DCUO 2018 Top Ten (Part 4)
#1 Augments
While this is hardly the flashiest of updates in the year, to me it is by far the most important. This was a potential make or break decision for me. It's not as big a change as a Stats Revamp, but still a major factor for the dedicated crafter. I also have several characters that have custom builds that were largely sensitive to the granular number of slots we had with exobyte crafting where each one had 2 stats + an affinity bonus for 3 total. Moving to a system where these stats had to be distributed to 6 slots didn't sound good! As with the stats revamp from the previous year, it would have been a complete failure if our characters came out of the transition lower than when they went in with their gear fully modded.
For most players, this whole update was probably a non-issue and instant success. The vast majority did not mod to being with. So the augment system would move them up to mod-equivalent stats right at launch. A distant 2nd place demographic would be the other chunk of players that mod for a single stat. In this case, there were no calculations to make at all and all stats would be higher than before. For the custom builds, typically dual class ones, it was a more complex puzzle, but with a lot of spreadsheets & calculations, those ended up working out as well. A character at end-game that acquired the 2 top slot augments was automatically higher in every stat as long as you transitioned the right amount of each one over to the 6 spots.
The Augment system however wasn't really smoothed out until the 2nd DLC that had it, Atlantis. In Titans it started out well, but ran into bottlenecks because of odd catalyst breakthrough points (when compared to artifacts). This was adjusted to flow more naturally in Atlantis.
While this is hardly the flashiest of updates in the year, to me it is by far the most important. This was a potential make or break decision for me. It's not as big a change as a Stats Revamp, but still a major factor for the dedicated crafter. I also have several characters that have custom builds that were largely sensitive to the granular number of slots we had with exobyte crafting where each one had 2 stats + an affinity bonus for 3 total. Moving to a system where these stats had to be distributed to 6 slots didn't sound good! As with the stats revamp from the previous year, it would have been a complete failure if our characters came out of the transition lower than when they went in with their gear fully modded.
For most players, this whole update was probably a non-issue and instant success. The vast majority did not mod to being with. So the augment system would move them up to mod-equivalent stats right at launch. A distant 2nd place demographic would be the other chunk of players that mod for a single stat. In this case, there were no calculations to make at all and all stats would be higher than before. For the custom builds, typically dual class ones, it was a more complex puzzle, but with a lot of spreadsheets & calculations, those ended up working out as well. A character at end-game that acquired the 2 top slot augments was automatically higher in every stat as long as you transitioned the right amount of each one over to the 6 spots.
The Augment system however wasn't really smoothed out until the 2nd DLC that had it, Atlantis. In Titans it started out well, but ran into bottlenecks because of odd catalyst breakthrough points (when compared to artifacts). This was adjusted to flow more naturally in Atlantis.
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