Stats Revamp +6 Months Feedback

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Captain1Dynamo, Dec 16, 2017.

  1. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    We are coming up on six months since Stats Revamp went live. In that time there has been plenty of discussion on the Forum in many, many different threads about SR & how it has affected the game. It may be useful to have one consolidated spot for feedback on all aspects of the current state of DCUO. So I invite anyone with an interest in improving the game to provide opinions here. Though Stats Revamp is the prime concern, any feedback regarding changes made in the past six months is welcome.

    One thing I’d like to point out up front is that (I believe) the vast majority of players who post on the Forum are end-game, senior players. In fact, it’s probably the case that all of the changes made for Stats Revamp were driven by players with very high CR & SP. So a fair amount of feedback that the devs receive may not accurately represent the DCUO community overall, might not even be representative of the majority of people playing the game. So when SR went live I started a new toon (& another after Water was introduced), and took them from Level 1 to CR 220+. As I moved them up I kept them at a realistic level of effectiveness as my CR increased. In other words I didn’t badge them up to 300 SP at Level 1. I added SP where appropriate & bought enhancements (tactical mods, orbital strikes, etc) when I had the Marks. So for example at CR 100 I had 120 SP for the toons, which seems reasonable to me – it would mean doing Feats at each Tier up to T6, plus PVP & Legends. I think that method gave me a pretty realistic picture of how the game would feel for new players. So a fair amount of my feedback will be from that perspective; representative of new players (I hope).

    For my part, when I started writing this I figured all my feedback would all be negative, but as it turns out there are quite a lot of changes made under SR that I think have been great improvements. Again I invite anyone with an interest to provide both positive & negative feedback, and I ask any devs who might be listening to lend an objective ear.
  2. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Weapons Trees / Stat Point / Skill Point Assignment
    I think this is a great improvement over the pre-revamp U/I (especially after the counters were included). Not having to go through every weapons tree really simplified assigning SP. And all powers being Might helped with that. It’s still all confusing for a brand new player (i.e. should I go Hybrid? Does Vitalization help me? etc, etc), but I don’t see a way to make that any clearer outside a very long tutorial that no one would really want to do. Then again, maybe it could be a tutorial – not a mandatory mission, but an optional On Duty special instance that explains these things. Maybe others for how to play support roles – just spitballing there. Sill overall, a great improvement for SP assignment.

    Regarding the three Focus areas:
    Weapon Expert Focus doesn’t seem to have any value in PVE. Fighting with weapons 90% of the time will not get you through On Duty instances. In fact, it seems like it was intended that the player would NEVER use superpowers in this Focus since W.E. actually REDUCES Power regeneration by 25%. Maybe in PVP W.E. would have some utility, idk.

    Hybrid Focus has very limited value. For Support roles it would seem that Hybrid is a good idea, but there might be a couple issues, which I’ll explain in a moment. For DPS I can get more damage from every power set by using Superpowered PftT than by using Hybrid. Now there’s been a fair amount of discussion on the Forum about DPSers who make loadouts that drain their entire power pool in just a couple rotations, and demand that the Troll keep up, even though the Troll’s priority always has to be to the Healer, then the Tank. It might be the case that some DPSers out there are using nothing but 300-cost abilities (which actually don’t always produce the highest Damage Out in the power sets, btw). But there might be another reason; wrong Focus. Superpower Focus increases power regeneration by 25% & increases Power by 10%. But Hybrid ONLY restores power if you’re using your weapon (there’s no 25% regen increase, no Power increase). Yet there are DPS players who PftT while in Hybrid Focus. I Trolled War Crimes on 5 December. The other 3 players DPS’ed. One player’s power bar would empty much quicker than the others. At the end I inspected & found that he had a mix of mods, some Might & some Precision, so I’m thinking he was Hybrid, while the other players were Superpower Focused (they both had all might mods). But after reviewing the clip I didn’t see a single time the player used a weapon in the entire run; it was one power after another. Naturally I wasn’t looking at him the whole time, but I did see several minutes of his playstyle. I had no issues keeping up with the other two players’ Power use, but I was lucky to keep his at 20% during fighting. Certainly I could be mistaken about his Focus, but if he wasn’t Hybrid, then why have any Precision at all (since he was clearly PftT)? Either way his set up wasn’t right for his playstyle. Back to the point; Hybrid only returns power (a little) when you use a weapon (and apparently the 5% Vitalization increase doesn’t really do much for you). So trying to PftT DPS with Hybrid just doesn’t work. To be Hybrid DPS I wouldn’t say that your attacks have to be 50% weapons, 50% powers, but there does need to be SIGNIFICANT weapon use.
    It would seem that Hybrid might be more beneficial to support roles, and maybe it has some value as a Battle Tank / Healer / Troll. The issue is that the 5% increases to support stats don’t help if your power bar is empty. As a supporter in an instance where all the players are in the relevancy window, you’re pretty much using one power after another during an extended fight to heal / replenish / pull; you hardly have time to throw enough weapon attacks to self-regenerate any power. Sure the Troll gives power, but he has the same problem – not enough weapon attacks to self-regenerate any power. Also, if you’ve got enough SP to max out Restoration / Vitalization / Dominance (and probably full mods), then does the 5% from Hybrid really make that much of a difference?
    That all said, and now that I think about it, I guess Hybrid is actually working the way it was designed. The issue is more with player competence than a systemic problem. And I suppose giving players multiple options is always a good thing in any area. Maybe this goes back to optional tutorials to explain how all these mechanics work so players aren’t using the wrong Focus for their playstyle.

    I have no objections to Superpowered Focus. If you’ve got a good Power stat (and with just a little judicious use of abilities) there’s no problem with PftT 90%-plus of the time.
  3. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Gear
    Permanently opening slots on utility belts with no recurring cost in marks was an excellent change. Putting the rare dropped style (Quicksuit) on the vendor for Episode 30 was also a great idea. You should go back and do that for every rare style (and get rid of that whole scraps thing while you’re at it). Just one issue; why did you make the max item level so low? It should max-out at the same IL as the rare dropped gear in the Episode.

    Finally giving the Elite set of armor higher stats than the regular set certainly more of a reason to get it (as opposed to the benefit of affinity mods alone).
    Episode vendors EP 27 & 28 are super expensive for a new player. When those Episodes were first released there were several months
    between episodes, so it sort of made sense for the costs to be high (sort of), but not anymore. Now a new player has to spend a ton of time grinding those two Episodes to get the Feats for vendor items. I’ve got no problem with new players paying their dues, but here’s the thing: when everything in the game cost one currency, then you weren’t stuck playing the same content again & again & again. You could get Marks (instead of loot) from content all the way up & down the Tiers. You can’t do that with the new Episode-specific content. Recommendation: reduce vendor costs on Episodes 27 & 28 to be in line with Episodes 29 & 30.

    Artifacts seem like a good idea (though I really have no idea if they’re benefitting me. I certainly don’t feel more powerful). I do hope that each round of Artifacts will call for different Catalysts from different instances (I think that’s what was stated in the release video).
  4. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Mods
    The current mod requirements (needing essence to make mods) was a bit annoying from the start, but now it really sucks. Here’s what I mean; as each Episode has been released players at end-game build a new set of mods – Olympian, then SF, now NJU. Makes sense for top CR toons who will be playing the end game content for a couple months until the next Episode is released. But a new player who has just reached CR 166 has got spend all that time and effort to get Essence & make mods (to get Feats), which he’ll never use (because he’s going to keep increasing CR to the top Episode) & can’t sell (because why would anyone buy a Might Olympian when they could buy a Might NJU)? I know, it’s an RPG & grinding is a big part of the game, and obviously the player has the option to not make the mods. Still, it’s a total pain in the *** for a new player. The only solution I can think of is to make one kind of Essence for all future Episodes (call it Tier 8 Essence or something). Each future Episode has its own mods, but all those Episodes share this one type of Essence (essentially what you’ve done with Episodes 29 & 30, but for all content in the Tier).
  5. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Quarks Vendor
    To me this is a great idea upon which DCUO has not capitalized. For example, once I finished Avatar Bombardier I lost motivation to buy anything on the vendor. Every month new items should be placed on the vendor. What would sell? Current faction-only (hero / villain), role-only PVP & PVE styles (as scaleable boxes like Avatar Bombardier). You don’t even need to make new styles (though that’s welcome too). And when you put those styles on the Quark vendor, enable the Feats for all players regardless of role or faction (like you did with Blood Bat). Is it buying SP? Sure. But if you’re opening Time Capsules you’re going to get Quarks anyway. Might as well have something helpful on which to spend them.
  6. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Damage Role
    It was a big adjustment (probably for everyone) going from pre- to post-revamp. Took a fair amount of testing, but I’m now happy with a viable loadout for every power (meaning loadouts that will get me through all content). And while some power sets are better than others (for every role), they’re all usable in both DPS & support. Clearly Nature & Electric are the most improved for DPS, but I’ve also had much greater success with Fire now than pre-revamp. And Supercharges have actually become effective. Pre-revamp they Super-Sucked. Only a couple could produce more damage than other abilities in the power sets. Now if you throw a SC & it crits, it can be devastating (if it doesn’t then the damage is mediocre – but that’s just how RPG chance systems work). The biggest loser for DPS: Mental. I had the toughest time finding a viable DPS loadout for that one. And it’s disappointing because pre-revamp Mental did tremendous damage (with the right loadout). Second biggest loser: powers that had excellent power return mechanics pre-revamp – Mental, Gadgets, etc. Before SR as long as you started with the power return ability, you NEVER ran out of power (in DPS role) for those sets. Of course, if you’re at end game & have a massive power stat (& maybe some Vitalization), then you can pretty much keep up with your power out (as a PftT DPS). But toons at lower CR’s drain their bars quickly, and the worst offenders (those that run out the easiest) seem to be the power sets that had such a great AM before SR, or at least that’s how it seems to me. One other issue – Crowd Control effects seem to be inconsistent across the power sets in DPS role. Some sets’ abilities produce CC effects in Duos & Solos, but no effects in Alerts or Raids, while other power sets have CC effects in all content (while in DPS role). And of course even some Healer abilities get CC effects. Maybe this was all intentional, but it just seems like some sets have a significant advantage over other sets for CC.
  7. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Tank Role
    Turning single pull abilities into multi-ad pulls for Earth & Fire was a great improvement. In fact I’ve come to really enjoy Earth tank now, where I generally disliked it pre-revamp. Also seem to get a lot of damage out of it for some reason (not even trying to battle tank). I think all the tank power sets are working quite well (with the right loadout & some player competence).
  8. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Controller Role
    From what I’ve seen, the Control power sets are working fine. Making every ability generate POT (while in Troll role) is a welcome improvement which simplifies loadouts & frees up a space for a different ability – debuffs / Supercharge / etc. The issue with being a Troll is more about other players and the way they’ve set up their toons (see notes above in Weapons Trees / Stat Point / Skill Point Assignment section). At any rate I don’t see any problems with any of the Troll power sets themselves & what they can do for that role, perhaps other players have some specific issues?
  9. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Healer Role
    To me Healer is the role that changed the least; which is fine. I thought the Power Sets worked well pre-revamp, and still do post-revamp. I used the Water toon I made as a Healer through pretty much every Alert & Raid as I went from 1 to 200+, with no difficulty in healing at any Tier. And I believe I’ve used all the other heal power sets as Healers since SR. To me they feel very much like pre-revamp, so I have nothing negative to say about the current state of Healing (on the other hand I don’t particularly see any major improvements, either).
  10. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Level 1-30, General Alerts
    Aside from the addition of Artifacts, as far as I can tell nothing about the Level 1-30 missions changed from pre-revamp (except that I believe Whisper a’ Daire’s difficulty was decreased a bit during the Religion of Crime mission – which is good, she was overpowered for years). There’s a learning curve for Alerts, as there should be. The one thing I think is misleading (and always has been) is that General Alerts are opened by Level instead of CR. So a Level 10 (who is only actually like 5 CR) goes in to Area 51 & is totally ineffective (and of course, there’s nothing in the game that explains to a new player the difference between CR & Level). If the team is all at the right CR or above, then these Alerts feel (to me) like they’re at about the right level of difficulty. Blüdhaven can be tough if the team doesn’t know what to do (the moving the boxes section), but that’s a good introduction to the need to work together. If the team stays together & supports each other, then it’s really no problem at all, even at the minimum CR. Again, the difficulty post-revamp is really no different than it was pre-revamp. Recommendation: change General Alerts to open by CR not by Level.
  11. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Solos & Open-World
    For me no issues. Initially there was a problem with Iceberg Lounge (exploding penguins at final boss did massive damage). But that was adjusted & now it’s no problem to get through. Same for all the other Solos & Open-World content. Adding all that Open-World content (starting with AF III) was great. Lots of things for players to do, lots of options for toon advancement. Only recommendation is to go back to AF III & AOJ and make some adjustments that you’ve incorporated into Episodes 29 & 30 like enabling weekly missions for replays. Previews of new Episodes are a great idea. Prior to that a lower Tier player would see all this excitement for an upcoming Episode only to find out he couldn’t play it until he reached end-game. And of course it gives those players additional gear & Feat opportunities.
  12. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Duos
    There are only two specific Duos with which I have issues; The Demon’s Pit & The Will of Darkseid. The Demon’s Pit is one of the toughest Duos in the game, tougher than several of the higher-CR Duos. Why? The 2nd sub-boss fight. The fight space is fairly small & after a minute or so the boss uses several poison gas bombs that drain your health within seconds (even at CR 200+). Because the space is so small you end up just rolling from one gas cloud to another. Plus at the same time the boss may be doing stun attacks. Plus alchemists may detonate massively damaging bombs. Just a way-overpowered part. In the Will of Darkseid, Kalibak’s Beta Club blast is also overpowered. Again one shot will drain pretty much the full health of toons way above the relevancy window. Those are the only two spots I see that are really out-of-whack. The other thing I want to say is that the relevancy window doesn’t make sense on some of the Tier 7 Duos. Take Flash Museum, for example. It opens at CR 113. Could two CR 113’s make it through that instance, even if they were highly skilled? I have doubts. More on that subject in the Raids section.
  13. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Alerts
    I have no problem with any Alert in the game right now. The only time you have problems in any of them is when the team doesn’t know what to do / where to stand / what cog to turn / etc. If all 4 players know what they’re doing, then there’s really no issue with any Alert (from my perspective).
  14. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Raids
    Here’s where I have issues. There’s been plenty of debate about the difficulty of Raids on the Forum, 99% of which has been from the point of view of end-game players. That’s the wrong perspective. The most important question in regards to Raids (and all content for that matter) is this: can a group of players who are all in the relevancy window reasonably be expected to complete the instance? And by "in the window' I mean near the minimum CR for the instance. Why the minimum? Because that’s pretty much where players are when new Episodes are released. So, in other words, could eight CR 113-120's (playing all 4 roles & with appropriate combat enhancements & SP for their CR - about 130-150 SP) get through Bombshell Paradox? Absolutely not. Not a chance. Teams with a several CR 200+ players can't get through the instance half the time. It really, really feels like the devs built content EXPECTING that several high CRs would be in every instance – but that should never have been a consideration at all. The testing phase is probably part of the problem. If each instance wasn't tested with a group composed entirely of players near the entry CR of each instance, then you end up with overpowered bosses that can't be beaten. And that's what I'm really talking about - Raid bosses. Ads in Raids really aren’t a problem. Alerts, Duos, Solos all seem to be at about the right level of difficulty to me up & down the Tiers (with the exception of the Duos mentioned above). It's just those 8p bosses that are ridiculously OP. For example I did Brainiac's Bottle Ship in the first week of December with a group entirely above the relevancy window, most near 220 CR. After about a minute of fighting Brainiac did his special attack. Everyone but me got one-shot (I was tanking, so I had massive health). That should not happen for toons nearly 40 CR above the top of the relevancy window, who have massive stats. So could a full group of CR 150's be expected to beat that boss, even if they're very experienced? I just don't see it.

    The effectiveness of high CRs in low Tier content is irrelevant. That content should NOT be oriented on CR 220’s, it should be oriented on players in the relevancy window. Does that mean that a 220 will do massive damage in a Tier 2 Raid? Yes, of course. He SHOULD be extremely effective. Content should not be intended to be a challenge to high CR’s, it should be intended to be a challenge to those at a relevant CR. So if the Raid is challenging for a 220, then it’s IMPOSSIBLE for players in the relevancy window.

    Now, I know how good it can feel when the mission is tough & after a good hard fight you finally win. And there’s a place for that kind of content – Elite instances. But not every instance should be at that level of difficulty. And when a team keeps getting killed over & over & over even though they’re following the mechanics of the instance & playing their roles, it’s extremely un-motivating.

    So what needs to happen? Devs need to test every instance with full teams near the bottom of the relevancy window of the instance (especially Raids), with appropriate SP & combat multipliers. That’s the only way you can get a realistic idea of how difficult the content actually is. Why near the bottom? When new Episodes come out all players are at the bottom of the relevancy window. I think when Ep 30 came out the highest CR was 213 (215?). So only the only toons who could play the new content were from 207 – 213. As a suggested rule of thumb: boss special attacks should take no more than 60% of the health of the lowest CR in the relevancy window when that player is blocking. That alone would probably solve the issue.

    One last point on a specific Raid: Halls of Hades. There’s a problem with Task Force X. This is a Suicide-Squad enabled mission (and that’s a good thing – every instance should be TF X-enabled). The problem is that only players of the faction of the mission can activate the cogs (weapon, boots, gloves, key, cape). For example, if Circe is present, then only a villain can pick up the equipment. So what if there’s only a couple villains and they all leave? Since no hero could work the cogs, and it’s impossible to LFG cross-faction to invite a villain, then it would be literally impossible for the group to complete the mission unless a villain just by chance queues up at the right time.
    • Like x 1
  15. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    PVP
    I’ve got pretty strong opinions about PVP in general, which share a lot of the comments you see in the Forum & on You Tube. But basically I see two schools of thought which I’ll summarize. The first regards where you start PVP. At level 5 you can do Legends PVP. That’s a pretty steep learning curve. But what’s much worse is that you can go into regular Arenas at Level 10 where you’re totally set up for failure. #1 you don’t have all your power set’s abilities. #2 at Level 10 you have very little experience fighting at all, much less against a tough enemy, and none in the fighting style you find in PVP (which is significantly different than PVE fighting style). #3 you’ll be playing against toons that are maxed out for PVP CR, very high SP, all mods, etc. So for a brand new player PVP can be a very, very negative experience. The second perspective is that stats should matter (i.e. the point of Stats Revamp), but if a Level 10 can beat a maxed-out CR 101, then they actually don’t matter. To me, I think having both PVP & PVE in the same game (with very different play styles & conditions) is a bridge too far. Once I got all my PVP Feats I stopped playing, and don’t see any reason I’d ever do it again, so I’d be fine with removing the entire PVP side of the game & gifting all players all the PVP Feats, but I leave it up to players who like PVP to make more constructive comments for improvement.
  16. Captain1Dynamo Committed Player

    Two shameless plugs:
    Know what would be a great Style? A plain superhero-type shirt that stops at the wrist (with no hand coverings) with a BIG emblem space on the chest. One solid color. No high collar, no special texture, no lines or designs; just blank. In other words classic Superman / Batman shirt. That’s something for which I would actually pay money.

    One last pet peeve: STOP MAKING COLLECTIONS FOR WHICH THE REWARD IS MARKS OF VICTORY! There are literally thousands of items throughout the environment of the game that could easily become base items which players would love to have instead of MOV (or Titles). Or a style, or piece of gear, or something I can’t get just by playing an Alert.
  17. Reno New Player

    um little correction revamp went live in September that was like 3 months ago not 6+
  18. Elusian Crowd Control

    • Like x 2
  19. TheLorax 15000 Post Club

    Where did you get September from?
    • Like x 1
  20. TybeeTahiri Devoted Player

    I like the gist of the revamp. I love what they did with focuses like Weapons Expert and Suoerpowered. I like a lot of the concepts. But as usual, they messed it up by having some powers OP and some weak and not fixing anything.

    It simply wasn’t ready in my mind.
    • Like x 9