Stat Flattening: Preemptive measure?

Only thing that'll do is make less 100's in T5 raids and less 108+ in T6A raids, not the end of the world but it'll mean longer queues as marks were part of the incentive for that content, any other content and it's feats and styles and nothing changes there.

Needs to happen, not sure why they resist so much. Can be done from on duty menu, just add some options. start when group no full, join solo (and ffs add the gameplay options to join in progress and role optional in there, as it's convenient and where they should be).

Optional Stat Clamp (which Spytle "promised" us a while back) is the answer to the issue you present. Stat Flattening was/is the answer to the out of control stat increases and NPC damage dealing situation.

Using the Duty Tab is a norm of mine. I tend to to do early content quite often when I am not subscribed. The reason I went on this "crusade' to help eliminate the OP issue is partly because of my deep experience with it and my favor for old content over new content. I had purchased DLC long ago that has been trivialized do to changes that did not exist when I made my purchases. I am aware the developers have the right to change what they will in DCUO. This is why my post and articles are not combative and authoritative.

Side Note: I don't talk like this do to how it may be interpreted (pretentious being one interpretation) but I am very good at everything in DCUO but Tanking and R&D. This is with the issues of the PS3 (ex. latency). Having OP characters within the team I am on is beyond overkill (or it would be if you could see how fast everything would drop).

What really irks me is that people choose to OP when they do not "need" to. I choose to hold back most of the time (accept for very early campaign and Tier missions) with or without high gear. Why, because combat within DCUO is most helpful feature for me. That was messed up over a year ago and is just now improving.

Bottom Line: I should not need permission or approval from a random player to do a mission. All that should be needed is to queue up on the Duty Tab, enter the mission and complete the mission at a steady pace. Now, I have come to terms with the developers being so dependent on OP players to balance missions out in lower content. What is unacceptable is for current nonsensicalities (OP issue, pre GU 47) to reemerge down the road due to higher tiers available.

In other words: it may be fine now but it seems high gear can undo the improvements the developers have put into GU 47 (T7 and/or T8 perhaps).

Side Note: Why do I care so much? The answer to that question would be outside the scope of this forum. However, it at least has something to do with my main heroes name below: Eudaimonia.

Scarlet, overgeared players clearly don't need to faceroll content. They want to. Most of the time, it's because they have an objective (rent marks, styles, or base items), and they want it over as quickly as possible. They've done the content at level, and likely many times. They aren't interested in that experience anymore.

The only problem with having queuing for undersized groups is that players running at tier will have longer queue times. Actually, I expect the removal of mark rewards from lower tier content will already have that effect to a degree. We'll see.

Another point is that this game is four years old. I don't know the player mix, but I'm guessing the majority of active players are closer to end game than the first 30 levels. That's the nature of it. Sure, some level alts, but those players are usually looking to get those toons to end game quickly, anyway. The drive is in the new content.

For me, its academic. If there are OP players within my team I normally opt out. So in a sense, I am already experiencing long queue times. In other words: the "Long Queue Time" argument is illusionary if you normally want to only team up with non OP players.

Side Note: I am also taking into consideration cross play and the Xbox One community when I speak about this. So, long queue times are for now, not conditional (since there is a plan to overcome this limitation) due to these enhancements Daybreak supposedly has planned for DCUO.

Which means DCUO is not intrinsically "welcoming" (so to speak) to newcomers. Hopefully, Daybreak has something to alleviate this due to the predicted (my prediction) influx of new players from the Xbox One community.

Not with WM and or AM's, it's actually quite easy to steam roll through content in t2 gear js. I mean frankly the fact that LaW can be and was 4 manned within the first week proves that there is an issue with things. However if you don't spec into WM/AM then yes the content would require some effort.

They dont. However the marks change should change people's choice on doing lower level content outside of feat hunting.

Indeed for both. I hope crossplay for all platforms is still going forwards and will happen sooner or later as I think this would resolve a lot of the queue times/dead zone issue that sections of the game has.

"Optional Stat Clamp" yes this.

To help everyone ease their minds just remember these 3 words that the Devs here at fine SOE aka Daybreak say quite often "Working as Intended".

Not sure how cross play will eventually play out. As far as I know, the XBox deal isn't even confirmed, and if and when it is, there is evidence to suggest there would be a separate XBox server anyway. I'm not an XBox guy, but many have said they don't allow cross play on any of their titles currently. If so, this would be precedent-setting. We'll see.

Only for content where the differential between the NPC CR and your CR is close together. If the difference is greater then either NPC will be more challenging or you will be more OP depending on who has the greater CR.

Aren't players that are "OP" supposed to be "squishier" (as they say) then they are now when GU 47 is completely live.

No. As your player equipped CR becomes higher than the NPC's CR, the NPC does less and less DPS and mitigates less and less Damage.

They have flattened the stats out though so this is more gradual over time. A player won't go from being able to beat the content in a full group to solo'ing as quickly.

A simple solution could be to add some options to the on duty menu. Let's say someone wants to run a low tier alert or raid for feats or styles, there could be an option to bypass the queue and go directly into the instance solo or with whoever is in the premade group. There could be another option if someone wants to enjoy the content and get marks and full rewards for it but this option would effectively lower the person's stats to what it should have been for that particular instance.

Let's say someone wants to queue and get marks and full rewards and simply enjoy a certain alert or raid again, by selecting this option the simple solution would be to modify the player's stats accordingly and by accordingly I mean if this is a T2 raid then the person's stats would reflect stats of having t2 gear on. I know we could just keep older gear but eventually our bank would be full of nothing but lower tier gear wasting away space.

If someone wants to run through instances without needing to queue and isn't concerned about the marks then the option should be there as well. It should be simple enough to implement if the devs ever decided to consider such a thing. It could be a menu on the on duty menu similar to how we choose our role.

I'm like you Scarlet in that I don't like having players in my groups that are extremely overgeared. I will drop now if a guy who can solo content joins my group and starts face rolling the content. I enjoy the challenge of an at level or even slightly undergeared group.

Having said all that I don't believe this update is really aimed at solving the issue of overgeared players in early tiered groups. The change to the mark system may help us a bit but we will suffer the consequences of longer que times. This isn't really an easily solved problem without a much larger player base imo.

I wish everyone were as enthusiastic about optional stat clamping as I am but most people here aren't looking for a challenge. They simply want to feel empowered.

Doesn't mean that we like or agree with their intent, if we understand it at all... (This is of course only applies to things that are "working as intended.")

Very true. The majority of the population want to pew pew. They don't want challenge. We all saw the backlash from the first incarnation of GU 47. Talk about killing the game. I truly believe that would have done it.