XP boosts and loot boosts with Tier 3 and 4 boxes. I like the Lock boxes for me. I normally would just go to a Casino and loose my money on slots, texas holdem or blackjack so boxes are fun at times. Have a few drinks and yes spending money on the game like $40-$80. I have yet to blow $100+ yet.
As I said, I know that other people aren't experiencing the same thing as I am, but I played the game today for 6 hours straight without a disconnect. Really. I wasn't trying to make it look like my experiences are the only ones, quite the contrary. I just argue with the people that are coming across as if it's happening to everyone, always. It's not. I have had this experience in the past, just as you described. However, it hasn't been that way for me for at least two months, aside from the odd incident with the Mod Vendor at The Crater two weeks ago.Originally Posted by Red Mephisto
WAAAY back near release, I had this happen. However, I chose to deal with it through a Live Chat and it was fixed within a couple hours. Only reason it took that long was the wait for an agent. Queue times were awful. lol
Beyond that, I reported issues with gun swapping problems involving ammo reductions and severe lag which have since been abolished. I reported character stutter when picking up items dropped while reloading a weapon, and while that hasn't totally vanished, the problem doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to. I've reported being punished for rewards at conflict sites while running with a group or the arrival of a random person, and that is being addressed with an update coinciding with the DLC on the 10th. I also reported the charged blade issues in Ark Falls allowing people to end them very quickly and how that was effecting anyone else trying to participate in them, and that's been fixed. I reported losing Perks from loadout slots when leaving the game or map traveling to someone else, and that has since been fixed as well. I know there are more, but I think I'm making my point here.
Since I personally have never played the game with the new mechanics I cannot, nor will I, speculate on how they work or if the change is good or bad. I would suggest to anyone that "hates the changes" to enlighten us on how exactly they work, seeing as they've obviously played the game with the changes to be able to say they hate them. (sorry, I deal only in what I know, not what was partially seen in livestreams within a build of the game that is not yet finished or live.)
Anyone that expects the stuff they bought to remain the same level of power in a game such as this needs to branch out and try other games in this genre. It happens this way often. I have "outdated" gear as well, but I'm not hurt about it. Gives me more ambition to go out and find more! I don't participate in the wildly overpriced player economy anyway, so that part of it didn't effect me in the least.
The chat system, at least on the XBox, has been working very well for me outside of a few bugs they've said they're currently working on. Is it perfect? no, of course not. It is, however, usable. Which is MUCH more than can be said for it in the first few months after release. It needs work still, but is much better than it used to be for me and the people I've been using it to chat with. Player merchants seem to be flourishing with it, I see constant requests and offers going through the chat system these days.
I can say nothing about PvP as I do not bother with that side of the game. Nor can I say anything about the charged blades and melee perks as I think "bringing a knife to a gunfight" is a bad idea... lol
I have no issues with the lockbox system as I'm not expecting to get the "best" gear the first couple of weeks I play, so taking a year to get awesome equipment is exactly what I was expecting from the game. I get junk most of the time, just like everyone else does. That's part of the long-term playability of games in this genre. I totally expected this from this game.
I understand the lament of those on the PS3 with stability problems, and I never said my experiences were unilateral. However, I've seen nothing but improvement on this topic.
To sum up, I've never said in any posting here (or anywhere else) that the game was perfect. Ever. Find where I say this and I will eat my shoes without salt.
I point out the negative where I see it as well as the positive where I see it. I try as hard as I can to be a realist about these things. Within the last few months, Trion has been very forthcoming with the fact that this game was mishandled from the start. I have patience to find out what they're going to do about it in the future and, so far, I like what I see! Should that change, I'll jump off that bridge when it gets here.
PC NA characters: Market & Yanna Walkingbear
XBox NA character retired.
PTS Reviews on Defiance Data!
"You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."
They have gone into great detail on how the new grenade mechanics will work. If you bother to take the time to do a little research, you'll have enough understanding of the proposed system to formulate an opinion on it. Basically what it comes down to is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Aside from 0.0 det grenades STILL blowing up in your face 6 months after launch, grenades are fine as is. Instead, they are turning them into an ammo based system. Hunting down ammo in this game is not fun for most players. It's a tedious thing, having to constantly run to some ammo box, and adding one more weapon that relies on ammo drops isn't what most players would consider an improvement on the game. Your opinion will obviously vary here.
Except that this game isn't based on linear gear progression like most traditional MMOs. That's one of the reasons I started playing - I didn't have the time anymore to dedicate hours upon hours to raid or PvP just so that I could remain current and competitive with my gear. What was unique and good about this game was that if you managed to find a really awesome legendary weapon at Ego 1000, it was still just as awesome at Ego 5000. To completely contradict that premise by rendering everything you had earned the past 6 months obsolete (meaning, worthless compared to the newer guns with all good rolls on them) literally overnight, was a short-sighted decision that gave their older players one more reason to seek entertainment elsewhere. While I'm happy for you that your lack of luck or ambition protected you against what was essentially a kick in the nuts for a lot of other players, that doesn't mean it still wasn't a short-sighted decision that adversely affected a large portion of their playerbase.
It's certainly improved, but at this point in the game we shouldn't be making excuses for it by saying things like, "it still needs work" or "it's usable". Perhaps you value your free time less than I do mine, but I have slightly higher standards for what is supposed to be a professional game development studio, especially from one that has prior MMO experience (e.g. Rift). I've seen full-fledged MMOs iron out issues like chat windows within a month or two of release. To have clan chat available one day and then inexplicably not be working the next day (which still happens, btw) is unacceptable for a game that's been out this long.
Perhaps you should. You don't have to necessarily become a PvP junkie, and certainly I wouldn't recommend spending much time doing PvP in this game until they fix a LOT of the problems there (which I won't bother going into here), but often a lot of the nerfs you see in PvE are caused by something going on in PvP. It helps you better understand the reasoning for those changes (or lack thereof) if you spend a little time experiencing the other side of the game.
My personal opinion is that they should remove PvP altogether. It's not that I hate it - in fact, I love to PvP in a game that does it well - but PvP in this game is often not fun for a majority of players. No MMO to date has ever successfully balanced PvP and PvE. In my years of MMO experience, I have come to the conclusion that it's better to do one or the other really well, than to try and do both poorly.
You're presuming I'm asking for handouts or that I feel self-entitled to have the best gear instantly. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I earned everything I had. I never scammed another player. I never took advantage of players less knowledgeable about the game than I was. I never took any shortcuts at all. I'm guessing I've opened 1000+ lockboxes during my months playing this game. I agree that a legendary weapon should be legendary, but the risk versus reward just isn't there. Currently in the game, you have better odds of getting a legendary from an Arkfall than you do from a T4 lockbox. The RNG system for lockboxes was quoted by Trick as being a 'statistical mess', hence my earlier paraphrase. It was only a month ago that they changed T4 lockboxes so that you wouldn't get green quality weapons anymore. The whole system needs an overhaul.
Too little, too late. Consumers expect more these days, and rightly so. Enough other game companies out there have made enough other mistakes to provide a significantly shorter learning curve for those who are newer to the genre. But we can't even give Trion that excuse - they have another MMO (Rift) that they had created long before this one. They've had plenty of opportunities to learn from some of the mistakes they made over there. Granted, this was the first MMO for the console, but I can't couch consistently bad design decisions on that basis. The bar has been set higher than this by other game studios out there who have come out with more polished products. If a game company can't do it and do it right, then someone else surely will and that's where I'll be spending my time and my dollars. If you're happier with mediocrity, then that might explain why you appear to be happy with this one.
XBL GT = Mournblood
I will help all i can.
I'm going to severely snip this lest we bore these good people to death with even bigger walls of text.
I've been there for every livestream and read what's been posted in an official capacity, ignoring the speculation and straight-up whining about said "great detail" and I still stick to my statement. Until it goes live, we don't know what it will entail. They could scrap the idea entirely while I'm writing this and leave it the same. They could come up with something totally different that we've seen so far and bring it in a future patch. I'm not entitled to inside information. Until the patch is on my system, I choose to withhold opinions until I have facts in front of me. It's just the way I do things and I shouldn't expect everyone to follow this method.
I understand how it could upset people, I guess I've just been through much of this sort of thing in so many games through my gaming history that I come to expect that the gear I have today will become obsolete with future content. Much of the reason I didn't spend a million Scrip on a LMG. I also expected the first 6-10 months of the game to be quite shaky since it was a fairly new concept to put this genre of game on three different systems. I have a *very* limited understanding of programming and with this I expected there to be far more than common problems going in.
I am not meaning to appear like I'm giving excuses. Merely concessions. It's taking them a long time to fix things, and in some cases, longer than most expected to wait. I understand the frustration it can cause, but I guess I'm far more patient than most. Probably more than I should be. The point for me is that the enjoyment I get from the game outweighs the problems I run into. If they were still being as glib about everything as they were in the beginning, giving answers without finding out the facts, I would have been on my way to other things two months ago. Since they are being much more transparent about things and as long as I'm seeing forward progress, I'm willing to be patient. I understand not everyone feels this way and I won't fault them for it as long as they are civil. Nothing is gained from some of the nastiness I've seen here. (in general, nothing you've said) I value my free time just as much as anyone else, but again, I feel like I have a bit more patience than most as well as still gaining quite a bit of enjoyment from this title.
Thank you, but no. I can't stand the majority of attitudes that come along with PvP in any game and prefer to avoid it at all costs. I'm not one for being called names because I don't perform as well as others, nor do I enjoy being slandered for what equipment or tactics I employ. I find it much easier to simply steer clear of it rather than attempt to deal with superiority complexes. I do understand that I am missing out on details of the game that this deprives me of, but that's why I have the forums. I can read between all that junk here and see others opinions on the subject. Of course, I take it all with a grain of salt because I don't have my own experiences with it, but since I don't tend to give opinions on the subject, it's not something I really feel necessary to try out.
I did not presume anything about you specifically in that statement. Merely what I personally expected from it and how I perceive the whining of others. None of that called you out personally.
For you, perhaps. Not all of us feel this way. Honestly, it's my personal opinion (can't state opinion strongly enough here) that this kind of expectation is what has game companies of all kinds pushing out half-finished products. The demands of the public continue to get bigger and bigger, expecting more and more in a shorter time frame than before. To meet this demand, game designers continue to attempt keeping up with it, pushing out content that goes untested or barely tested. Consumers get angry with it, forcing more of the same. It's not the fault of one side or the other, in my opinion, but more of a nasty cycle that will never end.
I don't have the money to eat games like a great amount of consumers do, so I have to find something I like and settle in with it. Defiance is something I've been enjoying enough to be patient with. And, as I said before, if there's ever a time where I feel like forward progress is not being made, you can take it to the bank that they will hear it from me. I've sent PM's to a few Trion people and have had brilliant discussions result from it. Much more than I can say for most other professional game development studios.
I don't find Defiance to be mediocre in any sense of the word, but I am indeed happy with most of what I've experienced in the game. That which I have not found such, I've let them know. In great length. (Ask Dah about that... SORRY DAH! lol)
PC NA characters: Market & Yanna Walkingbear
XBox NA character retired.
PTS Reviews on Defiance Data!
"You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."
DLC 2 or 3 to surpass my expectations?
If this actually happens, you will see me online a lot more often than I have been... like in the pre-EL marathon days.
I would and still recommend Defiance to people. Especially at a $5 price point. I do warn them ahead of time about the flaws in the game but basically my friends are not hardcore gamers (neither am I) and this game is playable for us. I have my own wish list for the game, but as a start, it's a lot of fun.
This does not mean that they (and me as well) won't get tired of it after we play through it all. But for 5 bucks, it's worth it.
My major wish is just more content. I have played through the missions twice now and it's getting hard to keep interest.
For the record, I bought the game for more than 5 dollars, and yes I am a bit of a sap for being a season pass holder, and was disappointed at the last DLC's lack of new content. But I am in this til the end, whether it's 4 more good/bad DLC's or the doomsayers are correct and the game goes belly up. They'll be shutting down the servers with my character screaming "wait, I still haven't gotten my orange SAW yet!"
This completely sounds familiar... I totally know where you're coming from. I disconnect/lag out from this game much less than I would disconnect/lag out while playing a certain PS3 MMO that's out there.
I have over 80 games for my PS3 and I still enjoy playing Defiance, it's fun.
I also have a great deal of patience. Rushing someone to do something won't get you the best results.
Defiance isn't mediocre. It's a good game that needs polishing. A diamond that needs refining. If that's the right terminology.
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