Skill Points: a real issue.

Perhaps there's something, I have no idea what though, that can be done to influence players to get some skill points. It is very noticeable when you play with someone who has less than say, a couple hundred SP. I am by no means, a master of SP, but I have criticals maxed, my primary stat maxed, and enough to throw almost halfway into another stat. I'm certain many other players can tell when someone is very low on sp, especially healers (and obviously those with baby burn).

Maybe someone can convince the devs to have milestone rewards that are actually worth aiming for, to get people to increase their SP. Maybe at 100sp they get something, then 160, then 200, 250, 300, etc. Not only would that help people (everyone) to be motivated to get SP, but it would also help convince players that they're doing better, and keep them more "into" playing.

Just food for thought...

Replace the Achievement feat point system with Achievement exclusive rewards, done.

In another few years, we are going to have a very real conversation about feat points needing to be granted on character creation because "having to grind out 700 feat points to be competitive at endgame is unreasonable" is going to come up as a eventuality.

Competitive at endgame? More like useful at endgame. Especially if you want to be anything more than a DPS. But you certainly don’t need 700sp to be any of these things. Even in a few years

especially concearning if half of the featpoints are coming from older TC´s you need to buy from the broker.
i hate to bring this topic up again and again, but it is a real issue. you dont even see wich style is from TC´s.

Convincing people to pursue skill points right after they've been nerfed by the stat clamp isn't going to be easy.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The feat point thing needs to be revisited entirely. Im a returning player and just trying to get older feats from old content is impossible because it never pops and if it does you better hope the others are there for those feats too, lets not even talk about pvp feats

Exactly (all of the above)!

I've seen people suggest pvp feats, and all feats from old content (paradox for example), just be granted. I used to be quite torn about that idea, in a sense. I remember busting my rear to grind out some feats, and some of those 3 star feats were really tough. The more I think about it, the more I agree that old feats should just be granted to players. The requirement of SP to be 'competent' is obviously there, but I'm going to guess that most players are under even 250. I seen someone that was 343cr boasting how he just hit 100. I'm thinking, 'dude, you made a landmark, but in today's end game, you got no skill points.'

I would greatly enjoy to see something take place, to increase overall skill points in the player base. Maybe a new years event, log in and get everything granted from 5 years and older content (including pvp since that obviously will never get reworked).

The archaic way that the skill point system is set up will die with the game unfortunately.

As I've pointed out a few times before in previous topics, keeping SPs character-bound is a surefire way for the game to make money. Unlike most modern MMOs that try to mitigate unnecessary timesink, FFXIV for example, DCUO does not give a rat's buttocks about how much grind the player has to put into this game and that will not change anytime soon for a game as old as this one.

Players complained about this when the game launched and many left and have not returned. I'm one of the dumb ones that did return still falling for the trap knowing it's always there. I'm part of the problem.

if you think skill points make a player better then stick to standing at little boh cause it definitely dont “you can tell if someone have low sp because of their baby burn/healing” like what? people have bad burn probably cause they do support role more than dps or they don’t care to put out 7mil the moment a fight start or they clueless on their rotation/loadout

Couple things - in reverse order of occurrence

• Open-world/ Counter Feats can largely be gotten solo; so can Solo Feats.
• So can Dueling and Kill Count Feats, because while team PVP isn't thriving right now, Dueling and 1v1 - 2v2 are very much alive, even today.
• And Omnibus means that your chances of a queue for particular content decrease from hours to minutes.
• Or you can LFG and see if anyone else needs those Feats; still, those other three things are all strong arguments in favor of solo Feat hunting.

• It's actually closer to 1/6. Pretty sure the last count posted had 88 potential SP from TC styles;
• the other side of that coin is, half the old TC style Feats are on the Quark Vendor now; and you can grind Source which you can convert directly to Quarks, no money down.
• And pretty much EVERY older Style is now for sale on a Style Vendor, so you can EASILY rack up a crapload of SP from (CHEAP) non-TC Style Purchase alone.

Right now stat creep on the primary production stat occurs at 10/DLC. If they continue the 5 CR/ 5 SP cap increase in STU? Less, but that means at our current rate of release you're only going to need 30 extra SP a year to "keep up with the Joneses"

Conversations like these, to be blunt.

There was a post here on the Forums a week or two ago - someone was complaining because they were beaten by a Might character, even though they had 200 Arts, Gadgets Prec, all the "My First DPS" meta stuff. Wavedox == 222 SP. Did not want to believe SP could account for that large a difference. 30 million out difference on the scoreboard.

Now, I did *the same thing* to a group last week using my Fire DPS (Gallica's ST/AoE rotation is all Might) so I know it's possible and I also know why - Gallica (like every Fire Tank in existence) always needs more SP, so she currently has in excess of 500.

And there are other things that muddy the waters too.

The "fact" that certain Artifact combinations does increase your output by more than Skill Points alone does leaves out the FACT that adding Skill Points TO the Artifacts increases your output by a similar amount, or the FACT that if you're dealing with 120 range Artifacts? 400 SP alone does more for your output as a DPS than 100 SP and 120 Arts does. Artifacts only really begin to outpace SP at the far end, and even then - to get those noticeable gains, hit that 75K/s + ST rotation?

You're not doing that consistently with 150 SP, no matter how good your Arts and Augs are.

There's another "prevalent" talking point, regarding SP having diminishing returns after 100, which - while technically true - is also inherent dishonesty in the framing of the discussion itself. It's more like a temporary plateau, on the other side of which you start seeing real (rapid) stat gains again - the climb is VERY MUCH worth it, even if there's a point after 100 where it doesn't seem like you're getting much, when you get to 295 you're going to notice it. That hill gets STEEP, but the view from the top of that pile is worth it.

If I know my rotation, and we both have 200 Arts, and I have 500 SP, but you only have 200? I'mma beat you, every time. Part of skill is talent, the other half is practice.

Also, while some SP are for (silly) things like "How Many Hats Do I Have?", some SP are for things like "How Many Times Did You Fight Doomsday?" - I did that one SOLO. I can recite the mechanics to that fight in my sleep now.

So I also understand a lot of Bounty and Boss mechanics now that a lot of Day Five newbs with "My First DPS" Youtube rotations and "I sunk my last paycheck into this but it was worth it" Arts have no idea as to the function of. Hell, I'm STILL explaining to people how the Metal Man-Bat mechanics actually work. Don't get me started on the PVP SP (though they do mean a little less now that the PVP system is jank, granted)

There is something, but it doesn't require adding anything, it just requires a few months of Math and then Modifying an already existing system.

I completely understand why the Devs chose to set up the SP system the way it was set up, it was the easier of 2 choices. Unfortunately, the 2nd choice not only benefited players, but it gave them a genuine reason to want SP.

The 2nd choice, and the reason it would require quite a lot more work but would result in far longer of a payoff, is SP assigned directly to Individual Powers. You'd still have your Innates where you'd assign SP to Crits and to Combat Type, but each SP is not assigned to Prec or Might or Dom etc. Theres a Base Maximum Prec or Might or Dom etc you'll reach when each episode releases with gear. Then, lets say you're looking at a Shield in Ice Power, you decide how strong you need it. You can dump a full 200-300 SP into this 1 Shield, or spread it out among other shields or other Powers too. If you want to go full Prec dps, the Weapon Tree works similarly too.

This not only hugely expands on Armoury/LO options, but gives everyone a genuine reason to want SP. You meet a great Healer in a Raid and they tell you they have 300 in Group heal and 200 in Priority which allowed them to be that good, that gives you a goal to aim for. And yes, some reading this will think it sounds like the "old skill point system" we had, but it isnt. Lets say you wanna be a Prec dps again, you're not forced to buy every weapon to get to the bottom row to get to crits like the "old skill point system". Crits are still in the current menu. Instead you'd assign SP to each individual Weapon Attk. If you wanted Brawlings Haymaker to really make an impact, you could throw max SP allowed into it.

The only problem(ish) with this system, is it makes "Hybrid Builds" difficult. Or, next to impossible. But considering the current state of Gadgets, maybe thats a good thing. Maybe Hybrid builds just don't work in this game and will always be imbalanced, and the best thing we could do is shut the door on them.

Anyway, yeah. Thats how you get ppl wanting SP without having to add in anything.

you think your loadout/rotation is good and unbeatable until u actually come across a player that do bettrr than you with lesser stats again having more sp/better arts doesn’t mean you gonna out do them skill points have nothing to do with it it’s the player i can show a clip me in FVE 1st boss out dps a max cr 200arts maxed augments getting out dps by me by 20+mil what would his excuse be?

This actually sounds like overcomplicating the SP system we have now in favor of (slightly) more specialization; and to be blunt, we can't even get the entire player base on board with the system we have now. Plus "giant reorganization to accomplish what the system we have already does (to a large degree)" seems like a good way to put people off of an idea that they're already not on board with (thanks largely to miscommunication).

Maybe he only had 75 SP.

Maybe he's just terrible.

Maybe you're just lucky.

Maybe he died five seconds into the first Boss Fight and you got a lead he couldn't recover from.

Maybe you're just using a glitchy Gadgets spam loadout and he was trying Electric ST.

Maybe his cat was chewing on his toes at the time.

Who knows?

And I have also beat people who are objectively "better", by which I mean a more powerful 'build', same Arts, more SP - but if you can do the same things I can do, and vice versa, and with all other things being equal?

Then if you have less SP than I do, you're gonna lose. It's not the only factor until it IS the only factor, and after that? That's math. Some people are gonna suck, but there are some people who are going to play just as well as you are playing - especially in this game. Because, to be blunt - there's a certain (very real) skill requirement ceiling in this game.

It takes a little more nuance and understanding of timing than an MMO like WOW, sure - but this ain't a combo system like Street Fighter; more like Dynasty Warriors. Even the guy with the fan kicks *** in Dynasty Warriors - provided that you practiced some, learned his combos, and built his basic Stats, of course.

There are other factors besides SP that separate the good players from the mediocre players. If being anything more than a mediocre player isn't a strong enough drive than nothing else will motivate them. Regardless of SP, a mediocre player will always be mediocre until they desire to be better.

Maybe you could explain the view of it being over-complicated?

When I saw the idea, (which btw isn't mine, i've just seen it pop up in almost every "SP rework" thread) it seems pretty simple to be honest. SP still has 4 windows as always:

Weapons
Iconics
Stats
Movement

The difference with this system is it gives you far more control over how SP is allocated. If you think people having 50 options to drop SP into is far too complicated compared to 20, you might just be underestimating people.

Current System:
Share SP among any of 6 main stats and as each (past 100) only adds 10 to each stat, makes it look like SP is just going to waste. Differences are negligible. People are discouraged and believe SP hunting is a waste of time. At least 3 "why dont stats matter" threads pop up on the Forum each month.

Individual Power/Wep System:
6 main stats are now normalized across the board for all players depending on new gear and augments, evening the playing field. Each Power/Wep Attk Box in their respective menues visually have a counter below them like how the 6 main stats do now ( Dom 0/295 ). Allows customisation options that weren't available before. Allows powers that nobody uses in "standard Endgame builds" to finally be viable options.The days of 1 viable ST LO and 1 viable AoE LO etc per power come to an end. Seeing the freedom players with high SP have to build a characters loadout their own way bolsters others to want the same. Stats matter posts disappear because stats have been normalized across the board, threads sharing favourite SP Dump powers rise.

When I can be in full healer gear, spec for full healing, and still do more dmg, it's baby burn.

Skill Points mattr very little for DPS players, and they aren't that much relevant for other classes too.

I have sorta 60 SP allocated for HP in my tank. I gained like what, 5% HP + 400 HP? Cool, but I have 150k HP at CR 322. If my SP went to 0, how much would that affect me? Very little, like 5K HP less, maybe 7k. Each SP increases my HP by 12 points. 12. These numbers are only relevant to me at low CR, yet not so much. the 400 HP helps a lot before level 30, but still. Not only that, but we have over 1,000 achievements to do, with some of them being quite annoying and time consuming. I mean, correct me if I am wrong, but who the hell wants to gather 7 friends and be killed 12 times in Darkseid's War Factory? Why do I need to do 50, then 100, then 250 and then 500 duos?

Personally, I think that skill points should all be %-based, but with a small growth rate as to prevent an impossible gap between newbies and veterans, and SP should be tied to exp: we could still gain exp over level 30, but to gain SP instead. At this way SP would increase as we played, without needing to do creazy weird feats, such as going into a 8v8 pvp and finding all possible npcs.

I'm finding it hard to cover a lot of feats because players done want to play older content, which is understandable I guess... But something needs to be done to encourage players to go into the older stuff... Maybe leave the STU up and rotate the content monthly. And not just bring it back a specific times of year...