Dev Discussion Episode 41: Save the Universe

Pets and movement mode cause the blue floating spheres in the room. Man, back in 2011/12, this was definitely a hard raid to deal with and so much anger from other players screaming at the player that forgets and goes into movement mode.

Pets trigger it too?! How the actual heck are people supposed to figure this out?! This isn’t even difficulty at this point, it’s just bad design in my opinion. And this was supposedly the golden age of DCUO? I don’t get it.

Not to talk poorly on the instance, but I'm a little annoyed that this was the up leveled one from the 3 because of this mechanic. I'm entirely pet based and if I can't use my pets, it kills a huge part of my damage.

As for the golden age, it's a solid raid. The mechanics were very difficult, but achievable as you geared up. As it should be. Back then, there was no loot lockout replay option. You kept trying to beat it each day until you either completed or it was the next Thursday. For me and my league, it wasn't until Central City gear came out before we could successfully do FOS2 regularly. Before that, we never were able to beat the final boss. We've grown and gotten better since as a league. It had a lot of building. Dropped gear played a role in this raid too, as it was a good step up of T2 gear you had. Of course, I never want to go back to that loot feature, as the getting gear for not your role that you had to roll on was by far the worst part of that era.

TBH, I don't like Post OC content in this game. Either it's way too punishing for accessibility or it's designed to be replayed with ease. But that's for another thread.

Yeah, I have a lv200 Dead King’s Sceptor and also wanted to try my shiny new ally out. Would have been nice to get some kind of hint that doing my thing was DOOMING EVERYONE!!!! I’m sorry for all the caps but punishing someone for using a well established strategy and NOT TELLING THEM THAT THAT’S *WHY* THEY’RE BEING PUNISHED is basically indefensible as a gameplay concept.

The pull is on the furthest person every time

Thanks for all the feedback!
The following changes are in a hotfix coming soon™ and more in the pipeline.

Science Spire:

• Fixed an issue where the gold collection in Science Spire would not drop loot.
• Added a small amount of time to the kryptonite object.

Phantom Zone:

• Elite: Reduced damage from Jor-El AI's Spike Wave.
• Elite: Zul fight has a slight damage adjustment overall (reduction).
• Elite: Reduced damage from Zul's Encase.
• Elite: Damage adjustments for Ursa, Non, Zod.
• Fixed an issue where the Event version was not dropping Grains of Time.
• Fixed an issue where the Normal version was dropping too many Grains of Time.
• Fixed an issue where Phantom Zone loot lock could not be reset.
• Fixed an issue where some players could get put into their own instance when teleporting to the Phantom Zone.

Power Core:

• Prime Assassin's single-target Pull damage has decreased (still targets the furthest enemy).

-Millbarge

Thanks. But the Avatar Of Meta is wayyyy out of whack. The meta pulse projectiles are virtually invisible, and boss keeps randomly beaming people for 100k, consecutively and with no warning.

Thanks!

Any thoughts on a fix for Venz resetting if you are out of his line of sight prior to his skull attack?

I wouldn’t hold your breath on that. It’s a hardcoded, game-wide behaviour.

Well you would still want DKS for the orbital dmg and the assistance procs ontop of the trinket cooldowns. As for Allies that mechanic would not impact allies being summoned because they aren't technically a pet they are more like the batman orbital where they appear do their strike/dmg and leave

It’s good to know that allies are unaffected, but it only strengthens my argument that this mechanic is utterly arbitrary and counterintuitive.

We are currently taking a look, it just didn't make it into this next hotfix.

-Millbarge

Will you be adding tells to some of these mechanics? Some happen and not sure what it was to look out for.

Science Spire (elite): another instance where you will have better run by ignoring mechanics, love that

From all problems in the raid, this was the least issue. Just run 2 tanks and its a no death fight done in 5 minutes. Now this fight is going to be trivial.
Hope the console tentacles and the beam on last boss getting adressed early next week, it should have been the top priority from all the issues this raid has (at least the beam though) Also the ball hitbox is crazy and doesnt match the size of the ball.

Why is there no roleless buff in the upscaled Phantom Zone Normal? It’s endgame content, right?

Hello!

I've been throughout the whole dlc and I didn't really check forums but I felt like I had to do a post with my personal opinion about what needs a nerf.

To begin with, I saw that Phantom Zone Elite was having a nerf so I don't have much to say about that.

Then, concerning FOS 2 (elite) Avatar of Meta definitely needs a nerf on his Meta Beam, there's no way to avoid it and it's just horrible to die from this.
Concerning tentacles on FOS 2 elite again I don't think they need a nerf otherwise this boss would be too easy. If there's something to do on tentacles I'd say to nerf damage on small tentacles and keep large tentacles one shots.
Also, the ball hitbox is crazy but it didnt bother me that much, if a nerf is needed on this I'd say it would only be a slight hitbox change and not its damage.

Eventually, this is not part of STU but please bring back old scoreboard i don't know if it's intended but we can only filter on alphabetic order.

I think currently, the elite is WAY too difficult, especially if your a melee DPS player like gadgets. Everything the bosses in both the alert and raid do are all one shot and one shot AOE.

Avata of Meta (elite version), some of attacks/mechanics are just too hard to see or not working as intended:
. Beam attack: so 2 types, 3 beams followed by "yellow ball/invisible ball" or 2 beams, is there a pattern to it or just random? Its damage, well oneshot and almost no time to react (can survive with amazon deflection but you have to expect it targets you). Does it target random player in the group? Also sometimes the invisible ball does dot (60k+) or burst (250k+). It stays in the group even after wiping.
. Slam: the hitbox is definitely broken. It can hit you even if you're behind the boss, maybe add red visual for this one.
. Small tentacles (console phase): it can be moved by NPC, it may kill the group if it happens.

Is the new hotfix live??