InvisibleInk
Well-known member
wait... so not swapping artifacts made the content easier?
Endgame is dying
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Cipher_Baelin
Well-known member
This statement isn't completely true. I know of several people from many well known leagues who do these speed runs then brag about how they're hot ***t. And I've been blamed as a the and as the tank because some idiot was in his inventory and died because he was swapping and not focusing on mechanics and kept bringing up the scorecard. I've also seen numerous videos of people swapping and not paying attention to other people. Swapping was a problem. And its a net good that it was removed.Peoples are dying on SSE because they cant hit a bomb, peoples who were art swapping are experienced and know what they do, if you dont want to art swap just dont and thats it
You say this, but it stops being relevant when people are kicked from groups because they aren't swapping. Because these scorecard chasing, tryhard, selfish [series of well earned insulting expletives here] are forcing people to swap or kicking them from the group. Just like if you don't use EoG as a heal you're kicked from the same groups because of those same D bags.
Which is why imo EoG needs to be changed where ONLY restores super charge to the user, not the group. I mean hell I was in a group the other day, I was using EoG. Some idiot says that I need to move closer to the group and use it (even though 4 people were getting benefit from it), that idiot kept dying because he was too close to the boss and kept telling me to move closer with EoG. I then said F it and every time I used my SC I moved to the complete other side of the room. Then he did nothing but call me trash, hurled some racial slurs, etc. And sure thats just another day in DCUO sadly, but those are the types of people that keep advocating for this.
And actually if it were me, I'd just outright delete EoG from the game wholesale. Delete all the EoG wolfpacks, the actual art...all of it.
Great Architect
Well-known member
You get the same problem with Beacon of Hope and Constantine. If I'm close enough to drop it where the Tank or DPS are, then I'll do so (even clipping the animations for either with a Breakout Trinket, so it doesn't stop my Healing flow), but there's always someone - usually the melee DPS - that complain that they're not getting my Buffs, but refuse to move.
If it's not safe, I'm not dropping it on you for your sole benefit. I'm dropping it for the larger number of Group members who aren't playing high-risk strategies. You made that choice, don't expect me to accommodate it - you're already usually monopolising my Priority Heals as it is.
My Buffs are always going where they do the most good for the Group as a whole. End of story.
Grip
Well-known member
Lively discussion *claps*
My 2 cents on what I've read...
Player asking for a changes they want- good!
Players offering counterpoints to reasoning and sharing their experiences- good!
Hopefully, all the feedback lands somewhere, and people who've enjoyed the game will keep doing so.
While I know DB's internal metrics, not passionate requests, will be the decider, I also value communication. I'd love to see players like the op get some indication they've not been used then abandoned... in whatever way is most practical.
Sidenote: Fam, can we please not use retired to describe SM (or STU proper for that matter)? If gone, so be it, but why not expect the work til we receive notice? While I have unexchangeable currency and "when in SM" trinket text, I'll accept hiatus or being evaluated or whatever, but retired doesn't work for me Join me on my island- we have snacks!
My 2 cents on what I've read...
Player asking for a changes they want- good!
Players offering counterpoints to reasoning and sharing their experiences- good!
Hopefully, all the feedback lands somewhere, and people who've enjoyed the game will keep doing so.
While I know DB's internal metrics, not passionate requests, will be the decider, I also value communication. I'd love to see players like the op get some indication they've not been used then abandoned... in whatever way is most practical.
Sidenote: Fam, can we please not use retired to describe SM (or STU proper for that matter)? If gone, so be it, but why not expect the work til we receive notice? While I have unexchangeable currency and "when in SM" trinket text, I'll accept hiatus or being evaluated or whatever, but retired doesn't work for me
Join me on my island- we have snacks!
Great Architect
Well-known member
I agree. Unwarranted certitude about something that is inherently uncertain leads to a lot of raised expectations and disappointments (inevitably followed by a slew of "we were promised" threads when we weren't promised anything).Lively discussion *claps*
My 2 cents on what I've read...
Player asking for a changes they want- good!
Players offering counterpoints to reasoning and sharing their experiences- good!
Hopefully, all the feedback lands somewhere, and people who've enjoyed the game will keep doing so.
While I know DB's internal metrics, not passionate requests, will be the decider, I also value communication. I'd love to see players like the op get some indication they've not been used then abandoned... in whatever way is most practical.
Sidenote: Fam, can we please not use retired to describe SM (or STU proper for that matter)? If gone, so be it, but why not expect the work til we receive notice? While I have unexchangeable currency and "when in SM" trinket text, I'll accept hiatus or being evaluated or whatever, but retired doesn't work for me
On the other hand, we have people that are similarly certain that something is *not* going to happen, when that is also unknown and uncertain.
Recent examples are people assuming that *all* Powers will be getting a revamp, or that *all* Powers will get a Power Array Augment. Those just aren't certain things.
You can weigh up the probabilities, and decide if something is likely, highly likely, unlikely, or highly unlikely, but in any case you need to entertain the idea that you might still be wrong.
Pandora25
Well-known member
I wish I were that naive when it comes to company-consumer communication. They'll rarely say "we're getting rid of this or that thing worse," they'll say they're doing something new or improving/optimizing stuff. If they can get away with acting like nothing changed in the hopes that everybody forgets about it, that's what they'll do.Sidenote: Fam, can we please not use retired to describe SM (or STU proper for that matter)? If gone, so be it, but why not expect the work til we receive notice? While I have unexchangeable currency and "when in SM" trinket text, I'll accept hiatus or being evaluated or whatever, but retired doesn't work for me
The original Survival Mode ran every year from 2014 to 2017. SM 2.0 was released in 2019, then made a comeback in 2021 and 2022. You can see a pattern here. Something was not up to their standards in 2017, as it skipped 1 year and returned in a new format. If the new format was such a success, they wouldn't have skip 2020. The event has been gone for 3 years. It's also not a coincidence the last edition of SM happened 1 year after and 1 year before the introduction of Save the Universe.
Save the Universe and SM were events designed for elite players, which is a small part of an already small player base. They probably decided the events were redundant and kept Save the Universe. Except the had a lot of problems with StU because things were always buggy - which means they didn't have proper time/resources to deliver a good event.
Flashback already do what Save the Universe used to: it takes some instances and brings them to end game levels for a limited time. That's why devs decided to attach the StU feats to them. The redundancy comes up yet again.
Finally, the new approach is clearly "if you make it easier, they will come" - meaning that they have no interesting in making elaborate, challenging NEW content. The whales only care about meta and board chasing, so it is clear how they've allocated their efforts in that direction. The result is very powerful players melting enemies in new content by day 2, and new players that disband old instances at the smallest sign of difficulty. They don't run Amazon Fury II raids anymore, nor early Tier 4 raids because they don't want to figure anything out nor do anything differently from their usual stuff.
Unless something changes in their plans, those events are gone for good, because the players that were here for the complex/challenging mechanics left the game after Day of Reckoning. New players cry rivers because they don't wanna do portals nor move away from Zoom in RWe. Who is going to play StU and SM? Not enough to justify new editions of those events.
Cipher_Baelin
Well-known member
I mean I would say why can't they just change it so trolls restore SC with EoG because they already get SC as it is and heals have to go out of their way to put abilities (and sacrifice heals at the same time) to build SC fast). But then you're met with the same problem of now trolls are forced to carry an art that they may or may not want to carry.
The way I see it as a support role, I'm not here to support 1 tryhard scorecard chasing DPS ***k, I'm here to support the group. Keep the group powered/buffed (as a troll), healed and keep the adds and boss off of everyone as the tank. I'm not here for just the DPS. Problem is these DPS are basically the only DPS that are left, because the game has driven away everyone else and you're mostly left with these selfish D bags. Ofc thats my experience when I pug, and its not all the time, but its most of the time.
Cipher_Baelin
Well-known member
And if they do away with STU completely, then they need to auto grant ppl the feats for collecting the vendor items since they'd be no longer available. I figure I'll eventually get the feats for running x of y version of instance, but you still got feats for the vendor items.Lively discussion *claps*
My 2 cents on what I've read...
Player asking for a changes they want- good!
Players offering counterpoints to reasoning and sharing their experiences- good!
Hopefully, all the feedback lands somewhere, and people who've enjoyed the game will keep doing so.
While I know DB's internal metrics, not passionate requests, will be the decider, I also value communication. I'd love to see players like the op get some indication they've not been used then abandoned... in whatever way is most practical.
Sidenote: Fam, can we please not use retired to describe SM (or STU proper for that matter)? If gone, so be it, but why not expect the work til we receive notice? While I have unexchangeable currency and "when in SM" trinket text, I'll accept hiatus or being evaluated or whatever, but retired doesn't work for me
Grip
Well-known member
Great history share for those who missed it in real time
I'll add a couple things for funsies (without leaning too hard into unwarranted certitude about things that are inherently uncertain). Most speculation will be near the end.In 2020, the team successfully patched and returned AF2's HoH and Lab raids to playable status after a long absence for both. They hosted a reintroduction event called Raid the Universe that included every AF raid, coincided with WB's WW1984 and welcomed all cr105 up characters with no regard to elite content tendencies.
DCUO's population was visibly growing, but unfortunately (subjective), the game team lost some key members. This fact, along with RTU's inclusion, likely canceled SM in 2020.
A couple summers prior, the Death of Superman (an 80th anniversary and Action Comics issue 1000 tie-in) dropped as an event, and probably pre-empted the much less historic, narrower-appealing SM.
SM and STU (including its adjusted e versions) sharing the '21 stage excited a lot of enthusiasts, but was quite a handful for the non DC-lifers I knew and even moreso when Homecoming joined them in '22. It seems reasonable that player engagement took a hit, and there was vocal discontent with the bloated event schedule.
Since then, population and staffing (including leadership) changes could easily account for one or both being held back. Without official communication, we're guessing *shrug* but we may be right that DCUO chose to pivot away from both events as we remember them.
The statement you quoted was me saying it's ok to let or even press the team to speak for itself without preaching our pseudo-precognitive theories as gospel, and I'm saving a hut for anyone willing to try
100% fam I'm with you
Sidenote- Hoping none of these tangents obscure the op's intent. Good luck!
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Cipher_Baelin
Well-known member
Yeah I don't want to derail the thread,
I disagree with him though. Its a net good for the game imo that swapping was removed
SM I hated it with a passion ever since Season 1 with that titans training room whatever. I was fine with it up until then, didn't really care. I ran it with league/friends, we tried as hard as we could, but then the exploits started and started hard. And also it caused problem because then selfish ppl like [PLAYER_HERE] would play with his league, then bail on them, go play with friends and say F yall to his league, beat it or get a higher progress then his league and leave ppl high and dry. Or use his league to get his toons up to a certain PP then bail and run with other people. Imo SM caused way too much drama, and the people that I hear in game always *itching and moaning about it in LFG and some of these leagues, they're the cause of the drama. Also its odd that some of the people wanting SM to return are some of the same people that exploit the ***t out of SM. So whats the point of this SM beyond bragging rights? If you exploit something to win it, then you aren't good and the "we want challenging content" argument is invalid at that point.
Cipher_Baelin
Well-known member
Aids has entered the chat and is kindly asking that you stop insulting it by comparing it to art swapping.
BumblingB
I got better.
The fact you chose to use the term "try hard" invalidates your entire plea. Typically, when that term is used, it's a negative connotation about a certain play style that a person does when they go over the top with the competitive approach. Where everything has to be a competition and you don't actually enjoy anything other than being #1. Typically makes for a bad experience for other players and those players are who coined the term, "try hard."
With that said, art swapping was extremely exploitable. Where you can just play inventory dps/controller and keep the effects w/o any negatives that are usually imposed on the artifact. That was the problem with them. (Of course there were some more egregious exploits that actually got patched out before the no swap was made.) This should not return, because, what is fun about hitting your inventory every second? (Unless you macro, then... that is a choice, for sure.) It can be argued that 5 arts are far stronger than 3 with flex swap. Plus, they kind of going stronger and stronger with power creep on new abilities and these new augments. So... I would say now, you are stronger than before.
Content wise, I can agree that the way that they are approaching elite and elite+ content is definitely different than before, but I will die on this hill that we don't need elite and elite+ anymore. Just go back to the pre elite content model and make the raids more of a challenge. It's funny how many people remember and look back at that era with rose tinted lenses, but yet still think elite should be a thing. Which, that was also the time that they changed our abilities for the worst. (Throne elite came out after the start of the AM era.)
I think Survival Mode should come back. No special feats. No elite have to have trinkets. Just give a challenge. A significant number of games do have some sort of SM to give players something to do or work for. It should come back at a revolving cycle. The problem comes down to it, that SM, in DCUO that is, was heavily abused by a certain group of players selling services. IYKYK and very few people was running it for the challenge. The model bread this problem, not the difficulty. They put rare styles, base items, etc in the reward system. If none of that was there and it was simply cosmetic like a rare title, it would be run by people who want to run it. There will still be abuse, but no where near the same level. (I remember the original SM had a ranking system that people were just exploiting the terrain that invalidated that system.)
In the end, I think the only thing with the new model that needs to be addressed is the way they are doing content. The narrative path is frustrating. The alert and raid being the same. Then having the solo being the main story end point. This makes for an experience that just isn't fun and can cause burnout to a player. I still don't run the solos even with the feats in there, they are too long and the rewards are minimal. I just hope future models will be tweaked. Give us a different alert and raid instance. Give us some duos. Make a raid the end of the story to have a big climax. Sell us the experience!
With that said, art swapping was extremely exploitable. Where you can just play inventory dps/controller and keep the effects w/o any negatives that are usually imposed on the artifact. That was the problem with them. (Of course there were some more egregious exploits that actually got patched out before the no swap was made.) This should not return, because, what is fun about hitting your inventory every second? (Unless you macro, then... that is a choice, for sure.) It can be argued that 5 arts are far stronger than 3 with flex swap. Plus, they kind of going stronger and stronger with power creep on new abilities and these new augments. So... I would say now, you are stronger than before.
Content wise, I can agree that the way that they are approaching elite and elite+ content is definitely different than before, but I will die on this hill that we don't need elite and elite+ anymore. Just go back to the pre elite content model and make the raids more of a challenge. It's funny how many people remember and look back at that era with rose tinted lenses, but yet still think elite should be a thing. Which, that was also the time that they changed our abilities for the worst. (Throne elite came out after the start of the AM era.)
I think Survival Mode should come back. No special feats. No elite have to have trinkets. Just give a challenge. A significant number of games do have some sort of SM to give players something to do or work for. It should come back at a revolving cycle. The problem comes down to it, that SM, in DCUO that is, was heavily abused by a certain group of players selling services. IYKYK and very few people was running it for the challenge. The model bread this problem, not the difficulty. They put rare styles, base items, etc in the reward system. If none of that was there and it was simply cosmetic like a rare title, it would be run by people who want to run it. There will still be abuse, but no where near the same level. (I remember the original SM had a ranking system that people were just exploiting the terrain that invalidated that system.)
In the end, I think the only thing with the new model that needs to be addressed is the way they are doing content. The narrative path is frustrating. The alert and raid being the same. Then having the solo being the main story end point. This makes for an experience that just isn't fun and can cause burnout to a player. I still don't run the solos even with the feats in there, they are too long and the rewards are minimal. I just hope future models will be tweaked. Give us a different alert and raid instance. Give us some duos. Make a raid the end of the story to have a big climax. Sell us the experience!
LowFlyingMoon
Well-known member
Um... What? Which artifacts do you imagine allowed you to "keep the effects w/o any negatives that are usually imposed on the artifact"? Do you only know how swapping worked from chatting with other players who couldn't do it? Considering, that you're also asking "what is fun about hitting your inventory every second" leads me to believe, that this is indeed the case.
Most artifacts don't have "negatives imposed on them". And the few that did, back when art swapping was possible, absolutely kept them along with the effects, if you swapped them. If you swapped out Ebon before the finisher - you wouldn't get your power back and the power costs wouldn't reset, so your power consumption was constantly super-high. Same goes for Lernaea - no heal and every ability used would cause the max amount of damage to you, relative to power cost. Swapping artifacts was nowhere near as powerful as having 2 additional artifacts permanently active, since you only used a portion of the artifact's effects and there was a high probability of failure. Which is why most players weren't able to do it and only complained about it.
DCUO combat is simple and gets boring quick, if you're a skilled and experienced gamer, with quick reflexes and good dexterity. Adding another layer helped break the monotony and added an element of risk. That was the fun for players, who don't consider pressing 1-2-3-4 over and over and blocking a skull once in a while to be the absolute epitome of challenging gameplay. I'm not expecting it to come back, because the game has already squeezed what it could from the "tryhards" and now it's milking the "casuals", by making them overpowered, but it was a very fun aspect of the game and I won't be surprised, if "tryhards" find some other way to use their skills in a way that will get the rest of the players' underwear in a bunch.
Pandora25
Well-known member
As someone who's against removing the clamp, I say that those raids used to be such challenges because devs were counting on people getting stronger. That means that even if people didn't have to learn the mechanics, they only had to wait.
With the new scaling planed, we soon won't be able to overpower Tier 1 content (unless we use private matchmaking), so we'll never significantly outgrow EEG content. That's the type of format elite was designed for. Removing levels of difficulty would be a mistake.
That said, I think having elite+ devalues elite, so I'd get rid of E+ without thinking twice.
LowFlyingMoon
Well-known member
I don't know what makes you think, that we won't be able to overpower low Tier content. Considering, that it wasn't designed for players with arts, allies, 2 power trays, Elite trinkets, non-splitting AOE damage, et cetera, any PUG with a couple of EG players in it will steam-roll it with ease - probably more so than they're doing now, if the test solo is anything to go by.
Obviously - that's not going to matter, since - if the devs go through with the dumb idea of unscaled "option" - nobody's going to be running scaled old content anyway, except for a few money and SM farming raids.
Pandora25
Well-known member
I think they're getting the hang of it. If you compare SoA to DoR, you'll see that path became linear, the encounters are a bit more challenging and therefore more significant. Kryb's Lab is the second fastest chapter solo (FD solo would be the faster), and you can even skip a group of adds without issue. I think the odds of getting meaningful rewards were increased too. I also think that the Krypto mechanic in Refinery is interesting, but having him sniffing the path in 2 portions is too repetitive still.
I play Sky: Children of the Light from time to time. Their episodes/chapters are called seasons. The story for season is released in 4 parts, 1 part per week, and people run other stuff for dailies. Sure, both games don't have that much in common besides being MMOs, but I think DCUO could benefit much from applying the same model of release - make Flashbacks available right away, then release the story in 2-4 parts. Also, they should allow people to run the story in groups. Trapping us in solo content is silly.
Pandora25
Well-known member
Unscaled won't be available for regular matchmaking, and we don't know what other limitations will be added. You can be sure people won't be able to farm SM though, that wasn't even a question they asked during the survey. The options were (if I remember them correctly): 1) learning mechanics, 2) pursuing feats, 3) chasing rare rewards, and 4) for fun. The game as it is today has a loot lock of 5 minutes, people wouldn't be able to just play the same instance back-to-back anyway. Also, that would hurt marketplace sales.
LowFlyingMoon
Well-known member
You misunderstood. People will be farming SM by running 1 or 2 shortest scaled raids, just like they're doing now. Most won't be running any other old content after they milked unscaled version for feats.
And that wasn't my question. It was - what makes you think, that new scaling will make it impossible to overpower lower tier content?