Ridiculous crafting system.

If you ran UM back when it launched and kept getting rings and not the shoulders you would have gone ape crazy. They modified how loot drops to improve it and to ensure you can get elite gear month 1 and 2 with the same CR. Also, no impact to CR is why they were left out of the table. If they did impact CR I believe these items would be in the loot table.

The system in play since Episode 18 is better than what we had from episode 15-17. I rather see a system similar to what we had with WotL II and HoP II than anything we have now.

Vendor Gear and Raid gear share the same CR.

Raid gear should get the affinity bonus (1 and 2)

Elite Gear should apply affinity bonus (3 and 4)

If the devs did this, I would be cool with it.

Now to make content fun and interesting for elite, you get a plan to create raid gear that uses both raid and vendor gear, meaning if you want the elite chest you have to have both chest pieces.

Elite plan only drops on last boss..

There is so many ways for the devs to make crafting worth wild and bring value back to the vendor gear.

The thing that is stopping all this from happening is RB sales, as long as the majority of the population supports RB for best gear in content, than we will not see a change to the gear system.

I'm trying to lighten things up, you missed my point though...I'm still talking about socks here...LOL...

I don't want Zod's used socks, even if it is OP. I want my socks new from a vendor.

I agree

The 3 month cycle was fine. The people that complained about being bored were bored because they spammed replay badges. If they wouldn't spam, it would take them longer to gear up. Best gear being put in raids along with spamming made it even faster for them to gear up. The 3 month cycle allowed for the spammers and non -spammers to be at topped out cr by the time the next content dropped. It also allowed time for those that had multiple alts to get them to max cr too.

Not to mention the devs have a track record of sending out bugged dlc after dlc when it was a three month cycle. Why make it harder on them with having them do one month cycles?

The crafting system is a waste of time. That elusive drop can be acquired for style from the style vendor. By the time you have the material, purchase the gear plan, and purchase the fuse material plan, you will already by at the end of the cycle.

I was referring to Mepps making the assertion that crafted rare gear is essentially the same as putting it in the vendor. He has a point. But it's definitely not "best gear in vendor". OP gear doesn't constitute an entire set so I didn't include it, but I can see why some people would, especially with the next piece allegedly being a chest.

As I said you really don't seem to understand your players lets look at a few of your systems. . .

Replay badges
These complete invalidate any possible "meaningful progression" in the game as there are only two possible states in loot drops. One they are balanced around the assumption people will buy these and replay content over and over or two they are balanced around people who don't buy these and play each piece of content as it unlocks. Either way the drops have to be balanced so you can aquire a full set of gear in the gears useable lifespan 3 months. That is for content with normal/elite styles you have to be able to achieve all 8 pieces of gear (4 normal, 4 elite) in 3 months no more because after that point your chasing the next style.

If the drops are balanced around replay badges there is no possible way for the majority player base to complete the set because of the sheer diffreence between playing a theoretically infinitie number of times (not going to actually work out how many times you could replay a raid when resettting over a 3 month period) vs playing it 6 times on normal and 6 times on elite with normal one week and elite the next. If you play the elite raid 6 times and the loot drops are balanced around someone playing 300+ you'll almost certainly never see anything. Alternatively if its balanced around someone playing 6/6 or 12 (for the raid without an elite version) then those who are replaying WILL have a full set of elite/normal gear day 1 from simple chance.

Now when the alternative is save up marks and buy 4th best gear in the vendor (vendor, raid, elite, OP) or save up marks and buy plans, components, matter enhancers and THEN need to grind for scraps where the average is 2 but the construction costs assume thousands (first you need to fuse those scraps and then you need to gather hundreds of fused scraps) the progression gets even more thrown off. With player A resetting and getting full elite PLUS dozens of marks day 1 while you SPEND dozens of marks and spend weeks or even months grinding scraps to make what an item that is still a step down (I'll ignore OP items here) because it doesn't activate the elite mods so if you want to use those you still need to run the content for the elite gear. Which brings us to.

Scraps vs items
The scraps you do get are not a reward from running the content that you can use as an alternative means of progression they are in fact a choice to SACRIFICE something else. A piece of content can drop several things one the gear in question, two a base item, three a mark, four a matter enhancer and so on. Now lets say you get a choice between a piece of blue gear or a sunstone crystal plate that you also want. If you pick the plate for do not get the blue gear which means you can't salvage the blue gear to get the scraps you need to create the puple gear your actually after. If you pick the blue gear for salvage you can't pick the base item you want. This is the same with any other potential drop if you want the extra mark you don't get the scraps, if you want the plan you don't get the scraps, if you want the scraps you don't get the matter enhancer.

I don't think your 6-8 weeks farming scraps for a piece of gear actually works in this scenario because that is assuming you are salvaging all your drops AND getting good RNG from them. Neither of which is the case. Now this is fairly close to the normal player you choose salvage vs other items they choose drop vs other items however the issue here is that every single time a player makes that other choice they don't get scraps and thus push the time to gather/craft further towards the end of the relevancy for what they could craft. This leads us to.

RNG rewards
An occasional special rng reward is a carrot people chase when everything is RNG all the time you tend to get bell curves with people in the middle and outliers. This means you have some people who nearly always get things on the lower end and others who get things on the higher end. Since scraps are balanced around at least the median for crafting and possibly the higher end with good rng drops from the scrap boxes you will have people who are essentially always getting poor drops again pushing back how long it takes them to craft gear. This is demotivating and aggravating especially since it doesn't take a lot of bad drops to turn someone off the system entirely. Lets say for arguments sake every 11th rng box is generally good in the 50+ range of drops. If someone gets that 50 on their first few boxes they'll keep using it. If they open 8 boxes (meaning 8 bosses beaten or at least two and a bit runs of content with those scraps and 8 times choosing gear for salvaging not use at a potential cost of base items they want, plans they need, etc) and every single time got 2 they are likely to walk away and not bother with the salvaging system because its costing them things they want while not getting them what they need it for.

Mandatory crafting
At 6-8 weeks for a piece of gear that means your looking at on average 1.5 to 2 MONTHS of constant salvaging to get one piece of gear's worth of scraps. There are at least 3 items that are mandatory crafting rings and mask which means your spending the whole cycle salvaging just for those three items which are generally not worth using in the first place. This means if you aren't getting the shoulders or the weapon or the feat because of bad RNG luck you are not crafting a piece of gear you need. Either the feat or the rings or the mask. If you have 3 mandatory crafted pieces of gear you need salvaging value to be enough to make those PLUS what you might be missing.

Alts and dual roles
A lot of players run dual roles damage/heal, damage/tank, tank/heal/troll alts. If it take 6-8 weeks to gather the scraps for one piece of gear how are you expected to gather enough scraps to make two copies of each item a potential 6 times not counting alts made for other power sets, themes?

I have to go to work but I hope these initial comments can help show you just why so many people are not happy with the crafting system as is. Especially since it is neither BEST GEAR nor IN VENDOR. I can't get 40 marks and buy an elite chest from the vendor, I can't salvage X scraps and MAKE an elite chest and even the normal version I can make takes too long and has too much potential to cost me other things I do want to be worth using in its current state.

My only 2 cents is all the features such as this is dependant on people buying replays. What about the people who can't afford 15 a month, and are only premium...or those who can't blow money on replays all the time. Those people may only get enough scraps to make 1 item in a month. Not very efficient and a quite useless method for those without the ability to buy replays.

DB apparently have screwed poor people over in this regard. And as a paying member, For me to get a complete set of raid gear, it does take a crap load more times to run the raid than 4 times (1 per week) to get all the gear. Try focusing on those of us to really don't have alot of money to blow on replays.

Remember, the premium players are loyal to the game despite all the lags, poor customer service, etc... Why make poor people suffer when they do play your game?

Mepps stated that drop gear is to last 3 month. Well that would be all fine and dandy if every player who ran the instance day 1 got all the gear, otherwise the gear never last 3 months.

1. Common gear will have higher CR and stats in 3 months meaning if you are unlucky and get that rare piece from PBR say next week, you did not get 3 months with it, it was 2 weeks.
2. Luck is how we are suppose to feel awarded in this game. I like feeling awarded by my efforts and being able to buy stuff. Not, ohhh this is pretty guys, I just got the 146 weapon box..hehehehehe....what did you get.."Nothing but green gear..." The later is what happens to most players in content, yeah that felt rewarding...
3. Game population - if you have been lucky or spammed RB you only really have 1 relevant piece of content and SM right now to run.

The current system from my point of view is a cash grab to those who want that carrot of best gear day one and it is not worth spending $10-20 on a game item that is gone in 3 months. I rather spend $10-20 on something real and something that will hold value more than 3 months. Socks for instance will last longer than 3 months for me. With $20 I can buy a nice T or a cheap pair of jeans, both would last longer than 3 months.

The point I'm making is that for $20 if it is not something that will last, why are players so naive in spending money on a game like this. Seriously, stop supporting RB and let's push for a better way for DBG to earn revenue. I rather spend money on BB for unique rare auras, I rather spend my money on styles, such as the emblems, cowls, capes, ring colors, etc...

There are many ways the devs could expand their MP, but instead they focus on the quick buck and by the looks of things and seeing my dwindling friend list in game, their plan of getting us to buy more RB is failing. Time to fix it and improve DCUO. This is my opinion though, DBG knows exactly how things are for them, and if they are losing money from player unsubbing, maybe it is time to change up the loot system and create more MP items that we as consumers want to put into this game.

It wasn't supposed to be just for the rings and face.

Regardless, AGAIN, we have a feature no one asked for that's been awful since BEFORE it went live.

There was plenty of feedback stating that this would be ill recieved. Here we are months gone by and nothing's been changed.

I get things take time. I really do. Things that CAN take a day to resolve often take weeks. I see it in my line of work all the time.

What I do not like seeing here, is any sort of defense of this system. That shows me two things. A huge disconnect with the public, and less of a chance for change.

+1

The crafting system in the game is not cohesive with the monthly model at all. The gear should be the best for the effort involved.

Edit:
Also make the crafted gear icons a silver color so people can inspect you and get their oogles on

Fixed that for you.

Marks can be earned. And no crafted piece should EVER cost more than its vendor equivalent. In any way materials and plans included period.

I am okay with the crafting system. We only *need* (subjective) to craft 2 rings and 1 face.

My only question is ... why ? What is the actual point ? Why not have the Rings and Face also drop in content ? I just don't understand the reasoning.

Solution: Make. It. Cost. Less.

Not to mention you have to choose gear every single time during loot choices. Even we you see cool base items, plans, extra mark,focus element. You have to choose the gear to make enough scraps to make a piece. Just for one single role. Well get this most people use 2 roles and you can't get enough for 2 pieces unless you try hard and reset constantly and pick gear every single time and only play one character.

Really? If you take random out of it you can't set a cost more in line with getting a baseline amount but you were able to accurately put costs on rng scraps. That makes no sense! It should be easier to get the cost from a known value (2 scraps/salvage) vs some random amount (2-300+ scraps/salvage).

Ah, I never thought about the amount of pieces. Ty for the response.