Gu37: CR-lockout for raid-walk-in-teleporters

First off I like the lockout change it give the newer players a chance to learn their WM combos, powerset/ rotations, and their roles in general be it dps or support.This change is a good idea and has potential for new players to have the required skill and insight on their roles when nearing end game content.

Secondly high crs helping low crs in lower content is not always a good thing, honestly me being cr 106 I have been kicked out of lower Tier content before because I am either killing to fast or not supporting the group due to role optional inates requiring a close proximity. To avoid this I think all instances / operations should have a walkin option that caters to end game players that are either just farming styles,specific feats in general, or just want to run through it for quick marks without waiting for queue or a response from LFG channel. Even now with T6 duos I have had partners quit on me because it was either to hard for them or I wasn't the right role. I would still finish it without them and have a smoother run alone.

All I am saying is if you have the gear, skill, and experience you should have the option.

This is the root of the problem. Let's play "What Would WoW Do?"

Vanilla/Classic WoW: up to level 60, 3 tiers of end-game gear. Hit 60, grind out the dungeons for your starter gear and start raiding to move through the tiers. Catch-up was hard but doable.
The Burning Crusade: level increased to 70. Starter zone gear was roughly equivalent to T3 raid gear to allow catch-up to current groups. Hit 70, start grinding dungeons for starter raid gear then hit the raids for your T4 gear and so on up to T6 or, if you were one of the 1%, T6.5 in Sunwell.
Wrath of the Lich King: level increased to 80. Again, starter zone gear offered players a chance to catch up in gear strength for the leveling process. Hit 80, start grinding dungeons for starter raid gear then start grinding raids for T7 gear and end up grinding out T10 in Icecrown Citadel.
Cataclysm: level increased to 85. Repeat the gear catch up process in the starter zones. Hit 85, grind dungeons for starter raid gear and start grinding raids for T11. Repeat as new raids and dungeons are released, ending up in Dragon Soul grinding your T13 gear.
Mists of Pandaria: level increased to 90. Repeat the process all over again up to whatever they hit. I stopped playing during T14 raids.

When a new tier was released during an expansion cycle, say the T10 gear in Wrath, they usually released a couple of 5-mans that dropped gear that allowed players to catch up and acquire a set of gear suitable to begin progression on that tier. Crafting also allowed quite a bit of catching up to the big kids. This system worked very well. If you were to powerlevel an alt, you could hit max level and have a set of blue gear, with the occasional BOE Epic piece here and there, waiting in your bank so you could jump right into the 5-man catch-up content and get to your raid group's level relatively quickly.

But, you weren't skipping a whole bunch of content in that expansion. The gear you could have ready was no more powerful than the beginning gear from that expansion's starter raid content. You could not be end-tier ready 8 hours after hitting max level. You had to run at least some of the content in that expansion to catch up. That's why it worked and why Blizzard allowed it. The process didn't render obsolete all that work they put into the content by allowing people to just skip it all like we can do right now in DCUO.

It's not the players' faults we're at this point, though. They want to get caught up and start raiding with their friends. Maybe they're grinding an alt to fill a hole in a raid group. For whatever reason, they want to catch up. The problem in this game is we're stuck at level 30 as the benchmark needed to get into any raid content in the game. Kahndaq, A&B, both are level 30 instances separated only by a gear level rating. Blizzard used their level increases as a gating mechanism (as well as enforcing gear level ratings to access later content) as much as a way to make players feel more epic. So far, DCUO only uses CR as the character's level never changes.

So, what additional gating mechanism could DCUO put in place in an effort to force progression since I highly doubt we will ever see a level cap increase? Skill points are a possibility. You earn them by doing content, similar to how you earn XP to gain additional levels. If they did this, it would definitely remove a lot of the "casualness" of the game by making people chase feats for SP. This is not a good method of gating. They would have to set the SP entry point for each tier as something attainable by only doing PvE content of the previous tiers but that would allow players to "cheat" by earning SP doing PvP as there is no separation between the two sides of the game. That's another problem for another discussion. Still, SP would allow the devs to gate content and "force" players to revisit earlier content to progress, unless they can use replays to get their alts past the SP gate.

Regardless, something needs to be done. Obviously the devs want people to experience the content and learn the game. There's a chunk of the player population who's frustrated with T5 players not understanding basic game mechanics like PoT or how threat works because their buddies let them afk through Nexus the minute they hit 30. There's also the players who have their max level, high CR/SP mains who want to rush an alt to end game. I'm pretty sure a way can be found to accommodate the wishes of all parties.

Besides, even with out walk-ins, you can be CR54 the minute you hit 30 using BoE gear and be in T5 a few hours later just by running CR-appropriate content like FOS 1-3, Oan, LoA and the Last Laugh duo to get to T4 stuff. Once there, one run through of the four 8-mans will get you to T5 in most cases. Losing walk-ins will not hurt powerleveling AT ALL.

I like the way you think. It makes sense how Blizzard frameworked WoW to overcome two issues — skipping content and (fast) player progression if applicable. How many times did you think about jumping into downloading/buying game to play with your friends but got turned off because you'd require x-amount of time to either enjoy or even meet them on their current level, whether end game or late game. That's why I still think the decision they've made is only half-done. Allow people who have completed — and hold the required CR — content before on any toon, so people are a little more endeavored to give an ALT a shot. Yes, the empty-soul-no-skillpoint-103cr-alt-issue is known, but most people I know who were serious about it and you can kinda see who puts a lot of effort or none into a toon so it's a little obsolete giving seasoned players the barrier as well, but I'm not upset about it.

On the other hand a seasoned player who knows DCUO a bit can still level up a toon quite quickly. Not as fast as prior, but still in a fast pace with some help. I've mentioned this in a topic a while ago and still stand that the issue we sometimes have with players who have no clue in endgame content is not a developer issue, it's caused by the players itself. The ones who rush their friends up without explaining anything, in worst case scenarios not even letting them try out their role even. "Just go afk until we've burned this down ((((((()"

Anything but feats. There are way too many which have nothing to do with experience, time or skill effort but luck, which I'd be extremely against using them as a gating mechanism. There's not much else left to be, if seriously thought about, to be used as a gate mechanism. As I've mentioned there are too many feats which are based on luck.

Never had alts and never will, except for the temporary ones to be comical or farm seasonal items ect. I walk the path of the Respec token.

considering what Amber sayd, i can say that when u are over cr 80 (or now with the weapon mastery, the fact that u can deal a great damage), t1-t2-t3 content is kinda boring for good players with high cr (and/or more than 130 sp). I will not talk about ungeared people because there is many reasons because people don't have a high cr (work, studies, whatever..), but what about the uneskilled people that gets a lot of gear really fast, yes they have the gear, but not the skill (many people reaaallyy reaaaalyyy suck). I know this is a long shot but maybe the devs could try to introduce a mechanic where even if all the group is absolutelly overgeared for a instance, make a way so the "not too geared people" have to actually do their work and if they don't the raid may become a bit more complicated or fail in some cases. Maybe adjusting the health, damage or battle mechanics of some adds and/or bosses (maybe just bosses), according with the cr of the people in the raid and maybe buffing the stats (temporarilly) of the lower cr poeple in the raid...so they actually have to play their roles correctly even if they are not overgeared.


PD: sorry my english is not very good

couldnt of been said better and thnx 4 changing this and making people actually run the content

game has been out for 3 and a half years, if u havent found time to level an alt in that amount of time its on u, not any1 else

Mepps - We don't want players to skip content to an extreme extent

Then don't let them skip content to an extreme extent, set CR requirements for the portals, but not as high as the CR requirement to queue in to the instance.

Portal CR Req: 43

Walk in CR Req: 33

Portal CR Req: 53

Walk in CR Req: 43

Portal CR Req: 70

Walk in CR Req: 60

Portal CR Req: 85

Walk in CR Req: 75

Etc.

Makes sense to me.

And for those of you that are thinking, "I don't care about this change, because it doesn't affect me, just go on with it."
If you don't care, and it doesn't affect you, then let us that WANT to keep the ability to walk in to raids to boost our alts, do so.
Try thinking more about your fellow players.

I am thinking about my fellow players. I am thinking that I don't want my fellow players doing underlevel walk-ins. Walk-ins under CR do NOT power-level a toon as fast as simply running content that you are level-ready for. Between synthetic mods and personal loot drops, it is so wicked simple to level up with level-ready content that there is no reason to do underlevel walk-ins.

"but I *need* to buy t4 armor!!!!!*

No, you don't. You really really don't. Here's my standard advice for leveling an alt (presuming that you have run at least one previous toon to t5 and actually know gameplay and role mechanics): At t3, you run your solos, duos, alerts, and the 3 Fortress Expert raids. You *will* get drops. You *will* get marks AND weekly/monthly box rewards. Wear all the best gear that drops. Don't be picky about role or weapon. Buy cheap level 3 synths. Run them through a second time if you didn't get enough drops that you can wear. You WILL hit 70 for t4.

Again, run your t4 solo/bounty (Home Turf), alerts, and the 4 t4 raids. Again, don't be picky about role or weapons. Care ONLY about cr increase. From weekly/monthly boxes, you'll have enough marks for t4 mods in all the new gear. Bam. Cr 84, t5.

Run your solos for a couple gear drops. Couple t4 synths, you are 86. Alerts, raids, rest of the bounties. NOW you start to work on your preferred role with the un-attuned drops.

0-96, 2 days. 17 hours total playing time. NO walk-ins. NO bought armor. It's just not that hard. Spread it out over a week or two if you can only play limited amounts at a time or don't have a league that can run (NOT CARRY) with you as you are level ready for content runs.

It really seems that most people are worried about not getting gear fast enough. (Some of these people also complain about nothing to do at end game... hmmm) I will admit I have limited play time and have abused the replay badges I have for marks. (I am tera-bad at dpsing so it takes me a chunk of time to run solos.) But even with my play time I have etched my way to 84 from 74 in about two weeks of casual active playing (instead of bit hunting).

The complaint of 'I did this once, I shouldn't have to go through the process on my alt' is always going to be debatable. If you have done it once then you know what to expect and can burn through content faster. It doesn't take me long to level up my alts (not that it takes long in the first place) because I know what to do and where to go without waiting for the communicator and log. You learn shortcuts in instances that help (alerts/duos/solos count) make things easier. So while it is annoying to have to start all over again, it should actually be FASTER the second time onward.

For me, alts are ran in my 'spare' time when I do not feel like playing my main. That means I am not in a psychotic hurry to gear them up. This is probably an important piece of information to know in order to understand my view/opinion of the whole 'its for my alt, I already know how to play' argument.

They could always put a cap on the CR required. If you are above that cap it lowers your stats appropriately for that general CR level. No one would be carried then. But then people would be upset because style runs would no longer be quick.

Good information. One thing to note though, the Huntress and Bizarro solos can now be run at 80cr and they give weekly boxes. They make 80 to 84 much easier than it used to be.

Also, do Raven as soon as you reach 84. One instant unattuned 85 piece.