Another Year Done - Time for a Change?

What a difference a few months make. Several months removed from Episode 41 and all the changes that it brought us, I find myself questioning how much longer DCUO can remain my go to game. There’s been great progress on correcting many issues, so it’s not like it’s doom and gloom, but the key issue for me is a killer.

Before I get to the key issue, I’ll touch on a few things.

The issue of allies being pay to win has been fully addressed, loved this change. As an active/in combat pet, allies are... okay(ish). Other than Flash and Zoom though, they are too short lived. Sure they can do a decent short duration burst given the right scenarios but they just aren’t satisfying. I understand them not being permanent or even long duration summons, but a few extra seconds wouldn’t hurt. As passive buffs, allies are fine. But they are quickly becoming nothing more than Artifacts: The Next Generation. They deserve better.

The one thing I wish is that upgrades to systems, roles, powers, etc. wouldn’t always be tied to things like artifacts or allies. Why can’t these things just get some quality upgrades apart from new grind systems?

Removed from the initial newness of it, I can’t be bothered to even consider using the Omnibus anymore. Simply not worth the headache of getting a terrible run. With that said, not doing it doesn’t really effect me one bit. But it being an option for those inclined to (try to) complete content that way is a good thing. I see the value of it, but it’s clearly not a system for my play-style. Meh.

The daily and monthly reward claim cycle is okay. Destiny is the standout, allowing me to level up artifacts on an alt without spending a penny. This alone makes the new system a winner but there is room to improve. Fate remains a fairly useless currency for anyone that has been around for any length of time. It’s great for new people or getting a style on alt #58 or whatever. But for me, useless. And I really hope we see a better mix of new and old styles as the featured monthly style. As it stands now, it’s very much a letdown with too much emphasis on reused styles.

With the Holiday seasonal in full swing, I am once again reminded of the AFK issue that all of these quick hit type events bring. Not being able to kick for 5 minutes, sure that’s reasonable for a 20 minute instance. But with seasonals you are forced to either carry a leech or quit and hope you don’t get one in your next instance. This is not okay. Having to wait 5 minutes to kick in a 2 minute instance is seriously flawed.

I’ve avoided it for as long as I can. My key issue, time to talk about The Clamp.

From a day to day, regular content only perspective, it’s fine. Can’t say how it is for general omnibus queue groups. I simply have no interest in going that route any more. I’ll either play with my league or not at all. Regular is not something that we’ve ever struggled with, and that remains the same now. It just takes longer to get through some things. Having extra things to do is nice and quick bounty runs are still very much a hit. But I find myself not raiding a whole lot. From a regular content perspective, it’s still very much a hit.

For elite content... how best to put it? It needs to be a top priority to get this sorted. While my initial thought was along the lines of we’ll just need to mentally adjust to not doing elite and we’ll find new ways of moving forward. That’s not going to work if the end goal is staying in DCUO. Because as it is now, the “forward” part is happening but it’s not happening in DCUO.

For my league, elite was always a long term goal. A year or two long carrot on a stick. That brass ring we could keep reaching for. A motivation to keep playing, collecting skill points, gear, spending money, and so on. That long term goal no longer exists. Not all of our members are cutting edge. Some needed that time to out-gear certain things that have become what elite content has defaulted to (another discussion entirely). We now find ourselves faced with a DCUO where elite may be forever out of reach.

And that DCUO is, as I put it on Discord one night, shallow and meaningless. Regular content provides very little in the way of challenge to most of us. Even the feats in normal are nothing more than a slight, okay, time to pay attention for a minute. The story is not great. It’s all over the place and we get random snippets of a greater story that is never really told. Maybe intimately knowing the comic lore helps, I don’t know. But as a stand alone type story, a mess.

With both normal content and the story severely lacking, elite was the big draw. The long term elite chase was a focusing tool. We accepted the game as a whole because we enjoyed that long build up to where we’d eventually face elite together. And we succeeded in time. Now there’s no chase. Nothing to focus on. Just stuff to get through because... that’s what we’ve always done. A DCUO without that ability to chase elite long term, for me, simply isn’t a good enough game.

This isn’t a call to nerf things to the ground. Make elite however you please, don’t care. But let us work towards it long term like we used to be able to. Right now, players are very much relegated into little boxes and offered very little room to reach outside them. And that kills it for me.

I hope that we get some motivating news in January during the Anniversary. The tease of big things in 2023 is great and all. But what 2023 brings is irrelevant if you lose the motivation to get there.

I can sympathize with this sentiment. It was fun to finally out gear elite content that was previously unbeatable only to kick its butt with your league mates together and that feeling of accomplishment when one or more of them received a feat(s) they were missing. Perhaps this stat piercing that I have heard mentioned will help with the problem(s) detailed in this post to some extent.

I have been playing Endwalker lately (FF14), the story is amazing. It will literally move you to tears at moments. I would hope that future DCUO dlcs can have storylines so compelling that it stirs one’s emotions. I don’t have a comic book background so everything I am learning about the lore is coming from the dlcs themselves. A richer, fuller story would be much appreciated.

I've been really looking at my play time in DCUO as of late. Right now I've been doing 4 characters, but really just the open world and elite duo. (Elite alert if I can get a run in.) My play time has been about 1-2 hours. Where I'm on vacation right now and I hardly played. I took a huge break from the game twice. These were in part with family matters and others the lack of motivation to play. I really liked Omnibus and I actually think the Clamp and all that came with it actually will benefit the game. The problem is and always will be, the way they are handling Elite.

Elite content, I get it. It's meant to be the best of the best content that you need to bring your A game to. That you have to be on your toes to get. Including the feats involved... OR you can circle back after you've gained enough resources and gear to give yourself a buffer room on it to complete. This has always been the case. During the time I was away, my league was having regular feat nights that included Elite content. I missed out. I will never be able to attain those feats. Not with how the clamp is handled with elite.

Last month Mepps confirmed that we are getting full piercing with elite content now. That the last update included it. Which means that our skill points, artifacts, gen mods, etc add very little benefits to your character and gear is the sole provider of stats. This shows a disconnect with the devs and what players expect. If these pierced stats mean very little in the way of benefit to the content, what's the point of even running elite for the feats to add to them? I would love to have a census on clamped elite content completion. I bet it's a ghost town, but I don't know. I don't see shouts for special feat groups outside of unclamped content. So essentially, is clamped elite content dead?

Personally, Doom was a bomb for me. It promised more than what it gave. Even when they add more content later, it still will be lacking. The drive to play has lessened and the content hasn't even been out a full month yet. There is no long term goal and there is another piece of content that is out of reach to new and returning players. How is this a benefit for everyone?

What could be done?

Looking back on older content, I miss that the content of the instance told the narrative. For example, I recently ran the HIVE alert and was reminded of how great and expansive it was. Defend this, conquer this, deliver this there, defeat the queen, etc. All of the narrative was in what we were doing & the environment and wasn't exposition (cutscenes). You could even compare STU content to the recent DLC and see how unfulfilling the current content is.

As for older elite content, I've tried and have practically made zero progress. I know I've made near zero progress because my renown is still as stuck as to where it was. And my difficulties aren't for a lack of skill but now forming a group for it. It's hard to motivate anyone who has the feat, who's exhausted the content, and anyone who doesn't feel the effort is rewarding enough. I don't blame them. It's frustrating to run old content knowing you are less potent than you are at endgame.

Once we were informed that we are getting full piercing, that was the death knell for me. Prior to that, I was fine with plugging along while values were adjusted and various bugs fixed. But from that point on, I’ve drifted from DC.

It’s not that we (XIII Legion) lack the people to do elite under ideal circumstances either. If everyone could work their life around DC and we always had our best players for every role, every raid, we’d be fine. But you should never schedule life around a game. And leaving out league members that are truly great people just because they are not the “best in slot” is not something I can stand behind.

That’s why the work towards elite was our preferred path. It let great people, players that have played DCUO for 10 years, succeed in time. Need a multi year break to deal with critical life issues? No worries. We’ll get through it when you get back. That was always an option. And we thrived on it. Built our league on that foundation. Without question, the XIII Legion members are some of the best people around. Seeing everyone succeed at their own pace was amazing. And knowing, no matter the struggle, we’d get their in time was great. But now? That is gone.

I mentioned above, putting players in boxes. Such a terrible, terrible idea. Segregating the player-base like this can only lead to a divided community that harshly judges anyone outside their box as automatically being wrong.

Going into Doom was the first time since November of 2011 that I was unsure of my DCUO future. Back then it was a question of could I find an MMO enticing enough to keep coming back to. And in the end, DCUO won out over my then current path of getting a new game every few weeks or months as the game(s) demanded.

Ten years later, in November of 2021, I find myself asking many of the same questions. This time though, it’s not a DCUO that is new and exciting. Just one that is alienating me, and people like me. A DCUO that doesn’t value time spent. A DCUO that doesn’t value great people. A DCUO that values elite content above all else.

On launch day, I logged in. Way later than I normally do on a DLC launch. So much later that some people were wondering if something happened. And what did I find? Quite possibly one of the worst quality releases we’ve ever seen from DCUO. The most broken aspects have been fixed. Many little things remain. And I wonder if this will end up one of those DLCs where by the time a fix would be gotten to, it’s deemed that it’s better to just move on to the next.

Play time wise, I’m way down. Pre Episode 41, a new DLC would see me going full out for the first 6-8 weeks for 5+ hours a day. Four “real” characters, three “open world farmers” and a few alt accounts for quick resource type things. Now? Maybe three characters with another one or two thrown in on some days and that’s it. About 2 hours on a standard day and even then I’m struggling to get through it.

There’s just no point of building up when by default you can succeed at regular and have no chance of ever approaching elite in a manner that aligns with league philosophy. It’s terrible.

I think the biggest depressing feeling is that it feels like there is no place for our philosophy in the devs eyes.

There are the elite players, who can complete all when it was the best current content and then there are the people that just do it for the story. Complexity and long haul are really not looked at.

Sorry but I didnt get the point? You dont like the latest elite content difficulty or the clamped elite? Or you dont like their approach on the episode.

Anyway, my opnion on the 3 topics:
I fully disagree with your take on them catering to elite players. The past 2 episodes and STU all had elite raids that could be beaten in 20minutes by average leagues and didnt demand any time on augments or artifacts above 120, this will probably remain even with the clamping. If someone just came from a break, they could easily be carried in there just with purple gear.
The newest elite is nothing different from any other, you have about 1 year and a bit to finish it before it goes on clamping, its a little more demanding than the omnibus elites, but nothing out of the ordinary, it should take the average league 3/4 the completion time of FGSe probably. I know not everyone plays the same way, but the latest elites, besides FGSe, were pretty straightfoward.

Now, I really hate the elite clamping idea though, there shoulndt be clamping for elite and they shouldnt reward source marks when out of relevance either. There should be a elite omnibus, but not clamped and with other rewards. The idea of the Omnibus was to help out new players, not make veterans life's miserable. Clamping elite doesnt even make sense rn since the idea is for newbies to use the bus and elites arent even there.

And overall, I feel like content is lacking. Idk what happened to their resources, but this entire year for episodes we had 2 full raids (the brainiac one is just a big field with reused mechanics), 2 alerts and 2 duos, no matter what they aimed for, there was 0 chance they would please everybody, in fact, with this little content they probably didnt please half the population. I know the omnibus was very demanding, but Legion of Doom managed to be worse than Long live the legion content wise and fights side by side with RwC for most bugged launch. I feel like they have exhausted some aspects of this 1-1-1-1 or 1-1-1-2 dlc format (Open world, solo/duo, alert, raid), because they arent managing to get open world and raids well done at the same time.

From my perspective, I think we’re no longer being treated like people on a journey. Instead, I feel like a cog in a machine.

My experience for many years pre-clamp left me feeling like a hero in an ongoing story. I had my team - my league - and we went on adventures together. Our ongoing story involved revisiting old elite content until we could “complete” it by attaining the feats. We failed together. We succeeded together. It was the experience of growth. Creation of bonds and memories. It was the journey.

But now I’m feeling more like I have to be part of a machine if I enter even years old elite content. The machine doesn’t grow. The machine doesn’t change. The machine does not enjoy. The machine doesn’t care about anything except completing its task as quickly and efficiently as possible.

My remark to the dev team would be this - treat us like people. We’re not numbers. We’re not machines. We are instead a kaleidoscope of talents and feelings that will never fit into a few boxes. Let us grow - don’t box us up.

Yep i expected significantly more content this is a serious issue and whoever is responsible for ressource managment needs to request more (asap) i think the devs dont have enough devs,ressources to make enough content its not acceptable.. with this much revenue dcuo makes i suggest/request the dev team to be significantly larger and given more support from EG7/daybreak the game itself has so much potential why are the people up there so stingy?

Its 2021/2022 competition isnt sleeping give the community episodes with alot of content each episode. I expect episodes to have atleast the level of content that metal part 1,justice league dark,age of justice ( 2 larger raids) had thats what i expect anything else is a upgrade which should be already here due to revenue increase and since eg7 bought Daybreak. The revenue got more but content got less any explanation on this?

Also for a raid focused episode there was way too little raid content and not enough raid bosses. Too much openworld map size (mostly empty not needed) too many openworld bosses.

But the devs did a fantastic job this time with the difficulty of the Elite duo,elite alert and the Elite raid.

This is my only complaint about the clamping, that I feel permanently locked out of certain content now. Otherwise it’s great. I don’t know why all the tier one alerts got put back in my journal, but completing them so far has been great. Much more fun than they would have been without the clamp. This is why I’ve always wanted the clamp to be optional rather than removed entirely. I would still run clamped 99% of the time.

Agree with you both. We're no longer seen as real people, just numbers to flaunt on some quarterly report. This game now offers no real opportunity to move outside of whatever box it sees you as belonging to.

Resources are being used to develop more and more at the "elite" end of the content scale. "All hand on deck" or something along those lines was used when the new raid Doom was being teased. Far too many resources are being spent on making more and more versions of content in an attempt to pacify cries for make it harder.

On one hand we have elite content that you can either do at relevancy or you miss out forever because you can no longer build up towards it. And on the other you have more resources being devoted to developing numerous versions of the same elite instance. That resource time is impacting what we get each DLC. It's no coincidence that the more versions of content we get, the worse the content we get ends up.

To be clear. I don't care what a new piece of elite plays like difficulty wise. Let the people who enjoy punishing, have their fun. But let the people that need time to work towards something like that have that ability. Because that is key to keeping people engaged. Having a long term goal.

Ultimately, my point is that working towards elite pre-clamp provided a long term motivation to keep at it. Having that end goal made overlooking certain shortcomings much, much easier. What current end game elite looks like is of much less concern to me than having a long term motivating factor.

And this episode was a flat out disaster. Riddled with bugs, a massive exploit, and very content light. Unless of course you count each version of content as additional content. Those multiple versions taking up resources and Episodes ending up content light as a result isn’t a blueprint I enjoy.

Change? Yeah, bring back the way it was in the beginning. Not the same old tired "wash, rinse, repeat" content they've been trotting out the past 5 or 6 years. Make the game fun again. Make a world for those who have no life outside of gaming and a world where we can have fun again. I make new characters from time to time just to remind me of how much fun this game used to be.

Progression. The game has lacked Progression since Origin Crisis. The Elite Content and its new Increased difficulty scale is a good direction but its still lacking. We get the Episode and just go out and figure it out. There's no build up to the story within the Episode itself. You almost have to look at the Past episodes to see their Tie-Ins but thats not how it works. (I still dont understand how Sinestro gets the UV Light because the game doesnt tell me. Just says, "hey, I got a new color"). Elite is still carried differently because for me, if someone says they are an Elite player, theyve beaten Elites, just sounds like they opened their wallets to level Artifacts or Allies (which still, thanks for supporting the game. To each their own how they spend their moneys). Because of Arts and Allies being purchasable, it removes the Progression to build your strength to do Elite.

I get that there are players who dont want to do certain regular content or hell even touch outside. They live and breath in Elite and this format works for them. Not the many others who populate the game. Without the sense of Progression and something to build up to, it gets that "wash, rinse, repeat" mentality and gets us to where we are now still. I log in, do open world, do daily instances. Level my Augments for Buffs that I doubt are even worth it. The progression can be "seen" in the Augments but by the time those buffs are probably worth it, youve ran the content enough to be bored and see no reason to continue. Just leveling for Feats at that point.

The "cog in the machine" statement is pretty spot on. Thankfully for me, I use the Omnibus to level my Alts now and build up their Artifacts as my new method of leveling and finding new play styles. We have good systems but they just arent meshing somehow which I'll always blame the price tag on certain items which should never be there in the first place. But even on Alts, the Cog in the machine mentality is still there and once you feel that stagnation, its hard to get rid of it and causes players to quit outright or take long breaks.

well...I think elite content the miles vary. I feel that often when you play it you tend to get people that are ready for it or some bosses are easy peasy then others not so much. But even some elite stuff before the stat clamp was sometimes still problematic. and some elite stuff...once you get it done and over with there is no reason to do it again if you have the renown. I sorta liked the elite solos in Save the Universe so you could at least get the renown on your own and not deal with others quiting/discon/complainging etc.

But anyhow, as far as storylines and such go...I kinda feel they blend in ways. I mean...we were hinted Perpetua was coming altho kind of a buzzkill that her and Harbinger were not really seen. It was also nice to see some of the impassioned characters like Zatanna, and the Bombshells actually giving off dialogue and making appearances, cuz in the content they were in they sorta just showed up, but I digress.

I'm surprised though that peeps play the game but not into much of the comics. So much is actually pulled from it and sometimes made better. for example Sons of Trigon was IIRC a comic series but not super great nor featured WW/Circe/etc. and Amazon Fury was a bit based on Amazons Attack! but much better executed in the game. But yeah

There is no progression anymore, really. And I'm not talking about the clamp. It's been single episode gear step every DLC. We cycle new gear at the start of each launch. Rinse and repeat, but that's been the case since T5 launch. (Really T6.)

The problem we have now is that there is no circling progression. Where you can return to get what you missed. Either because you took a break, couldn't do it when it was new, or were a new player that just didn't have access.

Having Elite be Elite is great. If they want it to be the epitome of player skills, Elite+ is a way to do it, but it leaves everyone else out. And if the "All Hands On Deck" approach is the Elite+ raid we got, that shows they aren't developing meaningful content for the general players. All the cool and nifty mechanics are in the Elite versions of the raid. At the moment, the skill level between "event" and "regular" are almost non-existent. Then the gap between "regular" and "elite" is massive. There is no stepping. No transition. It's "almost" as bad as when OC launched and the ability to run content required you to have run the content. I really like the fact we have Elite Solos, Duos, Alerts now. I really do, it helps players gain something they might not be able to, but the fact remains, having elite gear doesn't help you in elite content. When the concept of elite content is to have the best of the best to complete. I don't know where that deviated, but that is neither here nor there. We no longer have the carrot to circle back to and there is very little in what we can run that keeps us.

It's because this game is just vertical progression with a seriously linear path of which you can never leave.

Every DLC it's just the same thing over and over with a different coat of paint.

Play elite if possible, grind marks, grind renown, buy gear, build OP item, build generator mods, possibly obtain feats, wait for cycle to start again.

There's nothing filfilling in game outside of those parameters, there's no quests, there's no open worlds, there's no tasks with a rewarding end result.

As opposed to other MMO's the systems in this game are incredibly lacking

Dare I say it, but everyone is obsessed with this "elite, elite, elite, spam, spam spam, mentality" and although it can be fun in the moment it is slowly but surely killing this game.

U feel locked out of certain content?
Arent we clamped like 30 CR higher? Artifacts? Augments? Gen mods? Etc etc etc
How much stronger do you need to be?
See this is the thing rite here, this is the issue and why devs are even attempting to find balance where they shouldnt.

U have players complain its too easy (and it was too easy for dang near all of us). New players couldnt enjoy it or learn anything so they clamp up (and we are crazy OP in clamped content) so now theres at least a tiny bit of extra time for newer players to enjoy it (clamp is nowhere close to hard enough for newer players to enjoy it FYI).
and then theres players like you (not you specifically) that act like now its too hard……
We are massivly OP and most people cleaered at relevancy when we werent OP so theres no excuse. Clamped content is a breeze. U dont need skill or good loadouts or anything. U can pew pew ur way through.
Maybe theres need for a tank (its helpful but we r too OP, i quantum tank it all the time) and heals can be needed but its a joke.
Theres no reason anyone except players w/out the CR min should be or feel “locked out”.
Thats a YOU prob not a design prob. I dont say it much but seriously, u can mindlessly mash buttons an breeze through clamped content. Theres no excuse to not be able to clear it.
Not picking on you, or not trying to but gimmi a break….. We are mad OP even clamped

Spot on with regard to “nothing fulfilling outside those parameters”
What i do is help others even if loot locked. I “teach quantum might dps” on the regular and always offer when i see other quantum dps’s in instances.
Also my league, its alot of fun to go back to old content and help those seeing it for the first time.
Thats actually why i want a harder clamp. For them to learn the instance and practice loadouts etc i have to actually stop playing otherwise everything (including bosses) dies too fast. We arent clamped hard enough for that to be as enjoyable as it could.