Thoughts on Clamp and other random things.

Hey,

So I took a long break from the game when they announced they were clamping content. I wanted to give them time to fully implement it. After making a new character and playing on my old character I have some thoughts.

1) Clamping

I remember reading on the forums by a lot of pro clamping people that implementing this would make the game better, increase players, and increase people playing old content. This seems to be a mixed bag. It did increase people playing DD, FOS3, Oan Science Cells, and a few others. As a whole tho I feel it pretty much made a lot of content not playable. People will always go towards the fastest and easiest content that rewards them for their time the best. Why spend 20-45 mins on a raid/alert when you can just go run FOS3 multiple times and get rewarded more then you can running 1 raid/alert? Queueing up now seems to almost get you a FOS3/DD with omnibus.

Why was the open worlds clamped? This has caused almost all of them to be empty.

A lot of you say oh just use LFG. Who wants to sit in LFG hoping to get some people for hours.

I have two suggestions for the clamped content.

1) Unclamp the open world areas.
2) Increase rewards for longer content. Give us players a reason to go into longer content. If nothing changes FOS3 will always be king and the fastest queue.

2) LVL 1 - 30.

I always loved playing level 1 to 30, but what happen to the alerts? I was told they pretty much changed and they were moved to level 30. I always thought they were great to introduce new players to them, I feel like there is no tutorial for anything anymore. It is like the wild west and up to the players to teach. Most players will not teach roles. Can we get an alert or something that teaches roles?

Rant over, but back to the LFG grind I Go.

This is a tired subject. You probably will not get many responses or may get many you will not like.

The clamp didnt cause the open world to empty, if players wanted the bounties theyd go out and seek them. My opinion on the matter is i think the system is abit too convoluted and needs simplification. If the bounty system worked like the PVP version where i can find them in the Open World (classic) and it tells me where to go to find that bounty it would be alot easier to find players to do them

Exactly, OP. The clamp caused the open worlds to empty out. Overall the whole clamp experiment has been a failure in almost every way. Wonder how many more times they're going to try to retool it.

Yeah, I think we’re all tired of talking about it. Some like it and some don’t. It’ll either stay or go. I do one Omni raid per toon a week at the most so it just doesn’t bother me. The more friends you have the easier it is tho.

People don't want bounties because the reward isn't worth the time. You have to get 8 people if not more for certain bounties. It's a pain to even get 4 people for an alert. I spent 5+ hours trying to get some people to run Avarice Immunity and I gave up. At least people for the clamp, people would queue, its taking days if not a week to get some stuff to pop. Yet the constant answer is people just dont want to do them anymore, yes because clamping caused them to take so long worth little rewards.

Burning down a raid boss like a trash mob for rewards isn't exactly fixing the problem either

Old bounties are virtually impossible now because the 7 other willing players needed to complete them simply aren't there. This is a new problem caused by the clamp.

If the clamp had done all the wonderful things promised, it might have been worth the trade-off.

Of course, we all now know that none of those promises came true; some of us just have egos that won't allow us to admit it.

So you're telling me you can't get 7 people out of lets say....1,000 players, or hell 500 players online? Meanwhile FoS3 is being run like its never going out of style, after hearing so many complaints how "nobody wants to run old content" as well as Happiness Home, being cheesed to death for triple marks.

Let a glitch happen where they offer triple currency for bounties, and let see how fast that changes... And how fun is hardly a blip to be considered by some players here...

Yeah, I've been pretty vocal against it and even I'm done talking about it. It is what it is...learn your way around it (do the bounties on Thurs/Fri when groups are plentiful....know what runs NOT to hit on omni...get good at LFG grouping if you NEED something done....it's a lifesaver). I'd never say it made the game 'better' but I've adapted and overcome and avoid it as much as possible ...only grumbling when I land in a shootshow Omni or make the mistake of trying to help randoms with an 'easy' feat. Most end in failure.

You don't need 8....5 even...except maybe ManBat and Synn. If you have a tank or heal and a few dps's (like 3) that's generally enough. A tank AND heal and a few dps is pretty much a breeze. I've solo'd all of the bounties post clamp on a battle tank or heal and they are all doable (although slow). Haven't tried battle troll, but I'd guess that's doable too. I won't solo the ones that have a teleport mechanic, but that's because the PS4 will generally crash me after 5 or 10 teleports.

If you are spending the time to try and find 7 others you are over thinking it. Get 3 or 4 with one of those 2 roles and go.

yeah ive said before they should either unclamp or remove loot locks from the open world stuff. Not a huge fan of solos being clamped either cuz honestly if the the whole reason was to "improve player experience" im wondering who was having a bad experience in a solo....... but the open world bothers me a bit more then the solo thing.

Everyone has their opinion and anecdotal stories regarding the Stat Clamp. Only the people in charge see the real numbers and as it is a business they will only tell us (or stay silent) what they believe will help them. So each of us has to decide based on our experiences in game.

I agree the stat clamp doesn't work as they claimed it would and that they have changed it repeatedly is all the evidence I think any rational mind needs to understand that. Pro clampers will rave and argue for it being awesome. Anti-clampers have fled, unsubbed, posted, and for the more die hard like me just stick around for the next kick in the teeth.. mostly because I pay for a year at a time.

I like role playing and immersion and when the immersion is gone I lose interest quickly and thus so does my wallet. When Clamp arrived I was no longer the powerful superhero I spent years building up and flying through low level mobs as a superhero of vast power would. I was now depowered, clamped down, and all immersion gone, and that did not and still does not sit well with me. We went from CR/progression meaning something to it being mostly irrelevant.

I see a mountain of negative since the stat clamp and almost nothing good. Even the supposed good, like more people running some content, dried up quickly. I don't have a solution for what they screwed up. I do think they are trying to fix there mistake and I wish them well in doing it.

They've made it pretty clear that they want us putting in some effort to earn Marks in the game (yes, even with FoS 3, that's clamped) so if you remove the clamp in open world areas that means you're probably going to lose Mark rewards for all content in those areas.

THAT will do more to kill any activity in those areas than leaving it clamped. Right now I can go into any number of open world sections of the game, get some missions and earn Marks for my efforts. But if the mood strikes me and folks start running some bounties I can snag that mission and join in that fun as well. But if I'm not going to get ANY Marks for my efforts in those areas, why would I step foot there, especially if I've already gotten the feats from those areas?

One of the goals of the clamp was to open up more of the game for players, and it's done exactly that. And that means greater chances of folks NOT playing the content you'd like to participate in. The Omnibus was intended to help with that problem, not completely solve it or provide players with a guarantee that they'd get to run the content they want when they want to.

The only way someone's going to be guaranteed to run the group content they want is to do it themselves.

No it hasn't.

I have never liked the clamp, the only clamped stuff i bother to do anymore is the solo stuff when i'm bored. I only do the raid and alert omnibus when there is a bonus source marks week like we currently have. The clamped raids are not fun at all and i hate the clamped open world cause older open worlds are empty so you can't do the bounties in them. I think the clamp has been a total failure.

The STAT CLAMPING/SCALING is a complete FAILURE!

Not for nothing but I did the Amusement Mile Gang War bounties and I was able to solo both of them so my guess is you can solo the open world bounties.

A big fan of the clamp myself. No need for any more than 4 players to take down ANY T5 or lower bounty. With the exception of Calcbot, Synn and the Shadow Golem I've comfortably duoed the rest of them and I run all bounties over the week. I have about 7 bounty hunting chars to support my main and seldom have to wait long for a few people to show up. I have most of the open world feats and so would have no incentive to set foot into them if the Source Marks reward was removed.

I was one of the old time players that returned as a direct result of the changes that have been made and so I'm very happy with things. I can't see how walking through content one shotting everything could possibly have been fun playwise.

Clamping is stoopid. You make $15/hr but your wallet only accepts $1/hr max. The rest of it just falls out and is lost to the wind.