Just a few things to get off my chest regarding Stat Clamp and The state of the game for new players

Coming from many different MMORPG games i just cant help but feel that dcuo is lacking in many ways. I want DCUO to succeed, thrive and fill that hole in the market (and our hearts) for a superhero MMORPG.

As im sure you have seen me or others post about the stat clamp, its become a large debate over the last week or so. Half want it gone, Half want it to stay. From arguments to "But SP should be hard to get" to "Our stats we worked for shouldnt be capped" we can all agree to disagree when it comes to stat clamping.

My stand point on the whole stat clamp fiasco is this:
Allow us to have clamped and unclamped versions of On Duty missions. Unclamped content should give you no rewards except for the feats you achieve in that instance, in a way, its a punishment but also not. You dont make large amounts of progress in the game with marks or gear, instead you gain minimal amounts of SP equalling to like +15 of a stat per sp.

In the grand scheme of things, getting high SP doesnt make you the best player anymore, it hasnt for a long time. Nowadays there are so many factors into how you perform, your role, your playstyle etc that skill points is getting further and further down the list as the time goes on. The need for SP is still there. Yes, I see that, but until a point, sp becomes very minimal in the grand scheme of things depending on your role/playstyle.

To that i say, why not let people go back, 1 shot everything and get the old hard feats that are unlikely to be completed in this age when no one wants to run old feats. A 400sp player can easily outperform a 700+ Sp player if they have the same artifacts, powers and such. The Elitist kind on DCUO is nothing more than people who want others to suffer just so they themselves can look better with a bigger score on their Skill points.

End game content is always looking for more players, there has been times where i have been in groups looking for a dps for elite content with "550+ SP ONLY" yet im here hiding the fact i have level 80 artifacts, 300 sp as a healer and we still complete the content with ease.

On a different note:

The game is taking a dark turn. I have introduced a few friends to DCUO over the last few months and all have quit after 2-3 months of playing. Now this is normal for people to try a game then quit, however... When they all quit for the same reason without even discussing the game with other people then it becomes clear there is an issue. The issue is "All content is the same" to which i have to agree, all content is the same.

Every dlc is - Open world, do main quest in order, get OP item. > Week 2: Do your open world weeklies, raids then do your dailies.

Raids, alerts. most of them on normal mode are the same old "Hit it until its dead" type content. Throne of atlantis raid was a good final boss IMO. Sure it was long, but having the boss be weak but buffing himself over the course of the fight and we have to counter it towards the end with mechanics is a good way to build a raid boss. It combines thinking with smashing which to me is a good thing.

Alerts such as Fatal Exams were great. It had mechanics to go through, if you didnt get them, not only did you waste your time in the encounter, but you also got punished, you didnt earn feats, or the boss was harder to kill, or you had to wipe.

Perhaps be innovative with how you can design alerts. You could have a sneaking alert where you are breaking from capture, if you run into an add and they detect you, you have X seconds to kill the add otherwise the alert becomes harder and you have to fight your way out instead of sneak. Feats could be "Complete without killing a single guard" or "Kill all guards in the instance" etc.


Content and bugs

Devs keep pumping out content month in month out to which i love. But with each update, a new issue arises that had nothing to do with the patch just released. Feats get broken, Menus get broken, Things dont work as intended and so forth.

As a player, i feel like we have an abundance of content in the game to suffice anyone for a few months in the game if no content was to be released. Players could work on Skill points, Artifacts, Allies, learning mechanics or even just chilling and getting money/collections done. Which is why i want to put a suggestion out there in hopes it is seen and thought of in some form of another. Not everyone will agree with this which is fine, i dont expect everyone too.

My suggestion is this:
Put the development of new DLC content on hold after EP:45. Instead of preparing for EP:46. Take a 6month break from creating major content releases and instead work on the core game itself. Fixing issues, coming up with ways to change the things that needs/has been teased on changing such as the UI, Base system changes and general QoL changes.

In that 6 month span, because there is no new content, put out seasonal events for those who havent done them to catch up. One per month, set a month for spring, summer, homecoming, StU, Halloween and maybe re release an old SM to tie people over until new episode work begins again.
Throw in events such as 2x source marks etc.

Have a team working on time capsules and such as revenue is needed if no content is being made, you could have all the time capsules cycle through being dropped in open world for newer players to open up older capsules they missed.

From your favourite wall of text writer! (I hope )

… yay another thread about the clamp. Which essentially says the same thing. They won’t make it optional because it will defeat the purpose of why they added the clamp to start with…

The devs should make whole new sub forum titled "The Clamp." Then anyone having questions, complaints, etc in regards to the clamp, can post in there, and we can ignore it completely.

I wasn't, and still to an extent am not, a big fan of the clamp: however I understand the reasoning for it, and am content. Easy fix for people, don't like the clamp - don't play older content.
Want the feats, work for em like we did when the episode first released.

Re: The game feeling samey. I would argue that every MMO falls into this. Or, any GAME for that matter. I mean, how has CoD really changed all of that much over the years. Point gun, shoot people. Although, PVP games at least have the ability to challenge you because other players won't always react predictably. Ultimately I think for this specific game, it is a tough ask, although I understand it. You mentioned Final Exams. This is a mission I avoid. Because DCUO does not do a good job of teaching you new mechanics. So even if I know how to do them (which for some missions I still don't) other players don't. This either causes wipes or frustrates players and they leave.

One of the biggest issues for me with changing the gameplay is that the engine doesn't seem to be good at it. Activating things is to easily interrupted. And movement in combat is slow so anything that requires movement is dull and you keep getting knocked around and interrupted. The game is bad at explaining what to do or in what order. And even if you did add things, it would still ultimately be "Go activate things".

I am reminded of the Hive Duo. It has that one door with a puzzle lock on it where you have to activate them in the right order. There is no clues as to what the order might be. I watched a newbie struggle with it for 5 minutes one night. If I tried to do it, they would jump in and throw off the order.

One way I overcome this in many MMOs is alts. I change my gameplay loop, rather than expecting the game to do it. This is a big reason Elden Ring has people playing it still. There are so many builds you can try. In a game like Guild Wars 2, not only can I pick new classes, but I can equip my character with different weapon combos for different effects. In FFXIV I can switch jobs easily and try a totally different class. However, in DCUO this isn't quite so easy. A big part of the game is Artifacts, Allies, Augments, Etc. Respeccing your powers costs money. Making a new character with a new power means starting over again. The grind for getting totally new artifacts up to use is long.

Add to that that your roles are dictated by powerset. So if you are bored of Quantum and want to try tanking, you are staring largely from scratch. I have wondered for a while why the powersets didn't just have all 4 roles. Most of them have the same or similar powers anyway. Adding a few heals, shields, and Troller/Tank abilities wouldn't be that big a deal IMO. Then people would have more options for playing and more ability to try other things.

Most of all...this team does not have the manpower to build on whole new parts of the game. Most of the games I know of that DO add new kinds of gameplay either started with the ability from the beginning or have way bigger budgets. Ultimately this is a very old MMO, that wasn't great when it launched. I was there in beta and many of these issues were brought up back then. It being a PS3 game really hampered it and I think they struggled with trying to make an action-y game that also had its roots in some old school MMO design choices (High level bosses wandering through low level zones and killing newbies, anyone?)

I DO think they are trying. It is just slow. They are adding more Allies and Artifacts to change the meta so you can play differently. But I just don't think they will be able to add much, gameplay-wise. I hope I am wrong. Then again, like I said, most games of this nature don't. And sometimes when they do it isn't good. Some of the expansions in FFXIV tried to add stealth and the like...I HATED it. Because I wasn't playing this game to do stealth. I was playing it to kill monsters. Failing a stealth mission and having to start over in a non-stealth game frustrated me to no end. If I had wanted that experience I would have played a stealth game (which would be better at it). So it may also just be that DCUO isn't meant to be a heavy gameplay game. For me it is more Zen...when I learn my rotations and do them.

You want this game to succeed? It's been succeeding for the past 12 years ...

Nonono...I'm sure THIS is the one that does it and starts the free candy and pony rides!

If it were as you say, the game would not pass from hand to hand and there would not be such a wave of layoffs and departures in such a short time. DCUO, is a game in "survival" mode and to hear devs say "no, we can't do that because of this or that" says a lot about the future of the game...

So it's been in "survival" for 12 years? Regardless of layoffs and what not and people saying this game is dying it's still going strong.

I think you’re forgetting that EG7 acquired the company in Dec 2020. Leadership changes naturally occur in the following few years.

Columbus Nova was always just looking for an investment opportunity, we all know they weren’t going to hold Daybreak forever…

For better or worse, we have found a home with EG7 and Daybreak fits into their portfolio and is seen as a major contributor to their revenue, it is an asset.

Of course this doesn’t discount the fact that traditional changes like this do tend to cause damage in the short term, but they do tend to settle out. I’m hopeful for the future, but optimism is a choice I make.

I am getting major “Debbie Downer” vibes from your post…

It's still going, to be sure. How is it strong?

Yeah, and since Daybreak Game's boss has taken over EG7 and EG7's boss is out of the group, it's going to make a big difference to have EG7...

and no, I haven't forgotten that at all

The game has been on life support or dead ever since it launched according to some people. Doesn’t make it true. Games (companies in general) make changes for their long term success that make clients unhappy. Client short term satisfaction does not equal to companies overall and long term success.

These claims that the sky is falling or that they HAVE to adjust (or add an optional) are not an indication of the games current state. The games long term success is more important than a select few feeling upset.

Troy McClure

As long as the game is turning a profit, the servers will stay up. That could change next year, or we could look forward to celebrating a 25th anniversary event, nobody, not even the devs know when that will be.

Don't count on it. I played a similar game that was shut down when profitable as it was seen insufficiently so. The goal of business isn't to simply profit. It is to maximize profit. If it is determined resources can be put to better used elsewhere, taking in account the cost of transferring them, they may very well be reassigned.

I hope those that enjoy this game won't have to face such any time soon. It wasn't fun.

I'm sorry to say that DCUO devs no longer see this game as an MMORPG experience to offer, but simply as an easy business, artifacts, allies and lootboxes are all that is at the heart of development on this game.

The DLC is still running on the same formula, nothing is innovative, even for the existing powers, they are not even able to innovate that either, we are still running on the same builds with 50 youtube videos to show the same thing...

Even Warner seems to be dropping this game, because not much is done in relation to the movies or series (and even asking for an emblem is complicated, not for Fortnite though...), a product with potential has been abandoned and it's really sad to see how such a game can end up like that...

We're being promised things, but we have to wait x years for it to happen, meanwhile other games as old as DCUO are making incredible progress such as FF XIV or Guild Wars 2, so don't get your hopes up too much with DCUO it's a licensed game and not an MMORPG...


I was talking to some people in the league about the recent announcements and many of them saw the recent announcements as ******** and others even further, a closure of the game very close and no, I didn't even help them to be negative x

DCUO doesnt have the budget, nor resources, nor the freedom to flex the license to its full potential.

Also the lack of powers, they didnt quite say. But they kinda blame no new powers on us for not buying new powers, why put resources into something that gives little yield? Look at PvP..

I think this game is very, very profitable for them. It’s an old game with a very predictable copy&paste content structure. Whenever a new Booster Bundle or Time Capsule drops, let alone for little things like replay sales, art xp packs, allies etc, people spend amounts of money you don’t even want to know. Believe me, hundreds of people are dropping thousands on this game every month.

1) Stat Clamp is staying. There isn't a compromise or a "meet in the middle" about it because that completely, unceremoniously defeats the purpose of its existence in the first place. It makes sense in every possible way, gameplay-wise & Lore-wise. There is no 50/50 like/dislike split between the player base, there's the folks who see the benefits and the ones who, at this point, intentionally refuse to.

2) Taking 6 months off to focus on bugs sounds great on paper. It's not how Game Development works. When it comes to Episode Launch bugs, do you honestly think the Devs are sitting back chuckling because now the Emotes are messes up or because the game disconnects more or a Raid becomes unplayable? When it comes to Games and bugs there's one word, and only one word you need to keep in mind: RANDOM. If a tree was Glitching in a game, you could go in, find what's wrong, fix it, and now the texture of the Roads have disappeared. Every bug is not just "oh it was supposed to be 99 2F 32 not 99 2F 33, whoopsie". I can almost guarantee that every single bug fixed in this game has led to another. People ask why folks still disconnect phasing into the Thanagar Raid, its probably because fixing that created something so much worse, and until they can fix the second thing, it's "the better of 2 evils" to leave the first.

Point is, if they took your 6 months, the game would lose players despite some bug fixes, but there's absolutely no guarantee that the next Episode won't bring in Bugs. For some unexplained reason, the Test Server works different to the Live Server, so sometimes there's bugs that nobody could have ever caught, because they weren't on Test. Other times there's 200,000 people who could run into "Bug X" on Live as opposed to 50 people on Test. It's literally a numbers game. 1 out of 200k people finding something that 1 out of 50 people didn't find isn't strange. There have been, are, and will be bugs. Most AAA games launch with a "Day 1 Patch" these days, did you never consider why? They have bugs too. Its just how it works. The thing that isn't brought up a lot is how fast the Devs usually hotfix these bugs. We used to spend 2 weeks with a Episode ruining bug, now its rare if it's not fixed in 2 days.

Couldn't agree more - Username Checks Out