I love DCUO so can you remove the stat clamp already?

"I" don't have to play by any of those rules, I got all old content feats before the clamp was even released. "The past" catches up when players don't even want to bother anymore.

I'm seeing a lot of people not wanting to bother anymore, and it's only going to get worse.

Pretty sad that there's another thread going on at this very moment begging for help, and the person STILL doesn't have enough people willing to help out due to the clamp. I think they're at like 4-5 out of 8 at the moment?

*Let's go through the pro-clamp guide to "earning" feats, shall we?

Step 1. Use LFG to form your own group. Make sure we do this at peak hours, but not during a new DLC window or a full moon. I'm sure this never fails if you time it just right... right? Surely gathering 7 other players can't be that difficult... right?

Step 2. When Step 1 fails, join a league. Make sure you join an active one, though, and also that the people in the league remember how to do/cheese these 10+ year old feats. Good luck and this is a surefire way to get your feats.... right? Surely this won't possibly fail, right?

Step 3. When Step 2 fails, try other avenues available to you, like reaching out to the lovely folks on the forums. This will ensure you get the best of the best, top notch players. This will without a doubt get you your feats. And you'll sleep better knowing you earned them as intended.

Yeah, this has been a huge success... make sure we pat each other on the back, after we finally form that group next month, for that 10pt counter feat that needed "earned" the correct way.

*Rinse and repeat if necessary. Results may vary depending on Artifact rank and current skill points.

This has been and always will be the dumbest 'reason' for the clamp. You can be at end game in days...a week at best. You can get there with a CR skip and a few dozen runs of Funhouse, or go direct to the MP (if you know how to 'get' money) and buy a few sets of TCs and be there in hours. Where does it say that anyone NOW has to learn anything before getting to endgame. MOST players are endgame and we all know many still don't know what they are doing. Adding the clamp DOES increase the chances that someone might learn the mechanics of a specific run...if it were run on repeat (USR or the like) and if it's a run that needs most of the players to be alive at the end (DM or the like), and even then, they can go to the next run and be 100% clueless. Anyone that needs their mechanics spoon fed to them, as many of our players do, aren't automatically going to recognize that 'similar' mechanics exist most times. Don't believe it? Go run TSW and watch people NOT block the beam....or run LnW and watch them NOT block Carol's skull attack. 'Block' a big attack is a pretty basic mechanic...yet it seems to be one of the harder learned ones for many.

We are nearly 3 years into it now, and there are still clueless players in almost every Omni run, and I'd wager most of those are also already at endgame levels. So that's either 3 years of the clamp not doing this part of it's job, or our players are hopelessly beyond help....in either case, you can drop this off the list of the clamp's benefits once and for all...cause it's not.

The clamp's direct benefits? It makes players feel like they are participating more (debatable for those standing outside, the 8th place dps, the troll who doesn't throw power....etc...) and it gets us paid in old content. Side benefits are that in runs where a boss COULD glitch out...they no longer do, and runtimes are longer, which MAY result in more playtime for some...assuming the players didn't abandon the old content altogether. From the looks of things, I'd say that's maybe 50/50.

Gee, sounds like how it was prior to the clamp... Except worse and less incentive.

You are totally right, I don't get how others can't see/understand this perspective.

He doesn't have many....so probably not.

There was a step X (not sure where it would fall in the order for most....for me it was probably 2....but it was a 4th step in the mix) find or create up to 7 fillers to get into what you needed that no one else wanted to do...then solo, duo or whatever-o with what was left of 'real' players.

This is still possible with maybe 5, 6 or 7...depending on the feat....but probably not solo or duo anymore.

BUT I will tell you what. I'll guarantee I 'earned' my no death in ToTDE when being the only active player in the run, using a 2nd remote to pull some agro on Ares and adds while I dealt with the essence...way more than someone today will 'earn' it clamped if running in a good 8 man league run with the new essence mechanics. Likely they'd be standing outside the door if they were green enough so they didn't catch a KO and biff the feat for everyone.

'Earn' is relative....and many of the people who are at 800 today seem to forget how they 'earned' things up till aug 2021.

Go into RoE and watch how many people ignore "Get close to Faust to avoid Lazy Blast!" and how many cluster around players and pets marked by lightning during Black Alice's phase. Enough that apparently both of those one-shot attacks were nerfed to be survivable. Used to be, 4 or 5 people ignoring those was enough to cause a wipe, even on Event. Now, on Normal, not even all of those who ignore them go down. Look at how many players keep attacking DaBoom when he's blocking, in Abandoned Subway. Or Wonder Woman in Cursed Themyscira. Or Static in the Terrorium. Or Grail in Cursed God Sphere. Or...

I'm not arguing for or against the clamp, mind you. I can see and agree with many of the arguments on both sides.

In my PS3 days, I'm pretty sure my CR wasn't that far above the minimum to do T1 content. I ran Old Gotham Subway and the museum instance with Catwoman, and possibly the Toyman / Stryker's Island stuff. I only spent enough money to become a Premium player, so I didn't have access to whatever episode content was available at the time. So I never got to go around one-shotting the Paradox jerks on the overpass in Central City or Mac Tonite in the Ferris Aircraft duo, or any of that. Maybe if I had, I'd feel differently about the clamp.

As it is, I do get a taste of what it was like when I solo OW bounties in Metropolis and Gotham, and I admit, it can be cathartic. OTOH, I can also see why the devs didn't want players doing that, because some people would do that to the exclusion of playing newer content. Look at how many EG players hang out in starting areas, especially Little Bohemia (or WoW, where level-capped players hang around in starting areas), one-shotting everything and challenging noobs to duels. The thing is, games that have progression have to address power creep. There are right ways to do it, and there are one-size-fits-all bandaids. And yes, cutting off all progression past 15 levels over the episode's content, to ensure no one gets so strong they can break content, is a one-size-fits-all bandaid.

But, the clamp doesn't bother me. Post-clamp, I'm playing content I never got to experience without the clamp, so I never got used to it.
That said, if they took away the clamp tomorrow, would I complain? Only if it ruined my fun by making an instance uncompletable. If DB came onto the forums tomorrow and said "We're never ever ever removing the clamp," I'd shrug and go back to whatever I was doing.

I believe based on the past what 32 months since the clamp was introduced, that it is indeed here to stay. I still feel that the clamp in its current state is unfair and mocks player's progress. It truly is "one size fits all" kinda of solution. A variable lessening of the clamp from Tiers 4-6 be implemented, one that acknowledges player's progress. As it stands now, "progress" in only to access the next DLC, it doesn't really mean anything other than that. We have 3 unclamped DLCs at our disposal at any given time. End game players at CR 430 have it..., dare I say the "E" word... EASIER in the previous 2 DLCs. This has been one of the many arguments for the clamp ( we should play the EEG content the way the Devs originally intended for it to be played ), in addition to the more valid argument of power creep. Final Fantasy XIV solved the power creep problem by "squashing" all stats, both players & NPCs.

It has been said of a DLC that once it goes into EEG status it is easier than it was when it was first released. Those 2 unclamped DLCs we have access to as End Game content is far, far easier than they were when first released. I can tell a difference going into Khandaq and fighting in open world there & going into Metal Washington DC. I can quickly crush the NPCs in Khandaq, however, in Metal Washington DC, it more equivalent to fighting the NPCs in Cursed Gotham. I'm CR 429 so the content in Justice League Dark Cursed is technically easier for me now than when it was first released, the same way it will be when it goes to EEG status, but not as easy as being 2 full DLCs ahead like Sins of Black Adam is easy now.

TLDR: Let's hope for a variable clamp that acknowledges and respects all player's progression.

Okay devs, I give up. How about once a month for 1 week a month. Episode Spotlight Feats Frenzy catch up Nostalgia.
Where CR is not clamped. Players can breeze through the content to get fresh easily and to help new players catch up.
Or monthly event where all content are not cr clamped so players can go back and collect feats and gain skill points and also for new players without having to struggle with the stat clamp.
2 month event twice a year.

At least to turn off the CR clamp so that new players can gain skill points, it's just not gonna work for them with 200 skills and old content is abandoned. Without skill points, they can't get crits boost for their roles and especially for tanks.
Even trying to get treats on cr clamp and it did cause feats to be impossible.
Sure the content can be easily done with good groups and even so when que without a group.
But it's not often.
Cr clamped made skill points grinding take much longer to do. So it don't seem good to separate omnibus que from regular que.
Add daily, weekly and monthly quests
Daily: Complete Solo or Duos 3 times: 20 source marks.
Weekly: Complete Alerts 15 Times: 250 Source Marks.
Monthly: Complete Raids 50 Times: 500 Source Marks.
So that way it's casual. Play couple times a day.

Serious questions: How are defining "power creep" in DCUO, what would be an example of this, and what makes you think it ever was a "problem?"

Yeah, its about what I figured. A label designed to make people think there is a problem when there really isn't one.

So, tell me how the stat clamp is supposed to old content less "obsolete and irrelevant?" As someone who refuses to play clamped content, it couldn't be more obsolete and irrelevant to me.

"Power creep" is just an excuse being used after the fact to justify a garbage decision.

The word "older" makes content more "obsolete or irrelevant" than the words "progression, customization, and updates"....

For me, the main thing that irritates, or just really sticks to me, is that whenever I go into clamped content my numbers go down. I absolutely detest seeing what is usually over 100k damage do 1k at tier 1 content. To see my health go from almost 900k down to a mere 7k; to have everything that I worked (all that time and money) on for over 13 years be removed so off-handedly, I just can't stand it. It would have been so much better and acceptable if they had raised all the previous content to the level of the end tier content. At least then the challenge would remain and so would all my stats.

My first major league was full of great players and friends, when they did the power revision ( was it GU 47) and significantly reduced our toon abilities, most of that league left for other games. Not one of them liked the abruptness and their inability to do anything about such massive changes. Regardless of the reason why such a change was needed, the casual obliteration of one's efforts throughout many years is simply too much.

For me, the effects of the stat clamp is a very hard reminder of this game's impermanence. A reminder that when this game eventually ends then all that time, effort and money that we spent would be gone suddenly as if it were for nothing. I knew that coming in 13 years ago, I just did not realize the developers can do that very same thing with the stat-clamp while the game is still going and expect that I would act as normally as before.

The solution for me is very simple, which is to ignore those lower content. I usually just do the most recent where my stats are not greatly diminished. Or just completely ignore content that passes down.

This is the excuse pro clampers have used to justify the creation of the clamp in the first place. Additionally to force us to play the content as "it was originally intended". The pro clampers have stated that because each new DLC increases our stats ( as it should be by the way ) that creates a "power creep" that causes processing problems for the servers. I don't understand if my stats are ok for the current DLC why would they suddenly overwhelm the servers in lower EEG content?

Bear in mind I am not in favor of the clamp, far far from it. Do not count me among the pro clampers.

NEW DEVS.

PAY ATTENTION TO THIS.


THIS IS YOUR PLAYER(S) TELLING YOU THAT THEY NO LONGER LIKE TO PLAY YOUR GAME BECAUSE OF THE CLAMP.

Good to know.

But you lose me when you refer to it as "the more valid argument of power creep." It's not valid and its not even much of an argument.

It is the more valid argument the pro clampers use to justify the need for a clamp out of all of the other arguments they use to justify the creation of a regressive system that punishes us for our success of out leveling content. Nowhere did I say this argument swayed me.

This is from the website:

The DCUO Stats Revamp is a total revamp of all numbers in the game and a major update to gameplay balance, combat, and progression. The revamp polishes content and powersets now, and builds a strong foundation for new systems, powersets, and features in the future.Jul 24, 2017

And DC Universe Wiki:

The Stats Revamp was introduced with game update 73 and totally removed the CR differential stats equations introduced with game update 47.

After the introduction of Stats Revamp in 2017, that is when I saw a negative shift in the population of DCUO. Before that happened, there as a login queue I had to wait on, not very long mind you because I was a member and back then members got special treatment. After Stats Revamp happened, I never had to wait for the login queue to let me ever again to this day.

In my opinion Game Update 73 did more damage to DCUO than any other bone headed idea they have come up with. That is the time that me & my sister started playing Final Fantasy 14 as a replacement for DCUO, we were going to leave. But the powers that be revamped the Stats Revamp, so we stayed. A lot of our friends irl who played DCUO with us did not come back and did not give DCUO a second chance because they feared DCUO would do something like the Stats Revamp again, which they kinda did in 2021 with the Stat Clamp. If it were not for the last 3 DLCs being exempted from the Stat Clamp, I too would have been done with this game.

I'm not entirely sure since it's been a long time. For some reason, I have a bad taste associated with GU47. I believe in game update 47 dcuo did the first major powers overhaul, their first attempt to equalize all powers. It was also the first time where they sacrificed content production, meaning NO content (for 6 months?), while they overhauled the system.

As a surprise to all players, this was also the first time they addressed the growing power creep in the game. Before GU47, player damage had reached over 1 million in damage in single hits. Imagine a raid with 4 to 6 players dealing tens of millions of damage each on a boss raid.

As a result of GU 47, player abilities that dealt 1 million damage decreased from 1 million to around 75k to 100k. The decrease not only affected damage but also power and restoration numbers. Another unintended major consequence is that very early content that had been easy suddenly ended up just as challenging as the strongest content. The devs had to fix all of that as well.

This is the only link to player concerns at the time that I could find about GU 47.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...ame-update-47-known-issues-and-update.251511/

I know that people will think I'm nuts to bring into this discussion a game update that happened almost 10 years ago. But for me, it was the first time I experienced a game developer going into their game and creating such massive changes and in the same token cutting off their customers at the knees as a sacrifice to save the game.

No, it's not nuts at all! What you are bringing up shows the progression ( or digression ) to why we are at the state we find the game in now. It is all part of the history and very relevant to any discussions.