More brilliance from Hamish:
"Having perfect gear is not a necessity."
Does he even pay attention to the game at all?
I mean. He's not wrong. Having BiS for your current build isnt a requirement for any of the content.
But that being said, it is the true end game goal.
I'm about to drop my thoughts on what they need to do to fix the systems in this game.
The Problems
1. The loot progression is severely flawed.
This is by far the most important thing to address regarding end game progression. Currently, as it stands, the most consistent, efficient way of getting the best loot in the game is to buy blue prints by grinding phoenix credits/DZ rank and then farm crafting materials and division tech. THIS IS SO FKN BORING. You have this awesome loot based action RPG, and you end up spending half your time pressing 2 buttons at a goddamn table.
They have challenge modes that require coordination that give out yellows. They will have even harder incursions that give out probably great gear also. And my favorite, they have the dark zone which to me is by FAR the best and most compelling and unique thing about this game. The way of getting gear from the DZ is awesome also. You fight high level enemies and they drop loot. Or, you go rogue on another player to steal this loot. Then you have to go extract it. And if you die, you lose some of it (assuming you won't get there in time to pick it back up) And they are adding DZ supply drops which will be awesome.
The extracting loot mechanic alone is the coolest mechanic in this game. I remember how sweaty my first extracting of a high end item was. That feeling of EARNING your loot in a fun and interesting way is what they need to focus on. However they need to revamp the loot itself also.
2. The loot is too scarce/too random
Currently, drop rates in the DZ and in challenge mode come too scarce and in addition to that the loot rolls are too random. I've deconstructed more yellow loot than I have equipped. That's because they all have a crazy amount of variability. Firearm/Stam/Electronics can roll with a hundred points separation between the low/high values. Then you have the talent roll. And then mod slots or other attribute rolls. It's cool that there is that much variety in the game, but the scarcity of it all makes it so you feel like you never get what you want even if you do get that yellow beam of light. Hell, some talents are outright garbage for certain weapons or gear.
Because of this, the best way to get a decent roll is to craft.
Solutions
1. Get rid of crafting entirely or overhaul it.
Hamish/Massive are right about one thing. People got really good gear, way too fast. The exploits didn't help any of this but the main culprit was the flawed loot system relying on crafting too much. Honestly, I would be for removing blueprints ENTIRELY, or at the very least removing the highest level of them.
Crafting shouldn't be the primary way of getting gear but that doesn't mean you have to throw away the deconstructing and material mechanics. Instead of that table crafting things from scratch it should be used more like a recalibration station.
You get that awesome drop actually playing the game, but it doesn't have the talent you want or the rolls you want. Instead of just throwing it away, you can use your materials to change values on it. Crafting/Recalibrating should augment your gear. not create it.
2. Up the drop rates in the DZ. Especially from northern DZ enemies. And make the loot "smarter"
By smart loot, I mean don't have stupid talents on guns that don't need them and useless talents in general. You also need to tone down the RNG on the atrribute and mod slot rolls. Make the values a lot tigher and a lot higher for yellows. I hate when I have a purple thats better than my yellow.
There are talents like triple rewards from accolades, or headshot kills grant credits that are just silly. I don't have the entire list of talents in front of me but some of them could definitely get the axe. I'd also be for removing talents from certain guns or making sure they don't match up. For instance, you can roll a gun that will give a damage bonus when less than 10 meters from a target and a damage bonus when more than 40 meters from a target. That's just silly.
I don't think SMG's should be able to roll with something that increases their crit chance and I don't think snipers should roll with the headshot bonus talent. Those are baked into the gun already and there are plenty mods to help you up them too. Would make sandbox balancing a whole lot easier when people don't have vectors that hit sniper tier damage values for more than half their mag.
I think I had something else to say but forgot.
I'll try out the DZ drops and incursions. But if they don't change their loot/endgame system I don't know if I'll be buying the season pass.
