A Series Of Unfortunate Events

So, DC has been my favorite game, well, ever. I started playing on launch day and even bought a PS3 for it. I've made some great friends along the way, a number of whom I've hung out with in real life. I've ridden out the game through thick and thin, through all of the revamps, and issues and droughts in content. It was always worth it to play with my pals, to work on my characters and to check out whatever new stuff came down the pike. I have six characters at endgame with my main at 460 SPs.

It's not worth it anymore.

For me, it started with the frequency of Time Capsules. The asks of players on top of all their other spending has become, to me, out of control. This is compounded by the event around TCs last year that upended the in-game economy and resulted in billions and billons in ill-gotten goods forever changing the broker for the average (or even hardcore) player.

The seasonals, once a fun distraction, have turned into grinds with, again, huge asks from the community. The St. Patrick's even in particular was structured such that you couldn't miss more than a couple days and still get what was needed to finish off feats.

The art team is absolutely killing it and that continues to be a bright spot in DCUO. However, the content, especially JLD, has left me cold. Waiting nearly five months between DLCs is too long imo and worse yet, we were delivered a raid that demanded that players partake in platforming-- a notoriously divisive game style that many avoid like the plague.

The abrupt changes to Supercharges due to people finding exploits, abusing them, reaping the rewards of them then complaining about them left many users who'd spent their time and money on leveling SC-related artifacts out in the cold. This change was made quickly with no apparent consideration around players' concerns even as other outliers such as flurry shot and some power sets remain way out of whack.

And finally, the OP back. Which brings us full circle on one of the key issues at play here. The in-game economy has grown to weigh very heavily on progression. All of those billionaires who profited from last year's TC controversy and the speed hackers that have proliferated in game are able to have and control components of acquiring the OP back (in addition to acquiring styles and SPs from TCs which formerly could be gotten much more reasonably through a combination of opening some TCs and playing the broker). It's impossible to keep up with and drags the whole game down for all of the honest players.

Adding to all of this is what often feels like an unnecessarily antagonistic attitude from some on the team toward the players. With all due respect, we're your customers and snarking at us, though I'm sure satisfying in the moment, is not a great look. We deserve your respect as much as you deserve ours.

So after playing from Day 1, I'm done. I uninstalled the game. I'll miss my in-game friends, I'll miss my toons, I'll miss some gameplay. But I won't miss the increasingly toxic environment and spending real money while cheaters laugh their way to the bank.

TL, DR: Day 1 player has had their last straw.

And no, you can't have my stuff.

Very well spoken.
Thank you for sharing your experiences on the forums rather than wandering off silently into the great unknown.

-humbly bows-

Was wondering when i'd see this from you.. you were obviously not happy the last few months - here is hoping you find a game you prefer and is more to your needs/wants

It's funny I actually was gonna quit a few days after JLD dropped but I decided to stay.I do have 6 alts but I retired 3 and will just focus on my 3 mains. I agree with allot of your points it's always sad to see player's leave but I understand why all the same.

In the days when you put on some music while running your farming route for bits because it was the most lucrative money maker

Take Care Kid. Until change there are definitely top notch mmos out there.

Been here for 7 years myself and you basically summed up how ive felt for awhile. I agree the art team and megzilla are doing an amazing job. But. The disconnect has grown and grown. They listen to us. They do. To a point. But the end result always has to lead them to making a profit off of something. Yes. Its a business. But pleasing your customers should always take precedent. Then the money will follow. Im sure they make a killing with all of this. But when is enough enough and what cost to the game? I find myself caring less and less as more lets say....less than desirable microtransactions find their way into the game. The economy has been ruined for a long time since the first money exploit years ago but between what you mentioned and the emphasis on rewarding players with the deepest real life pockets just kills my joy for the game. Ive paid and paid my sub month after month and spent countless other amounts of money when i felt it was justified. But now the ask on a player is out of control.

You'll always be met with the same responses. You dont need eveything yada yada. Well. In an mmo when you see these people like you just fly past you you're just like c'mon man. What's the point. The game is set up in its progression that puts pressure on the player to spend more than just their sub and monthly stipend to keep up with it. I just dont want to keep dumping money into the game when there are your whales who blow past you. Its not that i cant i just wont. There has to be a breaking point as a player where you're just like...when is enough enough.

There's just no breaks anymore. Its onslaught after onslaught of carrots dangled in front of you. They say you dont need but then why are we playing? Of course they know you want it. Why make if it we dont want it. Theres just a line man. And this game is just becoming the have or have nots. This is my view of it. And my passion for the game this point is almost non existent. I havent even run the alert or raids yet. I just dont want to. Ive hit a wall. And before people say take a break. Its a bigger issue than that that a break wont fix. This game has just changed. For better or worse i guess depends on where you sit.

I can't relate to anything you wrote. Can't have your stuff...

Bye and take care, man!

Although I don't share the sentiment of your post to the point where it would make me quit, it is those very things that have caused me to heavily decrease my spending in this game. outside of sales I spend very little on the game, I very rarely buy replays anymore, but I try to support direct to buy cosmetics. I spend very little on time capsules if anything at all.

Whether people share your sentiment or not there is something to be learnt here for the developers, aspects of the economy are in dire need of help. parts of the game do feel less enjoyable than they once did and it all leads to why there is a perception of a diminishing population, even if we do disagree at times as to the extent to which the population has been affected or continues to be affected.

Perhaps you'll be back some day Multiverse, perhaps not, who knows; sometimes taking a break can be for the best when you feel you aren't getting the enjoyment out of the game anymore, because that is ultimately what is most important, when you play a video game you should be getting enjoyment and if you're not getting enjoyment you probably need to evaluate how much you should be playing it or whether you should play it at all.

Despite our opinion differences at times, I wish you the best man.

if nobody can have your stuff, sounds like you're not actually quitting... sounds like you'll be back.

by the way, the platforming in question has been hotfixed to better accommodate those that are unable to complete the jumping task. was this not satisfactory? i thought it was a 'decent' hotfix, but avoided many issues at the same time.

I won’t go into details, but lines were crossed while discussing Shattered Gotham that have me also with a foot out the door.

One of the games staunchest supporters has finally had enough, which is sad. I was talking about this on a podcast actually not long ago about greed in videogames and when a game shows its signs of shutting down. Normally you see cash grabby behavior, a huge sale, big event, then shutdown. Happened many times before in many titles and it sucks. If the population was healthy and people subbed up and bought stuff, maybe we wouldn’t have to have suffered through time capsules. Maybe if the devs put out content quicker, maybe people would have stayed subbed and bought cosmetics. Maybe if pvp was given respect and the balancing and gameplay didn’t change so dramatically so often, people would have stayed. Who knows when this all started and who knows when it will end. To me, it’s a chain reaction of so many things and we’re at a point now where the end seems closer than the beginning. In all honesty, I would guess two more years max of DCUO before it ends, but that’s just a guess. Could be sooner.

I like the new content after messing with it more. I don’t have an issue platforming and neither does the wife (who isn’t very good at it admittedly). The boss fights aren’t boring high hp, multiple high hp add slogfests for the most part. The weeklys aren’t too much of a drag either. The art is very nice for once and different. The effort is there for sure in my opinion, but the people aren’t coming back. The damage is done. New people aren’t exactly flooding the game, and the people we have left are more often than not toxic. The league I was in on villain side apparently had a massive blowup while I was at work and I logged in to see half left over who knows what. Happens more often than not nowadays.

I would love for them to fix pvp for those that enjoy it. Would love them to fix lpve and the low damage the legends do. Make it fun again. Would love more content, engaging content. Better (cheaper) sp purchase system for alts. So much more..... but they’re set in their ways and it’s either fall in line or quit. We usually play seasonally. 3-4 months of fun until we get aggravated and leave for a year or so. I miss the days when we would play all the time, but the game just isn’t what it was for us. Just enjoy it while you can for as long as you can because one day it won’t be here anymore. We play eso as well and don’t feel gouged for cash. Bleh, I’m done. Good luck to you on your future endeavors dude.

Indeed. My last gift to the DC world was finally getting batmans block breaker fixed. I did that for you, new dc generation.

If any noobs read this: you can be so good at this game if you just master the block, roll, lunge, and kiting with your movement.

Half of the skill in this game is avoiding damage. Damage mitigation guys lol.

I do also want to point out, because i dont see it ever said that much: the community does share some blame in this. The commumity itself was so divisive on issues that the DC team probably had no idea how to please its customers. But thats ok. There's just too many differing opinions and there were too many issues going on all at once. It's just one of those "oh well, we all tried" things.

You have people like me who just know how to play mmos and videogames. And people who aren't just new to DC, but new to MMOs and online games or games with a competitve environment.

When im playing at my full potential, my fingers and hands are moving very fast and i think very tactically and make split second decisions and theres always people that think playing like that isn't worth it cause its "just a game, im not a try hard" so they want to remain very casual which is ok.

Some of the things I've seen newer players say in test have boggled my mind and i think the devs were listening to way too many players when they should have had more objective people from their own team testing and reporting.

I dont know, just an opinion, it is what it is.

I don't agree with the neverending platform-whining, for every person "avoiding it like the plague" there's another person being fine with it. Not to mention that they already hotfixed in a change that people asked for during Test feedback that helps a lot, especially if you get invited to an ongoing instance.

They can't just scrap an entire mechanic just because it doesn't cater to some people's liking 100% of the time. People would have valid concerns if this mechanic was present across the majority of the episode and if the platforming was actually bugged preventing people from properly perform it, but it doesn't.

I don't agree with the SC-changes being as out of place as some keep barking loudly about. The changes were made for a very legitimate reason, the majority of counter-arguments by some however are not so much. Some of the same people being mad about this are some of the same people who took advantage of the SC's. The other outliers that are also out of whack should be next on the Dev's list.


I agree with generally everything else. The entire system with the OP-back indirectly cater to the exploiting, hacking part of the playerbase while making loyal, paying customers feel cheated on. The fact that they have barely spoken up about any proper change to the system tells me this system is 100% intended as it is, I can understand people losing desire to run content and grind under this cyrrent system's status.

I also agree in regards to the events around TC's that we shall not speak of.

The developers really need to think twice before making up systems like the current OP item-system, aswell as TC's, with crazy low droprates. The majority of people successfully ranking up and even obtaining the back at the moment are exploiters with billions to spare, or hackers spamming the content. The rest of the playerbase are left with crazy droprates where the average player just won't be able to afford buying their way up the ranks.

The way it is set up also make people feel robbed running the content when their inability to rank up as fast as these people will prevent them from even having a chance at the higher rank-essences to drop, EXTREMELY TERRIBLE way to design the system.

Any content dropping essences for the OP back, should drop for anybody running the content once they have acquired the OP back. The current rank you're in shouldn't be a determing factor for having the essences dropping.

I'm not hating the new content. From what I experienced last night the open world content is a step up from Titans Island and especially Atlantis but it isn't enough to make me want to run everything on a second toon let alone several.

Everything surrounding the content: augments, artifacts, breakthroughs and catalysts, time capsules and their feats, the op and elite pieces...its exhausting and not very fun.

I like the new content. I agree with many of your complaints but I also don’t think they are so extreme that I would quit.

Hopefully you just take some time off and return one day.

They dropped the ball for me. Im pretty disgusted simply by how they allowed us to purchase items to build up existing artifacts, only to listen to the opinions of a minority on test and trashed our super charge cool downs and costs, without being mindful of our feedback on these forums. That wasnt even the problem that was being abused. No matter what we try to say, about wanting to feel like we are playing in a super hero game, for whatever reason, its falling on deaf ears.

The paywall for this Dlc is beyond reasonable. Even with the fix to allow the essence to drop ((More Rarely)) in normal raid content to upgrade the op item. The rng rate this time, is crossing lines against the game's customers that should never even have been considered.

Im not spending one replay. Wont be be buying hundreds of dollars in items off the market place every month like I normally would either.

The character art upgrades Im fine with, for the most part, shazam's face looks like a creeper to me, zatanna looks like her rear is on backwards or shes wearing a diaper, but I see see an improvement in a lot of the characters cosmetic upgrades.

There are a few pieces of content that seem new, but certainly wasnt worth waiting six months for. Im tired of a lot of the same old same old reh ash ed content and adds. These things aside, this episode is lacking for me overall, because it doesnt even feel new, much less exciting or complete. I ran everything the episode had to offer on the day it dropped in about an hour and a half, and was left wondering is that it?

The next few days, I was already bored with it. I felt like I was grinding dailies in old content again, same as I had been for the last six months.

This. DCUO practically has a monopoly (albeit a niche one, but still). It should not be struggling like it is.

indeed, personally the style system (which i find to be better than most, with perhaps one of the widest style pools to choose from per graphics standards) and the base system are what keep me here, while i prefer the hunter abilities in WoW (not only are animals used but they can be captured and named) nature in dcuo is adequate for a nature themed play style. the only QOL improvement i would make would be to have better run chances in the raids, though understandably i can't do anything about the type of player base we have to the type of content.