Lack of progression will push people away.

[eridian]

Kind of goes against their whole design concept. If you watch some of the earlier videos with the devs discussing some of the ideas behind the game one thing they pointed out was not liking / being against the whole aspect of most shooters where you go through the content, get all these cool weapons, etc then when you go to play multiplayer none of that stuff mattered because it doesnt transition over. They wanted to make what you earned playing through the story come with you into PvP.

But then you have the balance issue, which there fix to that being guns are all balanced from the get go causes the progression issue. Also if all weapons are already balanced then what's the point of bringing your stuff to pvp? It may as well just do like I said and have you use set items for pvp.

[Lyokira]

that would make sense except for the fact that shields get stronger, and grenades do more damage as you lvl up. higher lvl ppl still have an advantage.

Partially, but marginal. Just like the marginal advantages you get when training your weapon skills.

[Mike JezZ]

I agree with OP.

Got tired after this game after a week.

The game is ton of fun.

But it feels like BF3 in a MMO without air and even less progression than BF3...

So I started to play very little.

It was also what killed it for me with Guild Wars 2

[atlantix]

Please don't get me wrong, this isn't a "I'm leaving" post, but I am looking for a bit of a pep talk. The face is, there is little to no difference between an ego 300 and ego 10. While this is nice for being able to play with other people lower and higher levels, its frustrating because I feel like I'm just spinning my tires. I'm only at EGO 420 or so but the guns I'm finding are EXACTLY the same as the ones I found at 10, 20, 80, 100, etc. Other than story, I'm having a hard time getting motivated to play.

And IF by some chance you do find a gun you enjoy, you only get it for a limited time because the game forces you to use different guns once they're maxed out in XP if you want to gain anymore weapon XP. How does that make ANY sense??

Without any sense of progression people aren't going to be playing this game long. Look at other games, especially MMO's, you have to have SOMETHING that makes people come back for more. Unless I'm missing something, Defiance is missing that hook that makes people stay with a game for an extended period of time.

there is not much progression from 10 to 300 mate

but 300 to 2000 there is a lot of difference
for example most basic blue items sometimes comes with base bonus damage and crit stat.. i don't even need to mention the stats on orange items after 1500+ pretty much better than lowbie oranges.. (bonus stat wise) (base stats always same since its horizontal progression)

[eridian]

Kind of goes against their whole design concept. If you watch some of the earlier videos with the devs discussing some of the ideas behind the game one thing they pointed out was not liking / being against the whole aspect of most shooters where you go through the content, get all these cool weapons, etc then when you go to play multiplayer none of that stuff mattered because it doesnt transition over. They wanted to make what you earned playing through the story come with you into PvP.

Also I think youre still kind of missing the point of the entire design of this system in the big scheme of the game. So lets say they added in gear progression similar to WoW. Where an Ego 5000 is several times stronger than an EGO 100. What happens to a lot of the content in the game like Arkfalls? You see, if they were to add in the gear progression, they would also have to adjust all of the content and enemies. Stuff in San Fran would have to be 10x stronge rthan stuff in Mt. Tam. So, would an EGO 100 be capable of going to a later zone and doing an Arkfall with some friends? No way. On the flip side, what happens when an EGO 5000 goes and joins an Arkfall in Mt. Tam? Do they just 1 shot everything in sight, destroy the crystals, and kill the bosses in major arkfalls in like 5 seconds?

This is why horizontal progression works in a game designed like Defiance. You will get slightly stronger or be slightly weaker, but not to the point where you are either completely useless or are too strong to play in certain areas with others.

People complain about things like the lack of MMO feel and not enough socializing / not enough people around to do stuff with. What do you think would happen if they suddenly started segregating everyone off into seperate little areas based on your level? Rathe rthan having the possibility of 100 people suddenly dropping in on Arkfall of all level ranges, youre suddenly limited to 10 people of this level, 10 people of that level, all sticking to their little level based areas.

Just add the scaling system of dead island, low levels can play with high levels, and high levels can play with low levels.

[Gohlar]

While lack of progression is a problem for some, lack of interesting things to do is a problem for all. Defiance is the very definition of uninspired. Fetch quests and Arkfalls are so boring and there is no difficult group content to tackle.

Maybe in a year when this resembles a completed game it could be fun, I just hope there are still people who want to play it.

[Ichidakiller]

Well im at 1400ego all quests completed, all challenges completed, all races done but 2-3 (damn you server for adding 3seconds to my times) between arkfalls, pvp and dynamic events I find plenty to do. Help my friends out with their missions.

Grind challenges for mods.

Its a large world plenty to do. With the updates and patches and dlc planed for this next year I can't wait.
You can always I dont know get your ego up so you can see some of the 1000+ ego weapons with all the little bonuses that they have.

[Xaearth]

To be completely honest, it boggles my mind that there are so many people that can't see the progression that is so glaringly obvious to me and many others on these forums.

All I have to do is unslot my perks, pick up an un-modded bolt action sniper rifle, and start headshotting dark matter.
It takes forever because I have to make 2 headshots to kill even the normal grunts.

I reslot my perks and put a few + damage or + crit mods on that same sniper rifle, and I'm looking at a stream of 1 shot kills, and depending on the rifle and its inherent bonuses, I'm 1 shotting the standard elites as well!

It's only a difference of a few 1.1x multipliers, but they add up.

I will gladly admit that this is the most obvious of cases, with the highest damage possible from a single shot on the weapon with the lowest firing rate. But weapon base damage is balanced against fire rate. All other weapons have similar progression, it just isn't as clearly noticeable because you're doing smaller damage at a far higher rate of fire.

[Lyokira]

Just add the scaling system of dead island, low levels can play with high levels, and high levels can play with low levels.

I've heard more complaints than praises for Dead Island scaling though, mostly that your weapons become hugely less effective at higher levels.

[Gohlar]

To be completely honest, it boggles my mind that there are so many people that can't see the progression that is so glaringly obvious to me and many others on these forums.

It's because the game never changes. There is no challenge to overcome. It's not stat progression really, even though it appears that way, it's gameplay progression. This game starts out very basic....and stays that way forever.