Devs: Survival Mode (w/ Relevancy Window)

At release, this game was flaunted as being geared for casual gamers (and action-oriented).

I am a casual player (and subscriber).
At release, despite "Early Access," I am still locked out of most content due to CR.
I am always locked out of events like SM, while people who do not sub aren't necessarily.

I support this game, but because I have a busy life and cannot play as much as I'd like I am locked out of the very content I pay for.
And I cannot be alone.


The purpose of this thread is not to complain about that, but to offer a simple fix:

Each year, the CR on SM is raised and new rewards are added. What I am suggesting, in a nutshell, is keeping the previous year's SM (and rewards), and adding it to the queue with a CR window when you re-release the updated version. And do not allow people below OR ABOVE that CR relevancy to enter that particular queue.

This way, the SM retains its difficulty and is still available for a limited time, but casual players of the game are not locked out of it for all eternity.

So, when Trigon's Prison comes around each year, it might look something like this in the queue (minus the Year #):
Trigon's Prison: Survival Mode (CR 200-210) (Year Three)
Trigon's Prison: Survival Mode (CR 190-200) (Year Two)
Trigon's Prison: Survival Mode (CR 180-190) (Year One)

... with the CR (in this example) of 180-190 having rewards from Year One, the CR of 190-200 having rewards from Years One and Two, and the CR of 200-210 having rewards from Years One, Two, and Three.

And, again, if your CR is 195 you can only queue for the 190-200 SM, and not the 180-190 version or the 200-210 version.

This still rewards the active and elite players who choose to participate in SM, but it doesn't actively punish those of us who are unable to play as actively. This would be ideal for any other end-game events that may come up based on CR, as well.

Please consider this, Devs. Thank you.

Addendum to the Community:

If this is something you would like to see, too, PLEASE UPVOTE BY LIKING.
It literally only takes a second, and it's something that literally will not cost anything in development time or gameplay.

My two cents:
No.

But here's why:
See, I haven't done SM lately, I only reached max CR yesterday, and most of my survivalist friends have done it or are in advanced rounds.
But I don't think SM should be left open for lower levels BECAUSE:

1.-Items: SM offers valuable items as a reward, these items are valuable precisely because they are, in a way, limited. Leaving it open would only diminish the value of this rewards, and as you stated in your thread, you do want them to leave those rewards.

2.- Challenge: You would either need to lock higher CRs from doing it, or you would have what Dox is nowadays, an ego booster for overgeared chars that wouldnt have otherwise made it alive at level. Killing challenge for people at level, or leaving higher people out...not good.

3.- Survival: The way i see it, SM is a hard instance to be conquered, think of it as the Olympics, now, I love training, been training lots of stuff most of my life, but i don't have the time to put into my training to make it to current olympic level, but not because of this would i ask that the olympics are "left open" for when i catch up, as of now, there are various things i can do at "olympic level" if compared to records from the 60s to 80s, but far from record nowadays...not sure if i'm getting my point across with this analogy.

4.- Investment: SM people investtime, effort and money to raise their CR, some do it for the fun, some for te items, some just for the challege, but leaving the SMs open would turn them into just your regular instance, thus, taking us the the situation described in #3.

5.- Event: It is an event, it grants rewards, even a title for those who finish it, only way it could be left open and be "ok" would be to strip it from giving the rewards and titles, and i'm pretty sure people would comlpain about this, or just wouldn't run it at all.

So yeah, those are my two cents...it's the way I see it, and let's be honest, the game has been adapted for "casual" players a lot, reaching max tier takes about a week or two on a 5 -6 hours a week schedule...tops. Gettin a decent amount of SP (around 110 for the crits and some extras) is not that hard either, so honestly, if someone can't put at least that investment...I really don't think they should be dabbling in SM, probably the only content that is there for invested players.

Obviously you either skimmed my post, or only read the title, or you would never have said this. My proposal keeps people within a certain window of CR specifically to preserve the challenge of the event. Also, I am not proposing the event be "left open," but remain an annual event. It simply becomes available at the same times it otherwise would, but for different ranges of CR.

As for the rewards, having them remain exclusive for a solid year is still pretty damned limited, don't you think? And that is only assuming a person has raised their CR up to the requirement within that year (I would imagine that some do not).

And lastly, I have been here since launch. I paid $60 for what everyone else now gets for free, I subscribe, and I buy items on the Marketplace. And outside of that, I play as actively as I am able to. I was here for the Hack. I am no less invested than you are, if not more so. I do not feel I should be penalized for having other obligations that demand more of my time than yours do your time.

Thank you for your reply and actually explaining your reasons, though.

Addendum to the Community:

Alternatively, if you would NOT like to see this happen, please upvote The Question's post above, by Liking it.
It literally only takes a second, and requires no changes, but you can keep others from enjoying the same rewards a year later (which happens any way if they can find the time to max their CR to participate).

Thanks too for the idea, i find it refreshing to see ideas being posted in an intelligible way, I could understand if lower level SM was a thing, but i dont think the exclusive rewards should be part of it, imo, SM is like a "reward" instance for players for reaching top tier, wanting them open for lower CR while giving the same rewards, just feels (to me) like it would diminish its value. (Think of the Demon Worm, some time ago, seeing one would be like "Whoaa!!" , now its just like "eh...another Demon Worm ¬¬ "

That said, this whole thing is just MY personal opinion, I've been known before for having some elitist views, some casual views, some rude views...you name it...the point is...i could be wrong.

If you want to run SM then you need to grind your CR. SM is there for those that have the highest CRs so that they have something to do. In fact, those that have been the most successful have 230+ SP on top of their 150+ CR, so they have done their grind. If you're not eligible for SM, you should work on your progression and get ready for the next one.

I think maybe you are not entirely understanding my suggestion. At no point have I suggested

A) locking higher tiered characters out from any exclusive rewards or content, or
B) allowing lower CR characters to gain access to anything uber exclusive.

Basically, all I am suggesting is letting characters who have met the minimum CR for the previous year's content to play that content, and - yes - get the rewards from the previous (not current) year's content. Higher tiered characters still get the exclusive stuff that lower CR characters cannot access until they meet that CR (if they do) the following year - and the old stuff too.

They just cannot queue for the same instance together, so that we don't have the 'Dox Problem.

It costs no time to develop, and it does not take away from the exclusivity of the current SM. It only opens that version of it up for other players a year later. I do not understand the problem with that.

I'm with ya. There's always going to be more people behind max CR that are missing out on this content.

Especially since you mention being a year behind, that negates any talk of diminishing value on items, or bragging rights.

I can find no fault in your logic. Though many will try to (as seen already).

Right? I wonder what the numbers actually are, in terms of the active population, as far as who is at what tier.

What's with this mania you people have to conveniently and selectively "misunderstand" in order to highlight how victims you are for not being able to play something you do not meet requirements for?

• If you want the SM for the challenge, i'd say it's cool if they left it open just for that, maybe getting good loot like rec kits and the like, but event rewards SHOULD remain an only-during the event thing.
• If you want for the SM rewards to be aquired whenever YOU are ready, then you may want to look for a single player game, there's a reason it's an event, those numbers you talk about above, they are all players, many of them have invested the time and effort in gearing up, but no, let's devaluate the value of their rewards because that one guy who wasn't ready.
• Gearing up nowadays is stup*d fast, heck, we even stay at one tier for 3 months, just with solos and duos you can make it to 130's in a couple of days, end tier in 3 weeks assuming you play way too little and have terrible loot luck...if you can't even get that done you wouldn't make it through SM anyway.
• You didn't make it to SM 2015? shame, gear up for SM 2016, it's that simple.

SM has been out for about a year only, now, those exclusive rewards increase their value with time BECAUSE they are scarce and harder to aquire with time, as time goes on, they become more "unique", thus, more valuable, having them re-release would decrease the price, and i'm speaking of this without possesing ANY SM item atm, so i'm not speaking for my own interest, but I've already felt what it is to farm something, invest in it, only for it to be later devaluated just because wated it too.

Kind of like that one petition some lady started to make Deadpool E-rated just because some kid wanted to see it too x.x

As stated above, maybe i'm wrong and just rambling...but it's like people nowadays don't want to invest and put effort unless it's at their own sweet pace even if the whole world has to stop for them. >_<

That's the thing, though: As I understand it (and I may be mistaken here), the items from last year's SM were still available this year, and they added new ones. I know that this is true of at least the base items, as I drooled over them last year in the Broker but did not have the money for them until they came out this year. Since my proposal would leave the availability of said items pretty much alone, it would not devalue them, as they would still only be available once a year.

Basically, SM offers the same rewards seasonally - with updates, just like normal seasonal content. Unlike seasonal content, the new stuff just remains exclusive to the top tier of players. My idea doesn't touch that.

If they do this then i quit the game for good. SM and the exclusive loot is their for people who are willing to spend their time to work on their CR. In fact it doesnt even take that long to get your CR up. You can be 147 CR with mostly vendor gear (which is very easy to attain) and still beat round 10 with a decent group.

Your idea does touch that because a ton of other players will now have access to that loot, diminishing its value. Its not like they added that many new items to it this year anyway so its roughly the same loot.

I actually like your idea, however, not to exclude anyone this could be an instance where you actually do "stat clamp" a higher player to the maximum CR of the "particular SM" unless it's the top one.

My response has nothing to do with people not investing time or wanting something they do not deserve.

Especially since I mentioned the "year later" part.

SM is an interesting part of the game to many people. But, there will always be more people NOT at end game. All those people will never get to try out that part of the game.

Maybe take out the OG rewards or whatever. I don't really care about that part. I'd just like to see this gameplay available to more people.

I would stand by the idea of removing the rewards if not for one thing:

People play the old content for the same reason they play the new content - rewards.
If there is no reason to play, there is very little difference from queuing up to play an over-powered version of TP (or whatever SM is currently available). If there is no reward, people will not play it. And then this whole debate means nothing.

Oh, I didn't mean no rewards! No. No one will play I agree. Maybe different rewards (we're just talking about base items right?)

Ok then its a simple solution. You dont get access to the SM rewards, but you do get older base items already available in the game like white rugs, brown couches, tall modern lights, luxury couches, exobit clusters, etc. That way you get to play the content and get rewards.

This seems to hinge on rewards exclusivity.

Perhaps have a look through of all the SM mode rewards, and any reward that is not very awesome sauce can be hived off and given as a reward for a second lower tiered SM mode (the CR relevancy windows fixed depending on population data), while the original SM mode rewards are looked at for possible changes to be even more awesome sauce.

You are right there, which is why i said that Demon worms were a WOW! and now its more like "eh...a Demon worm...again", as I stated above, this is solely my point of view about things.

We agree there, as I said above, if it's for the challenge, I'm all for it, I've lost that chance myself, but the rewards should remain as that, rewards for completing the challenge at it's given time <--(actual non-sarcastic smile)