As we wrap-up 2024, let's take a peek at 2025!Greetings fellow Heroes and Villains! I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself. My name is Andre Emerson, Executive Producer of DC Universe Online, and I have been developing games for the past 30 years. You've not heard from me until now, but only because I've been immersed in DCUO for the past several months, logging countless hours across multiple characters. I'm sure some of us have grouped together! As gamers, it’s been critically important for me and our other new(er) team members to experience the depth and breadth of the game as players before developers. Before we jump into what’s to come for DCUO, I’d like to take a moment to recap on the year’s events and some of the newer additions that have made it into the game. Outside of the annual events you may be accustomed to, we’ve had a blast exploring and introducing new elements to the game, starting with Year of the Dragon, all-new art direction in Harley Quinn vs. Apokolips, the availability of DCUO on next-gen consoles, and Outsiders Ops. Let’s not forget some of the many quality of life improvements that have made a big impact on our daily gaming experience – starting with a new Message of the Day feature, revamped login message banner, and yep, after years of only being able to flip forward through vendor lists, we finally got that ‘back’ button in! 2024 has been a year of exploration and the gratitude we have for this community’s support goes off the charts. AND NOW FOR WHAT’S TO COME… There are plenty of exciting updates to look forward to because we've been hard at work planning many changes and improvements to DCUO. For example, we're overhauling the Renown System to be far more inclusive. Beginning with our next big story arc, all players will earn ‘Renown’ when defeating bosses in new instanced content. The difficulty setting will determine the rate at which you earn. This will allow aspiring players to gain access to Elite Gear as well as engagement in the Affinity Mods System. Further, we’re thrilled to announce that our battled-tested players who defeat new Elite Bosses will now earn exclusive R&D Recipes which will allow the crafting of Elite Weapons, Neck, Ring and Utility Belt items. Creating these items will also have new Feats attached. We're also excited to be launching a brand-new Event System to centralize your gameplay experience. This will improve Event communication and accessibility. You’ll be able to select content, view progress and examine rewards. This Event System will also serve as a launch pad for a major new addition called ‘Campaign 2025’! This new annual Campaign will offer players the chance to complete multiple events throughout the year to earn mega prizes that we know you’ll love. Stay tuned for more details. But we’re just getting started! Other features that we're exploring include Account-wide Cash sharing, Heroes and Villains coming together in Cross-Faction Leagues, Private queues removing restrictions on group sizes, improvements to the Knockout/Revive gameplay and much, much more. Also worth noting that we see deeper gameplay potential in DCUO’s summonable entities (Allies, Pets, Sidekicks, Henchmen, etc.) and we’ll be looking into their utility, progression and overall UX. FUTURE STORY ARCS Every new adventure starts with a Chapter 1. The era of Episodes has come to an end, but that doesn’t mean we’re erasing their existence. You’ll continue to find both Episodes and future Chapter releases co-existing in-game as ‘Story Arcs’. You may be asking why future storyline expansions won’t be called Episodes anymore, and that’s because we have big plans to release multi-part narratives, highly focused on delivering compelling and compassionate storytelling. These types of stories aren’t meant to be episodic and so the idea of Chapters making up each new Story Arc conceptualized. We're putting our foot forward to bolster our roots as to why we're fans of comic books. Without going too much into detail, DCUO’s next Story Arc will be the darkest yet in a 4-PART mystery adventure starting with Chapter 1 in late January. Take a look at a couple of these sneak peeks from the art team: To support the weight of this new level of storytelling, we’re also excited to introduce a brand-new section on our website called ‘Story Blogs’. Story Blogs will be an extension to the stories untold in DCUO, whether it be a deep dive in lore, side stories, prequels or teasers, it’ll have it all. Keep an eye out for the first one as we get closer to the holidays! We’d like to thank you all again for an incredible year! While the team has lots of new faces, we’ve also experienced countless learnings. 2025 is going to be a thrill-ride for DCUO and we’re grateful that you’re along for the rush. Andre Emerson Executive Producer
Images weren't loading on original post, so here is the fix. Also, ummm.... *something* *something* I don't like crafting in this game, this is not Skyrim/Stardew Valley, I wish the concept of Elite Accessory gear was kept in the bin. And yay, finally a snowy map for me to use ice/snow OSTs.
These sounds good and I wanted bigger expansions and more storytelling, as this is the DC Universe, for SO LONG. Looking forward to everything!
It all sounds good but i got some concerns 1. Are there are any plans for balance changes to improve gameplay and content experience? 2. Will the content see changes/ new approach with arc? I think your team needs to work heavily on the raid content itself,the quality,the design and engagment factor is lacking severly (with the higher difficulty stages) of raid content,it doesnt offer the required amount that would be needed to promote longevity for a piece of content to be fun and not get bored a few days in after spamming it countless times because its just that underwhelming. It feels like theres barely any effort put into todays raids compared to previous ones many years ago despite the increasing developer experience and feedback by the community thats given, it continues to get worse. Also since renown will be aviable for every player upon completing any difficulty,wouldnt it make sense to actually design the elite content now for actual challenge? And Possibly removing elite plus.
Idc what is to come as I won’t be playing this game anymore soon. What I wanna know is your experiences playing with the dcuo player base. That will be worth the read.
I definitely tempered my expectations with this announcement . Overall I am cautiously optimistic all that's been mentioned with some concerns however in the upcoming changes . I think the end of episodes and returning to story arcs is a welcomed change , but I like to see more details . Cross Faction Leagues I am very curious as to what that will entail. I won't speak much to the elite raid stuff due to lack of experience with it myself , but the crafting recipes for elite content is interesting , but at the same time I think it's worth relooking at revamping the entire R&D crafting system as a whole rather than a small segment of the whole thing if you're going to go with this approach. As for the event system itself . My main concern is if it becomes too grindy and also am worried that could events possibly replace other types of content that require dev time and to save on resources and revenue . I am somewhat reluctant to trust in the higher ups because their primary motivations seem to add more pay to win measures. It's also fair to say that I know of at least one other online game that went with a similar event system but worded Seasons that lasted for a year ta least and there was a lot of backlash from the community I also think there needs to be a major focus on fixing and optimizing the PS5 Client with all the lag . I can't speak to the new Xbox Series X client .
Like most PR speak i'll wait until it's actually implemented to see if any of this stuff is a good thing or not, but the R&D plans and event stuff to me just sound more like the usual busy work instead of (entertaining) new content once again. The account wide cash sharing sounds like a nice quality of life update if it indeed comes to fruition, though with how certain things have been monetized this year, i'm wary of monetization.
Sigh.. Just like other things to come in 2025.. DC will be one of those things to come.. My personal experience & take on the Renown Changes; based on my experience and feedback from other friends I've talked to over the years. You're killing the replay value. The softer approach to elite & making elite+ the challenging option was tolerable. I'm sorry but Renown and Elite Gear should NOT be made for everyone. By making it obtainable across the board for everyone including in normal instance. You're giving participation trophies to people who haven't earned or deserve to wear Elite gear; Players who have no idea what they're doing other than being in a instance, who rock rainbow augments, or even understand the basic artifacts for their role and Dps or how their power works, and at times literally punch air.(If you've played for months I'm sure you would of witnessed this)It's insulting; might as well get rid of regular gear at this point (Not sorry if that sounds elitist. But it's a reality). There's been a clear purpose and reason that knowledgeable and skilled players have ran elite instances & obtained elite gear; and others haven't. It once took knowledge effort, time, and skill. IF you want to grow replay value and increase player populations and game growth; Make effort and time more rewarding by instead; Increasing the Tier for renown in future content and have the elite weapons & accessories higher in tier; perhaps from 6.5 to 10. That gives us a reason to play the game longer. If you want to make a quality of life change when it comes to renown & elite gear that could generate revenue; maybe explore allowing us unlock renown for our alts with replay badges.
I think you went a bit overboard... relax, you still get your little "Elite" only benefits for playing in the "Elite" playground with the big kids. You can still show off all your extra special "Elite" gear in front of all the filthy casuals in their basic "Elite" gear with rainbow augs.
“Little” is an understatement for eleet benefits. All that hard work and all the affinity mods have to offer is 2% buff and Type C and D trash. Real skill was back in the day without this segregated content and needed to be leveled up and have skill just to beat the raid or whatever. These days you can walk into event, earn same amount of coins, and gear up without earning it. (Might as well as give us a full set of gear, ya know).
The "little" in this case was the few extra gear and crafting items mentioned in the letter above. There are still Elite-only benefits. I just don't see how making the gear more accessible is a bad thing. Some people have to clench at the only thing giving them a leg up on everyone else, I guess. Or it's the entitlement kicking in. They've earned it, so no one else has the right to it unless they put in the same exact amount of effort. Either way, I don't care. This game is headed downhill fast, the new monetization is going to kill it quick. All these extra things mentioned the in the letter are nice and all, but I'm sure we'll have to pay for it to have access to it. This game is a joke anymore.
Completely missing the point of getting renown from running normal content defeats the purpose of elite raids to obtain "elite gear" just as obtaining it is now going to take less time. Currently a month or 2 into content; gathering groups become dry in how long it can take to find people at least on Xbox. Elite gear is a reward of accomplishment in doing something challenging rather than normal. You have your opinion on how to see it and my friends and I have ours. Getting a participation trophy of elite gear when said player is in a group unable to run their Role or Dps and getting carried isn't encouraging them to learn the game or seek to get better.
Sounds promising, but I won’t get my hopes up. Considering how much of the population has dropped, this may simply be a case of “too little, too late.”
Tbh, the campaign thing doesn't thrill me. The renown thing is nice although I don't care much for elite these days and tbh I can totally ignore it. For the whole new chapter saga, as long as we get nice looking worlds, 4 or 5 daily missions. A solo, duo, alert and raid, I'm fine with. And as for doing weekly missions if U do something similar like the convoy mission, don't cave in to ppl wanting to do it once when they could just do dailies between each run cause now the convoy is a boss than a convoy
You're trolling right? I don't care about affinity mods.. Literally; Your arts and allies remove the need for any of those. Respectfully do you even play the game still? Because where do you get the same amount of coins in event that you do in elite? I literally pointed out them dumbing down elite content.. With the newer easier version of Elite vs Elite+ as being "tolerable"; Nothing I support. I prefer the earlier days of challenging normal and elite content.. Literally this current episode you have people soloing the entire raid or running without roles and you want to make the argument "AGAINST" me saying they shouldn't be making renown or elite gear easier to obtain. When you're praising back in the day. Hypocrisy much?
I occasionally creep on here, helplessly waiting for the cross-progression announcement. You all can't hold out forever. I will, one day, link these accounts and have access to my things from console. Until then, I will creep... Back to hibernation.
