Evolution of Origin Crisis Loot

There has been a lot of discussion about how and why loot was the way it was in DLC 7, and a lot of wild assumptions. I’d like to take a moment to explain why we did what we did.

It is clear we did something different with the loot for this DLC. The reason for that is very simple - difficulty.

The mandate we were given when we were tuning DLC7 was to make it very hard...really hard. There was a consistent voice from prominent members of the community to give them a challenge. Now you can quibble over what the ideal way is to deliver that challenge, but often those do not take into account our constraints, or the player behavior in reaction to that difficulty.

Let's talk constraints. There are many ideas come that come up on these forums, and many feature requests as well. Some are good; some are bad. in either case they can still be beyond our scope. Games have a certain architecture built into them, and this architecture can be flexible in some directions but very rigid in others. So, what seems like a no-brainer can actually be impossible to do without major manpower being put behind it.

Let's talk player behavior. Every single time we have tried to design difficulty through skill or strategy, players find some way around it and thus trivialize it completely. Sometimes this is a blatant exploit, other times it is simply something that takes advantage of the limitations of the game (all games have them). The point is, unless we resort to stats, players usually find a way around tactical difficulty.

With the latter in mind, that's where the gear progression comes in. People wanted appropriate challenges between solo and raid content in a tier. Since we knew stats would need to play a big part in the difficulty scaling, we had the items ramp up accordingly from the iconic anomalies, through the ops, and on to the raids. This was the only way to make the raids really hard at the beginning, and take time to progress through and master - kind of like a normal raid in an MMO. It was an attempt to maintain a sense of difficulty for our most advanced players (who often smash through stuff even when they are under-geared) so they could not complete the raid on day one of release.

Nothing in the way loot was designed was done to squeeze extra cash out of our players. The reality is, when we set out to talk about progression (rewards versus costs) we assume that no one will use a replay badge, and we make sure everything is achievable by a dedicated player naturally in a reasonable amount of time. We try and make sure that those players can complete everything without extra buy-in by the time the next tier (or half step) is introduced. We make sure that Replay Badges (RPBs) are a convenience in that regard.

I hope that helps shed some light on why the rewards were the way they were - it was to support the difficulty progression, not to force RPB use. I know people are a bit raw about elements of DLC7, and so are we, but we are clearly trying to make changes in the right direction in the risk reward department. Change comes at a price too, as you know, and anyone who did anything the hard way sternly objects to these types of changes. So it isn't easy for us to just change it all. The good news is that we learned a lot from this, and have some ideas to address long standing concerns about how we do loot in future DLCs.

In closing, I want to say that I think DCUO gives a lot of the game away for free. Yes we have pay walls for certain features and content, yes we do have perks that make the game more convenient or even robust as you scale up in membership level, but we are very fair about it. We do indeed need to make a profit on the game in order to keep it running. Our hearts are in the right place. We need to make a profit, and we want to be fair about it. The problem comes down to the fact that our definition of fair does not always align with your definition of fair, which further does not align with another player's definition of fair.

With that said, when will we see the Unicorn Trinket?

Great post +1 surprised no one posted on it

Edit beat by breakforce

I don't mind this at all. Doing Nexus and Other Content and getting all Healer and Tank gear as I'm Controller Power Type.
I can still Salvage it for long Term Goal of Next Salvage Feat and Get Complex and sell in Broker or for Mods.
Everything is Worth something, even if it is an off-role gear.

People still don't like new Loot System, But I Love it. We all get Something now rather than 1 or 2 people out of 8 get the 1-2 drops of Random Rolls.
And In Alerts, more loot for each person, rather Can't Equip it, Salvage for Long Term Goal for Feat and Materials.
Rather a Player gets angry and deletes gear because can't use it. But them when it comes to needing Complex, He has none and will have to Grind.

I'm Happy with my Inventory fill up with Off-Role gear that's more close to Salvage feat for me and more Complex.


Anyways,Thanks for Explaining everything as people still don't Understand Games are meant to take months, and not realizing this.

Whaaa??? you mean my demands of making this a Marvel vs DC crossover fps game for the Wii U are unreasonable????

thanks for this, although not everything about dlc7 was bad, lots of us are enjoying the raids still and some people even thought they were too easy.

I don't think making this level of difficulty should be completely out of the question, maybe 1 super crazy tough raid per year would be good?

I think the problem players will have with that explanation is so players have run nexus and prime 5-10 a week and still haven't got all the higher level gear that drop in those raids, so a player like me who have ran it once a week on 5 different toons once a week since july and have 1-2 87+ gear drops that I can use find it hard to believe the new raids wasn't built around replays cause st the rate it's going as of now it would take a player 2-3 yrs to get the full suit running it once a week

Runescape can take up to 3 years and not one players has a problem with rare items and days of farming and grinding

This is dcuo not runescape 2 different games

WE STILL LOVE YOU DEVS.

I truly believe that this game is going in the right direction and that I recognize that in it's travels there may be some "bumps in the road". I appreciate the transparency and the fact Jens that you take time to write out a post that is frank and admits that you guys are still learning and are making efforts to "smooth out some bumps in the road". I just wanted to mention that Dcuo brings an excellent form of entertainment for 33 cents per day and that I look forward to the next DLC.

And that is why we have made several changes to it, including giving everyone loot on every boss, guaranteed. The changes we make don't take place in the past; they are not retroactive, so they need time to take effect. My explanation can't rewind time, all it can do is give you insight as to why it was set up the way it was. This is the first time we had a set that was more powerful than the vendor gear. We did it for the reasons stated above. I am not expecting to change the hearts and minds of people who will never accept what I say as truth. Despite that fact, it deserves to be explained. Take what you will from it. My conscience is clean because I know what our intentions were.

Thanks for your feedback.

MMORPG as game is meant to be played
As I said Grinding and Farming takes months for Rarity of things and Content. and Runescape is not Different is MMORPG.

Read again so you can understand as what I said.

As a person that was part of the requesting group on difficulty, I actually don't mind the way you did the difficulty progression between the anomalies, operations, and raids. (May not like the random rage luck, but that's another thing.)

But with the gear ramp you instilled upon the three levels actually caused an issue with what rewards vs the cost. I'm not trying to drive it home, nor am I going to bash anything in your post. The problem was the middle step and the final step. The anamolies are a good idea, considering that they are solos and if you can get the best gear out of solos, then this isn't an MMO anymore. 81-83 gear in there made the most sense. When you stepped into the operations, it still was 81-83 with a very SMALL chance of 84 and 85(tt). In the raids, you always got the 85 gear from the sub bosses and most of the time, if you finished the raid, you got 86 gear with a very SMALL chance at 87. (Pre loot adjustment.) It wasn't a ramp, it was a jump for gear between the 83 and 85.

With the raids requiring at least 84 pieces of gear to just survive, you have to see that the operations were the issue. Yes, design, you want to familiarize yourself with the content before tackling the raids, but in your post above, you mentioned that people can go through content even undergeared. (Proof is a few leagues completing the raids in release week.) Grinding the 85 gear for the rest of us actually became a chore. The anomalies were small rewards, the operations were just long and tedious (and broke a few times). It became a serious issue for a lot of people, including people I know personally. Which brought the announcement at SOE Live that brought joy to my heart.

Then the rewards vs time vs difficulty comes in, with the ops giving only 82/83 pieces and the raids pretty much only giving 85 pieces, what was the point of purchasing 85 gear? I understand you changed the way the iconic vendor gear is to be blue, instead of purple, but that completely defeated the purpose of the gear itself. Which, originaly tiered gear was to help with the next set of raids. It made sense to buy it.

Every step in DLC7 felt like you were holding back the rewards in fear that it would become a meaningless DLC. That is the issue that a lot of players I know, including my league, had. They felt useless and time consuming vs the difficulty within the DLC. Even when you adjusted the content, it felt you were holding back again. I was excited to hear the announcement at SOE Live. As my league was almost dead. When you log in and have like 3 people coming on, that is a personal issue. But when the result came out, it still wasn't enough. DLC8 helped alieviate the problems with 7, but it still wasn't enough to make 7 worth it. It unforunately, is still not.

Then you including the final confrontation rewards in there. It kind of threw a wrench in the clockworks to everyone who loves to get gear. When you beat the raid finally, you worked really hard, you see the loot drops, and you feel a sickening to your stomach because not a single purple drops from the hardest raids in the game. (This is before the individual loot fix.) It hurts the players when you finally do see a purple, it is mostly for a role you don't play or you use community rules on them. So you can't role on it. Overall, that is the issue that a lof of the "all a scam" and "it's a cash grab" people are going with.

Again, I am just giving you a perspective from my end, not bashing you in the least. I am happy you are making changes. And I'm glad you are finally stepping into it and giving more than just holding back. Loot is part of the game progression, and when you hold back, it hurts a lot.

Thanks for this. You have already admitted that the ordering of content was off (i.e., DLC 8 probably should have preceded DLC 7), and you have and still are making adjustments to the loot drops in the T5 raids to make them reasonable for the difficulty level. These are all steps in the right direction. I think, down the road, this philosophy will make for smoother progression, both in gear and content difficulty. While I'm still not a fan of the too often confluent one-shot mechanics, I understand where you're coming from. Keep up the good work. /thumbup

RuneScape has unicorns. DCUO could learn from that.

I understood it and it don't make any sense at al, I don't think dc was meant to be grind heavy because it haven't for 2yrs and the last dlc wasn't either that's why the devs are clearing the air now, so like I said 2 different games

I'm reporting this post for forum violations.

With all this negativity towards raid loot and what-not, I would like to add that I personally still find the game quite enjoyable.

You see, DCUO is a lot like a terrific show you watch on Netflix. You watch a couple episodes a day and then you go off to work or school or something and come back and maybe watch another episode. In the end, you watch the whole series over a long period of time and have thoroughly enjoyed the show.

In the DCUO perspective, you play a couple hours a day, do your thing, then play some more and then you enjoy the game as you advance in a decent amount of time.

However, you also have those people that watch a WHOLE SEASON on Netflix in 1 DAY and watch the next season on another day. Same thing with grinding. You farm and farm and farm where you lose interest way too quick.

The Devs are right about creating DLCs that they base off of that no-one will use replay badges. Because the faster you progress, the quicker you get to finishing a show or the game and have nothing else to do with your life for entertainment.

I am Zicorahk, and I approve Spytle's message.

#UnicornAgenda

Great post Spytle. Since it will probably be askde anyway, how long did SOE believe that it would take a dedicated player to properly gear up for these raids?

As far as difficulty, there was an amazing game that I used to play that was very different than DCUO but maybe aspects of it could be worked in. Different parts of the enemy had different defenses so you had to actually choose where you hit it. I know that you are not going to change the game to incorporate that but you might be able to do something similar. What I imagine would be that the bosses would go through stages where they are weaker to some attacks than others. To prevent any power bias I would keep the attack types to melee, range, single target power, and AOE power. If implemented correctly it would make bosses more difficult in a matter that involved people paying attention and not by using 1 shots. I don't know how possible it would be to implement and do not know if it is even appropriate for DCUO but I'm throwing the idea out for your consideration. Thank you for all of your hard work.