Halls Of Power CR Requirements Too LOW!!!

LOL let the nerfing begin, this is part of tomorrows (8-13-14) server fix:
Halls of Power Part I

Relics of Urgrund

• Adjusted damage on the Shadow Drain ability.

Operations
Artifacts from the Past

• Slightly increased the amount of time, in a boss fight, between a boom tube opening and when an enemy will appear from it

it's silly or unrealistic to cry nerf any time anything gets adjusted after going to live.

Its not a nerf. Those two things were semi-glitched. The shadow drain would 1 shot you even if blocking. You are suppose to still be able to beat the boss even if he gets the buff. In this case him getting the buff usually meant a wipe. You could click on the boom tube as soon as it came up and still spawn an add. It was about a .3 second window on that thing.

I would agree with you if the the skill-based feats relied on any type of group content. However, you could completely eliminate the griefing abuse by making the point of entry reliant on solo feats only.

Yeah, but then you'll have all of the raids-only players whining. "But I don't like solo stuff! I do fine in raids! Waahhhhh!" And it would be hard to make it fair for all 4 roles.

I think they'd have to make it optional. CR103, or CR100 and 100 SP, or complete X feat. And that's more complicated programming.

That or you'd get the "This is an MMO, it needs to be group content because MMOs are all about groups" kind of talk. There's also the challenge of coming up with a challenging feat/set of feats that would test player ability individually (should the feats be geared towards solo players) that you couldn't just overgear yourself to accomplish.

The closest thing I could think of that could accomplish that would be something like Survival Mode for a single player, and as fun as that might be (I do love challenges like that lol) it's not something I'd see the devs spending time on when the gating mechanism we do have already works well enough.

I think there's room to come up with a mix that would satisfy the goal. Truthfully, I'm inclined to ignore the crying of raids-only players because they're intentionally ignoring a huge chunk of the game. To get the best experience, you really need to spend time in all areas from solo challenges to 8-person raids. Also, the solo challenges should, IMO, always be done with a dps-dominant gear set, so someone who's trying to get through say t5 or t6 solo challenges using a pure troller gear set are intentionally/needlessly making life difficult for themselves. Also, there will be times when a group run doesn't work out and you may need to switch from troller to dps or the reverse. Every player should have a full spec for dps and a second gear set for their support role. That's just the way the game is designed. If you have spec yourself with two gear sets (one dps, one support) role. It will be fair for everyone if part of the unlock is based on solo feat achievement.

Interesting. I hadn't considered a solo version of survival mode. That could address a lot of the concerns if you make the unlock (or gating) contingent upon passing a survival mode challenge. That would guarantee you at least have a dps spec in some winning combination of gear and stats from skill points to beat a solo boss + NPC's that would be roughly equivalent to say a sub boss in the next highest tier. Sort of a trial-by-fire test to get to the next tier. I like that idea.

The only problem there is that not everybody likes to DPS. I avoided it like the plague for the longest time - I was a controller, and I focused on that.

Armouries changed that completely - now I'm a tank and controller (depending on the server I'm on at the time) I don't mind DPSing at all now...but if there was some sort of gate that required you do x, y and z as a DPS I'd hate it.

Granted..not everyone likes to do DPS as their main role, but everyone HAS to do dps. All solo content is effectively meant for a dps. You can't run the Gotham Subway challenge doing pure p0t or spamming heal spells. DPS is the base role everyone must have and master unless you're committed to only running group alerts/raids....and the cries of group-only players are null and void IMO. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to have some type of solo challenge (could be a survival mode challenge) that everyone must pass to unlock the next level of content. If a player is hell bent on spec'ing only as troller, for example, you could still do it but it would be a much tougher time. and wholly unnecessary with the introduction of armories.

I'm not entirely convinced.

Would we not end up with a bunch of players who can kill things dead (eventually), but who still may not have the slightest clue about team-work and their roles? Healers who focus on DPS to the exclusion of healing, controllers forgetting about pot and crowd-control and tanks who don't aggro?

Then there would be a section of the community who would see it as some sort of conspiracy to sell extra armouries.

But if some sort of additional gating was added to the game, I'd most likely accept it and move on. Not move on from the game, move on from dwelling on the new gating mechanism.

I see where you're going with that, but I would argue those problems already exist today. Just last week I was in a Nexus run with a solo troller who had no idea what it meant to p0t. It happens because you get speed players so focused on getting high cr quickly that they don't take the time to learn how to play effectively, usually the result of a lot of piggybacking on better players in group content. It's a valid concern that really warrants a separate thread. Also underscores the need to come up with a better gating mechanism than just cr.

Maybe we could brute force it by having the option of a role-specific solo challenge. If somebody really wants to do nothing but be a healer, have a solo challenge that requires the player to act as a healer...something akin to keeping Dr Fate alive in the first part of Wayward Souls; Fate lives, you pass. You could do the same for tank by having a solo challenge where your job is to aggro the undead spirits away from Dr Fate in the first part of Wayward Souls; Fate lives, you pass. Like wise for a troller where your challenge would be to keep the NPC allies in the challenge powered enough to cast spells that kill the undead spirits attacking Dr Fate; Fate lives, you pass. You could even integrate passing the challenge into the game in a fun way by getting a drop like a special emblem or aura. That way other players would know your healer has "passed the test" or is "T6 certified" or some such thing. Would be clever way to eliminate all the calls for trollers with min vit levels....stupid practice IMO since I've seen high vit trollers do poorly compared to lower vit trollers who knew how to make every tic count.

Now this is the sort of thing that should've been in the game a long, long time ago. Almost a L10 mission really...as soon as you can change roles, you get dumped into an instance that teaches you the basics.

Then when you hit L30 you get another that's slightly more difficult, and each teir after that. Could even be the same recycled content with more adds etc. Non skippable, non-unlockable - and required following a power re-spec that grants a different role.

Hell, take it a step further....make players run through the instances in each role so that they get an idea as to what the other roles are doing (or should be doing).

I always had low SP and did fine I guess in PvE. Real SP requirements become noticeable in PvP, especially now since GU36

*swats ChillCat across the nose with a rolled-up newspaper*

No! Bad ChillCat! Bad! No direct gating via content!

Don't mind me, I've had a rough day and I'm desperately trying to keep my sense of humor.

We already have indirect gating via content because you need to run certain content to get the Marks needed for vendor gear. That's enough of a gate. I just don't see a need for more and haven't read a compelling enough argument to change that opinion.

This thread has essentially turned into:

"If you want the CR requirements raised, you must be a good player. If you're against the idea, you must be a scrub."

There is very little discussion occurring anymore in regards to the OP from my perspective. Lots of insults being thrown by the OP that have no merit on the actual discussion.

I have not seen a good reason to raise the CR restrictions on all content. I can understand raising them a bit on the raids as 100 CR is a bit low for those, but people with common sense would not attempt those without at least full 90 gear for survivability, and preferably 92/93/94 gear for first-timers. The 4-man content does not really need a CR increase. It's not that difficult; it may be long and tedious with lower CR, but it is still passable.

I appreciate the thinking but it doesn't hold. If a player can stand the monotony, you can get sufficient marks to get better gear by playing lower tier content over and over again. By that method, there's no improvement in player skill or stats from feat achievements; either as a DPS or support role. That makes for a bad player wearing better gear which leads to a bad solo experience in the newer content and a bad team experience in the new group content. I would agree with you if the old system was in place using specialized marks at different tiers but that's no longer the case except for Marks of Fury and I bet they convert MoF to MoT by the beginning of next year following the trend with other marks. Implement gating solo challenges that are role specific and you add a new (fun) challenge dimension to the game while training players how to be better at their roles. You could even do something unique with the gating challenge rewards like bonus prestige to your league for every league member that passes, or Friday Night contests to see which healer can win their challenge the fastest or deal the most heals. There's all kinds of possibilities that open up with this approach.

I'm starting to regret bringing up the idea of a solo Survival Mode.

As you progress, the Mark payout for lower tier content gets low enough that, outside of the weekly reset for the reward boxes, it's not really worth it to run that content. Sure, if someone can brave the monotony they could do nothing but run tier 1 content and earn the necessary Marks for gear, but the rising costs in gear prices and the increase in Mark payout as you progress strongly encourages a player to keep to the tier they're on for the best payout. The system itself encourages the player to go for that better payout.

And that's the key part of it for me: encourages. It doesn't force you to do it. Honestly, if someone were to decide to go only to tier 1 content for their Marks and still managed decent progression, I'd say more power to them. That's their choice in how they play, and so long as they're willing to accept whatever consequences might come from that decision, it's no skin off my nose.

The only time we're given no choice in how we play our characters is in the first 10 levels or so, before the secondary role opens up. After that, we can choose. There's never been a mission that forces a player to play a certain role, nor should there be. Playing in either role is and should be up to the player. Gating progression behind a mission that forces you into a particular role is something I cannot agree with because it takes away that choice we've always had. It doesn't matter how long or short the mission might be or how quickly you could go back to playing whatever role you wish. It still takes away that choice.

A solo version of Survival Mode should work exactly like the group Survival Mode. It should be optional. It should not be tied to progression. It should not be used as a mandatory teaching tool for all your character's roles because learning all possible roles for your character has never been mandatory. Encouraged? Definitely. Required? Nope.

I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water on this one. It's a good idea that just need s some tweaking. My intent was never to force players into one role and take away the flexibility of game play. Everyone is a DPS by default and then a support role based on power type. Instead of one gating solo challenge (again not what I was going for but I see how it may have come out that way), you have multiple gating solo missions, one for each role type. The gating portion comes in when you have to pass at least one of them, whichever one you want in whatever role you want. The creative potential comes in with special rewards or drops based on the type of solo mission you select. Really, this might comes across as getting complicated but it's not. We're just talking about implementing a gating solo challenge to get to the new DLC content that as you say, encourages player improvement. Requiring a pass in only one (any one I choose) and making the rest optional means I could blow it away with my dps build and still go on to my new content as mainly a healer or tank or whatever. Then by making role-specific challenges available, that's where the encouragement comes in to make a better tank or better healer.

The unique drops would also address part of the problem with wasted loot that exists today. How often have you played a challenge and only got non-tradeable gear meant for another role type? Your only optional is to sell it, salvage it or trash it. If you have a gating solo challenge meant for trollers, devs would not only offer a venue for trollers to hone their skills but get troller-only loot.

Thumbs down. I beat all 3 new raids with my 100cr 47sp tank.... Oh while running with a 103cr solo healer from my league. Cr definitely shouldn't be raised if anything lowered so we get more of a challenge ; )