Sunday, November 28, 2010

The giant list of DC Universe Online tips and tricks

Thought I'd start this post of a things I wish I had figured out when I first started playing.  A post so big I will have to insert a break. Click the jump to read the entire post:

UI/CONTROLS

1) Use the Mouse-wheel during the Character Creation process to see all the options.  Scroll bars were apparently recently added, but the Mouse-wheel also works great.

2) You don't have to hit "E" if you use a mouse.  You can just click both mouse buttons at any npc or item that is "E" interactive.

3) Slash commands...there aren't a lot ingame yet, but here are the ones posted so far (you can hit "o" to get to the chat window):

/say - Say something to anyone in your local area
/s - Same as /say
/groupsay - Say something to members of your group
/group - Same as /groupsay
/g - Same as /groupsay
/party - Same as /groupsay
/p - Same as /groupsay
/tell [name] - Send a private message to another person (use quotes around names with a space)
/t - Same as /tell
/reply - Send a private message to the last person that sent you a private message
/r - Same as /reply
/shout - Shout a message to everyone in the same region (like say but broader)
/invite [name] - Invite another person to join a group with you (no quotes needed)
/leave - Leave your current group
/kick [name] - Kick the specified person from your group (no quotes needed; must be leader)
/promote [name] - Promote the specified person to be the group leader (no quotes needed; must be leader)



4) When you hit "esc", if you click on the "mask" at the bottom ui, you can change your look without changing the stats of what you are wearing.  The "look" of items is dependent on what items you've collected and equiped so far.  You can sell any item you have previously equiped and still keep the "look" as an option (so you can go to a vendor, buy all the gear, equip it, then sell it back losing a little bit of cash and add all those "looks" to your options).

5) Pressing the Shift key will release you from being crowd controlled (most of the time), as well as provide you with a couple of seconds of immunity.

6) If you hold the Shift key and a strafe movement key, you will do a rolling dodge in that direction.

7) F9 takes a screenshot.  You can change your settings if you want the screenshot to show the UI or not (default is not showing the UI).  Images are saved to Drive Installed:Program FilesSony Online EntertainmentInstalled GamesDC Universe Online BetaUnreal3DCGameScreenShots

8) Hovering over a gear item in your inventory, via a quest reward offer or via a vendor will now tell you the set type and whether you've collected it yet as a style item.

9) Auto-run is available at all levels, in or out of movement mode.

  • To auto run on the mouse/keyboard, press "num lock."

  • To auto run on the controller, press and hold the left thumbstick.

  • Every movement mode allows you to purchase a "level up" to your auto-run speed via the skill tree, but you can still auto-run without it.


Note: you can't engage auto-run while in the slower combat movement mode (i.e., if you've been attacking or have been attacked within the last few seconds).

POWERS/ABILITIES

10) Don't fly through doors...just don't...

11) Something I learned because of #10. If you get stuck anywhere, just use your rally trinket (likely number 8 on the action bar) to port yourself out of that stuck spot.  It will most likely port you to a rally location close by.

12) In acrobatics, to use the Grapple line climb abilities mount a wall and press and hold SPACE to zip up a wall. To use the grapple wall be near a wall and hit space to grapple and pull yourself to it while falling.  To use the auto move abilities move forward and hit NUMLOCK.

13) With acrobatics, you can double jump by pressing jump again while in the air.  If you hold jump down on the second tap, you glide.  I played for quite a bit before I realized this.

14) In combat, your energy recharges and your supercharge meter fills up based on your combo. The higher your hit counter, the faster they fill. Your supercharge meter currently appears as a colored overlay on your hotbar'd supercharge powers. This is not final, and will be replaced with a real meter eventually.

15) You can switch roles using "T", these can be configured in the Loadouts screen. Note: Some loadouts are for illusions/transformations, to get to these you have to use specific abilities.  You can hit "P" to change your loadouts by dragging powers around.

16) Might increases the damage and healing of your powers.  DPS and Precision increase the damage of your abilities and weapon attacks.

17)  Pet commands:
To summon: Activate the ability like you would any other
To change tactics from aggressive to passive or back: Activate the ability again while the pet is summoned
To dismiss the pet: Hold the button for the ability until the pet goes away

Note: Currently there is a bug where if you zone with your pet out, the pet is dismissed but the UI shows the pet ability as still active.  Until this is fixed either dismiss your pet before you zone, or after you zone hold the button for that ability until it starts to cool down.

18) You can enter flight mode by holding down the spacebar instead of hitting "F" (if you have the flying travel form).  I believe you can activate the other travel modes the same way.

19) Enemies who are trapped by Encasement control effects (freezing, stasis field, etc) can only be damaged by certain powers -- specifically, ones that say they do heavy damage to Encased enemies in the power description. Normal attacks and powers will not cause any damage, and will in fact break the Encasement faster.

20) Current Stats & Descriptions that effect powers, abilities and weapon attacks.

Note: These are found by going to your inventory tab (i) and clicking on the stats tab.

  • Health: Health measures the amount of damange you can take before being knocked out.  Enemy attacks can reduce your health.  You automatically begin regenerating health when you leave combat.

  • Power: Power is required to use super abilities and is drained as they are preformed.  Power is recovered quickly when using weapon attacks to drive up the hit counter.  Power returns slowly when out of combat.

  • Defense: Defense reduces the damage received by attacks made by non-player enemies.

  • Might: Might increases the damange and Health recovery effects caused by super powers.

  • Restoration: Restoration increases the potency of all Health recovery effects you activate.

  • Vitalization: Vitalization increases the potency of all Power recover effects you activate.

  • Precision: Precision adds to the base damage caused by all weapon attacks.

  • Toughness: Toughness reduces the damange you receive from attacks made by enemy players.

  • Dominance: Dominance makes your control effects such as stuns harder to escape. Dominance increases the damage an enemy must take before control is broken.


21) passive bonuses available in the weapon trees are ALWAYS ACTIVE. You don't need to be using a 1-Handed weapon to get the Precision bonus. If you buy a box you get that bonus no matter what weapon you're using.

MISSIONS/INSTANCES/COMBAT/LEVELING

22) Make sure to click on all the investigation items before you leave an instance.  You may not be able to get back in later until after you hit 30 or unless you have a mission still inside that instance.

23) Repair after you complete a series of missions, especially if you get knocked out a lot.  Nothing feels worse then getting to a boss only to see that "your gear is broken" message.

24)  When you get to a mission zone, fly around the area and look for secondary side quests (a "?" on your mini map).  Most will have something to do with that current mission and you can end up getting more XP just completing your main mission.

25) Green Investigation items (outside of an instance) are normally around the quests zones so while looking for the secondary quest givers (Noramlly 1 or 2 at each area but not always) look for the Green symbols.

26) If you can't re-find a side quest giver, go into your journal and activate the side quest so you get the directional arrow on your mini map.  You can later go back in and re-activate your main mission.

27) After the majority of boss fights, there is a path to a quick exit that opens up.  You don't have to run all the way back to the beginning to get out.  Just look at your mini map.

28) World bosses are often in the lvl appropriate quest areas so watch it while doing them.

29) You can reset any instance (before the last boss is defeated) by logging out of the game.  This will put you back outside the instance with it reset.

30) Level 30 is the current level cap for Heroes and Villains.  Once you hit that level, you get a new mission to see your mentor.  That leads you on a quest series that activates the ability to access end game content (raiding and such).

31) Group sizes: Solo, Duo, 4-man and 8-man

32) The Skull and Red Arrow means that a near by enemy is readying a powerful attack...good time to block or dodge (covered in the turtorial, but good to remember).

33) Regarding Quest Credit...Everyone who has contributed to an encounter gets credit for all secures or deliveries.

  • If you need to KO + secure some guys and someone comes up and secures one while you're fighting the other, you BOTH get credit for it!

  • If there's an object you need to deliver. But there's an NPC guarding it. While you're fighting that NPC, someone grabs the object and delivers it. You BOTH get credit for the delivery.

  • If there's an encounter with a KO, a secure and a delivery and you're fighting the KO and two other guys come up and do the secure and the delivery, guess what? That's right, you get credit for both the delivery and the secure.

  • If there are three NPCs and a secure. Two people KO one guy, three other people KO the second and a lone guy number six KOs the third. Meanwhile a seventh hero does the secure. All seven people get secure credit and the ones that helped KO a guy get a single KO credit a piece.


34) Completing investigations automatically sends you Mail that appears to show no gear attachment.  If you "take attachment" you will still get the gear reward (check your inventory).

35) If you leave an instance to join an alert that you were queued for, when the alert completes will be ported back outside the instance with it reset.  This may be true for other queued items.  You do not reset the instance by queing for an alert or pvp, just by joining them once called.

36) Combat Controls:

  • Left and right mouse buttons for melee and ranged combo attacks.

  • 1-6 keys to activate your super powers.

  • 7 to use consumables.

  • 8 to use trinkets.

  • Left-shift to block and breakout (hold shift + WASD to dodge)

  • Left-ctrl to gather loot.

  • Tab to hard lock your current target.

  • Tab / Q for cycle left and right through targets once you have hard lock.

  • C to Clear your hard lock.


LOCATIONS

37) On the Watch Tower, there are consoles in the Habitat that you can respec with.  The best way I've found to get to the Habitat is traveling from the Tech wing to the Meta wing or vice versa.

38) Teleport portals for Gotham are in the tech wing.  Teleport portals for Metropolis are in the meta wing (pretty obvious, but didn't click right away they were by wing).  It is the same for the Watch Tower and Hall of Doom.

39) As you get to later levels, go to the Watch Tower for the better potions (healing/mana).  The initial portals in the Meta and Tech wings have vendors just outside the door.  One sells potions.

GENERAL/OTHER

40) Itemization Coloring:

Gray = not useful to you; sell it to a vendor
White = okay, but has no stat bonuses
Green = has good stat bonuses
Blue = has really good stat bonuses
Purple = has really, really good stat bonuses
Orange = Legendary

41) Regarding clickable "?" item in the World Environment

Collectible item = Yellow
Investigation item = Green
Brief = Blue

42) Not all audio voices are in game yet.  Many NPCs will have wrong voices until the actual voices are added to the game...This explains why Supergirl sounds over-dosed on Testosterone.

43) Falling does no damage.  It doesn't matter how high you fall from, you will take no fall damage ingame.  One fun thing to do is fly up really high and turn off your flight ability (f) and just fall to earth.  The devs decided it wasn't very epic to die ingame via falling.

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