Defiance has had its ups and downs since launch, many enjoy it, many hate it, some are in the middle. Some enjoy the pvp -when its not plagued by hackers- and some enjoy running coop missions, ark falls and contracts. But there is one glaring issue with Defiance that I think can be easily solved by 'changing up' the tempo, and that problem is variety. So far I have put 114 hrs into this game, as someone who works full time, and goes to school this doesn't happen often for me with many games, tho playing this with the girlfriend certainly helps quite a bit lol.
With all the glaring issues that Defiance has, engaging in the social element really makes a difference for me. Playing with friends or with strangers, communicating and trying to accomplish goals together really is what makes Defiance enjoyable, and it is also one of the core problems of Defiance.
Below I will be proposing several suggestions that
could ultimately improve Defiance a great deal.
Solution One: Enhance the Social Experience
Defiance becomes an extremely enjoyable game when you are playing with others as mentioned before, having a co-operative experience in ark falls, in dungeons or in pvp really make a huge difference. It is one of Defiances greatest and weakest features. How to improve those weak points? Enhance the social experience. -- Dont worry, I'm not talking about turning this into a facebook game lol.
Encourage Clan Competition - Make them known, allow them to have an impact on other clans via a clan leader board - showing statistics in all things like contracts completed, pvp matches won, ark fall domination, etc. Give the clans something to fight for other than a pvp match. Give them some ground to claim to battle each other.
Lets say with these elements completed, depending on a clans success rate, their clan gets boosts added to them as long as they are placed in the top 5 in the Clan Leader boards.
Oh and Clan "logos" - let them raise their colors - perhaps by attaching an emblem to their vehicles at some point
Improve Clan Management - Allow for easy clan invites, more prominent clan MOTD messages, and competitive / arkfall clan group queues. The Competitive / ark fall queues can work in such a way to lets say there is a major arkfall, the clan launches a group queue and other clan members can join into the group (5-10 members perhaps) and battle the ark fall together to improve their overall clan ranking.
Allow bigger groups to form - limit them for Co-op/PvP if you must, but at least allow us to have larger groups for Shadow Wars / Ark Falls - encourage group strength.
Fix Phase Issues - One of the most annoying things about groups is being knocked in and out of phases when you are already grouped together. This shouldn't be happening, if we are in a group, and we move into an area together we should still be in the same phase!
Encourage Grouping / Social Interaction - One of the biggest drawbacks to Defiance is there is no enforcement of cooperative play in anything other than Co-op Dungeons. So how do we solve this? Why not give small bonuses to those that group together - lets say if you are in a group you can be revived faster, or you gain double scrip / xp when grouped in an Ark Fall. Simple things like this can really push players to want to work together outside of just Co-op maps.
There are many other ways to improve the social interaction element of Defiance, these are just a few proposed ideas on that particular subject. Now its time to get into the real meat.
Solution Two: Shake up the Ark Falls a bit
We have grinded through these Ark Falls, and I dont know about you but the Scrapper Ark Falls seem to have more "meat" to them in terms of visual entertainment. While they do need to be harder, the visual entertainment of a scrapper Ark Fall is far more robust than the current Hellbug Ark Falls.
Mix them up - Throw some more scrapper Ark Falls up north, throw in some Elemental Hellbug Ark Falls - imagine a radioactive and shock monarch fighting the players at the same time? These are things falling from the sky after all, they are not exactly going to land in key specific areas realistically, have a scrapper Ark Fall land in Mount Tam - new players will be like "holy hell what is this?! what are these things!" - its a rare experience for the new player because the scrappers are not common to Mount Tam, this will be something that will push the player to further explore, let alone approach Ark Falls more often.
Add more scrapper Ark Fall types - The 4 armed Goliath battle is entertaining, but give us some variety in these Scrapper Ark Falls - throw in some 'mother of scrappers' type battles as well
Give us some major raider / 99er Ark Falls - Instead of having a massive beast to fight at the end, we have a massive raider camp surrounding a giant ark fall crystal/wreck. Remove the basic bandits if need be, just have Tankers, Rocket Soldiers, and Hulkers!
Ark Falls have many different solutions for improvement..hell here is another idea..
Solution Three: Raider Falls?
Imagine for a moment that instead of an Ark Fall, you're protecting a major trade hub or civilian sector in the San Fran area from a raider assault (Shandus Consulate, Iron Demon, etc) Waves of raiders just keep coming to the entrance areas of these hubs and you have to fight them off - your reward could be reputation, scrip, keys, etc. Think of the variety you could add with stuff like this - if someone doesnt want to grind a contract for reputation they can do these 'Raider Falls' and protect these trade hubs to gain reputation points.
Solution Four: Gladiator Arenas
We are in a savage land, we've seen that little fight match in the show, but imagine if we had a stadium built for 1v1/2v2/4v4 pvp matches? Not areas that look like war torn locations, but visually pleasing arenas - like a Mad Max thunder dome. Set up these arenas outside or inside of current trade hubs and the third party vendors that are in those trade hubs will give reputation points for winning a match in their arena, sort of like a 'sponser' - perhaps even have players bet on these matches themselves with orange weapon pink slips *wink wink nudge nudge*
You could expand this into sports seasons - where clans fight eachother and eventually fight for the 'stanley cup' of death in these small pvp arenas. This can be tied all the way back to social interaction and improving the social experience in Defiance.
Conclusion
In the end there are a number of ways in which Defiance can be improved, and I'm not saying these would all work but I can promise you at least 1 or 2 of them could drastically improve the overall experience for the player in the game world. Remove the current disconnect of the player, bring him deeper into this world, make him/her feel like they are a part of the world rather than a spectator.
Ideas all around are good, share them, discuss them, build off of them - you never know what silly ideas of ours could spark the developers brains.
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Originally Posted by Runebane
