BEST GEAR IN VENDOR

Sorry, should have clarified that. There's increased pressure to see results with the new owners. TBH, given the owner's interests elsewhere, it's likely they are planning to see if DGC can be turned around and sold for profit at some point. I've worked under those conditions before. Not pretty. The deal for the Bat cowl could have meant the higher cost of using the likeness was being passed on to players, or it could just be more of the same strategy (targeting those few willing to spend more) in action; poking and prodding to see how effective it is. As the Mepps has stated, they'd be open to suggestions and feedback, but anything that could be used will have to consider their position as well. Vanity items are icing to a cake that hasn't been discovered yet, so to speak. We need to figure out a way to expand beyond RPs, and that involves the progression system directly.

So this portion of your response is very interesting as there are a lot of different ways profits can be made while addressing the progression system. There was another post where a player mention effectively an "Mark Booster" consumable which would work like the XP Booster but obviously gaining marks in place of XP.

I thought this was an interesting concept for a few reasons, but they are all dependent on giving players the option of obtaining best gear in vendor:

1. By allowing best gear in vendor AND obtained through drops this would theoretically satisfy both sides of the fence.
2. The best gear in vendor could be sold at a slightly increased price to compensate for players who don't like running the most challenging content for the best items. (again more avenues to obtaining the best gear regardless of preferred play style)
3. The Mark Boosters would be beneficial to all members of the player base:
- If you don't like large group content then use a Mark Booster while running your solo or duos to amass more marks to purchase best gear in vendor.
- If your tired of RNG then use a Mark Booster to supplement your drops by getting more marks and purchasing the best gear in vendor.
- If you want to be completely geared within the first week then use the Mark Booster and RB's in conjunction.
- If you want to enjoy your time and not rush, then use neither as you can still progress to the next tier with no problem as the devs have stated many times.

In my opinion the name of the game here is options. Players want options as far as how to get the best gear. DBG shouldn't be about limiting those options; rather expanding on ways a player can get what you want while offering ways to do that through market place purchases. At that point the issue is squarely on the player as far as using time or money for convenience items as a resource.

This is true, and perplexing

+ 1

#VendorGearBestGear

# best gear in vendor

so, what about it mepps? Any sort of comment to kick off the week?

Its all about profits bud. Sub is what they want or deem solid and profitable.
F2p is a move made to keep the lights on when the game was ruff around the edges and under developed. All focus was taken off boostering legendary sales

IF BIG BIG IF u buy every episode u pay $48 per year as a premium vs a minamum of $120 per year. REPLAYS MAKES UP FOR IT AND WHY WE HAVE HUGE DIFFERENCES WITH NO WORK AROUNDS

Gotta solve the issue of minus $70 or so per customer who dont sub. Add in all the dlc skippers and ouch

Like maybe I don't know... Taking steps to create Increased player retention? Maybe some of those 120 dollars a year players that would have quit entirely when they dropped and thus paying nothing instead deciding to stick around and start paying for DLCs? I think that extra 48 bucks a year from people who would have otherwise quit the game entirely is something that should not be dismissed so easily, especially since it could turn into 120 dollars a year at any time... (My point is premium should be all about keeping the players happy enough that they don't quit... Because players that quit are the least likely to ever spend money on the game.)

I agree and u made a few good points but the focus has been on how can we get more from everyone from micro transactions. Hence by far superior gear in drops and hidden behind replays and atop of this progress points.

Armories was a classic example. Full use of the feature SHOULD be a legendary perk. Its part of a game and if I happen to sub up from premium its a huge huge draw. Yes they could buy a second armory but what if those who upgrade have 4 toons? Either they are subjected to it and want the feature (possibly) when they down grade or the cost of armories tops the debate to subbing vs returning to premium. The extra perks and the cost to buy armories could, could hold players who currently go back and forth

MOST IMPORTANTLY SUB CARRIERS WOULD NOT OF FELT NICKLE AND DIMED AND ARMORIES WOULD STILL SELL.

I dont dislike premiums and yea they add to the game in all facets BUT ID END EPISODE SKIPPING. If u cant spend $48 dollars a year see ya and be honest which dlc should I buy is a common thread on the forums indicating plenty skip content.

Whats been happening is the difference between $120 and whatever a premiums spends has been attempted to be made up solely off micro transactions.

Lets be dead on honest. Best gear as drops is them dangling the most enticing item available and putting up a pay wall and drop rate assuring every customer fees a desire to replay. Small % not but u get my point.

This is fundamentally wrong. The system should benefit sub carriers and have sur charges to premiums making legendary sexier.

They progress points a pay wall. Pay walls are f2p obstacles NOT sub membership hassels. I dont care how it gets better but surely it needs to. Use best gear as drops to make legendary more attractive. Add a second reset and remove progress points.

Premiums cant complain as gear drops are not needed. I dont in any way believe that. Ultimately it dont fix easy content but come SM atleast we are at full cr and not excluded. Small win and at this point id take that along with not being nickle and dimed.

Does anyone actually believe for a second replay spammers would not spam replays still? Be serious of course but sub carriers would feel a bit better and that shiny carrot would be tempting premiums to sub. If we get profits up maybe we can start addressing things.

Consider its a $70 a person loss 2 start for every single premium player. Market place sales and stuff makes up for this gap in a well oiled system but $20 batman helms? $10 base models.... anyone ever spend $5 to change their weapon? Lol $5 to change one skill point.

Pricings ridiculous as its already developed and requires no more cost so more they sell more they make.

So dont confuse what I am saying. I am not saying premiums bad but the effort to sell subs been severly neglected and the tratment of sub carriers............ pay walls and micro transactions needs to hit premiums not subs.

As for the effort to sell subs? Hello... Since I've started playing the game I've seen several additions made to the subscription model... Free lockbox unboxing, the ability to use in game cash to buy legends toons, free replay badges, five bucks worth of cash to spend on the marketplace(gasp, you could use that perk to get that second armory after two months without buying anything outside of your sub!... ) Don't get me wrong I'm not against subscribers from getting more perks, I just think that you shouldn't assume that you're getting shafted worse than the premium players. (To be honest they should probably make a habit of rotating the vault drops on a monthly basis, just because.)

I actually don't believe that replay spammers would stop spamming replays even if they did drop sub... In fact I figure that any replay spammers that drop sub would probably spam the money they aren't spending on a sub on even more replays(Assuming that they could afford to).... So here is a question: How many subscribers are replay spammers would you guess there are?

Pay walls and micro transactions already hit the premiums stupid hard... (Like for instance the escrow cap... To me the question isn't "Can the escrow cap be raised without devaluing unlimited escrow" but rather "How much can it be raised without devaluing unlimited escrow." (Some people get it in their head that increasing it at all would devalue unlimited escrow, but I disagree.)

My opinion is that some of the so called pay walls are poorly implemented.(Like the ever controversial cash cap. right now it is just one paywall for the premium crowd... Allow us to spend 500 daybreak cash to increase it up to a cap of 5k in increments of 500 credits? Lets do the math by counting: 2000, 2500, 3000, 3500, 4000, 4500, 5000, Sub/Seven days unlimited escrow... So that's... what six or seven paywalls instead of the one that it is now.... ?

Agreed

Two things we need to focus on.
The game when it was simply a concept and mapped out was evaluated to need a base of $120 per year per player hence the sub based model only. Not up for debate

F2p was a move made out of desperation to keep the lights on NOT a prefered route or one which seemed to produce higher revenue then the original model

Since f2p although it did save the game has indeed slowly shrunk the game. B4 u disagree where is customer support? Our dev team grow or shrink?

My only point is a sub provides $70 at the minamum more from a year when comparing a legendary member vs a premium.
Every sub player subbed for a year is a base of $120. In reality its more unless u sub for a full year. Ok I dont know what 6 months costs so maybe at 6 months it could be $10 per month.
Premium players can spend $4 a cycle and float by and be end game. Plenty skip dlcs.

Alll the development, pvp fixing, and anything done including servers and customer service all costs money. We cut items like customer service sure we saved money by doing so but it takes away from the game. All the systems targeting everyone has breed the money grab mentality and this is beyond awful

WORD OF MOUTH IS OUR BEST ADVATISER and how do u think thats going when the average sub carriers?

Ultimately we need to understand we need X amount per customer to maintain and grow and move away from so much recycled stuff. Recycling is a cheap alternative to developing new no? Of course it is.
The system we have allows to many premiums to skate by for less then what the average profits per person needed is and hence systems like best gear (by far) as drops.

Fundamental errors have been made is my point. Yes legendary has been buffed and done well but instead of targeting everyone with a system to pay micro transactions the devs need to focus on making subs that much harder not to use. Or more preferable is a better wording.

The vault is daily vs one out of three days so yes even if they removed marks from the second run they could justifyably add a second run per week.

Ask urself especially if uve followed this thread and saw numerous ways this setuos hurt the players and the game why would they not find middle ground? They need to compensate for the average profit per player currently being to low.

Let us not forget if I pay for a month I am more inclined to log in then the guy who spent $4 and can play anytime. U need people logging in to be able to sell them items. A guy who paid a years sub is a guy you can market items to for a year.

A

Overall I agree with you and the sentiment of your posts, however there are a few clarifications that need be made.

the $120 a year model this game started off with was also likely based on a large amount of players paying that sum, not on an individual basis. That is the reason they decided to go F2P, there just weren't enough people paying 120 a year to keep the game going.

Without a change in their model, this game would have died. A700% increase in revenue is nothing to sneeze at. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-21-dc-universe-revenue-up-700-percent-post-free-to-play

Why did it shrink the customer service team and the dev team? Well because this game got an initial investment of 50 million dollars and it was doing so bad, not even the 700% increase was enough to maintain the kind of expense they had originally. In other words, this game was a resounding flop and free to play kept it alive even if with a much smaller workforce and budget.
If you go back to a subscription only model, with 0 microtransactions like replay badges or total recoveries, this game will die in a matter of weeks.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not an X amount per costumer that they need, they need an X amount total and it can come from 1 customer paying 10 million a month or from 10 million costumers paying 1 dollar a month. Development costs are the same no matter how many players there are, server costs don't increase on a per player basis either, I mean it's not like we get an individual server per player. Sure there are some expenses that are per player, like bandwith, but that's not their biggest expense.

One could argue it's worse for them to have a few players paying a lot of money because all the expenses like servers are made for a large amount of players, so they'd be wasting resources.

Other than that, I agree with everything else you've been saying in your past few posts

Word of mouth is not good at all. Right now if you were to ask someone is DCUO a good MMO to play on PS, they would tell you yes, but then they would tell you a long list of reasons why there reply should be no.

Right now there are several problems with the game outside of power balance that is so crippling that it prevents new players from playing( brainiac ship). To players getting to lvl 30( leveling system), to players getting to endgame( t1-t6).

So right now we dont have enough devs to answer all these problems.

Personally, I like the challenge of running elite raids to get the best gear. Some ppl replay them 100s of times in a wk because they don't like to wait, I don't mind waiting tho. I replay here and there but nothing major. Best gear in vendor takes all the fun out of even running elite. So there has to be some major incentive to keep ppl playing elite.

I skimmed a few posts here and I get it, the lack of good drops can be frustrating, but now with vendor gear u can hit 141 (if u got the pcs out of dcr & dce by now). The highest I've seen is 143. What's the big deal? 2cr difference for ppl who can clear elite? It's not like ppl won't run with you if you're 141. I've seen ppl kicked for reasons like lack of sp, mods, or just not playing their role well, but never because they didn't have a 143cr.

Either way, I don't care how they make the best gear available, I just need a reason to run really difficult content.

The reason 2 cr is a big deal is the reason this thread exists:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...oints-vs-142-nat-dps-240-skill-points.262335/

Right now being one CR higher than someone else is better than having 200+ SP more.

Yea that video isn't really about cr as much as it is about power imbalance. Sp might matter more if they can balance powers. Also, my main is nature and ice has never outdmged me by a million in flash duo.. clearly he's not running a wm loadout on the ads.. u can't dot on things that die quickly.

However I do side with u on the cr scaling being horribly flawed. Just not sure how much 2cr really impacts overall battle.

Damn good points and I agree.

I dont have a ton of ideas and one cant argue more customers who sub vs go premiums is never bad.

Every point u made I found sound. Sadly the unpolished u derdeveloped clunker we rolled. Out at launch is been crafted, polished and development on most fronts surpassed where we would of liked to be at launch.

Some reason however the focus on selling subs has been minamal. Yes there has been improvements and yes its better but no they have not changed the ill effects of their money making methods.

My sub is my shield to protect me from pay walls and micro transactions to maintain. The money I spend after my sub needs to be for my leasure not to compete, keep up or maintain.

There maybe many ways to reach the ulitimate goal of X amount of cash we need prfoit wise but its never wrong to boost the sub bennefits and value to entice sub sales.

Its never good making a move where ur sub carriers feel nickle and dimed and subs feel devalued

Exellent! I think we're pretty much on the same page. I wrote up a few of my thoughts on that very question, that's the second to last link in my sig if you want to read it.