Test Discussion Episode 41: Early End Game

Another question, three or four if you don't mind

1. Can we get a list posted as to what the marks and prestige payouts are suppose be for each instance?

If there are diminishing returns paid out.ie......prestige or any other currency for that matter

2. Could we get a list of when and how much the demenishing returns are there too?

A few people mentioned a few things that other games do and it got my wheels spinning.
Maybe DCUO can offer something special to help take the sting out of clamped content, promote teamwork and camaraderie between old & new players.

3. Have you guys thought about rewarding end game players a little something special for being a team player, also for running clamped content and helping lower CR (new) players succeed?

4. Have you guys thought about using some sort of honor system/special currency or something like valor points as a special reward currency that only end game players can earn in order to buy special end game shiny things.

Maybe something like question 3 & 4 would help DCUO get the clamps down to where they need to be without as much kicking & screaming.Is really do not need answers for 3&4. Those are moreso questions to ponder over.
edit
Also, as far as 3&4 are concerned
Since CR relevancy was implemented the powers that be did everything that they could to NOT reward marks or full marks for running out of relevancy content. They used every excuse you could possibly imagine. That in turn conditioned the player base into what your are dealing with now as far as clamping content and all of the complaints goes. You're fighting an uphill battle as far as I'm concern and getting clamps where they need to be is going to piss more than a few players off. I feel that you guys should think hard about questions 3&4 in order to help alleviate the soon to be growingpains.

So firstly I want to say thank you to the devs for some great updates. Particularly the one that allowed all episodes to be accessible to free to play players. That really helped convince my friends and I to pick up this game again after we had left 10 years ago due to no longer having to worry about picking up all the episodes just to keep progressing. And it has been a blast going through all the content so far these last few weeks.

With that being said, I had heard about the future stamp clamp plans and my friends had some concerns about it so I wanted to run some test and give some feedback since this stamp clamp seemed to be designed for relatively new players.

So for my test, I ran an atomic dps with sp at 80 with no artifacts since I wanted to mimic as close to how my build is on the switch live server. Unfortunately, my friends and I are only tier 5 on live server atm so I was limited on the solos I could test since I didn’t want to spoil myself of going ahead of my friends. I chose sentinels of magic citadel and metropolis university from tier 1 and Last son of krypton from tier 4. This was also done after the recent live server update. Here are my time results:

CR 53
Metro University 6:22
Sentinels of Magic Citadel: 3:55
Last Son of krypton 5:16

CR 156
Metro University 6:05
Sentinels of Magic Citadel: 3:48
Last Son of krypton 4:59

CR 339
Metro University 5:52
Sentinels of Magic Citadel: 3:13
Last Son of krypton 4:59

Discussing with my friends, we agreed that one of our biggest issue with this current stamp clamp version is the scaling the player up because it ruins the idea of gear progression for new players. It should not be possible for me to go into a tier 4 instance with tier 1 gear and be able to complete the solo. But in my test, not only did I complete it, but i’m only 17 seconds behind a max gear run of the same instance. At least with the current state of the game the cr gear progression actually exist. If we go into fos raid with cr 46 gear, we wont even get passed the first few enemies and that makes sense to us. So a suggestion we have regarding this is to just take out the scaling up the player so that way new players actually have some reason to care about getting better gear. With the old system, everytime we get gear with better stats we actually excited about it since it makes us stronger. But with this updated system, we don’t really care about the gear stats anymore since my game experience isn’t gonna change too much whether I’m way under gear or over gear for that instance.

Speaking of game experience, we want to share that yes, we definitely like the idea of stat clamping a end game player to avoid situations were they blow through the content before us new players have a chance to play on that instance, especially if its our first time in that instance. However, we do not want the stat clamping system, if its gonna mean removing the idea of progression in this game. Which if this is the system being implemented on all content, seems to be the case. Playing through the different instances at different cr felt pretty much the same, which we feel ruins the feeling of progression. We like the rpg aspect of this game, and to scale things up and clamp things down really kills the replayability of it to us if our gear do not significantly affect our experience with the game. So we suggest to tweek the stat clamp down to be about 20 cr above the enemy cr so that way it feels different when playing below, at and above cr level.

We also suggest open worlds not be clamp down. The reason for this is the ques make sense to clamp down since its easier to organize ppl to join in , especially now with the omnibus system. But for the open worlds, since there so many of them, the player base is gonna be really spread out and hard to get a group going on particular bounties that would require groups. So for the groups that have less than ideal numbers, the only way they would be able to complete these bounties is to try to solo them, but if you guys are clamping to the point of preventing us from soloing them, then we will never be able to complete them. Keeping the open worlds unclamp also serves to allow players a place to test out their abilities without limits and play the way we want with less than ideal numbers. My friends and I hope to 1 day beat flashpoint gotham doomsday by ourselves. There’s only three of us, and on the current system if we can’t do it at the current max gear, we can at least continue to gear up and get to that point. But with this new clamp system on the open worlds, it wont matter as no matter how high are stats get, we will never break that limit. No stat clamp on the open worlds is important for both end game players and new players as we actually can see the progression on those encounters.

Now if we can’t implement those suggestions into the upcoming update, and we run with what is currently on the test server, my friends and I agree we rather there be no stat clamping change then. I mean I get why the stat clamp was suggested, I’ve run into a few duos with randoms who were way overgeared and it was not fun to play with as they basically took care of everything. However we think it is important to keep the idea of progression in the game not just for end game players, but also for new players as well. In the current system we enjoy coming back to some of the gotham/metropolis bounties as we get better gear just to see how much easier it is to beat them. We enjoy gearing up and trying to see at which point can we actually 3 man some of the early raids of dcuo. But if you stat clamp everything to feel the same, then my friends and I feel we will lose that sense of progression and thats gonna hurt both end game and new players. So thats just our thoughts on the early end game as relatively new players.

I have tested a handful of content recently and may have the final key component to all of our problems with the scaling system.

So i ran 2 T2 Duos (Shady Nightclub, Port of Paradise) while both of us were max CR and around 450Sp with 3 maxed artifacts and maxed Allies. I was Healer that just switched to dps role because... well im even too lazy to set up my dps armory again every episode on test and the other was endgame Dps.
So, basically solo Dps and some dmg support by me. It was a breeze going through them and not as others mentioned: "feels like LPvE". Pets and allies got downscaled due to cr so theyre not as useful as in endgame content while doing omnibus. Took us about 5 minutes to complete each duo with no issues.

Then we ran Metal pt. 2 batscape (T5) with the same set up. It felt easier although pets were still nerfed due to scaled cr. Then, upon further testing we figured that the allies actually hit the enemies without scaling. So it already felt okay before but with the allies being able to dmg 20% of a boss each, it felt pretty awesome.

As i mentioned somewhere else before, i actually like it to have more of a challenge but am willing to base my feedback on the opinion of the majority.


Now, that unscaled damage of allies in that duo could be a bug or oversight, but it feels too good to get nerfed. So i thought, why not make legends scale much less in old content - just like in that duo. That would mean a decrease in completion time, an incentive to level up allies and no broken p2w system for endgame (at least for now). Its like a win win win situation.

Its only P2W if you want to complete old content as fast as possible on day 1 and thats not a serious reason against that to be honest.

Also, keep in mind that no scaling at all would mean allies become stronger than players and thats ridiculous but being able to deplete 20% of a boss' health is rather nice and enjoyable - at least for Duos.

Thoughts?

No it felt great honestly. It was actual teamwork and, just giving my friend a little rub, he jumped on his Celestial Toon he forgot how to play and I beat him in Boss Damage lol. only by 40K but still made us chuckle. We both went in with no Artifacts so that is a strong variable to consider. Being a CR33, I would have either no Artifact or a very low one not at Rank 80 or above yet so going in with no Artifact was the best test to give. I even used my Rage End Game loadout (Relentless Anger, E Chain, Redirected Rage, Lacerate, Outrage, Berserk) and I didnt have Power Issues at all in either the Solos I ran or this Duo. On Live if I did this on my Fresh toon, I would do One Full rotation then half of it next and Im out of Power.

A lot of my feedback regarding the EEG will be from a Fresh toon in the Tier. I believe some great folks are giving feedback on the Clamped feeling and seems to be a lot of focus. This is my way of helping the new players so it doesnt get missed. I gotta burn through Solos again and begin Duos this coming weekend.

Btw ty so much for all the work you’ve been putting. One things I’d suggest to try, I’d even be happy try if my laptop lets me lol, is to have one of you simulate mid game players being at level with one to two 120 arts and one 80 art. And have the end game player have three 160 arts to simulate players who don’t have full arts. Then runs duo and see how much of a gap there is. Maybe have both players play on the same power and same loadout. Something you are both comfortable with. This way to take away the variables from different powers

Then repeat the test with the lower player have three 120 arts and even with one 160 art to simulate those who
Boost early on lol.

Just to get more angles on how things are working. If you want send me. Private message and we can see if we can get on at the same time if your testing partner doesn’t happen to be on.

That is a great way to look at it.

Testing in early content that new players will experience with low level to no artifacts. Very good! (^_^)

Now, this is an interesting point of view. I don't know if McKeith is a new player from DS or if he has an older account in PS or PC but the perspective he is putting out is interesting.

His Live team-mates are around cr 53.
They like the idea of Stat-clamping so End level players don't demolish content.
They don't like the idea of Up-scaling low CR toon as it diminishes their progression experience.

"Playing through the different instances at different cr felt pretty much the same, which we feel ruins the feeling of progression."

To be honest, this is the experience that a player who has never played DCUO will feel like as he is levelling up his toon starting from cr 30 ALLLL the way to CR 302.
The way the Old UI is setup right now, it merges instances from tier 1 to tier 3. Instances are added once he goes past CR 62, i think, and as a sign of his progression in the old UI is an added category of Tier 2 (which for us old-timers) contain T4 to t5. But in the new UI, he wouldn't even see that. He might recognize that new instances are added t the queue but since it random, i doubt it.

I think we all need to think on this beyond Stat-clamping or Up-scaling or rewards or looking at this through the perspective of End-level players.
We need to also think of this as a player who have never played DCUO getting out into CR 30. I have played enough of this missions to suspect that content pre-earth3 are of the same level of difficulty. They will not reflect the same level of difficulty they once did when they were first introduced. They all seem easy, rarely challenging to feel threatened. And that experience will never change.

So please be honest, as end-level players, if all the content available to you presents no challenge or difficulty (think of it as almost having only Event-level instances); how long will you really stay to play this game?

I was thinking about this a few hours ago. The cr upscale means you wont feel progression until you advance to a new tier and the new UI makes tiers feel useless, so a new player wont see progression until the 3 latest episodes. Even buying tier for the best stats is meaningless as you will get a boost no matter what. Not to mention the difficulty across all tiers is the same (and in some cases hard raids like DWF will feel much harder, even with everyone overgeared, than a raid released years after).

One of the most exciting things for me when I joined the game was progress so I could play other episodes, I dont know if most new players find that exciting as well, but for the ones who do, that experience wont exist anymore.

The thing that I am realizing is that for a player levelling up a toon this is something that he/she won't recognize. Unlike in the OLD UI where instances are broken down by tiers and description of what cr requirement, that doesn't exist in the current new UI and even in the updated OLD UI it's broken up to 3 categories, i think. Then, he goes into the latest episode and its Event Level so it's even less challenging.

Remember trying to get to CR 42 to get to T2 instances? Or CR 53 for T3? That's all out. Because from CR 30 to CR 63; its all going to be the same. Then when you reach CR63 more instances are added into your quick play queue BUT how are going to know that when it's random?

If this player even sticks around and doesn't leave the game out of boredom, he/she won't get a sense of challenge until the last 3 end-level episodes.

Between this and other weirdness like the roleless buffs being scaled depending on the instance’s age, I’m starting to think the dev team is making unnecessary work for themselves. All they really needed to do is the mark redistribution and hard cap us at 80cr above the instances so we can’t do things like kill bosses so fast new people never see them, or the instance soft-locks.

This is Ok. This is why we need things on Test. It's only been 3 days and new scenarios and concerns are being recognized.

This is the reason why level-headed criticisms and concerns really need to be posted, argued but NOT attacked.

We'll get there.

I usually burn out within a month or two and that's playing for a few hours everyday. Doing dailies, raid runs, etc... really puts a toll on me not to mention I also have other toons I like getting on.

I have to say I agree, but the issue is the scaling itself. To deliver on allowing us to "feel powerful" but not one shot bosses the scaling can't be done uniformly.


Sure being caped between 50-80cr above enemies will allow us to feel powerful for alerts & raids & bosses still won't fall over when we walk in the room, But like someone else said that I also agreed with is the scaling needs to be looked at separately for solos, duos, alerts, & raids. A 50+ cr difference will feel like I'm keeping the stats i worked hard for in raids/elites but but solos & duos will go back to one shots.

That’s a good point, especially since most soloes/duos are at level, fairly simple mechanics checks. There’s no worries about group members, or even having good stats. You learn the mechanics and you pass. There are some exceptions though (Villain Harley’s Heist immediately comes to mind) and the recent addition of elite solos/duos may cause a new proliferation of such.

Hey Charon, can we experiment for a day with an increase of 20-30cr above NPCS (strictly in alerts/raids & 10-15 for elite) but increase NPC defense & mechanical damage? Just to see if we can hit the "feel powerful" point in those instances for clamped down players?

One thing I noticed we are overlooking is the randomness of on duty. Most people are either running duos (that could already be done solo in the past) or content with high artifacts/sp and mostly with people who know how to properly play the game. I dont know if I will be able to jump on test soon, but if someone could do alerts/raids with some people without high artifacts and with some low cr players performing support roles it would be welcome.

I am re-running these 2 instances after the update and on a cr 63 too being upscaled. My Stats:


CR 63; Grim, Source and Quislet all @ 120, No base mods; no augments; 56 SP.
health 11467
power 3133
def 2442
might 3704
resto - 960
vit - 3548
prec 1777
weapon rating 2358
crit weapon damage 45%
crit weapon chance 15%
crit ability damage 45%
crit ability chance 15%

SCARLETT SPEEDSTER solo

Upscaled to cd 238 Stats:

health 50533
power 34468
def 17830
might 23433
resto 7132
vita 6157
prec 12431
weapon dps 4154
weapon rating 21563
crit weapon damage 71%
crit weapon chance 26%
crit ability damage 71%
crit ability chance 26%

The mechanics and challenge of this solo is still intact as it is compared to
Live for an entry level though it might be slightly easier +1
The bad luck of being juggled by Mirror master and caught in the vortex is an instant kill. +1
The Red Death fight is as challenging, more so if you don't know how to avoid the mechanics in the fight.
Still for a veteran player playing a low cr toon, the solo presents an acceptable challenge. +1

Content Difficulty level: 8


Batscape Duo
Second DPS CR339 stat clamped to CR 268
I am Upscaled to CR 238,.


I played this DUO as a 339 toon and now coming back as a CR63 toon boosted to 238; there is little difference in my experience.
The mechanics can still be deadly, you don't want to stand in the middle of the AOE in the theater map, thinking you can survive it.+1
The Last boss retains its length and continous boss attacks that will require you to use shields, soders, avoid AOEs and drop a supply or two. +1
Content Difficulty level: 7

So the real question is should all these instances feel and challenge the same; from Tier 1 to Tier 10? Either all instances are at a difficulty rating of 5, where there's barely any challenge or risk of death OR a rating of 8 (certain death if you don't know the mechanics and simple burn isn't the answer. )

I can't edit again.


I was going to ask Charon & Quixotic

I think they should start moderate & the challenge should organically progress through all the additional mechanics that have been added to the game.


The trouble we're having with the progress skill development gap we're running into is content that normally required a certain amount of progression through actually leveling/ sp grinding is now accessible to lvl 30 players just completing their graduation mission.


Or originally t6-7 missions can now be played by lvl 60s. The solo & duo Difficulty has to be condensed if the tiers are too. In the current interation of the game this may be why its so polarizing for some content.

Now the other issue we're running into is how to "feel powerful " while still feeling like you can be knocked out at any moment. I know this may sound paradoxical but do you have any fresh ideas to increase diffiulty without feeling like a threat of certain doom is always looming over our heads?


Im generally curious of your viewpoint on this.

lexcorp tower
CR 64 with Grim, source shard and quislet; all at 120; no base mods, no augments, 56 SP.
run time 8:48
stats:
health 50533
power 34468
def 17830
might 23433
resto 7132
vit 6157
prec 12431

There is definitely a difference from last I tested this. Although this is from an upscaled perspective.
The first boss fight dealt me enough damage that I wasn't certain which of us would die first. +1
The Lobo fight, not only did I had to break a barrel, drink a soder, hang by dear life waiting for a second drink of that soder +1 +1.
A challenge comparable to its first revelation but not quite as hard.

Content difficulty level: 8


Ok, I just had to re-run this on a Clamped toon as the experience was completely different when I first tested
and I was thinking it had been buffed since. It was not.
A completely different experience from a clamped toon at End game level.
cr 339 to cr 268; with Grim, source shard and quislet at 200. 40.0 base mods; 290 augments, 380 SP.
run time 4:51

stats
health 72227
power 58686
def 25811
might 40117
resto 11339
vit 6445
prec 15065
crit damage 105%
crit chance 32%

My health never fell below 75%, no shield or soder use necessary. The bosses and ads just did not have any chances to damage.
Although my stats had a substantial difference from an upscaled toon; I think the higher weapon/ability crit damage of 105% and chance of 32% was a factor as well

Content difficulty level: 5