Chat ideas I have had with my friends about this game
I want to be clear, this is not a hate post and if you want to be toxic please just make a new thread. I also know the game is in its final days but many of the concepts can carry over if the devs so choose. Plus the Div 2 GD does not get much traffic yet.
I still have a few friends that I play this game with, last night for example me and two others did some UG and 1v1 / manhunt in the DZ..... would have gone into skirmish but the servers ended up shutting down. I have just noticed that we generally have the same or similar feelings about the game and we make good arguments when we disagree. I though I would share our thoughts on the game and while I know some of you dislike some ideas maybe the reasons I give will help you see our side better. I would also like to state I am not a hardcore PVPer I just like having fun with friends and testing out builds in any mode..... except survival..... we all hate survival...
Just because I know some of you do like survival, I will explain. I feel it lacks any relevance to the game. If I wanted to play a survival game (which i don't) there are much better full standalone versions out there.
So, back to what we talk about.
WEAPONS, are a huge issue among us. We dislike the must use META weapons as much as most players. We wish that other weapons could see some love. I actually use the Caduceus and pp-19 a lot and one friend uses the Warlord, but for most things the House is just always in slot. If not that than people are bound to be using an M4 or M700. I know Massive lacks the skill to predict the compounding effects of multiple nerfs but I find it near impossible that they do not see they just failed at weapon balancing.
While I was talking with my friends I stated that high RPM weapons are so effective because they just kept piling on more ammo. I believe ammo is a stat just like stability or crit that should be taken into account with your build. As it stands it is just a given that Massive gave to the player base without true consideration for how it effects the game.
Not only do enemies drop ammo and take less bullets since 1.4 but the missions actually have ammo boxes in almost every encounter. this 2000 rounds nonsense is absurd to me. If you had to make a conscious effort to chose ammo over crit or haste, It would balance a lot better. Slower RPM weapons offer a higher per bullet damage (PBD) and are therefore better suited to the lower ammo counts. If you only have 500-600 rounds using a bullet hose becomes a lot less appealing. This would help give rise to sub 800 RPM weapons and maybe even some burst fire weapons because of the superior PBD. You would not need to buff/nerf every weapon because using all your ammo willy nilly is more dangerous. Other side effects of this would include more use of ammo gaining talents/skills (police up, ammo station, etc), and more use of gear sets like Lonestar or Banshee because of the ammo perks (which are largely regarded as trash now because of such excessive ammo counts. While I know some of you are so obsessed with the idea of infinite ammo I would just like to point out the positives again. More diversity, Less Meta, more chances to capitalize on a max crit/RPM players weakness, more thoughful PVE engagements (do we take better cover or stay near the ammo box). I would hate to have the Div 2 continue with the ammo trend as it stands currently. Because it is the most effective way to limit the RPM trend without ruining good weapons like M4 or MP5. It becomes an actual choice of the highest possible damage for the shortest amount of time or slower damage for longer. You can still restock and loot ammo.... I would say the only people who would suffer the most are rogues who hide on roof tops or camp check points... which is something the community always wants fixed anyway, so that sounds like another win to me.
Oh as a side observation, why is it they nerfed LMG damage to compensate for lonestar classified and out of cover damage, but ARs and SMGs were kept the same with other classy sets and their EAD/CC... That is another reason LMG use is almost non-existent. You made the choice to ruin a weapon class that was not even needing a nerf. Would love for a Moderator to explain that thought process to me.
Skills are another big topic of conversation in my group. We, for the most part, love them.... we just wish there was more to them. Lets be fair they have been gutted like crazy because of PVP. While I am not a fan of 1 shot group killers like the sticky bomb has been in the past. I hate the neutering that has happened to all skill based damage. Turrets are just dog poop, and for no other reason than silly players who felt the only thing they should need to do is run right at you.... I hated getting killed by turrets, but that was my own fault for running right at them or not using EMP. they are so easy to actively counter yet people just decided not to and just complain. I do not want turrets to be instant death, but if a DPS player can drop a Skill build in a second why can a skill build with a turret not drop a DPS build in a second? would it not be fair that a skill build with skills and gun do just as much damage as a DPS firing his weapon? Even with a turret firing a skill build only puts out half the DPS of a DPS player. You should not just be able to drop a box and ignore 2 skill build turrets while being shot by two other players. Running into a bad situation like that should be just that a bad situation. not the haha you are using turrets moment it is now. Seekers are a little different, yeah the one shot seeker was way extreme, and I think they are better off than the turrets are, however they are still pretty trash. They only do like half the damage of a grenade in PVP, at least make the burn or bleed do some real damage. Pred bleed can down some builds in a tick or two yet a seeker is lucky if it takes a bar off a sniper wearing reckless. It really got over nerfed in PVP and it is just not fair. Sticky bombs are close to being in a good spot.... they are just so inconsistent, with the firing backwards or straight down and killing you or landing on a box or snow texture and doing no damage to the enemy. I would really like to see a better damage distribution inside the radius or just a larger radius in general. A stronger bleed would also help it being useful like 100% of damage done over 10 seconds. that way it is not just dropping everyone and giving some reaction time yet has the actual ability to drop players and be a serious threat.
We also discuss balancing issues in general. To be honest I am not sure what half the community wants when they say balance. To me balance is only relevant to any given situation. 1v4 should never be balanced, that is just silly to think you should drop 4 other players no matter what just because you are solo.... Sets, skills, talents are all designed to do differing things. so how should it be balanced? Well the answer as I see it is that balance is achieved through chaos. take a Pred vs Reclaimer for example. they are far from balanced. For the pred to win they either need to pull back and wait for the box to expire or use EMP. Because if they do not, the reclaimer can easily out heal the pred and win. Every build should have situations in which it can win against another. It has just been manipulated by Massive too much and some styles do not stand a chance. Nothing short of D3 should be able to stand in a firecrest turret like it is nothing and down the firecrest like a fly. Skill builds have had their effective situations drastically limited. Yet DPS and pseudo DPS stamina builds are almost free to play how they want. If you are chasing another player and they pull you into a trap that is your fault. If you rush straight at a sniper that is your fault. If you rush into a 1v4 without making sure your team is behind you..... that is your fault. Right now the game with the exception of skill builds is pretty balanced. If you out think and out position your enemy you can win, if you are a better player you can win. That is not to say you will always win. Balance does not need to be, I do the same damage/health as you. It needs to be in any 1v1 4v4 whatever, I have an equal chance to kill you if I play to my strengths, and exploit your weakness.
Quickly another topic that came up was the dominance of crit. Why is there no way to limit crit damage taken? I like the RPG concepts of having counters to most things yet Crit has been allowed to run rampant. I would love to have anti crit chance crit damage skills or talents. For example conceal pulse should not give me more crit but prevent my team from being hit by crit. My armor should have crit chance resistance and crit damage resilience. Obviously that is not a feature that will be in this game but maybe the next.
Also briefly on the subject of cheating. I have one friend who is.... not very good. He is swearing someone is using cronus almost every day. I am not hear to say that cheating does not exist, we have almost all seen the macro dance or wall glitch, and PC players have seen much worse like code rewriting. It is just that many players call everything cheating when in most instances it is not. I am not blind I have seen lots of BS in my time on the division. I have just come to realize that it is lag and server issues most often. I have been killed in such a BS manner before that I was really heated about it and wanted to call the guy out..... I just asked him if he could record that and send it to me because I wanted to see how bad he owned me.... What I saw was me running in place on his screen and he shot me like normal. On my screen he was hitting me through a wall at about 2000 RPM and I insta drop. There is nothing that can be done about that, some times it is bad others it is more normal but enough to get you killed. Most of us have chased rogues before and found one running in place.... don't you think it possible that happens to you or that he thinks you cheated? I hope both LAG AND CHEATS and fixed in the sequel.
Finally, Classy and set bonuses. I know a lot of people have announced their disdain for the mentioned gear. I for one like the idea of options it just felt rather limiting in the execution which is why i think people have negative feelings to it. The way classified introduced 6pc bonuses did not add diversity, they limited it. they made everything a clear choice and in a lot of ways gave 1 play style unlimited advantage over another. I would have instead liked to see another form of a gear set. like a 6pc regular pred that does the massive bleed and the classy pred changes depending on what you equip like for example adding classy gloves would give you the shrapnel perk so you can use another talent. The classy pred chest would return 5% of bleed damage as healing. You could have a limit of 2 classy items so you have classy hard to get items that do not over power but actually add to diversity. That is just off the cuff concepts but it could do so much for the future of the game rather than just here now equip all this. Also a 3-3 build should not suffer from bad perks. 2 and 3 sets bonuses should be something good too not just reserved for the most basic of ideas. I feel this idea could be expanded so much more but I think I have stated enough for now, maybe i will make another post on my hopes for how future div 2 sets can work.
If any of you moderators make it this far I would actually like to hear what you think. Not just the company line please, but as a player in the game. How has the suggestions you have seen on the forums changed your opinion on builds or tactics? How have you felt about certain builds before and after nerfs? Do you think skills are actually viable in PVP? Are there changes that were made that you really liked or really disliked? If you had the power to fix something or add additional content what would it be? The reason I ask is because while many of us read the posts, you need to read more than us. Combined with your knowledge of the back office you have a unique perspective that not many on the forums get the chance to appreciate.