Stat clamp is going to ruin DCUO- Please reconsider making this go live

Then my own progress is being wiped as well, but guess what? Im fine with it. This is bigger then me, this is bigger then my "progression" this is about the health of the game long term and i am willing to sacrifice my bit of "progression" to see more players want to come and stick around. Its not fun (for me) waiting an hour for my queue to pop, because you want your progression to keep you at 3 tiers within endgame when their is nobody coming back down to fill the queues for the older content. Those that do, are able to solo the raid, and i need not have to participate and im left bored wanting to swap back to another game.

Roll Ryuko 2014: We NEED stat clamp!
Proxystar 2014:




Proxystar 2021: Actually the stat clamp isnt so bad on the test server...
Some of the Forum Community 2021: My progression is being taken away!
Proxystar 2021:

I know right, what really happened though is I was playing the long con, I sucked everyone in with my absolute opposition back in 2014 only to always plan to turn on them all 7 years later

I'm kind of with you on that. It's coming, so much like the old 'rip off the band-aid' policy, do it....do it quick...and just see if a bunch of blood and puss pours out, or if it just stings a bit.

If blood and puss pour out....I guess we have an issue.

The problem with that is that they are removing Source Marks from Endgame content, so the only way to earn them will be playing (forced) clamped content or buying them from the Marketplace (which is the stupidest thing to do).

I still see nothing wrong with the stat clamp. If your argument is nobody is going to play old content I disagree. Nobody plays old content now so there really isn’t a difference on that end. You should never be able to one shot a boss, that’s boring. I’ve seen many people say this too but if you really don’t like it then don’t play the content. You have time to get any styles/ feats you need now so you don’t have to run that content. The devs have to strike a balance between making new players happy and making old players happy. This is a good balance cause if you have new players just use the CR skip then we have a bunch of low levels going into high end content, getting rekted and never wanting to play the game again. This game is more than just end game players and it’s highly selfish of us to complain about this when there are people who go into a raid and do zero damage cause they can’t even look at an ad before it dies.

And if the users don't come and stay?....will you be fine with a rollback and losing your challenging runs? If the users that primarily want source figure out that they can spam certain runs vs just random queuing into the run that you (or anyone else) specifically wants...so the queues still take a long time....that's fine too right?

Everyone who is pro clamp seems to have this rosey idea that there are 1000's of players just chomping at the bit to run all the old content...the only thing keeping them out of it is NOT getting 10 marks. And that all these people will have the extra time to re-explain mechanics and roles, teach basic gameplay or work on feats which will NOW not be 'easy' to do. Feats they themselves likely already have in some cases. Many of us believe this is not true....I guess we'll find out in 2 weeks or so. Unless you (or I) have some inside track on the actual numbers...we are both guessing or assuming. All I can say is that from the people I've talked to since the change was announced, very few are looking forward to the clamping change, and most of those are looking forward to the source the most...not the challenge or mentoring opportunities. The source alone will NOT guarantee some of the old stuff pops or gets completed....as it will be available in several low-risk...low-work alternatives vs random queue into some not so great run.

Now...maybe I run with some lazy people...could be. However, if you watched LFG over the last few weeks, you'll see that many of the calls are for 'feat runs' especially for feats that will for sure be more difficult later. No death, speed, high burn or repetitive feats especially... meaning much of the player base is not worried about marks as they are about getting things done and done quickly. It's not everyone, but it's a decent indicator. I've not yet seen any posts that refer to waiting to run that DME or FGSE 'no death' feat till it's 'fun' later...even without the marks today. Maybe your LFG looks different than mine.

But like Proxy said, at this point let's just get it moving. We'll likely see tweaks and changes regardless of how much testing on the clamp happens or the 'test user' feedback. As long as the save the universe and allies stuff is bug free, and the menus work correctly, I'd rather get into it. I've got my WV money maxed at 999 on like 8 toons, so I'm prepped for if it goes badly.

How they can ruin something that's already ruined? Just look at the PVP of this game, this alone shows in what the state this game really is. It is an old game, + the company leading it has a bad reputation around their ex players/customers, i'm talking here about pvp because it was destroyed first, and we pvp players found out and experienced of what kind of developer this is , after how the company treated pvp players and continues treating them and other incidents. The game has lost its popularity due to many bad decision made by this company in the past... you can say what you want, you can disagree with me... i don't care, that's just the reality.

This is not the solution. Again, better solutions were provided in the membership thread by myself and others who have a solid grasp on game development.

Okay cool. When you start paying for everyone else's time, internet bills, memberships, cash buys etc, how you feel will matter to the rest of us. Until then, how you feel, won't dictate how the rest of us should feel about this or our level of participation.

This is a flawed thesis.

This has nothing at all to do with the long term progression of the game. These changes will not bring players back. They will drive them away. This won't make queues pop (after the first few weeks of newness while people are willing to try it out). People aren't going to magically want to carry others and waste time running years old content with them and over time this is what you'll see. They'll just leave. It's quite the disconnect from a typical player to think this will happen, whether it's you thinking it or the Devs.

No one leaves this game because it's too easy or someone was so OP they finished an instance for them. They're leaving because the game does not deliver on the most critical elements of the superhero genre. The powers people expect (actual powersets/vfx/etc). That's it that's all. If the game offered those, people would be playing and queues would be popping.

No Gear stats do NOT equal CR. CR is an arbitrary value placed on stats per gear pieces. That CR # could be as high or low as the Devs want and any # at all.

Stats are flattened or buffed directly. Take a look at any event content and you will see that the stats are modified directly. CR is not. It's just the reflection of the level of stat modification that is happening.

If 75% of our stats (throwing random # out) come from our gear, and they're clamped, our progression is clamped and diminished. It doesn't matter if stats gained through SPs, Augs, Arts remain untouched if they only account for 25% (or more likely much less) of our overall stats.

Here's your problem. When you heard "stats matter" you thought that was short form for "SPs matter". This is a mistake. Stats matter literally means all of our stats. It's not coded language for over emphasizing the importance of SPs (especially suddenly after 10 years) in the equation of our characters.

SPs will never "matter" the way you want them to. They can't because that would become a barrier for new players that can never be bridged. You want this change because you think it will finally put you at an extreme advantage with your SPs over other players who haven't chased them. You want your effort to matter and want those who didn't put in the same effort you did, to be at a disadvantage. I've mentioned this before -- it's the "misery loves company" and "i had to struggle, so, so should everyone else" mentality. This is very common in online gamer psychology and even real world politics but it makes for awful game design. A dev team wants their players to play and the widest base possible with as few barriers as possible. They won't be making SPs more important than they are already. And if I'm wrong, you can rub it in my face and we can all sit down together and have some tea while we wait to see how long it takes to reverse course on that decision once they see how destruction it becomes to the little remaining community the game has left.

No, this comment confirms you're not familiar with the system being discussed or its impact on the game. It's just reaffirming that your support for this change is self interested, as pointed out above, and that you don't have a deeper understanding of the game's systems at all.

This is incorrect. At level when content is new it's not intended to be facerolled. You're ignoring that critical context. When the content is not new, it's is expected to be facerolled because it has to be grinded. This is an MMO (not Call of Duty), where grinding is required.

I encourage you to refer to the many instances where Spytle or other devs advised players to wait until they outgear elite content to complete it if they're struggling.

No, it failed because players of an MMO refuse to repeat years old content at, or near, "like new" difficulty levels and rejectec stats clamping. So, the Devs will push this through against the feedback of the community on the backs of feedback like yours thinking they have support. In reality, when the bulk of players who don't cheerlead for the devs play this when it goes live, it'll be a huge drama.

And yes, AMs were an awful idea but that's immaterial to the issues discussed.

My initial concerns don't surround the idea of whether or not queues will suddenly pop for 'all old content' it's the idea that veterans will suddenly pour in to old content to "teach" the newer generation of players the ropes; I don't think that is going to happen necessarily any more than it already does, but perhaps it will, hopefully I'm wrong.

The veterans and ultra efficient players are going to find the most efficient run possible and farm marks, there's probably, nothing you can do about that, nor should you, any attempt to stop that is just a futile game of 'whack-a-mole' until it gets to a point where we all have a much more negative experience, but people are still doing whichever piece of content is the quickest/most efficient.

The fact however, that all of end game is open for reward is probably likely to have at least some impact on queue times, to what extent, who knows it will probably depend on how long the piece of content takes and whether a person is feeling nostalgic or even how many new players this does manage to attract, playing the game for the first time.

The reality is, we're just as a player base going to have to start playing old content, the more source marks you want/need the more you're required to run. I absolutely appreciate the time constraints this puts on a player that might have already been struggling with time commitments, but it's probably just a cold hard reality, you're going to have to find time and if it were me and I was pressed for time, the place I'd try to fit in would be some quick dailies or solos or stick with the others in the "efficient runs".

At the very least when you're not hard pressed for time at least you'll have the rest of the game there, also providing reward for when you're feeling bored of those ultra efficient spams of FOS3 and wanted to branch out a little to placate the tedium and at least you'll receive reward.

I don't know, I mean, perhaps this "solid grasp" you thought you had on game development, possibly wasn't as solid as you thought...

I dont even know where to start with you right now, and i don't dislike you.

Excellent post.

I'd guess that's directed at the Devs? Yeah...I'm predicting the same thing and don't think there is anything that can be done to 'correct' it. I have no-where near enough rosey outlook on most of our vet and endgame Elite players, to think teaching the new generation is anything they will do...any more then they were already doing in unclamped content.

Not saying some don't enjoy teaching people things...I like doing it quite often...when I choose to. It's not 'efficient' though, so no...will likely not fit the new mold for the daily grind.

As far as the clamp goes, it's in about as good of a start point as I could have hoped. Content is largely approachable. I'm sure outliers will be found, and then fixed. There will likely be many little tweaks in the weeks and months following the update. The launch version of the clamp is forgiving enough while still leaving room to ease up a bit in my opinion. I hope they don't tighten it though (with the exception of correcting outliers), I believe that would be unnecessary.

And while an option would be nice, I get that wouldn't work within the current goals of this update. Though I do think there is a possibility that an option is added at some point, likely when DCUO enters a wind down period. And no, I'm not saying the sky is falling. And no, I don't think that it's going to be anytime soon. Clamp wise, I'm okay with the update.

The source marks being removed from endgame, not a fan, at all. More than the clamp, this change will require the biggest shift from people. I'll likely drop an endgame alt and use the time I would have spent on him to source farm. I won't be blind queuing into random content. I won't be seeking out new players to mentor at the expense of my own progress. Though I will still help in situations where I cross paths with someone that asks for/needs help.

Given the current mark reward structure, I see duos and alerts as largely pointless. From a mark per time spent perspective, the reward simply isn't there. Fast solos, bounty stomp groups, and efficient sub 15 minute raids are the only thing worth playing. So other than helping a league member out, I don't see my Source Marks coming from anything other than those three options.

Is that the most "fun" way to play, not at all. The season pass XP farm in The Division 2 becoming little more than farming the best XP per minute instance was a large reason I no longer play that game. That and the rather uninspired "additions" that "new" content brought. But that's enough about that game.

Like all updates before this, the change will take time to adjust to. Some current players will quit, some old ones will return. Some that quit will come back, some that returned will leave. For this particular change, this time, it looks like my group will remain largely unchanged. Past updates have not been so kind. That's just how things go. But it is nice to not have to scramble to fill a void left by a leaving league member.

There's also the issue of the daily rewards, but that will have to wait until some details are shared tomorrow.

quote="Apollonia, post: 4425846, member: 393561"]This is not the solution. Again, better solutions were provided in the membership thread by myself and others who have a solid grasp on game development.


Okay cool. When you start paying for everyone else's time, internet bills, memberships, cash buys etc, how you feel will matter to the rest of us. Until then, how you feel, won't dictate how the rest of us should feel about this or our level of participation.


This is a flawed thesis.

This has nothing at all to do with the long term progression of the game. These changes will not bring players back. They will drive them away. This won't make queues pop (after the first few weeks of newness while people are willing to try it out). People aren't going to magically want to carry others and waste time running years old content with them and over time this is what you'll see. They'll just leave. It's quite the disconnect from a typical player to think this will happen, whether it's you thinking it or the Devs.

No one leaves this game because it's too easy or someone was so OP they finished an instance for them. They're leaving because the game does not deliver on the most critical elements of the superhero genre. The powers people expect (actual powersets/vfx/etc). That's it that's all. If the game offered those, people would be playing and queues would be popping.




No Gear stats do NOT equal CR. CR is an arbitrary value placed on stats per gear pieces. That CR # could be as high or low as the Devs want and any # at all.

Stats are flattened or buffed directly. Take a look at any event content and you will see that the stats are modified directly. CR is not. It's just the reflection of the level of stat modification that is happening.

If 75% of our stats (throwing random # out) come from our gear, and they're clamped, our progression is clamped and diminished. It doesn't matter if stats gained through SPs, Augs, Arts remain untouched if they only account for 25% (or more likely much less) of our overall stats.



Here's your problem. When you heard "stats matter" you thought that was short form for "SPs matter". This is a mistake. Stats matter literally means all of our stats. It's not coded language for over emphasizing the importance of SPs (especially suddenly after 10 years) in the equation of our characters.

SPs will never "matter" the way you want them to. They can't because that would become a barrier for new players that can never be bridged. You want this change because you think it will finally put you at an extreme advantage with your SPs over other players who haven't chased them. You want your effort to matter and want those who didn't put in the same effort you did, to be at a disadvantage. I've mentioned this before -- it's the "misery loves company" and "i had to struggle, so, so should everyone else" mentality. This is very common in online gamer psychology and even real world politics but it makes for awful game design. A dev team wants their players to play and the widest base possible with as few barriers as possible. They won't be making SPs more important than they are already. And if I'm wrong, you can rub it in my face and we can all sit down together and have some tea while we wait to see how long it takes to reverse course on that decision once they see how destruction it becomes to the little remaining community the game has left.



No, this comment confirms you're not familiar with the system being discussed or its impact on the game. It's just reaffirming that your support for this change is self interested, as pointed out above, and that you don't have a deeper understanding of the game's systems at all.



This is incorrect. At level when content is new it's not intended to be facerolled. You're ignoring that critical context. When the content is not new, it's is expected to be facerolled because it has to be grinded. This is an MMO (not Call of Duty), where grinding is required.

I encourage you to refer to the many instances where Spytle or other devs advised players to wait until they outgear elite content to complete it if they're struggling.



No, it failed because players of an MMO refuse to repeat years old content at, or near, "like new" difficulty levels and rejectec stats clamping. So, the Devs will push this through against the feedback of the community on the backs of feedback like yours thinking they have support. In reality, when the bulk of players who don't cheerlead for the devs play this when it goes live, it'll be a huge drama.

And yes, AMs were an awful idea but that's immaterial to the issues discussed.[/quote]


If you truly believe anything you just typed...which I believe you do, then there is no point continuing this conversation, because you are way too far gone to actually come back to reality of what the game is in its intent, vs. how it is now that is being corrected to how the Devs have explained what it should be.

The change is still happening, either accept it or don't. But, don't come on here preaching to the choir and making this overly obtuse definition of how you view the ones who are for the change.

BTW, what is to be grinded (the very nature of a MMO) has no bearing on what is to be face rolled, again face rolling was never the game's intent regardless if you continually wish to dismiss what the Devs have said. How the game has been played is totally different from what the Devs intended...and they have explained that several times. If you wish to continue to ignore that, that is on you.

Finally, as for the rest of your self gratifying issue to claim what is or is not immaterial, or what you may think I am thinking...is that "opinions vary."

One tab to the right. I gets cookie right?

Nope, but the point of the screenshot is to show, anybody who wants to random queue cannot do so unclamped. Also running un-clamped there is no LFG feature, you have to find your own group if you choose then you can queue. From it all you get all you get is outdated gear, and no marks for anything. Once you get your cosmetics, their is no reason to ever go back, outside stomp a boss nobody will see nor care about, because your not allowed in the general player pool anyway because you arnt clamped.

Theres a reason why outside of Style/Mount farms (and DCUO doesnt have mounts) players will rarely un-clamp something. End Game Currency/ Experience Points/ Commendations/ Newbie First Time Bonus's/ Daily (End Game) Mark Bonuses. Their is more reason and benefit to keeping it on, then ever using the Un-clamp feature.

Edit: I changed my mind