Monday, December 6, 2010

Apparently some DC Universe Online players don't want a subscription fee

I cannot say I blame them really. I have said before that I feel the game is a console port, a straight up fighting game, with minimal RPG aspects that many PC MMO players look for. I certainly do not think it is worth a monthly subscription and will probably go free to play a few months after launch once the bandwagon hype dies down.

So without further ado I present the massive list of problems this game faces....and it is terribly close to launch.You will want to click the jump below to read the full article.



Problems:

Thegame currently only takes about a week of casual play to hit level 30.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I actually like the fact that
the 1-30 experience is fast and easy to solo.
--
The problem is that the amount of content at level 30 is not enough.
It first appears that there’s a large array of content for you to
do...duos, raids, hard mode alerts, PvP etc.  However, playing through
all of this content is vastly too easy and too fast.  I’ve already
experienced almost all of the content over a week of play at level 30.
The reasoning for more content is that most games require you a pretty
vast time sink in order to reach max level.  There
has to be an equal amount of content at level 30 to equal that time
sink PLUS the end-game content most games release with.  I
was actually really pumped when I hit max level, I said to myself,
“Wow, I have all of these duos to queue for!” ….then I realized that
they are instances I already did with a generic mini boss added in.  I
guess it’s cool to do these instances again...but if it only takes ~30
hours gameplay time to reach level cap, why am I doing recycled content
late-game?

You currently go mentor to mentor and have to complete most quests in order to reach max level.

--The re-playability of the game lacks with the forced quests for every
single mentor.  I finished the game, after doing races/investigations
with only about 1 story arc left, and all of the wanted missions (could
never find a group for them).  I should be able to do many unique
missions with my mentor.  So far it seems that there is only one at
level 15 and one at level 30.  Also, since hero/villain missions pretty
much mirror each other, you tend to do the exact same content the entire
game on every character.  And to add even more to this, duo modes
mirror the instances that you’ve already done, so you again experience
the exact same content.  Although the leveling experience isn’t very
long, I can’t see myself leveling up many alts because of the repetition
of questing.

The game requires very little coordination and use of your role until near max level.

--I literally hit level 30 without EVER using my control role in an
alert.  I understand that the idea is that the game slowly breaks you
into content over the alerts, however, in the choice between DPS and
control, I see most people go DPS.  I understand the extreme need for a
healer, and sometimes the need for a tank, but the control role in the
leveling environment doesn’t appear to be that strong.
--
Also, on the same note of coordination.  I find that the alerts up to
maybe Oolong Island are lacking in the complexity department.  I can
understand Area 51 and Gorilla Island possibly being pretty tank and
spank, but there is very little differentiation between the alerts
besides the really well done scenery.  The first alert I experienced
where I really felt like it was a unique boss fight was the last boss of
Oolong where for a while you are in the robots and there were different
phases of the fight.

World PvP branches across huge zones and mostly consists of ganking.
--
While I understand why there is ganking on PvP servers (it is
inevitable), there is not an easy way to really set up World PvP.  Since
the zones are so vast and pretty similar to each other, you can’t just
say “I’m getting ganked in Chinatown” or etc., as travel powers are so
ridiculously fast that there is no way most players could even track
down the player to fight them.  Most other MMOs have “cities” or the
equivalent of safe houses where a lot of World PvP goes on, and since
there aren’t very many safehouses in the cities, and safehouses are
mostly not level based, it’s pretty much just spawn camping instead of
“a raid on a town.”

The cities are barren once people reach max level
--
It seems to me that, unless you are hunting investigations (which
locations will be posted on a gamefaq site hours after launch), that
there is no good reason to go back into cities.  Most of the endgame is
in a queue.  Also, since most of the areas in cities were developed with
a particular quest chain in mind, there is little room for “RP areas”
which could double as PvP areas (the thought comes to mind of trainer
locations in City of Heroes/Villians).

Thegame lacks trade skills, and just a lack of something to do when you’re not in a queue. <-

Note: I don't mean that this game needs trade skills, I'm saying it needs something to do to make up for the lack of it.
--
Sure there are races, investigations, and costume collecting, but there
is nothing I can do to progress my character when I’m not in a queue.
Everything that I can do to actually get myself gear or make my
character stronger is in a group in a queue.  For example, in World of
Warcraft, when I’m not doing raids I could be out picking herbs for a
profession, making things, playing the auction house, and gaining
reputation.
--
At this current point in the game, I feel like outside of doing queued
instances/PvP, I can: Complete all the investigations I didn’t do, get
platinum in all of the races, gank people(?), look for random events for
feats.

Feats are one in a million, and are hard to know which ones exist and which
don’t, and reward skill points for an eventual skill set you will not
use.  In addition, the multitude of skill points is overwhelming from a
balance standpoint.
--
After the last patch there just seems to be too many feats that are so
random that I wouldn’t know they were there except for luck.  This is
fine, if they didn’t award skill points.  I do not personally believe
that feats should reward skill points, although it is a cool concept,
there should be more of a cosmetic/non gameplay affected use for feats.
My reasoning behind saying this is that this leads to people literally
farming out countless random feats (on multiple characters) to get the
most stats from their weapon trees.  This leads to a harder to balance
game and a grind I don’t think needs to be implemented.
--
In the same light, weapon skill trees seem to be useless for the
hardcore player (besides the passives).  Since you can’t switch weapons
on the fly, I don’t see why any player would bother getting all of the
combos in the weapon tree to play it over just getting all of the
passives and leaving the tree.  This leads to players being for example:
Archery + passives from random other trees.  This could possibly be
changed by adding more powerful passives to the end of the tree,
eliminating the extra skill points, and wanting the player to go deeper
into the tree to pursue better passives.  This, of course, would lead to
the elimination of a secondary weapon.  I don’t feel like this would be
a major hit to the game, as you can just respec and gain access to
another weapon.

Respecs allow you to pick up Iconic/Movement powers from level 1.
--
I don’t have an issue with this, if you could actually pick up those
powers at level 1.  It feels almost exploitable that I can respec at a
high level and gain access to all of the passives at the top of the
iconic tree without spending any other points anywhere else.  I think
that while putting points in the tree should account for what level you
would have been with those points.
--
I understand that this is an issue for many players who desire the
“Might and Mastery” powerset, or maybe a powerset built around movement
(like The Flash).  This could easily be changed to just allow the
movement powers and iconic powers available from level 1, and then just
level restrict the passives of both trees.

Because of the ability slots being limited, there are some builds I feel no one will ever go competitively.
--
I actually like the idea of loadouts and limited skills for each set,
but in order for this to work every single ability needs to have a
valuable reason for taking it.  For example, if I pick up in the Gadgets

- Tricks tree: a sentry turret, cloak, and cloak ally.  I already have
wasted 4 slots (the sentry takes 2).  That means I have 2 DPS abilities
for myself.  I don’t see why anyone would take cloak and cloak ally, and
you can’t cloak yourself with cloak ally, so it would be weird not
taking both.  I also don’t see why anyone would take the sentry as it
takes up two slots.  If it’s going to take up two slots, it should be
twice as good as a regular ability (why not just have the same button
destroy it?).  I also feel with how many power points I get I can get
every single ability that I want from every tree.  I wish there was
something locked out to me that because I went X I can’t get Y.  Also,
because of this feeling, there are going to be “builds” where every
single Gadget user is going to get Bomb, Gag Glove, etc (I don’t know
what the best are yet, but the bomb seems pretty FotM).  Without any
locks on what to get there is no reason not to get all of the best
abilities.

-- It would also be a plus to be able to make more than one loadout for each set.

Bugs that I feel are gamebreaking:

-The most noticeable gameplay bug that I experience which I’m sure will
be fixed is random problems with 2 players in duo mode doing the
recycled content missions.  For example....people getting DC’d during
the: power destruction for the green lanterns, the raven fight, the
Two-Face fight, and the Metro University fight.  It seems like the queue
lasts too long also after people have already completed the instance or
everyone has left.  I shouldn’t be able to get the queue to an instance
that is partially done with no one in it.

-
Sounds (especially Weapon FX) is really choppy in groups.  If there is
more than 2 archers in a group it’s horrible, or more than 2
mentalists, 2 fires, 2 ices, etc.

-

The respawn rate is entirely too fast.  I understand that the idea is
there will be a massive launch where players will all be leveling in the
same locations.  But, the respawns are in the exact same location as
before.  This became very apparent in the higher level mission in
metropolis to protect the robots at the top of the towers for the
Sinestro Corp.  Instead of going tower to tower, it was actually faster
for me just to wait 15 seconds for the same mobs to respawn.

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