Catering to Casual Crowd Hurting the Game

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Ichiro, Aug 26, 2015.

  1. Zneeak Devoted Player

    But in reality, in all honestly, what so many of you still try to deny despite of all the nerf-threads back then as proof and the fact that the LFG channels were all PACKED with people forming groups for OC-content on a daily basis, is that plenty of people went through the exact same thing as "ermike" described above: They went in without gearing up, got whacked and decided to leave, visit the forums and bomb it with "MEGANERF NOW"-threads.

    Being excluded was never THE reason, neither was a "DOOMED, decreasing population because of that DLC" as you tried to fool people into believing a bunch of posts ago in this thread. Deny it or grasp the truth, the majority of the playerbase was not and is not able to handle the difficulty that OC delivered, and that majority still "rules" DCUO which you can see by the level of content we have right now and all the rioting threads and posts you can still see anytime the devs are trying to deliver something slightly difficult.

    The irony of it all, is that all the easy-mode has led to probably the lowest population in this game up to date. During OC we were never even half as close to this low of a population as we have right now. Blame GU47 and all the other dev decisions you can think of as much as you want, but that's just a part of it, not the main reason.
  2. Torikumu 10000 Post Club

    As some have already said, the loot drops and the technical issues with the raid were much more of an issue with Origin Crisis than the difficulty of the instances. You cannot dodge what you cannot see. Technical issues made the raids much harder than they should have been. It made the content unfairly difficult.

    Another reason was the poor rewards system. Which still exists today. At one point, Nexus was dropping 86 gear rarely and Paradox Wave was dropping 87 gear rarely. The differences between that gear and the drop gear were simply not worth it.

    People were sick of running content and getting nothing, hence the individual loot system being introduced and then the guaranteed drop. The gear was also buffed to 87/88 to make it more enticing, but too little to late as most people had become disgruntled and left to play GTA5.

    The rewards structure did more damage to the game during OC than anything else. People welcomed the challenge and were happy to try, initially. When it became apparent that there were technical issues adding to the already challenging content and the rewards of the content simply weren't worth it, people left. GTA5 didn't help either but many didn't return because of how disgruntled they left the game.

    A lot of people underestimate the power of the rewards system. A lot of people now-a-days find it hard to believe that it was even an issue because they're used to the system now or didn't play the game before all this RNG nonsense. But OC was the first time that the best gear was only available via a random drop, not including the really hard to obtain Norsemen gear which was only 1 level above vendor gear and extremely rare.
    • Like x 4
  3. lukelucky Devoted Player

    Difficulty is a jokebecause we all had the a boss in eitjer raid down to a sliver b4 everything crumbled. Man one more hit or darn he had ni health. The stat difference in the 86 and 88 gear was significant enough that not havjng the gear was the reason teams failed. ABSOLUTLY NOT THE DIFFICULTY.

    Extremly difficult content was in game at launch or yr one an on. Penbot back then was a laugh. New guys would chat in league chat and when ud hear someone was about to do this mission. Id make a voice chat just to have extra laughs. Khans first room at tier was a nightmare especialy considering how many people were clueless to thier roles. Myself back then was one of these guys. Forget what batcave it was but one was a nightmare. We know fos 2 was the worst but man fos 3 would absolutely wreck teams. Even easy fos 1 u better pull crabs off the edge to limit the ads.

    Prime was a team wrecker even to fully geared groups. Actually if ur grouls skillpoi ts were low or u were not paying attention fos 2 could wipe a group of full t4 players. Now we got bombshells where an alert grouo drops it and 8 players run through it faster than the normal (OLD NORMAL) alert.

    Yes there are indeed otjer factors not being difficulty but we had the hardest content from oc and b4 and the population was healthy. After well again other factors apply but without the challanges we are acustom to the vets are getting restless or other games.

    kinda odd ur theory of "majority" rules and it was 2 hard. where is all da majority of players u speak of now? eups, eupc, uspc all are ghost towns. very close and villian nation is worse 4 em.
    i by no mans am claiming no one left cause it was hard. i am saying it was a non factor but its ranked last BY FAR. try and tell me u were not ever so close on so many dif bosses. it was all over not getting gear.
    u can toss in da huge stat increase from t4 to t5 also. 2 hard lol come on. if people folded up and left over hard buddy we woulda never saw t5
  4. ermike Committed Player

    This is always going to happen tho. U cannot police lfg. Pugging is hard in this game.. u cannot look at someone's experience.. only their gear which everyone has. Was it a problem, I don't pug but I'm sure it was, but no more then pugs asking for quantum for TotD or asking for ice tanks for FOS2
  5. Dark Horus Dedicated Player

    Funny how some of you have so many opinions but you don't even play the freaking game anymore . If it's so bad find a rock to kick and follow it , I can understand wanting to check up on the game but if you don't have any positive ideas **** . Coming here and saying how bad the game is or the devs need to be fired isn't helping anything . Obviously they aren't going anywhere any time soon so give it a rest .

    Yes the game has issues and the direction needs to be changed , how are we going to get them to notice the important issues when it's drowned out by all the crying and moaning over every little detail .
  6. ermike Committed Player

    Problem is loot drops in this game are bad all around.. alot of instances have loot only matter from the last boss.
  7. Sylo Committed Player

    Kristyana( dunno if he is still around here?) was part of the group that chatted with him at SOE live. Maybe you missed that part? It was a casual conversation at the event. Which means Spytle was not gonna run back here and post. Comments of that nature are not normally made official by the dev's.
  8. ermike Committed Player

    So let's ask him if things are better now or after OC?
  9. ermike Committed Player

    I already had enough SPs to last a lifetime. I refuse to play a game that is in the current state this one is. Plenty of other options. I have been fighting for this games direction since you were trying to figure out how to beat prime for the first time.. I've been rallying against replays for damn near 3 years. Everybody loved them so much.. now look at this mess
  10. Dark Horus Dedicated Player

    I had the No Tag feat straight up while you were using clown box to glitch prime . You need to climb down off that high horse of yours if you have been fighting for this for 3 years apparently you don't matter so go back to doing what you do best and quit . This isn't a battle you can win sport :)
    • Like x 1
  11. ermike Committed Player

    Why do u keep responding to me.. I have more SPs then you and have quit twice and haven't played since april.. yet u keep trying to measure yourself against me. Please go elsewhere and let the grown ups talk
  12. Dark Horus Dedicated Player

    What are you talking about you're delusional . I've been playing non stop since it came back from the hack unlike you. So why don't you get off the forums of a game your not playing ???

    Skill points don't equal skill some people have to work for a living and I have 9 characters at end game heroes / villains .
    • Like x 1
  13. Sylo Committed Player

    Its irrelevant. The state the game is in now did not happen over night. Most of the players who left as a result of OC were already tiring of the games never ending carrot chase, etc. The few who fester here proclaiming things like WM and AM's ruined the game and sent people away are just that, few. Its nothing more than coincidences that players want to associate with "reason the game is failing".

    The game has refused to change at its core. Sure the dev's make content easy, add new styles of combat, etc, etc. Which few will scream to the heavens as the factual reasoning for the games state. When it simply comes down to people leaving because they have grown tired of the progression system because the core game has remained the same as far as progression. Five years or so of doing the same routine day in and day out wears on most players, so they leave. There are lots of other options out there for online games and more on the way.
    • Like x 1
  14. Zneeak Devoted Player

    I'm sorry, I can hardly read what you're saying, you're allover the place.
  15. MEBegnalsFan Devoted Player

    emerkie,

    I know a player that had over 200 SP in a year and 1 month. Does SP equal skill, not really. He was one of the worst DPS I ever played with. Taught him how to be a troll a few months before he quit and he became very good as a troll. Took almost till he left to start using brawling though.

    I have been playing only for 22 months now and I have 189 SP, that to me is not all that important. The entertainment value for my $ is where it is at. What I get for $15 month I could not get from a two $8+ movies. Even if you play DCUO only for 4 hours a month, you are getting your $$$ worth given the cost of other entertainment we have available to us. Not all, but some others.

    As for the state of DCUO. I like how the monthly content is designed, it tends to have a lower rate of players dropping as new content is basically out right when players are about done with the prior released content. The issue I see is this, many players stop before they hit T4. That is an issue that has to be address.

    At this point in the game I would make every thing that is not T5 and up FREE. This would open up more content for the F2P crowd. It would give them more reason to play and it may help attract more subs or premium member purchase of eposides. Once T7 is completed, I would make all T5 free as well. Keeping only the 2 most recent tiers as payment options for players.

    Of course if you want a power, utility belt or base mods that is also a pay item.

    As for the casual crowd hurting the game; I disagree. I see more casual players now at CR 130 that have never ran TotD, HoH, LAB, HH, NGN, or Bombshell. Many are now feeling comfortable enough to run these, only to quit on the last boss after 2 failed attempts. Other stick around wanting to see it through. I for one use to be that type of player until WotL II. That was the first eposide where I jumped right into the raid on day 1. I than continued with that mentality to this day. For a while my main I held off on running HoP2 raid but eventually I ran them for the Marks to finish off some styles and eventually got my CR up to 124 right before BS dropped.

    This game may have lost players due to all the change. The truth is it is one of a few MMO that offer monthly content. It is one MMO where I see many update and one where I see the development team interacting with its customer base regularly and changing the game based on multitude of feedback received via social media.

    The game today is a result of many factor, including community input. I know first hand how content can be challenging and also how it can go from that to easy mode. I prefer to be a challenge but not stupid easy. For instance, TotD was a good challenge at tier, today it takes a good group 8 minutes with no wipes. Considering it is still a raid of relevancy it should not be that easy for T7 player.

    NGN for instance now is a challenge, because many players are now going back running older raids with higher CR expecting it to be like HoH, LAB and TotD for difficultly, easy mode. Most players quit on the first boss due to them not knowing the mechanics.
    • Like x 1
  16. lukelucky Devoted Player

    This disagreement has grown tiresome. This thread cateri g to tne casual refers to cutting the grind out and a reduction in difficulty. A BUNCH OF NO NOTHINGS CRY BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT USE SIMPLE OC MACHANICS AND TRY AND BLAME OCs DIFFICULTY. THIS IS A LOAD OF CRAP.

    Lets rewind to OC amd b4. Dcuo was filled with group wrecking co te t and solos that would utterly break ur armor. Hence the penbot mention. Aquaman mission 4 our crowd yr one was the one u knkw u needed a group for or had to go back to get the feat.

    Compare ANY CONTENT ANY 2 khan. The cordination and the blatent difficultu of shazam was crazy. Yr one we had very difficult material. Population ok. By the days of prime and gates the raids were hard and killer. Gates first room was a nightmare and REQUIRED CORDINATION. The last room of gates considered easy but at tier wrecked us. Glitch the door open.

    Prime absolutely wrecked fully tiered players. Fully tiered only some players could solo heal. Way different than the kiddie land of roday. Prime was very hard and the devs response was? Vengance and dawn. Dawn and talia, also the 1st boss with the hell sprites required more than one group to win. Some 8 man teams were ok but only some.

    THE HELL SPRITES CAUSED A WHITE FLAG AND WE ALL LIME COWARDS HIDE instead of beating them.


    % 70 of the player base was ps3 at the time and we all knkw how t4 operations worked on ps3. Freeze fest. Run an entire raid and then freeze and get NO LOOT. (PAY ATTENTION 4 THE PATTERNS)

    They then followed up the freze fest with a very deliberately designed cash grab dlc. Stats were doubled forcing the alerts 2 be very relevant. We needed blue gear to even stand a chance. Nexus and dox waz beatable at cr95 previos of ANY NERFS OR ADJUSTMENTS.

    People are poi ting fingers everywhere but the issue is and will be our gear. How can tthe game be so screwed up the 1st two years and grow if it was "2 tuff" people would of left and we would of never made it to the OC. Oc woulda been EZ.

    To recap from launch until today a few fundamental game changes have occured that has lead to no population. Control of gear slash progression is gone and now u recieve raffle tickets. The difficulty of even easy raids has become mind numbingly easy. Drastic changes

    Skill points now mean? Game update 47 killed the little value they had.

    Game update 47 is dcuo still paying the pipper for the OC. Ocs difficulty did not fundamentally change the game but the stat raise ultimately did. The super escalation of stats is the issue in a few major issues.

    All of this is factual as any yr one guy will tell u the content beat our faces in.ODD FACT IS WE COULD NOT LUCK INTO A CR100 PLUS GUY TO BAIL US OUT. It was just us and if ur weak fetch skill points or practice or ur S.O.L.

    For players who struggled with hands of fate and especially dox and nexus to cry difficulty ruined the game IMO is irresponsible and selfish. Obviously not true.

    Difficulty is gone and wont be back. Cant get tuff because of required "CR" if we need say vendor gear but get gear a cr or two high packed with bonuses then content scaled to vendor gear is a snooze fest. Atop of this the lack of machanics in instances such as bombshells. On test the bombs did not even kill u if I remember the players request to buff the bosses.

    T4 end game newbies was a problem and got some attention when the walk ins were taken away.

    B4 I gotta near game updat 36. Clipping became huge while we were over powered awaiting new content in t4. T3 in fos raids it was not a real tjing. By t4 it had taken over. CHEATING AN ANAMATION OBVIOUSLY NOT INTENDED AND GONE. So as popular as it was not a game killer and truth be told combats way more appealing to way more people.

    Better is objective appealing no. Simply %X percent os fast enough and considtant to clip and do that damage. That % is small in comparasion to everyone. Lets face it anyone can do max damage. Once they balance (here is hoping) WM, AM, and each power can have options combat has improved. Meaning multiple combat methods and an actual option for any one who plays dcuo. Not a few extra fast cordinated peeps. Going forward imagine combat. How many powers simply use one tree in its Am? Earth ill use as an example. After shock AMs are on the way u would think. That wou o d give 2 AMs or WM as methods to do max damage. Again anyone can do.
    Old way was one method available to a select %

    Ok hopefully those who read this can put the to nard and clipping boogeymen to bed because that make believe has almost nothing to do with where we are today
  17. lukelucky Devoted Player

    Let me just up the anty and say I could care less if spytle blames difficulty and still call BS. Scroll up read my comments to zneak. Clearly difficulty s a non issue

    Fullt tiered players spent 6 hours in fos 2 only to fail. That is very hard. If u qued into fos 2 u knew u were at the bridge. Very hard. Yet pri e came out hard. Heck gates was hard enough at weeks one and two. longer for some. Game was healthy and growing despit needing to respec to run alt role, no teleporters, and countless other issues of items lacking an yet it thrived. Well was growing. Now? If casuals better where is everyone. Bring facts or except an L. Please read ky post to zneak as its spelled out better.

    Keep in mind pointing fingers or being upset about what is done is pointless. Cant undoe it so all we can do if we are dcuo fans is diagnose the issues, fix em and rebuild.
  18. Greenman_x Steadfast Player

    Of course it did. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Origin Crisis was good for the game, because it wasn't. It excluded a very high portion of the population and had technical issues that made it so even average players had an unbelievably hard time completing content. However, the extent they went in the opposite direction afterwards was absurd and the fact that they teetered for about 2 years about the direction of the game made it worse.

    In 2011, there was a set structure to content, combat, rewards, etc that everybody seemed to enjoy. The combat was fast paced, the content was very linear in that there was a gear structure that made all content rewarding (you ran solos and duos to get geared up to run alerts and alerts to get geared for raids, which you used to get geared for the next tier) and the content had interesting mechanics that you actually had to think about and balance your 8 man team accordingly. Then somewhere along the way they just decided to stop releasing raids and go for smaller group content and operations. Ops were buggy and boring and the small group content didn't help you outside of helping you get marks for your old T4 set.

    Then after over a year with no raids, they said "we're going to really make this a challenge for you" and they went back to that linear rewards progression where you ran solos to get gear for alerts, which you ran to get gear for raids. But all of a sudden, the casual player had an issue with that because they wanted to jump right into the raid and beat it, which they couldn't do without gear from other things. When OC flopped (again, mostly as a result of technical problems, boss drops and community mindset) they went in a totally different direction and catered to the players who didn't like OC and ignored the players who did like OC.

    The game got overly casual after that and everything from the combat to the content to the reward structure, catered to the casual player, leading to what we have today. We now have an overly simplified and boring combat system, content which can be accessed and beaten on day 1 with zero gear with little difficulty and mechanics that are so in your face and easy to deal with that if you miss them or can't do them properly, you might need to be admitted to a special care facility. The game is the worst it's ever been because of the community and the developers inability to both teach and create good players. Things are so bad, that I don't anticipate this game makes it out of 2016 and it could have all been avoided.
    • Like x 2
  19. MEBegnalsFan Devoted Player

    For those that are playing ESO vs. DCUO...Here is my personal experience.

    I like what ESO is but the game is BORING.... I love the class, ability to play any role, ability to fully customize your character your way, crafting, etc...it is very well design. The story mode is boring, moreso than DCUO. Level up to true end game, Vet 10 takes quite a while. I have a guild member who has been grinding in ESO since early August and he is only Vet 1. That is crazy. I stopped at level 30 and will eventually go back but it is not DCUO.

    DCUO I can fly, run fast, and zip from building to building. I do not die if jump down 300 stories, yeah I tried in ESO. Graphics are a bit behind but the game is much older and using an older system.

    I like both games but one night around 10pm I was playing ESO and I started to fall asleep. When I play DCUO I normally get like that around 1am. That is the difference and why I feel ESO is boring.

    Also, someone told me ESO is mainly a solo game until Vet 10 with the occasional dungeon crawl from Vet 1 to Vet 9. That to me does not sound like fun in the least bit. I also tried to run a dungeon at level with a group; OMG players there do not even understand roles. Thankfully the one time I pugged a entry level dungeon in ESO I had my two weapon and one setup with 4 healing abilities. We got to the end thanks to me healing along the way.

    It would be nice if they had a magika and stamina regen class because it is surely needed.

    What I like with DCUO it is more interact, better camera angle (I can zoom in and out and get a tactical view when I tank, which I do not get in ESO), and the best part is I have super powers...

    UP UP and AWAY....

    As for Casual Gamer ruining the game. I will state this...some casual gamers become hardcore, they have to start some where. That is what happened to me and a few of my friends, so the game has to cater to that crowd to make them want more. The SM and Elite content is for those of us seeking a challenge.
  20. BipolarDiva Loyal Player

    Due to 5 111 and boredom with tank and spank Because of 5111 you might say...# be part of the solution.