We need npcs to fill roles in lower instances.

Ok, so if that extra 'bot' is just a body, and will come and go as needed where someone is NOT available to fill the group, how is that substantially any different to just running short a person or 2? This is something I've suggested time and time again. IF the bot IS going to be an active member of the group (DPS is a role after all), and WILL appear inside the room to continue the fight, if a DPS is a poor player(low output, or KO'd early), why not just call for a kick on them, getting St Walker to spawn in as a replacement? At a minimum, I'd see the bot filling a spot at least having to stay outside, same as a new person would, if swapping in mid run/fight.

Then there is the question of how 'good' a DPS can the bot be set for? Does it get pickups as needed, or have a chance to miss them. Does it run cogs or dodge/block every giant skull attack or is it 50/50...20/80 on those? Is it set to the equivalent of a 'top of range' DPS with 200 artis and max allies, or just over entry CR with 0 artis/allies? Obviously 'somewhere in between' is an easy answer, but it would need to be answered.

There are those who still say the old content is too hard...and other players who say E+ is too easy. Sometimes finding a single fit for everyone is not possible, and I'd guess the same here and we'd end up with either OP beast bots or squishy useless ones.

When NPCs always gets top damage, DPS players will never go in NPCs Allied content again, instead of being a healer and tank. Too emotionally and mentally broken as a DPS.

I do agree that they don't have the resources to go back and change up the earlier stuff to where people could run it with bots or even run it solo without fully changing the mechanics. Some of the older content still has major issues and the code needs more than just a deep clean debugging to fix the issues, but the older content does not get them money.

If they did somehow get funding and the ability to fix it up, then they just need to do what SquareEnix did with FF14 and their older content, and take a minor page from the TPS looter-shooter Warframe. Most of the puzzles and mechanics were either removed or simplified from older content. As for the minor page from Warframe, dealing with hitting multiple switches in a mission depends on if there is more than one person. If they are solo, then you press one switch or in some cases it has a decent timer for it; more than one equates to having to hit it in sync.

Any mechanics that require an NPC should have them teleport to the spot instead of walking there just in case they get stuck or caught in a loop. If there is a section that needs players to split up and activate things on opposing sides (E.G. Outer Batcave content comes to mind) whichever side the player does not choose has a damage buff that has those NPCs burn through the enemy and activate the triggers after they clear the side. Maybe tweak content that has certain feats added to them so it only counts the players actions instead of the NPCs. I.E. Take no damage from a boss attack should only count if the player dodges it while the NPC could face tank it without issue.

Not sure if you are trying to make it seem like my ideas are better than what others have suggested in the past but that's not the case. If we are speaking about alerts aka dungeons then you need 4 players for the instance to populate. This is always the case for ESO but once you're in the dungeon, if someone disconnects or leaves then the main party leader companion would take their place. For DCUO the main issue is just getting the instances to pop up. Others in this thread have said portals but a dev years ago mentioned that portals causes problems and it has. A real player will always trump a bot even if they're bad because like I said players have access to all those things such as artifacts, augments, skill points etc... a bot wont. A bot doesn't have to be active just needs to do basic function like attack the enemies maybe even do a pick up (some already do that). The bot will have ZERO stuff. If were still talking about Legends as bots then whatever they have on their loadout is enough.

When I speak about all of this I am speaking in a battle tank perspective as I run almost everything solo and only need to be in groups if it instances that require groups such as alerts and raids. If there's three dps including yourself and need a fourth body then a bot could fill that spot but it would be in dps role. I am not making these bots out to be better than real players because even players themselves can't even block or follow the red big words in the screen. I am the leader of the group I keep the aggro away from them so their skills don't have to fail the instance and they can learn if possible. With that being said I made this thread because of these things below.

NEW PLAYERS:
1. They make a character go through the introduction story but when it comes to doing the Tier 1 alerts such as Bludhaven and Area 51, they cannot because no one is doing them unless they make a new league or ask for LFG in which case most won't even help because they done it so much (as some have mentioned).

2. Raids among Tier 1 alerts is even worse as it requires more players. You simply cannot tell a brand new player to deal with it as they do not know why this game is in the state that it is.

3. PVP has been neglected for so many years. Most MMORPGS have PVP. This is the only game I know so far that has neglected PVP in such a way. Its a core symbol to MMOs.

4. Both PVP and Lower Tiers from 1-4 are so bad that new players simply cannot experience the totality of DCUO. DCUO is only meant to play for End Game content and that is extremely concerning. Notice I not once mentioned S*** *****

While that's all well and good for FF, we don't have that system. What we have are NPCs (friendly and antagonistic) who will regularly fling themselves almost completely out of combat in trying to do something as simple as fighting you or another NPC. They'll stand completely still in instances like Spark of Parallax or Iceberg Lounge after combat gets initiated and not do a blessed thing for way too long.

Nothing I've seen so far in this game or others has convinced me that I can trust the AI behind NPCs to do things like play off-damage roles when they can't be relied on to play the most basic role in the game, damage.

I haven't read the responses. But this probably wouldn't work well. I haven't really seen, experienced or even heard of any games that have useful and well programmed AI bot teammates. Marvel's Avengers probably had one of the best team AI I've experienced and they were still pretty underwhelming, and that's even with the AI characters having my OP builds. Even if DCUO could have AI bot group members I can't see a way that they'd have a good build. And even if they did they most likely wouldn't use it effectively.

As it is now, the roleless buffs pretty much do the job of healer and troll and even somewhat DPS (buffing the actual DPS's damage). The only thing missing really is a tank. Of course, elite doesn't have roleless buffs so that only applies to reg. But as far as queuing in to content, as long as you have a tank, a couple DPS and can find friends, leaguemates or LFG people to queue you in, that would essentially be the same experience as having a player tank, 2 or more player DPS's, a CPU bot troll, a CPU bot healer and however many CPU bot DPS's to round out the group. And if you're going for feats that's even better. The last thing you'd want is a CPU bot dying on a no death feat or standing in a red circle/cone for a feat to not take damage from that attack, etc, etc.

No. I'm not saying the idea is better. Honestly if it could work...it might be. I just don't see it working in this game with the parameters we have (old game engine, stacks upon stacks of old code to weed through, the dev team who can't keep up with just fixing current DLC items and therefore can't create a whole new 'NPC' player system).

Let me just look at some of your examples.
1. These new players pick up 3 NPCs for Bludhaven or Area 51. Do those NPCs run gears on the boxes, or the KO'd adds? Do they pew-pew, tank or heal? If they do all of those things, can't the new player just hover, get a sandwich and then come back in 15 min for the loots? If they CAN'T do that, will the NPCs just completely fail?...and if so...what keeps them also failing when the single player is there? I know you are looking at it as a battle tank stance, but honestly most alerts can be beat by JUST a decent battle tank. NPCs not needed except to open the door.

2. Same question really, just as you point out...more NPCs to do the work...or more incompetent ones that won't really help that much. The solo battle tank-ability is not as high, but also if you have 7 decent NPCs, is the 8th 'real' person needed at all?

3. PVP. Are the NPCs 'good' at PVP? If not, why would anyone ever run PvP against live people again...and if so, it's just something more to avoid the area for. Getting beat by a cheese artist with the OP broken powerset or Legends is bad enough. Getting beat by the NPC who lands on that stuff? Embarrasing to say the least. Hopefully they won't program tea-bagging in on them at least.

4. I debate that they are missing out on much. Most old content will eventually get hit by Omni (save those few non x-play missions), so if they really wanted something there, they can get to it...after some queue time. Now...doing things on repeat? Doing them for a feat (something else NPCS probably can't help with). That's a bit different. But just to 'experience' the old content? Meh. I'd say that's not really a thing. How many times do people need to run FOS2 or Bombshell or LOA to say they've 'experienced' it? I'd say 1 time...maybe you say it's a lot more.

Look, I'm not saying that the idea of some general purpose NPC shooter couldn't work. Code it so they cannot be the highest DPS in the group to avoid someone just squatting (like, you squat...the NPC squats). But for anything other than some Pew Pew capability, I don't see it working....or working TOO well that it would just become the norm. I don't see it being able to be fine tuned to where it will work as a filler for an average decent to lower top tier player....It's too narrow a target.

NOW....if they could MONITIZE it? Maybe then. They could then throw the resources at it to make it work as you think it should.

It needs to be done PvP is already forgotten and dead. It’s part of the game. PvP is and will always be part of an MMO experience. Now that it’s the way that it is, new players have fallen into that category how? Besides the obvious ranking up CR incredibly fast, new players cannot do those tier 1 alerts or raids for reasons others have mentioned (unless they form a group with those willing). A brand new player isn’t going to know why the instance isn’t popping up but once they find out they have a high chance of not sticking around especially if they also find out PvP has been disregarded for years. So who’s really left? EEG and EG players? I only came back just for the artifact once I’m done ranking up I’m leaving again. This system however they modify it has to be implemented one way or another. I tried FF, I don’t like the combat system not my type of fighting. I also tried SWTOR, it’s okay, don’t mind the combat system. I also played ESO and although it gets hate for PvP they however are still getting love. Yes DCUO team isn’t big and using an old engine. But ask yourself, what other feature of DCUO needs to go down before nothing can be played?

1. What you mean by “run gears on boxes” the npcs will not do complex tax. Their only job is to attack enemies and heal or whatever else basic combat allows you. If I was a new player and running as a DPS, I would like to have a tank npc just keeping aggro. You could have an npc healer and a second dps or troll. We can use Legends as these npcs. You can buy them off the marketplace or use source marks. An automatic kick out could happen if the game detects your not moving for 1 minute (can be longer who knows).

2. Well yes because a real player is the one who initiate the instance in the first place or did I misunderstood that last sentence??

3. I mentioned PvP because it has been neglected but I didn’t mention that npcs could also work in PvP lol

4. These are new players. There’s a lot of lore being given to us when doing solos, duos, alerts and raids. I understand old players don’t want to keep redoing these years old storylines but new players can’t even experience that because there isn’t anyone wanting to. I do say it’s a lot more because I like others like making new toons especially when I just been a hero and only recently did I decide to try the villain said. After all, you only get half of the story playing from one side whether that be hero or villain.

1. In particular, I meant the boxes on the 2nd part of Bludhaven...but in general I mean will they do pickups, will they press the cogs at the end of DM? Will they move to the correct location in the 1st boss of MoM or will they just keep killing the Ice Giant or kiting him towards a wall? Will they assemble statues in ToTD (granted, feat related only...but a lot of reason people would WANT to get into older runs is feats). All this is AI that needs to be configured, tested, tweaked and designed.

2. Yes, the 'real' player should be imperative to the run finishing. So if player 1 (the human) goes down, and the NPCs can't do pickups (you say they will attack enemies, heal or whatever else basic combat allows you), the run is over? I'm not opposed to it, but it could get frustrating. So, wiggle the mouse/controller every few min.. Or if you wanted, set up your toon for a tank, just omitting the heaviest Agro moves to avoid grabbing agro from your NPC tank, then stay in a corner where you can't die. A boon for PC players who can use a macro to re apply shields and healing moves while placing something on the W key to keep you 'moving' while facing the back wall of the room.

3. PVP is a lost cause. Looping it in will make sure this never happens. I'd say concentrate on the PVE section first...then if it takes off, maybe PvP down the road.

4. I'm talking about the new players. Assuming they run every run 2 or 3 times...do you think they will keep running over an over accompanied by 7 NPC that will pretty much make the run EXACTLY the same every time? Don't forget as they are just for pew-pew, heal, tank or troll. More than likely there won't be any feats happening other than random checklist/drop related ones.

It sounds like you are pretty set on pushing for this and I'm 98.5% sure it would never happen, or if it did the cheaters and cheese artists will have it ruined within weeks, so I don't really have to keep shooting the idea down.

I wish you luck...I really do. I just don't see it happening, not in this game at least.

Be careful of what we ask for!