Is this a joke with the cost of vendor gear

Yes my friend! Welcome to the real world! Where there are people who do things the normal way, and oputras who simply buy what they want! This also calls it capitalism!
There is nothing wrong with this.
The wrong was before people did the same, but who wanted to play in a normal way could not get anything, because he had to depend on luck. That sometimes it never came, even after 3 or 4 dlcs ...

I am not even 100% sure how to respond to this. WHY do I care about it? Because more and more this game is turning into nothing but a huge money grab that is driving away players left and right. I'm like you. I don't spend a huge fortune on the market buying anything. I need Exobits .... I go farm them. I need gear.... I run missions and hope for drops or get enough marks to buy it. In other words I PLAY the damn game.

What we are seeing lately is more and more ways players can get around that whole "ORDEAL?" and simply buy whatever they want to accomplish. Lets see in the past few months we have seen

1. The first Time Capsules with two new types of gear ONLY accessible by opening TCs. And what was it 5 or 6 ten point feats for obtaining lantern emblems? (This occurring after it was announced that they Dev team is once again revamping the entire game and "stats will matter again") And please let's all just stop the BS about "oh no stabilizers are free". Yeah if you do like I do and que up and run the duo every single day and earn them. But you can just HOP over to the On Line Market and BUY a pile of them. open them until you have everything the time capsules have to offer and then sell anything extra on the broker. I have managed to acquire all the emblem feats .. care to know how much armor I have gotten opening 1 box every couple days? 1 shoulder piece.

2. The Halloween arrived with its usual couple of 10 point feat and suddenly for the first time ever the ability for a player to go to "the on line store" and buy Spooky Bites ... so any player that liked could just pull out credit card and on day one of the month long event have everything available without ever doing a mission

3. And now here we are with a brand new DLC with "Best Gear In Vendor" and a brand new Time Capsule and a pile of players running around already in the mid to high 180s because they can open time capsules and get gear without going near a single bit of content.

HOW many threads have we seen on these forums over the past 4,5, or 6 months(/) where players are moaning about the fact that there were way too many players in end game with CR in the 160s or 170s that had no clue how to play the game from being CARRIED through content and now we are giving those same players a way to get into the 180s without even having to take the time to actually que up and DO THE CONTENT? Its PAY TO WIN at its finest and eventually it will kill the game.

Now I have no issue spending money on this game. I have been a legendary since 1 week after I started here and decided I liked it and I think I was Free to Play for around 1 or 2 days before I bought a couple of extra character slots and became a Premium. I have 20+ ALT and most have at least 2 lairs (so I BOUGHT at least 1 DEED for each). All of them have at least 2 (or more) Armories simply because only have one means all you have is an extra piece of furniture. I have bought almost every style available from the on line store, bought furniture packs (including several to help decorate my League Hall) and I have no idea how many Replays I have purchased to BUY feats from those same alts. And yeah that means I BOUGHT SP but see here is the thing .. at some point at least ONE of my alts had to actually play the game and accomplish that feat or NONE of them could buy it. PLUS unlike some players out there I don't just buy hundreds of SP while I am still wandering around inside Brainiac's ship. I go out, run missions, and grab as many of those same feats for free since I am DOING the content anyway. But I will buy some holiday event feats since they are NOT available to earn anymore anyway and after getting my SEVENTH alt to 500 Rogues defeated and earning every single feat point associated with that.. any alt that winds up with 500 now will defeat 100 playing the game and then I'll spend 4 REPLAYS to grab the other 400.. since you get a whole 10 points for getting from 100 to 250 and another 25 by getting from 250 to 500.

I realize the game needs to make money to survive and unfortunately a lot of players have left. At this point I am the only player left in my league because of that. But going from selling new styles like the amazon hair styles, the DC Bombshell hair style and the Harley Quinn DC Bombshell outfit (al of which I OWN by the way) To selling ways for players to just avoid playing the game at all and still getting to wander around with CR 180+ beside their name is not the answer because it will just drive more players away until eventually there simply wil not be enough left to keep the game profitable and then POOF it will be gone.

Let's see I was at CR 171 on day one of the new DLC. I have opened exactly one Time Capsule and got.. 4 or 5 exobytes (I forget exactly) and a collectable towards an aura. So no new gear there.


In three days since I have run the 3 daily missions three times, I have run the solo challenge 3 times, I have run the new duo three times, I have run the new alert twice (ran out of time before bed one night before I got to it because I was trying to get on a God of Monsters raid) and last night I complete God of Monsters so I now have done both raids. So basically I have done just about everything possible to earn ancient coins and as day 4 begins I have 51.

Now thankfully the gear I got on day one from the reward boxes for completing all that content was not a fair indication of exactly what was available in them. I HAVE had some good gear drop the past two days but nothing better than CR 154.. Still that has allowed me to raise my total CR to 175 and my Troll role is CR 175 and the DPS role is at 174. The content does allow some one at that CR to be successful.. Although I did die a few times on GOM last night even with TWO healers on the team. Still the raid was a success and I was on a good team where we were all running and rezzing anyone that fell.

The thing is with 51 marks I checked the vendor and as I mention I had enough to buy a mask, a necklace, 1 ring ( remember back when if you had 40 MARKS you could buy two of those?) or a new utility belt or trinket. That's it.. not a single piece of the other higher rated gear was priced to where I could buy it. And before I could easily have bought a new pair of boot, gloves, a new belt or a back piece.. since the first three all only cost 45 marks and the back was only 40.

The process have almost doubled and unless we spend a ton of cash on replays once the raids are done for the week you get 1 each SOLO, DOU and ALERT along with the three dailies to earn coins. I forget where but some one on another thread did the math and without using replays it would take almost the entire three months to buy 1 full set of armor for ONE role. Forget being able to play both.

Now I see what you are saying IF I manage to get CR 165 drops in the reward boxes I can eventually get my CR up to the 180+ range.. But so far the best I have managed is CR 155 not 165. And basically that is going right back to the RNG system the new BEST GEAR IN VENDOR was supposed to help us escape.

I think the problem some here may have is they are assuming I am angry because people are CR 185 or 189 already and I am not. NO that is not the problem. I have never worried about have THE highest gear possible as long as I was able to play the game and progress. Frankly I USED to find it amusing when that crowd of players that DO want it all NOW would show up with each new DLC spend like crazy using Replays to run missions over and over and over till they had it all in a few days.. then a week later be on these same forums moaning about how bored they were with nothing new to do.. Which in part was the reason we wound up with that whole monthly content phase to begin with.

But now its not even a question of buying replays and doing the same raid 4 or 5 times a day. They can get into the 180s simply by opening Time Capsules. And it doesn't dawn on anyone at Daybreak that at some point people that can't afford to spend that much cash on a game, BUT have been playing for ages and spent a ton on money over time, will get ticked off seeing others BUY their way to HIGH CR doing absolutely nothing buy using their credit card? What's next? Feat Points for X number of Credit Card charges in a single week?

Lol at the feat points for credit card purchases, but yeah this is the new reality. Time or money or some combination. It's not what I'd prefer but I accept it. Plus that money is coming back to the game, which is good for the longevity of the game.

Maybe you're being sarcastic, but you won't EVER get a 165 item level to drop because the max is 164(only purple) and you won't get that scaling gear to be the max item level until you hit CR 184. DON'T be under the illusion that you will because you'll continue to get more and more frustrated. You will constantly be slowly climbing by 1 or maybe 2 cr. The days of replacing a 139 with a 153 are gone. It'll take some time to get used to. Use the CR CALCULATOR, and keep replacing your lowest gear, be careful replacing blues or purples as the nex green may actually turn out even or lower. Hold onto pieces and dont rush to pop them as soon as you get them, thats my best suggestion.

Yeah I know how the scaling works on the reward boxes but again.. it seems like the DEV team missed the whole point of people pretty much demanding Best gear in Vendor.

Okay I just logged off for a while since its almost dinner time and I am here killing time till I eat. I logged on to the game and did my three daily missions, my solo challenge and the duo. Now as of last night I have both Raids completed and can't run them again until THURSDAY after the reset. I have been done with the Defeat 410 Monsters and collect their essence for 2 days now so I can't do that again till Thursday (not even an option to replay for ANYONE). That means after I east and do a couple chores I have exactly one more thing to do that will earn me coins.. the alert. OH Yes if I want I can spend a pile of replays and redo the dailies, the solo, the duo and even the raids but I DO NOT DO THAT.. never have. Now at this moment I have exactly 56 coins and can earn about 5 more after dinner. So no huge purchases taking place at the vendor.

I got 2 reward boxes that dropped gear. and upped the Utility belt on my Troll from CR 153 to CR 155. I upped the belt on my DPS from CR ( you know I can't even recall right now LOL) but its now CR 153. My TROLL is still at CR 175 and my DPS is Cr 174.

Now here's the thing... As you mentioned the boxes will scale upward slowly... Which means, JUST like before we got this new DLC, we are in a position where we are constantly getting slightly better armor that needs to have exobytes recovered and new mods built to gain the bonuses for slotting right color in right spot. THAT was one of the HUGE issues with the way things were.. Players, like myself, were down to only sticking in an alpha or beta mod because no one wanted to constantly be either farming for exobits to build T7 or T8 mods 2 or 3 times a month as better gear FINALLY dropped. My MAIN has T7 mods in the TROLL armor and beta mods in the DPS.. and all the rest of my alts (which may never get played again with this new system) have betas in EVERY SLOT on both roles. Now with these slowly escalating reward boxes .. that could actually get worse. Who is to say tomorrow I wont get a pair of CR 155 gloves for my DPS? And a pair of 158 the next day.. See .. that is actually WORSE that before

I am very surprised that before this DLC came out I was on this game playing like crazy and for the first time in a log time in my DLC career I am just not very interested in DCUO anymore. It's not the cost of the gear or anything like that it's just not as engaging as I would like the content I mean, and I don't think the game will ever be what it once was.

I am giving the DEVS until the next DLC to make my final decision but I am a little concerned over the future of DCUO

Unless or until you or anybody else can prove that time capsules and the armor inside are driving people away from the game with anything more than anecdotal evidence, I am not going to bother to respond to arguments where that is the focal point.

You don't know that it's driving players away. In fact, outside of the forums, you don't know what the general opinion of the time capsules is at all. That's the problem with this argument. It's all based on guesswork and opinion and feels. For all you, or anybody else knows, the majority of the population likes them. It's a cash grab. All marketplace additions are cash grabs. This one just isn't for you. that's fine. But its not affecting your game at all to just not participate. Its not exclusionary. Its more choice, not less.
I just don't see the problem. We're not playing against each other in this game. We're playing with each other. Who cares how the guy next to you got to whatever CR they're at? How does that, and where is your tangible proof that it drives players away? And by proof, I mean data, not just some people rageposting on the forums or stories about how your league disappeared.

If CR is your primary concern, at the expense of waiting longer for the style feat...IF YOU WANT TO: AS SOON AS you have 65 ancient coins buy the Vendor face and a ring. Together those equal 12% of your CR which is equal to the contribution of weapon, chest, or legs (AT ROUGHLY HALF THE COST OF COINS). This should help get you closer to the magic number of CR 184, where everything will be at max level.

Well No I CANT prove its driving players away but I can 6tell you there are players on these forums that have been against the trend toward Pay 2 Win since all this started. Players that were totally against the first Time capsule having ANYTHING that awarded feat points inside and OH gee LOOK its the ONLY way to obtain those feat points. Players that had the exact same opinion when they started selling Spooky bites. And while not in this thread lately, players with the exact same opinion on the feat and armor available in the new capsules. And lets see what else.. oh how about the pile of players that left this game entirely when GU47 arrived? And we know that occurred from the number of players still around basically telling us entire league are gone over that issue.

There have been HOW many threads about the fact that we have players that have been carried through content and were at end level content and had no clue how to actually PLAY the game and now we are basically selling them better armor?

Then let's examine the crap that has been going on for some time now on LFG and even on the que. And we can start with the BS that began where players, MOSTLY ones that do nothing but DPS, decided they had no desire to CARRY a support player through a duo. There were a ton of thread about the subject and TRUST me I had players turn and walk out of duos on my Tank or Troll.

Then we started the whole I AM A VILLAIN I don't want to play with heroes (no offense guys there were heroes doing the same thing this is JUST an example)

Now add in the whole highly overblown ordeal we suddenly PC and PS were able to play together. And that got so damn stupid there were actually battles over calling an alert or raid REGULAR or NORMAL... If you are that stupid that you can't figure out both of those mean the same thing.. How do you even manage to remember how to turn on your computer of gaming system?

Then remember back when more than half the team leaders on the LFG were requiring CR so close to the highest available in game for their raids or alerts that 2/3rds of the player base probably didn't qualify. And I can still remember WAY back when that was actually FUNNY to me because the day before I saw that post in LFG for a particular Alert I had just gotten the speed feat for it with a PUG and none of us would have been high enough to make that jerk's team.

The VERY nature of this highly Toxic community is to put a ton of restrictions on who they are willing to have on THEIR teams and you DONT think a bunch of CR 180+ will eventually not want anything to do with anyone not that high? MY GOD there are league out there that only allow CR 150, CR 160 or whatever because heaven forbid they have to HELP anyone they just want a big pile of available team mates for the stuff THEY want to do.

This whole game has gotten to a point where speed is the ONLY thing anyone thinks about. It spawned the 5-1-1-1 and 6-1-1 trend because why bother with support when we can just BLAST our way through. I find it funny that suddenly because the content calls for it you suddenly have teams with 2 healers and scrambling to locate that second tank. I'd find it a lot funnier if I wasn't the LONE troll trying to keep all those idiots in power and last night actually had a healer screaming at me to DEBUFF. Yeah right I was going through soda and using my supply drop to TRY and maintain enough power to keep giving it to the team. I HAD tons left to use powers to debuff the boss. best part was I died 3 times on that raid and never once screamed at him.. MORE HEALS. Can I survive, MOST of the time, and function on a raid? heck yeah I have completed both of the new ones. As more and more CR 180s emerge will anyone give a crap that I have experience and know how to do what needs to be done on them Or will they all be looking for that CR 180+ troll who may be one of the ones out there with troll gear on but playing like he's still a DPS?

But you know what? I am tired of arguing since it seems like, at this point, I am the only voice of reason on this thread.. OR MAYBE the others have all quit the game and just are logging on here anymore Hmmmm I have an alert to go do so I am logging off here and onto the game. You all JUST keep thinking everything is fine and when they announce the game is shutting down for good you can cry in your beer. Take it from a City of Hero VET.. when the game stops making a profit POOF its gone

With the time capsules you buy your way to the highest cr. Whats's next? Buying styles or skill points?

Your right on the money.

I totally agree with you, I made a thread recently on how much pay-to-win is blantly in your face and the players are going to pay physically and mentally in the long run because of this. Like you stated earlier, everything is all about getting in and out of an instance as quickly as possible, its not even about the players anymore, its all about the #sign attached to them. I was in GOM today and some guy in my group told someone to **** because he was telling instructions for how to separate the adds and what order to burn them in. I don't even know why jerks like that play the games like this at all. This is the state of the game right now, its sad to see what it has become. Starting to feel like those korean mmo's I used to play, complete grindfest and marketplace items that only the wealthy can afford.

I don't think you are quite getting the point.... If all I was worried about was MAX CR I wouldn't have 20 ALTS.. !3 of those would not all be above CR 150 and I wouldn't have 4 between CR 168 and 175. Oh and my MAIN.. would have already been at CR 174 when this new DLC hit. I think I have made it pretty clear that I am not one of the super speed crowd that NEEDS to have everything 5 days after a new DLC goes live. Hell unlike a pile of players I don't even attempt content until I actually hit or get real close to the recommended CR for doing it.. Because I want to be able to contribute on a mission NOT be carried.

Oh and I have access to a couple different web sites that allow me to calculate what putting this piece of gear in THAT spot will do to my CR. Know what I use them for? Figuring how to use armor so BOTH roles remain close to each other so I can DPS on things like the solo challenge or the Duo and then TROLL or whatever(depending on the alt) on alerts and raids. Remember the Patrol Catastrophe Solo that handed out CR98 gear like it was candy? I had a ton of unattuned gear stored so I could slowly upgrade BOTH roles before I hit CR 117 and lost access to a pile of duos, alerts and raids. I was only activating things like rings and masks and necklaces so my CR DIDN'T move up too fast. SOUND LIKE I GIVE a crap about being the HIGHEST CR in game to you?

The issue here is PAY to WIN. As we get closer and closer to eventually seeing #STATSMATTER we are now on our second time capsule that has a number of feats ONLY available by getting the right drop on one. So the more a player opens (by spending REAL MONEY) the better the chance of grabbing those feats. We had the exact same thing over Halloween when spooky bites were on sale and a player could simply buy enough to grab every piece of furniture and the style without ever doing a single Halloween mission. Granted that was ONLT 2 ten point feats but hey it still meant they could be BOUGHT not earned. Oh and one of the most popular items over the holiday was the Teekl Totem which cost like 100 Spooky bits I ran the event every single day with between 5 to 7 alts and wound up with 3 of those. Other players just BOUGHT as many as they wanted with bites they got from the On line store. AND GEE The Winter Event is on test. There are now TWO penguin tokens available .. How much would you like to bet they SELL holiday CASH again all of December? Another couple holiday feats a player can simply BUY using a credit card.

Then there is the GEAR. First of all the prices are ridiculous especially since the ONLY content giving us coins we need to buy that vendor gear are from THIS DLC. The other T8 content only rewards marks which I am quickly beginning to wonder what the hell I am supposed to use them for? At this point my MAIN has every piece of armor at or above CR 150 on the TROLL side and only two pieces left of the DPS side that are at CR 146 and 148 respectively (and the two pieces are the chest and the legs.. Legs are already at CR 148 which is the exact same CR I can buy from a vendor and the chest is at 146. WOW a whole 2 CR increase if I waste 60 marks and then have to craft another MOD for the new chest piece).

And here is the big thing.. why bother BUYING those at all? Tomorrow I could have a reward box drop that gives me a CR 155 or a 153 chest so I buy a 148 today and replace it tomorrow?

My Quantum Troll is sitting at CR 177 and the DPS side is at Cr 175. I have no problem dealing with any of the content at those ratings and I PLAYED the game and earned those ratings. I didn't buy a huge pile of Time Capsules and throw on some armor I did nothing but flash my credit card to obtain. At some point its all going to result in there being no one left playing this game BUT the guys with the Credit Cards.. and at that point why even bother making new content. Just sell them brand new armor every couple months and they can stand around showing off the fact that "I'm CR 199" Of course by that time the game wil shut down completely and they will have to take the credit cards and find another game to NOT play

do people tend to forget there must always be resistance to obtaining gear?

*The devs*

i am glad i am not anywhere near endgame. screw this. i'm gonna enjoy open episodes for the next month and then grind feats till i get sick of this game again then come back in another year after all of you are CR250 so you can carry me through T8 and T9 barf

Just get the weapon & Jewelry the rest can be purple/ATC gear. Mod with 8s save marks for op collections.

This isn't the first time we have had raids, alerts, duos, and open world in one release that earned marks for vendor gear. It's only the pricing that is new. Plus when replays came out, people only spammed the raids, because that has the 2nd best gear and produced the most marks per run. Even though there were alerts and duos that could be done.

So, like I said, there is no reason for these prices to be that high. It punishes those that don't spam replays.

I'm fine with the price of armor. My only problem is when you can get armor just as powerful from drops. I'm not sure if its worth the time to buy a complete set of armor then. If anything completing a set of armor should payout more feat points than they do now or have some kind of armor set bonus like elite mods.