So, I listened to the DCUO livestream the other day, where they showed a preview of the House of Legends episode, packed to the rafters with quality-of-life changes and new content. I was listening, fascinated, until they mentioned that House of Legends was currently LIVE ON THE TEST SERVER.
So, I, um, quit the livestream and installed the test version of DCUO and went to have a look for myself.
Allies
You can form bonds with certain iconic heroes and villains through the Allies system. My burning question after the initial news about this expansion was — how long do they hang around for? Are they more like a permanent companion, or are they more like a temporary summons?
It’s the latter. Allies come, they do they iconic attack, and then they take off. The ally you get in the Allies tutorial hands you Oracle. She pops in, nukes your target, then jumps away. Professor Zoom, on the other hand, does a terrifying AE attack that leaves the targets spinning. It’s cool. The live stream shows them all.
Having everyone have their Allies out all the time would mean everyone would be being followed around by Batman, which would be, not gonna lie, a little awesome. I can see why they wouldn’t necessarily want that, though.
Tier Gear
Tempus Fuginaut sells tier-specific gear. One of the major goals with Hall of Heroes is to bring together all the little vendors scattered throughout the Watchtower and the Hall of Doom and combine them when possible, and if not, at least put them close together. Almost all the gear vendors and portals to past episodes are in the Hub.
The gear Tempus sells, for source marks, will always be the best gear to buy in order to raise your combat rating. For those leveling characters through the ranks to the end game, the cycle will be to do On Duty missions to get source marks, and then buy gear to fill the gaps here. Rinse and repeat.
The Map
The Hall of Legends is split into four parts, which are all at the same level and are not mazes. The central room on the top is the Foyer; it’s where you teleport in. Directly south of that is the Main Observation Deck, which is where all the main stuff happens. The new Training Room is to the northeast; the Archive of Victory is to the northwest. That last one contains most of the stuff for the newest players, including the oldest content in one easy location. It also contains all the style vendors for both heroes and villains. Style gear is available to everyone.
It’s the Main Observation Deck where all the bank, auction and mail vendors are as well.
Pets
Chang Tzu, the Apocalyptian Egg, sells all the pets. You can buy any Tier 1 pet from him for cash. Tier 2 pets are available for purchase once your character has completed all the Headlines for that episode — basically, completed all the content at any level.
Tier 3 pets are only for those who have completed the content at the elite level. These are the pets you most want by your side.
The new On Duty screen has been entirely reworked. (The old On Duty screen is still available in the Custom Play tab, if you want to queue for something specific). You choose the roles you’re queueing for, and then choose options.
The Omnibus tab lets you choose your level of challenge — Event, Normal or Elite — and then you’re in the queue for duos, alerts, operations and raids. The Solos tab just lets you work through Solos appropriate to your current combat rating.
The goal here is to get you the Source Marks and gear to get you leveled up. Or, for max level characters, the marks needed to buy styles, base items, catalysts and so on.
Teleportation Portals
There’s a normal teleportation portal that brings you to safe houses and police stations in the Archive of Victory. The Orrery of Worlds in the main hub will let you teleport to the various episode hubs. Only the ones available for your CR will be shown.
Finding the portals to the episode hubs in the old bases was just impossible.
Other Useful Stuff
Dr. Fate has the daily log in rewards, if you missed them when you logged in. The current episode vendor will also have a place in the Hub. There is a short instance to complete to get access to Cyborg’s Allies vendor. The R&D stations are scattered around; Harbinger, the HoL AI, will show you around the first time you get there.
Rip Hunter will introduce players to the Save the Universe content. These are older missions that have been revamped for the modern game, initially starting with helping Superman save the universe. The universe really does need a lot of saving these days.
Seasonal episodes will have their own reserved space for their vendors, portals and such. The first seasonal episode to get this special treatment will be the Halloween episode. Finally, a chance for me to complete my Boo Belt…..,…
That’s Pretty Much It
Big takeways are: The new On Duty screen will transform how players play the older content — which they will have to do, as Source Marks will no longer be available from current content. Allies give a little help when called. Pets are going to become a lot more powerful when summoned. You will be able to tune your style to an unprecedented degree, as styles are both more available and, in many cases, cheaper, as more older pieces of gear have just been turned into no-stats style items.
The whole point is to make leveling up a straightforward endeavor, and I can’t hardly wait to bring my baby villain into the House of Legends. I think Teal Green will be spending some time there, too.
DCUO really needed a tech update like this. Bring on the new pets!
It’s gonna be cool. No way I’ll be able to keep Source Marks in my wallet. I’m holding off my next costume change until after the update.
If they’d done nothing else, just giving a viable alternative to the insane confusion of the sprawling HQs would be a gamechanger. I have literally given up and logged out in frustration on several occasions simply because I could not find what I was looking for and even when I have been able to find it I’ve often been so fed up I found I was no longer in the mood to go do whatever it was I came for.
Thanks for the write-up. Looking forward to trying it out when it goes live. When I get a window I’ll make a new hero (or villain) and test out the new leveling curve. The way things are going, though, that might be this time next year!
I think this is something they HAVE to do to get new people in the game at all. I’m leveling up the baby villain without many issues but I know the game pretty well. I think a new player would be overwhelmed at this point. House of Legends makes it simple. Finally.