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Division 2 is a game that gives you a lot of freedom to choose what you want to play for gear. The light zone is full of activities, bounties, and there's no shortage of main missions to play. But, in my opinion, along side freedom should exist guidance. We have targeted loot that helps, however this concept can be further extended to a part of the game that I think is supposed to be a guide, but is in a poor state - projects. Let's take a look at projects tab. Specifically, let's take a look at the weekly project:
In it, you will find a list of objectives to complete. You will notice that you are being asked to complete eighteen random activities across specific areas in the game world. This request further emphasizes the freedom that the game gives you. As long as you play within these specific areas, you can complete any activity and have it count towards the project. Now, take a look at the rewards, because this is where the gameplay aspect begins to crumble - two random pieces of gear, a bounty, and some experience. If you think about it, you are being rewarded with less gear and less experience in the end than what you will gain by simply doing only one of the objectives.
If I were to complete just one level 4 control point, I've effectively nullified the need to further complete the weekly project. I've just gotten more loot and, through accolades and directives, more experience in less time. Simply doing one heroic mission with three directives that has
one named enemy at the end nets me the same amount of XP and the same amount of loot as the weekly project, but in LESS time.
So why would a player have a need to complete the weekly project if there are faster ways of achieving the same amount of loot and experience? If one is short on heroic bounties, simply doing public executions on a heroic global difficulty will fill you up, given the changes that have occurred in TU10.
The same goes for the daily project:
Doing one heroic bounty with the same number of named outcasts asked to be killed in the
first objective of the daily project will net me more loot and experience than the final rewards I will get from completing the entire project. So, why would I waste time doing the daily project?
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If I haven't made it clear enough, the daily and weekly projects are currently not worth doing. There are faster, more efficient ways to gain the exact same random rewards, and then some, without ever completing the projects. But, changing the loot from random to curated would make those projects worth doing.
Imagine completing a project and gaining a Golan piece with skill haste and status effects. Or a Providence with headshot damage and crit chance. Those are examples of curated gear - stats you'd obviously want on those pieces. Even if stats combinations aren't obvious, that's what data is for, no?
Because that loot would be curated, you will have a reason to do the daily and weekly. A reason to log on and play. They would have meaning because you would be rewarded with something you know wouldn't be rainbow and come with fixed with stats that make sense for the brand set. The brand set drop itself could still be random, and the quality could be determined based on global difficulty, but at least you would be getting something you know would have a good combination of stats no matter what it is.
Curated loot could further become apart a more engaging weekly Legendary project. For example:
Complete Legendary [mission of the week] with 10 shotgun kills
Complete Legendary [mission of the week] with 10 sticky bomb kills
Complete Legendary [mission of the week] without using an armor kit
Having additional, but optional challenges like these behind the toughest difficulty can reward +1 additional curated piece per challenge completed. Kenly college could also gain curated loot, given how often it is available to play. One or two per mission. Having that as an additional source of curated loot also sparks replayability in arguably the deadest activity Division 2 has.
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This same curated loot concept can be applied to the DZ / PVP projects.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the objectives of the daily DZ / PVP project. It's pretty standard stuff. However, take a look at the weekly rogue project.
That is asking for a lot with little for the player to gain. Why would a player go through the trouble of hyper focusing on completing a hefty PVP project, but be rewarded with the same random loot, two pieces I might add, that can be gained from a bounty, or a couple of territory controls? The weekly DZ project could reward two pieces of curated gear,
including Yaahl, one DZ only named item, and DZ credits. DZ credits
not being apart of the rewards of these projects never made sense to me.
Rebooting the daily and weekly projects with curated loot will kick start Division's, in my opinion, poor gameplay loop. I will say that the biggest argument against curated gear is the "gearing up too fast" argument, or more or less the "being handed God rolls" argument.
Legitimate concerns, but remember, these will be
rewards. Something that is given
after completing various tasks and not dropping from a boss you could farm over and over in a short amount of time. It would be possible for a player to gain a God rolled build by simply doing the dailies and weeklies. The question is: will anyone have a problem with that? Because at the end of the day, you're still playing the game. The journey would still consist of RNG, but the destination will reward you with something curated.
The objectives of the projects could stay the same. I don't think there is anything wrong there. The problem are the rewards offered for the time asked to spend, and based on those rewards, these projects are asking players to waste their time.