Catering to Casual Crowd Hurting the Game

It's almost as if the hardcore players wish to see the game die because we tell them the truth time after time but you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Owl already delivered the Coup De Grace (Deathblow) so me commenting is rather redundant but, I have to put my two cents in of course!

This thread is funny, so many point of views...

Well my PoV is, that Daybreak hurt this game a bit. The cutting of staff and cancelation of certain things really hurt the game.

As for the Casuals, I'm gonna say there is bits for both, but the content is allot easier then it used to be and it'll be nice to have a difficulty buff. This game still thrives on casuals, but a majority don't have the love for the game, if you know what I mean.

SP should be made allot more relevant, and advertised. Crafting needs allot more work, PvP needs a severe remake.
Actually the broken of PvP has damaged this game greatly.

I will say that there should be at least a bit more solo type and elite type content, but it is ok at the moment.

I came to this game with f2p, but started playing properly when OC came out, because I loved the difficulty. So mixed opinions, mixed opinions.

I could have misinterpreted the initial post but what I gathered from it was the fact that we can now take long breaks and come back and actually not really be behind much. This works for both the "hard core" and the "casual" players. I mean a player can get all the gear and all the feats for 6 months of content in less than 1 month of playing without replays.

It is good and bad that this game allows people to catch up to the end game so quickly (forget skill of the player different topic for a different thread). The bad part seems to be that people run out of stuff to do and then go and play other games. However, it seems like people today that play video games no matter how "hard core" they think they are will always take the easiest path to get a reward. Replay badges definitely shorten the duration there is content for those that choose to use them. People that do not use them will be entertained a bit longer, as long as the RNG doesn't make them lose interest.

The way people interpreted the definition of casual is often way off base. Technically, those people that play each new episode for 48 hours and then are done playing the game until new content comes out are actually casual players. They play for two days then they become casual.....

Casual = people that play less - still just as skilled.
Routine = people who log on most days.

The better argument or the part of your post that made sense to me is routine players vs those that do not play daily. I cannot argue that someone that plays every day should have the capacity to make their character stronger than someone that plays a character once a week. However, the only way to do that would be to make SP more entertaining than they are now. When they first came out I am sure they were exciting. But today, who really gets excited putting the same points into the same skills in each tree? It would be nice if DCUO was more innovative. What brought people back to WOW temporarily was innovation in how they did things. DCUO needs to do something new and exciting, something that made it so you were able to earn something new and exciting if you logged in more often, beyond gear.

As a community we have forced the devs to spend too many resources on balancing each and every power. However, the developers made the mistake of making it completely about the scoreboard based on how the powers were created and how dps is the most over powered role (no balance between roles), yes a community issue too. In most games, each class (power) has something they are the best at and something they are weak at. For example, the tank based powers should have been more durable so they could melee but they didn't do quite as much damage. But because they would not die as much it would make them feel powerful. Then the troll/ dps like powers could hit like a brick but if someone looked at them they would splat. Then healer like powers/dps side were somewhere in between, more durable but can't hit as hard.

The point is we are wasting so much time worrying about who does what damage instead of getting new content or more innovative rewards. Obtaining gear is great and all but it would be nice if our goal or objective in the game was more than just acquiring the gear and then throwing it out for the next set. It would be nice if there was more depth....a reason to log on more....

How is talking about own experiences now and then being ignorant? I am not alone in witnessing a lot of people back then, even though the forums were packed to the ceiling with "MEGANERF NOW!"-threads. I am definately NOT the only one suffering from low population right now either. Which begs the question, what's really that bad; content that was too hard for a majority of players? (OC), or the constant release of mediocre/too easy content we have had up to date because of the difficulty OC brang, among other things? (HoP2 is a good recent example where a month into the DLC we saw a lot more people leaving) The keywords keep bouncing back... BALANCED DIFFICULTY. You can use the GU47-blame card to explain the recent decrease in population, but we all know that's just one of many reasons. A main reason up to date is STILL content. OC was too hard, content now is too easy, let's skip the nerf-threads and meet in the middle. That's what's needed for this game AND community.

You want to call me ignorant for knowing how going to exact opposite from OC made nothing better, then so be it.

Lol. Don't you hear yourself? You are NOT the right guy to talk about personal insults (which never happened, calling someone ignorant who is, that's not an insult) when you're not only assuming I had luck with drops, geared up quick and now you assume that I also had no EMPATHY for others? Wow, you keep lowering yourself and you don't even realize it. Try reading my posts about how pugged huge chunks of this DLC myself. At this point I could tell you everything and you would still stand ignorant to it.

I am sorry that you got kicked from an alerts, but if you are trying to say that this was a norm then you are lying, exaggerating to make a point about how awful this DLC was. There was and will always be sad cases of people asking for more than needed but there was always possible to find another group or make up your own. Back then and right now. It was awful in many ways, but the one thing it gave you as a player that we have almost completely lost today is purpose to gear progression, a reason to gear up. Content that required you to get stronger. Something you actually gained experience form. Well, the once who stayed and not signed up for the "meganerf now!"-trend, that is.

One more thing, playing that martyr-card and all of a sudden acting like you're hurt by an insult I never gave you, that doesn't work on me. I've seen your comments around, you're no angel, you're not debating genius, so to say. So please, just drop that. It's not necessary. I have my opinions and you have yours, but don't try to make me look like a baddie just because I got something to say that differs from how you feel about it.

I would point out that some of the ease in recent content was the result of cheating (e.g., invisible ledges in HH, standing on tables in BS, door glitching, etc.). Those cheat methods were propagated by certain YouTubers, who shall remain nameless. If everyone had to run legit, the content would be much more challenging for the average player. Not saying the recent content is as challenging as OC, mind you. Just think your statement needed qualification.

You're pointing out obviousness that has nothing to to with my statement. OC had plenty of glitches but it was and still is one of the most difficult DLC's up to date. The sad thing is you can now skip that DLC completely while going through tiers.

People don't seem to realize that I am not saying "Let's bring back OC", I am saying bring us BALANCED DIFFICULTY. The closest thing we have had toward balanced difficulty is Amazon Fury Part 2, and we all know TOTD had plenty of glitches aswell, but generally that's one of the better DLC's we have had since the OC-days, atleast in my opinion, and more content delivering BALANCED DIFFICULTY is very, very needed for this game and community. As far as glitches go, well, that needs to be worked harder with from a dev/designer/staff perspective. We all know that our small testing community won't find everything, so there's always a risk of glitches on test coming with the content on live.

I like Math...

I actually thought it had a lot to do with your statement. I was basically saying that, without glitches, recent content like HH and BS have a decent challenge level for the average player. For those craving more challenge, there is Elite and SM. I just don't think you'll see that level of difficulty in regular content ever again. I agree TOTD was nice. Good mechanics. I hope we do get more of that, but you have to admit that even it wasn't that difficult.

When did I say you were ignorant for that?

My statement of your ignorance had very little to do with the above other than your arrogance to say that you "know... [changes since OC] made nothing better" for the game. You don't know anything. You can infer it from the implications of your everyday gameplay, but you don't know it. Please stop the hypocrisy train; I want off.

I actually think some changes since OC were good for the game. The individual loot system, the ability to flag items to not be salvaged or sold, armories, etc.

HH had some decent structure for the average player, but the mechanics were very basic, easy to figure out, easy to work around for most people. It's not like it's a minority playing them legit and the rest are cheating their way through.

BS, no, sorry. This was in no way a decent challenge. Almost the entire raid is so damage farm-centric, more so than any other raid recently. The last boss is supposedly the hardest part of people, and all you have to do is spread out, watch out for holes and occationally cleanse your aura through one of these black holes. Very, very basic stuff.

And here we are again, for those craving more... I wouldn't be complaining as much about mediocre content if SM and Elite actualy held the standard it was supposed to have. HH Elite was beaten at day one of release, LEGIT, in under 40-50 minutes by PLENTY of groups.
The two recent SM's we have had, had R10 beaten at first day of release aswell. We do not only have progress points in SM now, but it did get decreased difficulty compared to the first two SM's. So yeah, for those craving, we're still waiting, AGAIN.

What I liked about AF Pt2 and TOTD wasn't the difficulty per say, it was the structure of each raid, how each raid delivered a difference. For people stacking dps's, there were plenty of objectives to do and not only pew pew pew straight forward. TOTD put a requirement in multiple support, especially the elite. Bugs and glitches aside, TOTD Elite took a good while before a group could successfully complete the whole thing. It had some longevity. That's what content is missing now, longevity. A purpose to gear up.

We weren't talking about general changes since OC, we're talking CONTENT since OC.

You weren't specific, but I'll bite. Saying you know nothing improved content-wise since OC is still not true. Just because it is your opinion does not mean everyone shares it. I actually have enjoyed quite a bit of the content equally and/or more than OC content in terms of lore. Sure, some of the content could have benefited from more mechanics and an increased challenge, but I wouldn't say it was worse than OC just for those reasons.

I have no idea why everyone blames OC for the big drop off. The real problem was replay badges, Gates, and the tier 4 operations. These instances were so easy and a melee fest. Everyone was doing spin chop with one hand clipping with whirling dervish. These instance were taking less than 15 mins in basic pug groups. The game took the wrong direction in tier 4 and was way too easy other than prime.

Players were on the forums everyday begging for a challenge. OC was the answer to that. Now some of the mechanics and rendering issues were very poorly addressed and it became clear that most of the player base was not ready for this type of challenge. Changes were made but not as quickly as they should have been and this lead to people leaving the game.

OC actually demonstrated that a majority of the player base understood very little about their powersets and their roles and the players who stuck it out through OC are some of the best players we have today. While OC exposed a lot of the warts, I blame the preceding content tier for being a complete snooze fest with no challenge.

Side Note: This was also during the age of walk-ins. So a good chunk of the population that hit level 30 during the tier 4 era and was walked into gates and got gear completely bypassing tiers 1, 2, & 3

Agree with most of what you said. BS is short on mechanics, but I also think this is supposed to be the easy raid in the trio. The hard raid comes in Episode 17. We'll see. The Episode 16 alert sounds interesting, but I've not played it.

I think the SM difficulty was decreased due to the doubling if the round number. IIRC, the first SM with 20 rounds saw zero teams beyond round 10. So, the cute little pets they created went unclaimed. The pinnacle now is round 20, not round 10.

Well, because that's what we were told by Spytle at SOE Live. Either you believe he was honestly admitting a mistake on that stage (which takes a big set of stones), you think he was wrong in his assessment of the problem, or you think there is some conspiracy. It's clear that something went terribly wrong around OC. I don't think anyone would dispute that.

Something did go wrong they gave the players what they wanted and the players bailed from the game. The game went from extremely easy to very difficult. Again you are looking at exactly the words he said not the big picture and the circumstances leading up to OC.

You're missing my entire point or chose to ignore it. I won't write it all again, it's allover this thread for you to catch up.

Yes OC exposed replay badgers who did not deserve the gear they had. Up to OC, since Battle for Earth players were able to get top end gear without the work. OC changed that. Players found themselves in instances that actually were a challenge. They failed and left and I said to myself... Good. And if I were a dev in that meeting room I would have said the same thing.. continue on. I'm not saying all content needs to be hard, but there needs to be something in there WORTH doing. DCUO got away from that and now has lost its main player base to a FPS mmo lite in Destiny and ESO which makes u just wish they made another skyrim

I won't disagree with that. You are definitely all over the place in this thread. :-}

I've agreed with many of your points. It's your attitude I'm having a hard time agreeing with.