How do Defiance's Game Mechanics Really Work?

Does anyone know exactly what is going on with the games numbers? Particularly the "damage" numbers that come up when you shoot enemies.

It may sound weird but I really believe all the numbers in the game (like damage numbers, shield/health strength, damage reduction, etc.) are all basically........."lies" is the word I use for lack of a better term. The real mechanics of the game are almost impossible to figure out and these numbers are in place because they're something most gamers expect and understand. I started working on this theory when I realized that regardless of the DPS I was shown to be putting out enemies still took about the same time and effort to kill. It seems as thought the enemies Hit Points scale up the more DPS you do.

How come a single shot to the head with a sniper rifle doing 1200 or so "damage" will kill an enemy but half a magazine from an AR doing 300 "damage" to the same type of enemy doesn't kill them? This is even true if I'm unloading said AR rounds into the enemies head. Logically if the 1200 point sniper round kills an enemy then it should only take 3 AR rounds to kill the same enemy. But this is clearly not the case.

It may be that I'm "brain fried" from all the extra work I've been doing outside the game and I'm just not thinking right and if that's the case well, my bad. But if anyone can explain to me what I'm missing here I'd really appreciate it.

No it doesn't. I just squeeze the trigger and hope I kill something. I am confused by all of it - between getting 0 in arkfalls - which is impossible when I only really ever try and kill things or rescue people to what happens in a normal fight... the math is not strong with trion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeff Kaos

Does anyone know exactly what is going on with the games numbers? Particularly the "damage" numbers that come up when you shoot enemies.

It may sound weird but I really believe all the numbers in the game (like damage numbers, shield/health strength, damage reduction, etc.) are all basically........."lies" is the word I use for lack of a better term. The real mechanics of the game are almost impossible to figure out and these numbers are in place because they're something most gamers expect and understand. I started working on this theory when I realized that regardless of the DPS I was shown to be putting out enemies still took about the same time and effort to kill. It seems as thought the enemies Hit Points scale up the more DPS you do.

How come a single shot to the head with a sniper rifle doing 1200 or so "damage" will kill an enemy but half a magazine from an AR doing 300 "damage" to the same type of enemy doesn't kill them? This is even true if I'm unloading said AR rounds into the enemies head. Logically if the 1200 point sniper round kills an enemy then it should only take 3 AR rounds to kill the same enemy. But this is clearly not the case.

It may be that I'm "brain fried" from all the extra work I've been doing outside the game and I'm just not thinking right and if that's the case well, my bad. But if anyone can explain to me what I'm missing here I'd really appreciate it.

---

The stats in the game are pretty cryptic - especially how things like accuracy and bloom actually operate. Practically requires a calculator to determine if one grenade is better than the other.

On the sniper rifle, it's possible the weapon type in general has a crit bonus that isn't documented ... although I've tried to max out the crit bonus for my sniper build, so hard to tell - but I'd agree that it seems with the AR that even landing mostly headshots seems to take a few extra rounds for the math.

On the DPS though, I don't know - I've found it noticeably easier to take down mobs, especially any non-elites. AR and SMG are two of my most used weapon types, and as I've upgraded and perked up - enemies that used to be bothersome (like the shielded bandits) aren't a big deal anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RegularX

The stats in the game are pretty cryptic - especially how things like accuracy and bloom actually operate. Practically requires a calculator to determine if one grenade is better than the other.

On the sniper rifle, it's possible the weapon type in general has a crit bonus that isn't documented ... although I've tried to max out the crit bonus for my sniper build, so hard to tell - but I'd agree that it seems with the AR that even landing mostly headshots seems to take a few extra rounds for the math.

On the DPS though, I don't know - I've found it noticeably easier to take down mobs, especially any non-elites. AR and SMG are two of my most used weapon types, and as I've upgraded and perked up - enemies that used to be bothersome (like the shielded bandits) aren't a big deal anymore.

---

I think he means the numbers that appear as damage numbers, im guessing that its a display error when critting with a sniper riffle, but never tested it.

I'd like to know as well.

This forum is so dedicated to other topics, there's so little discussion of game mechanics.

Anyway, in other DAM head scratching, I was messin around with a wolfhound pistol. Insanely high crit as most know. Shooting a hellbug elite warrior in the butt for crit dam, it died with almost a quarter of its life bar left.

Could be connection issues but as I experimented more I was getting more head scratching kills. I know the wolf hound has insane crits, but things seemed to die before the life bar was at zero.

What it felt like was enemies were instantly killed by a crit once their life bar was below a certain point.

I'm probably mis-interpreting this, but I think there's something going on with crit DAM.

Also, if you haven't shot things in the head with a wolfhound, you haven't lived.

Whew!! I'm glad it isn't just me; I'm already pretty crummy at math and was worried that I was missing something obvious. Maybe I'll just turn off the option that let's me see the "damage" I'm doing and just play the game free from this head scratching mind bender.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Covington

No it doesn't. I just squeeze the trigger and hope I kill something. I am confused by all of it - between getting 0 in arkfalls - which is impossible when I only really ever try and kill things or rescue people to what happens in a normal fight... the math is not strong with trion.

---

0 in arkfalls is from cluster grenades, known bug. not sure if screws it on the server side, or just displaying it wrong in the summary

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ironhands

0 in arkfalls is from cluster grenades, known bug. not sure if screws it on the server side, or just displaying it wrong in the summary

---

I could be wrong but from what I've been gathering from other posts it's just a display error.

A sniper rifle shot for 1200 damage will absolutely not kill anything outside the respawning mutants at the Stratocarrier site (and tiny enemies like skitterlings etc.). A headshot with a sniper rifle does around 4-6k depending on perks. If you see 1200, it means you hit the body.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aternak

A sniper rifle shot for 1200 damage will absolutely not kill anything outside the respawning mutants at the Stratocarrier site (and tiny enemies like skitterlings etc.). A headshot with a sniper rifle does around 4-6k depending on perks. If you see 1200, it means you hit the body.

---

You're probably right but there's still something "off" about the games numbers. I've played a lot of games in my day and the damage numbers just don't seem to reflect what's happening on the screen. And don't even get me started on Arkfalls. Hellbug matrons must have Hit Points in the tens of millions if not more.