When did this much grind become acceptable?

Finally someone agrees than playing 8 hours a day to progress isn't normal.

You may need tissues with some aloe on them.

Its going to be foreverrrrrrr until something new comes out. No one is forced to play or grind anything.

This new AF3 grind makes me feel tired by just thinking about it for a sec.
New vendor prices, the amount of Ancient Coins you can get from duo/alert - huge let down, it's like hitting the wall with your head, you don't feel any progression day by day, I think I'm loosing interest in this sick show. Sorry Devs but no, this isn't fun, it's a painful dose of routine.

I guess when I used to play 20 hours a day that wasn't normal too then

They are if they want to play whatever comes next, since the new system doesn't allow players to skip content. It's either play 8 hours a day to grind or forget this DLC and whatever comes next.

Never before I was so happy to have my credit card company accidently cancelling my subscription due to expired card. THANK YOU AMERICAN EXPRESS!

I've had a couple days like that too but rarely, now its almost a must to play a lot each day to progress in a timely manner.

Keep in mind that up until now the player base was used to momentary gratification instead of long-term. As soon as we started to do alerts and raids we already had a chance to get all the pieces in one run and now it's stretched out, we have to work through the low gear - greens and blues until we get to a decent CR to unlock the purple ones. Up until then greens were salvaged as soon as they were received and blues were temp holders for purples.

The prices are high, but I don't mind. We have been lead to believe that the content will be top content for more than 3 months, giving everyone time to get the best gear without having to rely on luck.

I'm so happy that luck is no longer an issue in my gearing progress. I can run any and all content to gear the gear I need/want (save the elite gear, I will need to run the elite raids).

I don't plan on burning myself out by replaying anything because I know I have time to get what I need. I'm loving this new episode so far.

No, not really. Even massive, Triple A titles like Arkham Knight have no longevity because of their linear, story-centric gameplay. Even if DCUO had story telling on par with anything in the Arkham series, it'd still have a small shelf life if there was nothing to do after the story has been told.

The fact that the grind is keeping the content alive for me is more a compliment to the developers for finally giving me a reason to play the game longer than I otherwise would. Doesn't speak anything of the quality of the content at all. Especially not because I actually think this episode is one of the better episodes they've produced in terms of quality.

This ^

Besides, if people complain about not having too much to grind, I have to repeat they've probably haven't even touched LPVE and that's another crazy grind. If they want players that spend on just mindless grinding that doesn't take any "SKILL" they should put the game exclusive to a psychiatric institution, AKA Arkham.

LPVE feats are not an acceptable alternative.

Tell that to the devs... I don't like it as an acceptable alternative either. Sane amounts of grinding that right there is what I ask. Grinding that it doesn't feel a forced task but good enough so I get a sense of accomplishment without it feeling like a 2nd work.

I meant it's not an acceptable alternative to the new gear grind. Your post suggested that they should get rid of the grind and if people who do want to grind something, then there's LPVE feats. This is not an acceptable replacement.

I think it would be cool if we were able to convert Marks of Victory into Ancient Coins, not 1:1 of course, but 5:1 or even 10:1.

Honestly people the grind is really not that bad the difficulty is what is bad and even then the environment and everything they have done is much better than what we had. Also this is the first update of this nature to the game I will not judge them heavily on this and I think we should give this new team a chance to get it right. I think the next dlc will be the determining factor.

Yet I don't think this will bring old players back

Its still the same company, Daybreak Games is SOE.
Just poor decisions in the direction of the game IMO.

If what you're saying is in fact true, then when my membership expires I probably won't renew either. After my accout ends I'll just uninstall. The primary reason being I just started back in September and I am only 159cr and I only have 124 sp. I have a long, long way to go. Too long in fact to be able to catch up. There's other things I do in my spare time for this to be taking up my time every day, all day. I am a big DC fan which is why I started it when I finally bpught myself a PS4. I used to play on pc about two years ago.

But if that's the case and you can't skip dlcs due to lack of help or whatever the reason then I guess that's the developers way of saying who they want playing their game or not. They should just come out and say who the game is meant to be played by. There are other games I could be spending my money on.

In almost every thread this week... I've noticed ALOT the very same screennames on this forum….

- Complaining about RNG
- Complaining about the New Marks
- Complaining about the MMO Grind
- Complaining about Time Capsules
- Complaining about the Loot Drops
- Complaining about the Side Missions
- Complaining about the Replay Badges
- Complaining about the Skill Points
- Complaining about the Advanced Mechanics
- Complaining about the Game Population
- Complaining about the DLC Difficulty
- Complaining about the Price of Vendor Gear
- Complaining about the Price of Membership Fees
- Complaining about Why They Think the Game is Dying

Seems nothing satisfies them.

They've been trying to do this since AF1. A few other times it's popped up, such as the first 3 monthly episodes. Each time they did it, players complained. This time they didn't back down and outright said they expect everyone to progress sequentially through the DLCs. Which means you have to buy each DLC going forward. This doesn't mean you have to run and get ALL the gear, as I'm sure there will be overlapping CR entries, but it does mean they get more money from premiums.