Catering to Casual Crowd Hurting the Game

Gear up via alerts?

When LFG was full of "need ROLE for Dox....MAX CR required!"....meaning that all the alert gear in the would wouldn't help you get into a group.

One could argue that the content was problematic (which it was...due to the invisible one-shots and such), but the community sure as **** didn't help itself.

The other problem was that players exploited to get the best gear. That happened in both Nexus and Dox in the beginning, and it led to a widespread issue where players would exclude/kick other players who did not have the raid/vendor gear. That even occurred in the 4-man operations.

The developers couldn't very well take all top gear away from players since they had no reliable way of distinguishing those who did it legitimately from those who did not. There were still other ways they could have leveled the playing field, i.e. providing an easy method to get the 85 vendor gear to at least do the 4-man operations. Instead, they took the path of least resistance and reduced the difficulty of the entire DLC hoping the 85 gear easily obtained in the Sons of Trigon DLC would be enough to appease the masses.

For some reason, the developers interpreted players complaining about being excluded from the content as players asking for said content to be reduced in difficulty. I saw only a small percentage actually asking for the content to be made easier. Due to the developers making a knee-jerk reaction to reduce difficulty, more people have come out of the wood work asking for certain things to be made easier instead of asking for tips to improve and defeat content.

The decision to reduce the difficulty in Origin Crisis hurt this game by creating a snowball effect, in my opinion.

Please post link cause id LOVE 2 see what spytle said.

At the time of OC I was here as a yr one gamer and yup my friend list dissapated also


Issue being NO LOOT. NOTHING ELSE. Not a thing.

U spend 300 bucks and have 2 useable dro9s after 2 months.

DIFFICULTY WAS NO ISSUE AT ALL

the biggest kistake made by the OC as stat inflation as it lead to a TON of problems and is why we now have game updage 47. So by all means show me spytle saying oc was 2 hard

NERF LAFLEEZE LOL CLASSIC

Stat inflation was a bit of a mistake, but it was not the biggest mistake. The biggest mistake was reducing difficulties instead of making 85 gear easily obtainable. That could have done in one of two ways:

1. Reduce the vendor cost for 85 gear to 10-20 marks of reality.
2. Change the 81/82/83 drops in the iconic anomalies to 85 drops instead.

That would have provided players with the ability to play the 4-man operations with less fear of getting kicked.

Where did we mention the difficulty???
where did we say difficulty= people leaving.

We said OC = people leaving.

I don't know how useful this data is because players don't get trophies unless they are subscribed. If it's drawing numbers based on trophy count, then it doesn't take into consideration the people who only play via DLC purchases.

Also, I have both PS3 and PS4 trophies which unlocked the first time I played the PS4 version as a subscriber. The data isn't a true reflection of anything, really and is only a really rough guideline.

1. Actually, compared to now, as far as I remember it wasn't even close to being "a lot worse".

2. You're assuming i had a bunch of expert modded gear. My pugging back then at that DLC had me doing a lot of alerts, gearing up and saving marks before having a fair shot at any consistent raid-progression. We actually had a MEANING to gearing up back then.

3. It's a pity you taking your ignorance as me insulting you. If you weren't in fact ignorant, you wouldn't make assumptions like "people like you, already exp modded", or am I wrong? Hmm, but hey! Atleast you replied, that's the most important right

Population seems to be about the same now as it was then from my perspective. I really haven't noticed much of a difference other than I now know fewer people. That was more a result of my fiancé leaving the game than anything else, and if it wasn't for me, she would have probably left the game shortly after OC due to all the bugs and lack of response to those bugs.

And if you feel the need to call others ignorant, I hope you are also willing to admit your own ignorance. Your posts regarding population numbers show ignorance since neither you nor anyone outside the SOE/Daybreak team can tell how the population really changed during Origin Crisis. Census data is not available for that time period.

2 years ago, this wouldn't have been true. Today, this is very much the truth.

Catering to the casual crowd is a red herring because the casual crowd doesn't care about DCUO any more. DCUO is not a unique experience any more. It's no longer the only console MMO. It's competition is better looking, better monetised and offers a lot more of an engaging experience. The casuals simply don't care any more.

By appealing to the casual market, specifically in the latest end game content, you're alienating the hardcore player base. This game needs to switch focus to the hardcore player base if it wishes to hold on to an audience that simply don't care if the game looks like crap and has nothing to do when compared to other MMO titles.

There's a reason why games like WOW are so popular. It's because they continue to satisfy their hardcore player base. When new content comes out in WOW, you can be assured it's going to be tough and satisfying to beat. That's why they keep going back and have done for over a decade. The game continues to thrive, despite being a niche title with a niche lore. DCUO has the luxury of having the DC license behind it, which has it's own film division, television/animation division and of course the comic books themselves. There's lots of different things always going on for fans all around the World. WOW doesn't have this luxury and yet they out perform DCUO even on their worst months.

Bottom line is, if the game wishes to continue, it has to switch from appealing to casuals, to appealing to hardcore players. If it doesn't, then you're not going to have a hardcore, engaged player base to sell content to when the casuals decide DCUO is too primitive and "last gen" to play or try out any more.

If you still wish to appeal to casuals, do it in 1-30, T1-T4. Keep people, who go past the point of being able to play for free, challenged and seeking the satisfaction of beating tough content.

why buy once u sub?

Non subscribers do get DLC trophies if they purchase the DLC. Only Base game trophies require a subscription.
I have an account that only purchases DLCs and it gets the trophies for any purchased DLC.
A player that earns trophies as a subscriber also keeps their trophies when they unsubscribe. Just like Feats.
There are PSN accounts that have been on both PS3 & PS4. So some accounts are counted twice.
I noted that the site tracks 2.2 Million PSN accounts.
Those 2.2 Million accounts are a fraction of accounts since 29 Million PS3 & 9 Million PS4 consoles have been sold in North America.
An estimated 420K retail PS3 copies of the game sold. All of those accounts have access to base game trophies.
Only 230K PS3 accounts of the 2.2 Million tracked accounts have access to the DCUO trophies.

Sony has a rarity app that shows the percentage of all users that have gotten any individual feat.
The percentages are much lower on that app as it also includes international accounts. DCUO is not available in some regions including Japan.

This. The funny thing is that skill points has very little to do with skill. Many skill points are obtained through mundane actions like collections, styles, briefings, investigations, exploration, etc. Very few require a skill to obtain. Hence, skill points are overrated.

I can't verify that. I don't recall that being the case for me when I was Premium. But I haven't purchased a DLC in such a long time, it's hard to remember. I remember it being an issue for me when the game first went free to play as I used to be trophy ***** and was disappointed/confused when I didn't get the trophies I had been previously getting before the game went F2P.

So I might just be confusing the main game with DLC content. I'm quite certain, though, that my DLC8 feats didn't unlock the PSN trophies until I subscribed again though. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

To play without having to pay a monthly subscription.

It was a SOE LIVE the summer of OC.
You can probably see the video on YouTube or Twitch.

When OC went live..... I had been building my friend list since the game went F2P.... more or less.
But all that was gone in the blink of an eye when OC went live.

I am sure the difficulty was an issue for some.....

But the real issue for me was being excluded.

When OC went live..... I spent the first week or two gearing up.

So I started with the solos to get some 81 or 83 gear....... then did the alerts for better gear..... and when I player Paradox Wave..... had a good group and we succeded on the first try...... despite some rendering issues where we did not see most of the FX and would be killed by invisible attacks.

I am naïve sometimes........ I should have replayed Wave over and over that day..... But I did not.

I waited for the weekly reset.

So a week or more later...... when I would try to join a group for Wave....... even if I had been through Wave successfully..... I was told "Sorry..... no expert".... "kick".

That for me was the issue with OC.
That and all my friends leaving DCUO never to return.

Again....... Spytle did not say OC was too hard.
What he said was that only about...... 2% of the playerbase managed to play and complete the raids.

That could mean that it was too hard since 98% of the players could not play or complete the content.

You decide.

4 me I bought fight for the light and lightning strikes and was legendary. I figured if I used the f2p model it would be nice 2 have but I wont ever not be legendary so in my case the number drops after two dlcs because I was a sub carrier.

Funny how times change.

When WOW was released..... it was labeled as a "casual MMO".

The "hardcore" "elite" players were playing Everquest.

WOW was the casual MMO at the time.

Funny how now some see WOW as a "hardcore" MMO.

1. I said "a lot worse than you think," not "compared to now." And I stand by my statement. SOE wouldn't have changed things so much, wouldn't be avoiding anything like OC, Spytle wouldn't have said OC hurt dcuo, if they hadn't been losing a lot of subscribers.

2. Don't be ridiculous. I'm obviously not suggesting that you had modded raid gear when the dlc launched, that would be impossible. I meant that you got lucky with raid drops while the dlc was still new and you have no empathy for anyone who wasn't as lucky. I would have liked to gear up through alerts, but by the time I got to T5 people would quit or kick as soon as they saw that I didn't have a bunch of purple gear. I'm going to repeat this, because a couple of you guys keep missing this: I was KICKED from ALERTS for not having gear and mods from the RAIDS.

3. Like I said, it's a shame you can't discuss things without personal insults.

Oh, and I'm sure you'll respond with more insults. Congrats, you'll have the last word. It's obvious you're not arguing in good faith, and I just don't have time to respond to every insult and logical fallacy that you'll bring to the conversation.

Lol, I remember Ozzy advertising WoW! If he can play it, when he can barely form a coherent sentence, it can't be too hardcore.

Honestly many of us have been saying that 'catering to casual players too much hurts the game' since Free to Play was implemented.

Yet here we are, years later and still playing a functioning game. Good and Bad game changes aside, it will survive.