Just because you disagree, doesn't make the other evil.

Well, me and some of my friends have agreed on simply not going back to old instances, because they are not worth the time and effort and I've heard others say the same thing. It's not a priority to go back, so would that make them even more dead than they were before?

Before the stat clamp, raids such as ZOOe and PANe would take 5-6 minutes max. Now they can take around 20+ minutes with a pug group if you're lucky lol. A lot of new players have no idea how to do old raid mechanics, so that also takes time to explain and even then you can still end up wiping and wasting more time.

I don't think that they can be more dead than they were before. Before, they gave no rewards at all outside of feats. Hardly anyone was running them. A 20 minute raid is how its supposed to be! It was never meant to take 5-6 minutes for those raids. I'm not saying it won't cause inconvenience.

Couple days ago, I ran Throne of The Dead (Elite) with some pugs and it was pure hell. We spent an hour trying to beat the whole thing. Sure, people might have been at fault for simply not willing to listen, but my opinion is that we shouldn't struggle in old content.

Why do we gear up? Why do we have artifacts, allies, skill points and so on if we will get nerfed anyway? To me that should've been optional. If I wanted to struggle in a T2 instance, I'd simply take off my gear and artifacts then deliberately go waste my time, lol.

Why is it you are struggling? What does that mean? Scrap the whole thing, or maybe it needs to be slightly tweaked so that its slightly easier but you still have to complete the raid as intended. So many people are just saying this sort of thing and not giving feedback on specifics. Meaning that you aren't really contributing to making it better because you are biased against it. Artifacts and SP still make a large impact on performance in clamped raids.

And while it might not be a big deal to some, to others is time consuming and not fun. Not everyone has 5+ hours per day to play the game.

Some of my friends are quite busy in real life, so during business days all they can afford is 30 minutes online to do dailies and even then it could take longer than that, let alone go for an old raid and spend eternity in it.

I get that. That's why there has to be rewards to be able to get people to do them, and why source marks in endgame harmed the purpose of this altogether. In the end, after two months, people should want to try something different than the newest content...if they feel that current content is good enough and there is no clear incentive or push to go lower, they won't as you are describing. Which leaves the status quo largely unchanged. I don't have much time either, which means if instances are so empty I have to wait 20 minutes to get into one... I likely do nothing that day too. This game has a multitude of people with a multitude of different circumstances. Right now, what it doesn't have...are new players who stick around. Thats the goal of this update unless you believe they are just giving up on the game. Because if they don't change it, it won't exist for much longer.

Another bothersome thing is that for some players feats will be close to impossible to complete. Some of them rely on the fact that as we progress through the game, older content becomes easier therefore feats are more attainable.

And now that's sort of eliminated even though you still have time to complete a feat in an easier way as long as you're in the last 3 DLC's range by simply getting more geared up for it, but even then you shouldn't feel pressured to complete it before it gets stats clamped.

For example, a lot of players are currently going crazy over FGSe. They're trying to get the omega beam & no death feats done, because once the stats clamp reaches Wonderverse content, these feats will be quite hard to get.

They won't be impossible with good groups who know what they're doing, but I personally don't see this helping new players.

Once new users get to that content, they will be theoretically more prepared to take on said content. Because they stuck around, because they didn't get left in the first room of a raid to die over and over again by a bunch of OP people wanting to power run something. Because they felt engaged and part of the process throughout, some veteran helped them with mechanics, which led to them being invited to a league where they really start engaging. That's how it helps new players. In the end, not all feats are meant to be completed by everyone. The devs said that, not me.

I understand that the majority is quite happy with the changes and that's fine, but not everyone is okay with it. We weren't asked if we liked the idea and I don't remember seeing anyone suggest having stats clamp happen either.

How long have you been around? Most of the users who have asked for stats clamping and similar solutions to the obvious problem are gone. Entire leagues who centered around helping new players are completely gone and have been for 18 months or more. This has been a constant back and forth on this forum since about 8 years ago. This has been asked for, and protested against since almost the beginning of the game. Once it became clear that upper end T2 characters could completely destroy beginning t1 raids etc.

I understand why you are complaining. I just don't see the game existing with the status quo. I like the game. Like you, I don't have a whole lot of time for the game, but to me, unless you use your endgame characters, DCUO hasn't been a game in years. Its just blind button mashing trying to keep up with overleveled players who don't care about your experience.

But also, have no option to ignore the stat clamp to do so. Meaning, more people in que ready to take on lower level content without running roughshod over it. This is a sign that its doing what it is intended.

Because it will divide players into camps than having everyone playing under the same system, quite obviously...

The Devs are reaching out on their end of compromising, it's time for the players to do the same. The whole situation has gone super silly.

i know this wasnt directed at me but i do have a thought on the workable compromise. unclamp open worlds, I believe doing so would help populate the open worlds with those who may loathe clamp and of course those who still need to get some stuff done but may need some help. Instances would still remain clamped so hopefully with open world stuff maybe ya made a new running buddy.
since OW missions are all under a loot lock there wouldnt need to be any adjusting and preserve the balance in that aspect (clamped=unlimited rewards, unclamped=loot locks.) anyway just a thought towards compromises and i think its workable for all involved.

Every time a player goes into an instance that isn't a full group...it potentially increases game involvement and engagement from any newer players who might find themselves there. The problem is right now that there are precious few new people. DC Universe Online really need to get this balanced and advertise/find ways to attract people here quickly or the attrition this causes will just make the game fail quicker.

Players will always divide themselves into camps. Trying to force the issue will only make it worse.

I'd be open to this particular compromise. I still worry about the new players who go into the open world, wanting to get that bounty and some high level character one shots the bounty right in front of them. This used to happen in the first flash area all the time. I could never find the dang thing with my lower level characters, because they died 5 seconds after they spawned.

The problem is, it was clear the number of people willing to do things necessary to improve the new player experience were so little, that force is necessary through both carrot and stick to have people do that. Making it optional means that the larger camp (due to the other camp quite frankly leaving the game consistently for almost a decade) dominates the game meaning the exact same situation we had pre clamp exists. The only way forcing the issue makes things worse is enough people leave the game before the game becomes populated with newer players again. Which is why source marks got put back in newer content, because they felt the lack of engagement in endgame was portending a potential mass exodus which would also defeat the purpose of the update.

i totally get that i had those issues a few times as well but theres always gonna be those....*ahem* ICEholes that pull stuff like that because they dont care about others.

I look at all the content I’ll never be able to do now, and it breaks my heart. I sympathise a lot with your concerns, but I’ve had to give up so much, and all I get from other people in favour of clamping is cold rebukes. You can’t ask for empathy yet be selective with your own.

But you don't have to be a jerk to do that. Any high level player that hits a low level bounty is going to beat it without a clamp very very quickly.

I can empathize without sympathizing. I understand why you would be upset. I get why you would want to be able to do those things. I empathize with the fact that this in fact has you feeling like something you had the ability to do before and now don't. The big thing about empathy... is that you can be empathetic without changing your mind on the subject at hand.

Say my child were to start struggling with his classes. I'd empathize with his frustration with his grades, offer to help him bring them up and teach him things, but I wouldn't go out and tell his teacher to ease up on grading as long as the grading was done in a fair and equal way. Do you get what I mean?

I know darn well how things work in real life, that’s a big part of the reason why I enjoyed this game so much before the update.

I'd offer to help you, but I have no evidence that says I'm any better a player than you are. As I've said, those things you are looking at not accomplishing, there's a very good chance I never do either. I'm a decent, but unremarkable atomic tank with my main character. I'm a terrible DPS. I'm a mediocre water healer. Anything else I try to do at a high level I'm going to have to learn myself. Even after playing the game for probably 6 of the past 10 years.

well what i do or well did before clamp in the situations you are referring to as the high level player would be just hit a ranged weapon attack (im might so weapon attacks were not gonna 1hKO em) and let the lower levels get hits in before ending the bounty, they get credit i get credit so win win, all it takes is restraint

And this is why an adjustable queue would have been a better fix...and might still be a good fix on top of the clamp...you wouldn't HAVE to run with randoms who might be jerks, before or after the clamp, unless you wanted to. Omnibus is upping the random queue in factor, so the chances of running with someone who doesn't care about you having fun or working on feats, or learning the game (except in the few instances you will HAVE to learn a mechanic). The clamp is light enough that most raids could be done with 5-6 skilled people still (except where multiuser mechanics are required), so if you WERE Looking for a carry or feat, you don't need those 2 random fillers to complete the group. It would also help when custom queuing. I was on an alt who needed one of the weapon drops in Arit. Queued in custom with a group of 6 as someone also needed the 'waking the dead' feat in 1st boss...those 2 spots popped 5 or 6 times over about 10 min before we got in as people canceled out of omni (more than likely). Then we didn't get 1st boss feat because one of them was dropping bodies on the wrong side of the room. Better to have gone in short. I didn't get the right weapon drop anyway, but that's random...I can try again later.

And yeah, one shotting bounties if someone is around has always been a ducking icehole move. CC bounties in CC especially because of the random spawns and slow spawn rate. Others like Bizarro or Judge or whatever, are a bit more forgivable as they are pretty easy and almost immediately respawn...so even if you cut a group off (on purpose or accident), another one will be up in a min for them to knock out.

As far as some of the follow up musings on clamps and loot locks or no loot locks, IF (big IF) there were an option for no-clamp, it would have to be loot locked, otherwise the spamability would be insane. Source marks would need to fall out of those runs too, or yeah...why would anyone at endgame run a clamped run EXCEPT those few who are just looking for a fun challenge (I think you could find 8 to put a group together....maybe). The rest could stay in, but be locked at the old schedule.

This doesn't even really seem like it would be that hard to do. Basically double the raid list with a clamped instance and unclamped. On-Duty custom could be unclamped and Omni could be clamped, and the 2 never meet up. Further enhance it by adding AQS on the on-duty side for people looking to work on a feat to eliminate the random factor.

However, as pointed out by most, even the clamp defenders, this would likely end up removing MOST people from those clamped instances....so it's not going to happen. I'm sure the people running Omni will already drop off with source added back into endgame, but at least the people who don't mind the clamp or really want a challenge can still run it and find a group as many still want the abundance of marks.

Personally I've given up on an 'optional' system being implemented. Right now I'd just want the ability to queue in with the 7 I could put together and leave out the random pug IF I don't want them.

In the end, video gaming is also real life. It's competitive. Large numbers of people drawn together get toxic. Some things are hard, some things are not hard. Everyone has their own setbacks and limitations they are constantly trying to break themselves free of. I get it. I play Action RPG's the first time through on story or easy mode so that I can see the game (I truly enjoy the stories inside of games more than actually playing them sometimes) then I play a little harder to challenge myself. I have my own physical limitations that make me have a serious challenge in any game that requires "stick skills" and DPS'ing this game, particularly precision DPS requires them. And you never know how far you can push past your limitations until you do it. I'll never give up on the idea that I can get better, get more feats I didn't think I could get, be more valuable to a group than I thought I would be.

My favorite games are almost all turn based RPG's. Turn based RPG's are a dying style of game, truly. They are all incorporating action elements because the majority enjoy really putting in themselves into the combat. This limits how good I can be at these games and thus diminishes the amount of fun I could potentially have in them.

I'm not trying to be a jerk. Truly. I just want the game to be around in 3 years.

Shame you’re not EU, I could use those carries.

This is the whole problem with making it optional bolded above. Most people wouldn't run them anymore. Even with loot locks unless feats were also not allowed in unclamped runs, but then why would people even bother with unclamped runs unless they are using resets?

Agreed. If you remove everything like feats, marks and gear, why would anyone run it? Marks no....feats yes. People would still run the clamped to get marks or for 'fun' (in a few cases). So clamping would still be an option people would use....just less than they are today.