So I’m enjoying this new loot system and purchased the expansion as my support for it. A lot of the complains I’ve seen on here are about difficulty spikes and I have been nervous to see for Myself after recently hitting 40 and starting the end game. However I haven’t found a significant reason to try yet either as every activity I do and many loot boxes contain high end gear with maxed stats. So if I can grind for gear at levels the are not frustrating then why are others subjecting themselves to this “un fun” gameplay. I’m not overpowering so much right now either but I’m enjoying grinding out the high end drops with visions of putting together some powerful builds that perhaps will be compatible with the higher difficulties. Basically you can still be godlike and have easy mode sessions that were “fun” and still obtain high end gear regularly enough to strip attributes if you choose to not play on difficulties that perhaps are only intended for truly strong builds and *gasp* team play with synergy.
I agree. I think the concept for the new difficulty system is pretty brilliant: Everyone can play on the level they are most comfortable with, but no one gets cut off from content or good loot due to difficulty. Higher difficulty levels have better chances for good loot, but if you struggle with a given difficulty level and keep dying, then it will be more fun _and_ more efficient to play on a lower level. You'll get worse drops on average, but more drops in total (because you can complete objectives much faster), so you'll end up with more good drops.
Some things still need a bit of fine-tuning, but in general this is a great idea that puts players in control of their experience.
What's a bit unfortunate, is that the new system kept the old difficulty labels while increasing difficulty overall. That feels like a huge setback for many players and is probably one of the reasons for the backlash. I would have renamed the difficulty levels to something like "Operative", "Agent", "Special Agent" etc., to prevent the notion of "Wah, I was doing Heroic content before the update and now I can't even handle Hard!". It also didn't help that the new difficulty system was introduced together with a massive rework of the gear system. Players aren't as competent (yet) with the new system as they were with the old one, which exacerbates the feeling of that the game has become much harder. This will fade as players keep learning the details of the new system, but right now, it contributes to the frustration and gives the new difficulty system a worse reputation than it deserves.
Maybe I’ve just had a hot streak with rng but I don’t really feel like I’m being restricted with lower chance higher end drops. I get gold drops from open world npcs outside of activities even. Perhaps the quality gets better?? But I have had some pieces drop with more then 2 attributes maxed out as well. Since we can only recalibrate one attribute I’m assuming there is gear drops out there with maxed out attributes that synergize well with a role and need only 1 tweak. Maybe those pieces are reserved for higher difficulty drops?