This isn't WoW, but character Roles shouldn't be limited either (Wall of Text)

While Defiance is a shooter first, it comes across as being only that. Co Op maps need more depth, characters need more depth, and while these are typically more RPG aspects, they can be melded into a shooter centric game.

Let us start with the BMG, while it's cool that it heals, using it gives one the feeling of sacrificing dps in a co op map, and with how co op instances work right now, that actually hurts the group more than it adds. Choosing to heal should offer the group a benefit of some sort, and currently, a group can run through an instance faster without a BMG user than with.

"Well Chaos, what should they do to make BMGs more useful?"

This requires a two fold approach, one is a reworking of the enemy. The enemy needs more health and damage, this makes them more of a threat. The second is a reworking of a BMG. Even if the BMG loses its ability to heal the user, it needs to have its healing rate increased. There also needs to be more variety in BMG aspects, for instance, a target healed by a BMG could gain 15%damage resistance towards attacks from the front.

This ties into the second part about character roles. Aggro.

Ever play a group focused game and you got to play the part of diversion? Well, Defiance needs a second look at its aggro system. LMGs, RLs, and Shotguns all need to have higher aggro rates than other guns. Why? So the enemy can focus on them while the other characters pick them off. Having someone draw aggro has been a staple of multiplayer games for ages, and its a tactic that would lend some more depth to Defiance.

Even a small change like this could drastically change the amount of depth to the game, as it forces players to consider things other than pure damage per shot, and damage per second.

"What about Sniper Rifles?"

Glad you asked. Snipers need to have a higher crit rate, for a skill weapon, and a component of the gun that is based off skill, why is the multiplier so low? It doesn't really make sense for pvp or pve.

Say Trion agrees with me so far, and enemies become more resilient, snipers need to be able to do their job. an increased crit rate would allow them to do that.

"But if an LMG has all the aggro, then won't it be too easy to pick off enemies?"

No. A sniper rifle should have insane aggro per shot, but that aggro is limited in range compared to what an LMG could produce. A small group of enemies will focus on a sniper if one of their number is sniped, but with constant suppression from an LMG, or a shotgunner running through their ranks, they should try to spread out, some focusing on the sniper, some on the other threat.

"But I thought Decoy was the Aggro replacement!"

Decoy wouldn't change, but it shouldn't get all enemies in an entire area to suddenly focus on it. If you continue to spray and pray with an LMG, enemies would stop focusing on the decoy. This would mean that team members would have to communicate more.

"What's the point of grabbing aggro if I can't take more than ten shots as it is now?"

Well, shields need a revamp. Need some that reduce damage from the front, or have a high cap, with a super long refresh rate. This allows a BMG to actually aid a person serving as cannon fodder, and has a trade off for solo play. Some shields could lower player speed in exchange for more capacity and a faster recharge.



I'm going to end this here so I can judge how people react to the thought process so far, but I have a bit more in mind. Please leave a comment.

reserved for future ideas

so far it sounds fair i am a shotgunner class and i will admit i can run into a group and will kill a few but then the remaining enemies seem to be interested in other ppl rather than the guy like 2 feet away blowing away the guy next to him

I agree the game is really casual (except in really particular cases, such as 2 elite grenadiers), and the fact to use a BMG becomes almost useless due to the loss of DPS. If you got a decent team, knowing instances, they barely are in danger aswell.

In PvP, you can barely survive vs one shotgunner following you (all defensive perks on). That's kinda ridiculous.

Overall, some perks should be reworked to fit with "roles" - grenadier, medic, and so on. If 70% of ppl got the same perks config in PvP, there's a meaning...

To get a notion of "aggro", atm, you would need to up HPs by x2 minimum, lol. When you got 4 ppls aiming the head of a mob, it dies pretty fast. It should scale with the number of ppl on the instance/around.

This actually touches on something I've been thinking about recently which is applying traditional grouping tactics to fights in Defiance. I like the fact that we aren't restricted in what we can do in any given group by a traditional class system but at the same time, I feel like there are tactics out there for taking down enemies and groups of enemies very efficiently that we're not seeing, simply because such strategy isn't really required.

Let's go with the issue of Aggro, a staple of traditional MMORPG combat. I think there is an aggro system that weapon type and damage affect. I know when I unload a clip from my LMG in a group fight on a co-op map I usually find myself suddenly swamped with enemies with a shield struggling to regenerate and on the verge of death rolling and jumping around with a gaggle of enemies trailing after me. I wouldn't have a problem with this except.... I'm not a tank. And there isn't really a way to become one.

Getting and keeping aggro so others can work on DPS would be great but there is no armor and very few perks to increase health or damage resistance. Not to mention you'd have to be at least EGO 500 to get enough of them combined to start seeing a difference. Now if we had shields with say 2500-3500+ but a recharge rate of 5%-7% and a recharge cooldown of 20 seconds things might be a little different. I would say that Thick Skinned would also have to be buffed up but at the cost of halving your outgoing DPS to keep things balanced in PvP.

The person with the super shield wades ahead, doing AoE and splash damage via detonators and rocket launchers to grab all the mobs, meanwhile someone else with a BMG sets up behind them but out of the mess and maintains their shield as the other two party members do DPS and keep the mobs off the BMG.

If a player could do enough area damage using detonators and rocket launchers and a loadout of: Overcharge, Shock Trooper, Mad Bomber, Deadly Cascade, Juggernaut, Kinetic Transfer (if your own explosions count) or Quickening they might be able to hold everything with two BMGers healing simultaneously or swapping, or one BMGer with two BMGs and Preparedness equipped.

I think there are "roles" to be had with the perk system we've got (clearly Decoy is meant to be the healer class, cloak is for ranged DPS, Overcharge is a tank as you'll get and Blur is for short to mid-range DPS) but we have to think about applying them in a way that makes sense in a firefight since this is a shooter.

As for your other points I do think healing needs to be recognized in co-op maps as much as gross damage. I also think it would be a great idea for sniper rifles to have the ability to pass through a single target and damage others behind it for a multiplier bonus.

I definitely like the ideas. I would love to see this put into motion. It would add an element of strategy (obviously) and I would have fun running the various roles. I'm more of a tank, but playing other roles kind of adds the the playability of the game. I hope they consider this.

I would rather not have defined roles and increased mob health. The reason being is that it will bring the regular problems other group MMOs have. It will force people to spec a certain way just to defeat the content which is something I don't like. The way it is set up now you can have your perks set any way and still deal a decent amount of damage. With the introduction of roles, that type of freedom goes out the window.

I don't feel it.

What's wrong with the BMG is it's damage output, the healing it can provide is very nice actually.

Aggro? GW is a MMOPRG franchise that didn't have tanks and Defiance does have threat, it just has no taunts and tanks.

Snipers have a high crit rate, they just suck at coops because their DPS is quite low and mobs fidget a lot when they get hit by so many players frequently which makes headshots hards (especially with a scope). Snipers dealing 12k crits would have a detrimental effect on PvE solo play and PvP.


How teamwork cannot be improved with what's in the game right now, short of new weapons, enemies that are a threat to multiple targets (that don't stand right next to eachother obviously) or an utility slot for new items or abilities that can be filled with tools that either effect or are enabled or improved through interactions of other players.

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Originally Posted by Dandrielas

I would rather not have defined roles and increased mob health. The reason being is that it will bring the regular problems other group MMOs have. It will force people to spec a certain way just to defeat the content which is something I don't like. The way it is set up now you can have your perks set any way and still deal a decent amount of damage. With the introduction of roles, that type of freedom goes out the window.

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In a traditional system, yes, but where did I list anything that limits what weapons now can do? The basic gist of what I posted was I wanted enemies to require more teamwork to take down, and then proposed a way of implementing it. Call it hard mode for co op maps if you will.

@ Tgreen 3x for a crit rate and some of the medium health mobs still take it like a champ.

Problem is, people see the word aggro and think WoW.

I was actually thinking more like Army of Two when I was coming up with the OP.

I'm trying to come up with methods that would add more to the combat side while trying not to stray from what is in the game currently. I'd love to see utility slots, in gameplay terms, depth can be boiled down to how many things the player can interact with and alter in character creation and combat.

As to the sniper crit rate, the game already alters the amount of damage dealt and the variable on the crit rate, so how hard would it be to alter that for snipers that do their job? (Look at the two crit spots for hellbug warriors if you want an example)

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Originally Posted by ChaosOneX

In a traditional system, yes, but where did I list anything that limits what weapons now can do? The basic gist of what I posted was I wanted enemies to require more teamwork to take down, and then proposed a way of implementing it. Call it hard mode for co op maps if you will.

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What weapons you can use problem naturally comes with more more teamwork and increased health because there will always be a best build for certain foes.