Why not direct DCUO towards a fixed "CR"?

The stats clip is not unanimously supported by players, so in this case, instead of reducing us down, while at the same time, we progress upwards with each DLC and finally, progress upwards just for the current DLC, why not do as many other MMORPGs do, set the level of progression of the game to a fixed level (CR)?

This would allow players who have taken a long break from the game to come back to the game more easily, without needing to catch up to the extent that it is possibly demotivating for them. Because here's the thing, we're going up in CR with each DLC, but how far are we going to go like this? CR 10,000? after a while it will become meaningless.

Additional suggestion:

We're starting to get a lot of DLC increases, why don't we just get it over with and merge the increase system as is? We could always think of taking the idea of DLC bonuses against the various bosses encountered in the DLC and apply those bonuses to the normal DLC gear? So being equipped with 2 pieces of equipment would get bonus 1, 2 pieces of equipment would get bonus 2 etc etc, so either 1 piece of equipment = 1 bonus to win or every 2 pieces of equipment would unlock the next bonus,

At the time the game brought in a lot more players and held a bit more of the same.


And maybe this will make it easier for new developers to add new powers to games and probably have less of a development hurdle.

It would make a lot more sense, I think, than earning new stuff only to end up being restricted to 90% of the game content...

Might as well, at this point why not?

Hmm...

I think it would be easier to just stop giving out the CR skips. It is so easy to level up in this game; much easier than even a couple of years ago. CR skips promote a false sense of end-game readiness, in my opinion; they do not give out a lot of skill points. What is the point of having CR skips when lower level content is still near-empty and playing them is necessary to complete feats that help raise skill points?

The problem with having a static end-game level like Champions Online does (level 40) is that the devs would have to change how gear progression/enemy levels work. For example, Champions Online has enemies that are above level 40 (40+2) and so on. Since the end game character level is static, you have to raise the level of your gear by "crafting" enhancements and/or mods to match the more difficult enemies, as they don't drop much, if at all, in the game. We got away from a lot of that crafting grind years ago; do we really want to go back to that?

Another example is City of Heroes:Homecoming. The static end game level is 50. However, like Champions Online, enemies and missions can go above that (50+6 for example). So, COH has enhancements and mods for a character's powers that help the player achieve that "above level 50" status needed for those instances; they can be farmed, but the best power enhancements need to be crafted. COH's gear is actually called "styles", because the gear for that game has no stats.

I am not sure if the devs want to change the game that drastically just to keep the end game level static.

Adding new powers is a big undertaking; static end game levels or not. Remember, new powers have to be approved by WB/Discovery AND the devs must carve out enough time and resources to make them. IF we were to get a new power, we would not see it until 2024-2025, as the dev schedule planning is far ahead into the future. Both of the aforementioned games do not release new powers often. IF and WHEN they do, it is usually a re-hash of what is already there.

As a player of many MMOs, can you give examples of the games and how this is put into practice because again, as a player of many MMOs, I dont see this system used at all. World of Warcraft is the most recent (kinda) I remember that did what they call a "Level Squish". They're max level at the time was 120 and with the Xpac they readjusted their entire previous Content lowering Levels and starting everyone out at LVL 50 and then the newest Xpac they had to level to 60 to get to endgame. DCUO did a similar restructure with the Content by combining Tier's into certain CR. The onyl thing they didnt do was squish the CRs so in your example, CR 10,000 could indeed happen as we approach the 400s and there might be plans to indeed squish the CR.

Now for your idea, you're gonna need to provide the game and how they implement it for myself and possibly others to understand exactly your vision cause right now, this just sounds like a "I hate Stats Clamp and I want to start a new thread to talk about it" and if thats the case, this would be suited better as starting Page 80 in the other thread.

Also developing content and developing powers is done by different teams. Same way asking the Art Dept to build a dungeon, thats not how any of that works. And im confused by the restricted to 90% of content. What are you referring to? As the whole game is wide open to players IF they reach the Certain CR to run that content. Thats where the sense of Progression is located, in the CR. Now if youre over it and play older content, yes youre squished but no need to repeat statements regarding that as again, there's almost an 80 page thread talking about.

Players can already gear up to the latest dlc in one week if they want to, starting from the tutorial. The CR number doesn't really matter, we used to complain in the past the CR would go up to 200-300 and here we are without issues. It'll take us 2 decades to get to 1000

Considering the current trend of 2 DLCs per year, this turns out to be 30 CR per year, which is more than 300 years, if nothing changes in terms of the vector that the developers have chosen, it’s good if the DCUO lasts 5 years ... so 150 ...

The problem is they sell those, i dont see this happening for that reason.

But CR means nothing now, it's all about Arts / Augs / SP, and now these Allies. With the new linear micro-progression model that has been adopted for 90% of the game, why bother increasing the CR anymore for End Game? Let me just keep my Elite & OP gear as is and just use the new DLCs for style changes and / or continue to introduce new Artifacts.

There are 80+ pages on another thread that makes it blatantly and abundantly that CR doesn't matter anymore and the focus is now on these other obtuse means of progression that will only affect EEG content in a minimal way so as NOT to break the instance or over power the players.

I went thru Doomed Washington DC with all purple gear until Dark Knights (Death Metal) came out, and I had no real issues. On the advice of Reinhardt, I went back and bought all of the Gold level gear for the feat. This DLC, I went all out and got my Elite & OP gear along with my Gold Level gear because being the strongest I can possibly be is MY enjoyment in DCUO or FF XIV.

So yeah, I have no prob just locking CR down to CR380 and being done with it. I'm tired of it all anyway. The constant gear chase, the arguing, all of it, I'm tired of it all.

tbh i think the same why do we our cr up if its only for the current dlc usefull they can say ok u can only feats and styles in new dlcs thats it totally useless to starrt (new) in all dlcs with your cr

and btw i wouldnt have to switch from one (better) gear to another each time idk about you guys but evertime do an new gear pieice and save it its just an waste of time.....and for the once who try to say u dont have to save each piece ..i do bcs i do 2 roles so if i switch role my gear would reset..

The CR-skip does give a leg up on augments, both in terms of the direct boosters and that the worth of the regular boosting exobyte is tied into the CR of the gear used to salvage it, though the effect is diminished somewhat with how fast it is to level CR naturally now - one thing I will say to both the clamp's credit and making the episodes free to play was that it made all the instances and a lot of missions give gear rewards up to a far higher CR level and instances became more likely to pop. The CR 120-200 range in the old days was a nightmare if you weren't in a very active league, knowing that even if you had an episode in the mid-game half the other players didn't and the other half had no inclination to queue for them.

The main responsibility of CR is to gatekeep episodes. Meeting the minimum CR of an episode means that your stats are in the ball park for that episode. Without that mechanism, you would see a situation far worse than what CR skips cause. However, if DI were to release new episodes without raising the minimum CR requirement each time, I highly doubt anyone would complain about that. Especially if the episodes are fun, challenging and unique.

I believe the merits of the clamp are irrelevant to this discussion as CR is a fixed point per each tier of EEG content with stat piercing being the only differentiating factor. As such, our vertical CR "progression" is really nullified. The Devs are only increasing CR for subsequent new DLCs as Legasei has reasoned is to gatekeep the episodes. Why even bother programming new content with CR progression? The new linear progression of Arts / Augs / SP and Allies is where it is at now. CR could be frozen in place as it is now and I doubt anyone would know the difference. Getting stronger via CR increase is irrelevant now, and only truly matters to EG Elite content.

Otherwise we're just hamsters on a running wheel making no true progress with CR, only in intangibles that affect the new linear progression is what matters now an they contribute only a fractional increase from one DLC to another to prevent stats creep.

The thing is what are going to be the reward´s for running and episode without a CR boost, like i said in another thread, the reward system here need to change in order to do what you want. Think for a moment, what make people play over and over again the same instances, not just here, in mostly all MMO? Sure, fun and challange is a factor, but beyond that, people play to feel a progretion in their characters, or to get something that make then more powerful, make a achivement or give more status.

The only reward (besides cosmetic´s and new feat´s) we get with every episode is a new gear to raise our CR. that´s the main reason that make people play the first month of a new episode, when they get the feats and armor they leave, why?
Mostly is because there are nothing else to do. Sure we have here item´s hard to get, like the ultraman cape. But even when you get it only give you a new cosmetic and 50 feat´s point, is not bad, but is not going to change the way you play or something.

Dev´s need introduce drop of items really valuable to keep people playing, without that... well, you can see our servers right now, we dont have the people we would like, right?

Dont get me wrong, i wanna see this power creep thing solve, but for that devs need to work in a better reward system to keep people playing.

Im with you, dear friend, but like i said in my last comment, dev´s need to work in something that keep people playing if CR will not going to be a reward.

People would complain that the open world stuff is too easy when it's new, and then if the devs react by buffing it people who weren't already towards the end of its CR window when it launched would complain that it's too hard. Although I guess the Death of Superman update might prove a good example - I don't think that raised CR and worked pretty well?

(Come to think of it though, am I correct in thinking that most of the really early expansions only marginally raised CR and furthermore tended to have their instanced content across different tiers so that someone could get to an endgame level by only buying whichever one most tickled their fancy? Of course that would've been pre-Free to play)

But yes, fun, challenging and unique episodes are always a good idea, whatever happens to CR. As bizarre as it seems, I liked the break that was the Doomed Metropolis 'vacuuming' mission (though having to keep an eye on the minimap to check that a certain roving boss wasn't about to land on top on me kind of outstayed its welcome). And the seahorse race in Atlantis. And on the more combat orientated side I find the bosses in the Anniversary map to be fun with neat mechanics. Even on Death Metal Metropolis I enjoy Barbatos's thing with the chains and guitars, and I doubt my enjoyment would've been curtailed if we were both at the same CR as when newly fighting Ultraviolent Nightmare.

I'll even say that the bosses in Wonderverse were a need idea, it's just that they made it way too grindy. (Long Live the Legion was less neat, because only Saturn Girl and Valadius summon adds that count for the dailies, while nearly all of the Wonderverse ones do.)

It's effect on the rate of gear levelling was relevant to the current worth of the CR skip which the discussion appeared to have drifted to. A year and a half ago the skip shaved an age off the levelling process, now it's four golden augment boosts and I think there's a few artifact upgrades too? Those boosts are good, I won't pretend otherwise, but I maintain that the CR skip is less valuable than it used to be.

Yes, they are sold in the Marketplace; however, many players wait for the free one that is given out during Anniversary. Since you don't have to use them right away, many players hold onto them and wait until they feel it is a good time to use it, if at all. So, I suspect that many players are using the CR skip right now to be CR ready for the new content launch; however, this does not mean that those CR skips have been purchased.

Remember, it is very easy to get to end game now without playing most other content in the game; why should players purchase a CR skip with very little skill points when they can achieve the same thing just leveling up in early end game content/Event version of new content without spending that much money?

Question:

How many CR skips are actually purchased; do those purchases make a noticeable contribution to the profit margin or are they "loss leaders" to attract and retain players?

We will truly never know the answer.
(insert meme/gif here_____________)

That's what makes this all the sadder to me, because CR was my reward. It was what kept me playing because I wanted to get to be the strongest. I guess I'm weird.

no, you're not weird. the clamp killed the game for me. I hardly run anything, any more. events, seasonals, endgame. that's it. & even then I stay as far away from group content as I can, only doing as much as is necessary to get it out of my journal. I just don't care, anymore. what's the point? these days, I'm in, run me dailies, faff about in me base for a bit, out. today, I didn't even run any content. not even the seasonal. salvaged some gear, bought some exos on the broker, levelled up a couple of me alts augments, bunged some stuff on the broker to sell, out. I can't remember the last time I gave a toss about my league proficiencies. it breaks my heart. I used to love this game, so much. I feel like, now, I'm just going through the motions out of habit, or sheer bloody-mindedness.

As myandria pointed out, there are other things to consider in terms of 'development hurdles.'

The biggest hurdle being the engine. Right now, there's a distinct shortage of people fluent & competent in Unreal Engine 3. It's old tech, extremely old in fact, and no one graduating rn is focusing on learning something that is outdated. It's not an advantage to know something outdated in the current job market, especially considering how beautiful UE 5 is and the industry's tendency towards advancement.

This means that any long-term dev team losses are even more critical.