With the LZ being top notch, I think it's time to incentivize the DZ. | Forums

[Mark_WWW]

Nope, people who do not want to ever set foot in the dz will be pissed as they will be forced to go there, so it will not happen.

Like someone else said INCENTIVES = BAIT

If you want PVP there are 2 modes already sitting and waiting for you. Based on twitch streams they seem to have the numbers you are looking for. There are now multiple threads asking the question why are the DZs empty. No need to farm them and the Gankers have no one to Gank. Shame

[RasstCorgan]

To me as a pure PvE player, what you are suggesting doesn't appear to be an "incentive" , its actually bait...
what you seem to want is a way to bait people into a zone that has a pvp, while they are only chasing some exotic. that is where Div1 ( to me personally) failed.
gating something i wanted behind an activity/area that i did not want to do, which is why i ( personally) stopped playing.

Yup, sounds exactly like bait to me. If the DZ died away, I wouldn't shed a tear. It's just meh. The PVE is TD2 is fantastic. I need more!

[Slug_Overdose]

I think we need to really take a step back and define some of these terms/phrases so we understand what they really mean. For example, asking whether or not we should "incentivize" is kind of like asking whether or not we should care for the sick or reduce gun violence. It's easy to answer yes to any of those questions, because they're framed as principles. But let's not twist those things into supporting specific initiatives. Solutions are fundamentally different than the principles they're based on, and you can't just assume everyone will agree with your potentially sub-par solution because you framed it as a universal principle. Of course I want to incentivize the DZ. I want the DZ to thrive and be an awesome place to play. But what does that mean? Do I necessarily want high-end gear rewards as incentives for the DZ?

My answer is no, not unless they are strictly PvP-focused. I mean sure, reward high-end PvE gear in there. But no exclusives. Why do we have to keep revisiting this problem? Millions and millions of gamers absolutely hate being forced into activities they don't like for rewards that impact the activities they do like. This has been proven time and time again across many titles from many different publishers and developers, to the point that it should be considered an absolute axiom of game design. And yet, every time one of these games comes out with multiple modes, people keep revisiting this idea of locking rewards for one mode behind another mode. I get it, for a select few people, that sounds really cool, because those are the people who enjoy ALL OF THE MODES and prefer a fully integrated experience. But that's not how you make a game for a large audience. It's just fundamentally bad. It's like a pizzeria dunking each slice in too much sauce because one customer asked for extra sauce one time, and then making all kinds of excuses like "Well, you can wipe off the extra if you don't like it." I'm sorry, but it's just dumb and pointless. DO NOT LOCK PvE REWARDS BEHIND THE DZ. THEY SHOULD ALL BE ACCESSIBLE FROM THE LZ AS WELL.

Now, going back to the principle of how to incentivize the DZ. Let's start with making it fun. If it's going to be a separate mode, it should at the very least provide a fun experience that is its own reward, regardless of what loot it hands out. I have my idea of what the DZ should have been from day 1, but it's just my idea, and I don't expect Massive to implement it or anyone else to really care. Basically, I think they should lean into the whole theme of betrayal and unpredictable emergent gameplay by giving each and every individual in the DZ, regardless of team structure, personal objectives. They can be anything from extracting items to murdering other agents. How they accomplish those objectives is up to them. The metric of success would be a high ratio of completed objectives to deaths. But this could also have interesting interactions with the loot grind. Like say my objective is to betray my teammates by cutting an extraction rope, but I have some loot that I really want to extract. Maybe I'll let them extract and hold off on cutting the rope until next extraction in order to secure the specific item I want. Or maybe I might be extra sneaky and tell my teammates I'm going to do a solo extraction while they run ahead to the next landmark, so I can extract it alone and then cut the rope when they fill their packs later. In a way, it would be kind of like those social deduction games (Mafia, etc.) where you have to sort of piece together everybody's behavior to figure out what everyone's doing and look after your own interests, but it would all be in the context of a looter shooter where you're also grinding for loot simultaneously.

Now, again, that's just one example. There are many other examples of ideas for how the DZ should play. But beyond that, what about the reward structure? Well, I'm not really qualified to talk about that yet, because I haven't reached the end game, so I'll let others talk about that, but ultimately, anything that tries to bait PvE-focused players into going to the DZ in order to serve as victims to the griefers is just going to turn this game into a disaster that nobody but the most toxic among us wants. That kind of stuff needs to be behind the raids and strongholds, not the DZ. Put all the PvP-exclusive gear you want in there though.

[KnightGhostbear]

Incentivize PVP. Secretly, its been incentivized as much as it can be. PVP has been and always will be for those with an ego, who just want to strut their stuff. No amount of anything will change that. All PVP games devolve into Team Death Match, regardless of the actual objectives or goals of the game. PVP is already that. Dont get your Battle Royale in my looter shooter....keep that CoD TDM pew pew fest in its own miserable little world. Dont go locking loot behind PVPeener grief walls. This D2, I dont see me spending any time in the DZ...

[BeardMagic253]

This topic has become very redundant. So lets summarize this in a quick run down version:

LZ - Players want their own exotic loot pools and to leave it as good as it is now (which I agree, its a lot better than Div 1)

DZ - Players are mixed emotions on this. We have a few who continually talk about they do not want to engage in pvp and don't like to. Therefore they stay away. There are others who enjoy the PVP experience, but there's also that select few who constantly complain about 4v1.

To address the 4v1 issues: Stop going into the DZ solo if you can't handle it. Use the matchmaking ability and join a group of others, rather it's 1 more or 3 more people. This gives you a lot better chance of surviving against a 4 man group.

I go in the DZ solo because even against a 4 man group, I generally manage to take 1-2 out, and if I play correctly, I can take all 4 out. It's not that bad. People just want to ***** because they want to be able to look at someone and drop them. This is not how the game was intended. Remember, it's a looter shooter and gear matters to a degree, but it also doesn't since DZ's are normalized other than the occupied DZ.

In occupied, I melt 4 man groups without any problems. I've survived a group who was full manhunt and laughed it off. Your gear matters in the Occupied DZ. In there, if you have good gear with a good armor pool and a decent health pool, play correctly, and have a decent damage and ROF weapon, you can survive and drop people like its nothing. Even with a 1 shot build like people have, it is able to be countered. I've done it, and I continue to.

PVPVE is a great concept, and it's a lot of fun to be running around with gear and possibly lose it to others. Now don't get me wrong, I hate it when I lose something that I want to extract, but the difference in this game versus Div 1 is that you cannot see the score of the item, or its stats, so it's all RNG at this point. So, with that being said, the chances of the loot I got, is crap. Who cares? There's always better around the corner.

The best part of the new DZ is that there's now STRAIGHT TO INVENTORY! Div 1 only had that from caches, and at that, they were very very hit or miss. They have granted a lot of changes that were necessary and far superior to their original game.

The only things that need to be adjusted is the idea of the 1 shot build, and balance. 1 shot should only happen if people really put their points into glass cannon and into marksman damage and spec into it. That should allow 1 shot building, but not without some sacrifices. I personally don't have problems with 1 shotters except in conflict because everything is normalized and scaled down for me. If I run a sniper rifle I can 1 shot a good 70% of the time, but there's people who 1 shot me constantly in conflict, and that is boring to me. I'd rather take my chances in the occupied DZ where people can try to pull their 1 shot crap and I can cut them down like a hot knife through butter.