The design of the game (currently) allows for choice in activities, Will this change?

This came originally from a post regarding a recent blog from Oveur. I thought it had such great points it needed its own topic / discussion and notice. Here is the quote:

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Originally Posted by Cortechs

I agree that unique loot tables is a bad idea. The design of the game allows choice in activities, and restricting loot to specific missions/raids works counter to that.

I'm all for adding more challenging content, but again there is no need to restrict it to certain groups, or add special loot tables which only promote elitism and exclusion.

I'm also against a damage-based award system for Arkfalls. This will only promote selfish gameplay, as well as cookie-cutter builds and weapon/Ego use as everyone tries desperately to max damage instead of fun. And, of course, healing would be out of the question.

I really enjoy the choices the game offers. Choices in builds, weapons, and gameplay. I don't want that taken away because I have to maximize DPS at Arkfalls, or because the elitists kick everyone out of groups because you are not using a specific build and hampering their loot gathering.

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I have to say I almost 100% agree.. Though I wouldn't mind them restricting loot to certain things like co-op missions or raids as long as they were public and their wasn't a difference in loot or difficulty (example: WoW).

I think difficulty levels for co-op missions and raids should be a choice. Perhaps dropping more loot with increased difficulty but not better. By playing the harder difficulties you could have a better chance at getting better loot just because more is dropped over all.

I will also say I'm feeling the effects of what's to come by maximizing my DPS and not taking any "group" style perks. Most people run over me if I go down anyway or run away from me after looking at me... To busy getting those damage numbers in.

Also to maximize DPS I don't use scope mods (limits visibility and makes closer things harder to hit while further things are just as easy without the scope.. (for me at least)..

I also don't use mag mods due to a certain way an ego ability works. Finally, I use TWO of a certain weapon. A lot of people like the leader-board / competition and have been crying for it but it really would limit the "fun" aspect. Except for those people that just don't care which I love and respect. You know.. they actually play games for fun ..

I wish the immediate leader-board wasn't their at all and it just showed the personal one. That way you could still see YOUR over-all damage and maximize it or just see how your generally doing personally for your choice of weapons / build.

Just my 2 cents..

I honestly don't care if the unique loot is nothing more than a badass reskin of a particular weapon, but they are going to need to give some type of incentive to keep running co-op missions/play the game, otherwise there really doesn't seem to be anything to really look forward to after beating it.

I'm not looking for instances to drop loot that's statistically "better" than anything you find outside just roaming but it's very easy to get bored of a game when the only thing to really do is the same mission over & over simply for the sake of doing it.

To be fair loot tables can mean a variety of things. In this context, loot tables could improve the chances of getting a specific item type, not a specific item. So farming one area would yield higher SMGs, while farming another might yield more detonators. Everyone always takes the traditional MMO terms way too strictly. The problem now is that you have to farm a lot to even have a chance to find what you want and there is no way to improve your odds of getting a specific item type. Having loot tables would simply increase the chances of finding the desired item type, and hopefully decrease the time spent farming.

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Originally Posted by Cynical Jester

I also don't use mag mods due to a certain way an ego ability works.

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Uh, not sure why you don't use mag mods. You do know there are two types, one that adds more ammo and one that makes you reload faster. I've looked through the ego perks, and atleast ONE of those has to help.

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Originally Posted by Inflicting MHz

Uh, not sure why you don't use mag mods. You do know there are two types, one that adds more ammo and one that makes you reload faster. I've looked through the ego perks, and atleast ONE of those has to help.

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I wasn't aware of the other one.. Thanks for the tip ;)

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I'm also against a damage-based award system for Arkfalls. This will only promote selfish gameplay, as well as cookie-cutter builds and weapon/Ego use as everyone tries desperately to max damage instead of fun. And, of course, healing would be out of the question.

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Selfish gameplay? Cookie cutter builds? Expecting players to do say, 65% of the average amount of damage done per player doesn't require them to have a cookie cutter build, it requires them to have a brain and try rather than tagging something once and getting full credit.

Also, I leave people down on the ground if their contribution is miniscule. It isn't worth the loss of damage and possibly going down trying to pick up someone not contributing. That's not selfish, I'm looking at the group as a whole's interest in leaving you down until the fight is over if you're that bad.

Lastly, if your build is severely gimping you out, then you should consider respecing. You should feel bad about not doing much DPS.

Just to tack on to the end of the OP, it would AWESOME if there was some kind of personal performance chart. Like Damage Done on the same map over the last five visits or something.

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Originally Posted by RegularX

Just to tack on to the end of the OP, it would AWESOME if there was some kind of personal performance chart.

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It's not that specific but the 'Ego Hub' at http://www.defiance.com/en/game/ is pretty good.

It tells you your ego rating, combat rating, distance traveled etc. and even breaks it down some.

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Originally Posted by Jack Johnson

Selfish gameplay? Cookie cutter builds? Expecting players to do say, 65% of the average amount of damage done per player doesn't require them to have a cookie cutter build, it requires them to have a brain and try rather than tagging something once and getting full credit.

Also, I leave people down on the ground if their contribution is miniscule. It isn't worth the loss of damage and possibly going down trying to pick up someone not contributing. That's not selfish, I'm looking at the group as a whole's interest in leaving you down until the fight is over if you're that bad.

Lastly, if your build is severely gimping you out, then you should consider respecing. You should feel bad about not doing much DPS.

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This is exactly the problem.

How can you determine how much work someone is doing? Do you keep track of everyone's names and have an add-on that I don't know about that tracks everyone's damage? Generally when I go down it's because of the amount of damage I'm doing, drawing aggro.

I don't believe anyone here has said they are doing low damage.. I personally score in the top 5 most of the time 10 if I'm late and generally 2nd or 3rd if I'm on time.. rarely 1st.. maybe once..twice now?.. On majors that is... Score top damage in co-ops etc..

I don't want to play like that.. but I feel the need to because of people like.. the elitist he was talking about...I feel forced into a particular build / play style so people like you aren't running around slandering my name.

It was kind of like that in WoW for me..... During a certain time I played a rogue. I liked playing Sub.. Very utilitarian. I wasn't topping the charts, people talked ****. I did great in PvP but that's a different topic.

I said screw it and rolled a DK. I ultimately quit out of bordem. I could log in right now and top the PvE and PvP charts after having not played in a long time on my DK... But it isn't any fun.

Did my rogue top PvP charts? No, but I won in Arena and did what I was meant to do in BGs.. to people like you.. that doesn't matter.. only the DPS does.. People can't have fun or play how they want without criticism.

The brave and awesome ones ignore people like you and play how they want, using what they want.

I personally fall into it, taking the fun out, but still showing how "easy" it is to be an elitist..

It's a game. Yes competition can be/is fun (PvP). Not everything should be a number chase.

This game isn't WoW. This game is more comparable to Mass Effect 3. The majority of characters in that game were platinum viable, and there were a fair amount of guns that were platinum viable. People would play FoTM builds because they sucked and couldn't hack it with other characters, not because they had to. Were there some bad characters? Sure. Some characters required you to be much better than you needed to be to succeed. At the end of the day, if you're being a scrub, do something about it. Either get better at skill, or change your build, don't expect other people not to give you **** about it.

As far as how I can gauge how someone is doing, in a 4 man group it is pretty easy, at least as someone who has played hundreds of matches of ME3 MP. Triage plays a big part in that game in PUGing higher difficulty stuff, so you have to be able to keep an eye on other players and gauge how well they are performing by watching their movements, HP, and enemy mob HP to determine later down the line whether it is worth the risk to save them.