Dev Discussion Episode 48: Open World - Apokoliptic Gotham City

No, actually, they tried the "let's have mission-givers be in different places" in the past, and the feedback was so uproariously negative that they immediately dropped that idea. More than once.

But, of course, most of the devs are now noobs, so there's no institutional memory about this stuff, so mistakes long known to be mistakes are now being repeated in development and not changed during test. Sigh.

The Apokoliptian Cannons get bugged sometimes, when i want to turn the cog, it get interrupted somehow (no add nearby), and then i can no longer interact with them.

Minor issue:

When rescuing Gotham Citizens for the mission Urban Liberation, it also contributes towards the Tentacled! daily mission from the Justice League Dark episode (Zatanna's mission from Chaos Gotham), if a player has that mission in their journal as well.

The NPCs on the rooftops are within the area of their missions, so it's like traveling to the mission area and getting the quest on the spot. Having a "find this person" NPC directing you to the next spot turns mission pick up into a mild scavenger hunt vs working off a set checklist from the start. They're not in the journal until clicked or after completion- so any exploration, farming, or a popped queue risks a lot of missed missions- and only way to check if something was missed is to fly around the map again looking for the orange complete icons (vs scanning the hub upon teleporting in).

I wonder if an adjustment like this is feasible (trying to still use most existing work like dialogue and functions):

• move the NPCs who tell us to go see someone (Mr. Miracle, Gordon, etc.) to the hub and their mission dialogue stays the same.
• The field NPC's we have to help can stay where they are (Barda, Nightwing, etc.) and have their mission activation dialogue auto play as a "comm style" voice over when arriving at the mission site- just like how Oracle, Calculator and our mentors do when leveling to 30.They can even keep their animations- just like using a video comm, right?
• The reward could still be picked up from the field NPC (ideally, players can pick up from either NPC). Whoever you turn into uses their thank you dialogue.
• Have the orange 'complete' exclamation icon appear above both the Hub and Field NPC once the reward is issued.

oops- accidental double post.

Place all the daily missions and boss bounties NPCs at the start of Apokoliptic Gotham City, at the docks. Just like ALL the old DLCs maps. We explore the whole map while doing daily and bosses, I find it very boring, time wasting and tedious having to use different teleports when I'm in a hurry doing missions and accepting all the NPCs missions.
Fix the count on the bosses, Brimstone should count for 100 since it's a boss with bigger health pool.
The Convoy boss should count maybe for 50/40 each time it spawns. It's not practical having to wait a lot between Convoy spawns when a phase is filled with lots of people. Make the Convoy spawn always at the same place, not further away at the map limit borders... (I did not check well where the Convoy always spawns, but it should be more practical to make it always spawn on the same location and not far away since it can die so quickly)

• While the change to spread mission NPC's throughout the map is controversial with the community, the flow of moving from one daily to another works well if the player grabs the missions in the intended order. However, since players can grab missions in any order they choose, this can break mission flow resulting in an awkward experience. This coincides with an issue from the main episode mission line which resulted in the the OP Belt situation. If players interacted with more NPC's then what was intended during the quest or completed all daily open world missions before completing the main mission line this resulted in a quest conflict. Designing content to be played in a specific order and allowing players to do things out of order can result in problems and design oversights while also creating a confusing experience. As far as the mission design, all 3 daily missions are consistent and well implemented compared to previous episodes and progression and time to completion is not excessive.
• Brimstone looks great and is well animated and telegraphed however the boss location with the environmental design creates a complication with the telegraphs for the AOE zones. Depending on the direction the boss is facing, the red AOE Telegraph will clip and disappear under the raised terrain resulting in players standing in the zones without any visual that they are inside them. The area around the boss should either be flat to avoid the telegraphs clipping under the terrain or the telegraphs should be visible on the actual terrain instead of under it.
• Much like the situation with the daily missions, the Convoy weekly appears to have been designed with a specific intended way to complete while allowing players to complete the weekly in other ways. The convoy is designed to spawn multiple enemies in the route to increase the amount of weekly progression players can earn per convoy. This is not articulated to the players who have been given the option to destroy the convoy almost immediately after the first wave. This creates a detrimentally lower amount of progress for completing the objective at a faster pace. Convoy destruction progress towards the weekly should be based on how far away the convoy was from the end route when it is destroyed to balance out the difference between enemy wave and convoy destruction progression. As the content becomes older this will also balance the convoy progression as fewer players are present to destroy the convoy.
• There are inconsistent framerate drops when over 8 players are in combat with Brimstone on the PS5 Application. The more players are present, the worse the framerate continues to get.
• Periodically enemy attacks appear to be desynced for players in open world content on the PS5 Application resulting in telegraphs, attacks, and audio cues not displaying correctly.
• Periodically players and player effects will become invisible for other players in open world content on the PS5 application.

1. Npc quest givers being spread out and having to talk to multiple npc's just to get a mission is asinine, please put back to the norm standard so players don't get lost and can get their loot much less the mission.

2. Collection node located at the building with the Nightwing mission giver with a hole in the map under it. I went to pick it up and fell through and was like 'what the f***!'. The Wayne building or whatever, the node on the northeast side by the omega vats is where its at, just where a puddle or shadow on the ground is at.

3. Convoy mission is a dud attempt at something new. Shouldn't have to do it 4x over just to get it done. Either increase the credit given or make them spawn faster.

4. Why can't batman show up on the minimap???

5. Vendor gear always expensive, please lower the costs for once.

1. JLD dlc open world mission 'tentacles' can be completed in this open world by freeing the citizens in the purple stasis field for the Barda mission. Probably not intended to have this happen?

2. Ps4 here and there are dark shadow shapes that appear on the ground (not my shadow) and is kind of annoying to see. I do the bounty and a big chunk of the magma/lava area behind him is flickering like crazy.

I came here to report that issue - you and Essential Exobyte have covered it though.

One day I'll muster up the courage to speak but until then, you can view the player experience from these videos of playing the content on a Playstation 4.

* Player is still surrounded by graphical shaded artifact in newer content.
* Weekly missions should be more difficult or need tweaking to better the overall experience.
* I find nothing wrong with the spread, or localization of the missions. I compare it to all content of DCUO including the base game. In my unbiased opinion, some past DLC content has far worse mission exploration.

Same on diagonal corner, like copy and paste “hole” in the floor by the big vat thingy.

As of yesterday evening, Brimstone was still not giving 100/100 upon defeat. Has this been fixed, or will this be in an upcoming hotfix?

The look is cool and the geometry is fun to jump around on.

While I'd prefer that the mission givers all be together at the docks/boat I don't mind the flow of the missions as much as others seems to. I think it might be less confusing is the directing characters of Mister Miracle and Gordon didn't activate until you turned in the missions to Harley and Barda. This would confine the player to the intended area/story flow.

Huntress is in an odd location and there is nothing really pointing you there.

I really liked finding the Apokolitian invasion devices!

The decision to require more than a single encounter for the weekly missions isn't to my liking. When the best strategy for the Convoy is to continually switch phases, it feels like a clunky design. And killing 10 more Lava Fiends feels incredibly random.

Cannons sometimes won't allow interaction, not sure why.

rating:4/10

Update on collecting the daily missions!!!

1. Go straight to mission giver and receive mission.

If not, then you (1st daily) talk to red tool, go talk to Harley, talk to Harley again. That’s 3x!!! Just fly to Harley and bam! done.

13 Batman spots if ppl are wondering. Seen videos with fewer spots shown.

Okayyy, so you buffed the convoy mission and made it a one-time deal. You guys wanted to make it to where we had to do it multiple times, okay, but players pushed back and didnt want to do it 4x over. I dont want to do it 4x over myself but i also dont want to do it super buffed because its a short timeframe to complete it. So maybe, hear me out with a couple grains of salt in hand, make it a 2x go and reduce the health to appropriate levels? This should help keep it soloable cause the content will die one day and players enjoy doing content for marks that which are soloable.

I am not demanding anything, just providing a player perspective. A response would be appreciated on this matter.

NVM.

SERIOUSLY, y the buff on the convoy mission? It ain't needed. Frankly, it was fine as it was. Could do the dailies between each one. Frankly, now, U can stuff that 8 Coney coins. It was better as it was

Nah sorry it was fine as it is. It ain't a boss mission now that U lot have moaned about it. It now is a boss mission. It's a convoy mission. Not a boss fight. U can do Ur dailies in between. R U that bored? It's not even a daily.