The DCUO Community feels smaller…

I dunno guys. I login every day and do my dailies and weeklies etc but there’s this feeling I can’t just shake. I look at LFG and see it mostly run by gold bots or you just see people not playing the game just literally trolling in the chats. I see my friends lists with barely eight to ten people on which is crazy because for eight years I’ve been compiling a list to capacity at 1000 of players I know who used to be good in raids. I go to the HoL which replaced both the WT and HoD and is supposed to have phases of 250 or more and it looks really empty in that big space. Any episode open world in the last few years is empty. Dakota City on the US server around prime time hours in the evening will have barely 20 people in it. Most recent episode of JLDC has about six phase of around 18 people sometimes Phase 1 will fill up for Gorgon or Gentlemen Ghost but oftentimes not just be like 25 to 30 people maybe. Don’t expect to even que into the most recent raid CT after Thursday you’ll have to LFG fighting against the bots to form a group by Friday. Good luck with that by Sunday or later. What I’m trying to say this game looks dismal, depressing and bleak. It’s a literal ghost town. The factory closed down and anyone of any merit moved away. Only people left are the holdouts or new players just passing thru and never coming back after they play a couple days. Is DCUO dead? No but it sure feels like it’s getting there. I’ve seen more life from mobile games than this. It’s just sad. Who’s to blame for this? Well I have my opinions on who and what they are but it’s pointless to complain about them now. I seriously don’t know why EG7 and Daybreak tanked their own successful game like this but here we are I guess? I’m just so burnt out and bitter about this. How did we go from this to a better community even in the first Covid years? The company only cares about Whales making big purchases like the FoS base than players playing their game. Yeah doubt that the new episode or if we get double arts bonus week there’ll be a huge rush of players coming back. Why even bother now?

Most times I leave my characters in my lair base . There already have amenities.
( oh yea it noticeable less people ).

Absolute bull. LFG is the same as it's been for years. HoL hasnt had 250 person phases in years. CT queued for me blind pugging on multiple toons yesterday. Dakota city *last night* had 33 in it at close to 11pm.

I'm sorry you're having a rough go of things at the moment ,but this exaggeration, and downright fabrication won't make you feel better.

I've been playing since 2014 and agree with your comments 100%.

I still hang out In hod. I havnt noticed a change myself like you have

Definitely a drop in population these days, from my perspective. I expect we'll see it pick up when the next DLC drops.

In our league, there were a few waves of exits in the past few years. Obviously, some people only played to get through Covid, and they left when they could get out of the house. Then we lost several to the stat clamp, iykyk. Then the past couple years content has been so scarce, even I play other games more than I play DCUO.

I applaud the recent efforts to put the need to run old content to get things, but that's not new content. The new lair base is new, but that's not content.

cant imagine why between the buggy updates, bugs they tempt you into buying, being told bugs are not bugs, lack of communication, ddos attacks in the eu, no new content in months, ps5 almost unplayable who in the hell wants to stick around for that?

I guess it's finally reaching your more populated servers, but Xbox has been feeling this for years. Slowly watching it dwindle episode by episode (clearly evidenced by less phases each episode regardless of time of year or anything. Even prior to covid), and even picked up in pace of losses about 3 or so years ago. I've tried to tell people, but no one wants to believe it. And as I've also been saying for years, something needs to be done. I would not want to see the game die out (on the contrary to popular belief, no matter how much I wouldn't care if it did). People think I'm being straight up negative, but I'm being realistic.

From what I recall with phases in the HoL and some open worlds from DLC's they reduced each phase to 50 people, something related to Xbox I think. It was the last thing Mepps posted about on the forums too. Not having a dedicated Community Manager really sucks. I seen 3 new jobs on the Dimensional Ink website but none of which is looking for a CM.

For EU, it seems the Superman stuff did spark a bit of activity, while not new content, people still play daily. Yesterday people played despite the lags, but it was really hard to play this way so I had to take a break when I go too frustrated trying to stay connected so I get it.

New DLC will bring people back, people want to also beat it the first week too so people will actively be there fighting bounties or running the raids just to get everything. Then yeah, activity will slowly decrease. We as a community also have that mentally that we have to finish everything first week and move on to something else, while MMOs tend to be about grinding that takes awhile. But also the DLC's tend to be fairly easy & quick and the moment they are released It's pretty much done. The most we will get is another bounty, so this is a food for thought for the devs on how to increase the life of a DLC.

And COVID times are not a good thing to compare to as people were mostly home and looked for something to do, It was a weird and different period of time.

Since we have new people in charge like the Lead Producer, Creative Director, etc, I want to give them a chance before judging them. Ep47 confirmed to be like the old ones so nothing to look too much forward to here, but they said they wanted to make 48 a little different so I want to see where they take it. It's hard to see a change in a short time, and I know the community needs it too.

I agree with you but honestly I'm tired of always having to come to the forum to talk about the game's situation because i feel sad, I love this game and I keep playing it, I think it's the best thing to do and the only thing left for those who really love the game is to wait and see where and how far it goes, I'm sure that with the new episode a new wave of players will return to the game, but the problem we know is that as the months go by the game runs out of content, and all these returning players stop again, due to the waiting time for the next episodes and there being nothing to do in the game in these periods, I was honestly happy with the attempts they were making launching things in old contents, I know there are people who disagree and didn't like it, but this Superman event was, for me,a one attempt to bring something different to players and that for me its something positive, it's a sign that they are testing things to launch into the waiting period for the episodes, many things has to be done, but unfortunately we have to wait to see where this goes, but honestly I understand who is stopping playing, this lack of comunication its hard, but the devs still and are working on the game lets hope for the best...

We're at the absolute dog-end of a DLC, the weather has just started improving, it's still a week away from payday for most people, and you're posting during work hours on a Wednesday which is literally the deadest day of the week before reset tomorrow, after all the monthly rewards have been granted.

This isn't a new thing. The population goes in cycles - by time of day, by day of the week, by time of the month, by Episode, and seasonally.

That's the case, at least I think it is, people get bored when there's too much time to wait for the next piece of DLC, so most of them move on to another game that's more active or really lets you play without the hassle or depressing restrictions. The game is clearly lacking in entertainment for HL players, and lately it's all been geared towards new players...

Most of the events are uninteresting for old players, because most of them have already taken everything for granted!

And for others, I think that the image of daybreak is enough of a factor to distance themselves a little more from the game, given the lack of communication or ambitions for the game, which can end up wearying more than one person.

This is gonna be a normal thing at the 4 month mark of a dlc. Noting are the dlc further apart but there is less content to. For player that have played for years holiday event are not new content I already have all the marks I need when the event drops.

EU is dead. been logged in for a total of 10minutes now. 1 LFG post and it was about selling an item.
There is so little to do now as most have the gear they need and only do the weeklies.

It has been like this for months its all hanging on whatever they put into the game is what they will get inreturn, the low effort over the last few years hit a bottom spot this episode they hopefully will switch the direction if not this will issue will get worse.

Are you new?

This game, for at least 10 out of 13 years, has always seen population drops at the end of DLC cycles. It also drops during spring/summer.

As to zoning numbers, no zone in the game can hold 250 players. Like Eve said, the HoL was downgraded for performance. DLC open worlds have soft caps around 30, and hard caps around 50. If it shows full, you cannot tell if it's 31 players, or 49. The only way to know it's reached the hardcap, is if someone invites you to the phase via a group invite, and you get a secondary failed to phase message based on population.

Gotham and Metropolis are around 150 each.

And I believe WT is 100 per phase, I'm not sure if HoD is the same since I rarely play on my villains, but I assume it's the same.

With all that said, this games population is no where close to what you claim. Maybe at 5 am, in the middle of the week, but aside from that I always see close to 10 phases in the newest DLC, 5 to 10 in the HoL, and anywhere from 50 to 100 players in the WT. Also, the Metropolis zone is usually 50 to 100 just from new characters, and the RP community that hangs out in Lil Bohemia. And, dont forget, none of that can tell you how many players are hanging out in their bases, league halls or actively in content.

I was going to post something about population and entry into the game but... with no community manager there's no point of constructive criticism. Im waiting for when we have a point of contact. Maybe 2026, fingers crossed

Should add more omni if the goal was to make peoples queue why we are limited to 3 task each week ...if the person run them in row the Thursday the day that everyone is already on for weekly stuff what the point ..
Example peoples mass log in Thursday run stuff then those who miss Thursday log the week end then what happen Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday = no queue nothing to do really peoples wait next reset.
So should have more omni like special omni 10 raid task etc for a special big reward box for example

Right now it's 1:30 pm est.
USPS/PC

9 phases in HoL 33-35 players in each

WT 49 players (it does say out of 250 btw, but it never gets past 150 before another phase opens up, thats what I mean by no zone holding 250.)

Metro, 2 phases, 94 and 93 players (also out of 250, but again it opened another phase way before 250)

Gotham, 1 phase of 79

Cursed Gotham, 6 phases 5 at 26, one at 9

This is all middle of the day on a Wednesday!!!! That's around 800 players in open areas, excluding content, bases and all other DLC zones I'm not about to zone to. I guarantee, this evening, after 5pm, these numbers will double to triple.