20+ QoL ideas for 2020 and Beyond (A manifesto)

20. A nemesis system

Literally, this is one of my favorite ideas. How many of you out there have created a hero, and then created a villain that, in your mind, is your hero’s arch nemesis? I bet most of you have. Well, the problem with that is, you will NEVER see your nemesis in the game as it currently exists. NEVER. Well that sucks. NOT ANYMORE!

The nemesis system would allow you to mark any of your characters as a nemesis to any of your other characters. Then, in the game, your character can have a small chance to randomly show up in the open world, and can also show up in raids.

I know what many of you are thinking. How could this possibly work? My nemesis toon is way too low level and would get smooshed.

But, in reality, the actual character you are fighting would just be a skin of your character, and take the power set that your character had chosen. So let me use a raid appearance as an example.

You enter a raid. The game would randomly select one of the nemesis from one of the eight players as one of the bosses in the game. Lets say that this particular nemesis has an earth powerset. Even though in real life, that toon is like level 10, in the game it would probably fight like a reskinned Terra from Titans tower fight. If it is nature based, it would fight like a reskinned poison ivy, and so on. So it will just look like, and have the name of your nemesis.

Same goes with an open world fight. In a random occurrence, it would fight like a reskinned boss about as tough as a boss in solo content at your CR.

This way, you feel way more immersed in the game’s lore.

21. A faction (hero/villain) swapping system

No matter what the game is, there is always one side or the other that is imbalanced. Maybe you want to go help bolster the other side’s numbers. Maybe you just want to see more people. Either way, there should be a system in the game to allow you to swap sides. Maybe make it both, cost money, and be time consuming, but in the end, there should be a way to make this happen.

A few thoughts on some of the things presented, and yes I did read over the sections.

1. I'm always going to question the importance of PvP and how much of a draw it actually is to a game. As much as players may clamor for it, not everyone participates (or even has interest) to the extent that some would like to say. I'm not saying it isn't important, but I don't know if it's as important as some think.

2. The only thing stopping players from going back to older content is themselves. As I said in another thread, if you need an incentive to play older content and the devs haven't provided one that gets you motivated, then make up your own. Players can solve the "older content queues not popping" problem a lot quicker than the devs can. Just run it.

9. The idea is fine but if you've ever seen times when a livestream is happening where players can gather and the lag that happens? Not so great. The system can only handle so many players in one area firing off every attack, pet, orbital and supply drop possible.

Oh, and there are already places with some of those services you mentioned. They're called safehouses, and they have easy access to the HQs. Just saying.

11. Seems a little unlikely. Besides, streamlining could mean size reduction, and things already can get crowded in both faction HQs with as much space as there is.

13. Could depend on how well sales for Skimming went.

18. Some would see the "level down" as the dreaded "C" word (don't want to say it for fear of the pitchforks and torches crowd LOL), and we already have something of a "bring the player up" aspect with event versions of content. Also, see points about #2.

20. Already tried something like that in my days in CO. Interesting at first, but the appeal didn't quite last and at times could be a distraction from what you were actually working on.

21. No need, really. If we were limited on character slots I might see the need but we can buy/gain access to more character slots through purchases or subscriptions. We don't need to be able to switch sides to experience what the other side has to offer.

not the worst list in the world, wouldn't call most of it QoL related but... semantics.

legends and pvp both need massive overhauls, and while I personally couldn't care less if they were eliminated from the game all together they should both receive some attention if for no other reason then to maybe draw in a few more people.

wouldn't mind if they added a bit more in the way of open worlds, like a city or two especially if we can put bases out there.
but as far as bases goes id rather they upped the cap on base items before they worry about adding some new bit like what was suggested(altho its kind of a cool idea)

now an nemesis/ally system might be kind of fun and cool, I just don't know if it would have long lasting impact within the game.

and vehicles might happen but not in the way you described(well except the base item part) it would likely be an orbital strike (which still would be cool.

Appreciate the time and thought that has been put into this.

Personally, I think a bit too much effort has been put in, in the sense that most people won’t bother reading it all, devs included.

Unfortunately I can’t support a number of the ideas (eg one and done items on a vendor - really? We’re crowding round a vendor and refreshing it?), but the main issue is that the scope of some of the things being asked for is not realistic and would come at the expense of core content delivery ie DLCs.

My ideas....

1) End LPVE and get their feats back;
2) Balance All Supercharges;
3) Buff Mental and Sorcery;
4) Increase Gotham and Metropolis Maps;
5) Increase PvP rewards;
6) Mentor and Gender Tokens;
7) Two more mentors for Heroes and Villains;
8) LFG by default;
9) Account bound for Artifacts and Auguments;
10) Elite alerts and elite duos;

I've read all and while in general i like some ideas others i don't care (for example 14.vehicles it's something i would probably wouldn't use it but if it's implemented it would be welcomed). In particular:

2. Old content. I would do it something more simple as giving marks once at month (or week or whatever the frecuency), in the end it's as you said but just the part of the marks (the less time it take the more time they can invest doing other stuff).

3. Reorganize feats. In my case I would prefer just a small change: everything that it's part of a episode/event to that episode/event tab(I'm refering to the styles, for example the "absolute zero" style). Maybe it's overwhelming at the begining (like it was for me) but for me makes more sense that way, I mean right now if I'm going to the styles tab i can see i'm missing some styles but I don't know where to get it, but if they are on their episode tab i can guess where to get it. And to add a tab for the time capsules with all the stuff related to it.

7. Names. It's debatable, on the one hand it's a shame that someone picked a name and just played one day, on the other hand it encorages to think in a creative name.

And if you allow me, I will suggest one of each (a necessary and a wish) that I would really apreciate:
22.To add a new tab to the scoreboard menu with a list of the feats of the current solo, duo, alert, raid or operation. Just a list, nothing more, well maybe a "check icon" next to the feat if you had completed but that the feat remains on the list. This way it'll make easier the comunication with the group (well, you still have to pray that your groupmates read the chat but...)

23. More races. I adore them, I asked for them when Atlantis arrived and...I don't know if they added because they had the idea on their minds or because I was one of the people who asked for them but anycase I enjoyed it a lot, A LOT, for me it's a must.

Mental needs to be fixed.

That's a lot of work put into this list, and it's always good to see players invest their time and thoughts into the game's health. And some of these suggestions I'm a fan of.

1. PvP. At this point it's just a dead limb. I have no idea how to fix it, but the devs either need to put some effort into it or remove it completely. Put all the styles on a vendor and either give players those feats for free or put the feats on the same vendor for some Marks. Or something. But PvP as it is right now seems pretty useless and that's game resources/memory that could go somewhere else.

2. Old content. I'm not sure what the devs could really do here. There's feats, investigations/collections and styles you may have missed while leveling that you can go back to collect. We could go back to giving players marks for running old content, but that caused problems with higher level characters ripping raids apart while people who were in that CR range just tried to keep up and missed the experience. But maybe they could offer some unique rewards to higher CR players on top of the regular loot? I'd run older content if it meant I had a chance at a unique chroma or something.

3. Feat organization. This I agree with. I don't have much trouble navigating the screens myself but I can see how newer players would.

4. Economy. I agree with this too, at least in a general sense. One solution might be to put high-value items on a vendor, like how some older time capsule items (wings of sin, robot arm) are on the quark vendor. If a player can buy a neon chroma for a few thousand quarks they'll be less likely to spend billions on the broker, and less demand means lower prices. I'd like to see this done outside of the time capsule system, because I hate TC's, but it'd still be an improvement.

5. Texture update. This goes without saying. But I'm not sure if DCUO has the staff to really dedicate to this while still making new content. While we're on the subject, I know Nightwing just got a texture update but he needs another one; this is supposed to be DC's official pretty boy and the new model doesn't sell that.

The next few items all seem like things that could use some polish and updates but I got nothing to say about those.

9. I'd think some random world bosses with some unique loot is overdue. It works for the new content (giant metal golem and bat in Metals 1-2, etc) and people love it when Mepps spawns in a raid boss in a HQ. I say go for it.

11. Updated HQ's. I don't think we need new HQ's so much as the ones we have need to be re-decorated and organized. We've got vendors all over the place, some of them are literally shoved into corners. I don't need a new HQ but I'd love to see the vendors moved around and changed so players can actually find them.

12. Bases. Honestly if they just give me more Base NPC's like Ambush Bug I'll be happy with that. I'd like to see more effort put into bases but it doesn't feel like it should be a priority.

13. I would very much like new movement modes but it seems that skimming didn't generate enough revenue for the devs to continue with the idea. I think the movement styles we've got now (the lightstream and smoke whatevers they are) is as good as we're gonna get. But I'd definitely like to see acrobatics and superspeed get variants, just to balance things out with skimming.

14. I'd be down with this, though I'd think it'd make more sense as a movement variant than a completely independent system. Definitely agree with needing more vehicle base items, at least.

16. Items in-game. Agreed, but that's not gonna happen just because the game needs the revenue stream.

18-19. Sidekicks and LFG. Being able to stat-clamp a player so they can access content feels like a double-edged sword. But the idea of teaming up with a higher CR player isn't bad.

20. Nemesis. It'd be cool I guess but not anything I really need.

21.Faction swap. I'd like it, but I fear a lot of villains would abandon that side for the more populated hero side if they had the option. And with style sharing you can do a "evil Superman" or a "good Lex Luthor" or whatever so.....I dunno.

they could make the something like in swtor they giff the players the last 5 or 6 chapter they rised money tfrom the free to play player which used to be 3000 until 1 million they allow the free to play user to trade t. nother thing that they could add the option to expand the liars but the players have to buy to add an extra room using the game money no the cartel .other extra thing give a bit or certain number of cartel market coins to the players after geting certain number of feats,expand the number of messages to talk or unlimited to anyone

One of the things that made PVP great was the balance that was derived from the RPS aspect. A solid start would be to move back to that as well as removing all aspects of alternative character progression prior to the original release (meaning league hall and base buffs, augments, artifacts, etc) while in a PVP match (not sure if you could do it for the phase as well, seems like PVE content would quickly scale to being too difficult). Let that run for a few months and accumulate feedback then move from there.

Snipped for space savings. Man...that was a lot of typing but I'm about to add my own wall of text.

I'm not sure most of those qualify as QOL improvements. I think of those like the things that were added or fixed like adding the lookup option (Triangle on PS4) to the broker when listing a like item, or the addition of the switch for chat channel switching to allow 'auto/manual' selection. QOL to me means something that asked for or not, will either please people or just go un noticed. Most of the things you list are more 'fixes' like balancing powers or repairing PVP and I think will never please one group with out outraging another. While many are needed, and might in the end produce a better game, most will be met with some amount of outrage for the 'change'.

I'll look at the ones that are just strictly QOL though and add in a few thoughts of my own.
3) I can't see anything wrong with this...although I'd like to see a way to 'favorite' or 'set active' a few as well as a static re-org. So on ones like the current one to kill 100 seahorses in the alert, let me mark it 'active' or something like a journal entry and I'd see the count go up like you do with an active mission in open world (Think 218 or 82). That way some feat you are actively working on, like a style feat, you could open quickly and see what pieces you are missing vs trying to pour through styles or (if moved to episodes) episodes to find the style you are looking at. Also, depending on how many you could have favorite or active, it would not require setting up a new 2nd screen as you suggest....just pooling the ones you are looking at working on in smaller pile.

5) No argument here on updating textures as long as it's to make things cleaner or update 'bad' renderings. All the updating to 'mondernize' the way comics have looked for years and still look today to fulfill some social justice agenda is just annoying and pandering.

7) No argument here either. A lot of the fun of this game is in customization, including the name you pick. A name reclaim would be nice and could be done in a way that would allow for people who play periodically (like take 2 years off or so) to not get screwed out of their name. I would make any change like that across the board though...regardless of how long you played or how much you spent. I'd look at time out of game alone...if it's over X, you can lose the name.

10) People don't do much open world stuff past what's required for the content or feats. Adding more would be fine for a while, but would grow stale soon after. Go hang out in E3 Gotham or Starro CC. People don't NOT go there because they don't like the settings....they don't go there because they finished the content.

12) Sounds fun. I don't do lair battles much, but when I was doing them, I did make an effort to place interesting items in the blue circles so have them show up in the fight. Leaving your base open for a random brawl would be ok, as long as it's optional.

13) and 14) Meh. I can't see that vehicles would add much as they could only really be added in open world (try using your helicopter in LOA. As for movement styles, like someone else said, I'd guess 'skimming' set the bar pretty low for us getting other alt movement modes. If they thought people would buy them....they'd have added them already.

15) I'd say better to imprint them to the armory. You could have 16 armories possibly, each with different white mods in the gear, but I'd guess that every time you replace a head or feet or whatever, the mod stays the same. Putting that on the augments tab would mean at least 1 set of 8 white mods....1 set per armory ACTIVE means 32 mods...if you wanted the max it means 128 mods for all 16 armories you COULD have. Allow the mods to be placed in the armory and each one can have it's own set of mods.

17) I doubt you'd seem much by way of music just because it takes money to make, or license. I'd go for if you could point the game to use a 'music' folder on your PC/PS4 where you could load some music. PC games like Quake used to do this (Maybe they still do), where you could read off a CD for background music. The purchased disk had some music on it, but throw in a Wu-Tang Clan disk for a completely different experience

18) While the idea sounds fun, I think you'd end up with either A) the NPC would be able to carry you or B) the NPC would be useless. Again, this seems like a novelty idea that would wear thin quick, or get exploited.

19) This would be nice, but probably hard to program or harder to police. It's bad enough that people already queue in as healer when they have no healer gear or experience, but at least with the current LFG they have to make some kind of effort to join the group and maybe snow over the group leader that they are better than they appear at a glance.

20) Again...Meh. While it might be nice to see my 'villain' out in game as a boss or random who shows up to kick my butt, again it sounds like a novelty that will wear out quick.

21) Agreed. I've also suggested a faction swap option in the past.

I don't agree with it all, but I applaud your ambition in putting the list together.

Some stuff I'd add is.
1) adjustable queue size
2) cross faction group making/LFG
3) Fix auto sort so it can go to the bottom of your inventory/bank vs the top
4) Change the name of unattuned gear boxes to the style name or add the style name to the gear box name
5) Add a 'find similar' option to the broker...so if you have a collection/base item, you can press a button (square?) on the item and you'd get a list of all the collections in that set...or all the style pieces...or all the base items from that DLC/Seasonal...not just the exact same piece as triangle gives you today. This would help when deciding on a price for an item that has nothing listed, but maybe has some brother/sister items that are.
6) Or....show a hi/low/avg price when listing an item. Hit triangle and bring up the recent sales info for what you are listing so you can decide what to set your price at even if there are no examples currently in there to undercut by 1$.
7) Bring back linkdead...assuming the exploit associated with it could be fixed first.
8) And I'll quote the post to give proper credit, but wholeheartedly agree with the idea, I 2nd CyFaill's idea of adding feats to the scoreboard (new 'feats' tab w checkbox for completed if done by you)

Reinheld

Thanks for giving me credit but it wasn't necessary, I mean probably someone else asked for it or someone would have done it eventually.

By the way I totally agree with your 2º and 4º ideas, those are a must.

The Quality of Life things I want to see:

The same mechanics that League Halls use for decorating, I want to be applied to Lairs. There is a permission at the Lair Mainframe that allows you to grant permission to another person to do decorating... except it doesn't work. It doesn't allow them to place, remove or move items. It literally only allows them to rotate an item in it's existing spot.

I want to be able to pay another player to decorate my Lair for me. Let it work like League Halls where multiple people can move, place, and remove furniture for the Lair.

Second, I want a PvP CR102 set to be released, so that there is a reason to go back into PvP and grind again.