Crazy Idea time: Personal CR Clamps, Subscription Perks and you.

Okay after reading some ideas on how to make clamping into something apealing I got one of my own...

1.Introduce the Personal Stat Clamp.(Basically it's a convenient toggle switch that lets you apply CR clamping to yourself and only yourself when you run content.)
2.Add a series of "Totally Clamped" feats for people that chose to run with a fully clamped group(As in everyone in the group has their clamp on) as well as a series of "Get your clamp on!" feats(Which is where you complete content while clamped regardless of weather or not the rest of the party chose to be clamped.)
3.As a new subscription perk you get full mark rewards for choosing to run content while clamped.(That way people that want full marks from all content can get it, but only if they are subbed.)

How many of these threads do we need. The answer has already been stated as it isn't going to happen, form a group.

I'm all for anything that would allow me to play more than one freaking solo instance.

Coming soon to marketplace - Clamp Cloak! Activate this device and you'll appear to be clamped even though you're not! Amaze your friends! Confuse your enemies! Frustrate people by telling them you used a complicated exploit that doesn't exist!

Why not just introduce tier specific clamping with some additional rewards? Most instances become easy once a players is 10 CRs above the suggested, that's a good benchmark for it.
Either another lootbox that gives rewards similar to lockbox ones or another mark system that could be used to unlock opposite factions styles.

I think we were more inline with the idea of earning scraps/marks/XP when running content, stat clamped, than this idea.

The thing I dislike the most about this particular idea is membership preference. The game doesn't need players to subscribe to make money. Therefore another perk which discriminates against people who don't want to subscribe for absolutely no reason, pissing them off and discouraging them from continuing to play isn't a good idea.

I get the whole thing about people needing their hands held through a transition to a stat clamped game, but honestly, this is too far.

I was under the impression that Mandatory clamping of the whole group wasn't going to happen... This is more of a "I take my gear off" button for individual players.(As in one player can choose to run it clamped if he wants to without subjecting the rest of the group to being clamped.)

Or did you simply not read the first post and made this response as a knee-jerk reaction to the word "Clamping"?

What if we dropped the subscription perk idea from it? (The only reason I suggested the idea of the subscription perk is because I wasn't sure how else the Devs would be able to monetize this in a way that could make up for the theoretically feared loss of replay sales...)

I suppose we could go with "Lockboxes" but then we'd have Subscribers complaining that they don't get the rewards for running clamped as part of their subscription...

Subscriptions are genuinely a good product. You get more than you pay for with one. In fact, subscriptions are far too generous because they nullify the need to purchase so many items that appear on the marketplace, many of those products will cost a lot of money to develop, too (Powers, New Legends characters, Content). Not to mention they award you free currency to use on the marketplace items, too.

If the game was pay to play, I'd support more perks like the ones you suggested and even more beyond those. But I seriously doubt subscriptions are even considered in the game's monetisation strategies any more, simply because of the fact that 4 games share the same product on PC side of things so it doesn't make sense.

Therefore adding more major perks simply pushes away players who simply don't want to pay for a subscription but are happy to support the game in other ways. Money is money at the end of the day and it shouldn't matter where it comes from. If it's not subscription money, then it's not the end of the World.

As for the feats, really it depends on how easy a feat is to build. If it's a time consuming process, then it's not worth it. If it can be done in less than a minute, then it'd probably be worth doing.

Monetisation, I wouldn't worry about that. We've seen from people such as TheLazyPeon that they are put off from staying around on DCUO because higher CR players take the fun out of playing the game. With this no longer a factor, any costs associated with implementing it would be recouped by the flow of new players who would have otherwise left the game because of high CR players disrupting their experiences in lower tier content.

Well I don't imagine that feats would be too hard to add in... Especially if there was a cosmetic reward attached to completing content with your personal clamp turned on.

Clamping is only going to work if the whole group is clamped. If I queue up clamped, but 3 or 7 others don't, the instance is still going to be facerolled, taking away any challenge from me being clamped in the first place. On top of that why would anybody let a clamped player run with them, if they are just going to hold the group back by being clamped.

I would like to add to this, though, that stat clamping doesn't work if it's optional when forming a random group via the matchmaking system.

Stat clamping isn't supposed to be some fun feature for players to relive the glory days (although, there's nothing saying you can't enjoy it), it's supposed to protect new players from having their experiences disrupted by cocky, high CR DPS running old content for styles and feats they skipped in their rush to get to the highest CR.

If you wish to remove stat clamping from yourself, which would be entirely possible in my version of stat clamping, then you won't be put into a random group with strangers, but instead, enter the instance on your own or with whomever else is in your party.

I know, I just figured that this might be a good baby step towards that goal... Because right now, the devs seem to be afraid of loosing customers if they try to "force" people to run stat clamped... I figure that this would be a good first step to get people used to the idea of "Clamping" being a feature and not a punishment.(Because lets be real, most of those opposed see clamping as a punishment.)

At the very least with optional clamping there might lead to a few less over powered players harming the experience of new players... (And if it's a toggle switch burred in the menu options right next to the on off switch for suicide squad the Devs could mess with it's default position on down the line... And if that doesn't rustle too many jimmies then perhaps eventually the devs will no longer fear causing a mass exodus if Stat clamping becomes mandatory for random queues...)

Devs clearly stated that stat clamping and walking teleporters, and single or small group queues were not going to happen. As they stated that stat clamping would have a negative effect on the community and queue times.

While it is good for the community. From a dev and DBG executive standpoint it is bad for business.

All we can do now is hope that the new way of progression helps solve this huge problem.

While I understand their reasoning I think I need to make something abundantly clear. I'm not proposing the kind of stat clamping we have in the events. This is more like players taking off gear to lower their equipped CR with a single click of the button, but without the inconvenience of that gear taking up inventory space, combined with some incentives to use the feature. None of this forcing you to avoid the queues if you don't want to be clamped business that would be bad for the queue times... I don't see how being able to click a button to lower your own CR would affect the queue times at all. Running with clamped players would really be no different than running with newbies for those not using the clamp.

So please, read my first post again and think about what I was actually proposing...

True however inorder for that to happen devs would have to change the rules of current and overall CR. Taking a piece of gear and holding it hostage until the instance is over would have to take effect and devs would have to store that gear somewhere, god forbid they accidentally lose it.

Not saying its a bad Idea. Just saying that:
1. Devs have already said no to any type of clamping outside of seasonals
2. The idea you suggested would take alot of work to implement( even more than reworking the seasonal)
3. Devs will not allow you to obtain marks outside relevancy windows at full drop amounts

Even if the clamping is optional, devs know that players will revoke the idea. Even though GU47 wasnt a stat clamp it kind of was a permanent stat clamp with all the changes it did to stats.

Our best bet would be to wait for the new progression system and then come back and see if stat clamping is necessary.

What you mean that some players would use it as an excuse to not run content with those that choose to be clamped? Or do you think that the community at large would somehow be able to force others to run clamped weather they want to or not?

I did read the whole post. And in case some people have forgotten, we have a button to do just that. It's called armory switching.

Well you can forgive me if your initial response made me believe otherwise... As for armories: two shortcomings: 1.That gear still takes up space in your inventory... and 2.You get four active armories tops and I don't know about you, but most people prefer to use them for specific builds, leaving maybe one available for "Running stuff at Tier" and even then realistically there isn't room enough to keep gear for every tier and one armory isn't gonna cut it if you want multiple tiers worth of content at the CR they were designed for, but most would only have one, maybe two usable armories not dedicated to end game builds(Assuming that they care about keeping their primary role and DPS builds handy for when they run end game stuff)

The idea is to make it convenient to put your stats within the intended CR range that the content was originally designed for, without dealing with the inconvenience of wasting inventory space or armory builds on doing so.

this is an Everquest LFG menu. For DCUO, add option {on/off] stat clamping. Whereas if you have higher CR gear, you will be defaulted to have max CR gear of that content's CR range? Given the inventory, would one carry and old CR gear set?

I miss LFg menus that are visual. Text leaves out info that can not be seen by text. Along side the text option, a LFG menu would allow for mouse over=drop down list of info and default presented info about a character in a visual LFG menu. In DCUO it requires close proximity to see info about group members.

If a person starting a group words the description right, it fills quickly. then weeding out the random players joining that do not meet leader's terms. eventually the leader decides to run with the group that joined. I see it most helpful for Alerts and Raids. Leave out Duos. Leave Duos for On Duty. Yet I'd do a visual LFG for Duos. Challenges, obviously do not need LFG menu. Bounties might be a category of LFG's menu. PvP too. The odd thing, is that DCUO includes 2 roles per character..... hmmm. I'm wearing no pants. Film at eleven.