Returning player currency observations

omnius

I used to be a subber for several years when the game was new and not very long ago came back as a silver (with a few Z store "essentials"). I've seen a lot of chatter in Zone chat ramping up about the need for endgame content gear since the Therakiel lieutenants alerts came out a few days ago. Along with that has been some discussion about the effort vs payoff for grinding GCR gear content in today's much lower player population compared to this game's peak population days so as a former member of those days I thought I'd share something I feel is pretty obvious from what I've experienced with the changes this game has experienced over the intervening years, including changes to bosses, lairs, powersets, gear, etc.

First off I'm going to mention that you don't actually need GCR gear nor Freeform to succeed in endgame lairs or cosmics. This is the biggest bone of contention with those who say you do. It's not true. That content was specifically designed for people in lesser gear to work towards getting GCR for that gear. I'm not even going to debate this, it's well known and has been mentioned numerous times by many of the vets in this forum. Having said that I still encourage people to at least get some FF slots.

So, if you don't need GCR gear to succeed in endgame content, then what would you use it for after you spend the time and notable effort to acquire it? What drops remain that you would be seeking once you have all that GCR gear? Why, very rare costume drops of course! Those that are found in that endgame content. After all, where else are you going to be able to get those rare and cool pieces?

Other players for gold.

So if costume pieces are the ultimate prize in this game, that means gold, not GCR, is the real currency of this game. (And your credit card for the Z store). Still not convinced? Take a look at the amount of time and number of people cosplaying in RenCen compared to doing endgame lairs and cosmics. Let's be honest here, at least a couple of times a day you see someone wisecrack that RenCen cosplay is the real endgame of CO, and while funny, is basically true.

That's absolutely NOT to say you should skip doing them! They're fun and challenging, but IMO shouldn't be done with an eye towards GCR grinding at all since you can acquire the costumes, auras, and all that other fun stuff everyone ultimately wants with good ol' gold. More importantly, doing that content means you're selling those endgame costume drops to me I'm also not knocking people who enjoy that grind, but wholeheartedly disagree with those who claim that gear tier is required for any of CO's content. I'm just trying to save people who haven't figured this out who don't wish to do it, but think they have to, some time and effort.

"So Omnius, you convinced me but haven't said what I can do yet in any of the above!!". Get gold, get some FF slots and the Premium pack from the Z store for starters (and whatever else you want), and if you choose not to worry about Justice/Distinguished GCR gear, you'll get along just peachy in Heroic SCR gear and purple secondaries. The Onslaught secondaries are a good goal to work on and are easy to get. What you should worry about more than GCR if you don't want it is knowing the fights. There's plenty of guides out there for TA, TT, Cosmics etc. so activate your Google-Fu. Nobody's going to resent you passing on GCR gear if you're still performing your role adequately. They were you too at some point and succeeded without it. Best sources of SCR are Ladyhawke dailies, daily alert missions and if you're up to it, the QWZ dailies

For those of you who might feel a bit offput by this post, please take a deep breath first and think about how much gold I've spent on your AH listings using this point of view

renegade0

The only reason I play the game is to unlock costume pieces lol. I do cosmics for the gear to make my character less squishy so I can do the content for said costume pieces.