Recent reviews by johnothy.

I never really intended on posting a long review on here, but I just felt obligated to post something after so many years.

PVE REVIEW:

I have been playing this game since January 2014, and the amount of hours reflected on my account is not accurate as I stopped launching the game through steam years ago (it no longer worked for some reason, along with many other things in this game ). I can safely say I have over double the hours reflected on my profile.

The game was very intriguing in the beginning, it felt like a free game for a while until I reached a certain point, roughly around combat rating 80 or so. After playing through the free introductory part of the game and go as far as you can as a free player, you will find yourself going face first into a paywall, and calling it a paywall is an understatement, as everything relies on your wallet from that point forward, and it only demanded more as years and many updates went on.

The paywall was somewhat mild and easy to get around, seeing as 15$ a month felt like an acceptable amount to spend on the game, as you had access to all the episodes and there was no 1,500$-2,000$ cash limit on your character anymore, and you can go infinitely beyond, it made the game much easier to navigate and progress in. The reason I am stating that it was acceptable to spend 15$ on a legendary membership is solely based on the fact that all you relied on back then was gear and skill points. Gear and a certain amount of skill points was all you needed to become an end game player.

Artifacts... since the release of artifacts, this is where the game started to go downhill. The concept of "paywall" was not much of an issue back then as everything you needed to do in the game was... attainable and somewhat reasonable to a certain extent?

Artifacts go up to level 200, and their effect kicks in once you get them to level 80. Is level 80 enough to complete content? Maybe. Is it enough to go for end game elite content? No. To get your artifacts to serve you properly in regular mid range non-elite content, they have to be level 120 to do anything significant, for end game elite content, level 160 is the preferred level. The amount of XP required to get Artifacts to 160 is around 600k per artifact, which is a lot, and to level them naturally without spending a dime is going to take a very long time, if you think this is bad, try getting them to 200, where the required XP is around 1.68million, this is where your hand is forced into your wallet.

The game has developed a nasty habit of forcing your hand to pay money with the utilization of Artifacts and Time Capsules. The fact that they linked feats required to earn skill points to time capsules is absurd on its own, as you are forced to pay a lot of money in order to unbox said capsules, getting you certain time capsule related feats, thus increasing your skill points if you're into that sort of thing (most players are).

The game starts to get repetitive and more boring as time goes on, you will start to realize that the mechanic is fun at first, but you will get bored rather quickly, as content is recycled most of the time with little to no added value, seems rushed, lazy, and borderline repetitive. The time it took to release a new episode(DLC) back then was roughly 3 months. Now we are seeing highs of 5-7 months between releases, which tells you enough about the current state of things.

As far as PvE goes, fun at first until you realize it's just a money grab with little to no return on your investment in the long run, and every impulsive purchase you make will come back haunting you with guilt, even if you have the money to spare.

PVP REVIEW:

I would say a solid 75-80% of my play time is PvP related, whether it's 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, 5v5, open world, you name it.

Arena/Duels PvP was the main reason I got hooked on this game, as it was challenging, fun, and you can never get bored of it. The mechanic was unlike anything I've ever seen before, it was enticing, fast paced, highly skill-based, and tested your ability to predict and react to the enemy player, there was very little to no RNG involved. Granted, some powersets proved to be more viable than others, but the majority of it relied on weapon-play, where you had to counter and block your opponent, rewarding you with a 3-second immunity to all damage, which made counters very valuable and your main means of winning. The beauty in it was the idea that you needed to outplay and adapt to your opponent to win, you had to punish them with your 3 second window of immunity to push as much damage as possible, and that made it very rewarding to simply play the game as it was intended.

Unfortunately, the developers could not keep PvE and PvP separate, meaning if there was a hefty change on the PvE side of the game, whether it was a game mechanic, powerset, etc. it also affected PvP. Sad to say that PvP started getting worse and worse by the update, as PvE was seeing major changes in powersets, mechanics, and all around play.

The developers decided to remove the 3 second immunity window from counters to further suit PvE, which would have been just fine if PvP was unaffected by this. Sadly, it was the worst thing that happened to PvP, as countering and playing the mechanic did not matter anymore, weapon damage on blockbreaks and counters was reduced to atoms, making the mechanic nearly worthless. Powersets started doing absurd damage, making PvP a blind spam fest with little to no thought behind it, whoever had the better stats/artifacts and pushed damage with no regard for their life, always won, roles are unbalanced and broken. These changes resulted in Arenas/Duels becoming unplayable. (For newcomers, Arena/Duels is when you use the character you created and geared to PvP).

Legends PvP was the only source of somewhat playable PvP at this stage in the game, and that is a stretch. Legends is a mode where you get to choose an iconic character, like Batman, Catwoman, Robin, etc. and use them in a PvP match against an opponent using another iconic character of their choosing. The stats on these iconic characters are fixed, so you do not need to gear up or farm to be effective, it was a leveled playing field where everyone had the same advantages/disadvantages. Even this was affected negatively, as countering used to be your bread and butter, and you had to rely heavily on countering and adapting to your opponent. Now, Legends has become a damage competition, where counters are not the most viable option, yes they are good to go for still as you can somewhat punish a player for making a mistake, but the majority of the fight now relies on how much damage you can push, as fast and efficiently as possible. This took the spark out of Legends, as the one thing that made it special (counter mechanics) is mostly gone.

In conclusion, this game flourished in its early days, it had a ton of content creators promoting it and constantly created content for PvP, guides on how to play, and other fun stuff.

The mechanic was never perfect but it was so fun that it didn't need to be perfect.

The "paywall" at the time was not a big ask, as you could do anything the game had to offer for just 15$ a month.

PvP brought people together, competitively and casually, it was a big part of the game that they decided to neglect and pretend it never existed, and stated numerous times they have no intention of bringing it back as it is too far gone.

PvE did not rely on pressing 1,2,3,4,5,6 on your keyboard repetitively to perform in content (you can imagine how boring that is), both weapon and power use were required for the majority of powersets in the earlier stages of DCUO. Now it's just a brainless rotation that can be done by a toddler.

The game's population is relatively low.

There are far better games out there to invest in, that are highly active and worth your time/money. Do not waste it on this.

Lovely, 10/10 would bang again