A Community Update from EG7’s CEO and Founder, Robin Flodin

This would be in error as they've said since the beginning that the feats were on top of, not factored in, to progression. Which has been their argument why they have feats. It's the players that factor in these feats as part of our progression, which brings me back to my post on these being a problem in the game.

This is roughly the third time daybreak got new management (remember SOE? Pepperidge farms 'members).

Like they say, 3rd times a charm. Hopefully meaningful changes will be made that caters to everyone and not just the whales.

By that logic, balance and difficulty would be unaffected if they raised the cap from 295 to 595 and gifted every player 300sp tomorrow. Maaaaan, what I could do with 893sp!

I agree that progression should be earned and not paid for. And I don’t like that every Time Capsule has one feat item (sometimes two) that isn’t easily obtained by selling everything day 1 and buying all the feat items a few days later. You’re correct in that people can spend a lot of real money (relatively) to gain a huge advantage in obtaining said item. HOWEVER, all if those items added up equal roughly 10sp and that’s from five years of time capsules.

When EG7 prioritizes the areas they focus on, their most likey not going to give issues high priority simply because they dip into an ethically grey area and keep the game from getting a perfect score on video gaming purists litmus tests (as long as it’s legal and common within the industry). However, one thing they most certainly WILL give a lot of weight to is how impactful changes would be for the DCUO community at large. And in reality, an issue that currently effects a whopping 10sp simply isn’t very impactful, certainly not enough to sacrifice a primary revenue stream.

Now, one issue that I think has a good chance of garnering their attention is the hacking, money glitching etc which as you probably know has played a big part in making a lot of those items so difficult to obtain. That’s a wide spread problem that affects nearly all games in a variety of ways. It’s also a problem that is easy to address to one degree or another by throwingmoney at it via implementing new anti-hacker tech that already exists in many games.

I think you missed the point. Adding to that, if sp wasn’t a factor in how our stats scale over time, why does every new DLC come with a cap raise of exactly 10? And is it by accident or coincidence that the newly available 10 sp give higher stats than the last ten by the same ratio as the last ten gave over the ten before that?

No, it’s not an accident or a coincidence nor is it arbitrary. The cap raise is scaled just like everything else. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system. In fact there’s a major issue with secondary stats’ effectiveness being soft capped at 100. But none the less, the current system was specifically designed to scale up at a similar ratio as gear/cr/etc with every new DLC

They increase the cap by 10 because the DLC gives you X amount of feats that equal to the item level increase. Which is also 10. They aren't factoring in feats from time capsules. YOU ARE. Otherwise we would have a level increase with the Anniversary event and every seasonal feat.

As they put it, these feats are supposed to be on top of everything else. The problem is, we, the players, see it as progression thus making it a PAID method of progression.

You can use big words, fancy logic, but they are the ones that set these. If they stopped adding them to time capsules and leave progression to actual gameplay, it would improve the game.

Yeah, well that’s just, like, your opinion man.

You said it, they increase the cap, increase the amount of stats per each sp and add feats to fill the new gap. That’s called...drumroll please...scaling up. SMH, leave it to DCUO players to argue against mathematics. Par for the course.

This is good to hear, and read.

Wow, you totally missed the point. I never said they don't scale at all, actually I agreed with you, but it is only... Drumroll dlc related.

Seriously you can't admit that you are the one who thinks this way, not the devs. They openly said the time capsule feats are not included with how they scale the content.

The problem is they are a paid progression that doesn't include any form of gameplay. Which makes them a problem for players.

It may be easier to buy Stabilizers and open a bunch, but that doesn't mean you're required to pay for progression. Stabilizers can be earned in-game without spending real money. It also may be worthwhile for a player to spend DBC and/or real money to buy seals, catalysts, and XP for upgrading Artifacts, but it's also not required. I don't really consider something to be pay-to-win unless you're required to spend money to do it. Spending money in these situations does make things easier and faster, but it's not required.

Yep, that's why they are a problem. Glad you agree!

I'm not sure I agree that they're a problem. Someone can buy extra stabilizers the same way someone can use replay badges to reset on-duty missions or to unlock feats from their other characters. It may allow them to progress faster, but it's ultimately not allowing them to do anything they wouldn't be able to do without spending the extra money.

The math is objective, but your interpretation of how that math correlates into progress is still highly subjective, you're using the math in a way that you believe reinforces your viewpoint, but unfortunately that same math can be used to reinforce my own viewpoint of which you may nor may not agree with and that's because you're deciding how progress you want to obtain in any given episode.

You're using the time capsule and sporadic seasonal feats to meet your requirement of expected progress where as I'm adopting the position that they're nothing but a bonus to what is already a perfectly acceptable level of progress even in their absence.

Generally people will set their SP at their maximum to obtain all of their impact no matter how negligable that might be and every episode the bracket goes up 10 points to provide a higher ceiling, within the episode there are an addtional ~22sp, I might have even missed some.

As a DPS, especially might, you're only truly speccing in to might so every time a DLC comes out you've got more than enough to increase your might spec by the required 10 + some and even go into health or somewhere else. The important thing to note here is that there are more enough feats obtained within the episode to make meaningful progress, every time.

Even as a support player where you stand to make more benefit from SP being put in to more categories you've again got enough to make progress, even with over 600SP you won't have enough to realistically max out two categories because of what you're setting elsewhere, and even if you decided to squeeze things so that you could, that ability would still remain. There's never enough gain to ever max out 3 categories and the fact you're getting at least 22sp means you'll always be making at least some progress in that third category.

The difference between yourself and I, is that you want more, your expectation is higher than mine, you've become so used to TC feats that they've become a progress expectation now rather than "extra frosting".

I'm not advocating that the seasonal feats be removed, so they're not even really an issue, what I and obviously others in this thread are saying is that it is perfectly reasonable to remove 4-5SP every few months with realistically absolutely no impact to a players progression.

Let's also be real here, these feats aren't put in the TC's to appease your need for a certain level of progression, despite the fact I appreciate your view, they're put in the TC's to ensure they sell well, TC cosmetics are highly, highly subjective, if the styles are seen as "undesirable" by players they won't sell, the one way they do sell however, even when undeisrable is to appeal to the completionist type player who "must have the feats and progress" to buy it anyway, despite not liking it.

In fact one could argue the developers, want people to think like you, because it sells their time capsules, that's not intended to be offensive by any means, it just is what it is

You greatly underestimate how much money people are willing to spend on cosmetics. If they have feats that only give titles or even no feats people will still buy them in order to get styles they like. If they want to maintain income they could also simply lock the items in time capsules. This way people can’t put them on the broker.

Doing this will do a couple of things. It would fix the pay to win aspects that time capsules bring. Also it makes it harder to complete collections which unlock styles. If person A has every part in a collection except 3 items they would need to keep buying capsules instead of just buying them on the broker. Since there are no feats attached to them it would mean that people who can’t get the styles won’t lose out on points that actually affect stats.

There are plenty and I mean PLENTY of games that have a huge amount of income from cosmetics. A game I personally play called smite does this. Since all gear is unlocked the majority of income comes from cosmetics. Look at the booster bundles. They generate a lot of money for dcuo but they don’t have feats attached to them

I'm not quite sure it's as simple as that, I agree people are willing to spend on cosmetics, but that comes with the caveat of 'subjectively desirable cosmetic'

What really stinks about time capsules is that you're not really paying for a cosmetic either and it absolutely puzzles me beyond belief that people actually request these things, but what you're really paying for is a 'chance at your desired cosmetic'

That's what makes the whole thing even more absurd, why not just request the items direct on the marketplace?

If the items as well were no longer tradeable and a player didn't have an alternative means to obtain an item they're already praying to RNGesus for then they'd be far less likely to buy in to the system, so the devs would likely actually make less money and the players expectations in terms of adjusting drop rates and the likes would change as they expected a better shot at obtaining that Bat cape they've always wanted.

Simply removing the feats from the time capsules would actually be what leads to a more positive player experience, You don't need to make them un-tradeable, because it means the players who actually want those cosmetics might have a better shot at obtaining them even via the broker and the other player is still at least making in game money.

At the moment you've got all the completionist players who don't even like the styles buying them up for nothing more than the feats, creating an unnecessary level of supply shortage on certain items that would be better off in the hands of someone that actually wants it.

I completely agree with you. My comment was aimed more towards the people who want TCs but say that changing it takes to many resources. So I just simplified a way that it could be done.

I do however stand that the devs completely ignore or maybe they just don’t know how much people are willing to spend on cosmetics alone. If it were up to me I’d say time capsules as a whole should just end and they should put the manpower of the time capsules into the market place. Add new styles to the market place. Add accessories and even movement mode skins in the market place. As it stands the dcuo market place is pretty much a joke. The whole gamble for styles has never been something I enjoyed. It’s why I never spend on loot boxes in any game. I personally think they could make even more money if they focused on the market place instead of time capsules

All scaling in the game is DLC related. And nothing was motivated by or in regards to anything I personally want, believe, etc. That would be anecdotal, subjective and ultimately irrelevant. I’m simply stating that the odds that the rates of scale for CR and SP are nearly identical by accident or coincidence are so exponentially low that logic wouldn’t dictate any conclusion other than that it is intended. With intention comes motive. What could the motive for keeping the rates of scare of CR and SP near identical other than them seeing it as a pivotal aspect of of total stats scaling and are active attempting to avoid an eventual gap between the two that would render one of them trivial by comparison and ultimately obsolete.

Whether I want more sp or not is anecdotal and irrelevent. As I stated before...” I’m not making a case for or against TC feats. I’m not even making a case for whether or not it’s possible or feasible to remove them. I’m just saying, it’s not as simple as “just stop”.”

Our progression scaling is either inclusive of TC feats in which case they are essential in maintaining the rate of scale to be inline with or stat scaling, devices, or they are excluded from scaling in which case the are completely extra and optional. In the case of the former, their removal would require replacing or a tweak of the entire system. In the case of the latter, there is really no negative to their place in the game. Take em or leave em. Nothing essential would be missed or lacking either way. In which case, why remove them?

Thats odd, because when they do stuff thats meaningful to everyone thats when the whales cry