Episode 28: Another Update to Rewards

Mepps

The content and the prices are good now, of course would be better if we get more content to play and same prices for vendor gear reduced prices

I like the idea that there are basically 4 DLC's a year. 2 of them are "Events" and 2 of them are actual DLC's. When Jackster was very honest and explained the issue, (There's a large amount of new players coming in, and a large amount of "old" players exiting" and they have to find a way to please BOTH of them) It's essentially splitting things up. 2 pieces of content for the End Game Players, and 2 pieces of content for the newbies. I think that's fair.
And before anyone says "Endgame Players are more important and the devs should do what THEY want" Keep in mind that the new players are JUST as important, because one day they will be endgame players too.

My only real actionable feedback is really just an observation on what I have seen over the last week.

Day One (when there were multiple missions per day per Open World area), I saw a lot of people out in the two new areas. Lots of folks teaming up for the Paradox and Village Bounties.

Since then, they seem like wastelands. I occasionally see a 411 shout or a Bounty shout, but there just aren't many green (or purple) dots on my screen in either of these new Open World areas unless I take leaguemates with me. Now of course some of this observation could be because of phasing technology (how many players can one of these instances handle?), but despite how beautiful War-Torn Village is, it almost seems like a waste of assets if nobody spends more than three minutes there a day.

I love Open World stuff and I am so happy that Jackster wants to keep adding stuff like this. I love having something non-instanced to do while waiting for people to log on. Personally, I'd be willing to accept fewer rewards if I could do more of these missions Daily - for instance, if War Bonds were a random Loot-Pickered reward in AoJ boxes. If we could do three a day in each area and the drop rate was 33%, it would all even out in the end, I'd think (though you would undoubtedly get many complaints about the RNG nature of such a system).

Firstly , Thanks for responding to this topic and attempting to clear things up with all sides of the discussion.

I understand that it isn't easy for you guys to please the community 100% all the time and that we can and do come over as hugely negative sometimes but it is all out of a genuine love for the game , we genuinely want to be positive more often.

As for AoJ , one of things that got to me was that we have this amazing zone in WTV that you guys did fantastically with but now it doesn't feel like we are there enough to appreciate the work you put in because of the change in content amount per day in the two AoJ zones.

If somebody had come out and said OK guys , we can lower the gear costs but we'll have to take away some daily missions per day to offset it , we could remove the 411 weekly mission or leave everything as is and take your feedback into consideration for the next DLC regarding these issues , it may have avoided some of the negativity.

We as a community do feel very disjointed from the developers, do they actually even play the game?, I think I can say that on almost all of our behalves , more frequent communications with you guys is important , when situations arise like the above with AoJ , I know this won't always be possible but it would be awesome and may help avoid the backlash that you guys have received from myself and others as of late (I t really is out of love for the game!)

If I may make one suggestion?

I have mentioned this before I think last year but think it should be brought up again. You guys should really bring stuff like dlc's on test a lot sooner then you guys are even if the content isn't fully finished in the development phase. I think you will find that developing a dlc from scratch while the community is giving their feedback on all aspects of it will solve a lot of the last min issues that have plagued this game over the years and with the final end product will come a much happier player base overall as a lot of the stuff in it has come from community feedback.

As some have commented already, WTV is a refreshing new open world environment that i was hoping to play in loads,the devs have spent so much time and effort on this,but its not a village,its a ghost town unfortunately,we head in for one mission per day that lasts mere minutes,and are so easy its unreal. the typhon missions are harder than this,i just hope we now go back to solo,duo and alert set missions after this dlc,its been a bit of a train crash from day one when in actual fact,out of all the dlc content i have played from the beginning,AoJ was the one i was most excited about and looking forward to

I would really like to see some varied content for a "Big DLC";
even if the amount of Marks is limited from Dailies.
Perhaps we can have a difficult Solo and Duo; and run them in lieu of the Dailies if we so wish.
This would provide some challenge; yet limit the amount of Bonds being paid per day.

The crafting has nothing to do with anything. Its about the same amount of content. And maybe its engaging to u but not to me and others when we have to run 5-10 toons thru it because of the bad RNG with some of the crafting mats. And killing 1 big add while yes its technically a weekly mission its killing 1 add that takes all of 15 seconds. The bounty was added later too tho and at least that was something. And no i wont look at things from the devs point of view. Because i dont feel they look at things from the players point view. Here is the point of starro, AF3, and AoJ, its all roughly the same amount of content. 1 may have an extra mission or an extra this or that. Its close and that is where i see a problem.

I do agree on the devalue of the sub. 1 dlc in a 6-7 month time frame and we got 2 in that same time frame before. And when it comes to the amount of content i think its being called something its not. I dont count dailies as solo missions. Not when i can finish in 30 seconds and never even attack anything. All 3 dailies in AF3 and the 410 adds combined is like a solo. But i can see maybe ya say remove 410 from that. Point is i can count. I can count and compare instance to instance. If there are 2 normal raids and 2 elite raids that isnt 4 raids. Its 2, because they share a loot lock. The way things are being labeled is very confusing imo. I cant view a "large event" as a dlc just because someone says it. Also because we are clamped almost the entire time and its limited time content. There are many obvious differences between an event like that and a dlc.

If they want to go full f2p then do it already. Or come out and say they are aiming for that. Otherwise you're right its causing many people to reconsider subbing. I was on the fence and ive been subbed for 4 years. Only reason i did was i thought something was changed. If i had understood it i wouldnt be subbed right now. I wont be resubbing either when mine runs out. Not unless there is some drastic changes.

They seem so focused on new players. We hear the population is higher then ever before but then jack says end game pop is always decreasing but they seem to be doing a lot to attract new players. From the outside looking in i think if so many new players were coming in then these things to attract new players wouldnt have to be done. Fatal said it earlier, trust is all gone for me. Im grinding for the sake of grinding for very little reward. To then be clamped. In a progression MMO that makes no sense to me. So no i dont see it as we are getting 3-4 quarterly dlcs per year like was said. And i know many players agree. Maybe not on here but definitely ingame, cause i speak to people and ask.

1 last thing. I said this in other threads. How many people on these forums log in every single day and do the grind. Do the grind to finish all rewards. U and me both know there are many on here who dont do that or come close to doing it. If a player is not even willing to do the grind its hard to take an opinion seriously. Or when people are saying i wanna run the content as fast as possible, get my gear, and log off so i can play other games. This mindset is why we have boring content that isnt engaging. If people are so concerned about playing other games then how can ya really be concerned about dcuo?

Well, on the plus side, I'm going to be saving money not having to worry about renewing my sub. Honestly, War-Torn Village was the only open world map I actually cared about, and it's not worth logging in for just one mission, and don't do alerts or raids.

Have fun, all!

This mindset you speak of is also becoming more and more common because the new content we get isn't engaging and the new attitude/direction the game has devolved into , it's the same mindset I am in currently , log in , run AoJ stuff and log out because by the time I've done it on 4 toons i'm bored and don't wan to play DCUO anymore , vicious circle and this comes from someone who used to log in for up to 8 hours a day once upon a time.

Agreed. The thing bothering me the most is all the blame being put on the players. Like we somehow have any control over what happens. Its pretty surprising to me that people think they have some control when they arent the ones making the decisions. The people who decide are the ones who have the control. This is common sense. There is some very weird stuff being said by players lately. How about all the times people have requested something and no change happened and no answer was given? Did players have control then? How? What did they control? People asked for something and nothing happened. Because the devs decide, the devs have the control.

You just highlighted the result of the main problem with the game that we constantly hear people complain about. We have people complaining that there is not enough to do and that the content is a boring grind. We have people complaining there is not enough people in the open world. We have people complaining that instanced queues are taking too long. There is not enough people populating the open world and instances. Why all of this?

The root cause is that there is no loot dropping off of non-boss enemies and we have limits on how much of the content we can play and the loot/rewards we can get. You have to pay real $$$ to repeat the content (mission rewards) more then once. All the "loot" has now been moved to the mission reward on the mission giver in open world and only drops off of bosses in raids.

In the end, it doesn't matter how many dailies there are or how much that piece of gear costs on the vendor, because there is nothing to do or strive for in between these important DLC moments. It makes for a boring game. If there was loot (greens and occasional blue gear, base items, cash, r&d items, collection, etc) that drop off of non-boss enemies, then that solves many of the problems with this game design. With no loot drops off non-bosses, this makes doing the open world missions very boring, and takes away an incentive to queue up in instances or help others. There is no incentive for the player to stay engaged with the content and team-up (in either open-world or instances) with other players. If you are not doing a mission or feat in the open world, there is literally no reason to be in the open world or queue up.

With loot that drops off of non-boss enemies (in both the open world or in queued up instances), you have a reason to stay engaged and a reason to search for other people to play with (this is an MMO after all). You are grinding for gear and items that are not as good as the higher end vendor bough items or boss loot rewards in instances, but at least it gives you a reason to play and stay engaged with the content by adding an extra layer of depth to the loot table, and something "else" to do.

Someone on your friend list just sent you a PM to get help with a raid? Someone in league chat is shouting for help to do an open world mission or feat? "Oh, I've already done it, but if I help, maybe I'll get a cool base item or a green piece of gear to help get my stats up a little."

I'm rarely the type of guy who replies to such request - that just comes with experience...

However, I'd like to give my feedback - just for the sake of it - on how I think things could be better:

First of all, I believe every opinion that good gear should be on the vendor to be true. But everyone has seen the kind of change that comes with it: Higher vendor costs. And nobody liked it at first glance. Now, comparing it to older content reveals that the cost increase cannot be denied. It is there.

But what if we would change "beste gear on vendor" to "desirable gear on vendor"?

We could learn much from other MMOs where the "raiding starter gear" is sold by NPCs. Therefore people get some kind of "standard" marks and/or Tokens from normal raids which they can trade for their gear.
This gear should have average stats plus a set bonus that is worthy to be called "set bonus". I believe many of us agree that this is not the case for DCUO right now.

Anyone could get it in a reasonable amount of time and if desired people could spend ReplayBadges to speed things up .

Next, we would have the Elite gear and now please bear with me:

I honestly believe that Elite Raids should be redesigned to make stuff last longer, more interesting and more rewarding:

• Elite Raids are availeble to anyone with a certain Combat Rating and should have a weekling lockout - no progress point needed.
• Players should be able to finish Elite raids through good group play if they have a majority of "standard gear" pieces. However, very good players should be able to finish them earlier on.
• Elite Raids should not be resettable. A whole set of 14 items should still take a considerate amount of time to get but not too much. Each one has a DECENT CHANCE to drop one or more of them - only one can be selected.
• Elite Raids should have a fix loot table.
  
  For example:
  
  2 Elite Raids, each has 3 bosses. That is 6 pieces of bosses.
  
  First Bosses drop Ring (Raid 1), Trinket, Neck (Raid 2)
  Second Bosses drop Hands, Feet (Raid 1), Back, Waist (Raid 2)
  Third Bosses drop Chest, Shoulders, Weapon (Raid 1, or 'the harder one') and Legs, Head, Utility Belt (Raid 2, or 'the easier one')
  
  With a drop chance like 50% (can be varied) I would need to run each Raid for at least three weeks if RNGesus is on my side. If not it could be more. At least six weeks for both roles.
  
  Keep in mind that players still need to complete the vendor set (for a reasonable price) so that they can finish these raids)
  
• additionally Elite Raids drop crafting materials for Elite Mods (Plans for marks on the vendors) so that after I complete my set I still want to run the raids to get those sweet mods (stats matter?)
  
• The elite gear has the same CR as the non-elite one but gets flat Statbuffs regarding Health/Vit/Prec/Dom/Might/Resto and soft buffs in Power/Damage/Heal crits (and stuff for tanks somehow )

I have played that way in other MMOs and even after months of running the content, I could still start a new alt to level it up in a decent amount of time and still those raids would have been challenging - they should never become a breeze.

Regarding other stuff the vendors could still sell "cool" base items for marks, the last OP collections, awesome styles, maybe even an aura (the back-auras are a start - now make some cool energy-wings or something with this).

_______________________________


But after just writing this I have come to a simple conclusion:

Look at the tiers before: 1 Chest = 60 Marks = 5 Resets

And now look at the current version: 1 Chest = 130 Marks = 12 Resets

And since we all know that people are dying to get to max CR in the first week the RBsales should have skyrocketed by now. So why implement something better that potentially reduces sales? I know what economy means, so I don't believe my wish will ever become true here in DCUO

/2cents

Did I get my point across? I'm not sure if I did. I like the grind. I love to play an hour or two or even three in dcuo. Alone or with my leaguemates. Right now I can accomplish that by running 8 alts on that 1 mission per area, but I would rather be spending that time on my Main toon and playing with him and maybe an alt or two. I have 28 toons, half are over 166 cr, the other half is over 186 cr. That happened only because there has been waay too much down time for my main toon in the last year or so. Yes, that is including the event and seasonal grind of sometimes running 20 toons a day.

Arrowed your second point. Sounds like a very solid solution and best course of action, imo, that should have been taken. Also at some point down they road, they could offer up a few ( and a few more than AF3 double coin weekends) double war bonds weekends.

I like War Torn Village myself and wish there was more to do. I think its one of their best zones yet. Instead of confining the four bounties in that corridor and room. I wish they were also spread out in to the streets, alllys, cul de sacs and fields of War Torn Village. I even catch my self for shnits and giggles peeping in the upper windows of buildings tryna find me some Anne Frank and family.

i know you guys are busy with the game revamp.

clearly the community by and large seems frustrated with the recent changes to the new dlc.

now would be a good time to slap together and extra duo or two out of the removed content and release it in a month or so when we start to feel starved for something new to do. i know its more work. realistically unattainable but it would be nice...

DLC's are PAYED content...not free content for all....payed for by subscribers..."EVENTS" are clamped instances run by all...even peeps that don't pay into the game.
Jackster is as much to blame for end game players dropping from game with all the Money grabs he has started since joining this crew.
Newbies have a ton more content than end gamer's....run your tier Solos/Duo's and Alerts.....your not really limited...UNTIL end game, and new players will be end game players ALOT faster now due to Jacksters CR skip nonsense..and turbo leveling.

Honesty and clear communication has always been tough for this team and it's boss....so go ahead and buy what they shovel......you'll only be as disappointed as most eventually.

This game has been cannibalized for pure profit.....but so sloppily done it's obvious.....to the people that are actually paying attention.

If Jackster was brought on here to "Turn the ship around"....how the heck does that work when he's cut membership benefits in HALF by reducing yearly content.....1 new DLC Duo....IN A YEAR....putting out raids and elite raids...calling them NEW raids....but they share a loot lock....total BS cash grab.

You can cling to "Events are content".....paleeease....no progression.....you run clamped.....and you get to run with peeps who have no idea what to do and want no idea on what to do....ya.....great.

And then they steal content from the players with their interpretation of what more than a few peeps asked for....as usual...it got mutated into nonsense by this team....and now they have the player base fighting each other....way to go DBG.