New DLC is great for dividing the community...

Just so you're not limited to your imagination.

The purpose of difficulty is not to divide players. It's to unite them.

Which is to say that 4 average-to-good DPS aren't intended to be able to complete an Alert with that setup anymore.

And 6-1-1 in Raids is often not enough, or 5-1-1-1 either.

Difficulty is subjective, I know - but altering your expectations, and adapting to that alteration, reaps huge benefits.

SWE isn't really overtuned imo, there are a few RNG moments still but I wouldn't consider it overtuned. There were several fixes in the dev thread I requested to help with some of the issues early on like Skull adds not having a tell for their charge, or OWL/Merciless pulling group into an unavoidable one shot mechanic. The duo, its a duo - I have no issues running normal but the elite duo may need further adjustments on Brimstone.

I don't know if the first boss was intended to be the hardest in the raid, it more depends on what adds spawn, and blocking Proma when she shakes her fist (even if up to 4 times in succession). In both the case of this and the first boss in SDE both require lunges on specific targets at specific times to prevent a deadly mechanic, which in part depends on internet connection/lag or players not being in animation at a given moment. This requires some group co-ordination and knowing how to target lock.

The definition of what makes something difficult or overtuned is hard to pinpoint because of how large the skill gap is and how much of a difference it makes having certain artifacts, artifact swapping, allies/ally passives, and certain power sets. Eg. A good gadgets precision player on PC with max artifacts/allies vs. a Water might player with modest artifact ranks. A max artifact Mercy earth tank or Atomic tank vs. a modest artifact rank Fire tank. A electric healer that uses 200 rank Eye of Gemini/Purple Healing Ray vs. one who isn't.

I also feel releasing content under-tuned may just generate similar discussion. There isn't an easy solution to the difficulty of content releases because of the artifact/ally situation and I don't think there will be a time ever again where one side or the other will be happy with it. In either case, the community needs to do better to stop the 'us vs them' mentality/narrative and suggest ways in which they feel the game can be improved without trying to outright alienate another group. Doing so isn't constructive to anyone in the community.

(BTW saying I want challenge and interesting mechanics like for example, x, isn't alienating anyone - its a suggestion)

As we know one players impression of difficulty is always going to be subjective, but what I'm looking for is consistency within difficulty categories and it doesn't feel like its there. I'm not asking for content to be under-tuned either, but, the difficulty levels continue to yo-yo between DLC's for clearly no reason other than "reasons".

In terms of overall difficulty, Source Wall and Sixth Dimension aren't even comparative for example yet they're supposed to both be "base level elite", or "normal", but they certainly don't feel it and I honestly think its the by product of them removing the mid tier difficulty levels only to try and then compensate for it at the base level.

Also even the normal content of this DLC is too difficult, comparatively speaking, because you've got PUG groups wiping on Perpetua continually, when simply one player refuses to block, or players wiping on the knights when they refuse to gather on the player with the green icon - this is in stark contrast to the normal Sixth Dimension raid where the mechanics weren't this punishing in a normal run. Earlier on this sort of thing was even occurring in the event instances.

And dare I say it, but, I think this occurs because the feedback groups only care about one thing, "elite content", they simply don't test nor do they care about anything else, you only have to have a cursory browse through testing feedback threads to see the disportionate level of feedback relating almost exclusively to "elite raid difficulty" and where that players subjectively believes it should rest. Unfortunately too, it would seem, the developers appear heavily reliant on this player testing throughout the feedback and subsequent quality process.

What you've also said about power imbalances, artifacts and allies is also part of the problem, not only does it somewhat speak volumes about how pay2win the game has become and how these items flow through to particularly elite content, (edit; for the record too I don't think the content is "impossible" without these items, the content isn't at the point, yet of requiring this stuff, but it's heading that way and without these items it's disproportionately more difficult) but possibly how objectively imbalanced aspects of it are and remain, while players with a bias motivation to keep it that way remain defiant against any meaningful discussion that might result in their power or artifact being nerfed.

It's funny too you mention gadgets, everyone mentions gadgets, every time, yet here we are how many DLC's later? How many months later? How many years later? Yet, nothing but tumbleweeds with respect to fixing or balancing it - most gadgets players deny there's even issues (sorry gadgets players, no offense...)

This is part of the problem with the feedback loop I was talking about and I'm not talking about you LQ, because I know you're less bias than many others, but there are others that don't even bother testing anything other than their go to powers and artifacts and it unfortunately distorts the potential reality of how the content will be received by the games wider audience when this content hits live and the testing process has all but ignored the vast discrepancies that exist within this game's live player base and given virtually zero consideration to anything other than how the content feels to FOTM powers and min/max builds.

On a slightly more "light note" though, what do you think about pineapple on pizza?

Judging by the reviews in this thread, I'm in the minority, I personally consider this a "perversion" ... (I hope no one will be offended ...) ...

As for testers...since this activity is voluntary and unpaid, alas, people will only test what they are interested in....

Yeah I mentioned something along those lines but that still needs players to partake and we know most won’t unless it benefits them so they’d want rewards then new players would be mad they don’t get special rewards for being grouped with mentors.

Few responses but not going to quote everyone. Good points all around about bosses stepping up in difficulty vs decreasing. Not sure that it was intended but I can understand the issue with it. The level of difficulty has increased in everything. I just can’t consider that bad. Yeah, it’s tough on newer players. But we’ve all been there no? Either cuz new or coming back from break. Took awhile to gear up and learn whatever we needed to learn. If everything is too easy then we lose players. If everything is too hard then we lose players. But if it’s too hard then maybe some players stay and vice versa. I can only assume that the devs crunch numbers and try to make the majority happy.

I’m not feeling like there’s less people playing. My ques are popping fast. I have more friends online since the last dlc dropped than prior to it. They’re liking the challenge of the new content. 2 raids probably solves a lot of issues and I get what Proxy is saying about things feeling different dlc to dlc. The last 2 seem fairly similar to me but may just be because they share so many similarities in looks and bosses? I’m thinking that this is the direction the game is headed tho. Just back to its roots of being somewhat difficult. I say somewhat because once you know how to beat whatever, it really does become pretty easy minus random rng type stuff or glitch deaths. It’s also going to get a lot easier tomorrow with an added death.

For the testing comments, all I can say is they (we) do what we can. It’s not a huge window on test and it’s just as clique-y as regular server. I’ve started to try to help. And so far have only ever done 1 duo, 1 alert, and 1 raid. I didn’t do any elite testing and I didn’t build an op toon but yes it was a fairly comparable build to my main. Have to feel comfortable while looking for random stuff. Testers aren’t generally noobs. We all know the game very well so we’re looking for issues. We didn’t find anything hard about the normal raid because we’re all aware of what to do. The perpetua beam got us once. Ok, block that. Got us again. Ok hold block. Done. We learned. Was someone in there gadgets? Probably. Was there a green circle? Yes, 1 from each healer. That alone is a difference you won’t get in most pug groups. 1st time in, we went 2/2/4/1. Made it a cake walk. Players can choose to do that also. It is hard to pug. Shouldn’t it be? If it wasn’t then how simple and easy would it be to an lfg or league group? If normal is too easy, players go to elite but chances are that they aren’t ready and then they start asking to nerf elite and the cycle continues.

Elite plus is coming. It’s going to probably be impossible for almost everyone except the top leagues. My crew will try. We aren’t expecting much but we are tenacious so maybe. But we enjoyed elite. It was spot on in terms of difficulty for us. We all did it a few dozen times and did different roles then passed knowledge to other friends so they could try. We’ve finished it with all alts. Tanks at 368, no EoG spams, no op or elite gear. Just knowledge and teamwork. We won’t be able to run those toons in plus. Mains only. So that means if regular elite gets soft then we’re going to find it lame. I don’t consider it gate keeping to have a difficult raid but I do agree that the difficulty can step up vs down when it comes to order of bosses. Let some heat the 1st set and maybe the 2nd then bring the pain.

To be honest, the only gate keeping I see is the fact that they added feat points to those feats, in which only the best of the best can get (approx. 30 total players on Xbox, if even). I was quite okay with Survival Mode having feats but with no points (along with fancy clout items), as the elitists still were able to brag, judge, and shove in everyone's noses that they beat it. They never complained that there were no points attached. I feel that these new raid crit/elite+ modes (if created merely for just the extra challenge players want as stated), shouldn't have points attached, just clout titles and maybe items as well.

Those points I fear will bring a ton more toxicity because players will deny allowing others to get them on purpose, also possibly leading to excessive measures such as speed hacker (not on Xbox, thankfully) usage etc.

You mean the burn feats? We haven’t really tried yet but will probably just wait till it’s old. Critical needs reasons to run or players will just ignore it or do it once and that’s a waste of dev time. Now that we have the regular elite so down, I know a few of us are looking forward to it to keep everyone interested. How many times will we try tho if there isn’t some incentive? Definitely deserves its own title and maybe ultra exclusive items but then players get mad at that. Same as they get mad that there’s feats they can’t get. It’s just how it is, everyone wants everything.

There's a lot of critical/elite+ feats with points attached. The reason is the challenge, in which elitists have been begging and begging for. That's the incentive. Feat points/SP is attached to player progression, so that's a bit different than clout title feats/items (remember feats are also what give the titles). I'm just saying it would have been fine if it was like Survival Mode where the feats have titles but no points. People still run SM religiously on Xbox especially for clout. Perhaps clout is the incentive because they also judge people for not beating Critical elites as well. /Shrug.

See, that there is part of a problem. They do spend resources on something that will:
A) Be ran by a few choice players.
B) Will only be ran long enough to get the feats and abandoned shortly after.

It would be a lie if a player says they want to do Critical just for the fun of it, heck there are people don't step back into elite after getting the renown and feats done. Just like the spirit of the OP's post, it's about the players time. They spend time vetting a group to achieve completion without problems. They wont put the effort into it if they are done short of maybe helping a friend or leaguemate. Players always take the shortest route, intended or unintended.

True story I’d think. Hard to say. Personal experience has been that my usual crew beat moderate once, tried and failed the next stage and then never set foot into them again. I wasn’t on that day so I’ve never actually done any of the extra levels. Maybe 2nd level for the brainiac one? Can’t remember. But I’ve been an advocate for event/ reg/ harder reg/ elite for awhile now. Event stays as is. Regular stays as is. Harder reg has 3 or 4 downs and near one shot mechanics but has all the same mechanics as elite. Teach. Then elite stays mostly as is but can have the difficulty a bit higher than usual. I think the 1st fight is in a good place, 2nd can be rough depending on who spawns, but then 3rd and 4th could have been tougher. Just one players opinion. I know a few will disagree and want that harder elite stage which is fine but only if it’s easy to implement on the devs side. More health/ more adds/ maybe an extra mechanic or 2 shouldn’t add to much to their plate I’d think.

Well, I think we're not playing the same game because on DCUO it's the opposite and even more so since the last 2 DLCs, but especially the last one


As for the difficulty of the bosses, I too don't understand it when most of the time, the most difficult boss is often the first or second one in DCUO, whereas logically, it should be the last one that should be the most dangerous.

It will probably seem like 2 different games to 2 different players. Some can’t find the right set of friends yet. Others have tons of friends. That alone makes for a vastly different experience in game. One player may be full of knowledge while the other is new and not aware of what’s going on. There is a giant knowledge gap in this game and it’s up to the players to learn however they can. If they truly want to be good, they should be learning the ins and outs of every role.

A good chunk of the reason that there appears to be a tank shortage for instance is because no good tanks want to run with randoms anymore because the blame just always falls on them. I’m not a great tank but I get it done in elites. While I was learning, I needed help from the troll with a lunge. Buddy is trolling, done deal he had my back. I went into an lfg group and asked if someone could get 1 lunge for 1 3min fight. I got blasted and called all sorts of names. And they sure weren’t helping (or even healing) my tank buddy that was doing the 3 bosses. After some arguing, we left. Both tanks gone because he knew how little I was asking and all he asked was that a healer move closer to him and even he got a rude response. We watched and laughed while they shouted for tanks and we built another group and were halfway thru the 3rd boss before we stopped seeing their shouts. Playing with friends makes a much more enjoyable experience.

As far as the difficulty issue, it’s not like all the fights are easy, they’re just easier. Once the team learns the mechanics, all the fights get pretty easy. There’s just a lot going on right off the jump. Once proma is out, it’s a cake walk. It really shouldn’t even be considered hard except to the tank and healer dealing with the 3 bosses.

I don't even bother with elite content, seriously -- and like I don't miss it at all. It's a vice grind on the cranium or worse (the lower bits). People that like that sort of thing, hats off and more power to you. Discuss amongst yourselves, I'm enjoying facerolling stuff with no love lost.

Oh man... Did they really make it so that Supply Drop (with feat points) can only be obtained in Elite+?

R I.P.

People will be less picky about who they run with more towards the end of the DLC once everybody's max CR and running through elite pretty easily since they will have ran it 100 times by then. Right now even the top leagues and "sweat" runs are running in to some bumps from time to time so they're a bit weary of grouping up with "unknowns"

They hit hard in plus. That is all for now. Only have 30secs worth of review but seeing double skull crushers as I die was intimidating lol. This gonna be fun

I always see the argument thrown around that since you didnt pay for my character you have no right in choosing how i play. Same goes for group making. If i see someone i know doesnt measure up to the skill that i want im not inviting them into my group. Call me an elitest all you want but i refuse to bash my head against the wall over and over again for people who want a full carry. If you make the group and i join it i hvae no reason to complain because im a guest. So in conclusion, make your own lfg group if you cant get in