DCUO Development Update - September 2022

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Panderus, Sep 6, 2022.

  1. Comixfan Committed Player


    He's still referred to as Captain Marvel in one quest line and uses the name in a voice line during same quest.

    Amazed this is still in the game after the whole Marvel lawsuit business.
  2. Comixfan Committed Player


    And what's their reasoning for that?

    As I said before, powers are the core of DCUO. Not adding a new power to the game is like not adding a new hero to Overwatch. It causes the game to grow stale and for players to move on to other games that actually update with new content.

    And since development of the Marvel MMO was scrapped and resources from that were apparently being redirected back into DCUO (according to the parent company), there's even less of an excuse now for Daybreak to not resume adding new powers to the game.
  3. MsTickle Fate Devoted Player

    The reasoning is that creating new powers requires rebalancing every single power in the game, which is about as time-expensive and intensive a task as a game can cause.

    It obviously takes months of work by several people to create a new power and its animations and then make sure it's balanced against all the other powers.

    And we've been told that the usual result is that 2% of the player population chooses to use the new power. I don't believe they'd lie about this.

    It's a matter of spending a huge amount of effort to little actual benefit to most players.

    Would new powers be neat? As a general concept, sure. As a specific power, perhaps not so much to everyone in the long-term, once the initial novelty is past.

    But it's not a matter of waving a wand and magically having new powers spring out of nowhere with little effort.

    Does this answer your question?
    • Like x 1
  4. KneelBeforeZodd Dedicated Player

    It's not much alike. Heroes are the core in Overwatch and anyone can use a new hero at anytime. Although in DCUO powers are very important, they are more of a tool. You can play for years without new powers and some probably won't even notice it, you can't play more than 3 or 4 months without noticing no new raids/alerts/events. According to Panderus, only a few people actually change to new powers or make alts with new powers, most people stick to what they already had.
    We already had this discussion on the forums and the devs said not only movements took as long to make as new powers, but they were also less played, it wasn't worth back then and probably won't be now.
    There are about 3 meta weapons and 5 or 6 playable weapons. They would do much better for the game balancing the unusable weapons than they would by adding new ones that would probably not be used either.
    That's not the question, it's just that they CAN make that extra money without many people caring and others paying a good amount. Just like they could make respec tokens unlimited but won't because there won't be much gains. The majority was okay with style unlocks being paid back then and we don't see complaints about this very often either.
    Not in a mood to look for links, but you'll probably find some stuff if you look at Panderus or Charon profiles. It's not about game engine either. Faction tokens have to take care of feats, saved progress, database relations that heroes might have and villains don't (and vice versa), leagues, grouping, emails. When you make a system and think about something being unchangable at it's root, it's pretty hard to make sure everything will work when that restriction isn't there.
    About gender tokens, same stuff was said: Too many problems and too little people interested on them.

    First there are over 100 MMOs out there, according to daybreak we have 400k players per month, the top 5 MMOs have about 5 million active players on average, other daybreak MMOs, that are also kind of popular (like D&D and Everquest) have about 80k-140k. It's fairly easy to assume DCUO is above average, even though that doesn't mean a lot for us (ofc it could be better), the MMO market has been down for about 9 years and the game managed to hold about the same numbers as it had almost a decade ago.

    Which is due to mass dev exodus caused by the CEO creating his own studio. The team was hiring for about a year, so it's not because the game was lacking resources.
    Not trying to justify it, recycled content/getting less content is always bad, but they have a unexpected reason for doing so.
  5. Merk4days New Player

    Lol
  6. DuffleBagBoii Well-Known Player

    Honestly what turned me away from water was the sharks and jelly fish, u really have to have that theme going to vibe with that… i dont think water not being popular is a valid reason to not make new powers, especially when atomic was one of the most popular tanks for years
    • Like x 1
  7. Wallachia Devoted Player

    Checkpoint for reality check for the emotional teenagers here who clearly have no idea what they are talking about (asusual):

    1. Developing a new power takes a lot of time. Not only they have to come up with many skills, hey also have to balance them in relation to other powers, to current content and to its own power tree. It also requires them to make animations and ensure that at least the most common styles won't clip, not to mention buffs and mechanics. They can't just announce a power within 3 months of download. If they announced one power NOW we wouldn't get it until early 2024.

    "Oh but they could at least say something"

    It's foolish to say anything without having it already being done. This wishful thinking is cute when you are 16 years old and you believe when your parents tell you that you are special. The real world doesn't work like that.

    "Oh but this other game here"

    Other game is other game, with other developers, other engines, other companies, other niches. If you think DCUO should be like a specific game, go play that specific game. If you think the game is less interesting, this is YOUR OPINION. There is a lot of people who are loving this game and can't wait to play it after work, otherwise they wouldn't be preparing it to work on PS5 and Xbox Whatever they are on now, I don't follow Xbox much.

    By the way, comparing it to Overwatch that releases new heroes every now and then is absurdly dumb, which doesn't surprise me. But hey, let's not forget that Overwatch 2 is being bashed for being Overwatch re-released. Oh, and Overwatch 1 is closing down. So your idea of doing a smart move is basically copying a game that is being a joke right now. Congratulations, never manage a gaming company.

    And no, you don't know about how to manage a game company better than whoever is managing this gaming company, otherwise YOU would be the one living off it, not them. You just have a 9-5 daily job to gain barely enough to live and think this makes you Randall from Clerks.

    2. Nobody promised new ultimate uber graphical update. Someone just mentioned briefly in an interview that they were planning to do it. Maybe they should have kept their mouths closed, maybe, but it's too late. Yet nobody said there would be a graphical update, they just said they had SOME plans about it. You are all being over-emotional over it.

    "Oh but the game is 1092102912 years old"

    There is no invisible rulebook as to when games MUST be graphically updated. Just admt it that you think they should change stuff because YOU want it changed and you believe the world spins around you.

    Spoiler alert: it doesn't.

    You can now disregard everything I said with a lame excuse or a passive-aggressive remark, or even accusing ME of being passive-agressive (protip: I am not. I am being DIRECTLY aggressive due to the big amount of stupid statements in here) just to pretend that I am not stating facts because they will burst your little ego bubble of superiority. You are not right and the game doesn't need to follow your strictly-invented directions to evolve.

    Cheers/
  8. Raven Nocturnal Devoted Player

    Only jumping in to say this entire post is irrelevant because a paying customer has a right to complain however they see fit, and the developers "resources" are not their problem whatsoever.

    You are literally complaining about complainers.
    • Like x 1
  9. Wallachia Devoted Player

    Amazing how I predicted a dumb reply and that's exactly what I got.

    By your "logic" I can walk into a walmart and complain it's not painted in green because "I aM a CuStOmEr AnD cAn WhInE aS i SeE fIt".

    Besides, I am not saying they CANT complain, I am saying that their complaints are WRONG. I repeatedly said that in my post.

    Please don't answer me until you learn how to properly interpretate what is said.
  10. Raven Nocturnal Devoted Player

    Actually yes, they can. And I did interpret what you said. A load of pointless ranting.

    Edit: Basically, whether they are wrong or not, it doesn't matter. Let them vent. You won't be able to change their minds, just look at the 70 page clamp thread, for example XD
    • Like x 1
  11. thedemonocus Loyal Player

    People still talk about the clamp because the clamp was a bad idea that never should have been added to the game.
    • Like x 2
  12. GermanM Committed Player

    I just cant find the fun in killing a boss in less then one rotation.
    • Like x 2
  13. Learnmoretalkless New Player

    You can’t good for you.devs could’ve easily added a toggle for stat clamp no different from the option to play elite with different difficulty settings.
    • Like x 1
  14. EconoKnight XIII Legion

    The stat clamping has had an impact. My league always used the “between dlc time” to work on elite feats from two+ year old content. By that point it was more doable but still challenging. Now my league doesn’t bother. Content like Clocktower Elite is effectively clamped at one year back, and you’re stuck there for the remaining life of the game.

    Several members of my league have moved on to play Avengers. Especially with this content drought, there’s not really anything left to do in DCUO unless you’re an artifact tac swapper, exploiter, hacker, etc.

    When people ask me about DCUO, I tell them - it’s a cheater’s game. If you like that, then it’s for you. Even now there’s some kind of exploit in one of the clamped raids that allows you to glitch source mark rewards. I don’t know the details, but it’s been all over LFG; and I’m sure the elite players are maxing out their marks right now. “Skills”
    • Like x 1
  15. Doctor Impossible Level 30

    The old system also ruined gameplay for new players. I was one of them. I couldn't follow what was going on because someone would always be racing ahead one shotting everytihing. To speak nothing of having to wait five months to get a Power Core pop. Which I didn't get until the clamping was put in place.
    • Like x 2
  16. Learnmoretalkless New Player


    All was needed was a star clamp toggle not a stat clamp overhaul but since Melos wants to delete my comments it goes to show they know I’m right
    • Like x 1
  17. DuffleBagBoii Well-Known Player

    Im sorry, maybe i missed it.. but did the un announced feature that was supposed to come this summer get canned?
  18. Damon Clau New Player

    Legitimately asking...
    What is what? What are the meta and the playable?

    It won't change anything for me personally, I don't have much interest in meta and play for enjoyment, but I'm curious regardless.
  19. Ron64 New Player

    warum kommt man nicht ins spiel und warum ist der bug das man sich noch immer kein geld schicken kann noch immer nicht behoben ?
    sollte man nicht die bestehenden fehler erst beheben bevor man neue Fehler einbaut oder ist es vielleicht leichter neue fehler zu machen als alte zu beheben ?
  20. bigbadron alt Dedicated Player

    Es gibt keinen Fehler zu beheben. Es wurde absichtlich ausgeschaltet.