Casual Players No Longer Welcome?

I have been playing from day 1, still have my day 1 toon. But I have never had the time to grind all the feats and get a high amount of skill points. Most of my feats came from hunting for gear and collections, and playing the raids,duos etc when I can. My son and I usually sub once a year for a few months during the summer or at christmas, because we both have a bit more time to play.

Admittedly, I have been carried in some higher raids, and it was fun, but not satisfying. I dont mind slowly making my way up the food chain as long as I feel like I can make progress.

When i heard that Water was finally coming out, I got new subs for my son and I. We were excited, and even excited for the stat revmap. We expected to have to work a bit harder and figure things out, run some lower level raids, and do some grinding for feats.

The problem is, it seems nobody has the desire, or patients to run lower level stuff now. And the one raid we did get into after two days, never finished because we all died.

How are casual players supposed to survive in this. DCUO was always a game I coudl pick up and have fun with, and at least hold my own in Raids that were at my CR or lower, now it seems as though the casual players wont have much reason to play. After two days of playing for about 2 or 3 hours total, I feel like I have no way of making any type of progress worthwhile to continue playing.

Advice, suggestions?

Either find some more people to play with (LFG, friends or league) or stay out of raids for a couple of weeks until the largest outliers are fixed and the metagame has adapted to the new mechanics. Alerts, duos and solos shouldn't be a problem at level, unless you run with 4 DPS but at that point you should either run support yourself or find supporters in LFG.

Anyway you can't blindly beat everything now without paying attention to the content mechanics. In group content of course that's the responsibility of each group member but that's what we have text and voice chat for. Entering raids through matchmaking alone isn't the best idea right now but may become more tolerable again once people get used to the new combat.

they need to incentavize lower end content, but to what extent? And still you'll have a lot of upper end players not even bother. Some of the higher end players may not have time to any low end stuff. I for one, have a few hours a day of play. Not all at once, 20min here, maybe an hour there and window frame times in between. So I want to jump on, knock out the AoJ stuff and scram. We upper end guys and gals are still having our issues as well.

Joining a like minded league, if you're not already in one, is your best bet.

This is a good piece of advice. Find or form your own group/league, play you're way, and enjoy. Remember, you don't have to be at end game content, have the latest/best gear, be fully modded, or have every skill point even to have fun playing. Your casual, be casual.

Its very hard considering the matchmaking system works to only provide you 1 tank, 1 troller and 1 healer. And then at the same time you have people who queue for those roles to get a faster queue only to not actually play those roles and play dps. So you end up with 8 dps raid groups that end up in failure.

Then there are instances that require more than one support role. There is also no incentives for old players to go back into low level content which should be addressed.

If you post your server, faction and toon name you may be surprised with how many people are in the same boat and would be willing/wanting to form a group with you to run some of this stuff. I'm on USPS/PC villain side my in game is TankOnMe. I would run some content with you if you are the same server and faction. Also post in the looking for a league thread and let people know what you are looking for. There are leagues out there that prioritize feat hunting at all levels and you could find one that suits you rather quickly, especially going into the weekend.

On top of that, most people don't have the time right now. This is the third day. I've only had time to run both new alerts. I'm spending all my time respecin, which is ridiculous itself. I can't see end game players spending much time in lower content for a bit.

To the OP, the plus is that September should be able event to get more gear.

Seems they need to increase rewards in lower tier content now to get more people to run it. With the bump up in difficulty, people feel it's no longer worth it with what you get.

It hasn't been worth it since GU 47 to run very much low content. I put at least one character in each tier not long after GU 47 because of Marks Relevancy GU 47. Then with CR differential there was absolutely no point even trying to run the lower content with at CR characters because of the steamrolling the higher CR players were doing with little or no regards to anyone else but themselves.

Give it more of a chance for things to settle. I got on last night for the first time since the revamp as it was too late the night (it was night time in the uk) the servers opened back up.
I spent most of my time testing my main and exploring my loadout and how I wanted to play, as did a lot of people I play with. I ran 1 solo, 1 duo and 2 alerts as test runs with my league. I'd imagine there are more people like me doing this so it may be slow queuing for a bit.
Give it a little time.

^^^^^These two posts right here^^^^^

I agree with the OP. All the stat revamp did was push casual players to the side in favor of maybe 30% of the community. Why do you think they're coming out with water powers so soon after this update?

b/c a small portion of ppl here on forums wanted it. I've never heard of anyone in-game asking for waters, when I asked some ppl they always responded with 'we already have water --- its called ice'

It did more than that. Alot of older players, myself included are mad as hell. I like the new skill tree, I absolutely love that they have gotten rid of the CR differential that players did NOT earn in game yet allowed them to play on an equal playing field with players that spent years grinding feats to build their characters...BUT I DO NOT LIKE feeling like the lower Tiered content of the game has been set at a much higher difficulty, while my own STATS- THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO MATTER now, mean absolutely nothing in the games content now. I did not spend years of paying as a customer, purchasing Legendary membership each month and spending $100+ dollars a month in support of my character and this game, YEARS grinding through feats and content, purchasing items from the market place and capsules for the progression of my character only to be set back like this. To me, the content needs to be adjusted, and fast. Many players feel the same. Stats matter revamp was supposed to show the work and growth people have put into their characters over time, in comparison to the content AND in comparison to the players that have not put in the work for their own characters. Taking the progression and power from characters that are 200+ cr and rocking 300+ skill points after they EARNED where they were in game, was not the STATS MATTER Revamp any of us wanted. DEVS, please adjust the content to reflect its appropriate Tiered Level. What it is right now, is just plain garbage and a slap to the face to your games customers that have worked long and hard on their characters to get where they needed to be in substance, and progression. This was supposed to be a Stats Matter Revamp...and our stats aint helping us one bit when you have things set up that a CR 80 bounty can knock the teeth down a CR 201 with 303 stat points throat. Thats just hot garbage right there. And it sure as hell smells foul. Adjust the content to reflect its Proper Tiered level. I would be okay with an option to run older content at level upon queue, and thats all. This game has always been about the progression and development of our characters over time, building our power through Feat grinding for skill points, collections, style collections, EARNING and purchasing TIERED armors in a progressed level one after the other. PAYING FOR THAT PROGRESSION AND GROWTH through Memberships each month, BUYING REPLAY Badges and Time capsules...and I sure as hell dont want to see that growth and progression that I have enjoyed and EARNED in game taken away with the content being set the way it is right now. THAT IS NOT progression. That is not a reflection of the money I have spent in this game and the growth that I have made as a character in the game. A choice for that option upon queue, sure, forced and now my characters STATS DONT MATTER in content the way its set right now? No! They need to fix the content to its Appropriate Leveled Tier to Reflect our Level and Stats that we have EARNED in game.

More time??? Hell no! They need to fix the content to reflect the years of growth we have EARNED and PAID for in this game. Period. I like the new skill tree, I absolutely love that they have gotten rid of the CR differential that players did NOT earn in game yet allowed them to play on an equal playing field with players that spent years grinding feats to build their characters...BUT I DO NOT LIKE feeling like the lower Tiered content of the game has been set at a much higher difficulty, while my own STATS- THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO MATTER now, mean absolutely nothing in the games content now. I did not spend years of paying as a customer, purchasing Legendary membership each month and spending $100+ dollars a month in support of my character and this game, YEARS grinding through feats and content, purchasing items from the market place and capsules for the progression of my character only to be set back like this. To me, the content needs to be adjusted, and fast. Many players feel the same. Stats matter revamp was supposed to show the work and growth people have put into their characters over time, in comparison to the content AND in comparison to the players that have not put in the work for their own characters. Taking the progression and power from characters that are 200+ cr and rocking 300+ skill points after they EARNED where they were in game, was not the STATS MATTER Revamp any of us wanted. DEVS, please adjust the content to reflect its appropriate Tiered Level. What it is right now, is just plain garbage and a slap to the face to your games customers that have worked long and hard on their characters to get where they needed to be in substance, and progression. This was supposed to be a Stats Matter Revamp...and our stats aint helping us one bit when you have things set up that a CR 80 bounty can knock the teeth down a CR 201 with 303 stat points throat. Thats just hot garbage right there. And it sure as hell smells foul. Adjust the content to reflect its Proper Tiered level. I would be okay with an option to run older content at level upon queue, and thats all. This game has always been about the progression and development of our characters over time, building our power through Feat grinding for skill points, collections, style collections, EARNING and purchasing TIERED armors in a progressed level one after the other. PAYING FOR THAT PROGRESSION AND GROWTH through Memberships each month, BUYING REPLAY Badges and Time capsules...and I sure as hell dont want to see that growth and progression that I have enjoyed and EARNED in game taken away with the content being set the way it is right now. THAT IS NOT progression. That is not a reflection of the money I have spent in this game and the growth that I have made as a character in the game. A choice for that option upon queue, sure, forced and now my characters STATS DONT MATTER in content the way its set right now? No! They need to fix the content to its Appropriate Leveled Tier to Reflect our Level and Stats that we have EARNED in game.

You're right, its not what was asked for, nor is it what we want. I myself would like to have had a cimbat system that was pre gu36 but with more bang for our buck per sp but people complained about the clip heavy combat at that time for different reasons. Then came wm (my time to stamp my feet and leave the game) then AMs where more left. After coming back to the game around the start of T7 I adapted to the changes.
My point being that hordes of people have not asked for any of the numerous combat changes and weve all been unhappy with one or more of them. I don't like this one either yet but it's not even been 3 days and I'm still happy that cr differential WM and AMs are gone.

What Tier are you at? I'm always looking for people at most of the earlier tiers for feats and styles, but I hate carrying or being carried. If I'm OP for what you are doing, I'll take gear off and / or Heal.

I think upping the 0/175 spots will allow folks with 300+ SP to feel better if they can sink in more of their SP' into the stat they choose based on how they are playing and their roles.

as being capped at 175 for 1 stat when some are running around 340sp is just uncalled for IMO, thats almost half your SP' going to waste.

Give better loot or remove relevancy from lower content where the feats are that were missed, that would encourage more players into lower content and therefore a bigger pool of players queuing or making groups.
You know it makes sense Mepps