Dev Discussion Episode 39: General/Overall Feedback

The good:

• The Legion, finally!
• New Open World, with open world content. As a mostly solo player, I'm always going to appreciate having solo content to do.

The bad:

• It doesn't feel very focused on the Legion. The addition of the Titans, and Titans villains, feels forced, and more like a way to reuse those assets than a cool storytelling choice. The Legion are new characters to the game. We should have stayed focused on them, and played alongside them, not against them so much.
• The choice to use the current Bendis-inspired Legion was unfortunate. I know this one might have been dictated by DC, but it was a mistake. Much of the game is rooted in the way the DC Universe existed between Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. Using such a modern take on the Legion, that might not stick around long term, doesn't mesh with the rest of the game's world. I think most people who call themselves fans of the Legion would much rather have seen a more classic version of the Legion, perhaps as they were circa The Great Darkness Saga. For that matter, adapting that would have made a far stronger storyline.
• Too much magic. With the exception of Mordru, the Legion is mainly a science fiction setting. This feels more like a Wonder Woman or Justice League Dark setting, with a few sci-fi buildings behind it. By the time you're fighting Trigon, we're totally off the rails in terms of it feeling like a LSH setting.
• Bounties. Too much of a good (or just OK) idea. Repetition and grind might be the foundation of MMO's, but this is way too much of that, with too little in the way of an actual plot.
• Lack of instances. I get that we're not going to have one solo, one duo, one alert, and one raid every time, but 2 pieces of instanced content? We used to get that from the smaller/cheaper monthly episodes. 2 pieces plus the bounties is not a complete DLC. Even the work that was put into the new open world doesn't balance that out. Consider cutting back on the bounties and doing something with a bit more plot, mechanics, and replay value.

I think a lot of people would say that Judas Contract and Origin Crisis were amongst the better DLC's. Look at those, and try to recover the amount and quality of content they provided.

Hey devs what about this concept per episode?

We get one openworldboss only (so the system remains) and the ones that wanna do them can still do it without taking too much time from the devs to create 4-5 openworld bosses so they can use the time to create more instance based content.

One Long raid similer length like the tier 3 raid power core

Other raid that is in a smaller map like paradox raid/ultimate soldier raid and also being able to take out all sidebosses at once to increase difficulty and get increased rewards for doing it the harder way. Both raids with elite and regular versions.

One duo

One solo.

With re-using quiet abit maps in the openworld (to save time) and slight re-using maps also in the instances . I think this is achievable? I think this is the golden middle per episode
What do you think?

Yup. I feel like when Cosmic Boy made the bridge for us at the end of the raid that it was meant to mean something. But because of the absence of one instanced content even the story of this episode seemed rushed and little to no character development for the Legion characters.

I actually personally really enjoyed the Temple solos from Wonderverse. You had farm feats yes, but slight changes to the colour of crystals in each of the 4 temples, and different first bosses. Grail had one of her mechanics from her raid boss version for each temple, eg. damage check in the Shrine of Hippolyta, red AOE in the Shrine of Hera, teleport/staff slam/throw in the Shrine of Aphrodite. And you could farm soders if you wanted to that would come in useful for the raid. A lot of choice element here (walk-ins for the variants of the solo helped) and along with farm feats this kept my interest in the Temple solo for all of Wonderverse, and beyond.

I personally felt this was one of the most successful solos (on duty) the game has produced, and (bringing it back to Legion episode) this is something that Legion missed. A solo instance that a player could choose to run at any time of day, with plenty to do. And with the augments giving you an extra mark per ranked up augment this would come in handy for the bonus weeks. A solo instance with plenty to do that wasn't focused on the open world bounties and open world.

I would personally like to see this solo concept explored more in future episodes, the Temple solos are probably some of my favourite solo instanced content that I have seen in DCUO ever. This is something that Legion missed out on and it shows a lot.

I don't know what happen to this game.. This is not it.
Like many others what exactly happen with origin Crisis format? An actual dlc that required time and progression until you was able to do the raid. The solo's to alerts were all well done and made you feel the upgrade with each piece you earned the alerts were so amazing. How we go from that to this? This episode every three months isn't cool, its small content that gets old quickly. You shouldn't have to regear every piece pf gear every three months. Figure out something else..

Here is my two cents:

1. It feels like each DLC is becoming smaller and smaller in content. There seems to be a focus on creating these beautiful and they are!) areas, but that is where the main focus seems to be.

2, There is not general new content. It is the same formula of 4-5 dailies and some combination of solo/duo/alert/raid. It feels like you are moving backwards from when this game launch. You guys are the face of Superhero MMO!! This is your chance to shine like a beacon! It is 2020 and the content is just.... not what is should be.

3. No set-up. I have talked this with other friends. You are missing so many opportunities to establish a connect with the DLC. Example 1: In Metal II, there should have been multiple missions that allowed us to travel to different worlds to collect the different Batmans. Each one was easily four to 5 questlines, could have been hours of entertainment. Example 2: Wonderverse, same thing. Or you could have done some quest that either the hero's were trying to stop Circe (failing obviously) or villain's helping, leading up to her and Cheetah making an appearance in Wonderverse, rather than them just..... showing up and adding nothing to the experience. Example 4: In the new content, there could have been many questlines leading to this scenario. For instance, going on runs to collect the materials needed to create a disguise for the Demon things. Thus explaining how to make the disguise and why we need to use it everyday to find and fight them.

4. Too rushed. While some might disagree with what I am saying, I do feel that going to DLC's every 3 months is not the answer, especially during this pandemic. Until you can get a full team that is committed to the vision of DCUO that we like to think you guys have, maybe scaling back to 6 months might be the answer. I would love to have an actual FULL DLC every 6 months where I am running missions for a few hours before and leading up to dailies and alerts/dungeons.

5. Regular/Elite. I love a good challenge. I really do. But having the Elite raids come out at the same time does not compute very well. Maybe waiting a month after the release of a DLC might work. That gives people enough time to get geared, get familiar with the current raid mechanics, and might cut back on the constant put-downs I see if you aren't able to heal/tank elites on the 1st or 2nd day of release.

6. Last but not least, old content. As people are saying about the bounty runs... we haven't completely finished the Wonderverse. Whether it was the intent or not, there seems to be this really big push to get every new character to current DLC. People aren't learning their roles, they are properly gearing themselves, or having the time (or players) to get a nice chunk of skill points. There is no initiative to do old content. Like none. This could be easily fixed by doing something like "On rotation, each DLC (from the beginning) will be double the counting feats (like you did for the legends feat, which was AWESOME for someone like me who don't do them" Give people incentive to buy more stuff off of MP if that is your concern. People will buy RP badges like crazy if they know they have a chance to get old feats.

All in all, just be honest with us. If you aren't capable of giving us your all every 3 months, then just be transparent. We understand more than you think. Most of us would GLADLY wait 6+ months for great content than 3 months for what we have been getting lately. And for goodness sake, release more clothing/base items for the newer DLC. If I get one more omega phi base item or that darn WV Bounty drop (gom-something) I will scream! Initiative is the key!

Okay, well...

People complained about the grind, so you guys removed 2 of the bosses in the cycle, but DOUBLED the grind for some items. That's a completely BS move. Grind is only cool if there's variety - if you're gonna make something like that, remove loot locks on the actual content and add the Time Beacons to the Alert (or to all Instanced content in general) so there is at least some variety. This is actually, actively worse than the PAtchwork Themyscira grind

There's no solo or duo, which is ... unacceptable, to be frank. Dedicated PUG player here - more solo content is better, not less.

The actual content itself... the Alert was fairly comparable to the BOP or WV Alert, insofar as the amount of moving parts involved - I thought the others had more charm, but that's mostly because I like Kryptonian / Lex- centric content, and I like Wonder Woman related content. Mechanically, nothing too shocking - the fitness test room was an interesting departure.

The Raid I'm not going to dignify by referring to it as a Raid. You can either recycle old content or make it a short, combat-only Raid, but you can't do both. This was literally "go to four rooms and fight the **** in those rooms"; plus the Mordo fight - which should have been a little more exciting - seemed very awkward insofar as fight mechanics and general flow.

I do like the purchasable Elite Rings, Weapon, and Neck - keep that going forward, but this?

This is terrible, period.

When it comes to Episodes Metal part 1 was very very well made. That dlc i think is that we should get always 2 proper raids with decent length.

And the openworld was re-used but did it matter? No because the raids/content matters more then some aesthetics. I hope we can have such episodes from
Now on and after metal part 1 and 2 all other episodes were horrible episodes in my opinion. Please return back to thee metal part 1 and 2 mentality, especially with the raids their difficulty and content was seriously one of the best i seen in the past few years. The primary focus should be on raids (length,difficulty etc) openworld being re-used doesnt matter.

This DLC looks great. It took aspects from the last DLC and I think made it better. It has the least amount of lag that I have experienced in the bounty fights. Although, I heard about some players experiencing roll-backs or disconnects from a boss fight, I never experienced.

The new Open world, on the surface, does take you to the 31st century in its design.But as I have mentioned before, it feels empty. As much as there are enemies to fight in it and there is an abundance in things to do, it doesn't feel like a city since there are no vehicles or running citizens.

The alert is decent and was definitely improved from the test to live. The map seems overly big. I think this became evident to me when I see a teleporter option instead of flying through and bypassing 2 hallways and an empty, unused room. There are a couple of large rooms where I was expecting to see trophy rooms. Knowing that Jack is a big Legion fan, I would have thought that he would have insisted of putting in that iconic Comic cover that had the Legion standing on a platform.

The raid feels like the feedback from the last raid with its unnecessary longevity was taken into account and yet I really like the boss fights. The large floating platforms in the vast void concept really works as space for the mystical. I wish the tentacles were more pronounced. It definitely felt like a more evil version of the last raid. Mordru's last appearance was deliciously epic.

What this DLC had was done and done well from MY experience.

But as much as there's a lot that I need to do in this DLC; there is also very little to do. In any other context that sentence would not make sense but anyone who has played this DLC and the devs knows exactly what I mean.

Regardless of the fact that we had 3 open world missions, we are now left with 1 weekly raid and 1 daily alert. That's it. Yes, we have the bounties without its loot locks to add to game time. But these bounties was supposed to fill this empty time when we had a dlc containing a solo/duo, alert, 2 raids AND the 3 open worlds. It's like having a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. The meatballs are the instances and missions and the noodles are the bounties. We used to have a bunch of meatballs and a little noodles, now all we have are noodles and 1 meatball. Hey!! Don't get me wrong, I love Spaghetti and I love what it's in this DLC but really need MORE meat!!

The solo on Patchwork was a great example of a solo. It can be monotonous yet have variety. Depending on which one you chose to enter, the boss or boss mechanics changed and so did the challenge. I really, really wish you had not taken this out.

The drop rates of the quintile crystals. If you're gonna make it so rare, even rarer than the catalysts themselves; please put them as a possible purchase from the vendor using the third currency. I did a grind of 6 hours on those bounties with 1 toon and I received 2 crystals.

To sum it up: the DLC is good, looks good, plays good. Not enough variety of things to do. Too much grind and too little chance to get the stuff we need.

I fully agree especially that since Birds of prey the episodes have been horrible raids,instance content everything. I was super hyped during justice league dark,metal part 1 and 2 for the future episodes these 3 were great episodes difficulty wise,content wise,design but all content after metal part 2 was a no-no im very disappointed.

This dlc made so many people stop playing DC that i know even the ones that played during wonderverse didnt even do a single bounty they cant deal with this bounty anymore and the lack of Raid content.

Please increase mental's supercharge shield animation!! I've literally had to switch from my favorite power as a controller because I've been harrassed in several groups about that I'm not popping group shields when I'm spamming them because the animation is hard to see. I've even been kicked from a group for that. Please do something about this. We shouldn't have to switch powers just because the animation is hard to see. Quantum's animation is significantly strong to that compared of mental's shield. Thank you.

I have played DCUO since its launch, found an awesome league with lots of great people, and have seen the game go through many changes over the years. The Wonderverse and Legion DLC's have been different from anything seen before with the introduction of repeatable world bosses offering a secondary currency and items not available from the "standard" content. When the idea was first presented to us on the Wonderverse stream I was open to it. I could picture a full group of us making a few rounds, joking around and having a good time. Instead it became the main focus point of every evening and the reality of the grind to get the better items set in. The hours needed to get everything was mind-boggling. We started calling it the circle of pain. As someone who plays several alts, it was too much to work out and a couple alts were not completed.

The Legion DLC itself looks beautiful. Future Metropolis has a unique look and the open world environment is bright and clean. Overall though it feels incomplete with less content and a story that is rushed and lacking any investigation on our part. I just don't feel connected to it. I am trying to be mindful of the crazy year we're all going through and assuming the pandemic had a significant impact because it sure looks that way. The entire episode feels like a missed opportunity.

Legion offered some tweaks to the world boss grind, but the long, long hours remain and, even worse, the cost of some items went up increasing the grind time. There is less standard content with only one raid and no solo or duo to help obtain the Solar Credits needed to buy gear. I am already making decisions on which alts will get something and which ones I need to let go. There are nights I dread logging in because I know it's likely going to be grind, grind, grind. This is not fun.

Suggestions: World bosses are fine as truly optional or weekly content and should not be part of gearing up a toon. The world bosses could be for cosmetic items, gear boxes for toons below the entry level CR and maybe a couple counter feats but not 50 to 100x. It's just boring. Please focus on having a solo or duo, an alert and two raids again or solo/duo, two alerts and one raid. It was nice to see the elite alert option return.

Yup agreed just one Bounty like we had in episodes before Wonderverse/legion.

And i like the cosmetic idea items idea instead of doing SM and putting rewards there they should put it in the episode for people to get.

2 raids ofcourse minimum per episode with proper boss fights and each raid having atleast 3 bosses. At this point its clear the bountys are over most are tired of it.

"Legion Flight Ring can now be traded, and now binds when equipped."

I may be part of the minority here, but I am against you doing this. For not the reason some will think of. No for those that actually received two rings, where they decided to just equip it or delete it and now you're thinking let's make it tradeable...why did we wait so long to do this?

Has anyone mentioned the OP mask leveled all the way up not counting towards the affinity bonus?

Love the open world, the dailies are good, like the characters, the music and one of the artifacts is heaps of fun.

Bounties are way too grindy, even in double reward week the targets still seem impossible.

No solo, no duo and only one raid is really a big failure.

Birds had 1, 4, 8 & 8.
Thanagar had 2, 4, 8 & 8.
Metal had 1, 4, 8 & 8.
JLD had 2, 4, 8 & 8.
Legion gets 4 & 8. Unimpressive.

I would like to see some diversity between hero and villain quests, as well. In the recent past, we've had villains running alongside heroes for the majority of missions. Legion, Wonderverse, Birds, Metal 1&2... With little variation, our villains are out there saving people, rescuing cats from trees, stopping badguys. While that may be fine from time to time, I would prefer if there were more substantial differentiation between the factions.