Reduced sourcemarks in fos3, why?

Nerfing FOS3 was a BAD MOVE.. All you guys had to do was buff how much we get paid for the LONGER, drawn out, tedious content(not just raids)..

The reward for OUR REAL LIFE TIME is not worth 20-30 mins to get 6 VIRTUAL source marks.. Regardless of what you set the price.. I DONATE MY REAL TIME to get virtual currency.. WE are telling you that, the TRADEOFF payout, of donating our REAL TIME that you want us to commit to play your game is UNBALANCED in REAL LIFE... 20-30 mins for 6 source marks or 1-1hr 20 mins for 12 source marks is ABSURD!

FOS 3 payout was PERFECTLY FINE.. It was the OTHER CONTENT that needed to REWARD MORE either thru seals,caches, or source marks!!!!

You guys really want us to spend 20-30 mins just to get 6 source marks??? Total absurdity man.. This will hurt the game smh


EASY SUGGESTION: You guys can even have a reward system that pays more source marks if we beat the content faster and decreases the payout the longer you are in there but obviously capped to the base value payout on the longest run time... There are a plethora of ways to incentivise SOURCE MARKS.. it's soooo easy to be creative with how you'd like to pay us, so why nerf? lol...

NERFING the payout IS NOT THE WAY!

So when the community finds the next raid for source mark spam will the developer staff nerf the payout to that? This is inexcusable and it angers me and others that simply want source marks without dealing with BS

They want you to spend $ on source marks in marketplace ^^

and this is where we see that Save the Universe should be limitless and just "source brand" loot.

Raids could be blocked when done once and once a certain number of raids are done or the whole raid list is done, it would be possible to buy a whole reset to repeat the operation, but of course, this specific reset currency would only be compatible for save the universe.

I think this would be more interesting for the player at the end of the game and it would make it much easier for new players to progress through the dropped content.

With all the things that can be bought in source mark now I think it won't be that absurd and with that, I think the double/triple source mark event would no longer be necessary.

Source marks should be unlocked in all content. It’s dumb that with current content you get locked on sm also

Common dev strategy.... create a problem so they can sell you the solution.

So, as to the ratio mentioned by Mepps...

Are all arena style, one room, raids and alerts going to get the same treatment?

How bout content to cutscene time ratios?

Also what about new players vs skilled players? I had a few horrible runs in FoS 3 that took longer than the average 5-8 minutes.

To me, reducing rewards in any content isnt the right approach. Are the developers saying theyd rather have FoS3 dead like some other content? Surely, they can see some raids and alerts that people refuse to play, or end in disbanding. It's not always about time. Many factors. But adjusting rewards based on time when so many factors go into it, seems counterproductive. The players will always find the path of least resistance for farming marks. The content with the easiest mechanics, and best rewards will always win out. As it is, players will move on to Gates, or Necro now. As well as the raids with rewards tied to feats.

Yeah this is probably one of the dumbest decisions you guys have made in a while (and I was here for gu36...). There's a reason why almost everyone in this thread is in agreeance. This change was completely unnecessary. In no way was getting 10 marks every 5 minutes game breaking. If people chose to spam content for marks then that's their prerogative. If you want other content to be played more then you need to adjust marks based on average length of the instance. No1 is trying to run Arkham asylum for 30 minutes when I can do damn near every other raid in less time for more marks. No1 is trying to do the scarlet speedster solo when I can run Mannheim Chinese Theater. If you want instances to be played more then simply adjust the marks in longer instances so that regardless of the instance, we get (generally) the same amount of marks per hour. I mean what's next, are you going to reduce the deluge alerts to 2 marks since they're short too? Is Mannheim Chinese Theater going to start giving us half a mark? The way you guys went about doing this was just lazy honestly.

THIS is nothing more than wishful thinking on Daybreak's part.

I spammed FOS3 a couple of times since coming back to the game. It's not something that has ever interested me to do with any frequency. Even with the higher reward I can only take so much FOS3.

This move is just another "nickel and diming" of DCUO.

I don't want to criticize without offering an alternative so here goes...

Add more marks, or new feat rewards to the content that...
A) takes far longer than average,
B) has the longest lists of players joining and leaving,
C) ends with the most disbands,
D) has the most rejections through omnibus que.

I am assuming the developers have tools for B, C and D.

I agree with Elijah too, I would spam FoS 3 occasionally, but after 2 or 3 in a row, I'm looking to run something else. On the flipside, there are raids and alerts I refuse to do, usually based on difficulty not time, although the difficulty influences time. Like that darn card game, I ain't got time for that lol. Or any mechanic where one person can wipe everyone.

Every player on this thread is in agreement. Maybe it's time to rethink this one devs. If you're not making a game for the players, then what's the point?

I think you are right...it was 10, and ToTD had the added benefit of the prestige donation gear as a bonus. However ToTD had the most possibility of a wipe with the Hades 1 shot reflection....so a <10 min was not guaranteed. Plus, those 10 min runs didn't include in-between times. I've yet to see a 'spam' group that goes more than 2 or 3 passes before looking for backfill. Gotta add that time in if you were looking at marks as the main payoff.

Wonderverse solo with the 2 head augs in is pretty close. I can get 3 runs done in 10 min for 9SM, with no wait time on re-queue due to drops or 'I fell asleep' or 'brb' or getting a beer or kids crying.

Necro is under 10 also...I put that up in my big 3 of 'quick' omni raids with DD and FOS3....but I don't really care about the drop marks as much as I do the box, so I'm in it for pure speed...not marks really. I don't generally spam, so I'll still take the quick ones anyway...even if no SM were dropped.

As someone else said, this might be the worst decision since GU 35-36 (not even going to mention stat clamping..).

What's funny is that this doesn't do a damn thing except make the omnibus worse, all while simultaneously pissing an entire group of people off. Most of the groups for FOS 3 weren't even using the omnibus/custom play, it was almost ALWAYS a pre-built walk-in group to farm source marks. Anyone who random-queued for the omnibus and got FOS 3 knew that it was rarely ever taking 5 mins (sometimes took upwards of 10-15 mins). Unless of course, the omnibus queue isn't the concern here.

Maximizers will always try and find the raid that will give the most source marks in the least amount of time, so unless your team sits there and runs every single piece of content to make sure the source marks amount = time, this doesn't do a damn thing except cause more of a hassle for those that were running FOS 3 and Doomsday for source marks farming.

It might be the only subject ever in the forums to have 100% of the people agreeing outside of 2x XP weeks.

The devs finally figured out something to bring the entire community together. HUZZAH!

Yep. Lazy half ***** "fix" to something that didn't need a fix. If they really want to get people into other raids, then INCREASE the rewards of those raids based on time/effort to do them, instead of the very uncreative knee-jerk nerf reaction. Carrot NOT Stick.

I think instead of nerfing the raids perhaps offer more incentives to go into other content? Like back in the day there would be a selected instance with a star next to it (not sure if its still here) and that would guarantee extra marks. Perhaps use that approach on a daily basis?

This is a good idea to build upon. However, as it stands it would have only worked in the first 2 weeks in my opinion. The cooldown has the potential to be a true slowdown; players who want to spam those raids would just wait out the 15-20 minute cooldown, making it harder to pop the other alerts/raids.

There is an exploit potential to this as well; if you do these raids just before reset, trigger the cooldown and then come back after reset, you will not have to wait out the cooldown time. This may entice some players in certain regions to only play those raids before their regional resets to avoid that cooldown. For example, I live in NJ USA so my reset is at 9am. Using your cooldown suggestion, I could start those raids at 8:30am and complete them just before 9am. The cooldown would trigger before reset; when I log back into the game the cooldown would be gone and I could do those raids again. That should not happen, as the cool down should apply to everyone no matter what.

In order to balance this, the cool down should persist through logout; in other words, if you have a cooldown timer then it should pick up where it left off, even after reset.

Perhaps the devs could use your idea as a building block for a better solution the next time they discover another "outlier".

It's not a perfect idea. But my degree is in political science, not game theory (although I did have that for a semester when I took a stats course). I'm not as livid as some about this change. But it does irk me, and I've always thought, don't just complain have an alternate solution.

Although I keep coming back to this is a solution searching for a problem.

If the goal is to get more players running a wider variety of content, then why not add more chase items and rewards for older content (like the Zeus lightning bolt variant in GoM, etc.), or at least increase source mark rewards for those 25+ minute raids? At this point, I'm just going to keep dodging my weekly Omnibus queue until I get some 5-10 minute raid. There is literally no other reason for to run old, longer content with randoms, since feats will be out of the question. HH/Fos3/DD spam was at least something players wanted to run together.

Getting 10 SM every 6 minutes or whatever isn't that impactful in the long run of the source mark economy anyways. There are faster ways to get SM (which, soon enough, will probably be nerfed as well for some reason).

Hmm..

Will you be looking at the outliers in reverse, such as raids/alerts that get little to no player interaction because they are longer/have more cut scenes/ tougher mechanics and do not give enough Source Marks for the time spent in them? In my opinion Arkham Asylum, Ace Chemicals, Strykers Island, and Happiness Home are raids that should be looked into for a Source Mark boost.

Arkham Asylum, Ace Chemicals and Strykers Island are also walk-ins, but the clamp doesn't allow many solo players to "walk" through them easily. They can take a long time to complete, especially at level and they are not very rewarding for taking that long tour throughout those places. This is especially true for Ace Chemicals, as you have to replay that one more than once to access the entire facility.

Happiness Home requires communication and teamwork on a "higher" level, and I have found that many players "skip" that one because of the stress headaches it can cause if you want to get the feats or just survive one run. It is also a long run, as you have to complete 4 "tests".

Raids that conclude a story arc should reward a high amount of rewards (10 items for example) and Source Marks (25 Source Marks for example) automatically (no loot picker) and should only give those rewards once a week, no reward reset allowed.