What makes a GREAT Episode?

I've had a few thoughts on this over the years, and would be interested in hearing what others think makes (or would make) a great Episode great.

Is it variety or rotation of Daily Missions, or do you prefer known quantities in your Daily stuff? Is it a spectacular-looking Open World, or are you not bothered with the appearance? Is it having lots to do? Is it multiples of On-Duty Content (more than 1 Alert, more than 1 Raid, etc.)?

It's going to differ for everyone, obviously, but I was wondering if there are any recurring preferences we can bring to the attention of the Devs for future Content.

It's the friends we've made along the way.

For me, what makes a great episode is a combination of things: the Story first and foremost, the environment we are interacting with (which also includes the atmosphere it is creating), the length & difficulty of the missions we perform: solo/duo/alert/raid, and the overall reaction to the episode by my friends & league mates as the opinions of others will also influence us.

Justice League Dark Cursed is a good episode. I really like it and I haven’t had anyone in my group of friends say anything negative about it. I like the story, and if the Devs are so inclined, they can add even more to this storyline. It just lends itself to having more being told.

I love the open world, and I’m not on a Boss chase. The artists who worked on this city-scape did a really good job, just like they did a really good job on Dakota City. I’m also impressed with the raid. The flow was good, and if there is any critique I can find it is that I would have liked for it to a little longer and/or have a second raid.

The alert is good alert, and that is important to me also since in alerts we are more closely associated with the other players. It was just the right length and the story was entertaining.

And like Hraesvelg said our friends that we’ve made along the way makes it all the more sweeter.

1. Acknowledgement of my Hero or Villain status
2. Making me feel like my particular powerset helps solve the issue at hand
3. Great unlock-able styles that allow different colors (meaning no one color slot locked styles)
4. Dailies that make sense in line with the content topic.
5. Story lines that highlight why characters are there, the way their powers/status is beneficial. Help me like/hate this character the way the comic story did. The game can express things in a way the comics couldn't. Those moments really stand out to me.
6. Keep fights varied, and take advantage of the different powersets/items/movement styles as possible highlighted solutions. All equal, but being given some on-screen recognition.

This is a good question. For me, my favorite structure for a DLC was Battle For Earth. It had:

• Open world that brought you back into Gotham with a bounty that was farmable for gear. Similar to the bounty system we have now, but it wasn't on a cycle. You just had to wait for them to form.
• 3 bottle duos in T2.
• 1 bottle alert in T3.
• 2 raids in T4.
• Earth powerset.
• 4 vendor styles of T4 gear.

I really liked how the progression worked back then. It really felt like an expansion, when the vendor gear was provided at the start of the tier, in this case BFE, and was something that was accented as more DLCs happen after it that are in the same tier. (Hand of Fate and Home Turf.)

BFE had content designed for all levels and the best gear was only grabbed by doing the raids. I miss this, what we have now is micro tiers that are self contained within an episode and there is barely any breathing time to enjoy it before the next DLC releases. Really, the reason why this structure went away, was because of Replay Badges. You could blow through the content within a week by just spamming one raid over and over. The way Replays were marketed, they were meant as catchup, but there were no restrictions and it changed the landscape completely. Unless the devs limit replays, I don't see this structure coming back.

There was also a lot more provided during this time per DLC. They used to package things like weapons, powers, and accessories with the content as part of the whole. I feel that the PS3 and the fact that Weapon Mastery would have been Pay 2 Win, this changed in T6 with AF1.

If we compare then and now, we've had a few content heavy DLCs that really do have a lot to do. Like, for instance, Metal 1 and JLD both had quite a bit to do and we didn't feel pressured to do the same content over and over again, like we got with WV, 31st, and Static.

What would make a good Episode? Options. When we have 1 low man, 1 alert, 1 raid, and open world, there isn't a lot of options to choose what we would like to run. Episodes of old, you had other tiers that work towards a bigger game, where now it just feels small. Omnibus helped with this a bit, btw, just with limited time, most stick with the newest content.

They need to something to spice up the open world. Variance in difficulty amongst adds, mini-bosses and bosses. They should lock encounters down to a specific number so we aren't bombarding them with 30 orbital strikes and wiping them off the face of the earth.

If they're swamped on resources for the solos, duos, alerts, and raids... save time by cutting out hallways and make lots bosses amongst a wider variety of instances so it feels like there's more to do instead of 3 easy instances.

Mini-games, puzzles, an add slaughtering contest, a sparring target competition over various periods of time where it announces a winner at the end for some reward with multiple players.

They just need to get creative and add more substance.

Whats Makes a good episode?
Original content=not just reusing older content over and over. Sames sounds, sames character lines, same structures, etc.
Longevity= How long the episode keeps me engage. Some content gets old within a month or so and others keeps me coming back until the next episode is released. So far this new episode is good but it also a very short as well and that is both open world and instances.
visuals=Kinda speaks for itself
characters= This is mostly preference
Engagement= Does it keep me engage, this also can be preference but if I don't like what I am playing then I will only log in and log out. This also has to do with mechanics, sometimes we can spank and tank boss or sometimes we get a boss with several mechanics. I like both.
Lastly= having people to play with. Sometimes having a good league makes all the world of difference for me that keeps me coming back. A lot of leagues only play with their cliquish group and new members may not be able to play when they log in. For me, I need a league to play with. To pug a group can get aggrivating

Is the current episode not doing so well that made you seek opinions about the topic?

A game changer.
Episode Specific XP. Fill up the XP gives really good rewards.

Maybe bring back open world Raids Operations.

Hmmmmmmm....

1) A DLC that makes you feel like you are actually apart of the DC Universe... or at least feels like a living version of a familiar story set in the DC Universe.



2) One that is not too repetitive.
Last DLC, we fought Jinx... Mammoth (again) and Psimon... Doctor Light (again) and Gizmo (again)... Then.... We had to fight.... Jinx, Mammoth, Psimon, Doctor Light, and Gizmo....
In 31st Century, how many times did we have to fight Cosmic Boy?

Which brings me to...

3) A concise story that seems to have a logical arc and conclusion.
In 31st Century... We have to fight an alternate evil universe version of Comsic Boy.... then, we have to fight him again... as he is now just mind controlled... What happened to the alternate version of The Legion thread of the story?
I might have misunderstood what was going on.... It all just seemed kind of muddled.

Minus the OW boss structure, I'd say Wonderverse was a good recent example. The story made sense and was in line from the OW dailies, to the solo, alert and raid. New maps all around. The Grail fight in the solo had 4 different mechanics, meaning it was less repetitive for daily runs. The alert had a good puzzle system not just a plethora of adds thrown at us and again...not counting the 100 boss counts or 2nd currency...the count feats were not a grind above and beyond what a normal amount of play through would attain...meaning you didn't have the 'grind' factor we sometimes get handed. The Elite raid had a level of difficulty that didn't scream for an E+ version to make things 'interesting'.

Alot of that what you wrote is related to mechanics/difficulty/design of content we have been saying for years that part is lacking severly nothing really changed.

Fully agreed and also Regarding your last sentence people have over the years more and more been sticking to play with private groups, E+ makes this issue even worse.

Yeah, but I'm referring to the overall episode structure. Things can be hard or easy and still be overly repetitive or boring or make no sense to the overall story.

I do think the addition of Elite versions on the solo/duo and alert were good additions to add some challenge for those who want it, however I'm still not down with the feats being jammed in there so that you feel you 'have' to run those versions.

The key for me is things to do:

- The round robin bounties (which seemed to be popular in the Static episode). It reminds me of the old Flash rogue bounty runs in the early game.

- Two raids - with the one raid structure, we’re looking at 30 minutes of content (often a lot less). At least for my friends, filling up an hour on “raid night” is what we shoot for, and that’s tougher to do with just one raid. Also, having two raids gives some variety.

I don’t understand why the full Watchtower map still hasn’t been used for a raid. That is a massive area that could make for a long raid full of surprises that could utilize just about every villain in the game. Could even make it a big Earth 3 sequel based on the Forever Evil storyline.

- Making our characters the star of the story. In that vein, I think it would be interesting to have an episode where our character has to switch sides.

The Armageddon 2001 series was an example of this. A mystery character in present day is destined to become a world conqueror. If the character turned out to be ours, then the iconics would be out to stop us before we turn into what we become in the future. It could start as a solo in our league hall as we try to summon our friends in game to help us (which explains how group missions come together), etc. Eventually, we have to stop our future self in present day.

- Still think too that it would be neat to have a “mind swap” duo / solo. Using the Legends programming combined with mind control programming, we could swap minds with an iconic (or random RNG list of iconics). We run as the iconic fighting beside ourselves.

I just think there’s more that can be done with existing assets to make an immersive experience.

- Episodes that introduce new systems (or with today’s resources, tweak existing systems). I’m still an advocate of things like artifact crafting (see my post history for detailed explanations) and ally synergy (for example, have Batman as your attack ally with Robin as a support, and it creates a special attack where they both attack together). These things could make “useless” items that most don’t want to level into useful items that people want to spend resources on. They could also create storylines for episodes.

Using what you have in game now can create new things to do without completely re-inventing the wheel; you just have to be a little creative.

Im not a fan of elite versions of Solo,duo alert them to begin with all that takes dev time away but if you remove the feats then they might aswell remove such content elite version too because feats are part of keeping the contents longevity up thats probably the purpose of such Elite versions.

The theme is the big one first. Way back in the day when we were going back and forth with the Amazon and Lantern trilogies I was always so annoyed at having to play through the Amazon stuff just to get to the Lantern stuff I actually cared about. Even if the content is fun, the writing is good, and the replayability is high the theme will drag it down or lift it up every single time.

Also tedium sucks. Many dev studios don’t understand the difference between tedium and challenge (Bethesda!). Something being tough is fine (even great sometimes) but something being mind-numbingly tough is just not fun. No quicker way to burn the players out on something than by making it a slog to get through. Overly convoluted boss mechanics, needless puzzles crammed into content, “do X mission 100 times” feats, and more are just not helpful for motivating the player to keep at it. During Death Metal I did the feat to unlock access to the power battery supply drops and it took a daily that I enjoyed and whittled me down until I hated it.

I personally don’t mind reusing world spaces like Gotham and Metropolis as the base game is already set a certain way which makes it feel unchanging. The reuse of those places but with new content makes them feel more alive which I enjoy, although I do tend to wish that they would make use of larger areas instead of the very small slices they often do. I do also like new world spaces, especially ones that add unique dynamics like Atlantis having the “swimming” animations the entire time.

Also I love collecting briefs, investigations, and collections but they have felt less worthwhile in the past few episodes due to many of them rewarding you with a catalyst item instead of something cool like a style or furnishing

I loved DLC like Amazon Fury II & III / Age of Justice / Origin Crisis with challenging raids.