Beating a dead horse...

[XBLairdawg]

Here's a tip Trion - games like this need a small elements of unbalance. They need to allow hardcore players to be... hardcore. No, not everyone should have the same damage output. They need garbage items and coveted elite items. They need something to strive towards.

Why bother grinding the 100+ pursuits (many of which only award ego levels) if there's no summit to reach? Why bother with 5 tiers of equipment if they're barely different from one another?

The way it needs to be is the guy topping the arkfall leader boards should be the ego 5k guy with all legendary equips. He should be the one everyone else looks at and says "dang, can't wait to get there..." and yes, the rank should mean something too... And so what if people figure out how to abuse it - learn to abuse it harder than they can... Back in vanilla WoW, it was a big deal when you could get through the big 40 man raids in short order. Sure, Blizzard wanted them hard, but they didn't punish the community via nerfs when they figured things out.

Or alternatively, why have a level system at all if there's no benefit to progressing it? I am currently ego 1300, and a grenade I got at ego 97 is better than anything else I've found. Just doesn't seem right...

Having played MMORPG's over the years, the good ones allow casual gamers to coexist with the hardcore guys and gals, and this is a core element that I feel Trion has completely missed. Go play Wow for a week guys - even having not played that since '06, I'd still bet a week' s experience in that game applied to Defiance would do it wonders.

I was also originally stunned by the lack of classes. I would have thought for sure that proficiencies in one set of weapons or another would help add variety. Want to keep people playing and buying bits - have them be able to find a reason to make 4 characters and get them to max level. Would help balance the in game economy, encourage teamwork and community, and give bored players something to do.

But what do I know. I'm just another whiny person on the forum with no clue. At least there's some good stuff coming down the pipeline in the coming months. I just hope someone in Trion is listening, but I sincerely doubt it.

[Phuccko]

Well this is like the tenth thread saying the same thing, but anyway, like they said at the E3 interview "this is not a MMORPG" it is a third person shooter with MMO aspects. So if your looking for a WOW with guns this isn't it and they know that.
I do agree that the lvl progression is a little odd with no real perks for being lvl 500 but that MIGHT be fixed in the future. (Fingers crossed)
Yes they do read the forums, just look at all the posts being locked out lol

[Wtflag]

I have always defended the Defiance's design principle of having sidegrades rather than upgrades.

Despite the recent issues, I will continue to maintain that the design is not wrong.

This is a shooter not a hotkey MMO. Player skill should always be 70% to 80% in deciding the victory, be it to top Arkfalls or in PVP.

However the latest events are indeed disappointing for many of those who strived to achieve higher progression in the game. Trion needs to step it up because the new players they are catering to in this patch isn't going to stay under 1000 for more than a week. And they too will start to wonder about the replay value of this game and why their progression appears to be negative.

[Don Nawetta]

Horizontal progression is a good thing, regardless if it´s a shooter or an rpg. Most people are just not used to sandbox elements.

What op says is that someone who spent more time ingame should faceroll newcomers, regardless of skill. Defiance is on a good way progression wise, but Trion ****s up the game with their weapon nerfs and their try to make the game over-accessible to new players.

[Valanga]

Here's a tip Trion - games like this need a small elements of unbalance. They need to allow hardcore players to be... hardcore. No, not everyone should have the same damage output. They need garbage items and coveted elite items. They need something to strive towards.

What about, no.
Learn to play and don't cry too much if a dude more skilled but with 100 ego points kicks you in the nuts.

[Don Nawetta]

What about, no.
Learn to play and don't cry too much if a dude more skilled but with 100 ego points kicks you in the nuts.

Well, that pretty much sums it up

[Blondin]

Here's a tip Trion - games like this need a small elements of unbalance. They need to allow hardcore players to be... hardcore. No, not everyone should have the same damage output. They need garbage items and coveted elite items. They need something to strive towards.

The way it needs to be is the guy topping the arkfall leader boards should be the ego 5k guy with all legendary equips. He should be the one everyone else looks at and says "dang, can't wait to get there..."

What?
Hardcore players are only good because they have more time to spend on video game, and do you mean that because someone can spend all day on a video game he should be better because of his gear?

Mehh... I tought hardcore players were skilled ppl, they don't really need better gear to be better than a noob, no?

do you?

[Milofo]

I'm sorry but the term hardcore gets thrown around too much these days. I like the idea that defiance has that it doesn't have a level system that means if you improve by grinding at exploits like mine 99 you can obliterate anyone who is more skilled.

[XBLairdawg]

Why go through all the effort to put an RPG coat of paint on a shooter if you're not going to bother to actually use it with any effectiveness? We can look at borderlands as an example of a shooter rpg that is still skill based, but leveling your toon actually has a payoff of better weapons, useful perks to strive for, and weapon tiers that are meaningful.

Also, you mention skill. Has anyone ACTUALLY paid attention to how much Skill this game needs? Pvp is cloak/shotty or infector/reducer easy mode for the majority of people who are just grinding pursuits, and the PvE elements are pathetic. Nim was the ONLY challenge I had in the entire game, and that was only because I had to use 1% of thought in that fight for a change, as opposed to 'just shoot it in the head or butt'. Everything else you can mindlessly shoot and come out on top. Topping arkfall leader boards is currently based more upon how soon did you get to the arkfall and did you actually do anything? 2x Saws + preparedness + scavenger = easy top 3 if you got there quickly and only shot the mobs, not the crystal.

All I'm saying is that if they really wanted this to be skill based, why bother with different qualities of weapons, why bother making the player go find their equipment, and why bother with perks? Make everyone exactly equal, give them 20 guns to pick from ala CoD, and turn them lose.

And what is the logic behind "side progression"? That very term doesn't make sense. Lets work our tails off for... What? To have a gun with stats that are barely better than the last gun we had? OO my new grenade does 30 more damage!

OK let's ask the question of point. What is the point of this game? Well, there's a story plot to play through, which is relatively anticlimactic. Chase a piece of tech all over and kill the main baddy that ended up with it. OK, I'm done with the story, now what? Episodic missions that they released now and will tie into a year from now, grinding ego to what benefit, and pursuits to get shiny new outfits. Again, why bother?

So then we heap on top of all that the fact that Trion blatantly doesn't care about its veteran community, and is making everything super noob friendly.

To the comment about hardcore - yes, actually that's exactly what that means. If a guy has all day to play, why shouldn't he be amongst the superior players? He's invested his time and energies into the game. Even the worst CoD players will improve over time if they can play enough. The best battlefield players are the ones with 100's of hours in.

What about Christmas newbs? Are the people who got CoD or Battlefield at launch not at a distinct advantage over all the people just getting it unwrapped?

Go back 10 years and play massive online games. They were hard. They weren't "fair", and people actually had to try to get anywhere in them. They weren't coddled and handed everything the game had within the first week of playing. Does anyone here remember playing Diablo 2? Massive hit on PC, huge RPG elements, and still required a boat load of skill to be any good at it, and true to form it rewarded it's veteran players, as opposed to punishing them.

[T_Archangel]

I feel it's fine the way it is. Disagree if you want but still won't change my opinion. I have always felt that people with no job/social life/more time to waste/whatever that spend tons of time in the game shouldn't be the top of the world just because some other people have less time to spend in a game. I personally would love more time to devote to my gaming but I have other obligations and can't. Not a complaint not a crack against those that can, just a statement of fact. Time devoted to a game shouldn't be a decisive factor in how high you rank. Skill should be the decisive factor in events etc. Personally I am only around ego rating 2500 but I enjoy the time I can play, and have fun playing with level 3000 & 4000s as well as the 300-1000 players I meet up with. I like the fact that a player can stand with any "level" player an have a good time. I don't view ego levels as "levels" per se... To me it is more of a reputation level. Higher ego = more accomplished. When I started looking at it that way and less like WoW or UO or EQ et all, I saw that the horizontal progression was actually pretty cool.

Some will disagree with my views... That's cool. Everyone is entitled. That's what makes us human. In real life my EGO rating is pretty high, but that doesn't mean my opinion should matter more or less than anyone else either