Episode 42 ressourcse managment.

Agree
Also Not that haha,i meant the developer who designed paradox should get a trophy

I hope they can try that out.. i think with event version being here especially

Ohhh lmao. Agreed.
Wasn’t paradox one of the worst raids ever in terms of completion and population drop off though?
I mean elitists loved it but it was terrible for the community? I remember reading they lose more of their player base during paradox than at any other time? I loved dox and prime, loved gates too, but I think it’s more to do with how the content was delivered, it seemed way more story driven then it is now, I don’t really know how or why but these newer d”c’s just don’t seem to have the same depth of story than the earlier ones, maybe because we were fresh off the ship and the first few dlc’s actually continued that story before branching off into a million sub stories with no overall arc connecting them.

No.. mepps responded to such claims some months ago pointing out how well that episode actually was still holding all time records or so just the pandemic area broke it.

And yes i agree with you there it feels different then back then maybe also because we usually have episodes that look (current one feels like BOP in terms of openworld) Idk like we get content thats usually about the same types of heroes/villains. I would like to see a episode with giant chemo or something new and complettly different.

It wasn't just Paradox itself that caused issues and people to leave, prior to that combat mechanics were more readily ignored within PVE, with that DLC combat mechanics were more greatly incorporated in to PVE, they even included those iconic instances and that annoyed some people.

In addition to that Weapon Mastery became a thing, clipping got removed and that also annoyed some people.

During this time of the game people didn't get solo loot, they had to roll, I think this DLC (Origin Crisis) became a pinnacle pressure point for the frustration involved with trying to progress your character while having to compete with 7 other people in an instance also trying to do the same while complying with "made up community loot ettiquette", this annoyed some people, and some had, had enough.

During this time people were running the raids, thinking progress was obtainable only to later find out items weren't even on the loot table (traces in time gear) and this annoyed some people.

Some people were incapable of completing the content and as with every community toxic participants did their best to make other people in game feel like inferior **** (this still persists to extents today), this annoyed some people.

That's just a list of some of the issues causing people to leave, it wasn't really just exclusively the difficulty of that instance.

Good memory you got there lol, completely agree that it wasn’t just the difficulty then.

I loved that period of the game, in my opinion despite the fact the raid was difficult there was a lot of other content to go with it and you never really felt like there wasn't something to do.

This might be rose tinted nostalgia as well but the community seemed to be slightly less toxic, despite what I said about some people "pushing others away", that actually probably only became more of an issue with Origin Crisis than with the preceding Battle for Earth DLC.

With Prime Battleground people seemed more willing to jump in there and make attempts to beat it, even with less capable players and there was never a guarantee and everyone knew it, you were stoked if you beat it, but the important part was not beating it didn't in any meaningful way stagnate your progression, it was largely just about the challenge, with a few carrots, OP helm and Prime weapons.

There was absolutely not the type of mainstream, widespread, replay badge spamming that is occurring within modern content (perhaps within the absolute top end groups there might have been a bit, but as widespread as today, not at all)

The game in its current state has become a mind numbing, day 1, reset, spam bounty feats, as quickly and as hard as you can, so you can log out and play dark souls, **** fest, it's not even funny.

I'd like to personally see the game return to this state and I think that's honestly best achieved by cutting out the excess fat of unnecessary content difficulty levels and getting everyone more largely in the same content rather than heaps of different ones, it's become too much, but not in a good way.

I'd also like to see a restriction on replay badge use to reset content, but I know I won't get that.

BFE was by far the best DLC for content. It had 4 gear sets to work for. It had progression scattered tiered content to do. (Open world dailies, 3 T2 duos, 1 T3 alert, 2 T4 raids.) It was very balanced and really was the last dlc designed to used the old method of gearing before replays were introduced. it also was a tier that spanned a year not a micro tiers that lasts a single DLC. I would love for this to come back, but that is a dream, because of replays.

And yeah, Prime was effective because it really was something to aspire to. It was difficult. I remember the feeling my league had when we finally got the raid completed. Where now we look at elite and just feel like we are banging our heads on a wall.

I don’t recall people resetting prime, but I do remember people resetting gates like it was gonna disappear. Replays came out with that dlc and people definitely used them lol.
Completely agree that that was a happier time in dcuo, probably a lot of reasons go into us feeling like that, and some of them are definitely rooted in rose tinted nostalgia. I mean just reading your very own list brought back FotM ptsd lmao. That whole time they were working on two powers at a time with the “awesome mechanics” as well as implementing weapon mastery, it was just a terrible time to be playing anything but whatever was most recently vamped lol.
I replayed the hell out of this content to get full vendor gear, and I am not bored at all, I have elite gear to chase and feats to chase as well as two other toons that I won’t be resetting. I think limiting replays is a terrible idea purely from a revenue stand point but also from a player base stand point.
One of my good friends plays the avengers mmo, and his main gripe is that it is like vanilla dcuo, no replays, loot locked raids, not enough content, etc etc.
I don’t know if replays have been a positive thing for the community as a whole or not honestly, but there is no debate on whether they’ve been good in terms of revenue and life blood for the game.

I think you hit the nail on the head though, we have limited dev and resources, so trim the fat and one give us what we really want. I wish polls weren’t against the forum rules because I would absolutely love to see where people placed the most value on priorities going forward.

I agree Bumbling, (Trykz included you also because it's also somewhat in response to you) I really think it was the last DLC of its kind, it brought with it replay badges as Trykz said, but it feels like the core roots of its design didn't have the expectation players would use replays to short cut content but rather just keep up when they were short on time.

That I think is the differing current mentality, players use replays, almost expectantly, with the pure motivation to skip and shortcut all content, ironically so they no longer have to play.

I think Origin Crisis also brought with it a wealth of content, it had the open world stuff, along with the alerts, which I still think story and immersion wise (and probably even difficulty wise) at the time were some of, if not the most, satisfying in the games history.

The only other content I think came close to being this satisfying in terms of engagement was JLD, evidenced by the fact it came so close to actually beating OC in the bracket competition lsat year.

The other issue, which I think is present is that this mentality to spam replays is detrimental because it's almost like the game is being developed with that mentality in mind, The devs want people to spend money on replays so they design the grind and content around farming those replays from their customers.

Everything comes back to a "Finish this content in 3 months or get left behind" approach and the community feeds in to it, long term however, it's far from satisfying.

This game needs more horizontal progression, things to do outside of existing content, now that the game is stat clamped for example, more feats could be added to old content to get people playing it, other types of progress quests could be added to old content, like a proper R&D system where you craft enhancements for gear or bring back mods and scatter the R&D materials throughout the entire game and make none of it tradable so you have to go and get it yourself.

Instead of focusing on elite+ in the most recent DLC, what about including some elite+ modes of old content so players can go back and do some of that for the challenge they seek, putting a new coat of paint on it.

All of this stuff would be better spent resources than this endless seeking of 10 new levels of new end game elite

I wasn't a big fan of JLD because of the story, I loath magic, but looking at it content wise, it had a lot of open world content. It had a duo. It had an alert. It had 2 raids. It definitely had the making of what should be on paper. I find it weird that they had the model, but they sort of threw it out the window when they did the next DLCs. (Metal 1&2, BOP, etc) I'm not sure what the devs are looking for what makes a success of a DLC. But I'm sure with what happen with Doom, they will throw the dart blindfolded again.

I'll say it again, WV and LoSH's bounty centric DLC would work IF it wasn't the only thing to do was cycle through the bounties. It was mind numbing. It required at least 30 minutes of your time. It didn't provide any prestige for your league. It just pushed players away, but it also showed that if we had free marks and something to farm for, players would do it. They provided Elite Jewelry and Weapons again. They brought life other than really menial do X for N times tasks. It was on the cusp of being what you would find in other MMO's open world bosses, but it fell flat. It was just a zerg fest that was only to get the counts and currency. Maybe if they varied what was released each year, there would be spark, but who knows.

In regards to BFE, yeah, it was designed before replays. If I remember right, replays came out right at or right before the launch of the DLC. So players really didn't know what to do yet and the devs didn't expect what we had. It definitely surprised them, but then we found ourselves to the start of best gear as drops, because players would just replay the heck out of content to buy the vendor gear week 1.

OC's problem had several elements to it. There was no step between alert and raid. The vendor gear was way below purple gear and was equal to blue dropped gear. So players found their grind having a halted progression and the content that was provided, though 4 pieces of content, was either too long or very difficult. Bare it be skill or the fact a lot of the attacks didn't render or were twitch reaction required. To a players experience, it was not fun, especially when you couldn't complete the easy raid. (Nexus) In the end of the day, I don't know if Spytle's Power Point filler (that I was there at the con for) or Mepps' change in response is correct. All I know is what I saw around me. (I also saw leagues rise and fall due to the content.)

Personally, now that the game is completely free, I feel they should go back to an overall year build up of gear somehow. Maybe we will see what is in store in 2023, like was hinted at. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah I agree, I want it as well where the gear is formed over the space of a year as well, but not sure whether the devs are prepared to do it properly because it feels like they're milking replay badges for money every 3 months so have no interest in anything outside of that vertical rat race.

With the bounties, I really wish they'd make them super hard and super high in health where you have to have a proper phase actually participate in it properly like a world boss, get rid of the ridiculous level of counter feats to compensate for their increased duration to complete and keep their spawn timers minimal.

They're supposed to be weekly's so why can't the open world bounties, feel like you're engaging in a raid experience?

In terms of elite weapons, jewellery etc, perhaps that's even an opportunity to engage other areas of the game, make them have to be crafted and make it so you have to collect materials throughout the game, not just in the most relevant content - this would surely only further help with queues and content participation.

Yeah, the lateral escalator of DLC to DLC is by far the worst thing that came out of the Replay Badges introduction. If they put a restriction on what could be replayed, it would make a difference content wise. It's sad, they would never do it.

Yeah, that's why I said they fell flat. (I probably should have said "fell short".) I've played games where the open world bosses were like you said. Where they would be on special timers. Like every 8 hours or something like that. The rewards would represent it too.

Other games have special artifact weapons that you fortify it and breakthrough, like our new OP items, that go up to the level cap, but increase as the level cap increases. I can see this happening in some way for DCUO and it would add lateral progression and include the whole game.

Its hard to assume stuff when I dont know what takes many resources and what doesnt, buy my 2 cents on what should happen to future episodes:
1)Elite should have only 3 modes. That way, most people can try out up to the 2nd stage and many others will be able to spend 4 months miserable failling. With 5 stages only like 30 people will face all mechanics in the first 3 months or so.
2) You either make episodes instance centric or open world centric. You cant make something the size of doomed W and wast 80% of the space because there wasnt time to make extra daillies and then have only 1 raid. The quality of the instances was kinda decent, but they were all short and had only 1 new map.
3) There should be 2 instance centric episodes, with small or reused open worlds and 2 raids with 3 bosses at least and 1 open world centric with big bounty farm and multiple quests, like Sons of Trigon and just 1 raid and 1 alert, that way people have 1 entire year to get bounty stuff.

-Replay Badges are good because people play more with them around, not less. There isnt any forced chase anymore because you can complete almost every piece of content with Avatar Bombardier gear or dropped gear and you have 4 months of weekly reset to get other gear if you need, plus bonus weeks. Replays were a issue when monthly content was around. I dont think they limit any creativity atm (although we dont have a lot to compare to, they were around for pretty much every major episode), the devs could make out of the box stuff like they did with bounties, its more a matter of players liking it. In my opnion people replay to death because they want a reason to spend time in the game, they just dont want to say that.

-Elite modes for older content is pretty much STU, we already have this kind of progression, we just arent at a point in which there is enough content for a real progression. And there are item drops to get in old instances (and in my opnion they should add more), but by past experiences, players dont really want to be overwhelmed by old instance farming, if you add too much, the majority will just stop caring.

-I feel like the game needs at some point to add boss events and daily quests to older open world. The weak open world is one of the main problems with DCUO and one of the reasons we have pretty much vertical progression only. But in the end anything out of the formula becomes a matter of resources, the majority of the players like instances, I dont think most of them will be pleased if the devs take stuff from the Episodes to put on horizontal progression. The devs would probably sacrifice a bit of revenue if people enjoyed out of the box things, but mostly thats not the case.

Okay, two nitpicky things here about the older content (because it's early on a Monday and I get that way sometimes lol).

We had three episodes/DLC between Battle for Earth and Origin Crisis. One of them probably gets forgotten (Last Laugh) and the other two (Hand of Fate, Home Turf) didn't really introduce any new areas in the game but repurposed existing locations for the content. So it can be easy to miss/overlook those.

No open world for OC. You had the raids and operations, but no open world hub. Closest we had to solo missions was the Iconic Anomaly missions. Sons of Trigon was the first DLC after Lightning Strikes to set up a new open world area with mission hubs. If there had been one for OC I would have run the living daylights out of that open world content. LOL If it hadn't been for Quantum powers coming in with the episode, there wouldn't have been anything beyond the Anomalies for me.

You're right about that, I overlooked those DLCs lol.

Those DLCs actually and even Trigons Prison following OC perhaps indicate that not every DLC need provide a new grind but rather enhance an existing one, personally I'd like for them to do this type of thing again.

As for open world yea you're also right, I was thinking central city and cause other open worlds were out there I momentarily mixed it up.

P.s. it's fine Mondays suck and I welcome the correction feels like an eon ago now when lifes been busy

They can take the alert E away and keep the solo/duo E if they want more time and resources to focus on another raid imo. But I do think this episode has found a nice middle ground to please everybody to a certain exent. I hope they stick with one open world boss next time instead of several.

Im not sure if removing one alert elite version alone is enough for a second good raid,i guess the devs know if the elite duo or elite alert brings them more revenue/longevity/activity but both of them in one dlc are too much imo i defiently expect 2 raids in each episode and based on what i read from other comments most seem to prefer 2 raids aswell.

But it was good to see what charon said and that next time it will be more balanced (second raid,no duo/solo at all but more openworld)

Weapon Mastery and the removal of some clipping all happened a year after Origin Crisis happened. In fact it was after War of the Light p1 and just before Amazon Fury p1 that this all went down. Everything else you wrote stands. The way OC was released, it killed some leagues and wrecked many friendships. People remembering that time with rose tinted glasses didn't suffer like the rest.