Fix lower end group content GOD MODE

No, no, no, nope, nope

We earned our strength, if you don't want some random person affecting your random experience then stop blind queuing and form a group in LFG.

Not everyone sees "clamping" as a bad thing. But to force it on someone who doesn't want it is a bad idea, in my opinion.

(warning, sarcasm ahead): A great example of this is the "clamped" stabilizer duo and the "clamped" seasonal events. So many peeps REFUSE to even think about running those because they are "clamped"... right? They will not run the stabilizer duo nor the seasonal events because of the "clamping".

Those peeps out there say that they won't run "clamped" stuff for any reason, and won't run "clamped" stuff regardless of any reward.... most of them are liars. Look through the various threads and posts here on the forums. Look and see how many of them relate their multiple experiences with the stabilizer duos and seasonal events. This isn't a case of "I tried it, I don't like it, and won't do it again"... it's a case of "I tried it, I don't like it, but i'll keep doing it".

Now, before anyone decides to play golf and tees off on me... please re-read the first two sentences of this post. I'm generally against stat "clamping" even though it isn't a bad thing.

The other parts of your post I generally agree with; but disagree with the part I left here for discussion.

I feel that placing walk-in points, or teleporters, or adding "adjustable queue sizes" will not help the lower CR toons. It will help the higher CR's, definitely yes.
I personally think of how many times I've run FoS3. It's a simple raid... one room, three bosses, relatively easy mechanics (and feats). I've run it dozens of times over the years, and have never queued for it. Never queued for it. It was always a walk-in with a small group of league mates; one or two way OP toons, one or two OP toons, and one or two low toons. There were a few times, that our league group was six to seven peeps, and found myself thinking "man, if we queued right now, all it would take is for one peep to be in queue for it, and it'd pop" and then my thoughts would be followed with "it would stink to be a solo player trying to queue this, since peeps can walk-in" (and yes, I do feel guilty about it)

When you have the option to walk-in, peeps that can run it solo or with a small group, will.
My opinion is that teleporters or adjustable group sizes would generate more of that same behavior... which doesn't not help the solo playing lower CR toon find others to run the content at CR.

Ideally, it would be "form a group on your own" either with friends or league. But that doesn't always work.

It would help from the aspect this post is about....God Mode high CR players 'ruining' the run for at level toons by nuking everything. You are right in the fact that low level CR toons will now have a more hard time queuing in, and won't have anyone to 'guide' them through the mechanics and such, but did we have guides when the content was fresh? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Remember, we are talking about people that don't seem to be able to figure out that if you bash all 8 coins out of a pot of gold, and don't have anyone helping, you will likely miss half of the pickups. I'm not sure even spoon feeding mechanics will help some players.

I still honestly think it would help to an extent. If the 'low' CR toons were say trying to get into 'Artifacts' and the group they could assemble had the roles and they were say 6 115-120 somethings...still in CR, but not at the minimum. Or maybe they have one goon escort, but he's down for burning slow enough the others can have some fun. They could walk in, teleport or set the group size to the people they had and have a pretty challenging, and maybe fun, run. Remember, many of these toons will have augments and artifacts that put them above where we were when we were 'at level', so a group of say 6 good at level (albeit on the higher side of 'in') should have no issues beating the run, but it definitely will not be a blowout. Avoiding getting those 2 randoms, which might be 2 262 thugs who will completely own the run, seems to be the gist of the OP's request...however we get there, however, it still allows those who want to go beast through something to do so.

Personally I also think out of all the proposed methods, the adjustable queue size would be the most easy to accomplish. Basically it would be the same as today, except where we are forced to have matchmaking applied when queuing to fill the empty slots, they'd have to code in a 'use matchmaking' or similar switch for whoever is the group lead. Everything else would take more code for sure, and we might end up with GU47 Part II and I doubt anyone wants that.

Reinheld

What I want is variety for the players I want the new players to be able to experience the game as I experienced it. Or have the choice of just running like everybody else with no limits. I think that should be the way the game goes like I said it will segment the players a little bit but it will work itself out because if the ques gets too long they will switch back to whatever the community treats as "default"

Aaaaand here we go again with posters like you demonizing and greatly misrepresenting the higher ups of DCUO.

Why is it that I see you in every single thread that has stat-clamping, you always try to make it out to be like that higher cr's serve no other purpose than to grief and cheat the newer players out of an experience?

And no, before you go saying I'm putting words in your mouth, I'm actually gonna do the opposite and bring what you Never Ever Mention in your post that always details the experience about us higher crs.

Let's start with a few basic questions shall we, some of these are well known.

How many of us higher cr's have asked the developers to restore walkins/portals for older content?
A-lot. It's not as common to be requested as it used to be, why? Because nearly everytime we do ask for it, we're always told it's never likely to happen.

How many of us higher cr's need to go back to old content to get feats?
A-lot. Feats are the primary reason we go back in old content, and a lot of older content has speed feats we need to earn so we need to beat the instance quickly. We aren't there to deliberately grief a new player, rather if we smash through content this is another reason for it. Plenty of the old content you've mentioned has a ton of speed feats.


How many of us higher cr's are there to actually help someone through?
Old Content doesn't que, your correct; but even if it does que with all 8 players being at CR 53 there's zero guarantee they'll complete it. There's also zero guarantee they'll learn anything from it. That's sometimes where we come in, because we get asked to take them to the still open FOS 3 portal and clean house for them.


How many times have we ran through older content as higher cr's and newbie players haven't said a peep?
This is the most common strawman argument you come in these threads with. Where are these newer players? You keep speaking from "their point of view" and not your own. From my experience, everytime I've ran older content, I've never had anybody complain, in-fact I've gotten thanked for smashing through the content. Some people do care about the experience, but some others out there simply want to get geared up as fast as possible, ever think about that?


No, you don't. You have yet to mention anything positive that the higher cr's have tried to do in your post to avoid this issue instead you continuously post this strawman argument every stat-clamping thread you run into.

And before you say "Oh they just give up and rage quit the game" the same argument can said if they try content at actual level. "Oh my friend rage quitted because they found the old content too hard to do, and no higher cr's wanted to help them because higher cr's got demonized too much." It's a strawman argument that lacks any concrete evidence.
Now then, the question remains: is old content dead? Yes.

But it's dead for a number of reasons, most notably people have no incentives to come back to older content outside of getting feats and if we the higher cr's do come back for feats that need b/c of progression, people like you are always around to misconstrue what our purpose for running older content is.



Now is there the possiblity that there might be some players out there that may just be willing to grief old players in old content just to constantly ruin their experience? maybe, but if that's the case.. the newer players ought to make their voices heard instead of having you be their representative. just saying. They can go register here, and speak their minds instead of quitting over it; but they never do.

You want to talk about higher up's keeping the lowbies down? No. The developers have the decisions to make that call, just like they have the decision to make the call on doing walkins for us to solo old content by ourselves. The thing is, they never implement or do anything about it.

If your gonna blame somebody for the old content being dead issue, blame it on the folks who literally have the power to fix it.

Imagine grinding days worth of content and feats just to go back to the beginning for whatever reason, and you’re hitting the same as people just getting started on what you completed a long time ago. Sounds like a Legends PVE with more variety. (That’s not a good thing)

But forreal, there would literally be no point in gear outside of cosmetic value if the devs listened to your idea. I get it, you want to be able to hop into an instance and earn your stuff, but “hey lets just clamp everybody in everything” is not the “fix”. just form a group, you’ll be fine.

PS: I don’t think you were here when FOS 2 was a big deal. Yeah..... I don’t and I’m sure nobody else who were playing DC at the time wants to go back to those 2 hour long runs because they weren’t fun. Satisfying once completed, but not fun.

Uh, (raises hand sloooowwwlllyyyyy)

Going back, don't really care to, not for marks, not for it's enjoyment, don't need feats, maybe to help someone new, I really don't care about alts either.

But...

2 HOUR raids,...

As long as it is engaging and somewhat difficult, where the team has to stop focusing on just DPS and come up with a plan to beat the raid,...

I would rather have that.

I know that, with the feeling that if content was that tough, people will quit or threaten to quit, low CR people will definitely struggle as well as those with low SP.

But, those who actually will invest time to become better, will be much better and will invest in the game even more.

And this is why it hasn't been implemented. Why would the Devs waste what little resources they have on something that will not yield any visible returns on investment, and that will eventually be abandoned by most when they realize that the population is too small to support this???

might i remind the OP that this is the game where players ACTIVELY try to steal your open world objectives in places like atlantis and the seasonal events, without any of the work i might add? and where free laoders literally do nothing but stand in a corner but expect feats/rewards for doing nothing in raids? where even in the stabilizer duo people are willing to entirely ditch their partners for nothing more than the top place on the scoreboard? let's not be a bunch of "holier than thou" white knights here, if higher CR players DIDN'T enter lower CR stuff, newbies would be doomed.......... and if the end gamers DO, well you can see the results. this thread is based on a loaded question premise, a false one at that. if the seasonals and events are any indicator, NONE of the lower tier people should be complaining.

Im pretty sure they can afford it with all the aura sales, micro-transactions on to of the subscription fee and laying off 80 more of their staff

I wouldnt mind actually because what happens now? You wipe 1-2 times half the group leaves. Instant gratification isnt being met, back in those 2 hours runs the community toughed it out and most tried to see it through, now resistance is met with disdain.

Remember when the revamp first came out and people were saying it made early content much more difficult? Irony.

Well in that sense, of all the things they could afford, there's so many other implementations of more importance and chance of success to consider over this implementation.

Off topic sidenote - I do get a kick out of this 'stealing' mentality. I personally enjoy when I'm headed to Briney Farms and someone else keeps picking up the bubbles I've put on the hulks..then bring them in for me. We both get credit and I get done a bit faster. Same with the pots of gold, as long as I'm getting credit and you aren't hitting the pots faster than we can get the coins, it's win-win. My favorite is the cages in Atlantis...I'll end up over there with someone else and without saying a word (sometimes it's even a villain) one of us will do the killing, the other will do the cages...we both get done faster and easier (since the one grabbing cages isn't agro'ing everything in the area). That's pretty much called teamwork anywhere else.

Sidenote complete...let's continue original debate over something we are likely to have no influence over....

Reinheld

Agreed on the fact that the OG players had it way tougher and still stuck it out. Unfortunately we are playing a much more grindy game now, and you can't afford to spend 1/5th of your weekly game time in 1 raid, especially if it's not end game anymore as those Raids were when they were 2 hour battles to the death. Fun as a diversion now, sure. I'd probably go run a Gates run where you actually needed to use the statues and spears correctly, or defeat the entire hallway without just killing the boss at the end, or where we'd be yelling out 'PANCAKES' in the Avatar boss fight when the circles appear under our feet. But not weekly, and probably not monthly even. The bigger question is that will the new player, now confronted with a 'hard' Raid, with no option for an easy carry through, want to stay or will they get frustrated even more than they do today? That's a debate for sure. My heart says yes...cause I remember some of those hard raids fondly(once beaten), but my brain says no...cause I know the caliber of today's new players.

Reinheld

I got one for you, its only 6 years old..

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/iconic-personalities.180964/

To be completely fair, the point wouldn't be brought up repeatedly if it didn't happen. But it does, even if the higher CR player isn't intending for it to happen.

I see it happen all too often because of how I play. Between taking my time and sticking to mainly solo content, I get to see higher CR players in open world places like Gotham Under Siege, the Historic District in the Metro Battlezone and New Genesis running back to get feats they overlooked or ignored. Many times there seems to be no regard for what the other players around are trying to do, just a focus on getting a feat done as if they're in a single player game or instance and obliterating anything that moves that would count towards the feat they're working on.

And speaking as someone who likes to actually play the game/content I'm running, it's incredibly frustrating to see or encounter that. I don't care if their efforts count towards what I'm doing. I don't want "help" with something I'm perfectly capable of handling on my own, namely because their idea of help more often than not just gets in my way.

I can't say why they act that way, partly because they generally never say a word while doing it and I don't trust myself to hold my temper or frustration in check if I tried to address them. But regardless of their intent, if a higher CR player doesn't take into consideration the lower CR players around them or show consideration in the first place, chances are pretty high that they'll be labeled as jerks or griefers. Even if they don't deserve the label.

AGREED and I have always gotten a kick out of the players (fairly new ones I HOPE) that will be on shout in open world during almost any holiday event screaming about some one "STEALING" defeats from them. LOL in almost every case they got credit for the defeat just like the supposed "thief".. those things are set up that way. Heck like you mention Rein the St Pat event actually goes quicker when people team up and one guy is shooting the pots so the coin roll while 1 or 2 (or more) [players grab then.

And the cages in Atlantis ? more often than not I wind up "teamed up" with someone there and just like you said one or two of us are wiping out guards and soliders while one guy click on cages. Oh I know isn't it just horrible that some villain is getting credit for a guard I defeated? Ummmm NO I could care less.... About the only thing that kind tick you off is the folks herding Brine Hulks that click on one and they glow red and attack instead of being bubbled. Then they run off to TRY to bubble another and leave the angry one for me to deal with.. "Hey buddy how about cleaning up your own mess? What am I you janitor?"

Now as you said back to the Original topic..... This debate has gone on forever it seems and it still amazes me because even back when it started there were probably as many, if not MORE, players in game that were and are perfectly happy having that HIGH CR player killing everything that moves, getting them all the speed feat (and who knows how many others), and getting them some quick and REALLY easy marks and armor drops. Heck look at past history in game... At one point when a team was formed to do a raid the leader was looking for 2 healers, 2 trolls and one or even two tanks... and then the "BURN THROUGH IT" age began and suddenly we had teams with 7 DPS and one poor highly overworked Healer ..because they could get done quicker. Well they could if they didn't hit a boss that refused to die and then you see them begging for a TANK Now add in that period where on duos we had a whole group of players that would flat out leave a mission if ANY support player showed up because "They are not doing enough damage I am carry them." Heck even now most alerts these days consist of 3 dps and one healer. Back when Demon's Plan and Atomic Tanks were new I had a clown screaming that I needed to switch to dps I was going to slow things down.... Then we hit the first roam full of ninjas and my aggro had them all crowded around me like I was a rock star they wanted an autograph from.. IN no time we wiped the entire room and moved on.. amazingly He never complained again the entire ALERT.

Now I won't say there are not some that domn't join a "TEAM" and then act like the rest of the players are just a some thing annoying they have to deal with. Back when Catalysts fell in missions I was on the League of Assassin's alert and one guy blazed ahead leaving a pile of mobs at the door to every boss battle.. (and three of us trapped outside the door dealing with that while he killed the boss inside).. and then bright boy managed to screw up the final boss battle and we could not get Ras to attack. We wound up having to just quit and do the whole things over again..YEAH rushing ahead REALLY helped there. I've had high CR join me on a duo ( in particular Malfunction .. they are only after that last boss battle in the security area and if they get the right one.. THEY quit. If they get the wrong one.. THEY quit and then you get to either try soling the rest or looking for a new team mate. I think because of stuff like that when I am that horrid HIGHER CR on any mission I do everything I can to stick with the team , keep them safe, and I'll even only use weapon attacks so others have a chance to play And guess what on a few occasions I have had team mates yelling at me to KILL STUFF faster. LOL