Is it just me or is the population lower than usual?

I think that's the direction DC Universe has been in for a very long time I don't think they expect us to stay active it's not really the MMORPG for that. They would really have to change the direction of the game with another revamp or a relaunch of some sorts to try and move away from being an arcade sandbox MMO. I don't think we're expected to take the game serious even though we all do it's clear that the development team doesn't care about PVE or even PVP the only thing that matters here is Barbie doll Playhouse style Universe Online. If you're into dressing up and building your base and decorating it DC Universe Online is the best RPG out there lol however I didn't know pve was all about how competitive you are about styles and League bases and your own base. It's all about how competitive you are at making yourself look like a Barbie doll

Well, I’m a Barbie doll with a bad attitude who loves to pound adds and Bosses, and reaching top CR. But that’s just me, I’m weird like that.

It feels like every 2-3 years the bean counters try to push for things that require practically living on the server, and then they're always surprised people get burnt out or fed up and leave.

Even the barbie doll styles have been lackluster lately. The last "decent" purple gear armor was the wondergirl outfit imo. The vendor gear armor has never been appealing to wear since shock to the system, maybe 1 or 2 pieces if that. And then there's the tc's and booster bundles where the tc's have gone down in quality drastically to the point that I don't even spend my stabilizers anymore. And the BB's are usually accessory based and very niche but again low quality. I honestly think it's probably just the base crafters this game appeals to at this point and even they are getting crumbs for yearly releases.

yeah, they def couldnt make that any clearer when they decided not to upgrade the game and gave the excuse that they did haha

still cant believe they did that

Eg7 pulled out of the upgrade for dcuo due to the fact that it needs to chnage direction in definitely. It's direction is soft short-term and fragile not something eg7 is willing to take a chance with as far as investing goes

Eg7 didn't want to do the upgrade because jackster our last CEO decided to bring DC Universe Online to other platforms as well as two next-gen updates. This meant that the game could only bring out two episodes per year leaving the game in a short-term fragile state for 2 long. This showed up on eg7 stats as a fragile short-term MMO not something you would invest money into

People still go to the WT, that's wild.

I think a lot of their veteran design team left in the various mass exoduses that Daybreak has had. First a lot of staff were headhunted into other game studios then later EG7 laid off a bunch more. If we’re seeing lacklustre styles recently I’d bet lack of experienced staff at DCUO is the problem. But you’re right it’s bad enough when the paywalled content like capsules and Booster Bundles are duller than dishwater let alone the “free” content styles don’t even get me started. It’s also hard to get the various companies that DCUO is beholden to to sign off on stuff so it sucks when we get styles that aren’t all that because you know they probably had like half a year or more to get approved by EG7, WB Games, Discovery WB, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Big Al’s Deli (lol jk) etc etc. Sucks

People tend to stop playing games with billions of bugs. This is pretty known. Most people do not like an unbalanced game so they leave. We haven’t gotten balance in years.

That makes sense. With the loss of all those designers that basically made all the styles we have today, it's lowkey impossible for the new devs to replicate, even with time. What I find ironic is the amount of approvals and hoops Daybreak has to go through in order license they're own DC brands and Iconics. And now all the lead designers from the past are gone and they're basically now just grabbing random names out of hat of people you've probably never heard of unless your an avid comic book reader. I concur it sucks. All the things dc was known for in the past have been gutted away,

I think the population is fine considering the game is 13 years old

there is something with the last 2 dlc's that i can tell that is not programmed correctly, or i should say, how things used to be made. i have been taking full advantage of it since. it's not a "glitch" or an "exploit", but my guess is that it is something that comes simply from someone not being experienced in how to make/design it.

not going to mention what it is, sorry to leave everyone hanging, simply cuz i dont want it to change going forward, but i have been enjoying it since i have come back.

but yes, i def agree with the phrase "lack of experience", at least from my pov since returning.

Yeah it was funny. Last night when I signed in there were like 10 'full' phases with the new bounty spam. By a few hours later, after I'd gotten all my toons their weekly mission done, it was like 1 full phase. I'm sure there will be another 2 or 3 full ones each week on reset day, but it weens off real fast once everyone has spammed their counts. Go ask Sub Avatar how busy he is once reset day is over.

Recently, the Sims 4 team conducted a survey regarding what we consider before buying expansion packs [the most expensive DLC tier] and what are our standards when deciding if a pack is worth buying. I really think DCUO is missing that type of survey:

1) How many characters have you played with (in the last 6 months)?
2) How many hours/day do you play?
3) Would you like to spend more time playing DCUO?
4) In your opinion, what makes an episode interesting?
5) In your opinion, what makes an open world interesting?
6) In your opinion, what makes a solo interesting?
7) In your opinion, what makes a duo interesting?
8) In your opinion, what makes an alert interesting?
9) In your opinion, what makes a raid interesting?
10) In yout opinion, what makes an event interesting?

Blindly experimenting is what's killing this game. Dakota City feels like they wanted to bring back open world portals, because you can find entrances to both Abandoned Subway and Meta-Therapy Clinic. Subjukator raid feels like it's missing a first subboss on the point where we fight General Kraze. Not to mention that the regular difficulty in the current episode should be named easy and elite should be named normal - the name elite should've mean something.

The other games value the opinions and feedback of their gaming community. This one doesn't. We post about what we want on these forums but it falls on deaf ears. They give us what they want to not what we're asking for. That's the reason why there's such a startling decline in play population. People are finally seeing the game for what it truly is.

It seems to be something they brought over from Star Trek Online.

For those who do not know..... a bunch of the new Devs come straight from STO.

From what I understand.... STO does have sales after sales.... and now so does DCUO.

Glad your friends enjoy ToL....

Tried it..... hate the way the loadout works on PS5.
Am trying to change the controls.... but really don't like it so far.

And I hate the freekin Rag Doll that follows you around.

Although the world looks beautiful.

The world and the characters look beautiful....
but when I see the Rag Doll..... I have to ask myself....
Who is this made for???

No.

We all know they CANNOT do episodes monthly.

We know that because they tried before and failed miserably.

Why do you think they went back to 3 episodes per year???

The BiGgest issue with the monthly episode is that when they add new content to DCUO..... they end up breaking the game a bit.... then they need 1... 2... 3 weeks to fix what they broke.

With monthly episode... they would break the game every month.....
so they were in a constant state of having to fix the game because of that.

Also.... monthly episodes gave us only 2 missions at the time.

So yes... they did try the monthly episodes....
and proved that it just did not work.

But in case you didn't notice they've been cleaning Unreal Engine 3 code in the background. The unreal 3 code is what's stopping them from releasing episodes without so many bugs. They don't even want to take a stab at balancing power sets or releasing the long anticipated new HuD due to unreal 3 code. If you don't think they took a step back on releasing episodes or doing any major changes to the game just because is the wrong answer. If you take a look they've slowly been cleaning Unreal 3 engine code. That's why we haven't had a revamp or a relaunch yet or any major changes