Seasonal is either...

I've only run it two or three times across all my toons. Total!!
The instance is ok I guess but the open world part is terrible. Like I have to FORCE myself to run it. It's easily and by far my least favorite Seasonal we have. Not sure why, it just grates on my nerves.
Anyway, the few times I've run it have been CRAZY EASY. I went in remembering (or at least imagining) difficulties from past years and was ready to go then all the sudden it was over. Each time.
So either I got in ultra super mega top ninja platinum coated groups, or its ALOT easier than it used to be.
All opinion and personal experience here, not discounting anyone else's struggles.

Option number two. It's the result of people wanting to be carried through things and not bothering to ever learn the mechanics of the instances. I have been in there with under 30 groups that did better than the over 30 groups. Pugging it is pure heck on either side but if you have a team of people who know what to do or actually listen to what needs to be done it is easily beatable.

Keep in mind this applies to all seasonal events.

What is really sad, is it takes only 1min to explain how to run it.

explaining is only half the battle. the group has to follow instructions for explanations to work.

Agreed.

Finally got around to running this with my atomic tank (T6). The others in the group were all dps, two listing at 34 and one at 28. Using atomic's long range grab AOE, I was able to hold everything in the middle, but even with that, people seemed more concerned with hurting Ocean Master than taking out the adds or hitting switches. I waited several rounds to see if people would catch on, but they didn't. One person was KO'd, but the other two survived well enough. One started to take note of the respawning healing barrels and began throwing them my way, which helped me stay powered up. Eventually all the adds were gone and it was just round after round of OM knocking people away and 1 of the 3 switches not being hit. I explained a few times what needed to happen, and that OM knocking everybody back was their queue to hit switches, and after a total of 9 mins or so it was completed.

All in all, it seemed that the issues were people not being able to multitask and react to the environment, instead latching on HARD to the game's action oriented combat and diving in to assault the boss. This allowed the sideline turrets to keep firing and for the damage windows on OM to be ignored. It was only once all of the adds were gone that people were able to focus on what wasn't happening, and only then was it possible for them to realize and observe that OM was not losing HP each round, but getting some back; keeping him perpetually alive.

I believe the best remedy for this is to enforce group play much more often in the campaign. First off, the campaign missions are still only rewarding only one player with loot (they still have the old competitive rolling system). That is a huge con for people to stay grouped and experiment with role stances earlier on. Second, the game can probably use some type of auto-matchmaking that automatically groups players who actively are on the same mission, are in the same mission area (orange zone), and would group them together up to a max of 8. As soon as an individual player leaves the orange zone, they are ungrouped. Dunno if that can actually be done in the game, but it would go a long way to get players to more actively cooperate with each other and also watch how each other plays. When you have a group of players, fairly often, you'll realize that not everything is pew pew pew. There's breathing room, time to observe and form tactics.

Though I was scaled down, and in tank mode, I wasn't finding my damage intake to be very high. I had the opportunity to generate my own power with weapon combos and stick to a single taunt every 11 seconds or so, but to play it safe I used a bit more to keep the adds on me, even at range. Otherwise, I can't see an issue with balancing, stat-wise. I'll run it again tomorrow in another role and see if there are any huge differences from tank to other roles.

How many times can I say this...the problem isn't with clamped toons. It is with the level 10 to 14 random queues. Level a toon to 12 and queue randomly by yourself. THEN tell me there was no real problem. New players CANNOT beat this.

Touche'

hey man why you gotta bring potatoes into this, what did they ever do to you?!

Exactly. I tried to give as many details as possible so anyone can see how the run went. And again all 4 of us have multiple toons at end game so we know what we are doing. Like i said if people dont know what they are doing then explain it to them. If they refuse to pay attention or listen then ignore, leave and requeue. Simple. And i think the proof is in the pudding Some are saying its too hard for low levels and i think we showed it really isnt if u simply know a little about the game and use some common sense. I was level 11 ice and all i did was break the 2nd barrel on the boss and clip cold snap and ice bash and then spammed gust. Used a soda when my health got low then hit the cog when it came up and it was over. That was it. No1 had supply or orbital either.

I gotta say its always amazes me when dealing with new players, low level or not. I really dont wanna sound rude, but for real common sense is not very common.

It's true, I can tell you from experience. I just recently upgraded my hardware and I can tell you there is a world of difference between using a computer with an A6 graphics card and an A9. It may very well be the players that can't seem to figure out you have to turn the cog because they can't see the cog. I have been using the computer with the A6 card for 5 years. If you try to drive on the freeway on a 10 speed schwin your going to have problems.


If your only aware of the reverse gear in your car, your not going to get very far. If you don't read the manual or ask someone questions your not going to go very far.

Honestly all these players that are asking for a nerf should be embarrassed.

If you random que and get 3 players that don't know what they are doing, won't listen or can't see whats happening how is that a technical problem? The truth of the matter is I random que all the time but, I don't expect feats, a run without difficulty or that the other person will even finish the instance. I give the group a chance try to communicate with them throw the instructions out there, if I don't get any response I leave and start over and usually find a group that can do it.

There are only 2,411,887 Level 30s out of the 33,607,415 characters listed in the census.
Limiting the seasonal to Level 30s would exclude 93% of the population.

Um dude last time I checked. When the seasonals originally came out as well as the 4 player and the 8 player content came out. Nobody knew what they're doing. But they learned over time didn't they? That even happens now with this monthly content. People have no clue what's going on at first but with time they get better. If someone can't do that, learning from their mistakes over time, then it's a great idea that they should quit the game. Because they'll only be hindrances to others in later content. Everyone wants things spoon fed to them, that's the problem with the DCUO community, as well as most of the world. And the developers blindly follow these idiots, not knowing the impact is going to have on everyone else in the game. Like all these updates to powers and changing things that were simple to begin with, all while completely ignoring the current issues and glitches that has become a norm in the game. Making everything easier, means more idiots who refuse to listen to simple directions. The seasonal is fine as is, whether a group of level 10's fresh off the brainiac ship, or cr 167's which 200 sp each. If you can't figure it out, you shouldn't be doing it.

Like I said in the other threads. Don't defend a broken mission unless you can prove that you've done it. Queue with a 12 randomly And beat it. Video or didn't happen. Sorry but I have to call out liars.

And once more to try and penetrate thickness. It's a seasonal. Not end game elite content. Level 10 toons are mostly New players.
The seasonal is supposed to be fun for everyone not just the masochistic big nuts no life hard core 'dcuo-is-everything' people.
Just because we struggled through it doesn't mean they have to. Oh and by the way...having played them all in the past on alts as well as leveled toons... And didn't have a problem. THIS YEAR SUMMER SEASONAL IS HARDER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN. Oh and one other thing...when summer seasonal was first introduced to the game, most of us original players were already 30, had a few sp to toss around, and we helped lower levels. We even shouted offers to do exactly that LFG... And not just seasonal...for all content that was available at the time.

you have access to your full am with ice at level 11. it is one of the few powers that has that advantage. keep that in mind with this post.

that is an interesting interpretation of existing players versus active players. we have no idea how much of the population it would really limit because there is no data about how many of the existing players are currently playing.

Seasonals are supposed to be fun, but they are also supposed to be tough and an introduction to the 'proper' 4 player Raids and Alerts, and not just for DiPS to run over everything and ignore strategy and mechanics of the event

If you can not learn how to work in a group with something like the Seasonals, you. should. NOT. be playing in a game with others

First problem:

Lowbie tank is in,doesn't know how to hold aggro and he just plays as dps,we don't get damage mitigation and instead we take more damage and wipe

Healer is in he doesn't heal,everyone dies

Troller is here,people doesn't know about AM or still can't use WM,everyone runs out of mana,everyone starts to smash healing barrels,little damage is done,healing barrels are gone everyone dies cause soda is on cool down

Four dps are there,annoying boss and his minions do melt in a rotation,we activate the three triggers and everyone leaves in two minutes

Everyone is between CR34 and CR70,they got carried through content or die waiting for a queue to pop so they barely play,they alternate powers to weapon,fight will take more than 2 minutes and eventually everyone will die cause they know nothing about mechanics,nor they look around them cause tunnel vision

In the past when the instance was added both Ocean Master and Aquaman were hitting like trucks,I mean even at CR88 doing the instance without a healer was a pain,I bailed out everytime on any given lowbie and only carried people in my league and did it only with leaguemates.

Last Xmas event had the very same problem,Larfleeze hitting like a truck,Larfleeze constantly CCing people and so were adds and mobs,I had marks stored so between two chars I only did the alert for a week,refused to run it,after the nerf I started to run it again and didn't mind about lowbies cause it become a joke and not some kind of end game raid.

This year's event

Only 5 marks a day
Still hits like a truck
Eternal CC effects
Turrets do not activate instantly
Bailing out as soon a lowbie or as soon I see that nobody is using AM/WM
Going to run it for 9 days more for base's purposes and then I'll be done,if it wasn't for base items I was already done and probably the game was already uninstalled till Halloween