BEST GEAR IN VENDOR

The point is to deliver a system that works to encourage the player investment and motivates them forward, it is not about anyone handing anything for free or on the cheap. There is a natural inbuilt mechanism whereby more difficult content rewards larger numbers of marks, the relative reward can be up for debate, but ultimately this is a far more open and productive approach to levelling than invoking restrictions or hiding rewards within a tiny fraction of the whole. If atop the higher mark rewards a raid retains its ability to drop pieces of the very best gear then the value of those raids is multiplied may times....

Ostensibly what we 'earn' is defined by the content window not one sole item within that, it certainly is not an appropriate term when applied to the current system. The real point here is that the game is putting enormous pressure on one solitary piece of content to the exclusion of others (and only by temporal coincidence might this be the most challenging content), it is greatly exaggerating player burn out and generally demoralising toward future content - in no way is this rewarding effort or time or skill it is blatantly using luck to the extent it is undermining many players desire to even log in...

I will admit, I didn't read the whole thing, but what I did read I liked.

If they really want this "buy only what you want thing" I think you proposal sounds good! It's not much different that Vendor gear (as much as I read). I like the sign off too! Lol

1.The whole point of putting the best gear in the vendor is to take the RNG out of the equation.
2. tho old "Life's not fair so why should a game be?" argument... Just because life isn't fair doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make a game that at least has the illusion of being fair.(Chess, Checkers, Tick Tack Toe... ) At the very least the game should be balanced.(Balanced doesn't necessarily mean fair... Like I'm pretty sure the first person who gets to move in checkers does not in fact have a fair advantage, but the game is still pretty darn balanced.)
3.With an RNG system time and effort is irrelevant, all that matters is a lucky roll on the loot table that you want loot from. With the best loot in a vendor the Devs can set a minimum amount of time and effort required via pricing... (If you're worried about players who can't beat X farming Y to save up enough marks for a vendor gear you think they shouldn't have until they can beat X, well here is an interesting question: Where is the vendor with the best gear?)

Still haven't seen a raid that challenged me like throne, Fos2, inner, paradox wave. Those are the only pieces of content I feel worthy of drops being better than vendor gear.

However like I said several pages earlier, even if this got to 100 pages, I wouldn't expect a Dev response until January when the next cycle is about to end

To Derio's point, I was a player who left when GU47 dropped. My leaving was not limited to GU47, but included continuous power revamps and might based AM's which further simplified the combat mechanics that made DCUO great.

Last week I came back to DC after playing a few other MMO's over the last 4 months. After running through the new content, I realized how far gone this game was. In my opinion, this game is simply not fun or enjoyable anymore. Without going into details that would detract from this thread, DC is simply a shell of its former self and being exposed to other games made me realize that.

Bottom line is I really do hope all of the people in this thread get best gear in vendor. If that is what will make you happy and keep you subbed then DGB needs to listen and take action. Requests from the player base can only be ignored for so long before the player as a whole realize a game they once loved no longer exists. Those DC colored glasses we all have been wearing over the last five years will eventually fade and you will see this game for what it currently is.

Good luck guys and keep up the good fight.

Honest question for folks, what kind of price are people willing to pay for buying the best gear in the Vendor?

Yep, the trouble is, especially now, every month our CRs increase. Stats, too. Which means that instances lose difficulty every single month. There's not been a month yet, even taking DLC14 into consideration, where the content from the previous month has maintained it's difficulty.

Yet these instances are dropping the best in slot gear.

It'll be easier to understand next content cycle. The Elite raid is dropping Month 1. By month 2, that Elite raid won't be anywhere near as challenging as it should be if it's supposed to be hard and warrant the best drops. By month 3, it'll be a joke.

So to defend the system because it rewards those who can beat the hardest content (entirely at random, no based on skill) is just a fallacy and a lie.

Not bothered. As long as it's realistically achievable without dropping a huge amount of cash, I don't care.

If it's a 50% increase, cool. If it's a 100% increase then fine. But if it's greater than the number of marks that can be earned in a week, for free, then you're going out of range.

I agree with you, but I will add a devil's advocate: Some people cannot beat the hardest content until they have the gear from the next episode or even the 3rd episode in the series. Those people will still feel they are being rewarded for their efforts. You are correct for the players who have a greater skill set and can get into strong groups, though.

Yep, very true, but like I mentioned earlier, there's no logic in getting the best gear from the hardest instance as a random drop. You can already beat the instance in your inferior gear. Therefore anything better than the gear you beat the instance in is an unnecessary bonus.

I'd personally rather play a game where the best gear was essential to beating the hardest content because it's been tuned around a full team of 8 players wearing the best gear. This can't be done in todays game, because content has to be tuned around the only guaranteed gear, which also happens to be 3rd best available gear granting second best available CR.

I'd also rather play a game where the hardest content hasn't been built around the idelogy that it must be beatable by players on day 1 within a quick time frame to entice people into spending real life currency on prematurely unlocking the rewards again. There's nothing satisfying about beating an instance like that. When you have genuinely tough content, likes Nexus/Paradox Wave or something similar that wasn't beaten Day 1, there's a sense of competition and pride in working together, as a community, to beat the content and seeing who can beat it first. Similarly to how keeping score of who's progressed the furthest in Survival Mode works.

It all depends if DBG changes the number of marks we receive or not. If Marks are decreased no more than 2x the value. If marks stay untouched, than up to 3x the current value. That would mean one full week of content running to get the chest. Another full week to get the legs, etc...If you play both roles it will take some time to complete all pieces.

It is a shame that this thread has no developer responses despite it's length and message.

End Post

This

However, I see the drop rare progression gear (-2 or -3 levels behind vendor gear), which contains the rare style and only drops in the hardest raids/alerts, being desirable to fill in the gaps whilst working towards the best gear inside the vendor. As this rare drop gear isn't the best available gear any more, it would drop more frequently than it does now.

Basically, how I'd play it, Controller role would get the vendor gear first, DPS role would get the rare gear next whilst working towards more vendor gear for my off role.

Even if each piece was 100 marks each. A player would be done with vendor gear for the month in 2.5 weeks without replays. Estimated 1.5 days using replays, and alot of replays would be used.

Keep in mind the 190 marks per week is assuming you are running everything in the relevancy window daily excluding raids after the first day.

What if the mark cap was increased to 200 and each piece cost 190. Well in that case you would have the perfect storm

I agree with that as well...

When I was level up my toons back in the HoP I and WotL II days I would use the drop gear from the alerts for my off role and buy vendor gear for my primary role and if I happen to be lucky and got a 94 or 97 raid piece those would also go to my off role.

I liked those content has I could grind the alert for slightly weaker gear and buy vendor gear, which I consider best as I am rarely lucky.

Now that drop gear is the best and I have crap for luck, I would rather not play the luck game but I have to since CR is the all important factor now in this game. When AF II launched CR did not matter as much as a player could make a up for lower gear with SP and mods. Now, we do not have those options as CR drives our ability to deliver damage and reduce damage in. Therefore, we need the best gear to be effective at our roles for survival.

As a player that has healed, DPS and tanked UM, I can state from a DPS PoV how important gear is and from a tank view, just the same. Gear matters.

When I tried to tank the first boss in UM at 136 I was squishy and went down a lot. When I was 140 I found it much easier to tank UM.

I'd go as high as a 20% premium if I could buy 126 right now, so 72 MoV for a chest or legs. Sign me up. Still faster than waiting for a UM group that will take a HL DPS then wont make it past brother blood b/c some idiot is standing on the floor next to the tank since he wont get to the top of the board doing range. Then it takes 2 hours to get to Trigon, dont beat him or almost worse do beat him and only see the same 112 trash I can run Zam for in 10 minutes. Alone.

I think its been said before in some form, but I embrace the idea of the same IL b/w vendor and raid gear with raid gear having better or maybe vastly superior stats for the Elite. I get the whole need for stat scaling and limiting and all but I have to mod the crap out of my gear, use my elite affinities, sodas, trinkets and every other trick I can get to max my precision. Until the mid range fix and probably not until after that, I will routinely get doubled up in every raid in damage. I even got kicked outta UM Trigon fight because "burn wasnt fast enough". Sent a tell to the ***** complaining saying I had joined the raid at the second boss. Till this fix is in place, HL and the other precison sets are being killed with gear that give triple the might to powersets that largely dont need anymore to be OP or FOTM or whatever.

As long as we're bringing things back, lets return to the MIght based set (what we currently get) and a Precison based set and again, let the player decide what they need for their character and power.

Nexus and Paradox Wave are poor examples since they also had the best gear as drops, but again, I agree with the premise of your post. Imagine if Nexus and Paradox Wave had been designed with 88 gear in the vendor. They probably would have been 5-10% harder than they were on release, which was already hard with the idea to get a few pieces of gear from the first bosses in those raids to finally complete them.

Even with those two examples, your point about replay badges comes into play because they weren't meant to be beaten on day one. As I said, the idea was to get a few drops from the first boss or two and get strong enough to beat the whole that way.

I would say to get the 1 complete set of gear that is released with each episode should cost what someone could obtain in 1.5 weeks of content playing. That way you would have full gear by mid month and can get a second set for your off role in the remaining weeks before the next episode. This would seem fair because not everyone will be able to beat all of the content nor have the time to play all of the content so depending on how you play it could take the whole month to get all the pieces or 1 day.

It also doesn't factor in rent and other things that marks are required for so it would create a need for marks and running daily content.

yes paying for rent, catalyst, and other things need to be factored in to earning and cost of gear.

It makes the most logical sense for the price not to exceed the current price (70 marks) for obtaining a style piece in the rare gear vendor.