An analytic look at the recent changes.

[PTR47]

I've read through the OP a few times, and the biggest problem is end-game.

There is none.

There's a raid boss that's broken, a PVP system that's broken, and there's a loot chase. The last one just got more broken. If all you have to do is a loot chase, how is that going to make you feel? I don't do either of the former, just the last one. This does not make the game more fulfilling. Decreasing drop-rates hurts the most, then AF, then Keys. I only spent keys when I was full of them.

Also, the cosmetics of the 1mil lootbox offers unique power gains. It's not cosmetic. It's now a piece of gear that you don't have.

[silencer_pl]

My problem is that if they don't want us to upgrade and want higher level enemies to drop better gear, why do top level enemies drop blues?

I addressed this: The nominal item rarity is blue/purple. Oranges should be rare across the board and even when they pop up, they are not a guaranteed better item.

Or why there's only one arkfall you can get legendary items from.

Because at the moment there is only one arkfall (outside of the two faction vendors that have you do daily expert runs) that actually is difficult enough to warrant handing them out. Makes actually pulling it off worth it, especially since it requires a premade large group to pull off successful after its recent changes.

Again, legendaries are the "top", rare weapons. They are not the "nominal" level that should serve as a frame of reference imho. It is something to aspire to, but ultimately an extremely long term goal, with lots of stops on the way.

Diablos economy got crazy and they started loot 2.0 system and you get a nice epic or legendary item every 20-60 minutes as drops from difficult enemies. They know how to keep you chasing.

Thats not chasing, thats a handout. I didn't mention D3 on purpose, it literally takes the easiest route possible design wise in all aspects, which is fine for people that like that, but it also makes gameplay horribly monotonous and lacking exactly the factor that the quote I gave in the OP mentioned.

Again, chasing means that nothing is absolutely guaranteed and you need to learn to make do with what you get and, if needed, balance things out on the fly as you get higher level loot. D3s loot system shallows out that aspect to the point it pretty much no longer exists. That was exactly the problem with the arkforge, instead of looting and mixing/matching, you were pretty much just farming keys/arkforge.

That is not saying mind you that the current changes are perfect, but again, considering the repetitive nature of the game (as is the nature of all Action RPGs and MMOs really) something else needs to engage the player.

To be fair Trion has the chase pretty well hammered down. So well hammered down in fact that not only are we chasing through all these blues greens and purps but 99% of legendary weapons are trash

One mans trash...

If stuff is trash to you, then more power to you. But the entire idea behind chase systems is that you will almost never get exactly what you are looking for and will need to make do. I still have my pre-patch arkforged stuff on me, but I'm approaching the moment where I'll have to get creative with my upgrades, which is the nature of the game.

Again, I don't intend to argue that the near-cap EGO rating players should have a bit easier way to get arkforge just because their progression is more limited, though that already should be the case since those players should be getting higher scores anyway?

No no and also no. Since Defiance USED to be a very unique game in which the loot chase was based on finding weapons with certain rolls because EGO didn't used to matter, your mindset is totally different from older players. We liked the unique flavor that came with Defiance. Things that continuously get changed around.

If Trion went and developed a totally different game with the current mechanics they keep putting into Defiance, fine.[/lucent]

That is because the game they originally made flopped hard.

And mind you, I've seen games I like either go offline or get completely changed, but the "old" Defiance model had the serious issue of not being an attractive product. I've had a chance to demo it shortly after release and its a night and day difference to what it is right now, I agree.

The format Defiance used when it launched and ran for its initial period would work way better if inserted into a single player game (obviously needing much more adjustments), but was completely not appealing as an MMO/ARpg Shooter hybrid. Thats because most players think those genres and immediately think horizontal progression, loot levels and/or gear chasing.

It took them this amount of time to realize that something THEY HYPED LIKE CRAZY (rarity upgrade, etc) isn't what they meant to do at all and didn't realize it was a bad idea. Then WTF were they doing in the first place? How ELSE did that anticipate that addition being used?

The problem was it replaced the primary form of gear progression. It still is in the game and still has a whole lot of functionality, it was not meant however to be the primary form of advancement.

It is entirely possible this was not an issue at first, but just became more and more common as knowledge on how to "maximize" gains form the system spread. MMO metrics and dynamics are weird like that. Or, they just did not catch it soon enough, it can also happen.

Either way, the system is still there and still lets you boost your gear. Again, if you assume that the nominal level is green/purple, if you are conservative about on what you use it, you can still use it to tweak your gear nicely.

It IS a currency grinder.

Nope.

You can't grind bits.

Reputation has strict limits on what it can get you and it is definitely not the source of best items in the game. Instead, it is a side currency that you can use to get extra stuff if you happen to need/find it.
And that is exactly what the arkforge and crates are supposed to be according to the quoted post.

The whole issue which brought the change was that scrip in fact became the key to both chests and arkforge beyond what was intended.

And it always has been. Allllllllwaaaaaaaays. Yes, you CAN get drops from completing events, but I got most of my legendaries from Lockboxes (using a combination of, you guessed it, in-game currencies) before Arkforge ever let me upgrade stuff. To the point where I wouldn't really care my drop from the event: I care about what drops from my boxes because it was more likely to be nice.

And that is exactly what the problem was. Game-play and rewards for such, not grinding currencies is supposed to be the highest rewarding factor (the more you actively play in all aspects of the game ideally, the more chances for good loot you have), not playing roulette with boxes (which "forces" players to find the most optimal way of grinding scrip, detracting from the actual gameplay chase factor above)

And again, Legendaries are not the nominal loot level for establishing a good build, they are the gravy.

It has always been like this: I believe that WAS the intended character of the game.

Both the recent post and changes suggest something to the contrary.

And even if it was, imho it was a wrong direction and it is a good thing that it was changed.

There's a raid boss that's broken, a PVP system that's broken, and there's a loot chase. The last one just got more broken. If all you have to do is a loot chase, how is that going to make you feel? I don't do either of the former, just the last one. This does not make the game more fulfilling. Decreasing drop-rates hurts the most, then AF, then Keys. I only spent keys when I was full of them.

Loot chasing is supposed to be ideally tied to all active participation in the game, you can't really do it separately. Again, the lockboxes is not loot chasing, its a bonus system, the actual shooting things is the chasing.

Yes, Defiance has a finite amount of content, like any other game. If you reach the "endgame" of any game, that probably means you've done everything, unless you mean "high level content", which in Defiance is provided by the scaling system, Endgame is mostly just a term thrown around discussions about MMOs that does not mean anything imo.

Regular gear rates were not decreased by my own experiences and small amount of people I've talked to, in fact quite the contrary. The patch notes in fact specifically mention them being "adjusted" to be the primary source of gear, with arkforge/lockboxes being bonus sources.

Also, the cosmetics of the 1mil lootbox offers unique power gains. It's not cosmetic. It's now a piece of gear that you don't have.

Its not the cosmetics, but the weapons/shields that can also drop out of the lockbox. The cosmetics are just that, considering how they are handled in Defiance, no cosmetic can offer a bonus.

They are not mod synergies (since mods are not mentioned) meaning they are probably the double weapon/shield type which are usually underpowered compared to their weapon mod counterparts.

I've yet to see exactly what the new synergies are, but considering the other synergies of that type, I'm willing to bet that they are more a consolation for not getting an actual cosmetic rather then an actual super-powerful synergy.

[Tiasmoon]

Its a cash only roll of the dice for rare cosmetics given a conversion rate to in-game currency. Most F2P games offer this. It would be actually way, way worse if they offered higher-then-normal chances for the high tier items. And the costumes? They are typical "chase" items.

So much for an analytical post about anything.


Im not seeing your analytical comparison between items that can be bought in this game, and items in other F2P games...
No other F2P game i know completely halts your progression in game, and does not even give you the illusion that you can obtain sometimes by just spending more time.

Buying from the shop here isnt ''the lazy way'', its the ''only way''



Your post is ********. You dont analyze anything but the arguments you presume to be in your favor.

[430005]

The salvage upgrade system during regular advancement is nothing but a buffer in case you have really bad luck.

It's not bad luck, it's bad droprate. You can farm all day long, with RNG you can spend $10,000,- on lockboxes and still wont get the gun you want.

Only when you are close to maximizing your EGO you should be thinking of starting to farm arkforge to make an orange or two.

OJ's drop more often to have just two in your inventory. It's that 90% of all OJ's are utter crap. You need to make the chase attractive. Now it isnt.

The fact that the highest rarity tier, not the "average" rarity tier is considered the "norm" shows how skewed the system was before the changes.

I will start using blues/purples again or the OJs I have, it will not benefit the "chase". The rarity nerf did. Legendary should be the goal. Not good blues/purples.

Yes, those with deep pockets can probably shell out cash to just use arkforge.

For $20,- to upgrade ONE weapon or shield nobody will shell out cash to use arkforge. Try again, bud.

the very common accusation of how the devs are "pushing people towards the cash store" seem very out of place

Not really, because a social set you can wear (and nobody can see) is just as expensive. Fail again.

that means that you would be literally paying loads of money to skip a major part of the game and its long term appeal.

Weapons and shields from lockboxes are RNG. You get all the crap in the world, which is why nobody should buy lockboxes with real money.

You can probably still maintain 1-2 pieces of gear, but honestly, sooner or later (ideally) something will drop that will dwarf those items.

You haven't been playing this game for very long, have you? The reason people upgraded blues to OJ was because the droprate on good OJ's is so low.

you always, always have to lowball the drop/acquisition rate of items that are supposed to be a side progression component.

Setting a price of 1m scrip for 4 blue (encrypted?) items was silly to begin with. You set the price too high, people become uninterested and leave.

Again, the "they just want your money" argument fails flat here considering that the bit prices for boxes

They nerfed the rewards down so it takes you a month to upgrade a weapon. How is that not a cheap cashgrab? Let me make it even clearer:

"Our priority is to make Defiance the best game possible, and after reviewing the data we see fewer players purchasing lockboxes with both our in-game currency and Bits. And as we dig through this data from the past 2 months we realize the mistake we made: our introduction of essentially unlimited rarity upgrades removed the item chase from the game for many of our players. This is change is not solely about revenue – but at same time we make no secret about it: Defiance is a business"
[/i]Source: http://www.trionworlds.com/defiance/...crypted-items/[i]

arkforge was not intended as a primary form of progression. The lockboxes serve a similar purpose as the rarity/ego upgrades in the matrix now

If i had to rely on only ingame drops, I wouldve left a long time ago. The reason they introduced arkforge in the first place is because they know the RNG is crap.


.. OK, i can go through your whole text and say what's wrong with your "analytic view" but it's so skewed it's just too much work (trust me, i can, i just dont want to).

[PTR47]

Yes, Defiance has a finite amount of content, like any other game. If you reach the "endgame" of any game, that probably means you've done everything, unless you mean "high level content", which in Defiance is provided by the scaling system, Endgame is mostly just a term thrown around discussions about MMOs that does not mean anything imo.

Endgame is the stuff you do after you've completed leveling through combat/quest XP.

This.. couldn't be clearer in any MMO I've ever played. You say you were a Dev?

Regular gear rates were not decreased by my own experiences and small amount of people I've talked to, in fact quite the contrary. The patch notes in fact specifically mention them being "adjusted" to be the primary source of gear, with arkforge/lockboxes being bonus sources.

They have been decreased by at least 25%. My initial numbers say 25%, although circumstantial evidence through the forum suggest that this number is low, and many people are faring worse than my analytics. To be clear, I have been data gathering for theory-crafting purposes and my data says I got 75% of my expected return. That's not hunch, nor guesswork. That's simple math and data collection.

Its not the cosmetics, but the weapons/shields that can also drop out of the lockbox. The cosmetics are just that, considering how they are handled in Defiance, no cosmetic can offer a bonus.

They are not mod synergies (since mods are not mentioned) meaning they are probably the double weapon/shield type which are usually underpowered compared to their weapon mod counterparts.

I've yet to see exactly what the new synergies are, but considering the other synergies of that type, I'm willing to bet that they are more a consolation for not getting an actual cosmetic rather then an actual super-powerful synergy.

The new outfits offer synergies such as "[3] On shield break, +20% outgoing healing for 10s (Cooldown: 30s)", "[3] On armor break. 10 second blur effect. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)", or "[3] 10% damage when shield is down"

[drackiller]

Ok, if the new corporate lockbox costs 1 million scrip and give almost all the time four crappy encrypted blues, how much will people pay for my Double criticals AR`s , SMG`s, etc!?
How much will people pay for a purple Zagger?

I`m just giving examples because, why pay that insane amounth of scrip when we can sell much better weapons to new players?
Or even give them those weapons...

[silencer_pl]

So much for an analytical post about anything.


Im not seeing your analytical comparison between items that can be bought in this game, and items in other F2P games...
No other F2P game i know completely halts your progression in game, and does not even give you the illusion that you can obtain sometimes by just spending more time.

Buying from the shop here isnt ''the lazy way'', its the ''only way''

No, it is not. You still get arkforge, you still get scrip, you still get keys, you still get loot. Absolutely nothing is blocked for you as a F2P player.

I suppose you missed the part where I elaborate on the dev post explaining that arkforge/crates are not supposed to be the main progression method.

In fact, a lot of F2P games flat out sell you gear for money.

Your post is ********. You dont analyze anything but the arguments you presume to be in your favor.

Feel free to counter them.

It's not bad luck, it's bad droprate. You can farm all day long, with RNG you can spend $10,000,- on lockboxes and still wont get the gun you want.

That has nothing to do with the quote you mentioned. Lockboxes are meant to complement bad luck in regular activity loot drops if you want to use your keys/scrip that way.

And yes, ideally getting the "perfect" guns of the highest rarity is a near impossible task, thats the idea.

OJ's drop more often to have just two in your inventory. It's that 90% of all OJ's are utter crap. You need to make the chase attractive. Now it isnt.

Which is exactly why you have the arkforge system where you can attempt to custom tailor your own OJ. Also, see above.

No gun, even an OJ, should be distinctly better then the rest, its just the numbers that get a little bit higher.

I will start using blues/purples again or the OJs I have, it will not benefit the "chase". The rarity nerf did. Legendary should be the goal. Not good blues/purples.

Yes it will. It will let you chase more effectively, get more points, get more chances for loot. The entire idea of a chase loot system is that you advance bit by bit, sometimes through unexpected ways depending on drops.

I mentioned there that Legendaries/OJs/whatnot are the ultimate goal, but they are not the "baseline", they are the gravy due to how hard it is to get them and tailor them to your liking.

For $20,- to upgrade ONE weapon or shield nobody will shell out cash to use arkforge. Try again, bud.

Proof? STO and many, many other games, Korean grinders including, prove that people can spend a lot of money if they want to on what they want to.

Hell, people spend more on cosmetics.

Not really, because a social set you can wear (and nobody can see) is just as expensive. Fail again.

Again, you would be surprised.

Weapons and shields from lockboxes are RNG. You get all the crap in the world, which is why nobody should buy lockboxes with real money.

Lockboxes/Lotteries are standard fare of F2P games. Again, you seem to underestimate the willingness of some people to throw money at things like that.

You haven't been playing this game for very long, have you? The reason people upgraded blues to OJ was because the droprate on good OJ's is so low.

Which is typically an intended mechanic in loot chasers. I am aware that OJs are rare, for the reasons I explained in the OP.

Again, its blues/purples that are the baseline, the things that you get fairly easy. OJs are supposed to be rare and the arkforge overflow was disrupting that.

Setting a price of 1m scrip for 4 blue (encrypted?) items was silly to begin with. You set the price too high, people become uninterested and leave.

Those are consolation prizes. You roll for the cosmetics, not for the gear.

Cash shop only cosmetics lockboxes are also fairly standard F2P game fare. A lot of them tend to offer some sort of solution that lets players with a lot of IG cash to roll for them too, exactly like they did.

You also underestimate the determination of collectors, though 1m might be a tad to steep. Or not. We won't know, the metrics will probably show that better after a few weeks of it being live.

They nerfed the rewards down so it takes you a month to upgrade a weapon. How is that not a cheap cashgrab?

Probably because, as mentioned multiple times, upgrading is a secondary way of increasing item rarity. Again, I quoted the dev explanation, where they mention drops being center stage as item acquisition method.

And yes, again, getting highest tier loot that fits exactly what you want from it should be a question of weeks/months, with probably a bit less once you reach near-max EGO (which I also mentioned)

Let me make it even clearer:

"Our priority is to make Defiance the best game possible, and after reviewing the data we see fewer players purchasing lockboxes with both our in-game currency and Bits. And as we dig through this data from the past 2 months we realize the mistake we made: our introduction of essentially unlimited rarity upgrades removed the item chase from the game for many of our players. This is change is not solely about revenue – but at same time we make no secret about it: Defiance is a business"

And this sentence proves what? They specifically mention that the arkforge upgrades were so prominent that they dwarfed out all other means of acquiring loot, including drops, which are meant to be the primary source and lockboxes (note they mention both in-game and premium currency), which are bonus supplements.

Getting enough AF to get an OJ is intended as a long term goal, not the default way of getting one.

OJs are rare by design. Again, blues/Purples are the baseline gear.

Yes, this was also potentially putting a hole in their profits and they acknowledge that. But if you buy a lockbox for real money, you also do it for the guaranteed purple and a chance of an OJ, not the other way around. And again, you'd be surprised at how much a lottery like this can make in a F2P game.

But, again, it is drops that are supposed to be your main source of usable gear, not the Salvage Matrix. They said so themselves in my own quote.

There is nothing in the sentence you quoted that would state otherwise, they are just more or less stating the obvious and acknowledging that profit margin was one of their motivations as well.

If i had to rely on only ingame drops, I wouldve left a long time ago. The reason they introduced arkforge in the first place is because they know the RNG is crap.

You don't, ingame drops are your primary source, supplemented by several secondaries (lockboxes, arkforge). Key word primary.

The changes to the arkforge clearly indicate they didn't want it to be that dominant, you made an assumption without anything to back it up.

.. OK, i can go through your whole text and say what's wrong with your "analytic view" but it's so skewed it's just too much work (trust me, i can, i just dont want to).

Which is a shame, because you ignored/did not include the premise of the entire post, which specifically addressed most of the things you picked out here. For the most part, you repeated what I said, only tried to spin in a negative light.

Endgame is the stuff you do after you've completed leveling through combat/quest XP.

Which considering that Defiance scales encounters to your rating does not mean much.

They have been decreased by at least 25%. My initial numbers say 25%, although circumstantial evidence through the forum suggest that this number is low, and many people are faring worse than my analytics. To be clear, I have been data gathering for theory-crafting purposes and my data says I got 75% of my expected return. That's not hunch, nor guesswork. That's simple math and data collection.

Please provide said data then, I'm seriously curious myself.

Also, mention methodology of data gathering. Provide datasets you compared it to. Time spans, repetitions, conditions, etc. Also, raw data just to make sure that the collection is reliable.

You know, the usual stuff that you typically have to provide when you quote statistical information.

The new outfits offer synergies such as "[3] On shield break, +20% outgoing healing for 10s (Cooldown: 30s)", "[3] On armor break. 10 second blur effect. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)", or "[3] 10% damage when shield is down"

How is that possible? How can an cosmetic offer bonuses in Defiance, considering it is selected from a menu that in no way mentions them, or even gives any description of it. They would literally need to create a new system for it.

Instead, we can read:

these lock boxes contain vanity outfits and headgear as well as weapons and shields loaded with three new synergies.

Its the Weapons and Shields that come with the dual synergies, just like the 7th Legion ones do, not the cosmetics. Provide a confirmed source that it is otherwise please, I have not found any myself.

[PTR47]

Please provide said data then, I'm seriously curious myself.

Also, mention methodology of data gathering. Provide datasets you compared it to. Time spans, repetitions, conditions, etc. Also, raw data just to make sure that the collection is reliable.

You know, the usual stuff that you typically have to provide when you quote statistical information.

[link removed]

How is that possible? How can an cosmetic offer bonuses in Defiance, considering it is selected from a menu that in no way mentions them, or even gives any description of it. They would literally need to create a new system for it.

Instead, we can read:

these lock boxes contain vanity outfits and headgear as well as weapons and shields loaded with three new synergies.

Its the Weapons and Shields that come with the dual synergies, just like the 7th Legion ones do, not the cosmetics. Provide a confirmed source that it is otherwise please, I have not found any myself.

http://www.defiancedata.com/page.php?id=296

[Avalon1k]

I'm fine with the changes, pretty much all of the changes since launch I've been fine with.

But what they need to do, is pull EVERYONE off of EVERYTHING else and fix the servers. Screw crossover missions, screw new missions, screw new events, screw new weapons, screw new outfits, screw EVERYTHING. Fix the damn servers and 90% of the pissed off players will have little to complain about.

I totally agree. The servers cannot keep up with the dynamic events. You guys need to look into a solution for this (I guess it might lead to more instancing (sadly), until faster servers come down the road. Or maybe IBM will loan you a Watson. Until you do I will have to avoid major events.

[silencer_pl]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ata_Prood.xlsx

Where is the comparison to drops before the patch?

Out of the 16 entries, only 11 are repeated under the same conditions. And that is assuming no boosts came into play. 11 repetitions is not statistically significant, you'd need easily 100 repetitions before and after to even start to guess.

The most damning thing though, you did not account for whites at all. This makes the entire data set completely useless since it outright skips one of the rarities.

This is not a viable metric, it cannot be used.

http://www.defiancedata.com/page.php?id=296

Unreliable source. The synergy shown is a 3 part synergy, exactly like the 7th legion one (Weapon/Weapon/Shield), no actual shot of the costume indicating any synergy, only mention is an unreliable transcription that seems to be confused by this too. Need an official confirmation (again, I've tried and failed to find one)

Again, everything about this points to a 7th legion like synergy. Nothing you've shown convinces me otherwise.