Threat Scaling Crock

[Baines]

However, I do agree with the rest of your post. Defiance as it stands now is extremely easy. Much different than when I started.

The annoying thing, beyond lag currently making parts of the game nearly unplayable, is that you often have little control over how difficult an area is.

The base TL is often too weak to be a challenge, but you can't do anything on your own to increase it. On the other hand, just because someone is passing through at the wrong time, you can see the game jump from TL 3 to TL 9 in an instant, and suddenly find yourself facing a new wave of bullet sponge enemies before it drops back to TL 4. With no other player actually in the area helping fight those stronger enemies.

For similar reasons, the advice of "Just go to a lower TL area if you find yourself outmatched" is useless. Any area can see TL seesaw, particularly when weekly pursuits and events are sending higher level players into what were presumably originally meant (before TL) to be lower level areas. You might as well ride out the higher TL and reap what extra rewards you can manage, at least as long as there are actually new players in the area fighting the same enemies, which again isn't always guaranteed with the TL system. (Heck, I'd drive around looking for higher TL areas for the extra challenge/reward, if there was any real pattern to it and anything to find actually worth playing.)

When I saw the co-op missions offered a difficulty selection, I had a hope there of some selectable challenge, but no you can only choose between Normal and Expert, and Expert is level locked anyway.

[Atticus Batman]

The annoying thing, beyond lag currently making parts of the game nearly unplayable, is that you often have little control over how difficult an area is.

The base TL is often too weak to be a challenge, but you can't do anything on your own to increase it. On the other hand, just because someone is passing through at the wrong time, you can see the game jump from TL 3 to TL 9 in an instant, and suddenly find yourself facing a new wave of bullet sponge enemies before it drops back to TL 4. With no other player actually in the area helping fight those stronger enemies.

For similar reasons, the advice of "Just go to a lower TL area if you find yourself outmatched" is useless. Any area can see TL seesaw, particularly when weekly pursuits and events are sending higher level players into what were presumably originally meant (before TL) to be lower level areas. You might as well ride out the higher TL and reap what extra rewards you can manage, at least as long as there are actually new players in the area fighting the same enemies, which again isn't always guaranteed with the TL system. (Heck, I'd drive around looking for higher TL areas for the extra challenge/reward, if there was any real pattern to it and anything to find actually worth playing.)

When I saw the co-op missions offered a difficulty selection, I had a hope there of some selectable challenge, but no you can only choose between Normal and Expert, and Expert is level locked anyway.

Um there are 3 settings. Normal = tl1, advanced = tl5, and expert tl10.
Advanced becomes unlocked when you are I believe ego 3k, and expert at ego 5k.

Either level up and unlock them or group with a friend that is high enough ego to have them unlocked then have him pick that difficulty.

[J8 Sky]

Actually, I believe I read on a different thread where the TL10 mobs were scaled to 6k. I may be wrong here, but it seems a bit more accurate.

If I'm wrong, I apologize for misinformation.

However, I do agree with the rest of your post. Defiance as it stands now is extremely easy. Much different than when I started.

either of us is wrong, i should have been more clarify. TL10 is from 5k to max 6k. that is the reason why sometimes TL10 seem "easy" , and sometimes it seems like a bullet sponge. but if it's just a small group and you see TL10, most likely it's the 5k range TL10. if it's a large group of mostly high ego players, i'm almost positive it's the "Hard" TL10.

[Snowclan]

A nice clear explanation of how Threat Level is calculated and what it means can be found on DefianceData.com
http://www.defiancedata.com/page.php?id=205

When you get an ego boost to match the current threat level, your gear is boosted by the same number as your ego was. That can make a big difference if your gear lags much behind your current ego rating.

[Lubber]

These events do not draw the number of people in arkfalls/sieges but just draw enough to screw up things.

Just let those people do this job (restarting units), if it is hard for you. Do not rush in the middle of fight and keep earning you exp. points (you need those if you are low EGO). Use this situations (high TL) to get tons of experience to progress faster, or you will stay low EGO forever. Think of high TL not as an issue but as an opportunity! More exp, more score, more rewards. And remember, that your presence boosts TL for other same way, so do your part as best as you can.

PS. For big groups of enemies I suggest get yourself a detonator with sticky grenades. Lay 4-6 grenades in one place from distance and detonate simultaneously - there will be no enemies to fight back. Enjoy!

[Baines]

Um there are 3 settings. Normal = tl1, advanced = tl5, and expert tl10.
Advanced becomes unlocked when you are I believe ego 3k, and expert at ego 5k.

Ah, people only ever mentioned 5k/Expert and I never bothered going back to start a co-op after passing 3k. Half the the time, co-op is broken for at least one player. Sometimes two players. Even if the game ran fine through the co-op, you risked it breaking when you left. The last time, when the game was mostly playing alright for everyone, someone decided to go idle halfway through the map, right before a gate that required all four players to activate.

And lag and network issues for the last few days have approached the point of the game being unplayable in general anyway. (Haven't seen Volge Sieges reach the 8th wave because the server constantly stops updating. Even having three or four people being in a minor arkbreak risks crippling lag that makes the event run at least twice as long, because the game decides to repeatedly pause and give the enemies free shield recharges. Etc.)

Doesn't change that the runs available are still too easy. As was itself shown with co-ops being broken, where two functional people could finish a mission as easily as four, as long as the mission didn't have an arbitrary four-person gate. I'd certainly rather run them at a higher difficulty than the game allows (short of constantly begging off of a higher level friend.) I wouldn't mind being able to run them with smaller groups as well. Again, it isn't like they are difficult or anything, so you might as well be allowed to run them with two people or even solo. (Though I guess Trion fears that if co-op missions worked too well, too many people might spend their time running them instead of moving around the world map.)

[Z0mb13]

Also nearby only shows people that are right next to you. The people that showed up may be at the other side of the event, so they won't show on radar or in the nearby list. However they are at the event so it raises the Tl.

Or some folks may be 20M away, in the bushes killing hellbug skitterlings or something at the edge of the event.

[Atticus Batman]

Ah, people only ever mentioned 5k/Expert and I never bothered going back to start a co-op after passing 3k. Half the the time, co-op is broken for at least one player. Sometimes two players. Even if the game ran fine through the co-op, you risked it breaking when you left. The last time, when the game was mostly playing alright for everyone, someone decided to go idle halfway through the map, right before a gate that required all four players to activate.

And lag and network issues for the last few days have approached the point of the game being unplayable in general anyway. (Haven't seen Volge Sieges reach the 8th wave because the server constantly stops updating. Even having three or four people being in a minor arkbreak risks crippling lag that makes the event run at least twice as long, because the game decides to repeatedly pause and give the enemies free shield recharges. Etc.)

Doesn't change that the runs available are still too easy. As was itself shown with co-ops being broken, where two functional people could finish a mission as easily as four, as long as the mission didn't have an arbitrary four-person gate. I'd certainly rather run them at a higher difficulty than the game allows (short of constantly begging off of a higher level friend.) I wouldn't mind being able to run them with smaller groups as well. Again, it isn't like they are difficult or anything, so you might as well be allowed to run them with two people or even solo. (Though I guess Trion fears that if co-op missions worked too well, too many people might spend their time running them instead of moving around the world map.)

That is because most don't do advanced since there are no pursuits or contracts tied to them, and lots of people only do coops for the pursuit rewards, or contracts.

Btw if the guy who chose not to go near the circle is NOT the party leader, then have the party leader kick him. He will still be in the coop, but since he isn't in the group, you can ready up without him there, and he will get pulled in with you.

[Arglemesh]

A nice clear explanation of how Threat Level is calculated and what it means can be found on DefianceData.com
http://www.defiancedata.com/page.php?id=205

When you get an ego boost to match the current threat level, your gear is boosted by the same number as your ego was. That can make a big difference if your gear lags much behind your current ego rating.

LOL! Thanks! This is what I was looking for. I mainly wanted to know what weird perverted math Trion used to calculate threat levels in events. That was my main reason for starting this thread, the apparently screwy jumps from 4 to 5 to 10.