How do we help?

Yeah, they'd absolutely have to have say in the released content. Shouldn't even have music going in the background. No video should lol. But I do agree, it's a necessity at this point. There's just too many things going on. Even we get confused after playing for 10yrs. But thinking it takes a bit off the devs plate if some players made the videos instead and they just need to edit/ tell them what changes to make.

Edit: I'm well aware how many times this has been talked about. It was easy to ignore a few weeks ago. That is no longer an option and poor players (not financially) will run off too many players to let this continue. As I said last week, the can of worms has been opened. Ignore the powerset imbalances for a while. Ignore whatever but the new and less knowledgeable players need to be helped asap. That alone will make omnibus/ clamping a million times better.

And yeah yeah yeah we get it, players playing in their groups of friends aren't having issues. I invite you to do what myself and others have been doing, pug solo. See what it's really like out there. People seem to think that time will solve all this but all time is going to do is make it appear fixed because the newer players or less sociable ones will leave.

Before stats clamp you had a vicious circle going on.

New player joins the game
All they learn is pew pew maybe have bad builds with a mix of abilities
New players ques into content and gets carried (doesn’t learn anything. Thinks their build is ok)
New player eventually gets to end game learning minimal information.
New player ques into end game where they run into a bad pug group. (They could find a good group but eventually they will que into a bad group)
The group fails and they blame the new player for being bad
New player gets kicked or group disbands
Ques again but same thing happens
Eventually new player quits or just stays in this state of limbo of random queuing until they beat things. Or they stick to solos and open word. Meaning less people running group content (slow ques start here)


Now let’s look it from the other said.

End game player ques old content for feats. Carries group.
Eventually ques into content with new players who are bad
Group fails and they blame the new players calling them cr skip noobs
Complains about cr skip toons in endgame.
Looks for group.
Hard to get groups together because these new players either quit or don’t do any group content because of how toxic it is



Point is. Not every bad player in endgame is a cr skipped toon. Some are just new players that never learned anything. That’s why you see a lot of rainbow augments in end game. That’s why you see a lot of bad artifact set ups im end game. That’s why stats clamp is important. Now that we are in a post stats clamp game we see a lot of the dark side of what the game had become.

There still needs to be steps implemented by the devs to make it more clear about what the new players should be doing. Don’t forget that augments weren’t always a thing. We used to create mods to boost our stats. These were active things we had to go out of the way to do. Which means we learned what we needed to make. Now it’s somewhat passive as all we need to do it salvage gear and feed it. Text tutorials don’t help since people normally just skip them. A voiced over tutorial though a mission would better inform players on what to pick. Then you have the artifact mission. It makes you go around and get the stolen artifacts/crates. But then it tells you to chose an artifact and doesn’t do anything after that on what to pick. The mission itself can tell the player what artifact they are going after and what it does/who it benefits.

Problem is, this is still happening post clamp. The only difference now is that it’s happening in Khandaq instead of Flash To The Future. The clamp was never going to teach anyone anything by itself. I said this already before it hit live. Got the responses I always get.

Make an actual guide to raids/alerts. I have always been shocked honestly how most of DCUO's "elite" like to play their cards close to their chest when it comes to raid mechanics. There are virtually no walkthroughs explaining mechanics or online guides either.

All you find are "Happiness Home Complete Walkthrough" but it's not even a walkthrough. It's just a video with music of a bunch of players going through the instance and completing it sped up, but no actual voice or explanation. I'm talking about older instances of course, not the latest raids.

I think all the points you talked about are intentionally put there.

The reason for the clamp, contrary to what some may think, wasn't to prevent us from steam rolling the content to allow players to learn the content, but to help the longevity of the game's content. As it was originally, once a new piece of content came out, everything below it would be obsolete. So no one was running it. IE, new players don't even get a chance to level up to reach the new content to be able to play where everyone was.

Now we have the clamp with bonus rewards in it. Players old and new have a want to play the content available to them and the game flourishes.

Is it happening exactly intended? Probably not, per se, but it's dang near close. Players are running older content and actually doing what's intended. Some even allowed to run in the role they chose to be their primary one. (No 4 dps roflstomp. If you aren't dps, keep up or get gud.)

Now, the inherent problem that you are voicing isn't related to the clamp system, but to how the devs have been promoting content without proper group building tutorials.

TBH, when we hit level 10 initially, we had a symbolism of this, but it didn't tell us how nor was it encouraged to go heal, tank, controller in Area 51. This isn't the case anymore, that was removed in I think it was GU30.

It’s not exactly the same thing thou. Right now we are in a phase between people still thinking they can do what they did before and having to learn mechanics. The cycle that we had in place is currently changing

So what about adding a daily mission (the ability to implent this may be tough) that players do till lvl 30 or cr50 or whatever that plays like a tutorial? Make it give out enough source and a piece of gear so it's worth them doing but basically it would be like a team intro mission that you run solo. Could be the fp duo actually. But need 3 NPCs. Explain what the other "players" are doing while the new actual player is strictly dps. Show what a pull does or a debuff. While it only teaches dps side it would at least make then competent at that role. Oracle could be talking the whole time explaining gear and augs and all that.

Not sure how anything could be done to force actual roles in the same scenario but maybe allowing the npc heros to dps instead if role so the player can do their role for them. Oracles speech could stay the same maybe if words were chosen very carefully. I hate doing this but:

Get into FP duo but now it's a 1 player alert. Hi new person, what role would you like to practice? Switch Cyborg to dps if you'd like to troll, switch batman to dps if you'd like to heal. Switch other cyborg (lol pick a toon) to dps to tank.

1st set of adds, oracle explains that the tank should pull the adds together and that the troll should start debuffing. Now that your team is taking damage, please toss some heals out. Make it difficult enough to fail but maybe slow down the pace a bit on the bosses. Explain that this is when a tank should lunge amazo. Explain that someone needs to lunge the bot. Just a slow easy-ish walk thru. Can even put in filler talk about artifacts (this should have been the Constantine mission, still could be) and which augs should be done for what roles.

TBH, this kind of thing was suggested a long time ago. There were also suggestions related to utilizing a predefined loadout similar to legends as well.

I'll be frank, I don't think they will put effort into making this kind of content otherwise they would have by now.

Yeah, I've seen all the posts. Things were a lot easier to push under the rug last week. The rug is now out of room under it. It's spilling out and we're gonna have a rather large mess to deal with real soon if we don't stop sweeping. Time to vacuum lol. I see that difficulty of things is already being adjusted down and that should help but it is still just a band aid because that's just letting the vets get back to overpowering their way thru things for the rookies

I agree I've also seen new players get cussed out and then some by Toxic behavior for not knowing there roles and set ups like tanks having DPS gear and troll arts . I've seen healers having DPS augs and troll arts and DPS arts I've seen trolls having tank arts and healer arts etc .

All wrong and augments of every color this falls on the devs unfortunately anyone can pick up this game and start playing but how are you to know about your roles and in depth and augments etc and artifacts there is only so much vets can do . I can try to do what I can and teach and give tips but allot of it is met with silence. I will however step in if I see new players met with toxic behavior because nobody should have to deal with that nonsense and unnecessary BS .

The cussing and toxicity can go both ways, one through a level of self righteousness (elitism) and the other through petulance when it's pointed out they might actually be the problem as to why an instance is failing.

In terms of augments being the wrong color etc (I assume you're talking about a Thanos gauntlet haha) then I think there is a lack of common sense there, because ultimately what sort of player thinks this is efficient. This is however likely borne out of a basic lack of in game tutorial about a players role.

Newer players probably don't understand what their primary stat is so still think resto, dominance etc help with their damage output, even if it's horribly wrong.

In terms of tutorials the game needs a very early game tutorial, probably the moment a player hits level 30, which explains to them their damage role and their support role and what the helpful primary stats are. They could also explain the basics like how "hate" is generated, what stats affect shield and healing strength, power outputs etc and then leave the player to go from there.

Some of the advanced stuff you simply have to leave for a player to discover for themselves, you can't for example tell a player what artifacts to use, despite the fact, artifact choice can have a significant impact on a players potential, it isn't the games place to direct you to make a choice, only to present you with the choice and let you decide.

Ran an Omnibus raid this weekend with my girlfriend. Troll was kicked because he wasn't doing anything, another player had queued as DPS and Troll so we asked him to switch. Dude straight up told us "I can't troll, I always queue as both roles so that I get in faster".



For real though, this game is going to need to make serious changes in order for these new systems to work. New players are severely undertrained and underprepared and veterans just don't see an incentive in helping them.

Yeah, this is true...While in Troll roll any power used should put out POT, now if they have the SP's all in the proper place or proper gear so their Vit is up, or using a group power heal, that is a different beast all together.

I am all for helping others, I may not be the end all, know all troll, but have been doing it for almost 10 years, so I know a thing or two about it. The problem is getting people to ask for, or accept help...as players we can't just force help on others, and there have been many times I have kindly and politely offered assistance while in instances where the troll was lacking, or being yelled at by others for power, to either be returned with a "no" or just being ignored. Mind you while there are some players who are glad to accept some advice, it is hard to help people when they just don't want to accept any help.

Good idea, i would go as far as to say they change the tutorial completly and make this the tutorial.
What they do is have lex/stuporman tell you that you will create your character AFTER they test you to see what your strengths are.
Proceed through the tutorial on the dummy toon and then the game lets you create a toon with an emphasis on roles so you can clearly see what powers offer the roles you played to help decide

I honestly am doubting this little experiment is going to work, personally. It's one thing to create a game that appeals to your audience and provides them the challenge they want.

It's another to misunderstand your core base and make them feel unwelcome or insulted. That was the mistake WildStar made (among others).

So, I truly hope that players who enjoy learning complex mechanics are the core base who are paying the bills. And not ones who enjoy dressing up as Superman.

The devs honestly expect new players to suddenly go back over 8 tiers of raids and check videos learning all of the mechanics for like 30+ pieces of content? Good luck with that, I guess. This is in addition to what I mentioned that there are virtually no actual guides for any of it.

There's also virtually no developer-given direction for virtually any of the Damage-community builds or any of the really weird stuff (like "effective battle support" and "functional non-meta builds") but we still managed to cobble it together ourselves. I dunno.

I think there's an opportunity here for more of that sort of thing from a different angle; granted, I don't think you're entirely wrong when it comes to "SUPERMAN PEWPEW RAAAHH" versus "nuanced mechanical accomplishment" and tons of the old game was filled with, well, both of those things, and more evenly than the game is now. But I think we have a solid enough base of people who can and do do things well, and some of those people can even break it down like Barney so COULD we produce guides, totally. Time will tell, but I don't think it's beyond our capacity - assuming that more than four of us can have a conversation without constant sniping anyway.

i always kinda felt like there should have been a special mission/tutorial after you hit the end of story, something along the lines of "hey now that you are apart of the Justice League you may be called upon to provide SUPPORT for a team, my data indicates you are an ideal candidate for CONTROLLER(example). Hal Jordan(again example) said they would help mentor you in the basics, go and see him as soon as you can." When you go and talk to Hal he gives you a very basic rundown of being a controller, maybe even offer advanced tips as well as selling (controller)gear and artifacts.

When you find one. Pick it up and put it outside.

A new blind user too busy pressing buttons to read descriptions of abilities. (Brahminy Blind Snake in the GIF. Found 3 of these in my house in the past 3 weeks. I'm just wondering, where the heck are they coming from to get into the house???)

Warframe has drastically changed their new player experience over the years. I have to consider maybe SOE didn't expect the game to last as long as it has, and Daybreak was also weighting expectations of longevity with the shady relationship to Columbus Nova *cough* Jason Epstein. I thought after adding Darkseid, that'd be a good place to stop. It didn't stop there.Obviously.

I keep pondering what was the new project they were working on???
Led by MMO veteran Jack Emmert, Dimensional Ink Games in Austin, Texas will continue work on DC Universe Online, while developing a new MMO project starting in 2020.

Or is that a standard line given to every journalist. *studio* we're working on a new game. Truth is we have only thought of a new game, and the shareholders like to hear that. Do they have shareholders? I think it's a private company. Although I can find mention of board of directors related to Daybreak games. I wonder how much they cost to employ.

That's a really cool idea. It has to be something new toons are forced to do really. Grind it into them so they understand how important roles are. Heck, even old players should have to go thru it.

Just today, a player I've seen a lot thru the years was in pvr with me. I was healing, they were tanking. Well, they weren't tanking, they were either standing there or using weapon attacks only. I was using my water toon that only has gear and augs, no healing artis. Which is usually fine till a useless tank takes away our roleless defense buff. Could not get them to understand how much harder they were making the instance. Thankfully the other 2 players understood cuz they kicked the tank. But just goes to show, even the vets don't always understand the game

a part of the problem for support has been the lack of any kind of instructions even if it is just the basics and thats something that this could solve, no it wouldnt mean that they would become op unless they put more effort into it but thats what vets are supposed to be there for to an extent, to help provide guidance and in some cases take over in a pinch.

just think how different your PVr run could have been had there been some sort of basic tutorial for support.