This is why people don't like the CR cap.

The skill point system gets totally revamped regularly. It's been reworked at least 4 or 5 times already. It's not a matter of "if" ... and it's overdue to be revamped again. Players have way too many SPs now and they have too much of an impact on gameplay; which in turn creates a divide between new players and vets. So, if we accept the premise that the clamp was done for accessibility to new players -- SPs will have to be reworked again very soon. I'd bet on this year.

I think it would be nice to see skill points reach a cap point where they maxed out as they relate to player stats. It's a useful way for players to have an attainable plateau to strive for. So, at (450?) SP players have spec'd into all the gameplay stats possible for your role, including some bonus health or whatever.

A second SP tier would open up before the 1st tier in maxed, but player would need to have it at half or more.

A second 'pick-choose' skill point tier could be created for large number of non-stat bonuses. The bonuses could be some new and some existing in augments and allies.
(?)SP gets +2% for rare drops
(?)SP +2% damage to bosses
(?)SP enables Hydra Slayer Bonus. (not stackable)
(?)SP reduces broker deposit by 2%
etc..

Why have our CR levels been dumbed down for the lower tier missions? I pay a yearly membership fee to play the game and have spent a lot of time and effort in trying to get my CR level up to 333 at this point, and I enjoy being able to go to the lower tier levels and beating it with ease that I didn't have before. Please fix this.

Neat ideas, but may need more refining. You’d have a broker armory when making deposits and you’d have the dps switching armories when the boss is at 1% health from their boss damage armory to their rare drop armory…

Meh, is that bad? The game is built on little exploits like that. If you have the SP, it's part of the perks.
I guess they could lock Tier 2 down so that armories' don't change them and then only use perks that don't affect combat.

Its because i do not believe they will.
If anything, the direction for SP is it needs to be MORE valuable to add incentive for people to run old content now that we are clamped.
Clamping us makes it more tedious, makes it more important to have a cohesive group and while this is all good things for the people who “need” to run the content, those of us who dont “need” to have almost no incentive to do it and SP just isint valuable enough either to make us “need” to do it.
Once u have around 350 ish u can max your role essentially and the rest are just icing. It may sound nice and look fancy but carries almost no impact. I can pump the same dps with 350 ish as i can with my 532. So im almost 200 above whats needed (darn near double). If they make SP more valuable and needed i will for sure go back an keep feat hunting but its just not worth the headache, plain n simple.
Bottom line is, the only reasons for anyone to go run clamped content is feats (SP) and source.
I can assure you, source dont make it worth it be ause theres MUCH faster ways to farm it then running all the various content and as previosuly explained, SP doesnt even begin to come close to make the potential headache and time worthwhile

Four Fist Attack @ CR cap....


I remember seeing users in early Gotham and Metropolis in 2011 mission areas, a Hero character would be ganking new characters trying to do missions on the PvP server, and thought.... really? That's how you spend time in a game? making the early content harder for a new user? I thought that'd be the time spent waiting on slow queue as a hero as Heros severely outnumbered villains, but maybe the user just spent hours griefing newbs until a villain with pvp gear stopped them.



I began with a hero character and my second character was a Villain. The Villain is my main.

Death and Glory server.

The day your cable company says that your services are being cut to ensure that new customers can get premium cable channels...

...is the day that you leave that cable company.

That's the end of that story.

"New customers can save up to $400 on their car insurance".... doesn't mean that current customers pay an extra $800 or that they'll get less coverage for the same non-discounted price. It's just a "sign on" bonus for new customers.

If they actually ****ed over their long-standing, loyal, customers as they try to entice new customers.... They would go out of business.

I wouldn't.

The primary issue with the current SP system isn't dysfunctionality - it's accessibility. It does do exactly what all the veterans and all the mid-range players from back when wanted it to do - it makes Skill Points Useful. Full stop. Like no one can in any seriousness say "Artifacts are all you need now", because we verified that it's not true. Some of use personally and directly. I still got the receipts.

The disconnect NOW is that people simply don't want to run Feats. They literally won't put even a sliver of effort forth, but expect the same results as a player who has spent literally 4,000 hours in content - which is, to be blunt, kinda ********. I know people wanna complain about "Well counter feats mean nothing" - well, they mean I beat Henshaw 25 times, solo. I beat Doomsday 50 times. Solo. I ran the content hundreds of times, and I learned the mechanics because of that.

I was There and I Did That Thing.

Now that Mechanics Rule The Earth again, it's becoming very, very apparent who did and did not do their homework. While the solution is not "Make the top end of the game off-puttingly difficult to approach", it's also, simultaneously, not "Invalidate the literal decade-long effort of your most dedicated players".

On the other side of that coin? All those Feats are now more accessible than they were before. Style being a huge source of those, and now literally 95% of them are for sale in the HoL for Source Marks which you can now grind infinitely, for starters. People who CAN kill the ManBat by themselves are actually doing it again because it's actually profitable again and (provided that you don't screw up my highlight reel) most of us are happy to help the "brand new to the content" player murder those things now.

I think we need to give things a chance to stabilize before prognosticating doom.

What's the problem? We get a whole 10 CR that's right a generous 10 CR ABOVE the not end game content + our precious skill points! This is our reward for the years of effort we put into our characters. Be grateful they didn't take that away too.

And thats precisely what happens at the end of promotional discounts for the vast majority of customers who care about their value of service. They don't like being charged more than new users, they see an offer for new users elsewhere and they leave. Recycling said pattern for the rest of their lives. It used to be different. Cable companies used to value long term customers. I was working there when it changed. When my department became just another sales department instead of a loyalty department. They lost too much money giving discounts to existing customers when word of mouth spread that they cared about their existing customer base. Its really that simple. They had a target profit %, the department, in spite of fulfilling their role perfectly, was harming that profit %

By definition, if they didn't hand out those discounts, they could apply a lesser discount to every single customer they had. Thus lowering costs for existing users. I'm sorry, you're wrong. Also its notable... I didn't use insurance companies. Why? Because they have extensive branding. That branding can overcome the cycle at times.

1) THEN YOU YOURSELF ADMIT THAT *****ING WITH LOYAL CUSTOMERS TO CATER TO NEW CUSTOMERS IS A BAD POLICY.

2) NOBODY AT DCUO IS LOOKING FOR "DISCOUNTS"... They just don't want all of their progress erased for the sake of other players who have none.

3 - a) Most people understand how sales offers work.... And most people don't mind them.
GIVING A DISCOUNT TO ENTICE NEW CUSTOMERS IS A GIVEN... AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T BLATANTLY TAKE SERVICE/VALUE AWAY FROM CURENT CUSTOMERS... No one really cares.

3-b) You've never been right about this.

4) ....What was it like working with Eric Idle?

1. No, because they immediately started profiting more overall after the decision was made to limit loyalty offers. There's a reason they made the decision, thus far indications from mepps is that the same thing is happening here. People are upset on the forum, but in game they have seen an uptick of subscriptions. I personally subbed and spent money on the wayne manor. So 60 bucks from me personally.

2. I'm not accusing you of looking for discounts. I'm asking if you'd rather new players get things you can buy for a discounted rate? It would be a different strategy to try to gain new subscribers. One not often used in MMO's (that largely do have clamped game content in the most successful games in the industry).

3. They don't mind them? Then why is it so many people leave the very second those offers expire? They see it as a poor value and that their account isn't valued enough and thus leave. The expirations of the discounts require either taking their service down, or losing the value of their service. Yet, cable companies profit more from this change than they did in the 2000-2009 time period where they first started fighting competition (fios, uverse, etc.) by offering loyalty discounts. Literally expiration of offers decreases the value and/or the service the existing customer has.

I can assure you people do care. Those that don't... have some sort of built in loyalty to the company (rare in these cases), or a distrust or dislike of the competition. Worst case scenario, there is no competition in the area...so they have no choice but to be charged the inflated normal rates.

I work for a marketing firm, our customers range from the Fortune 500 to the Fortune 100, and I can assure you they want customers who are brand loyal. They work very hard to establish brand loyalty.

I'm not talking about successful, brand developed companies. I'm talking about companies with limited customer bases that notice attrition is their biggest contention. When you are working for marketing for them....its very different than what I'm speaking of. After all, in the end, Customer Loyalty departments are direct to consumer marketing of last resort. There was a tipping point in the industry. Just like I believe there was one here, where their incoming customer base was drying up and they couldn't continue to retain existing customers as a business model. Most fortune 500/100 companies aren't in that scenario. They are, by definition, successful businesses for the most part with effective branding.

In the end, slow growth is long term attrition. They need the game to grow if they want to do anything more expansive in the future, aka hiring more people, developing a sequel. They need to see momentum for this stuff. Remember, I've said that I was against the stat clamp 7 years ago. I thought they could accomplish the same goal by separating CR relevant content from end game players when queing. Back when every time I logged in if I wasn't subscribed I was waiting 5-10 minutes to get in.

I see some momentum happening now in population. I hope it continues.

Absolutely. We also have to remember that Daybreak is now a part of EG7 which is a conglomerate of gaming companies, so they are not alone now. They have a wealth of talent to pull from within EG7.

So, with that being said, options down the road when the game gets traction long term are very possible. Including optional clamping with separation of ques and potential for more devs and potentially a sequel eventually. It's why I'm bullish on the game when I haven't been. I think that with the property they have now that they are making decisions that make sense going forward in a game that is 10 years old.

Um.... Does this really have to be explained to you?

Because.... People like free ****.
People who don't want to pay $12 a month for HBO.. will try it out for free (or $4) for 3 months.,,, and they move on.

That's kinda why you don't really rely on new customers as opposed to just offering good service and great programming as a business model.

No... They just understand that sales drives aren't permanent... but, necessary.
.... AND THEY DON'T NORMALLY HAVE ANY DETRIMENT TO THEIR OWN SERVICE... and if they did... THEN, they would be pissed.

Which seems like a more likely a response to you:

A) - "YOU'RE NOW OFFERING A FREE TOASTER FOR NEW SAVINGS ACCOUNTS??!!.. YOU OWE ME A TOASTER OR I'M CLOSING MY ACCOUNT THAT I'VE HAD FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS!!"

B) - "YOU'RE LOWERING MY CREDIT RATING ("cr"... get it?) AND DECREASING THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT I'VE ACCUMULATED IN INTEREST OVER YEARS... SO YOU CAN ACCOMMODATE NEW CUSTOMERS??!! I'M CLOSING MY ACCOUNT THAT I'VE HAD FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.. AND GIVING MY MONEY TO ANOTHER BANK!!"

1. Its not about free stuff, its about better value. Switching doesn't give you the same rate just with bonus stuff. Switching saves you 40% for two years. A significantly better value. It impacts overall costs of business to give these discounts, and it doesn't change their profit goals. Ergo, it impacts non-promoted rates negatively as it causes an inflationary pressure causing price increases to be more common than if no large sales existed.

2. Sales Drives are permanent in sectors where new user sales is more important that existing customer loyalty to the business. The two responses you give have absolutely nothing relevant to the discussion. Again, they are changing the way your gear works in old instances, they aren't taking your gear from you. They are increasing your payouts in old instances, they aren't taking the payouts from you. You're so emotionally attached to the gear working the same way it has since stat revamp (which had similar effects to how your gear worked, it nerfed a great majority of people out there to balance the game, that you are arguing things that have nothing to do with what just happened.

You still have the money/stuff you accumulated over the years. In your (bad) analogy...it would be like your bank was giving you a deal that directly harmed the interest of newer customers bank accounts, then had to fix it so that it would no longer harm the newer bank accounts because they didn't have the ability to create two separate banks to keep your account from harming their account. Its not a good analogy. It doesn't work. But working inside of it thats the best I can come up with.

In your analogy, another customer at the same bank praises the changes, saying that it has increased is ROI in the bank ten fold since the changes happened. See? It just doesn't work.
The reason I bring up cable companies is that people don't know many businesses that don't rely on branding. Because, they know the brand conscious businesses. The fortune 500 companies that can survive on brand loyalty because their brand attracts new customers without having to incentivize new customers to such a huge extent.

So, I restate my question. If under DCUO they gave customers a subscription for a 40% discount, plus gave wanted exclusive items exclusively for them. Free Artifacts, skip them to endgame with 200 SP to start off with without consuming easy early game feats so they can do the easy ones to catch up. If they did the sorts of things that brick and mortar businesses tend to do to deal with attrition related to a lack of brand loyalty existing in the business....would you have taken this better? I would never have come back in that scenario...because again, without the stat clamping I wouldn't have come back in any real capability.