DC: Universe - Catch All

Update three is out. Ra's al Ghul and some other stuff.

I'm in the "grinding for coins" phase with my main villain, but it's hard to get into Hard Alerts due to server population. The merge can't come soon enough.

The full patch notes for Update 3 can be found here.

The best thing about Update 3 IMO is that the two new hard alerts are basically 4-man raids, in that they're tougher than previous hard alerts, give marks for T2 gear, and drop T1 gear. It's great for smaller leagues that can't consistently get 8 people together for raids -- now a league only needs to field 4 people and it can work on T2 gear while facing raid level challenges.

Also, I really like that the Marks of Allegiance are gone. All of the faction gear now costs 1 Mark of Triumph (the T1 mark) and only requires the first level of faction. The solo challenge and Toyman missions award 1 or 2 Marks of Triumph now instead of Marks of Allegiance. This is great in that (1) the essentially worthless faction gear can now be earned in a day, and (2) the solo challenges, which everyone previously had to grind for a few feat points, now awards T1 gear marks at a very good rate. Now when you do the level 30 solo stuff, you're accomplishing a lot more than slowly grinding towards some feat points.

I haven't had a chance to explore all of the other changes yet. Hopefully, the server merge comes soon, 'cause the normal alerts and PVP queues still aren't popping quickly on my PVE server. But other than that, I'm pretty happy with Update 3.

Hm an update and a Steam sale... coincidence?

Logged in yesterday for the first time in over a month. My PS3 frooze on the first duo i got into. Tried a hard alert, four people started then one left after 2min and then we went on but could not defeat Mr. Freeze in Arkham with only 3. My sub ends on Monday and as much as I wanted to like and do like the game I do not think i'm renewing my sub. I had high hopes of an MMO working on the PS3 and maybe someday one will but i don't think it will be DCU. I think overall I had more fun just using the character creator than actually playing the game. (not hating, just saying). I will also admit the PS3 hack and downtime took alot of the wind out of DCU sails. Maybe i'll buy a month here and there just to play a little, hope those that are still playing have fun!

I have to admit I was thinking of taking a plunge once I got a new computer this summer. But by the time my computer finally arrived, the whole PSN getting hacked basically warded me off. Shame. Maybe comic-con will change my mind (probably not).

8-Bit Jedi wrote:

Logged in yesterday for the first time in over a month. My PS3 frooze on the first duo i got into. Tried a hard alert, four people started then one left after 2min and then we went on but could not defeat Mr. Freeze in Arkham with only 3. My sub ends on Monday and as much as I wanted to like and do like the game I do not think i'm renewing my sub. I had high hopes of an MMO working on the PS3 and maybe someday one will but i don't think it will be DCU. I think overall I had more fun just using the character creator than actually playing the game. (not hating, just saying). I will also admit the PS3 hack and downtime took alot of the wind out of DCU sails. Maybe i'll buy a month here and there just to play a little, hope those that are still playing have fun!

This, to me, seems to be the problem with every superhero MMO.

I'm still playing!

I'm letting my sub lapse a the end of the month also. Fun game, but so odd to find it geared more towards the after-30 level game and not the initial. A lot of great stuff here, but as pleasant as getting to level 30 was, I have zero interest in doing it over again, since their isn't likely to be much variety in that slog.
That, and their are limitations to weapon/skill set combinations that have been outlined nowhere else other than user forums. Like Champions Online before it, I'd appecriate the heads up that an archer/mentalist combo will be severely limited by the nature of the game, BEFORE I've invested 20 hours into it. I just don't have the gaming time to research what a decent manual should be giving me.
Bottom line is, I'd prefer content to grinding; that's what a franchise like this should offer. So I'll go back to LOTRO to continue to explore the other 70% of that world I haven't gotten to see yet.

I just like to bump this every once in a while because I'm the last thriving member of a sad, dead league, but Update 4 is out today, and I know no one cares, but gosh the game is fun and I even rolled a new character last night because I am a fool and am addicted.

I still think about playing this a lot, but City of Heroes gave me a free return for 15 days and is going free to play soon. Going to be hard to drag me away to pay monthly for something again.

When they drop the price, I'll be onboard.

Slumberland wrote:

I just like to bump this every once in a while because I'm the last thriving member of a sad, dead league, but Update 4 is out today, and I know no one cares, but gosh the game is fun and I even rolled a new character last night because I am a fool and am addicted.

I'm still playing a lot -- I just passed 700 hours since launch, according to Steam. I'm just as addicted now as when it launched. I'm on another server, though -- I switched awhile ago to join a raiding league. When the server merge happens, you're welcome to join us. We have quite a few active members and we're raiding regularly.

We did the new Fortress of Solitude raid several times yesterday, for example, a few hours after it launched -- it's a beautiful environment and only about as hard as Kahndaq, so I'm pretty happy with it. I'm really looking forward to the next two in the series.

That's awesome, Java! I have a feeling you're on PC though, no?

Yeah, I am. You're on the PS3? If so, hope you find a good, active league!

Megaservers arrive today.

So, I was excited for megaservers, but they royally f*cked the game on the PS3 side. Half hour queue to get in, all sorts of glitches abound once logged on.

That stinks. The PC side is working really well -- I've been raiding with pickup groups, which I couldn't do before. Previously, I had to schedule raids with the rest of the league, but now I can just hop on and if I'm feeling brave enough to chance a PUG then I can do whatever.

Also, it's pretty neat to see so many people in the Watchtower. My biggest concern going in was losing a character name that I cared about, but ultimately I didn't lose any names so I've been happy with it so far.

Javamancer wrote:

Also, it's pretty neat to see so many people in the Watchtower. My biggest concern going in was losing a character name that I cared about, but ultimately I didn't lose any names so I've been happy with it so far.

Although I still think the layout of the watchtower is ridiculously, needlessly confusing, it is nice to see it full (er) of heroes.

I finally figured out the Hall of Doom. The Watchtower still drives me nuts.

Yeah, the Watchtower is pretty confusing, and hard to get around in quickly with acrobatics. It seems like the designers were going for more of an epic, heroic feel to it than a functional design.

The one really good thing about it was the hole that used to be in the magic wing that let characters out into space -- I have quite a few really nice screenshots of my characters floating in space with earth in the background. It's a shame that they closed that hole.

This game is a temptress. Are you all still having fun with it? And is the a free trial? I haven't played since beta but I loved the atmosphere and I'd love to try it out.

I guess my superhero MMO addiction is finally actualizing again.

Well, for me, the fun stopped once I maxed at level 30. From that point, there's some new content, but the game went from pretty easy to brutally hard, and there is far more grinding for gear than volume of new content. So, it was great fun for awhile, but didn't hold (at least for me) very long.

Jakobedlam wrote:

Well, for me, the fun stopped once I maxed at level 30. From that point, there's some new content, but the game went from pretty easy to brutally hard, and there is far more grinding for gear than volume of new content. So, it was great fun for awhile, but didn't hold (at least for me) very long.

That describes my experience with the game to a T. I tried to go back through with an alt but repeating the exact same missions, for the most part, got a bit old. Even changing to a villain I had most of the same missions which I found odd.

I'm still enjoying it. They've added some content for level 30, but you'll still repeat the same instances about once a week if you do all the dailies every day. For me, it's more about the combat system, which I still enjoy. It's like playing Rock Band over and over, where you repeat the same content over and over but the game play itself is fun.

I also like the feat point system, so even at level 30 you're still advancing your character by earning skill points. I've probably put about 300 hours on my main at this point and have 73 of the 90ish skill points available, so there's still something to accomplish besides getting more gear at 30.

Javamancer wrote:

I also like the feat point system, so even at level 30 you're still advancing your character by earning skill points. I've probably put about 300 hours on my main at this point and have 73 of the 90ish skill points available, so there's still something to accomplish besides getting more gear at 30.

I actually wasn't aware of that. Skill points would be far more appealing to be than gear. Though still not enough for me to re-sub.

ARISE!!! Steam says this is free to play now... so I shall give it a go. I always liked DC, so I'm excited to see what their Universe has to offer the F2P MMO arena.

Oh yeah... posted in the f2p thread, forgot this one was here. Need to know what server gwj is on.

EDIT: Looking back around page 8 or 9 it appears we are on New Frontier? Still a guild... er league... over there?

New frontier it is!

Or not. It gave me no option when it came to server -- PC PvP or PC PVE. I Chose E. I think they may have underestimated the effecct of F2P. I'm stuck in a perpetual loading screen post character creation.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

Or not. It gave me no option when it came to server -- PC PvP or PC PVE. I Chose E. I think they may have underestimated the effecct of F2P. I'm stuck in a perpetual loading screen post character creation.

There's really only one US PC server. You can switch between the PVP and PVE "phases" of the server.

And yes, the F2P release has strained the servers. The last two nights, I've seen login queues for the first time since probably February, and the world crashed last night while I was in an alert. I know they'll get that fixed, so I'm glad to see all the interest. I still think this is a great game.