Rip to BoP alert runs

This is what happens when you don't have a traditional character progression system and give out free CR skips. The free CR skips are harmful to both the player pool and the game's monetization because of the way the game is built on feats.

The current feat system needs to be revamped into a cosmetic system that rewards points for unlocking different rarities of style rewards only, and it's link to SP stats abolished. Change character progression back to a leveling system through XP items dropped off enemies (Nth metal system can be revamped into this new system and used as the starting point/expanded upon later). It's a more fair system for both new and experienced players. This system would also allow optional purchases of marketplace items that give you bonus XP drops (Nth Metal Detectors could be changed into these).

Character leveling, gear & stat progression, should all work together in harmony and simplicity by defeating enemies for XP/gear/gear mark currency. But what we have here instead in DCUO is that part of the character progression (SP stats) is gated off into a separate feat system and trying to catch up and gain SP requires excessive grinding and A LOT of those feats requires groups (who have moved on to newer content). IMO, it overcomplicates things too much and is harmful to and inflates the average player pool/skill gap. So you get all these people in newer content that don't know the game, don't have enough SP for content, don't have good enough artifacts for the content because they haven't been playing up until that point, etc. It's all an uphill battle that is not fun at all and I'd be willing to bet that it has and will cause loss in player retention.

I mean while that's a decent idea and all, it seems a tad late. Like I can imagine all the 600sp players being super stoked about that revamp

The best way to circumvent this "problem" that you have, is to form your own group and require anyone wanting to join to provide you with their CR, SP, and whatever mandatory requirements that you have. I would think that you'd know by now that by pugging, especially an episode right after a CR skip, you are going to get people who just used their CR skip, and you're probably not getting the cream of the crop. If you want top tier players, make a group or utilize your league.
Also BOP isn't difficult at all...IF you are paying attention to mechanics, and in the case that your pug group doesn't know, it's a wonderful opportunity to educate them.

I'd like to share an anecdote.

I was using my alt, a hard light Green Lantern toon. I had recently used a CR skip, and was working my way up. My artifacts weren't the best, I hadn't played hard light seriously in years, so I was using the same loadout from years ago. I spent some money to get my SP to a decent level for the CR of my toon.
Anyway, I was pugging and in the Metal Pt 2 Duo, Batscape. The person that I was with was chatting to me and was frustrated because I wasn't giving off much damage, and wasn't doing the best. The person was actually kind of rude. They didn't know that I was just getting my bearings with my lantern, and that I've been playing for 9 years, just mostly as an Ice Tank (with maxed artifacts and 480 skill points) and said literally, "You aren't very good at this."

BUT

After we finished the final boss, he told me not to leave. He told me that he has a hard light toon also, and wanted to give me his loadout. He spent the next HOUR or more going over his loadout, giving advice, and showing me some tips and tricks in the Doomsday Metropolis area that I didn't know. He even gave me 1 Mil.

Here I was, using an alt that just skipped, and was getting my bearings, and waiting for a double XP week to get my arts up, and someone...while gruff and not polite about it...not only gave me some criticism, but then HELPED me get better. I won't ever forget that, and I've done the same thing. He could have left it at telling me I suck, but instead he decided to take the time to teach me and help me get better.

We need more players like that.

Instead of b**ching about players not being good enough, take the time to help them get better. If you don't WANT to do that, which is fine, or you don't have the time, which is also fine, then complain less and spend more time making your own group instead of pugging.

BoP isn’t difficult at all you’re right, but when your group takes 5 minutes just to make it past 1 group of adds. It isn’t exactly a sign of good things to come. Now should I stop complaining and form a group? Sure but I shouldn’t have to avoid pugging old content simply because the devs allowed a new influx of super undergeared players who have no idea how to play the game into that same content. I would personally say Bop is medium if you’re at level but the difficulty drastically increases when your teammates don’t know the basic mechanics of the game.

Recently I've been helping someone... player with low SP but not using the skip and working the way up the CR ladder (more like being pulled by the gravitational field). The player is trying to do all of the story line stuff... go through each of the instances as it enters the journal without skipping a DLC. First we went through the differences in roles (Celestial... so healer vs DPS)... why you need at least 2 armories (different gear, different SP allocation, different artifacts and augments). Then we fixed the allocation for each role... then we worked on loadouts and how to do combos. It's got to be a slow, methodical thing given the choice of power set because if you don't have the combos under your fingertips as muscle memory, trying to clip will cause you more misfires with the combos. Yes, the particular person is going to be substandard performance-wise, but that will change in time with practice.

I left the game in 2016 and came back at the start of 2020,i had no artifacts because they were not a thing yet when i left and my cr was only 170 something and i only had 200 sp. There was a free skip to 255 i think and i had no clue how the game played because it was all AMs when i left so i had to completely relearn how to play. After a few event runs i quickly started to figure out how the game worked and after some tweaking of my loadouts ,inspecting other players to see what arts they used i got the hang of things. If someone wants to learn the game they will. We were all noobs at 1 time.

While I'll agree that is my stance on a lot of runs, that BOP alert last boss was a bugger even when we went in there the first few weeks of the DLC with fully formed and tested characters. It's not a mechanic to overcome or some playstyle to teach, it's a burn check to take out the turrets to get Supes free before you freeze/burn to death. I think the only way a group of 1-3 290 skips will get through it is if the 4th is a decent (meaning non skip...or skipper alt who had some money spent on them for the SP/Artis) healer.

Don't forget on 1st pass we all had the event to fall back on if the reg became a shoot-show, and the BOP content was the only source of current currency or gear. A 290 skip run will likely blow up a few times then people will leave and go spam LLL bounties or the Anti event runs to get gear. I don't queue VMF much anymore because many queue up groups were already having issues with Lex... and that was before the skips. LFG groups or none for that run... more so now.

Prior to the recent 290 CR skip, I'd had trouble finding any half decent pug to run VMF with. Always failed (you guessed it) on the final turrets. I tried to give advice like going for the central turrets 1st to avoid the worst of the breach effects, and trying to all attack the same turret, the usual stuff. But would they listen? No.

The only REAL issue I have with the skips is the fact people can queue in as a role they cannot decently do. Ran a FnB queue up the other night to get a guy (who yes...used a skip, but was DPSing) through his to-do list for BOP and what is normally a no-brainer easy raid was a poop fest because the 2...yes 2 'healers' couldn't heal worth a crap and couldn't stay upright. People who have never played the game and can suddenly get into end game content can't 100% be blamed as there is no real tutorial, instruction manual, whatever...for playing roles. Yes, we can try and instruct them, and for friends/league or noobs who want to learn that's great. For randoms who just signed in the first time yesterday, it's going to be rough for a while unless they stay dps. A low or squishy DPS is easy to carry...a low or squishy role is generally not, and it's hard to teach basic playstyle in a raid as it falls apart from people leaving. BTW...I'm not asking for MORE sp or MORE xp/cats so they can improve. I'd guess many new players could have 2x that given to them and still not know how to do the job.

I had a friend who was in a duo with a 290 skip(likely) troll who wasn't throwing POT....EVERY POWER throws POT...how do you even think that you could run a role and throw no powers through a piece of content?

They'd still have all their SP, just that the SP progression moving forward would be under a more traditional XP leveling system. It's fine, I wasn't expecting everyone to agree with my idea. Cheers.

Sorry, I couldn't resist do you know that all requests to increase everything in the CR Skip arise not because someone cares about the poor CR Skippers and the problems they allegedly create, but because we all want this increase for our native Alts?Do you know this, right?(this is a joke, just a joke

I'm all for it but I can think of a lottttt of players that would go pure nutty.

This is already the case...IF....you don't use a skip or power level your CR. So basically your post says 'don't allow for skips or power leveling' which is fine, but it wouldn't require changing anything other than the ability to do those things....maybe make a progression system where you HAD to run certain content before going to the next or HAD to reach a certain SP to progress. I doubt either would happen, but it would force users to linger vs blasting through stuff to endgame, even if they used a skip to get the CR stats.

And as both of these things are not only in the game, they appear to be encouraged (we got a 2nd 255 skip a few months ago...a mechanical vendor designed to help you power level...and 1/2 price gear weeks on leveling gear), I'd say you are fighting an uphill battle. Good luck.

Yeah, that's super annoying but let's face it, some people will always do it. That would be a great QoL update. But at the same time, I'm over in my other post talking about how some of us are doing 2 roles without even having to change much lol. So tutorial is probably the real issue

Haha its been RIP to all 3 of the relevant endgame raids and alerts. It is pretty much build a group now. Four of us blind qued all the raids last night and it was terrible. Not one of the random DPS had an artifact over 60 in any of the raids. No white mods, not a single episode augment equipped, and regular augments were a mess. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in this game

Actually I'd guess most requests to 'help the poor skippers', are to fill out the missing SP they themselves need. Most of the vet requests posted lean towards giving the PVP/LPVE feats, or 'Just give out the first few DLCs worth' which would cover the CC bounties and the 250 bottle duos. Once people got a taste of the fact the treasure box and most of the RnD feats came with a skip, the lightbulbs went off.

Personally I haven't used a skip on my main account since the 170 one, so they make no real difference to me. I only use them on farming accounts to get another potential farmer, and I don't really care about the SP on those. I really should use them to just get the XP/Cats/Seals...just don't have the time to go through that.

Joke or no...you're not really wrong.

These are majority CR skip alts. It isn't knowledge that is holding things back, it is the lack of resources given for such a high cr skip

This is part of the skip. They don't have the source marks to activate mainframe mods yet.

The bad in all this is it really does hurt the game long term. Most of the new players using the cr skip wont be here for long due to frustration and how intimidating getting everything done is going to seem. Long queues, bad attitudes from vets, grinding feats which look like they will take years to complete with little to no real progression tied to them, augments, artifacts,pvp gear vs pve gear, roles vs dps...

If only there were some way to get these players to understand the best way to go about things is to not queue up into t9 elite raids but to spend some time running lower tiered content, solo missions, duos, alerts etc, I don't know what the "sweet spot" for cr skippers would be. T6? T7?

I've sent an inordinate amount of time over the years helping players along but in the end if you want to learn how to play there are enough resources out there to easily learn the basics and then some on your own. I direct new players to the forums and I tell them to run some lower tiered stuff.

Its a shame. I think if four cr skippers were to decide to jump into Trigons Prison without a vet there to melt everything instantly they might actually have some fun.