so now we see...

This would be a reasonable concept if the whole progression system was tightened up. Similar to feat unlocking, you have to at least achieve the feat once to unlock it. Asking you to participate in an "epic grind" with the ability to give your older gear to alts would be reasonable. It's only going to your alts, after all and not people who don't deserve to be at your level.

I love this idea, as well as returning vendor gear as the top gear to get. Also, in regard to the issue with player's not having every DLC, that's SOE's (formerly) fault. You never should have been able to skip DLCs (Last Laugh aside) and should have had them structured in a linear manner that encouraged sales of every single one, which also would have updated design elements within those DLCs to offer more quality in areas they were otherwise allowed to slack in.

I would have been just fine with an elite raid if it wasn't the only place to get the best gear. People wanted a challenge and they gave us survival mode and it seemed to get a lot positive feedback. They should have made this elite raid similar have drop marks, maybe some unique styles and base item, almost make it drop the OP item for this DLC.

while I agree that there are too many players that don't want to work hard to get to end-game content, unfortunately, that is what this new generation of gamers is all about. they just want to get to the end and reward as fast as they can. and if they can't do it fast, they lose interest. and if they lose interest, the studio loses money.

Replay badges are all and good (and I have use a lot of them during my stay in DCUO since it went F2P and then I subscribed), but I don't think most would use them if you are a new player just trying out the game for the first time.

But I like that this kind of discussion is in here. hopefully everything will be constructive so that we can arrive at a good happy medium.

To add to this, maybe have the elite raids drop the old OP items also with updated stats?

I'd have no issue with that at all.

The one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other thing.

To make my point: Do you honestly think, people would NOT abuse that glitch if they could buy the highest gear in the game? After all, for that they need MoF & Symbols. Which they get from TOTD.

It would be the same.

Some people would glitch if all they got from it was finishing the instance 90 seconds earlier.

Again, if those players want it fast, they are free to spend their money replaying content. That is their intended purpose. To help people catch up. It's almost like the developers are scared to use replay badges for their intended purpose by making everything quick and easy that isn't in the current tier.

The subscription option is extremely attractive at the minute. Especially since they included marketplace Legends unlockable with in game currency. Forcing every player to run the complete grind at least once would benefit them in both the sales of replay badges for the impatient and for everyone (but mainly the slow burners) by making everything take longer, thus maintaining a longer subscription.

I disagree that many people would give up on the game just because they're asked to wait a little longer to gain replay badges. Many successful F2P games use this strategy. Candy Crush, one of if not thee biggest F2P games gives you 5 lives a session and you're out unless you want to continue by paying.

It definitely won't be for everyone, but it also means the loudmouth, obnoxious, useless, power hopping, trend followers are more likely to give up because there's actually effort required to advance. Bottom line, you'd get a much higher quality of player in the end game once the system has been implemented for a few DLCs.

And how hard is Candy Crush? Games like those are addictive because they give you instant gratification with little to no effort at all. And you can opt not to play it any time, and just get back into it whenever.

How I would like to have a reward system that will make it addictive to play the game and not have to make it feel like work. I have a full time job that already makes sure that I feel like that

Raid drops should be the best gear.

I liked the gear being slightly better but the same CR

You had to want the gear to go get it, it was less incentive to cheat, and if you cheated there was less of an advantage going forward.

Realistically, this community has proven they will glitch and exploit every single piece of content to the point of breaking the game to get a piece of digital candy.

Which isin't as bad as the audacity to blame developers and testers to justify their lying, cheating, scamming ways.

Not to mention these are the same people who ***** and moan about how long new content, powers, updates take never mind all the man hours it take to find, fix, patch, and test exploits

I despise that statement. If you think running content is "work" in the same sense of "I have a full time job" work then why do you even play DCUO? The two are nothing alike.

and okay, let's use a different example.

When I first started playing WOW in 2009, Wrath of the Lich King was the newest expansion pack. It introduced the Deathknights I believe. Prior to that, the Burning Crusade expansion pack came out.

Now no matter how much I wanted to play and fight against the guy being plugged heavily in the game, I knew I was a long way off. It didn't make me want to play WOW less or quit the game at all. In fact it motivated me to play more. That expanded time in WOW made me enjoy the game more.

I was comfortably in spending money on a subscription as well as purchasing both expansion packs. Because I had become emotionally invested in the product and respected it's integrity. It felt like a genuine accomplishment making it to Level 80 at the time and I never did it because of personal reasons.

But no, I completely disagree that asking people to grind for longer will kill their interest in the game. Perhaps in T4, where the grind is very painful and limited in variance (which I actually addressed earlier today in this thread). If anything it'll make them fall in love with the game and be happier to throw money at it because they actually have an objective to do. You're more likely to subscribe to a game you love as well as throw money at it. I know this first hand, too.

While I agree to most of your statement here (as this was my experience too), I like to think of it on a broader sense. Sometimes I do find myself that I need to take breaks in the game just so that I can get a fresh perspective and not get lost in the game too much. I like to play the game a lot during the weekends where I don't have anything to do, but I should not be forced to play just to keep up with end-game content (because let's face it, the community just likes to play end-game content).

There is a certain grind that some people can take and it varies. This is a superhero game after all. But sometimes, the game doesn't let me feel super.

This sounds to me a lot like what happened with Dox. People glitched the heck out of that raid, replayed it over and over and got that Traces gear... Then wouldn't allow people into their groups who didn't have that gear. So if you wanted to learn the raid and get the gear legit, you were pretty much out of luck.

It astounds me they made that same mistake again. No wonder the company got sold.

In this case, you would benefit more from a system like the one described because more players would be at much more varied states in their progression.

T5 is quite quiet because most people are playing T6. Your only real option if you don't want to struggle to find a group is to power through T5 and arrive at T6 ASAP. With a proper system, skipping isn't an option. Which means the community will be distributed more evenly as players progression will be at different states. Meaning older, non-current tiers such as T5 and soon T6 will still have a range of players running the content, grinding the gear and trying to progress to the end of the end game. Allowing you to take those long breaks and not come back to content which is effectively abandoned because everyone has moved on to the next tier or whatever.

i think vendor gear should be the best gear and i think we need WAY LESS SETS OF ARMOR PER TIER. mod, then, mod, mod, some more,done good time to mod, new set of gear redo it all again. yes i am pretty set, what the new dlc comes out in a couple weeks? time to farm cause its about time to mod. its starting to get a bit much

I think there's grind and then there's grind, and many people have trouble distinguishing between the two (not directly referring to you by the way). Many people seem to think that the grind has to be a boring repetitive task that makes the game feel like a chore, something you don't enjoy. I think that a successful game has ways of making the grind fun or distracting you from the tedium. I remember in Ultima Online, training my fishing skill. Looking back it was exceptionally grindy (hit a button, pick a target, wait for the fish). But they set it up so that you would occasionally fish up sea serpents which would happen often enough to break up the monotony. Those sea serpents would occasionally hold treasure maps or messages in a bottle (I believe there were other things as well, but its been a while), so there was an incentive to keep going. Finally there was a guaranteed gain system, so that you weren't just at the mercy of a RNG, you would eventually have to get skill gains. There were things like this for Mining and some of the other more boring skills to train as well which really did make it a lot more fun.

Sorry for the mini rant Long story short, I agree with you that a grind is good (if nothing else the effort justification principle kicks in and people are less likely to leave), I just think that it should also be palatable and, dare I suggest, fun.

khandaq, one of the batcaves, fos3, gates, prime, prime again, nexus, nexus again, nexus still glitchable after second fix, dox, dox, again, and then there was dox again. AnB i forgot. all glitched terribly. two times the communnity flarred up. DOX and now. the only difference between glitching and no uproar vs glitching and now uproar is the two raids with the best gear. raids can be tested for a year on pc and still have issues due to ps3.

i almost forgot. as a glitch hater my buddies dont even mention them to me and i still am aware of all of those. i am sure there were plenty more. last news flash. DCUO THROUGH ITS ENTIRE EXISTANCE HAS HAD LOOT TABLE ISSUES. simply put the loot table garuntes some people simply wont be able to obtain certain items ever unless they get moved some where.

I agree with you, too.

I find a lot of people powering through to the end of the end game with very little skill points, which is a good indicator, but more importantly very little actual skill.

It's because there is no wall that prevents lazy players from getting to the end game. The grind has to be slightly off putting but only to the extent that lazy players can't be bothered to do it so they won't. The result is a cleaner, better community where it matters, in the current end game, with people who want to be there and have worked hard to get there.

With that being said, I also agree that it shouldn't be boring. I don't think it'd be boring because it's not as though they're asking you to do a boring task such as the monotonous repetition of something like fishing or mining or farming exobits. All that's being asked is that you play the game.

I think the most troubling area of the game will be T4 as it's extremely lacking in content, despite being up for 14 months and having 4 DLCs released during it's lifespan. I think if they went back and filled in the patches on some of the old DLCs, they'd be able to successfully create an enjoyable grind to the end of the end game, that would filter out the trash and help monetise the game better by encouraging people to use replay badges to speed up their grind.

I still like the best drops in raid. And I hope devs don't change it, just fix the glitch. If ur mad cause ur sick of trying then o well. Ppl who are most consistent should be rewarded.

Love your idea !