Why Survival Mode should never see the light of day again.

Hi, it's another rant time and I'm sorry, I just can't... stay... quiet.

I'll start off by saying (again) that I'm a very competitive person who loves hard content, hard feats and obviously - the good ol' Survival Mode.

There is nothing I haven't accomplished in this game. The inner pleasure (giggity) of beating everything that's an actual challenge is always worth the time, blood and tears spent.

Don't get me wrong though, I know it's just a game and the majority of us who have families, jobs and such find it quite hard to play at times and that's exactly the reason why this thread was made.

1. Once the news about Survival Mode were official, the majority of my in-game friends prepared to fully and quite literally dedicate their life to it (whether you believe it or not).

They would call at work and be like:"I'm sick, I need a week off." and literally go crazy over Survival Mode. They didn't eat or drink and of course getting sleep was out of the question.

Quite unhealthy, right? Well, that wasn't the end of it. One of my crazy friends shared with me that his wife left him due to his obsession with Survival Mode, not paying attention to his family and always prioritizing the game.

And yes, just because couple egoistic people decide to live within the game, doesn't mean the rest of us are the same, however Survival Mode did much more to people.

In a game where you make actual friends, you'd expect everyone to be there for you and good ol' Survival Mode changed even the last bit of kindness that the majority of players had, even the ones I used to call my friends, so this leads to my second point:

2. Imagine being a Leader of a big league, literally doing your best to satisfy and babysit everyone, making sure that you don't disappoint those who follow you.

Now imagine spending every last bit of free time you have to help others with hard raids, tedious feats and such.

You literally build up a player from the bottom - when they join your league, they're insecure, have around 300 skill points, but within 3 months they are good at the role/s they've picked and have over 600 skill points thanks to the endless league (sometimes pug) runs you've done for them, have given them in-game cash, rare styles and collections and even got to the point of helping them with real cash, so they can buy a legendary.

And now imagine them leaving the league simply because you were busy with your own Survival Mode group and couldn't join them for R7.

All the time, effort and money - wasted, because you couldn't babysit that player for one last time.

Tough, right?

And it doesn't end there.

You'd say: "It's your fault for giving everybody what they want, Caroline" and sure, I'll accept that, because many have told me that I do too much and once I stopped, people started calling me out even more for not willing to do much more than any other NORMAL leader of a league would.

The amount of hateful messages I got about how I stick to my own group, because I pre-planned it, the amount of crying and whining that was spilled on top of me was enormous and all that just because I didn't make SM groups for every single person.

1*. "You don't want to help, because you're running with your core group." - Yes, after pre-planning it for weeks, you should try doing the same and maybe you'll have better luck in SM.

2*. "We've wiped 4 times on R25 and you don't wanna go back for the day, that's not what a league leader would do" - If my time and effort are not worth anything to you then your rounds are not of any importance to me, because when I need a break I state it.

3*. "I have 2 alts in your league and my main is in another one. Your tanks aren't joining me for SM, but I expect them to read my mind, because I don't dare messaging them and asking them for help since it hurts my ego. Isn't this league supposed to be helpful?" Sure, when the tanks are not busy running with those who are fully loyal to the league and are also nicely asked for help rather than expected to read minds.

Yes, such people are not worth your time and since Survival Mode started, I lost around 15 players. It was a good riddance, the real and loyal ones stayed, however all the effort, money and energy spent on the players who left is not justified.

It hurts and it sucks.

3. Although, what hurts more is going in Survival Mode, literally spending days and nights in it, trying to figure out tactics and mechanics, managing to beat R30 and then a week later seeing all these unknown, basic players with no skill or survivability (barely at 200 skill points, too) wearing the crown & back piece like their **** don't stink.

So, how does it feel? It feels like there is no point of having or even attempting Survival Mode anymore, because the glitchers and speed hackers bloom within it. Survival Mode's competitive nature made a lot of players take it in such a serious manner that it literally led to their families being destroyed.

Is it worth it?

Is it worth giving your life away, because of a game and an event that is temporary? Those who beat round 30, how do you feel? Didn't you spend hours upon hours figuring out how to beat round 30?

I love Survival Mode, but it destroyed a lot of friendships, leagues, lives and obviously the purpose of running it.

And last but not least where I feel like I might get extremely hated:

4. Money. At times players want to get paid for running locked in hard instances. But this whole thing has blown out of proportion, because as soon as Survival Mode came out, a lot of players took advantage of the weaker population of the game.

They would literally charge 300-400 dollars just to help a player beat R24. I never minded the in-game cash proposals, I think that's fine. It's pretty much as selling anything else, as long as it doesn't include real money.

It's done behind closed doors, not many know about it and I'm not gonna call out the players who do this, but it's just wrong. How can you take advantage of people's weakness towards this game by charging them real money and we're talking about some quite big numbers here.

Clearly a lot of people are trying to take advantage of Survival Mode - for its prizes in the vendor, for the drops in the instance and for its glory.

Survival Mode has reached a rank of an utter nightmare, it's been endlessly used and abused for filthy purposes and it's time to stop.

Please Devs, don't bring Survival Mode back. Don't let all these people mock your own game by taking advantage of it.

And if anything, this can potentionally make you lose players who have given to the temptation of speed hacking something they clearly cannot beat which equals getting banned, therefore you have less players around.

Alright, Caroline out.

I don't usually jump in SM threads, just because I find the threads can get a bit toxic as well lol, but

I don't think it's SM fundamentally that's toxic, it's the players behaviours stemming from it. They see it as the source of worth within the game and a failure to complete it damages their brand/reputation, failure is not an option for those people (not saying you but obviously some).

It's more often than not as well the rewards that drive the wedge, SM ever since the introduction of Season 1 has introduced a wealth of rewards that are seen as incredibly appealing and people want them, when they're lumped with the prospect of not being able to obtain them then things start to fall apart.

I know it's easier to say than do, but try to worry less about what others are doing around you, by all means report cheaters and real world traders because there's reasons that is against the rule, but getting frustrated about controlling what others are doing will give you grey hair early and isn't worth the stress, it is also just a video game remember.

And dare I say it, but if you're taking sick leave from your job for a video game as well, then it's probably time for a break, I know it's great to be genuinely excited for something but taking a week off work as "sickness", that's probably the sign of an unhealthy approach just saying.

yep thats another good point u made caro. at this point sm is more bad then good

it could have been good but the devs are playing games

Thats how I feel as the only player (and Tank to beat r25, this season) in my league. I feel the same stress and guilt if I'm not always looking out for my league, which has made me hate tanking for SM atm. I don't really care to bare the higher rounds with the time needed/involved. I give much respect to those that still work to beat r30. Its just not for me, I know I'm good. I just don't feel like I need countless hours and a crown to prove it. We have had similar issues, but not to your leagues extremes. I still log in, but I've cut back alot on how much SM I run. I took a week vaca on the 12th and now kinda which I hadn't.

Wait what?? If it's destroying leagues, then those aren't leagues.

Those are cliques. If leagues are getting upset with leaguemates for not doing SM runs with them then it's time for them to join a different league. SM has always been meant for the hardcore DCUO players and it hasn't changed at all. It's bragging rights.


Literally everything you've said can be said about a new episode dropping, as if it's preventing people from playing older content (people still ask to run zooE).

What about the people that are having fun and enjoying it? Y'know, the people that play game to have fun and enjoy a challenge without obsessive compulsive behavior taking ahold of them? Cuz there are plenty of people that can game and not ruin their lives too.

Plus, the player base begged for sm. Let them deal with their own issues.

omg can we just get to the next dlc.

You're thinking too much. Stop. This is not an insult. Sounds like you're a helpful person, a good league leader. You help out players with feats and organize groups to help out leaguers through raids and such. I recognized the time and effort it takes to do this and to do it repeatedly can easily be an increasingly repetitive and burdening chore. When these same players come up to you and "demand" more of your time or deprive you of your own enjoyment and leave and insult you; it's not because of Survival Mode.

It's because they're ungrateful people who can't see the value and effort of your help. Recognize the pain it's caused you and move on. You don't need to spend another wasted thought on people such as this.

You're thinking too much. Stop, this is not an insult. Survival Mode is not the cause of speed hackers and the surge of paid carries. All of that is a group of players being greedy and weak and envious. You're accomplishment of finishing SM is not diminished by another's cheats and actions. You shouldn't worry about how other people might have gotten through SM. Why spend the time and effort doing this? Instead of relishing the effort and accomplishment of what this SM was for you; why are you focusing on other people's crap?

This is all about people's behavior. You can't change the bad behaviors, can't push them off a steep cliff; can't wall them out. Recognize it, identify them; Ignore it. Enjoy what you have. That's life. You might find it less stressful for you.

I didn't really do much on SM but there are other people who like SM, let other people enjoy it for what it was designed for and forget about the rest.

Personally, the only reason why I'd take out SM is the extra effort and time wasted by DEVS to monitor those instances of cheats. Banning cheaters an average of every 3 hours, all the time spent to watch and investigate; even for 1 Developer's time wasted. All that extra time and effort by somebody on the DEV side wasted on monitor and investigations; diverting DEV resources is a truly waste of time that should have been towards game development.

Right in the feels. I don't think a lot of people know/care how much time and effort it takes to keep a large/successful league in operation. It takes hours and hours and hours of recruiting, glad-handing, playing content you get no direct benefit from, just hanging out...it can get exhausting, especially if you have actual friends and family obligations to attend to. And if times get tough, rarely does anyone step up to pick up the "slack". It's like walking a tightrope. Our group has gotten smaller over the years, granted, but at least I'm not spending 50+ hours a week being available to play/chat/whatever. The people that just up and leave, sometimes without even a message, really hurts...especially if you've invested months or years into their development.

I know, right? Having the same old DLC for almost 5 months is exhausting.

Exactly.

Thank you for understanding.

Your league is nice and helpful, but that other hero league you attached to toxic. I wasn't sure who was in the villain league so I got up outta there. Fyi, your league members were probably salty because you were running with the other league and not them

Fyi, I got R30 done with my villain league and farewell to you, buddy

While I think that SM was implemented poorly, I don’t think it’s fair to blame SM for your league mates poor behavior. Calling in sick for a week and ignoring your family...I highly doubt this was the first time or last, especially over something as trivial as a video game.

It's not just my league that was acting that way. A lot of other people experienced it in their leagues as well.

Also, just to make it clear - I DID NOT call in pretending to be sick. It was couple of my friends that did.

Yeah, if a relationship is breaking up over that, they're not actually good or strong relationships and it was always going to happen somehow. That or some people might just leave a league because they simply realize their goals and approaches for the game don't line up and they're better off finding people that want to do the same stuff as them, which is also fairer to the original league tbh.

I honestly get all the social issues that came up around this. We've been talking about the same ones since day1 of SM years ago, but I think the biggest and most important reason SM shouldn't be done again is because of the resources wasted on it.

SM uses dev time (labour/time+energy) for content that only a small % of the population (around 5%) has any interest in playing and it isn't revenue generating.

I mean we brought this up years ago and they said it was one dev doing it on their spare time, but it's 2021 so that's not really a good answer either. Even if it is only a couple devs working on it... don't want that energy spent. Especially if they're not being compensated for it.

If the dev argument is that we can't have new powersets, movement modes, fix/revamp of pvp, and so on, because they cost more than the revenue they generate; okay, well, let's never see SM again. When we can agree all those other aspects of the game need regular investment and development than I'm happy to see more SMs. Not until then though.

Y'all opening pandoras box in here. Not sure why a bunch of unstable gamers should decide what other people get to play but stick with me here...
Players asked for this. We got this. Cool. Someone is too soft to balance life and a game? Sucks to be them but a ton of other people can handle it and even enjoy it.

Next dlc, get ready for this post to bite you in the butt. "My league mate has been cutting himself because elite is too hard, get rid of it" or "I got dumped because I spent too much time trying to beat elite and now I want to drink bleach, make it easier".

I'm sorry, and I really realllllly despise using this phrase, but this is the most snowflake post I have ever read on this forum. Like just a big waambulance trip. You lost some dead weight after making poor choices to support strangers. Be glad they're gone.