New player SP catch-up mechanics ?

Well, not to rehash a very long conversation, but yes....there is a major difference between selling 500 CC bounties feat for $5 and having to spend 56 days going around and beating 500 bounties...regardless of how easy or hard they are. The difference is time and an investment in building your character or accomplishing something over time. Likewise, there is a difference between organizing 'trade wins' with 16 people together to get 25 wins in Outback, HOD or WT and plopping down a Paypal sign on and buying the 'PVP feat' package for $10 through steam. Getting a group that can actually do '4 corners' is just about as hard with no clamp as clamped and other feats like 'pick one' in Lockdown or 'wait for it' are arguably harder unclamped as it requires the bosses live long enough to lock them down, something that you had to co-ordinate with the group if 1 OP guy can just nuke whoever shows first when it was still unclamped. Running unclamped won't allow you to get 'perfect grades' any more than today, but $1 for an a-la-carte feat purchase....done! That is NOT better.

The biggest advantages in running unclamped would come via the burn check, speed feats and checklists/RNG as you could spam the run that much faster. And the no death ones are questionable in something like the ToTDE Hades fight where the reflect can take out 1/2 the group if you burn through the stages too quick. How will unclamp help with any of the LnW feats...if anything it makes those tougher as every one of them requires some form of waiting...going SLOW.

The major differences between 'buying' and running unclamped? Co-ordination, teamwork, building a group, using LFG properly, knowing how feats and related mechanics work...even if its just to avoid blowing through them if OP. All things that pay off WAY more in endgame than dropping a few hundred $$ to buy your way there.

I don't care how easy EEG would be unclamped, getting 600 SP via unclamped runs is no where near as easy as pushing a 'buy now' button to buy the same SP. Sorry, but that's not even in the same ballpark....don't even act like it is.

I have no conflict on the subject. Selling feats directly is bad. Getting them 'easier' due to unclamp is fine. We can argue how easy is too easy, but in it's current iteration, it's still pretty easy and you seem to be ok with the situation....so for you there is a line somewhere....whatever side EEG unclamped is on, Selling should be on the same side of that line...you are the one in conflict on the subject, not me. Selling is for sure the easiest of all 3 options.

BTW....in 'the thread' I predicted the selling of feats would follow as gaining long, slow, 'hard' feats would become more and more unattainable as omni slowed down and people soon hit a critical mass of the SM that brings them to EEG. Sounds like if we (meaning the players) had our way, this would already be in place.

I said it a few times, but I suppose I can go back and find the exact post....heck it's only 235 pages to search.

Haha, I'm not sure I agree with your view that unclamped runs aren't as "easy" as clicking "buy now". Clicking Buy now is certainly quicker, but I think you're exaggerating the difficulty of unclamped runs.

I find it interesting actually that you'd on the one hand advocate for an unclamped system, because feats are too hard to get, while on the other hand condemning outright buying them. I guess Reinheld does have limits in terms of the ease of achievement too.. interesting

I see this thread has circled back towards the subject that shall not be named. SMH.

When a player in general sees their SP level, it has an effect on their character's self-worth if you will either consciously or subconsciously. A low SP number is kinda demoralizing while a high SP number gives you a level of confidence even if, in my opinion, the arts / augs are more important than SP.

Having a high SP is pushed in this game by the players, not necessarily by the Devs but I believe they have contributed to this way of thinking that unless you have at least 300 SP, you are not a "skilled player" worthy of being invited to pretty much anything. I blame the mystery around what exactly "stat-piercing" is and how it is both calculated and is applied towards our characters.

Characters don't have "self-worth", because they don't have a "self", they're not sentient beings. Flesh-and-blood humans have self-worth, but if it's based on arbitrary numbers in a video game, they have issues, which can't be addressed by game design.

High SP is fetishized by players, because it shows some approximation of how experienced the player is with the game, especially now, that it's not as easy to be carried through most of the game. That's why many leagues have a minimum SP requirement for joining - because a player with few hundred SP under their belt is not going to be asking "How do I get to Gotham?", or needing assistance with the basics of game-play. Artifacts are more important than SP combat-wise, but since you can just buy them outright (or grind them by swatting low-level mobs for a few months), it's not impossible that someone with more money than sense, (or a lot of free time) can look competent upon inspection, but have no idea about game-mechanics, or how to play their role.

Ok. Let's pretend that there were a button.....

Let's both make a new toon tonight. And buy no SP off our mains but instead 'earn' them. As there IS a clamp, let's just say that even getting in the run would register as completing the feat, since...as you seem to believe...in an unclamped run, ALL feats would require no co-ordination or knowledge of how to get a feat.....they just automatically pop regardless of the group...right? However, you can't use Omnis as...well Omnis wouldn't play into an unclamped system either. You also can't use your league...as most players aren't in a league as good or populated as yours. Also, checklists and counts you'll need to run a minimum amount of times to assume you did the full checklist/count. Have fun getting 666 demons as in an pre-clamped run you'd probably pick up about 20 per run when Faust insta-died as you just entered the room. 33 runs sounds fun.

So you do that. You get in EVERY piece of content in the game, multiple passes for some. I'll go to my wallet and simulate grabbing my CC and paying for my SP. First one done wins. I wonder which one will be easier to do?

Again, you are the one with conflicting views. You want things not to be trivial....well, paying for it is as trivial as it gets. You want people to 'play the content' and for the older content to see activity...well how much content would someone play who can buy their way past the reason MOST people go there....the feats. Oh, I'm sure 3 or 4 runs would get hit plenty. US, Necro, DD, FF. They'd see plenty of action. But your precious Omni? Doubtful.

And please tell me again, where did I say the feats themselves are 'hard', save the narrowest of subsets....like 'Steak Well done' or Elite 'no death' ones. Making the group is hard, co-ordinating the group is hard, explaining the feat a dozen times then running on repeat 100x to get a checklist is hard....all of it is time consuming too...now that I have said. All things AQS and unclamped would resolve BTW. DOING the feat? Nah, was easy unclamped, still easy clamped...with the right group. I've never said otherwise.

Let me know when you finish....I'll grab my wallet as soon as I log in, so I'll be done in a minute or 2. You know what? It's still before restart, Ok....so I'm done already.

Very well, then I shall rephrase it as a psychological effect on the gamer her/himself when seeing a low SP number versus a high SP number in how it affects their confidence in being able to complete content.

Also as you have pointed out, some players will judge other player’s competence based off of the SP level they have achieved, which is WRONG, as SP can be acquired from collecting styles and TC feats which have absolutely no bearing on a player’s ability to actually play the game.

EDIT: Player's confidence should come from the fact, that they've managed to accumulate certain number of SP, by playing the game competently. Not from just seeing a number.

Yes, but that's why elite leagues don't recruit players with 150, or even 300SP. They ask for 500+, because even if someone's able to get the 115SP from TCs and 100+ from a CR skip, they will still need to have played a lot of content before they get to a "respectable" number. Is it arbitrary? Sure. Is it "WRONG"? I don't know about that - players can choose whatever criteria they like for whom they regard as a good player. And considering, that you can't buy 500 SP - and even buying TCs is not exactly easy, because due to RNG you might need to open 1000s of them to get all the feats - it's probably the only metric this game has for quick assessment of player's experience.

That's a whole lot of words for "one requires at least a little bit of effort and determination, the other just a fat wallet" XD
It took me over 2 years to get max SP at the time unclamped (and no critical/e+ existed yet), and a heck of a lot of game experience vs. just buying them and never stepping foot into the content whatsoever (let alone going back later).

I don't step foot in old content already enough alone, but if people could buy the feats outright? Woof... Might have to add more wings to HoL for ppl to sit around doing nothing

Yes....it was a lot of typing....yet Proxy will still tell me I say the feats themselves are too hard and that unclamped and paying are the same level of difficulty. 235 pages...here we come!

And I'm sure in those 2 years, you never had to re-try a feat in unclamped...you know...cause they all just 'popped' when you walked in the door.

Forgot to mention, there's the 1st "atodaso" I mentioned XD

It was no walk in the park that's for damn sure...

It's all relative, though. For a morbidly obese agoraphobic suffering from hay fever, a walk in the park is "no walk in the park"...

Artifacts account for 55% of player power. The remaining is from the base powerkit, gear and skill points.

SP is the very least of new player worries, since artifacts are the real power house defining player power.

No....you just walked in and all the feats popped. No effort...no co-ordination or communication. No possibility of bad luck on RNG and multiple re-runs or rebuilding and doing the same communication/co-ordination repeatedly for long count feats. Nothing learned or earned. This is how we ALL know getting feats done pre clamp worked. This is why BUYING feats is exactly like getting them pre-clamp....just a little tiny bit...hardly noticeable... quicker.

To say you had to work on them 1 iota is just silly talk. Quit your filthy filthy lying!!

About me:
• I switched from a PS3 account to a PC account, and had to start over, after years of putting in the effort.
• I then left the game for five or six years and literaly just came back.
• I left off in the middle of what they're calling T4 now (T4 is now the end of T1?) It's literally taken me just a few days, solo, to go from there to top-tier content and also I'm almost caught up on seasonal feats, including the ones I hadn't done before. All with nary a replay badge to reset content.
• As of today, I'm at 232 SP and 349 CR, so those 350's should open up tonight.
• Just queuing with randoms, I haven't found any issues running content. When I hit that 350 mark, I'll probably run into some problems.

About the difficulty of catching up:
• Some of the more grind-y ones (99-bottles for instance) are going to be hard for catching up, but they don't make up the majority.
• Many can be "bought" by using replay badges to reset so even some of those grindy ones like the toyman missions have a way of skipping ahead, without actually having to do them daily.
• Many skill points are granted with a level skip. So, that also eats away at the edges of keeping feats worthwhile to chase.


About what makes it worthwhile to stay as-is:
• There are lots of different kinds of Feats. I feel like they fall in general categories that reflect what kind of player you are. Feats show playtime. They show how much you've grouped together with people and worked on things. They show the variety of cotent you've touched. They show how deep you've actually gotten into the game collecting things. They show that you can switch it up, being different roles, movement modes or powersets. And, for those things that only come from RNG capsules, it might just show haw savvy you can be on the broker and in trade.
• Sure there are some feats that are low hanging fruit. There are some that practically fall into your lap. It's a good taste for people to try to get more. Should everyone be able to get all of them and it just be a matter of course that they're all obtainable? No. Some feats are one star, and some are three. Not that they're always accurate representations.
• And the biggest one: feats are an alternative progression for your character. Crafting will take plans. Gear will take running things. Skill points take accomplishing things. Not everything is meant to be accomplished by all players at the current tier, for anyone of the means of progression.

Running into problems at the most current threshold should be expected with how fast I levelled relative to how much I actually put into playtime. But that is exactly what my last point was above. If I progress one of the things faster than the others, I'll have an unbalanced character, and I should work towards all three. In their infinite wisdom, they never added an SP or Modding threshold to any content. Yeah, you can run it. Maybe someone will carry you. Maybe your league will have some laughs wiping, and some nostalgia when y'all are big enough later. Maybe your team is good enough, knows the mechanics well enough, and works well enough together that you don't need stat boost.

All in all, I just have to disagree. Skill points should remain consecrated ground.

If you just came back, how are you about caught up on seasonals as many (or most) rely on non-tradable style items. Not saying you are fibbing...just saying unless 'just' includes near a year, it's very impressive.

As far as the 99 bottle duos...I got bad news for you. It goes to 250.


However, you can do walk ins and Gotham Hospital is almost as fast to solo walk-in as it is to queue and run duo...even if you are teamed up vs random queue.

oh, I forgot about that. I knew there was extreme hatred in my soul, and now I remember what bore it.

Running the seasonal on multiple characters to feed the one character. I don't do much of the outside unless it's to make up the difference for an item I'm on the verge of getting. Don't forget to run the vault, the item drops go a long way. If you get a base item you need, you might as well have just received six marks. I go for the big-mark non base items first because of that. So, all I have left are base items:

2014 except blooming oaken nightstand, blooming vine bed

2017 7 base items

2018 10 base items

2019 2 base items *keep getting swamp thing manholes in vault, so I haven't been buying any of this

2020 6 base items

2021 3 base items

Oh, and account-bound still can be given to yourself in the shared bank, just not mailed to yourself.

Oh dear, that's quite the set of conditions you've placed on one path to strawman your argument, well done; now for the facts.

The clamped system isn't just about stealing your progress, no matter how much people claim it. It's simply about creating a non trivial environment that doesn't allow people to undermine it, break the game and cause wider problems, It also allows players to be more rewarded for running older content with something of objective value, I don't really care whether you have a view on that value, it has a value regardless of your opinion.

Outside of trivializing content itself there is of course the trivializing of the feats, one being far more destructive than the other with respect to player experience. The biggest contention with clamped content is feat roadblock perceived by players as well as outliers and balance issues.

The frustration caused by content taking longer is more of an annoyance, the inability to obtain feats however is the progression road block players scream about.

This roadblock can be resolved through two methods, an optional removal of the clamp that returns the game to a 2015'sque state or allowing players to simply buy the feats for older content they no longer wish to interact with, at least for feats.

Both options will impact queue times in EEG and take away the focal point of clamp resentment, except one does it while damaging the quality of the content itself. One of these options will support the game financially, the other will not, I'm looking for a reasonable compromise that alleviates the clamp, while not damaging the quality of the games experience.

Allowing players to "Buy dated feats" takes all of the pressure off the clamped system, removing the animosity surrounding it, unless you're after feats quicker or after source marks you have less reason to be in there and less reason to then complain about it. This is a positive outcome for all players, certainly players who are upset more generally about the clamp and likely not playing it anyway, you've expressed this yourself.

This also frees up development resources because if feats are perceived as being too difficult for some, then yes you can just say "buy them then", I know you don't like that position, but it's a valid opposing position to your own nonetheless.

There will always be some players that pay for feats and some players that play the game, just the same as there are players that spam replay badges to be finished the content in a week and those that play every day for months.

The only real point worth real consideration is how old should it be before it becomes purchasable and the only reason to be opposed is because you actually do care what other people are spending their money on and you don't want to feel compelled to spend, those are the same reasons you're quite happy for membership to stay undesirable, because you don't want to spend on that either

I would respectfully suggest you have quite the issue with what people are spending money on in this game and the less compulsion you personally feel yourself to spend, the better. There's little reason to oppose the selling of feats outside of that compulsion and it's clearly articulated in your fear that in providing the option the developers will introduce an insistence that you spend, that's the real motivation for you opposing it because outside of that fear you have all other facts making it reasonable sense to introduce it.

They're already selling the feats in the CR boosts, this already has a precedent and the locomotive has already left the station, the truth is it isn't a really a question of "if they should attach" more carriages, but more "how many and how quickly".

edit: and to be honest the fact I'm looking for these solutions should indicate to you that I'm actually all about finding solutions that do their best to give players flexibility, make it easier on newer players to catch up, while doing the best to preserve the integrity of the game, while making as little if any attempts at all to gate keep others for any reason whatsoever.

Yes. I know all that. I guess I was just trying to establish what 'recently' meant as You'd have to have been around for at least a year to have done any of the summer seasonal items at this point. I get now that you are referring to 'all seasonal' as the spring seasonal....which is fine, just clarifies it a bit.

Keep up the good work though. Catch up on seasonals is never fun.

Well the conditions would pretty much be the conditions you'd face if you were trying to get the feats in unclamped....so yeah, there would be some conditions. That was the point to demonstrate they weren't as 'trivial' as you profess. The fact you take exception to the conditions proves the 2 scenarios are not near equal. What 'conditions' would a SP buyer face? That DI doesn't take Discover Card?

I'm not really debating the fact that neither would impact EEG, or that unclamping would 'trivialize' the content (you guys love that word don't you). I'm not even saying they SHOULD unclamp it. Just the fact that while you rail against one, the other is acceptable, when THAT one obviously would impact EEG more as it's the easiest of all paths....so would be the one MOST would look at first and leave us in a worse place in EG then we are today.

I honestly don't even care you think that way (although I find it ironic) it's more the fact you don't see how similar the 2 are for the overall EEG content. Yeah, leaving the clamp in AND selling feats would mean you and your endgame buddies could go into 10 year old content and still pretend like you are giving yourself a challenge and reliving the 'good ol days'...But the average player who wants to be at endgame and full SP....yeah, they'll probably never step foot in those runs after going on an SP spending spree. Or maybe 1 visit to grab briefs and investigations, then it would be an even bigger ghost town than pre-clamp. It WOULD keep the SM spamming alive in 4 or 5 select runs....so there's a 'win' for everyone.....right?

"A CC fixes all"....it's what this game has been built on since Time Capsules came out. Personally I say the game is worse for it....you apparently think it's better. I guess if that makes me 'have an issue' with what people are spending money on....so be it. I'd more consider it an issue with what the game is built around....but ToMAYto-ToMAHto. I've spent 1000's on the game (something, if you told me 12 years ago was possible, I'd have laughed in your face)....I've done my part, as I'm sure you have as well. I just know when enough is enough.

But I wasn't trying to turn this into another clamp/no clamp thread. Just pointing out the hypocrisy you accuse me of, is the same one you have. And, to be fair....you mentioned the clamp first....I said nothing about it till you did.