I dont think its a good idea giving out free CR 255 boosts

Personally for me half the fun is progressing my character, its like reading a book, you wouldnt skip all the way to the end just to see how it ends, if you did what was the point of the book at all?

Theres also the technical side of things, players arent ready to be boosted to that level and put into content like that, they need to work their way up and progress as intended to better understand the game mechanics and their roles.

A good solution would be to only allow CR 255 boosts for players with toons that are already 30+ CR and if you ask me thats still kinda pushing it, I wont be using mine tomorrow and I hope more people realize what they are going to be missing out on if they do decide to skip all that CR just because they can.

People these days, no respect for gameplay and character building.

Unfortunately this was a problem way before they introduced character advances. Usually though, they give these out to entice people to play. New players get to join the upper content and older players can progress an alt they will probably never play. So yeah.

Building a bit on BumblingB's post, even though progression through the tiers/episodes can be pretty quick (depending on how one plays the game) it can look pretty daunting to get to endgame or near-endgame levels where a lot of the activity is. The CR advances allow players the chance to get up to that level and participate in the more active parts of the game.

And to put it bluntly, it's their choice to make. It's their account, after all, and if that player is fine with all the consequences and challenges they'll be facing when they use the CR advance then there really isn't much anyone can say about it. And if they use the advance without doing some research on the potential shortfalls they'll be facing? Well then that becomes a learning experience for the individual.

I wish they would give more feats. Personally, it doesn't fit the amount that the devs stated as the ratio of sp to cr.

True, but many of the feats outside of the core/base game are tied to Episodes. That's potential revenue lost, plus it would just compound the problem of folks not playing that content all that much. Hand out the feats for Episodes and folks have absolutely no reason to play them.

As I stated my thoughts on it before:
They should do so your main\first character whatever reach that Combat Rating first in order to be able to use the skip.
So you can save it for a alt if you wish. It should be a alt only thing.

Heres the thing CR boost were a thing before this was on the MP, if you ever did gates or prime or fox walk ins to get ppl gear before they were ready for the content then you have no room to complain, and if you played back in 2011-2013 you did walk ins at least 1x so guess nothing to see here.

Miss out on what? Hours of waiting for old content queues to pop? Shouting in LFG relentlessly asking for help for fast easy lower tiered content nobody will take a few minutes out to help with? Getting into an instance and being kicked for being new?

It is what it is. Players come and go. If this can retain a few its a win for the longer term.

I entirely disagree. The CR skips are a great help to the game.

First, the "fun of progressing your character" is subjective. I had a lot of fun leveling my first character, a Gadgets Villain. I had decidedly less fun leveling my second character, when I had to swap to heroside because the villain population couldn't sustain raiding. I had even less fun when I leveled my third character. By the time the game launched on Switch and I was leveling my 11th Character to endgame status, it is not remotely fun to repeat the exact same stuff yet again. It is a chore. A chore that for many players would prevent them from even trying. If you have fun leveling up, then don't use it. But just because YOU have fun leveling up does not mean that your idea of fun should be imposed upon everyone else.

Second, leveling up is less effective. In case you haven't noticed, even with open episodes, the lower level content does not consistantly pop. You can't just hop on and say "Gee. I'm CR appropriate for the Fortress Raids. I think I'll run them today" and then queue up and actually get them. New players will not stick with a game if they log in day after day and try to play the game, but cannot get groups. The CR skip allows them to skip forward to where the actual players are, so that they can play with the rest of us.

Third, anyone arguing that you need to play through those lower CR range stuff in order to "learn your character" clearly has not tried to level a character resently. When you do get a group, there will ALWAYS be some high level characters steamrolling through it. If you are actually CR appropriate, then your contributions will barely be a drop in the bucket. You won't even be able to tell if you're doing well or not, because high level Healers can heal through everything, or high level DPS melts the bosses in seconds, before you ever actually see any of the fight mechanics. Playing through those levels does not teach you anything, but it does reinforce bad habits by teaching new players who are making massive mistakes that they can do that and it won't matter. Use bad powers, bad rotations, where the wrong gear, it won't matter. Somebody else will just carry you. And that's how it stays until about 3-4 Episodes before the endgame, at which point players have to sort of start carrying their own weight, the game was intended. Not surprisingly the CR-skip doesn't bring players straight to the endgame, but it does bring them to that point, 3-4 Episodes before the endgame, where being carried is no longer the expectation. Which means that the skip actually HELPS players to learn their character right, and they will learn their character better by using it. When we leveled up originally, we walked into content at-level and as a part of a roughly at-level group, and we had to figure out what we were doing. It is not somehow a bad thing to have players today walk into content at-level and as a part of a roughly at-level group, and then figure out what they're doing. That's the design of the game, and it can only be achieved for new players through the use of the CR skip.

As for skill points... RRRRAAAAAARRRR! People need to get their heads out of their rears and acknowledge the soft-cap. The CR-skip gives enough to run Regulars of the CR-relevent content. And once you gear up the rest of the way to the endgame, you will have reached the softcap. AND skill points really don't statistically contribute much of anything significant after reaching the soft cap. When you're a DPS who is buying Health points because you've already capped Might/Power, it's time to admit that they are not nearly as important as people want to pretend.

And Artfiacts are perfectly fine in the 80-120 range for Normal content.

The CR-Skips are great. I wish I had more characters who weren't already at the endgame so that I could get some more value out of them myself. These do not hurt the game. People complaining about free gifts are just being entitled and ingrateful.

@Brit I'll admit its probably been 3 years since I leveled a alt maybe longer. But I agree on high CR heals being able to heal damage with little effort in lower content making low levels not have to pay attention to mechanics or block in skulls ect

As you said teaching people bad habits. I'll give a example of this, few weeks back friend returned to the game and had to run the event stuff, so I ran it with him @cr316 heal, i usually run ahead grab the next set of adds bring em back to the group it helps speed up the raid imo if group stays still fighting and more adds appear lol

Well i guess 1 if the liw level ppl saw me running ahead doing this and not dying and thought they could too not realizing I was a healer over geared for the content lol. Guy gets crushed as soon as he approaches the set of enemies.

@Brit I do agree with a lot of what you said. The only thing I might quibble with you about in older content is that while the older content isn't 100% necessary for learning your character, there is an argument to be made that the mechanics present there do have a habit of showing up again. So running older content can be important in providing a training ground of sorts for gameplay challenges and learning what the game can throw at you.

Well, there are a few feats that don't get touched... *coughpvpcoughcough*

In this regard, they should start looking at early DLCs becoming available free or included in the skip. I mean the skip is already really expensive, including 1-2 DLCs on top kind of means we do get some aspects of incentive to buy the skip.

They should include all pvp feats in the skip imo since it's a dead aspect of the game. At least if they did that ppl would buy the skip just to unlock the feats on their mains lol

I sure would. I will never play pvp. Ever. Do not care if they did 50x bonus week, not going near that

Yeah, a skip to 30 should be free for all players who've already reached endgame. But for the thousandth time, 1-30 should be teaching players how to play both of their roles so it isn't such a useless experience.

The devs should be addressing the dead low-tier content and trying to find ways to fill those queues, not forever making the problem worse with CR skips. If we keep neglecting the low-tier content and skipping players through the game, they might as well remove it altogether. What's the point of leaving most of your game to rot and die?

Again, the devs should be addressing these problems, not skipping over them and letting the problem continue to get worse. An idea I had would incentivize players to both play older content and play it at relevant CR so they don't ruin the experience for newer players. We should all be thinking of ways to solve problems like this, not just saying "oh, whatever, skip over it because that's easier to do." How's that making the game any better?? How are we helping anyone by throwing them in the deep end and leaving the old content to rot? It's nonsense.

Then the devs should and could make SPs more relevant. Again, we should be thinking about solutions. A lot of you are eager to unnecessarily compromise.

100% Agreed, glad someone said it before I had to, I thought I was alone in that sentiment.

1. Well, one problem with that is that the 1-30 process goes pretty quick even with trying to slow down progress, especially for those who are familiar with the process (taking a new character through the process right now, and she's already at level 21 and still hasn't gotten the midway mentor mission yet). So the teaching opportunities are pretty limited considering how packed it is. The other problem is that there's nothing in the game that mandates a player learning both roles. It's helpful and useful, but it's entirely up to the individual whether or not they learn both roles.

2. Funny thing, there is something that can be done: have veteran players get over themselves and whatever hangups they have about not getting ALL the rewards and just RUN. THE. CONTENT. Players can act quicker and more decisively in solving the problem of new players who use (or misuse, depending on perspective) the CR advance than the devs, and all it takes is queueing up and helping those players out.

If players need an incentive to run that content, it's tough for me to believe they really do care that much about the problems that arise from players skipping and not running that older content. And if they refuse to queue and help, as far as I'm concerned they kind of lose any standing in complaining about the problem.

3. SP were never as relevant as folks thought, and adding weight to them would throw off the combat balance they have in mind and strive for. Gear has always weighed more in the calculations.

No thanks. The feats they already give are kind of an insult on some of them (RnD, Gathering, Treasureboxes), as most would NOT have been completed in a natural 0-255 progression nowadays. I'm fine with speed feats, or exploration, booster golds, etc...all things that are basically gimmie feats, and there are a few dozen more of these they could give with some of the basic styles you don't need to grind, but would have gotten just by running dailies for the few months it took to get to 255. Some of the hard knocks or side quest feats are not given, grant those....no problem. There are basic dueling feats such as just having 1 duel, participation feats, even some of the lower 'win' or 'dominate' feats you could easily get on your way to 255. Give some of those away (not 1000 duels....not 250 dominates...but a few) to beef up the feats.

Besides, SP do not matter that much. If you really wanted the 255 jump to come with something to make you more ready for endgame, have it come with a few of the 'golden' exos to get your augs up...or a pack of cats/seals to get one arti to 120 at least. How about a 200 pack of source to get your base generator ready? Those things contribute more to being 'prepared' than an extra 30 or 40 XP and won't alienate most of the community when the wrong feat is given out.

I find that most people who want more SP are looking for a particular thing to be granted...like PVP, Styles or LPVE. You know...something they might be missing as well? Not saying that's you, but it's been a common theme in the 'more sp' requests.

Honestly, you get enough to fill out one weapon tree your movement and the crits. That's enough to get started with anyway. Heck, I ran on a toon with 88 points the other day in VMF and wasn't the worst DPS in the group or had the most deaths...but he has some decent augs and at a few artis (160 grim and 120 trans card I think).

BTW...to someone else's comment, i'd be fine with the skip only going to accounts with at least 1 30+ character on it. At least they'd have to have played SOME before jumping to endgame...not sure it will matter, but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable requirement.

BTW2...As for personal use of skips, on my main I have all mine minus those first 2 100s that were given out. I used them to bring up a few toons I was playing around with. Since then I have had no use for them and didn't get any SP out of those first 2 100s. Now I do have a few F2P accounts that I used the skip on, but that was just so I could queue myself into 4 man missions. They would never be running at endgame, but do fine in non-endgame content if I run them for something.

That's the thing, you are fine with one thing and not another? You are creating the boundaries that you feel they should keep. They created the game and decided to give those feats with the skip. You and I both grounded out a lot of those feats they give away, but I'm completely fine with that. It means there will be less players in end game that don't have the resources and putting a strain of the healer and controller.

Trust me, having less than 100 SP really does make a difference and you'd be lying to yourself or in a carry situation to think otherwise.

You are right, a lot of people do. I personally have gotten most of the classic game feats. There are a few duel feats I need, but I earned it and as you said above, "i'm fine with" them being part of a paid advanced character. It would be madness to expect a new player to come to this game and go through all those feats you are so proud to have earned and then expect them to stick around.

Nope, nope, nope, despite the fact pvp has balance issues I can't ever agree with handing out pvp feats for a fee or inevtiably for free when these gifts come along.

Too many people won't even try pvp even though it has issues, they won't even grind simple ring wars or diamond heists...

There's better ways to incentivize those feats or ideally fix pvp. They should never be given away.

If you want pvp feats then play pvp.

I have to admit there's a level of irony here too where you've got a guy in another thread today asking for a cheaper and easy route to elite style feats and everyone is telling him "no earn it" but those same people are up in here wanting free handouts on pvp feats...