It seems that there has been a lot of "division" regarding changes to this game's difficulty. I believe I have a solution that will work for the majority of players.
There are two main groups, the "hardcore" players dont want difficulty turned down, but the "casual" players are unable to function in many situations due to difficulty spikes.
The key to this is that casuals and hardcore players tend to consume different content.
When a casual player says the game is too hard, 99% of the time they would be referring to open world activities, they dont typically mess around with menu options to discover things like "challenging" or "heroic" difficulty settings.
And vice versa, when hardcore players say its getting too easy, they typically play challenging or heroic missions, and frequent the dz more than casuals. Maybe Im wrong but most hardcore players I know could care less if control points and other open world PvE content got slightly easier, they just want the option to make the missions more challenging.
TLDR: if you make most open world PvE content easier, casuals will be happier. Content that you can find by just walking around shouldnt be too punishing for new players. I recently switched from xbox to the PTS and I can tell you open world is going in the right direction, firefights make more sense with less damage to players, and the playerbase will grow as a result. But also make sure that upping the difficulty to "challenging" or going after a nasty boss will be enough of a challenge for hardcore players, since most casual players wont even bother to find the diffuculty switch I see no issue taking these nerfs away at high difficulty.
Just my two cents on the dz but it seems motlsy old div1 fans are the ones who actually use the dz at the moment. Wouldnt it make sense for them to have 2/3 occupied dz areas since they make up most of the players in the dz? Also occupued dz still has very low time to kill, its aimed toward div1 vets but I dont think that sits well with most of them. Occupied time to kill should be significantly longer than normalized.
The whole point of normalized was so rpg mechanics dont allow someone to sponge a full clip to the back of their head right? Its good for some but old rpg fans need somewhere to go as well. I think the occupied dz should try to focus more on the rpg mechanics of this game. Even if its only 1/3 of dz areas, the time to kill makes rpg system basically useless, which drives off many players so even in a smaller area it can seem empty.
I dont have stats so idk maybe there's a ton of casuals in the dark zone or heroic, but as a rule of thumb I would try to balance open world and "story" content based on casual players, and challenging/heroic/occupiedDZ content from hardcore players...
The open world is already not very difficult for hardcore players, and heroic is already too difficult for casuals so there is really nothing to lose.
Actually this is a good distinction I should have made thanks Wulf, High level control points and difficult bounties could also be scaled up in the same way so hardcore players arent completely cut out of LZ... new players cant just stumble into a lvl3 control point or hvt bounty without doing the alert activities first, I believe this would still keep most casuals happy as long as they can kill most normal npcs it shouldnt matter.
Difficulty spikes should need to be activated by the player, I guess is what I'm getting at.
Take care to not overgeneralize. Different types and groups of players are complicated, and each individual has a unique experience with the game. Trying to boil things down based on our own experiences can leave a lot of information out from our blind spots.
Just to possibly illustrate my point, what has been some content that has given you trouble and how did you adapt in order to overcome the challenge?
Yeah the op probably could have been worded better, my bad. My experience goes like this: I've had several crew members on xbox be brand new to World tier 5 and not understand gear yet, they have all gotten frustrated and either put the xbox version down or play it occasionally instead of every day... they all complained that npcs took too many bullets to kill, no redemption for solo players, and revive hive not working sometimes.
I was dropping them fine with my build, but it does seem like damage to elites should apply 50% to veteran enemies because more often than not when the crew goes down its a purple npc standing behind me. And again with my build purples are fine, but theyre definitely more tanky than elites... maybe Im wrong but I thought elites should be tougher to kill than veterans? If purple is supposed to tank the most damage then its right, otherwise I think DtE matters a bit too much, or maybe damage to elites should apply 50% to veterans instead of the full dte value. As it is now instead of just having a dps build, you have to make different dps builds for elites and others. Trying to explain stats like that to new players in my crew has been difficult, things like critical hits and damage buffs are easy but its hard to make a case for stats that only apply to one specific enemy type.
A lot of these opinions come from the current version on xbox, Ive been running around on the PTS for the last couple days and it does feel like a lot of the issues with new agents not being able to survive have been addressed, purples are still tankiest but no more than 1 mag to the face. Seems like I have a bit more time to react before dying, and when down a friendly JTF npc actually walked over and helped me up, that was a nice touch for solo players... it was just enough to turn the tide so I could take the control point as last man standing👍
Some weapon attachments have strange unlock requirements that make their weapon class restricted by default, particularly the 7.62 extended mag is an issue because its a random control point blueprint from what I understand, other 5.56 and even 9mm weapons with extended mags significantly outclass any 7.62 I get, if a FAL drops I may as well just leave it because I know it wont compare in dps with the p416 I have.
Forced scoping for the 8x,16x and digital marksman scopes is another thing that Ive heard a few complaints about and experienced awkwardness myself. To me, the control scheme for the acog scope actually makes sense. (aiming and then clicking a button for scope) With the 8x and higher scopes, not only does it force you into the scope, it forces you back out every single time you pull the bolt back... I think it should either allow us to stay scoped the whole time OR just make it like the acog where you press a button for scope. Its really abrupt and jarring when you get pulled from the scope, also not realistic a typical soldier can work the bolt on his gun without looking down.
Basically Im a fan of these PTS changes and I think they will do loads of good on xbox in particular. I just worry that some of the more "hardcore" players will be driven off by easier bots, I feel a lot of them will still do raids and heroic missions if the challenge is there... I still need to play a few more of those before I can really speak on it.
I like having some easy content to mess around with and show my friends the ropes.. the current PTS open world is a good example of that, I also like more difficult stuff and I want decent competition in the dz but I have some PvE "casual" friends who I couldnt talk into running dz with me if I had a million bucks.
I think its ok that we like different content and difficulty freak players like me have other things we can do like heroic missions, raids, spawn hunters, etc.
I dont think people who enjoy easier npcs in the open world should have to die repeatedly because I wanted something more complicated, I should have to increase an alert level, flip a hunter spawn switch, accept high level bounty, etc. I feel like these difficult npcs should still exist in the open world, just not somewhere a random new player can stumble upon and stand no chance whatsoever... like if level 4 control points or HVT bounties were more difficult/higher rewards I would probably go for those often... just dont want that to effect lvl 1control points or other open world activities, it wouldnt make sense to run into high level death-squad npcs when you're just out collecting shd tech for achievements. I like my heroic difficuly but sometimes I just want to have a drink and mess around, do some collectibles or whatever... and lets face it walking for 2min to die in 2secs with no respawn nearby is a huge buzzkill.Players should be able to explore the open world without diverse knowledge of builds, PTS does a good job addressing that, it will hopefully get a lot of my friends on xbox back in the game. Then I can ease some of them toward the more difficult content once they have some decent gear🤘