State of the Game, 2016 (Big Read)

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Ragnarok, Feb 3, 2016.

  1. Ragnarok Well-Known Player

    Alright, I've been a player since the beta--on both platforms, actually. I've passed messages and suggestions onto Meeps. I used to log onto Test and offer feedback, until it became mostly grinding the test-dummies and checking dps scores. I consider myself a helpful player in instances. I won't vote-kick or instantly abandon if someone does something stupid or rude. Especially when pugging or using "On Duty", we should know that we've signed up for a bit of uncertainly in player skill/ expectations or behaviors and be accepting of that from the get-go. I usually give things a "three strike" rule. Now, while none of these things makes me supremely qualified to offer my opinion, I feel they're important to mention to illustrate that I'm someone who cares for this game, the developers and the community.

    DCUO, I do love you, however, we've got some problems. Here are the three biggest ones, in my experience.

    1.) Too DPS centric. This was supposed to be a trinity based game, and ever since the introduction of "role-less" buffs, support roles have been relegated more and more to the sidelines. It's to the point now where people regularly que via On Duty as both roles, simply to get into the content, and literally have no gear, skills or loadout prepared for said role. As a regular On Duty user, I see this at least once a day. I see this in pugs and even with leagues, too. Anecdotal, sure, though I'm sure everyone who plays an hour or so a night can attest to similar experiences. And this isn't an "I'll play the way I want to" issue. Indeed, if the player had received adequate instruction at some point on how to play a support role, they'd either be less likely to mistakenly que as one, or, ideally, they'd embrace the different mechanics required for support roles.

    As a result of this streamlined focus, some people who play support roles, don't even know what tools they have to use. I've seen trollers that never once PoT. Tanks that use only single target taunts. Healers that go beast form and DPS. You can kindly offer advice, though most of the time, because of the go-go-go nature of the content and progression treadmill, people just aren't programmed to care: "You are speaking word-sounds and it's slowing down my ability to smash things on screen! Shaddap!" In making a game where it's burn everything as fast as possible and ignore mechanics whenever possible, the necessity to be polite, to take the time to understand mechanics, or to even learn the basic functions of your character are irrelevant.

    Suggestion: How about something that teaches people at level 30 how to power up, pull aggro or heal an NPC? Why is this basic tutorial for roles NEVER done? Almost every game of which I can think gives better instruction on support roles than DCUO? A series of private instances like FFXIV or Secret World has, would go a long way in either weeding out people who aren't interested in support, or in preparing those who are interested for what's ahead.

    2.) The attitudes of the community need to change. In order to initiate any kind of revitalization for this game, it's going to take more than cross-play, it's going to take a change in how we play and interact with others in these forums or in the game. Behavior ranges from intolerant to hostile on average. Again, no one has the time--supposedly--to say something constructive. Realistically, though, hostile replies tend to initiate a war of attrition of insults and back and forth posts or tells that can literally consume hours of your day. Posts that leave you feeling one hundred times as drained as if you'd said something nice, neutral, or just held that venom to yourself.

    It serves no purpose to be unpleasant, especially in a social game. Every act of negativity contributes to a greater tide of player behavior. If the game is toxic, we've made it that way. So unmake it. Don't rage out on someone, just log off. Take a break, it's a game and it's supposed to be fun. When something in a social game actually affects me, personally, off-screen, I know it's time to step away.

    ***Constructive criticism, such as what I'm trying to achieve with this post, doesn't fall under the banner of "not saying anything nice". Constructive criticism, as long as it's actually coming from a place of respect, should always be welcome in any conversation.

    3.) Far too much capitulation to the community demands, and as a result far too many options. Sorry, but we don't always know what we need or what's best for us. Games have to be designed at a system level, then at a financial level, with checks and balances to ensure longevity. Look where constantly focusing on the scoreboard (which offers only one useful facet of combat performance and nothing else of nuance of substance) has gotten us? Agitated, entitled, and generally rude people who don't have the time to learn basic teamwork, basic skills or common courtesy. The community has fostered this mentality and behavior, though so too have the developers by catering to our every want (not need).

    Turns out, we now have so much that we don't even no what to do with it. You like DPSing? Great! You have AM, WM, modding, clipping, elite stat boosts (through generator mods), more generator mods, and now we're on to mid-range passes. I mean how many more ways to "refine" the art of blowing stuff up are required? When you think about the amount of time and developer-resources that have been spent on one aspect of this game, it really seems like a waste.

    How many more pieces of content might we have had by now without this myopic focus on dps and how to further enhance and already bloated tool-set? How many different powers? How many alternative progression systems were scrapped in pursuit of this goal? Weren't SP supposed to be the "endgame"? What happened to that? Why do we have so many tools when most people can't even use the ones they have? Daily, I still see people running the same non-WM weapon combos that I've seen for the last five years. Half the atomic toons don't even know how to activate their aura. Literally, watch an atomic player in an instance and see if they ever light up. And it's not a case of: "those newbs will never learn." It's more a case of: "they've never been taught, so how do we know how derpy they are?"

    Less is often more of what we need (not want), and combined with gear-inflation, terrible tutorials, excessive player demands we're only getting more, more, more and never appreciating what we have. (I thought stats were "squished" at one point, though I don't see what, how or where).

    *********
    Anyway, those are my thoughts and suggestions. They're not unique, and my sentiments echo a lot of what some people have said around here. Moving forward, I'm hopeful that the team can slowly work toward regaining control over their product. We're seeing a bit of this with elite alerts and raids, which force composition to an extent, though we need that additional, non-CR based progression, as well as perhaps tools for rating player behavior. A "like" system or something that FFXIV uses. Just something to let people know: "Hey, great healing/ trolling/ tanking/ dpsing". Even the smallest encouragement goes a long way toward building teamwork and a positive communal attitude.

    Sure, there will always be jerks and people who use digital worlds to become the bullies they can't be (or are) in real-life. But in the best run games, those people are shut down not only by moderators, but by the community themselves, and fast.

    All the best to the players and developers in 2016. Let's make this game great.
    • Like x 11
  2. Dibrie Committed Player

    Good read, i agree the most of it.

    I hope the devs take this with them on their yourney keeping this game up and running and grow.
    Even tho atm it's all about player retention.



    Greets
    • Like x 1
  3. BabyBoyzim Dedicated Player

    1. I agree wholeheartedly. This is the devs fault 100% for making content with questionable mechanics that all require BURN BURN BURN. People don't want to enjoy content because they can't. Enrage timers, one shots, and short instances beg to be burned through with multiple dps. As a guy that manly prefers support, this saddens me.

    2. Good luck with that. This community is so toxic now there is no turning back. When the game is long dead these people will infect another game with their horrible attitudes. Ps community in general is bad in most games I play. Not all, but compared to xbox it's glaring how different the two are. The 15 a month fee weeds out the garbage I think.

    3. Goes back to point one. BURN BURN BURN. The dps spend the most on replays and power change tokens and the devs exploit this every month with 'power fotm updates' and their idiotic competitive nature when it comes to topping the scorecard. They spend hundreds on replays to get the best gear every month to continue bragging rights

    Face it. As a support role player the game isn't for you (us)
    • Like x 3
  4. TRELL1 Well-Known Player

    Hey a critique post that's coherent and not irrational rage post!

    I totally agree with you on 2. Far too much quitting on 1st failure. Berating tanks, healers and trolls who aren't up to par. Too set in our ways of what works and what doesn't without even investigating. This has got to change.

    For 1 for me it's a bit more complicated than everything is DPS centric. Yes the damage balancing pass has taken far too long. However, it was/is necessary for every powerset to either have equal capability in hitting a max DPS point. Too much of this balance has revolved around scoreboard chasers. I'd like to see the scoreboard only show damage in boss fights. That is the only time where DPS matters. Being able to nuke a trash mob has no bearing on your ability to beat a raid.

    Also related to 1 is content difficulty and mechanics.I would bet if the developers made videos of the "right" way to beat every instance it would totally different to the way the player base handles it. In most raids there are plenty of mechanics, but the fact that every mechanic can be burned through renders them useless. There's got to be a way to burn proof instances. Make it so you must understand the mechanics fully to pass the instance and that even when you do understand the mechanics it's still a challenge.


    In regards to 3, yes the devs should make the ultimate decisions, but constructive, testing-based feedback from players is valuable. I don't agree with both sides all the time, but at the very least if both sides have input into changes it prevents players from pulling the blame development card.

    As an aside some things I'd like to see going forward:

    1.totally new tutorial (roles, counter system, enemy types, ui explanation etc.)
    2. A progression system that allows for raids and alerts to be challenging for skilled players, while also allowing lesser players to progress and experience new content as well
    3. Continued PvP fixes.
    4. Finish this balance pass for DPS and be done with it.
    • Like x 2
  5. Ragnarok Well-Known Player


    I still love the mechanics of the game and the action-feel so much that it's been my go-to even after 5 years, even after far better looking and more refined games have come out. Nothing quite competes with the combat in DCUO for me. That said, while I do have toons of every support role in the game, I also have been dpsing a bit lately on my hero alts. It's a nice change of pace, and I certainly have respect for people who play that role well.

    I don't think that it's too late for the people who play this game to reclaim support roles or civility, though ;) Heck, I'm one of those "always a support people" playing dps here and there. Nothing is impossible! It's never too late until the servers are shut off and Daybreak shutters the game.

    Hopefully, we won't see that day for many years to come. And maybe they'll get DCUO 2 right.
    • Like x 3
  6. Ragnarok Well-Known Player


    YES. The lack of a role-based tutorial is baffling. Oh, and I wish PVP was back like it was at the start. Before the whole debuff-fiasco and then whatever else followed. I only play Legends now, so that I don't have to deal with any standard PVP drama.
  7. Immortal Kyrro Loyal Player

    Clicked link intending to see a "wall rant". Well formed post, I only skimmed it die to time but I will be back to read later
  8. ErnieB Loyal Player

    I agree except with one thing:
    "3.) Far too much capitulation to the community demands, and as a result far too many options."
    I can't agree that it's because we make too many demands that the game is where it's at, because devs have also made too many rash decisions without even thinking of us. Many told them content relevancy and one mark system was a mistake, we told them putting the best gear in content was a mistake, we told them removing JC was a mistake since every power was actually capable of using it. I'm not going to tell you we're not at fault either, but saying everything that has gone wrong is because we asked for it is wrong. They are the ones that decided to do 2 pieces of content a month, yet they don't have enough staff to actually make new areas so instead they have reuse the same adds and bosses as years ago. Adding the best gear into content is also adding to the dps centric part, people don't want to spend too long on a raid just to get green drops, at the same time a raid shouldn't last 3 hours if all you get are bad drops. Raids like FoS 2 where hard but only until you passed the level, at T4 the raid went from 2 hours (a good group), to 1 hour (almost any group). And now it's a 10 minute thing, my point being that if the goal wasn't just to get the best gear I'm sure people wouldn't mind a little difficulty, but since it's all a grind fest for gear people rather do it fast. I do believe SP and mods need to be looked at, but also I don't believe you should need 200 SP to finish BN, a 151 player with 130 SP should be able to finish it just the same, but putting focus back on SP means getting all the gear, which is a problem with the current crafting system, doing all the feats which is also a problem with the state of PVP. Yes I just bashed them on another thread because cross play is taking so long, but even Mepps has gotten mad at players in the past, and I have also contributed in testing, so just because a player can get mad at the devs doesn't mean his opinion doesn't matter.
    • Like x 1
  9. Slade Wilson Devoted Player

    First of all, technically, your post is note a "state of the game" post but a "this needs to change" post, and especially, in the direction you prefer. A "state of the game" post should be a neutral list of the key features of the game, how they work, and especially if they don't work (that features we call "bugs" ;) ). It is ok to point out things that hurt and that need to change, but to keep the "neutral" approach a "state of the game" summary should have, one should add different solutions, not just the one solution preferred by the own gusto.

    Now about the community: you are right, the current situation is hurtful to the game. But: the game itself attracted this type of players. So basically, if you want to change the community, you will end up with exchanging more than 75% of players "building" the current community, simply because usually people don't change and if they do, not about something as pointless as a video game.

    MMOs in general have become less and less "social" over the past years. "Carrying" has become a common term replacing "helping", and seriously: you cannot have a good, helpful community if helping other players is referred to in a negative way. So basically: while I understand your approach and why you prefer that, it is outdated. Instead of risking game sunsetting in a try to exchange the audience - the "goog" bunch of people, the other type of MMO gamers just doesn't feel attracted by DCUO, so it's possible no one will ever replace the huge basket of bad apples the community would need to get rid of - evolve the game to something where all of these people are forced to keep their drama, poison, whatever to themselves. Replace the public chats with UI extensions covering their functions - building/browsing for groups (group builder UI, has been asked for a lot of times here on the forums), setting up item for item trades (broker UI expansion/revamp, would take care of scamming) that can be browsed as well, and the league recruitment help tool is already announced for this year. Add in a "I need help"-tool for new players and public chat is a thing of the past. If the "I need help"-tool is done right, devs could collect data and get first hand feedback about which mission is considered to be "to difficult" by starting players most often, and they could also track the players helping to ensure that the griefers don't go for the noobs now that the griefers have no more room to put their poison up.

    MMOs don't need to be social. Players nowadays don't behave social in MMOs anyway, other players are very often just "another resource" to get the next thing in progression done. It is completely OK btw if a group of game designers decides to pick up the socially arkward people as their key audience (especially as no one else wants to have them in their games), these people have money to burn, too. Just: these people need to be kept in check, and any kind of public chat is a sub-optimal attempt in doing so.

    Further down the road, the UI in missions could be done role specific, highlighting different mission targets depending on your role, and also give different mission descriptions in the tracker (e.g, "You're in tank role - keep enemies from attacking your group members and focus their aggro on yourself" and show red flashing arrows on the adds/bosses that decided to ignore you etc). Of course, some people will not read it, but.... we do have that anyway eversince. The next seasonal is spring break already ;)

    Point is, even MMOs could reduce the need for social interaction to an absolut minimum, robbing the people with a desperate need to show-off their self-proclaimed cool of their stage. It's as good of an approach as the "please, people, change and behave like good little kids" approach, minus the risk of losing a huge part of the current audience. The pure griefers will be gone, but the mindless guys who just follow the other guys lead will start following other people.

    Now there's two totally different approaches, neutrality has been restored ;)
    • Like x 1
  10. Ariyana2015 Committed Player

    Great analysis of where we are at currently. I was thinking the biggest difference in this game versus most mmo's is group content in most games have more than one person performing the dps role. I am not sure if that is the difference in what is hampering us or not. The reason i bring it up is when you are running an alert in this game there is one person completely responsible in killing everything and if that person is not great, it makes the rest of the group suffer. If there were always two dps and then the support roles it might feel more natural.

    I enjoy playing support roles more than dps for the most part. However, I feel like we have to spam to heal to keep people alive and spam out power to keep people with power. even with the wonderful AM's, because the support roles don't seem to get the power, and the dps get nearly one shotted every time they are hit.

    When it comes to tanks their role just needs something. In duos it is the worst role to be paired up with...not because I don't like tanks but because the AOE damage I take makes it so that they are a bigger hindrance than help. They can't prevent me from taking damage, so I would much rather have a healer, dps, or even controller. Then in alerts, some mobs just have so much health, it is more enjoyable from the healer stand point to have two people burn than to have one. In raids, tanks also rarely have control over anything because of the scripted attacks... For example, the first boss in BN...the tank really never has control over anything.........not asking for tank and spank but something that allows the tank to have more control, maybe the tank has to lead the boss through something...or has other responsibilities. I don't have an answer exactly but the role could definitely use some work. Atomic was a great start in making a tank more fun to play.

    Our community definitely can make the game better or worse. I do agree with you that we definitely do not know what is best for the game. We all have our suggestions, but in terms of the long term, the more we are listened to sometimes the worse everything becomes. We want what we want and we don't think through what the consequences are for what we are asking for most of the time.
    • Like x 1
  11. SasquaT Dedicated Player

    I totaly agree with this but i would change the order :

    1) Finish this balance pass for DPS and be done with it. ( today possibly tomorrow ) we alredy w8ing to long for that .
    2) Continued PvP fixes.(today possibly tomorrow ) we alredy w8ing to long for that .
    3) ......
    4) ......
  12. Multiverse 15000 Post Club

    1) Sadly..... the vast majority of players are DPS only.

    Heck I played DPS only for about a year before I finally learned how to troll.

    Also various things encouraged DPS stacking.

    Rage timer. Needing to kill certain bosses ASAP encouraged group to stack DPSes.

    One Shot. Why have a Healer when you get one shot and the Healer can do nothing to keep you from going to full health to 0 health??

    Scripted attacks that make the boss ignore the Tank. Again.... why have a Tank when the boss will just ignore it and jump on the healer or the Troll?? heck on the first day that desecrated Cathedral was released...... the first thing we saw was "no Tank" runs.

    Heck.... even solo and duo missions now encourage you to DPS.
    Missions are pretty much balanced around DPSes and AM.
    And when people playing roles mentioned this was not really fair for people playing roles..... the only answer we got was to switch to DPS since everyone has access to DPS.

    So sadly..... the game starts you as a DPS...... and it pretty much encourage you to stay DPS.

    2) For the Toxic community.... many steps would need to be taken to fix the problem.

    The first step wold be to remove the scoreboard.

    DCUO should be a game built around cooperation.
    But the scoreboard turns the game into a competition.

    What should matter is that the group defeats the end boss.

    But sadly.... what really happens is that players try to be at the top of the scoreboard even if it ends up hurting the group.

    And I won't even mention how even when a mission goes smoothly..... some idiot will want to disband the group halfway through the mission because the DPS is only burning for 1 000 000 when he should be burning for 1 200 000 according to him,

    3) Community demands???
    Did the community demand for....
    Enrage timers??
    Weapon Mastery???
    One Shot??

    Could go on and on..... but it is a long post already. ;)
  13. TheArmorsmith Dedicated Player

    I agree with number 1.

    Number 2 what can be done? I mean really there nothing besides bans and that will contribute to the toxic behavior. The only thing I can think of is the players police themselves on that front.

    Number 3. Like mentioned before the Dev's have put in things trying to be to cute and it has or is currently turning people off. I think the Dev's need to fix current issues and stop trying to do quick fixes, that's one problem, any other is they themselves do not do proper testing and I mean longer than a month or 2. Some if not most of the bugs shouldn't be in the game if they didn't try to get things done in a month. It doesn't matter if they can build a boat everyone if it is full of holes.
  14. Backseid Devoted Player


    1. Too DPS centric - I agree the lack of ANY way to learn support roles on our own is, and will always be an issue. But, every game is focused on DPS. When there is an option of DPS as a separate role, the great majority will flock to that.

    2. The community, in general, is a direct result of how the game has been developed. Nearly all changes/additions to this game, in the last couple years, have been poorly done and or poorly thought out. Especially, since the majority have warned against said changes and gave perfectly sound reasons why they would not work. The community doesn't need changing, the game does. The first step in this process, is to simply look at successful games and see why they work where we do not.

    3. This is pretty much covered by my response to number 2.



    The extreme push to group only content has damaged this game beyond repair. Group content is only half of what makes MMORPG's work. We are all here to make OUR character(s), yet the only things to do require other people in order to enjoy. Anyone that has any argument against this fact, has zero experience in games like this.

    You cannot go too far away from the time tested formulas that make an MMORPG work. We have at almost every turn. This is why this game fails.
    • Like x 1
  15. Backseid Devoted Player



    Side Note: having only one carrot (gear) that feels like it has zero value (replaced wayyyyy too often) has lead to scoreboard chasing as nothing else feels rewarding.
  16. darkscarletx Loyal Player

    Big problems in game too, I agree.

    Dps. We start as dps and the lack of tutorials and guides to show us how really be a support role is lacking so bad. I guess people are afraid to go support because they might fail because they don`t know enough about it. Devs let them clueless and the angers of other players really doesn`t help to appreciate the support roles for the players. Which lead to only dps. Burn isn`t complicated.

    I never seen a more bad community in PS. We need GM or anyone in game that could look or a way to report in game without the need to report here. Most people don`t know. I don`t know what else could be done. A soap treatment from their parents? lol I`m joking. Almost.
  17. BumblingB I got better.

    Your first point is state of the game. Your other two points are personal opinions.

    The DPS side of this game is always getting high priority as it is the biggest population. The game is a superhero themed game. Which means that roles don't really exist and that is a drive for a lot of people.

    In any case. "In my opinion" the reason we are having issues now is because of monthly content. Not because no new zones or "cute" content, but because it's doing what it was intended to fix in a smaller form. Where originally players were logging in for a week and getting everything in the dlc and logging for another 2.5 months. Now it's logging in and getting everything in a couple of days and then logging for 3 weeks. Perception of content is the same, we only have 2 poeces of relevant content that gives better gear and only one of those actually progresses.

    CR Differential and Relevancy windows wasn't necessary for this game and it will be interesting how they handle the XB1 with a literal fresh start with their muscled in changes. They have a lot of content to go through, which is enticing, but then there is a lot of grind stuff that was throttled with changes over the years that is a huge turn off. (Open world pvp...)
    • Like x 2
  18. Max Maximus Well-Known Player

    I agree with number 1. And I read before a good suggestion, make missions for roles. Where the objective is to use the potential of the role. This would help to teach the player how to properly use the role.

    About number 2, the solution is to play the best possible way and has patience with all players. This is a game, your goal is entertain, have fun.
  19. Wargoosmic Active Player

    Number 2 is sort of a silly point. People don't change at the drop of a hat. Find people you like and play with them. Only way to enjoy yourself in most games due to the majority of any game's population being toxic.
  20. Backseid Devoted Player

    Xbox people will not like this game in general.

    It is not "new player" friendly at all. The only reason any of it makes sense to "us" is because we were here for each change along the way.

    This game is a patchwork of poorly implemented ideas. Most of it does not mesh together in any sort of common sense.

    The lack of any in game explanation for most things is a turn off for even seasoned vets. Imagine being brand new, and not having any friends that play. Woof!