Tiered Loot Can Boost Realism!
There's nothing like the gritty realism of tiered loot to improve the function of your equipment in an immersive and realistic way! I remember when I was in Iraq back during the Spring Fighting of '08, and a JAM fighter we killed near Sadr City dropped a purple M4A1 for me. It was so much better than the common tier M4 I had been using up to that point.
The higher gear score it brought with it made me less vulnerable, and the random perks that were laser etched into the lower receiver instantly improved my reload speed and reduced the cooldown time on my needle chest decompression class technique. That was a big win for my platoon, too!
It still often took 10+ body shots to kill the occasional Chechens and IRGC guys we ran into though. Some of them had higher gear scores than I did, so that makes sense. Just had to keep on grinding! I still remember how amazing it felt the first time we approached Sadr City and we didn't get that warning on the FBCB2 that we were entering a more dangerous high gear score area.
So yeah, digging the realism that the new RPG elements are adding to the game. I can see that the devs and directors have spent a lot of time on ensuring it's done correctly, so that it feels as close to real combat operations as possible. You guys win the Golden Hooah Award for this one.
Don't forget the helpful locals
But there must have been a secret cave where you could buy ant weapon or vehicle you wanted as well using the local cloud currency.