Maximum Gear Level Drops!

Fair enough. I knew the greens and extrapolated from there. CR 360 greens at 315 should mean blues are 316 at 360....so I added 3 more CRs to max those....guess it's 4? I haven't hit 363 yet...so I hadn't tested it...thanks for vefiying.

I won't open any TC stuff till Megas and don't have membership anymore...so I'll take your word for it on the others.

Higher gear affects regular as well. It’s not just about elite. The more stats you have the better you do. If you stop getting gear and only get what drops than you will eventually run into the problem of barely making it into the next dlc. So progression is not dead

They tried that before and it was a failure. They had it set up for a while so that max gear would be divided between 2 dlcs and the overall experience was negative which is why they stopped. Both gear and sp hunting are important for each dlc to be played for its duration. That is why they started adding feats mid way after release. Players start a new dlc grinding gear and sp. eventually that slows down and players take breaks. Then new feats are released and players have to return to hunt the new feats.

That is actually be design if MMOs in general. Games will have 2 types of drop styles. Either you have loot locks and you get currency you can use to buy directly or you have no loot locks and have rng based system. The old system was terrible because you had loot locks which also included rng on drops.

Right now is the smoothest gear grind has ever been. Depending on how you spend your time you can actually maximize it and get everything within a timely manner.

What exactly changed in endgame? Clamp doesn’t affect last 3 dlcs. Gear progression is the same it always has been. The better gear you have the more you can compete. The less you have the less effective you are. This goes for EEG. Because if piercing the more you have the better you will be. You get better gear to do better in EG. you get more gear to make some feats easier. Nothing is obsolete. Every single aspect of the game and your stats/character is important.

If I remember correctly, 360 for green to open at 315, 364 for blue to open at 319, and 367(or 368) for purple to open at max?

If you’re trying to maximize your time than I would save a set of blue and purple gear as it drops without opening them. Open up the previous one until you max open your next set at max. If you have multiple blues for one gear than you can open those to boost you a little. Also, buying vendor accessory gear helps too.

The failure of gear spread out was how it was presented. A full set of gear had different item levels based on when in the cycle you got them. Every 3 months was a cycle and every month was a different part of it. It was no different than what we have now. And monthly content still was the problem, not the gear. Though best gear was crafted, not vendor.

I've played other games. It's not. The old method of gear acquisition that DCUO had was, the new one we have now is just designed to hold players long enough to get the next dlc out. If other games do it, it has to do with the expansion system they have, but that is still a tier system and lasts longer than one DLC.

I really don't know if DCUO can change though. Since they need to have the new content be engaging, it has to be higher level of entry. I think DIG painted themselves into a corner developing around replays.

Old method, tier starts with best gear and each dlc within the tier promotes the acquisition of the gear. This gear helps with the next tier.

New method, the gear you get in the DLC helps with the DLC and replaced immediately in the next.

I still want a developer to take time out to discuss this in depth and explain it to me hopefully in a way that I will understand. Like Reinhardt stated, the purple level gear + any combination of OP gear items will get one through all content. I use to buy the replay badges so I could buy the best gear off of the vendor but now it just seems meaningless. I have not really heard any compelling argument that says gear CR progression is important now. Maybe progression isn’t dead but it just might be obsolete after all.

No it’s only +15 CR for Regular and +20 for Elite, that’s all, nothing more.

I think he's asserting that artifacts and gen mods are part of gear, thus progression for the clamp which includes SP as we get full piercing in EEG.

Ok

That's your perception, and is only a reality as it relates to older content. The situation as it stands now, is EXACTLY as it has always been...you gear up, not just to be able to get into the next episode, but also to get stronger within the most current episode. That means the current gets easier as you get more geared, which makes getting certain feats easier as well. The only change is that once the most current episode falls into the below 3 episode threshold, you don't get to steamroll the content like we could in the past.

Considering that people for the most part were living within the confines of the 3 most recent episodes during the CR Relevancy era, not much has really changed...unless you really needed Source Marks now, in which case you now face the (not as world ending as you thought) clamp.

But I did explain why. A dev would basically tell you the same thing because that is the answer. You get better gear to make things easier for yourself. That has nothing to do with replay badges or paying any sort of money. The better stats you have the better you do in content. Both end game and early endgame. If you try to do the regular content at 350 you’ll have a harder time than if you had a full set of green gear and were 360. Same with having full blue. You’d do better with full blue than full green. Same with purple. The game would be easier with full purple than full blue. And again with vendor gear. The better gear you have the easier things are for you.

You have every right to not try to get gear. It’s your choice. But that is a choice of personal decision and has nothing to do with gear grind being obsolete.

That is for the cr scaling. Still doesn’t mean better gear/stats doesn’t help. You are focusing to much on your cr being clamped. You are completely ignoring the stats piercing that lets some stats bleed through including your full sp and art stats. The cr being at +15/20 is basically just a number

It actually has the opposite effect for most people as there is no visible progress. Part of the whole point of gear chase is to get stronger, and the CR change is our very visible indicator of said progress...which is easier to grasp at a glance compared to the actual stat numbers. What I mean by that is that it's easier to realize you've made stat gains by seeing the seeing the number CR368 go to CR372 as opposed to Health: 154395 to 154996 and so on for every other stat.

Now the reply to this might be "well, people would still play the new content because it's new and to get feats", which is true. But the fact remains that no two people are motivated by the same one thing, or even by just one thing. Most people want the whole package. Your proposal (locking CR progression for two Episodes) would have people feeling like they lost something big (which they would be losing), and that would make people ask the question "what's the point".

See I feel like I have lost something big already. This is exactly how I measured my character’s strength and progress. But you are saying nothing has changed from the way is was pre-GU 118 as far as our character’s progression ability. If it does still matter, then I should be aiming for vendors gear instead of whatever falls out of the sky in a loot drop. Having a hodge-pudge of multi color gear pieces is annoying.

Exactly!

But that’s how it has always been. Aim to buy vendor gear and using dropped gear as a stepping stone. You get dropped gear to make doing content easier while you save marks for vendor gear. It’s been that way since before stats clamp.

Ok

Trying to have a constructive conversation with you but guess you don’t want to..

Yes, I’ll start buying gold level gear from the vendor. I need to go back and buy some from Doomed Washington DC also. I didn’t think better gear mattered anymore since the stats clamp but I will get some vendor gear and see what happens.