A solution to increase queue Pop, more marks and gameplay.

The problem: Higher tiered players steam rolling through lower tiered instances.

Relevant problem: Appropriate CR'ed players are carried through the instance and not learn group dynamics.
Relevant problem: Appropriate CR'ed players loose the enjoyment of playing their instances.
Relevant problem: Players of all CR are locked into a small range of instances that offer Marks rewards.
Relevant problem: Relevant instances lessens the Queue population, increasing wait time and frustration of levelling.

Solution 1: include in the Queue tab an option to " Stat Flatten" a toon appropriate to the instance. After finishing the player then gets the appropriate Marks as a reward. This is the easiest method to implement of solving the aforementioned problems.This however gives the player little choice in what his stats are coming into the instance.

Solution 2: The player removes gears that will put him in the relevant cr of whatever instance he wants to queue for. The Game then "locks" your toon at this stat level throughout the instance and is rewarded the appropriate Marks after the instance. Parts of this solution is already in game with the CR adjustment to content introduced by the DEVS in GU47. Although this solution is more complicated, it gives us "the players" the choice of entering a content i.e. Oan Science cells as a 63 cr player rather than a 44 cr player.

What does this solve?
Players are no longer " locked" into the same 12 content in their CR rating. More options on where to earn their marks.
The queue wait time will diminish as more players will queue into any instances since it will Marks again as a reward.
Gameplay and group dynamics will no longer hampered by one OP player steam rolling through an instance.
The integrity and enjoyability of an instance is maintained by current tiered players.


Thoughts? Or adjustments to the idea?

Any solution to this "problem" needs to be optional. Any change that forcibly changes the way the game exists today will be met with resistance.

That being said, I'd look for the default to remain the same, and any altering of stats or gear to be an option.

I don't think you're going to convince the devs on the marks issue. If they wanted to give marks for lower content they could do it right now. They don't want you to progress on marks from doing lower tier content. Simple as that. If they wanted to allow it, all they need to do is give reduced numbers of marks, using the same formula that the Prestige system uses to reduce the mark count.

I'd like to see a matchmaking option rather than a CR/gear option. Add a checkbox to the queue screen. Check the box, and you're only matched with people in the relevant CR band. Leave it unchecked, and you can be matched with anyone, same as now. That way people who don't want high level toons "ruining" their game can simply be matched with like minded players.

Players should be able to queue for all instances with the ability to always get marks as the top CR allowed to receive marks....but for instance: a T7 geared player should be allowed to queue for a T3 raid and steamroll it with NO MARKS, or queue for a T3 raid with the OPTION OF a STAT CLAMP TO THE HIGHEST CR ALLOWED TO STILL RECEIVE MARKS.... so basically you walk in as a geared T4....but you get marks....!!

However....if gear can be stat clamped, stat clamping should never affect stats gained by skill points....

This would, by the way, effectively make all current tier material relevant all the time....

@ tygerfyre - You are absolutely correct. The player must always have the option.

That's why in the solution one category I thought a tab that you can toggle on and off that would stat flatten your toon leaves you the choice to enter it as an appropriate level toon, which gives us the appropriate reward of marks. Completely the player's choice to enter it at that level or not. It is easier to implement but I sort of don't like it because as you said the player has "LESS OPTION" on what cr level he enters it.

Taking the Oan sciencecells as an example, their stat flattening could leave you as a 44 cr toon or 50 cr toon with those stats.

In Solution 2: You choose which gear to remove to get you to fit that instance.

Taking the Oan science cells as an example; A t7 toon removes all his gear leaving only his chest, legs, back , necklace, weapon and utility belt will put him at a 59 cr level. The player can enter Oan at the right CR level, the Combat Adjustment will ensure that he gets same type of damage and puts out the same type of damage a true 60CR toon and gets the appropriate reward of Marks.

that would require it to read Equipped CR not Total CR.

Yes, exactly. It gives the players more/all instances to choose from with the marks rewards. AND it won't ruin the game for players who are currently in that CR Bracket and it won't help destroy end game content because players won't know how to do group dynamics or role dynamics because they got rolled through the lower content.

And it is all OPTIONAL to the player. As a T7 126 cr player, JOE BLOW is tired of running the same old New Gen/AF2 alerts over and over. But with Option #1 he can Queue up for Oan Sciencecells toggle the STAT Flatten tab and "BOOM" He's cr 50, runs the content like a regular Cr50 toon with the Instance difficulty intact and earns 5 marks of Victory.

OR
with Option #2 he removes all his gear except for he chooses to remove all his gear except the chest, legs, necklace, ulitlity belt and weapon and his CR is 59; the instance difficulty is intact and earns 5 marks of victory.

All completely optional or he can run it like a regular t7 steam roll through the instance but doesn't get any marks as a reward.

Yes, and we already have that in game. When they introduced GU47 if you remove your gear and lower your cr, the instance can now detect that and your damage out is severely diminished. If you're full 124 and you remove your shoulder piece turning your equipped CR to 114, you will notice that if you enter a T7 instance you're damage is drastically cut appropriate to a 114 cr'ed toon.

None of this will ever happen. The whole point, of any of these recent changes, is to encourage Replay Badge use.

Any increase to how much content we have available, to earn Marks from, takes away from the NEED/DESIRE to use RB's.

That's all that matters. They purposely made it this way.

The Devs of this game are unable to provide us with any other alternatives (for whatever reason). The only way they can make extra money, is to limit our content. That way, we either spend extra money, or don't advance.

No one cares about High Level Players in lower content. That was never a consideration.

They can put it the way it was. For now enjoy your no high cr runs.

I thought taking your gear off doesn't change your overall CR. which is what the game goes by. not equipped cr.

The overall CR determines the instances you are "TIED" to in terms of getting rewarded with marks.

From my experience, the Equipped CR determines, how much damage you can dish out against the CR of your NPC opponent. So as a 127 toon equipped with only 1/3 of his gear will drop to Eguipped CR of 59, regardless of how many skill points or soder you drink, it's gonna drop your damage out like a rock.

got ya. we were on 2 different pages of thought.

Takes away from replay badges, so nope to this idea. It would hurt the game before it helps.

@ BAckseid - Unfortunately, even before typing this whole thread out, I knew exactly what you mean and why this is probably not going to happen. The idea that their potential income comes from purchase of items to allow you to replay instances or make gaming easier seems exactly where they believe their income potential is going to come. The game has no wish for anyone to be able to access MORE content with more sources of Marks of Victory without having to PAY for it with replay badges. And end up progressing their toon without the use of replay badges.

I believe this is a short term fixation that eventually leads to the demise of this game. Now with the coming of 2 instance per month limitation and the 12 content restriction per tier above t7 the problem that DCUO will encounter is bored long time/high end customers.
By limiting players to a CR bracket, instead of having over 40 scenarios to play and choose from we are stuck with 12.

I think by expanding our choices it would have eventually led to customer retention and new customers coming in.

I don't think it would completely eliminate the use and lead to the decline of the purchase of replay badges. There will still be the type of players who would constantly run the top tier elite raids or elite alerts to get the TOP gear in-game. That quantum Glitch that occurred actually showed me ( It's surprising how many spent so much on replay badges) how many players would consume replay badges to run content over and over to get these top gear.

The vendor gear which is purchasable by marks is a good gear but sometimes I wonder.....

Why did the DEVS do or planning to do certain things...

Why did they work to put into place Combat Rating differentials and adjustments? So that by taking gear off, you end up on a lower equipped rating and your damage becomes adjusted accordingly to the NPC you are facing?
Why are the DEVS creating a special version of gear that you ONLY receive from elite versions that have a new characteristic for increased stats when finished and combined?

Make all content relevant and reward full marks under the condition that your CR is adjusted to the content level? Sorry to burst your bubble but neither will this idea get implemented ever nor is it a good one.
Content rewards are balanced around the time it takes to buy a set of gear which is the central resource of player progression. Making more marks available would inevitably mean proportionally higher gear prices which would then backfire on people with limited playtime.
That's the problem with the whole vertical progression system (gear or Exp or whatever) used in many RPGs, content pushes players upwards at X speed and 90% of content is always irrelevant cause they are above it. DCUO obviously pushed the whole thing quite far with new gear sets each month and a hard limit of 12 pieces of content at all times now.
Also, your great idea makes replay badges borderline irrelevant which would obviously cut into DBG's revenue.

Increase queue population? Cross Play and Cross Faction.

It be much better to just make it so there is a 2 mark system. Make it so there is one mark for relevant content and the other mark for everything else. It would not make sense for you to be able to run tier 1 content and buy tier 7 gear. We already obtain the vendor gear at a good enough rate.

The easiest and probably best way to solve these issues would be to have things calculated by "equipped cr" instead of "total cr". If someone wants to earn marks from a lower tier instance then they would have to lower their equipped cr which would make the instance fair for everyone involved. Higher tier players want to earn marks from lower tier instances while some lower tier players don't want higher tier players to steam roll through the instance.

The game calculating things based on total cr is a broken idea and needs to be changed to equipped cr. This alone would solve many issues. This also should be one of the easiest and quickest things for the devs to change. When I gear up an alt, it really annoys me how I have to watch my CR and actually have to work towards not increasing my CR too much because I want to maximize my earnings on marks.

When I have an alt that reaches level 30, it will be mid 30s in cr usually. At level 30 I will have usually 95 marks so I have to spend some since the cap is 100. If I buy some T1 vendor items then my cr will be closer to 40 and at this point I have not entered a single T1 instance yet. After I finish running all T1 instances once, I'll have CR high enough to venture into T2, by time I run all T2 once I'll be able to run T3 and so on but while doing so I have to make sure I don't buy a vendor item that can increase my CR too much or else I would stop earning marks from the tier I am actually running.

With things going off of equipped cr instead of total cr, we all could gear up at whatever pace we felt like and fully enjoy the game without the devs having to make any changes to marks. The marks system would be entirely fine if things were calculated from equipped cr instead of total cr. I really wish the devs would make this one simple change because that would solve a lot of issues people have after GU47.