To Whomever Needs To Hear This…..

So prior to the clamp when the player-base was still shrinking. Was that to be blamed on the clamp as well? The game lacks graphically, and lacks in content variety. We got Elite/ Elite Plus /Housing /Feat hunting / Collection Hunting / Playing the MB. That's not enough. Nobody is gonna play a game that is starving in variety when there are 10 others that may offer something more interesting.

LOL. No one is saying that the game's mismanagement STARTED with the clamp.

Hypothetically.
Let's say they do Aqs or unclamp it again. All the fundamental issues with players not sticking around will still be there and they will still continue to squeeze its dedicated players because that's all that left to monetize.

They are doing that anyway. So....it basically boils down to what will either draw people in, or keep the ones that are here...from leaving. As evidenced by your own fading on the game...it's not 'keeping' them. So you know.... try something else.

And before you say 'well we did try that for 10 years'....no...we didn't, cause you still needed 8 people to run the old content (or 4...or 2...depending on what it was).

I don't honestly think any changes pro or con would 'draw' new players in...only new...better content would do that, and even if they released the greatest DLC we've ever seen...I doubt we'd see much of a tick on new players. Some returning players, who generally come back for a few weeks with a new DLC though...to me, that's the target audience.

The question was why didn't the game have a population of hundreds of thousands, and given the early history of the game a strong answer is "it never had the chance to get that kind of population because it got tripped up in a pretty heavy way."

As for why the game doesn't have the same population it did early on? There's a ton of reasons, but first and foremost in my mind is that it's an old game. Remember, this game is now over a decade old, and in a genre like MMOs players staying with a game AND getting solid new growth is a rarity. Even WoW, the 100 pound gorilla of the MMO landscape and the exception to just about every rule in MMO games, likely doesn't have the same population and population growth that it once had. With so many new and shiny games hitting every year, older games get left on the backburner pretty regularly.

Other reasons can include poorly received updates or players who badmouth the game with both real and imagined criticisms (let's face it, some people just want to be jerks and will badmouth a game even if they haven't played or looked into it). But at the end of the day for me, the game simply being an old game is the biggest reason why the population isn't the same as it was.

I think the discussion for this game, and WHY it isn't/wasn't booming with players is actually a rather interesting one.

Given the absolute massive popularity super heroes and comic content has had over the last 15 years or so with the rise of the MCU absolutely ushering in a new generation of super hero fans, you would think a super hero driven MMO would be insanely huge. If not INSANELY huge at least certainly big enough to be talked about consistently. And before anyone mentions the MCU is Marvel and this game is DC, the fandom has seeped and deepened on all comic fronts, Non DC or marvel comics like the The Boys or Invincible have gotten their own shows which saw their old comics reprinted due to interest. The whole Arrow-verse WAS massive and had a huge fan base. Basically trying to say basically all comic book media has grown over the past 15 years regardless of if its DC, Marvel, or Independents. And a hero MMO where the customization and styles are so plentiful, the heroes you can make, whether its your own original character, an else world version of an existing character, or a copy of another hero or character, the possibilities are dang near endless.

So whats the reasons for this decline or lack of being able to bring in lapsed players or new players? Obviously there isn't a SINGLE answer that will answer every persons reasons. But here are my thoughts on it.

1) Marketing- I think this game isn't being advertised enough. I see next to no ads for this game. Even as someone who consumed DCUO content on youtube so with the data these guys have, I would be an ideal target for a "DCUO ad" and yet, I get nothing. Even with the new episode coming out next week I genuinely do not think I have seen a single 30 second ad or anything for this game. The only stuff I know is what they are putting on Twitter, or YouTube or the forum page of the site. Kinda hard to draw people into your game if you aren't advertising to them. This game used to have ads in the back of DC comic books, none of those either. When they announced the game was coming to PS5, some of the more common comments I saw on the tweets, videos, etc was something to the effect of "This game is still around?". This being some of the more common comments (not all, but it popped up a nice chuck), means that people genuinely thought this game died (though I am sure some of it was trolling). On the topic of Marketing, even the ads we DO get for the game....honestly....aren't great and don't make the game look good. Obviously they don't have the budget the used to so they cant make an ad or cut scene like they did for this game initially (which still looks INCREDIBLE TO THIS DAY) but the ads that are meant to show off this game just look....not good. So Ok, if you arent advertising your game, and the ads you do have arent impressing people, so then maybe word of mouth will help spread the word of the game.....well.....

2) The Players aren't Happy with the current DCUO- I cannot speak for everyone but I can say that while I love the concept of this game and what it COULD be, The state that it IS in, is not something I enjoy. I have spent so much time playing this game I am basically stuck with it but I genuinely would not recommend this game to new players or people who have left the game and are curious about "if the game is worth coming back to". I have tried to get people to play the game myself and some just dont enjoy it. (Though genuinely it might not have been for them.) I dont know about you guys, but from what I have seen from people on the forums, there are problems with the game all over. Obviously not everyone is going to agree that something is an issue, and some of these I dont particularly agree with, but to name some that people have mentioned that I have seen more than once:

1) the CLAMP
2) over monetization of every little thing (Artifacts, Allys, time capsules, holiday currency, etc)
3) not fixing aspects of the game (like speed hackers)
4) lack of communication
5) not enough to do
6) Graphics are bad
7) Not updating old aspects of the game (PVP)
8) Rehashing the same old stuff but looking slightly different
9) The updates feel Lazy
10) Feedback isn't listened to

I am sure there are a lot more things people have issues with. But there are a plethora of things that people seem to have issues with. And to DCUOs credit they DO seem to make some good decisions that GENUINELY are a great idea. The feats possible for a mission being something easily accessed during the mission is a GOD SEND. But there are overwhelming issues that people seem to have that, while I may not agree with them all and my issues may not be something others agree with, are brought up enough where if the people who felt it was important enough to bring up on the forum, it isn't a stretch to assume there are a lot of people who DONT go to the forum that feel this way.

Word of mouth is some of the best advertising a game can get. To get good word of mouth by making your player base happy. While you cannot make every player 100% happy (and we aren't expecting that), you can do things to make the majority of players happy. You have players telling you their issues and we aren't being told we are being listened to, we aren't being told a generic corporate "Your feedback is important to us and we will take this into consideration". Some feel like we are actively being ignored. We have dang near silence from the game makers or mods until they announce a new time capsule then they will be super excited to tell us about the loot box we can spend money. The EG7 thing that came out recently showed the latest episode did not hit the goals they set and that is sad but not surprising. When you put in no effort to improve your game in the way, or at least the direction, the players ask for, you are just repeating and doing the same thing which has pushed players away and your active player base is telling you they aren't happy with. What makes all of this worst, is while the players seem to care, the developers and makers don't. We were told the game was basically on life support, they weren't going to do much with it. If the developers aren't going to care for the game, then genuinely why should we?

I am curious, to any of the people who are in that Creator league thing, Wasn't one of the things for that suppose to be you could speak to devs or people from the game? Kinda be a voice for the players in a way. I saw someone did an interview with some of the Devs. Maybe you can reach out and voice some of the concerns, or ask questions and get back to us on it, cause it genuinely seems like our voice isn't being heard.

I know I am coming off maybe a bit negative. I have been playing the game for a while and I likely will until the ship goes down. I have seen this game in a better state and would love to see it not only get better but get a massive increase of new players too. I want this game to succeed and be a game I actively look forward to playing but in its sad state now, if its giving me the bare minimum, im going to give it the bare minimum.

The opposite, they just advertise and push new content for DCUO. Sort of like how beauty influencers push certain makeup brands. If you notice some of those people in the creator league do not nor have ever played DCUO.

Sorry there was a lot there and I wanted to snip a bit to address these items.

Fun little story: Right when MMOs started taking off and SOE was having success with Everquest, the obvious choice for the next big thing was to make a Star Wars MMO. It was a hugely popular IP, plus it was right around the time the prequel trilogy was hitting theaters and Star Wars hype was really big. So they went in full steam ahead and made the game, building a Star Wars world that players could pretty much live in if they so desired, and Star Wars: Galaxies launched. Should have been a huge hit and brought in a ton of players, right?

Unfortunately two things happened: WoW and the game just didn't click with some potential players. Part of the latter was I think in some design decisions which may or may not have been initially mandated by LucasArts (seriously, how can you have a Star Wars MMO and NOT have Jedi readily available as a playable profession? I lost count of the number of times a new player would ask for help and their first question was "How do I become a Jedi?"). But for many (if focus groups were right) it didn't feel *shudder* "Star Warsy or Iconic."

Yes, even after all these years, those terms put together still make me shudder a bit. LOL

So SWG kind of flopped in the face of the expectations for the game's performance, even though the environment for the game seemed absolutely perfect for a Star Wars MMO to be released. An ideal environment doesn't guarantee you're going to see what you think should happen.

As for marketing, from what I've seen over the years the SERIOUS money for advertising gets spent in the lead up to and just after the game's launch. Whether it's an MMO or a single player game, you don't usually see ads for the game too long after it's out. There are exceptions (Madden gets advertised all throughout the NFL season, and WoW being the exception to the MMO rule had done plenty of post-launch advertising because, well, they can), but you're just not likely to see ads for a game a year after launch, much less a decade later.

As for why players aren't happy, unfortunately that's a very mixed bag of complaints that aren't all universally agreed upon, plus some of them are very much in the realm of being subjective arguments. That combo can make it difficult for the devs to focus on some problems AND makes them easy for others who disagree to dismiss arguments on one side or the other.

Never got the chance to try that Star Wars MMO, but that doesn't surprise me at all...

My biggest gripe about this game is that it absolutely DOES NOT feel like you're playing as a super hero/villain in the DC universe.

It feels like a damn dress up game with the opportunity to be a sidekick. Your character doesn't feel powerful and combat never comes close to feeling like anything out of DC comics. Combat is slow and monotonous. The Clamp didn't do anything to help, and is more of a hindrance (say what you will about it, but I don't see waves of people coming back to play that garbage). Omnibus was a good idea, but we could do the same exact thing manually if we wanted to before it was implemented... and no one wanted to queue that way before.

Character progression has been stripped to an almost meaningless state. The only thing that seemingly keeps players engaged for any length of time boils down to either new styles or new feats, and the feat system itself is a joke in terms of progression.

What brought me to this game was that it was different. It tried to be more action oriented and the early game felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel. Cut to end game content, and it's the same... exact.... thing.... over and over and over and over and over. It's no wonder the EU server is a ghost town and the US is following suit. I've always been and on again/off again player, but the clamp put the nail in the coffin for me. I tried to like it, I tried to give it a fair chance, but it just made the game feel even more generic and boring... and I had no idea that was even possible.

And in response to the OP, no... I'm not going to stop complaining. I get that they're out to make money, but doing it in the laziest way possible isn't going to work out too well for them. They want my money and I want a fun DC game that doesn't feel like a chore to play... looks like we're both S.O.L..

what if me and my family did both, do we win a prize?

hehe

just popped in to see what's going on,(currently got Obsidian's Omega Artifact video playing in the background) wanted to know if its time for me to come back yet. finishing up my 12 day work stretch, got the next 5 days off, wanted to see if there's anything cool going on.

in the past, having played new episodes and tested things out, and reported bugs/glitches and having devs listen to that info and make the correct changes in an update, its kinda cool honestly, knowing that i was responsible for helping fix the game and keep it working right.

but when there seemed to be absolutely zero communication on the BIG Subject (which i now see ppl are using -deleted-, that is hilarious) it ends up being a shame and all your efforts seem wasted and in vain.

So how do you deal with a severe power creep problem in content without removing some player stats?

"Some"?

They overdid it in a lot of ways. Progression should be capped to some point to prevent power creep from being an issue. Tiers 1 and 2 feel about right to me, though both have some over-scaled instances too. We shouldn't be able to take out bosses in a few hits, but we also shouldn't slog through content slower than when the instances were still in the relevancy window either. I think we should be slightly stronger than when the episodes were just about to fall out of relevancy while we were fully geared two episodes ahead. Let people get maybe halfway through the next episode (three episodes ahead) strength-wise before capping the damage in/out.

YES! Exactly! Why is this concept so difficult for the pro [DELETED] to comprehend? Why won't the Powers that Be at Daybreak allow the devs to go back and fix this problem?

Yes, fix the "power creep" issue but don't do it to the point that it trivializes my progress and steals my stats punishing me for being successful in this game.

Pro-tip:

You could have one-shot all those bosses back then if you tapped range attack... ruining it for everyone else in that instance with you in that solo walk in.

/sarcasm.

In all seriousness... it wasn't that bad back then as some would make it seem. There were easy countermeasures to avoid breaking content, some as simple as just switching to a support role and not going absolutely ballistic on low level enemies. An insane concept, I know... scoreboard chasers have to be max damage/#1 at any given opportunity.

Outside the fact it actually took 1 power or a few melee swing to kill a boss prior...

Was it not a problem? Not enough of a problem for them to dedicate developer resources for 2 different iterations to try and fix it? Developing new powers wasn't even worth the resources to them. But this seemingly wasnt enough of a problem for multiple reasons to put the resources in to work on it and implement it on 2 different occasions?

Yes it'll *feel* like they overdid it. The stat creep was out of control and it was left unchecked for like 5+ years The reason why it feels so bad is because the numbers had to be brought down massively to get it back under control. Unfortunately there's no way to mitigate that feeling. Too long had passed to make a stat reduction look tolerable to players who are used to blasting through your content for years on end, Its a seismic shift to how some veterans now have to play the game.

I cant blame you for feeling like the way you played the game was uprooted. But allowing players sufficient gear to steamrolling bosses in a random queue setting is just downright negligent consideration for player experience.

Also. if you're relying on players awareness of how your game breaks, to stop it from breaking. I think that's just a bad design, and reflects poorly on the care of your product.

Maybe, but we were also told two things that do not hold true as far as how the scaling works:

1. It would be optional
2. When episodes fall out of end-game and into early end-game (EEG), they should feel the same as when they were in end-game just before they fell out

If you would have kept reading the quote, you would already have your answer.

No, it wasn't a problem in any instance I was ever involved in, with the exception of very few bosses that would glitch out regardless of burn. LoA Rha's comes to mind, it seemed like he had a mind if his own and would glitch out over players standing in the wrong location... Arkham Asylum was the other one that was known to have issues.

Anything beyond those two were fine 99% of the time. I preferred that environment over this one, especially considering that how it currently is now is causing long time players to leave and promoting a worse pay-to-win atmosphere for newer players.

And worst of all...

The long queue time issue is still there, and almost worse than the Pre-clamp period. Congratulations, you got the worst of both worlds.