The loot in Defiance is similar to the loot in the first Guild Wars game. For the purposes of this post I will focus on weapons.

Both games have weapons where the base damage is always the same and modifiers can be placed on the weapon. This is done to prevent content gating and to keep pvp competitive. It makes sense. The downside is players can feel loot is less exciting because it doesn't make you more powerful. This also makes sense.

Guild Wars introduced green items. These were weapons that dropped fully modified. They were pretty rare and took some effort to get. It is a good compromise because when one dropped it was exciting but it didn't break balance.

I think this would be a great addition to Defiance. Rare weapons, with a unique text color, and fully modified. Modifications that make sense and go along with the theme/name of the item. Maybe a quote at the bottom, that's always a nice touch and enhances the lore.

I'd suggest having them be rare drops off instanced bosses and very rare drops from major Arkfalls. A small chance at something interesting really does go a long way to a lot of people.

Well that is my suggestion. Thank you for your time.