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DC Universe Online: The Level 1-9 Experience Part 2
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In his newest DC Universe Online column, MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy continues his look at the first nine levels of the game. Moving on from the tutorial, Bill has specifics about combat and about the fact that a player feels like a 'bad ass' right from the start. Check out Bill's experience and then weigh in with your comments below.
Last time we ended with me hitting Club L’ex, right after saving Metropolis from a devastating Brainiac attack. And that was just the tutorial. For part two of my Level 1-9 experience, let’s go into combat specifics and how questing in DCUO actually works. Suffice it to say, you don’t start off just killing rats in this game. You’ll feel like a badass from the very beginning, and it’s an extremely potent gamer-disiac.
Read more DC Universe Online: The Level 1-9 Experience Part 2.
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Comments
Sounding good .Now if we can just get a release date ?
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
In response to a few of your downsides mentioned: guilds and friend lists were in the patch that dropped yesterday, as were a few updated NPC voices. From my interpretation of dev-speak, I'm saying there will be at least 2 more major patches before launch.
When you start on the alerts, you'll find that the specific "roles" are much more important. For example, I entered one Area 51 group that had a character in tank role and a character in healer role; we mopped up with little problems. Another time I entered, I was in controller role, but everyone else stayed in dps role; we got handled on the final boss fight several times before we brought him down.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Hm. Button masher? Sounds like us old farts with shot reflexes are probably not going to make the cut.
Damn.
I may have missed this in a previous write up, but how do you target? Is it tab through the mobs, click each one, or aim fps style?
Work hard Play Harder
gammahamster-I'm 47 and not having a problem with it. I'd seriously give the game a chance if you like the superhero genre. Don't worry about the button mashing.
bumfman-You can tab if you like, but there is a reticle that will turn red when you are pointing at a mob. As long as your reticle is red, when you let loose with an attack you will hit the target. It is possible to miss though, if they move away and you don't follow with the mouse. You can lock target by holding the tab button down. I generally don't lock the target since there's not much need. I just point the reticle and let loose.
Some things were fixed yesterday, for example the friends list seems to work, yes, and I was able to start a league with a bunch of people I've been playing with on the hero side of server 3, BUT the patch broke the once smooth combat that Bills been enjoying so much.
How, might you ask? Two seemingly minor yet amazingly important ways. First, they have added some sort of activation timer between when you roll out of the way (or block) and when you are allowed to execute your powers. Before I could roll *heal* roll *heal* if I needed to, and it would help both me and my group stay alive. Now I can't, I roll *stop .. heal* roll *stop .. heal* and in that short lag time I could be hit, stopped, stunned, or a teammate could lose their life because its not as fluid as before.
The second thing is, they've broken the auto lock. Might not be AS big of a problem with the Mouse & Keyboard (though it still is a problem) but especially for controller users its putting some added strain on me.
Usually, I could set it to auto lock, and run and gun, using only the camera to focus on the mobs I wanted, and as it would lock correctly I could press back to run in the opposite direction, yet still be facing the mob in question. This is good if you're fighting a big, slow enemy and you're essentially kiting them.
With the new changes, the auto lock never activates, so unless you're holding the lock on them (which requires you to hold down a separate button altogether) when you press that back button you end up turning around and facing the opposite direction. WASD mode (an option in the settings) likely helps with this somewhat, but its a round about way to fix what was once a delightful auto lock process.
ho-hum. The new social menu window isn't much better than the prior. They still have a plethora of group chat and tell problems which are incredibly frustrating, though those are fixed on the back end.
And as for the article... Good article Bill, I think you meant the razors instead of the hoppers in banes territory, they are the guys that combo and stun you. As you get to higher levels some of the missions change from one to the other, mostly the boss battles. World bosses are also fun and require different tactics, and of course, higher level alerts seem to as well. Good write-up though.
bumfman: It is fps aim-style sorta. Your melee will hit whatever is in front of you in the "arc of damage". Projectiles seem to magically lock on and go for enemies in front of you as long as you are aiming at them with your recticle. However, you can tab target to "lock on" to a target and strafe around.
Hmmm... that sucks. I don't use a controller so I've not experienced this; also, I prefer hard-locking my targets so I don't lose them. It seems that maybe they've added a few extra bugs to the mix for us to sort out. (at least I hope these are bugs, lol)
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Unfortunately so, its really prevalent in PvP, both of these things.
Another thing I have mixed feelings about with the patch is that they've added an endurance regen over time instead of regen for each hit. This is what I wanted as a healer, or so I thought. You can hit an enemy once and it will start a few seconds of regen on your powers, which is cool, but when you're hitting a ton of enemies, you don't regen any faster meaning powers are more set on a timer now. I both like it AND hate it. I like it in healing mode, but hate it in damage mode.
Still love the game though, they changed how you get feats now, and that changed how you receive skill points from feats. I logged in yesterday with 8 more skill points then I had previously.. so now I have 35. Lots of changes, some good, some bad. I don't expect to see launch in january though.
is the content enough to keep players going more than 30 days?
My opinion:
If you are a gear-chaser - yes
If you like the collection aspects (styles, feats and such) - yes
If you are an altaholic - likely
If no to the above questions - not likey unless they keep to the "new content every month" psuedo-promise
Of course this is dependent on how much you play as well.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Pretty much this, I'd also add if you like skill based PvP and arena style objective based PvP too, then that will likely have you subbing for a few months.
This is really more of a mix between the collectors and PvPer type of game that would likely keep those types of players subbing for a while.
I've been playing for .. what, almost a month, and I still have tons to collect and do, and I've barely scratched the PvP and "end game" content.
my bigest problem is they have no Cross Chat and that to me is a big let down, as a villan you want to taunt your foe, or atleast see someoen and say Hi
also the lack of Rp feel, there's no walk animations or slow hovering, the Social window looks bad in my opinion
I like the game but the more the soposidlly fix, the more feels well?.. broken or removed, I dont' want a smash and grab game i want the RP and heroic / Villianus Feel of the DC world
sometimes I dont' want to battle just explore and chat, or most the time RP, I know it's only beta but still there should be more of this
nothing worth saying =-)
I very much so am against cross faction chat. I don't want to taunt or be taunted, especially in beta when there are PvP hacks still in effect. That just expands on griefing, and I'm against it. You can cross server chat that allows cross faction, but not on the same server.
There are walking animations but you only really see this when using the controller. You can slow press forward and walk, same with hovering.
There are a few RP'ers that I've come across, but mainly, I'd wait for launch where they put up an RP server.. if they end up doing that.
I got into the beta somehow (didn't sign up, wasn't interested at all) and tried it out. Does the combat ever change from "click a lot pretty fast"? On a mouse that got really annoying, although I see potential for a controller...
Oh and is it because I just wasn't used to it, or is it actually annoying when you choose super speed that you seem to stick onto all sorts of walls?
Can you provide the specs for the PC you are playing this on? The gfx look a bit, err, antiquated.
I'm curious about if you actually feel villainous when playing a villain, or are you just hero with a superior stylist? I really enjoyed CoV, but rarely got the impression that the business I was getting up to was naughty in any way. I imagine it's because the game needs to be accessible for kiddies, but it did bother me that I couldn't play a truly homicidal maniac, a la the Joker.
Is there any love for evil in DCUO?
I'd actually say no to the altaholic line, the content does not really change from side to side, or mentor to mentor. Beyond a very tiny chain of quests you end up running the same contacts (or their mirror counterparts from the other side) and doing the same instances regardless if you are villian or hero. It really cuts down on the enjoyment of making a new character since you aren't actually seeing anything new.
Not really.. its all, go into this instance and beat up this person because he annoyed me. Or for a hero, go into this or that instance and beat up this person because he needs to be arrested. You even aren't a different looking character, as both sides share the same (rather limited in my opinion) costume options and access to instances where you get the rest of the pieces.
The outdoor missions are your typical MMO fare, I need you to use item X on target Y, or beat up Z number of enemies and all the changes is the text behind the reason. If you are fighting for Superman.. you might be using the item to heal them.. if you are fighting for Luthor you will get a different item that poisons them. It tends to be in a shared area though, so you see heroes trying to heal the targets you just poisoned.
@maskedweasel
I am curious about your comment about skill points and feats. I have not had a chance to get back in sinch the patch as I have horrible download rates on their patcher but should be good tonite. How have they changed it. Is it no longer 25 feat points earn 1 skill point?
I of course have not had a chance to test out the regen but I really do not like the way it sounds. Part of the appeal to me was that the speed of attack had an impact on the regen, so I tended to use fast weapon sets over strong damage but slow attack weapon sets. If the only difference now is damage output between weapon sets.... I guess I just have to see how it operates.
I would say from just an initial impression running Luthor's quests that his intentions are not very warm and fluffy. In particular the quest to inject citizens with a virius that turns them into monsters who then run off and attack police officers is nice. I think the important distinction is unlike in some MMOs there is not much of an attempt to create sympathy for them and not think of them as villians. Horde is a good example of that. Taurens were never really presented as 'evil'. Hell, consider this. As a villian I noticed a feat of committing a certain number of villianous acts around Metropolis. What villianous acts? How about finding a citizen on a building ledge with an interaction icon and holding your button in, the result of which is they scream and jump off the ledge. I was kind of surprised to see that.
Skill points are still 25 to 1, but now they fixed it to where easy feats will give you less points and bigger feats give you more. For instance, say breaking 5 healing barrels give you only 5 points, then 25 barrels gives you 5 points, but breaking 100 gives you 10 points towards your feats skill.
Before they *said* they were giving players 10 points per feat, which wasn't the case, so they fixed that glitch and instead changed around the feats.
The way they changed regen SOUNDS good in theory for casters mainly. The problem is, they now have it as more of a time based regen. For instance, in Oolong last night, I was running low on energy to cast my heals and I had no health so I would roll and fire once at a target, let my endurance raise for 3 seconds, then fire again and just keep rolling until I had enough to case a heal.
But on my damage role (same character) I would be killing so fast, the when I spam my attacks, I would run out of energy quickly, instead of gaining it back with every hit, I had more of a slow, rising bar, and it didn't matter how fast I hit the mobs or how many combos I did (and with a dual pistol character I could literally have 50+ for a combo in seconds) my bar would still be slowly filling up and that was the major bottleneck. So the new regen system has its uses, but overall I think it should be dependent on what role you're in more so then changing the entire mechanic in a "one size fits all" rule.
lol... yes the combat stops being click a lot pretty fast from the time you log in ...
See this is what a lot of people don't seem to understand. Clicking fast repeatedly is doing squat. You can't attack faster than the animations. Clicking again just as the attack animation ends starts the next attack in the sequence. Combo's also deter you from click spamming. If you don't use your combo's your not even doing half of what you could be doing damage and effect wise.
You briefly stick to walls as is intended with super speed. When you stop moving you lose momentum and fall as is intended.
It's that you just weren't use to it.
The change to rolling...
Does that mean that you can no longer hold shift and just roll away from encounters, continously rolling all the way back to the safe house?
Really broke PvP for me that people could just start rolling and never stop all the way to a safe zone. We once chased someone across Metropolis whilst he rolled back to his nightclub, bloody coward villain. Whilst rolling he moves fast, none of the attacks hit and none of the crowd control hits, such a cheap game breaking tactic.
You can still continuously roll, you just have to stop rolling completely to heal yourself or pop a soder cola.
To stop someone from rolling, you can do your melee stun, ranged stuns or block breakers won't work. They did fix a bug that allowed for super quick rolling. If you rolled and double tapped mid roll you would get an extra long roll that moved at roll speed (which is about as fast as a travel power). You can't do that anymore, so now they have to roll the normal length and reroll. Just melee stun them and they'll be screwed.