Please somebody EXPLAIN this game to me!

[F4stOne]

My EGO rating is nearing 500. Yet, I have absolutely no clue regarding the system of acquiring weapons. Is there a coherent system in place that explains How to obtain the weapon you want? I am literally relying on luck to this point via Lock Boxes and random Co-Op drops.

I have only rec'd a few Purple items (1 I actually used, the others I have vendored.) My friend asked me, "Why don't you go buy the weapon you want to use/mod?" My answer was I HAVE NO CLUE WHERE TO GET IT.

What am I missing? I am playing daily and have not yet seen any logic to the process. I feel really dumb posting here but this is basically a last ditch effort.

[Ikagawa]

1.) Item drops are random.
2.) If you don't have a weapon you like, then there are many vendors out there that you can check. They will have a static menu as well as one or two dynamic items.

[Wooisme]

Getting weapons is heavily based on luck. However your friend probably means vendors sells specific kind of weapons so buy those and use and throw away. Most of the vendors regular items though are green so people just buy those to level up weapon skill. If you want to find weapons you "want" afraid the lockboxes is your only hope, since it is only based on luck or the special items from vendors. Plus you want something try the trading forums.

[Yenkin]

There are secret vendors out there that have better then average stuff, I came across one this moring that sold purple weapons, none that I wanted but they do change so I will re-visit the vendor now and again.

My experiance is that luck is a major factor in getting anything, lock boxes for me are a way to get rid of my keycodes, but have yet to yeild very much in the way of a legendary weapon, and I have had only a couple of purples show up. Most are blue and green, Supplies can be bought in a few spots, I have come across some good deals on purple weapons, but it is being in the right place at the right time for those.

Drops from mobs and arkfalls have been underwhelming mainly gernades and shields most of which are useless and can be broken down for bits to buy key codes to buy lock boxes that give you more useless stuff. There are some faction quests called contracts use the "J" key and they give you faction which you can buy weapons, I think this offers a more controlled methond of getting the weapons you want, but you have to do the contracts to get the reputation to spend.

Good luck

[RegularX]

1) Different vendors also offer different kinds of items. For instance, there's one which is nothing but mods. It's helpful to know who has what when stocking back up again.

2) At 500, though, you will start to rely more on the Vendor Specials, Lock Boxes and perhaps the Faction Vendors (which you need to get rep to purchase from).

3) Personally I hit Overpass and then the mod vendors. Sometimes I'll fast travel around to check out the random Vendor specials.

I think I'm currently using two blues as my normal build, both were drops from coop (IIRC)

[F4stOne]

So here is a followup question regarding Weapon dmg. I see Green weapons on Vendors and they seem to cap at EGO lvl 300. Is that true everywhere in game?

And does base dmg on weapons increase the more you use them?

[Ikagawa]

Weapon EGO levels go up as you gain more EGO levels. All of the base stats stay the same, but you'll find weapons will randomly have different bonuses and in some cases Synergies that will alter their usefulness.

A Synergy is just a set bonus that you can unlock by using Synergy mods which can be either random drops or can be purchased via the Lockbox vendor.

[Cutlass Jack]

So here is a followup question regarding Weapon dmg. I see Green weapons on Vendors and they seem to cap at EGO lvl 300. Is that true everywhere in game?

And does base dmg on weapons increase the more you use them?

The ego level on the non 'specials' sold on the vendor will increase as your Ego rating gets higher.

As your weapon skill increases you'll get various bonuses, which include damage. But weapons themselves don't change damage simply by usage. Though they get a bonus when the exp bar on them maxes out, which is random.

[F4stOne]

Over my head entirely. Wow, and I thought I was a smart person until I met the Defiance weapon system. Ugh.

[Angeleus09]

I see your questions have been answered but I'm going to throw in my own 2 cents...

Your friend is definitely talking about the vendors. As Ikagama stated all vendors have a set list of guns and then two items that change every hour or so. It is really important that you understand two specific things about weapons progression in this game:

• Each individual weapon has an experience bar. When the weapon is fully "leveled" you no longer gain weapon XP on your character.
• The base stats on rarer weapons are identical or nearly identical to the basic white or green versions of the same weapon.

Ok so what does that mean for you?

The first point means you need to figure out which weapon types you use most and then figure out which vendors sell those gun types in their static inventory. For example I use LMGs mostly and my favorite is the SAW but since I use it so much, I max an individual gun out in about 3 hours of steady questing. Since I want to get my character's LMG skill up to 20, as soon as a gun maxes I need to replace it with another of the same type. For me, I head over to the vendor in front of Happy Pow Farms which sells a green SAW in their static inventory for about 1k scrip, equip the new one and I can continue increasing my overall LMG skill.

The second point touches on the lottery nature of lockboxes and random drops. To continue with the example of my favorite gun the damage on a white or green SAW is 400 or 404. The damage on a purple or orange SAW is also 400 or 404. The difference is that the rarer drops come with (typically) more mod slots already unlocked and built in synergies which can provide some really excellent effects when the correct mod types are attached.

The takeaway of all my blathering is that you'll spend the majority of your PvE time using white/blue/green versions of your preferred gun types that you buy from vendors or get from drops so that you can steadily increase your character's skill with that weapon type. When you are lucky enough to get purples and oranges you'll either sell it to another player if it isn't a gun type you use or you'll level the weapon, then unequip it (unless your weapon skill is maxed) and keep it in your inventory while you collect synergy mods to use in PvP or when your weapon skill is maxed and you can use whatever you have.

I hope this helps.