I'm new to the forums. I've been reading through some of the threads and it's easy to focus on all of the negative comments and aspects of this game. They far outweigh the positive. I had posted on another thread about changes that i'd like to see happen and another person corrected me on why some of those were possible or weren't going to happen because of what the devs had said. It made me think about this game and why I play it. I've been playing since T3, in that time there have been many changes, mostly ones I don't like. If you're a veteran and have been here since the beginning or been here long enough to see all the changes that have been made, chances are you're gonna have a complaint or two yourself. The big one for me is PvP but I won't get into that. When you're a gamer, all you can really do is find games that agree with what you're looking for and what you find entertaining the most. Let's face it, no game is perfect. I rememeber reading an article that had to do with staying loyal to the company you work for or job hopping in regards to which is more financially beneficial to you. The article stated that people that are loyal to the company they work for experience frustration with minimal raises or lack there of versus people that find a new job every few years and are able to negotiate for more money upon being hired. Basically, you're rewarded for being unloyal and if you are loyal, you get overlooked. I'm not here to argue that point. But, if you apply the principles of that article to this game, it kind of makes sense. When you're new, you don't have a care in the world. This game is new and exciting and you have the whole game to explore. Around every corner is something you haven't never seen before. It may not always be a good thing, but hey, it's new. Missions, open world, feats, gear/styles, stuff that kills you...it's all there just waiting for you to find it. If you're a veteran, you've seen it all. When you have the SP and end game gear, what else is there for you? The love of the game? Your league and friends? Or maybe you're like me and struggle with wanting to even log on but you do because you've invested so much time and money into this game that you don't want to admit to yourself that it was all a waste. So, what does this all mean? It's pretty obvious that this game has been changed to cater to new people. Why? I'm guessing the new subscribers they get each week/month far outweigh the old ones. Their voice is alot louder then ours. Does that mean the devs are ignoring us completely? I'd like to think they're not, but I can't say for sure. All I know is that these forums are toxic. This game has become toxic. The negativity is overwhelming. I get that the forums are open to voice your opinions but I can pretty confidently say that it's all been said. Chances are the brilliant and innovative idea you think you have to improve the game and post a thread for has been done a 100 times over. You either keep playing and deal with it or quit and play something else.
You have some good points but here's the thing. Your right far too many people come here and scream , rant, rave moan , cry and bawl about whatever until the Dev team, especially lately, breaks down and gives them what they want and then the entire player base gets to deal with those changes that probably a majority of the over all community had no desire to see in the first place.. Let's get REAL honest and for every player that come here to these forums there's at least 1 , probably a whole lot more, than have never been near these pages. Examples: Deserter Penalty.. Some one can correct me if I am wrong but Urban legend here said back when this little slice of stupidity arrived it was because the Devs had removed the rewards that PVP players got if they lost a match. Well the very next thing that happened was during 1 X 1 Lair matches if is became obvious a player was not going to win they just quit the match. Now the other player still got the win BUT there was a feat for winning X number of matches and because you won by default (you opponent left) those matches didn't count... The FIX.. Deserter penalty. But instead of JUST instituting for PvP because a few load voices on here also complained about players quitting PvE raids, etc.. they stuck the thing every where in game. Do you recall what that penalty was like when it first was introduced? You got a 10 minute penalty and during that time you couldn't even que up and do a solo challenge on the PvE side. Then the situation got even dumber.. Those same PvP players that were ducking out of matches they knew they'd lose just stopped quing up to do any PVP missions if they got zero reward and a penalty if they left and Players couldn't find people to battle.. End result? They brought back the lower rewards for losing a PvP battle.. And then we all got the JOY of them refusing to just do away with the penalty. The part that really ticked people off was.. at one point the game didn't care how or why you left a mission.. you just got a ten minute penalty. Your character crashed during a mission? you had no intention of leaving at all but the game or whatever Dc'd you.. When you logged back in you get to sit for ten minutes before you could que and do anything again. Of course now the penalty is down to 1 minute and its a total joke but heaven forbid they just get rid of it. Stat Clamping .. one of the biggest and still argued about topics in game. All started because the POOR ABUSED UNLOVED new player with a Low CR toon was being victimized by those bullies with Higher CR joining their Low Tier missions and having the nerve to kill everything that moved and complete them so fast everyone on the team got the speed feat along with any others that Bully managed to accomplish as he blazed through content. Players were on here screaming for Stat clamping... Well other players were screaming NO so they whoile thing resulted in a grand experiment where the only content in this entire game, at this point, that is clamped are the Holiday events.. and a lot of Players refuse to do them any more because of that. So obviously that wasn't working.... AHHH GU 47 arrives. Lets just make most content irrelevant if your over a certain CR and not give any player doping it any reward. Very next thing we saw was a huge number of players complaining that with all the higher CR players gone that were still working on Feats gone because they refused to do content if they got absolutely nothing out of it they were waiting a long time to actually que into content or even form teams on the LFG. So what happened next? The devs came up with the "alternate reward box" which might once in a very long while actually give a high CR player a mark for doing a Alert with a bunch of lower CR players getting 5 marks for the same thing .. and most of the time that High CR player got all that other stuff those boxes hand out meaning they a pile of junk and some armor to salvage, BUT it got them to come back... And now what are we seeing? Players screaming for stat clamping AGAIN because the Higher CR players are ruining their experience. Get the idea? No matter what the Devs do some one is ticked off and griping. Now there are a ton of other situations I could list where this same sort of insanity occurred but those two illustrate the point. Now here's the kicker... This is the same smaller Dev team we have that is supposed to be creating new monthly content AND is supposed to be creating the new Water Power that shoved Serum into oblivion. They don't have any where near the staff they once had and are trying to churn out content every month .. and get to deal with these same complaints again and again and again. Now I am not saying there are not things that could using fixing to make the game better but every fix they make starts a new batch of rants resulting in another fix needing to be created and out into place. Does anyone realize they can ONLY do so much in a day, week, or month? The reason this forum is toxic is staring you right in the face... Every time some new player decided that something in game is horrible and MUST be fixed now.. A bunch of players jump into the argument to try and keep the same sort of stupidity that resulted in the Deserter Penalty from happening again. If we don't argue for or against an idea then all the Devs see is one side of that idea and since no one is saying "NOO That wont work don't do that" They assume everyone loves it and it winds up in game.
I think that a large misconception is that a game is some kind of long term investment like a house or a career. The money we put into it is for the moment; and we get that moment immediately. There is no 5 years down the road where you say "I'm glad I invested in that". There is no waste of money as long as you got your moment out of it. As for the game catering to new people, I don't see it. Pugging is still a largely a nightmare (especially on content like Unholy Matrimony). These are the "new" people who don't know much of what to do.
About the negative outweighing the positive comments: the negative stuff needs to be fixed, so it's normal that it is that way About your suggestions: read them, agreed with them, being myself trying to persuade people of the possibilities a full Central City would offer to this game. Sadly, I also know how much manpower projects like "fixing PVP", "balancing powers" or Central City eat up, and as this is usually "old content", investing resources finds just few chances to bring money in turn. Plus: devs really said "no" to some parts of it already - which is sad. About no game being perfect: that's basically because of the monetizing approach, it forces to design new content before old is fixed, resulting in the game becoming worse instead of better. A perfect game is possible in terms of quality, longevity and service, never in GFX (as that standard keeps moving up) or appeal (a perfect MMO will simply not be "perfect" to a jump'n'run gamer ). That said, a company should at least try to achieve the "perfect" in quality and service IMO. Too many MMOs in general rely on "friends and league" to make up for the appeal the game can't keep up, TBH. It's an easy shot for the companies behind those games and why they design games to appeal to socially arkward people.... Has it really changed to attract new people? I doubt it. DCUO is here for a couple of years, and marketing has all the data to see what type of player invests how much money in which parts of the game. I'd say the people behind the game are not blind on the financial side; they reacted and modified it to appeal to that group of players most that left the most money in here: hardcore carrot chasers. Those people have been here from the start, have a knack of poisoning the community with their ignorant "my way to play is the only way valid for any game" approach and obviously pockets that are deep enough to waste lots of money on subscription and replay badges on top. It's normal that a company wants to attract more of the kind that spends the most money on their product. The other type of gamers had their shot and just didn't spend enough money on vanity items to persuade SOE/now Daybreak to put more effort into them. I can't understand this recurring "they attract more people" theme, however; not that long ago everyone here on the forums was of the opinion that there are less and less players around - and this week I've ran into the third post claiming "it seems like they have more players now" From Q times and seeing other players in game, I still say: it's getting worse, and it's basically the same players one rans into. And: last year there were usually 2 PvE phases and one PvP phase on EUPS - with the PvP phase being not that populated. Now, there is just 1 PvE phase and the PvP phase is empty. If you build up a new toon and a spawn is bugged in the PvE phase, you can go to the PvP phase and solve your mission at the corresponding spawn there without running into any opposition or any other player at all.... So I'm under the impression that the game is still losing players with the current features - monthly content, relevant content, unbalanced AM making WM useless again and CR scaling. The community always was toxic. The game isn't. The game is simple or challenging, depending on your point of view, but the game is not toxic - it's the people you run into. Which is why I keep asking for better social filters again and again whenever I see posts like yours. The idea of social gaming in general has devolved to unsocial gaming. When I log in, I'm not someone's resource to progression, yet I know someone will ninja-invite me because that someone can have my toon on their friendlist without me being able to do anything about it - except for reacting and putting that toon on ignore. I keep finding base access even with that teleporter mod to bases of toons I'm pretty sure I never ran into. This game needs to give control over with whom to play with whom not play back to the gamer. - mutual friendlists - accountwide ignore functions - menu item "recent action" similar to "recent text" (covering any form of invite e.g.) - better options in the gameplay menu: not just "enable"/"ignore" but "enable"/"friends only"/"league only"/"friends and league only"/"ignore all" - and "friends" is toons I have on my friendlist, not toons having me on theirs if mutual friendlists are not happening And other approaches are possible as well, up to removing global chats in total and replace them with UI functionality to build/browse groups, recruit/apply for leagues, setup item/item trades etc. But: it looks like the people behind the game want that socially arkward college kids in their game. So all of this is not happening and the toxic community is wanted as it seems.
I agree. This money and time invested into the game isn't like a stock or a 401k. It pays no dividends down the road. But what happens when your moment is gone because the game has changed into something you don't like anymore? Do you immediately leave? Or stick around hope that it becomes something you like again? I don't feel like i'm alone in this struggle. I've seen it on countless threads. People want to play this game but in it's current state, it's really hard to want to play it anymore. I may have mispoke when I said it's catered to new people. The natural rules of progression don't apply anymore. You can go from downloading the game to end game in a week. You'll be CR 145 with 30 SP and no mods trying to run UM or BD in no time. I guess I wish contents were based off of SP or something else that requires time to acquire so you don't run into those PUG groups we've all been in.
There is always will be negativity in the world , and I won't lie , there are some folks in here who can be super rude towards anything . The only thing u can do is ignoring them , the more you ignore the more they become mad . Like now if I just make a thread talking about HL update , I can almost guarantee that I'll have a lot of negative comments ,
In general I have to agree with you . Currently , my biggest complaint with changes to the game revolves around exobit tech. The entire game is based around this storyline and how exobit enhanced humans came into existence . Problem is that exobit / exobyte mods have very little meaning anymore , since only gear affects your CR now. It's almost like they're saying ," Yes , that's how the story goes but we think it doesn't matter anymore." It's like going to see the latest Star Wars movie and half way through the USS Enterprise shows up and It's suddenly become a Star Trek movie. You're left scratching your head sayig " Huhhhh?
I am one of that toxic players, the game was really good before GU47(except for pvp), now we are playing a easy game that was made to sell replay badges and pay some guys for their work.
* The long term time investment component is a classic example of Sunk Cost Fallacy. Rationally make sense, but humans are nostalgic creatures. From the above: * Forum posters are a minority and do not always represent the majority. * Between forum posters, there's always disagreement. * Sometimes fixes + features causes unintended side affects. TechWarriors bought up a couple good examples. * The features are sometimes too 'global' and not surgical. * Some of the unintended side effects is social: player base find ways to 'game' the system. i.e. losing on purpose for consolation pvp marks. * The new fixes/features have side effects and incite displeasure among some people. Newer medicine are applied to manage these side effects, which then leads to new problems. After a few cycles of this, people wonder if it was better to not have the original feature to begin with. -- K.I.S.S. principle. I think the Devs do care about the game. People may or may not always agree with the direction, but I can respect it or at least understand it to why they implemented many of the things they did. As a 2011 player, who hasn't taken a hiatus all this time, if I hang up the cape, it's nothing personal. I'll move onto other things; just as the game will have new and returning players. Remember: sunk cost fallacy.
I've been seeing thousands of players out there collecting exobits.... (Sarcasm to population in heavily instanced game design and R&D)
In game forums there is always more negative than positive, because the majority comes to the forums to complain about something. It is a common flaw of game forums and gaming communities in forums. PvP discussions are always toxic - which is a shame but can't be changed.
returning from a short break, long time player. over all soo much has improved; except for casual players. this game cant seem to find balance for casual sometimes solo players vrs hardcore raid raid raid. how about bringing back repeatable quests even if they dont pay out marks... oh i dont know mabee gear rewards for looks or even rep. or how about some darn quests period!! not everyone likes to raid after WORK. yes the people who float your monthly pay WORK. could you mabee oh i dont know think of the people who PAY and arent whiney lil fan boys and girls who have all the blippin time in the world. i wasnt going to make a post just for this.. but i saw this thread and thought id add my 2 cent (if its even worth that). still love the game. i now however feel like im beating my head into a wall during the week to try and make any progress.. hell sometimes just finding something to do thats worth while with an hours time is more difficult than ever. get it right or your gona follow the same path as that other closed hero game. i dont expect any game to cater to the working class.. but you might want to think of us as you make all these stupid *** changes to slow down the 16 hr a day players and to extend the usefulness of existing content (doesn't work btw, we just get bored and leave). thanks! overall tho huge steps foreword since last year and the year before.. keep it up! i know you will find that balance.
