themselves only. The rest… are the same people who change their name day after day to the most stupid sh*t imaginable. And stand in the HoL, with as many mats and “rare” drops on as possible. Looking absolutely moronic af. I’ve seen the same people begging for roles for hours. I actually wrote too a random on LFG last week, asking how long he’d been asking for a tank. 4+ hours. (Just for RE3e) a poxy, basic af alert now. 4+ hours he’d been begging. Not a single answer. I went on a rant last week about having to teach high cr noobs about mechanics in some of the really basic raids. Explaining things in great detail too these groups, and they still wiped, after saying ‘ok’ (that they understood what to do) I’ve played since 2013 on and off, and I’ve seen the population in worse states. But never as many high cr noobs. Not ever! But it was only last week that realised. Wtaf am i doing? I’m stood on this things for hours, trying to form groups (for mostly feats, as I don’t care much about marks) and in all those hours. I’m stood doing nothing. Solo feats are almost entirely done. Very few I can do alone now. Weekly resets now only apply to the latest DLC and maybe one previous. And it It just hit me! I spend all this money trying to catch up (I just came back 3 months ago after 2 years away) and perfect my toons… and I do it to stand around waiting. Why am i doing this? Why am I pumping thousands into a single game? when all I do is mostly wait online. I’m a perfectionist! Everything I do on my toons is to make it as best as it can be, (for me) not for others. But why on earth would I continue to pump obscene money into a game, where the actual creators have zero interest, other than… what’s a new way we can milk this for more? They have zero interest in promoting this game. Zero interest in helping players access content (older raids for feats etc) they don’t fix bugs. They paper over them, and it becomes an accepted inconvenience to players. Open world’s are so very, VERY dead af! LFG is dead - where it’s now used almost as a chat. As I said, I’ve just came back 3 months ago. (This is my 3rd account. Having previously left because i was spending so much money - I’d realised there was a real problem) and I’ve already swore that I’ll never spend another penny on it (and I truly won’t ever again!) after being left seething at having to “train” high cr noobs (week after week, raid after raid) The game is so infested with them - that you can’t run any content with any degree of confidence of getting a feat (if that’s what the group was for) or even completing it tbh! Just the normal cr*p; because the pew-pew mentality still even exists for a feat run. “Have to be the best” BE-THE-BEST! “Gotta catch ‘em all” The fact that you aren’t answered on these forums by devs, but by wanna-be devs, or people spend their entire lives on these forums. Says all you need to hear about how much they value you as a customer. You are income - when you become so ****ed off at being milked and stop spending. Is it looked at, why? Why has he/she stopped? Nope! All they do, is bring out new shinnies for the posers (who look like s*** btw) new artifacts and allies to make you feel pressured into spending more and more and more. All whilst watching the population dwindle, until there are nothing more, than a few hundred playing. And quite a few aren’t even playing, they just run stuff with hackers to get sp. I’ve totally went off on one. Losing all focus on what I really meant to say. I think… after several accounts, and a possibly 10’s of thousands. I’m done! I’ll keep my account. I really always have been a competitive person. But… no more (not on this game) I’ll allow my sub to run out, and then I’ll just play at my convenience. No more second job gaming. And when the toons become obsolete - I’ll leave! I’m fortunate enough where I can walk away, and take the loss on the money. As you mention years in this thread, and seem a bit f***ed off imo, I’m guessing it’s really getting too you now. I’d suggest leaving for a bit, and figuring out if it’s still something you enjoy playing, and you’re not just playing because you can’t walk away from the investment. Apologies for the incoherence of the rant in certain points.
Well, From my experience, most games do not say anything about methods to retain current/attain new players. The recent development discussion included new content and a new seasonal event in the future, as well as the recent blue beetle costume release and other small tidbits; nothing more than that. As mentioned in other threads and from personally seeing it myself, the devs keep the information they give out short and sweet due to being burnt for divulging "plans" before those plans were locked in place. If the devs gave details on how they "plan" to retain players and that "plan" fall through, then expect "dumpster fire, torches and pitchforks" forum rants. Ain't nobody got time for that. The last time the devs made a big change they did not give out information until they "knew" it was going to happen; this was when the devs changed the membership tiers and how they worked. If the devs have any "plans" to retain players that we need to know about, then they can tell us when those plans are in place and are about to happen, not just ideas that they have floating around in meetings. If they need input from the players, they can give us polls to vote on, as they currently do. This game is now 10 years old and players who have played this game since beta/launch are now 10 years older; some will lose interest or have life changes that will keep them from playing as much as they may want to or not play this game anymore. DCUO is going through the normal player loss cycle in this case. The change in game mechanics have turned some players off; this is normal too, for better or for worse, like it or not. I have noticed an uptick of returning players since the change in membership, so that tells me the devs are working on retaining and bringing back players. It is expected that older MMO's to have more active players; this is normal, as those games have been through the ups and downs of the past couple of decades and are still riding those tidal waves. Those games had the time to accumulate their player base and time to figure out how to keep it going. Remember DCUO is a "superhero" action online MMORPG which is not one of the more popular genres of MMO's, so this game and others like it have a much harder time attracting attention and retaining players.
Even the forums have been quiet especially from devs side theres very little to no communication since charon left i know they are still hiring but i doubt to have that level of communication ever again sadly. Regarding your post i dont think replays are a issue they are great in many ways,to me the biggest issues are the unbalanced meta and the lack of new episode content. Imo dcuo will never reach its prime ever again those times in 2011 are far far gone and im sure the above mentioned things will get worse im 100% sure unless the new team including the new CEO is full of charons but i have very little hope left for dcuos future
Imo, PvE being the only viable way to enjoy this game puts pressure on the content and the expectations are rather high because there is nothing new to engage in that is not PvE, so players become more judgmental of things they often do, just my observation of why player counts are low in general.
I honestly think DCUO messed up many many years ago by stubbornly sticking to the "MMO = GROUP" mentality while other MMOS (ESO/FFXIV) learned from their mistakes and re-adjusted the game to be attractive to MANY types of players, including a strong focus on SOLO players. I think many players were confused when starting DCUO for the first time, because the first 30 levels are fun quest-centric solo play, and then you hit level 30 and suddenly it's all about groups. They could have continued the "game as a comic book" aspect and continued adding lengthy solo missions as well as group content... but they didn't. In fact, they double-down on it at one point, when they decided to do monthly episodes which basically removed solo content from the game. At that point Mepps said in a forum post where I was complaining about this, that they 'considered solo players an anomaly in DCUO'. Needless to say population DIED big-time and a few months later they went back to a regular DLC cadence, but the damage was already done. I know they also said at one point that, 'they have solos but nobody runs them'... which demonstrates how out of touch they are with solo players. The solos they claim are never run, are never run because they SUCK! Nobody wants to run an instanced solo that takes 20-30 minutes with very little reward! Open world solos are as close to what (IMO) solo players enjoy, but this game could have been so much better if they had only kept including solo quest missions like the first 30 levels. It would have continued to appeal to a broader audience, and allowed solo players to keep leveling on their own. There is a reason WHY ESO and FFXIV have MILLIONS of players, and DCUO only has roughly 1000 active... and it has nothing to do with the genre or graphics, it's the CONTENT. DC/Marvel movies are still HUGE, but unfortunately DCUO keeps it's blinders on and refuses to accept the reality of the shift in what MMO means today. The other two MMOs accepted it early on an capitalized on it, DCUO unfortunately did not.
After the problem in Europe well I think I can globalize that, in Europe Daybreak had a bad reputation when it comes to their vision of an MMORPG, hard to attract people when people keep in mind their point of view. For many, DCUO is dead/they killed DCUO since 2013/2014, well that's what people tell me every time I talk about DCUO with a gamer. Another possible problem in Europe or for X countries in Europe is the extremely high lack of advertising on video games/MMORPGs.
