Balance vs Progression Survey

[StickyChief]

A) Do you like a game with powerful progression and strong rare weapons corresponding to your level

Or

B) Would you rather a game have detailed weapon balance for more equalized competitive play

Or

C) Maybe you would like a mixture of both?

Feel free to respond and explain below, I'm curious as too what the majority would want.

[TwoNamez]

A balance. I don't want to be Ego 4000 and feel like I did at 300, at the same time PvP would become next to pointless if the higher level players couldn't even be touched.

[StickyChief]

Bump, and thanks for the input.

[Adamathias]

A game like this needs balance, and Trion seems to have a good formula from what I could gather from the beta. You could only have so many abilities active at once, so a high level player might have some perks active, but can't have them all. The weapons were incomparable to one another because the the only things that defined how good the weapon was is how many mods it can have/what mods it had, everything else was what weapons they liked more. A white and purple weapon of the same make only had minor differences that rarely translated into direct damage.

Lets make an example here, for example, before the Beta closed my loadout at 400 was as follows: Decoy 3, Cellular armor at 2, Health at 3, Efficient projection at 2, and Signal booster at 1. My weapons were a Purple lighning AR with 30% reload on melee kill,bonus fire rate, and fully modded. A Votan bolt action sniper also purple and fully modded with bonus reload speed and grenade refresh on crit kill. I could still get wiped out by any newcomer with a similar loadout, white weapons a;; deal same damage shot for shot in comparison and the only perks that outright effects damage are far and few between.

Ultimately I know the beta does not reflect the full dame and I hope, that if they do plan on changing this incomparable system, then they better prepare themselves for power creep, and all the difficulties they bring with them.

[StickyChief]

A game like this needs balance, and Trion seems to have a good formula from what I could gather from the beta. You could only have so many abilities active at once, so a high level player might have some perks active, but can't have them all. The weapons were incomparable to one another because the the only things that defined how good the weapon was is how many mods it can have/what mods it had, everything else was what weapons they liked more. A white and purple weapon of the same make only had minor differences that rarely translated into direct damage.

Lets make an example here, for example, before the Beta closed my loadout at 400 was as follows: Decoy 3, Cellular armor at 2, Health at 3, Efficient projection at 2, and Signal booster at 1. My weapons were a Purple lighning AR with 30% reload on melee kill,bonus fire rate, and fully modded. A Votan bolt action sniper also purple and fully modded with bonus reload speed and grenade refresh on crit kill. I could still get wiped out by any newcomer with a similar loadout, white weapons a;; deal same damage shot for shot in comparison and the only perks that outright effects damage are far and few between.

Ultimately I know the beta does not reflect the full dame and I hope, that if they do plan on changing this incomparable system, then they better prepare themselves for power creep, and all the difficulties they bring with them.

Hmm alright. Do you think this way of handling the weapon progression will keep players wanting to play? Some players feel as if they want to feel like their actually progressing in game.

[Adamathias]

Hmm alright. Do you think this way of handling the weapon progression will keep players wanting to play? Some players feel as if they want to feel like their actually progressing in game.

I think that what will make the late game weapon progression interesting will be the mods. From what I could tell, there were many, many different types that we had access to, and probably more to come. The fact that you could add weapon mod slots to your favorite guns rather early on (EGO 100, not that difficult to get to) and the sheer amount of mod-ability of the weapons have make for countless combinations. Early players will still be able to go toe to toe with the big shots, yet still look to what those higher level people were able to with their weapons. The abilities also play into this as well, having people experiment even early on what perks will help them now, and map out to their desired perks.

Defiance doesn't force you into going to a specific role, how you play is up to you, and to be the best doesn't require you to follow a certain path or start a certain way. Maybe at first, with Overcharge being more about explosives and damage, Decoy more defensive, Blur your melee and Cloak about crit, but you get more freedom as you go along. I feel that the lasting hook will be the freedom of customization you get as you play, as you get stronger. You also forgot about proficiency bonuses you get, permanent boosts to your weapon of choice. If you are looking for statistical proof of improvement as you play, there it is. is isn't a huge part of it, sure, but it is there.

[Smitch]

Higher level EGO weapons while technically having similar 'base' stats often have more bonuses. While individually small, these stack up, especially with character skills as well. So while a high EGO weapon may be superior, but at no point will it make you a walking engine of utter destruction that cannot be felled. A poorly played high skill well geared player can still be taken out by a new toon played with skill. Between players with equal skill, the high EGO player will have an advantage, but wouldn't be completely unstoppable.

I like the idea of this. Gear is still worth seeking (especially if you want to play PvP competitively for that extra edge) but the world isn't gong to feel so false that when you go back to Mt Tam, you can AFK in the middle of 50 mutants for a hour while having lunch...

It also adds to longevity. Remember, they intend this game to last a long while, which means more gear down the line. The flatter gear progression curve means that new gear isn't going to leave everything you had prior *completely* in the dust. (Remember WoW? Replace that shiney top tier gear in the *first* new zone of an XPak much...?)

[Bluegobln]

Gear progression... ah yes. Gear progression should be:

+Time = +Gear

So as you spend time in the game, your gear gets better. This holds true no matter what as long as there is SOME gear progression in the game.

However, when you start including ways to get gear very rapidly purely based on something like level such as if you overlevel an area, can run a certain mission which rewards you with Epic Gun of Awesome, that defeats the purpose of Epic Gun of Awesome.

It is alright for loot to be so superior that it makes you overpowered relative to other players. However, that loot should be A) extremely, excessively rare proportional to its power level, B) take a considerable amount of play time and effort to acquire, similar to early WoW legendary weapons (which were chance based and required so many materials it took months for dozens upon dozens of players to acquire ONE).

The best MMORPG's I've ever played were the best partly because their item systems did not have a large amount of scaling within them. Ultima Online the best weapons in the game while powerful were not so powerful that they made a random brand new blacksmith's sword useless in single combat against its weilder - the weaker blade could still win.

I just hope this game maintains what it has already shown and doesn't just blow it by making horrible changes down the road like another of my favorite games Star Wars Galaxies.

[StickyChief]

Ah so your siding mostly with B

[Elandriel]

I would like a mixture of both. Gear and character progression in very small increments.