Thoughts since Launch of GU36

Meh, I notice I am playing much less since gu36 came out. Just not really feeling it

Combat was slowed too much for my HL too, damage increase was nice, but I enjoyed the fast pace if the game over numbers

I agree with this to an extent. Yes the community has had input in some changes, but they usually are rather insignificant changes "IMO". My comment comes from the witnessing of SOE only taking select feedback on weapon damage, powers, and raids( to a small extent ). While they may have took actual input from the community as a whole on some of these issues, they seem to far more often use select players. Now with all my comments in this thread understand that I am for this content, the animation changes and the WM.

But I think SOE should put a disclaimer on any thread where they ask for feedback that simply states "we have a list of things that we are not wrong on and work flawlessly, we will not take any input on this list. However we have a list of moot things that we are open for input on".

More direction in the WIP threads would be nice. IE I'm still unsure why Tunso is possibly (or definitely?) doing some of the things he has brought up in the WIP Arena thread.

But, remember, reading these forums takes quite a bit of time, time the devs don't really have, so they're going to have to skim, skimming won't get the full picture that they may pass up some great ideas, or latch on to bad ones because they hadn't read the whole thing. This is where I think individual community members (or ideally the community council) can step in and help funnel these things to the devs. Sift out the actually pros/cons as people post them, keep all the garbage out, and pass it on to the devs. Back when I played EQ that's almost all the council there did, take a 50 page thread and condense it to a single page. We had to trust the council and the prominent members of the community to actually pass on every argument, not just their own opinion. I would say that the EQ one was very successful at that. DCUO one /shrug, I know they kinda revamped it recently, hopefully it becomes something that great, but I know the old one was not.

The fact remains. Being that it is obvious that the community is very split about this DLC, and weapon mastery being highly controversial and game altering, it was a horrific design decision and could possibly mean the end of DCUO for a lot of the players that currently engage in this MMO. Not the MMO itself, but a lot of players involved.

The last thing you want to do in an MMO in its 3rd year, is pull the rug out from everyone and start over. It started with their inability to balance weapons and powers. The more uniqueness they removed from the game for cookie cutter, benefitted them and their diminishing staff and sheer man hours they have to put into this. They simplified it from THEIR standpoint, and made it much easier on them to keep things in line across the balance spectrum. Now all of your toons can pretty much do the same thing.

In my opinion this was a pretty poor decision to make. Gutting what everyone once knew as the power they learned, mastered, and loved, and making them all pretty similar, took what was special about DCUO away, and replaced it with an empty shell.

I am not saying a lot of people don't like this WM "feature" of the game, I am saying it was a terrible decision to bring a DLC into any MMO with this much controversy involved. This will not attract "new" players to the game, it will only cause a lot of players to leave for greener pastures. Not to mention, a lot of players made their character with a particular vision in mind. All of the weapon nerfs pretty much destroyed that, and basically force you into these combos.

Aside from the WM, the lack of content added to this DLC was pretty embarrassing. They made up for it by making the alert last forever via an enormous amount of hit points. If you downloaded this DLC and beat all of its content in an hour, you would be up in arms and royally pissed. So they simply made the alert longer to give the illusion of more content. Not to mention, in an alert, there is generally only 1 DPS (2 for easier stuff). Therefore, you have no one to compete with on the scoreboard but yourself (if you are DPSing) and thus, the whining is reduced that one power is too good etc.

I hope the people who enjoy the game, keep enjoying it. If it works for you, thats awesome. To me, its just not the same game anymore, and definitely not worth the money.

Tunso, Spytle, Spord, Loche, Millbarge, Dizzy, etc. Those guys certainly are going to skim and sometimes just be too busy to be on the boards at all. The summarization and reporting you describe sounds a lot like what Mepps is paid to do as our Community Manager. While the CC will certainly make statements of "I'm seeing a lot of players say X", there's a degree of caution we need regarding CC members assuming they are actually representing the community as a whole. There certainly is a cross-section of different styles of players on the council from very PvP-focused, PvE-focused, no-lifers, casuals, etc. Any one of them pretending they're adequately summarizing community sentiment is still going to do it through their own biases. In that sense, we may be supplementing Mepps with our efforts in the way you describe but for the core of it...Mepps is your guy.

Ahhh these are always so much fun to watch. Anyone want some of my Popcorn?


Now for MY THOUGHTS on the update/DLC

1. Tries the Solo as Wonder Woman and ALMOST beat it first try but finally just gave up and moved on. Overall opinion .. its okay but I am not a huge fan of playing any content that suddenly takes away all the powers I worked hard to earn and throws me into a situation where I now have to "learn" a whole new power set WHILE trying to complete a mission and earn marks. I didn't enjoy the it when Bizzarro and Huntress were forced on us and I probably will never complete one of these new ones either. I know others enjoy this sort of thin and I am sure they will find the new stuff entertaining and challenging.

2. The Duos.. Challenging but fun! My buddy and I did both last night and (spoiler alert if you haven't yet) OWW! the bosses hit hard LOL

3. The Alert. .. Really enjoyed it and it is a challenge. We took a pretty long time to complete 75 minutes but had some changes along the way. We started with 3 DPS and a Troller and were actually doing okay and then with no warning, because everything had been going well to that point, the Troll quit. Took a while to replace him and we wound up with 4 DPS. We had a few problems at that point ( one team wipe) and frequently out of power but actually continues on well until we entered the final battle. It became real obvious after a team wipe we either needed a good Healer or a good Troll and the newest DPS that joined us after the troll left volunteered to leave. Our luck was very good and we acquired a healer and took down Circe, Two Ton and their friends to complete the mission. I'd strongly recommend 1 Troll, 1 Healer and 2 DPS to make things go smoother on this.

4. the Dailies .. Look good and definitely give you new challenges .. I spent some time learning to aim and shoot a batteste (I know that is not how that is spelled ) and then freeing eagles. Also took out a lookout post and defeated a patrol and a cyclopse. Looks like this will be a lot of fun in the days to come.. By the way I ran into Catwoman and ran like hell when she attacked me... Are their bounties in that zone I don't know about? she was targetable but I was NOT about to try that solo LOL

5. WM .. holding opinion while I do the math and figure out what to do with my characters. I know some folks are upset with some of the new animations .. I sort of like the ones I have noticed so far.

Overall I think that GU36/DLC10 is a success and I'm sure everyone else will too (eventually)

I feel the same other than the solos i actually enjoyed it. the iconics you see in gotham are what you have to go after when youve done the 16 dailies. The alerts and duos are a lot of fun.

Yeah like I said Some people love the legendary solos others , like me, don't. They look good and are a challenge

I have 3 of 15 missions complete so it will be a bit before the bounty hunting starts but COOL!

Uhhhhh where would i find the Sword Back Piece? Not the two swords but the single. I know that the vendor in gotham sells Amazon Strategos, but is there anyway i can find that piece somewhere without buying the style from the vending unit? Like is it a drop or something?

Yeah I lost a 100+ might but gained 10 precision. After thinking some I just attributed that to the way they restructred skill points and revamping innates. Respeccing into what you want WM wise, or without WM.. you should end up with more of xxx role stat(s)

It's Amazon Soldier style and it's a drop in the duos.

What's the point of this council if they aren't expected to represent the community? Represent it as a whole, no, no one individual can, not even Mepps. We're far too varying. That's why there is a council, and not just a single representative. Through multiple voices and perspectives the Bias can be kept to a minimum as it'll be called out by the other members.

It's not about simply regurgitating the topics on the forums. It's about expressing the core concerns that the people are bringing up. It's about being a sounding wall for the devs so they don't have to talk to EVERYOne but just a sampling for more concise conversations.

I love mepps, I think he does a wonderful job. But he can't be expected to actually understand all the player concerns. Has he ever sat in HoD for 2 hours trying to find people to fill a raid? Did he ever spend a couple hours in Nexus wiping over and over learning the mechanics only to get to the end and have the bouncing balls and then bang his head for another hour inevitably failing, all the while not having gotten anything to drop that he can use? Did he deal with Rage in PVP when it first released?

If the answer to those things are "yes" then my foot is in my mouth, but I'll be ecstatic as he's be the most active dev I've ever seen. I don't expect that level of commitment from a dev though. If they spend their workday making the game you can't expect them to spend their free time playing. FNL is already above and beyond what should be expected of these guys.

But, that's where I feel the council is supposed to come in. They're supposed to be helping mepps by giving a more refined player perspective. Does that mean there will be some bias, sure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as again you have a council, if everyone's bias is one way then is it really bias? if it's all over the place you know you have a controversial topic that needs further discussion.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from the council, but I just saw it in EQ and it worked so well there, I hope it can be as beneficial to dcuo as it was to EQ.

I know where im heading. So do duos drop 91-92 level gear? Like blue instead of green? Im curious, ive been on the hunt and unfortunately wiki hasnt been updated. Sorry for so many questions but this update is a bit different and im a little confused

Duos drop 90 greens. The alert drops 91 greens. The vendor sells 92 blues.

See 2:48--clipping clear as day:



For added measure here is one of the flash clipping as well :

Each council member brings a bit of that to the table for sure. Sentiments expressed. Issues raised. Feedback provided. Exploits reported. But remember these things. 1) the community as a whole speaks louder. The most important things don't need a council member to point out. At best, were constructively reporting on the nuances. 2) It's not a job. It is a passion and effort is put into it daily but it sounds weird hearing people expect specific tasks/duties out of a member. 3) Again, it's not a DCUO council. Even EQ has a separate program for player feedback from the CC. You might be mixing the two up in your head. 4) In the end, each person is really only representing themselves and what they bring to the table as an individual. It just happens that they try to hand select people that bring a lot to the table.

Looks like he's using phase dodge too

Yeah, sorry if I didn't present it correctly. I have no clue what ya'll do, i know some good names got added though. I'm just expressing what I saw, what I wish for DCUO, and why it was so nice.

Looks like they're both using the armory glitch, we can't go that fast in DCUO!

Fair enough. It is a strong class this year. I appreciate the discussion. I guess I should let the main topic continue as my part has been a minor derail.