So I’ve noticed that around the endgame (i.e. most experimental or gold weapons obtained, familiarity with machine composition in various regions, machine behavior, and a few clothing schematics to increase survivability or avoidance in various scenarios) that people end up getting bored.
For myself and one or two others I could name, we’re cycling out our experimentals from active service in our loadouts and are instead using 5cs that we find appealing or otherwise mesh with our play/visual style. We’re doing challenges that would need to be actively pursued out of normal gameplay (the kind of thing you’d need to be doing specifically, and are less likely to do during normal play), and we’re doing what we can to mix it up.
For me specifically, I’m doing the above, and I’ve stopped looking for loot drops (even the Reaper doesn’t reward me with much anymore) because one of two things happens, usually at the same time.
One, I end up getting something (usually a weapon, attachment, or piece of apparel) that I already have, and don’t need more than one of, or can’t get more than one of.
Two, I get nothing new, and thus I feel cheated by RNGesus despite having prayed for the last hour.
In both of these cases, I was using specific tactics to hunt for things that I wanted, and were more likely to drop from these sources, but for one reason or another, I have the Wil Wheaton dice curse, and I rolled a nat 1, and got nothing worth the time, resources, and effort put into the endeavor.
More specifically, the effort and resources put into generating rivals, and leveling them to a standard where I would likely obtain a piece of loot I was looking for.
Rivals are a fantastic idea for grabbing things in the world that would generally be too rich for the blood of normal loot tables, but one of the largest issues I’ve seen with them as a system is that Rivals have a shared loot pool for outfit pieces and/or weapons.
Duplicates are especially a big issue. Duplicate weapons are likely to happen, and in these instances it’s frustrating, to be sure, but not unexpected. At least with those you can scrap them for high quality materials used in expensive later quality clothing modifications that would need to be dropped otherwise from rival machines as singular stacks of materials.
However, there’s nothing that bothers me more than going on a tear to wipe out several rivals in multiple regions for a handful of hours, and either coming up short with nothing, or having gotten a duplicate outfit piece that I already have, and thus get no benefit for obtaining again.
That last part is a symptom of a larger issue, but I’ll touch on that at a later date. Instead, I’ll stop bellyaching and tell you about a solution I came up with on the fly while sitting in a VC with Carni.
What I thought of, and Carni agreed with the idea and suggested I put it here, is that we give specific types of machines that most often become rivals (i.e. Hunters, Harvesters, and Tanks) their own specific outfit piece drops based on what kind of outfit piece you get for destroying that type of machine in the Resistance challenge tree.
If you’re not familiar, it’s almost like a kill-count of the machines you encounter over time, and for destroying a specific type, destroying a class (proto, military, FNIX, etc) at each level of the challenge for each type until the final tier of the challenge, which awards you with a piece of clothing that is based on that machine.
This would mean that if the idea were taken seriously, the loot table would be changed so the experimental pants/legs would drop from Tanks, the hands/gloves would drop from Harvesters, and the jackets would drop from Hunters, as those are the respective parts you get from destroying those machines.
Why?
Because it would match up with what we’re used to from the one time we got consistent non-consumable loot from a specific type of machine. It would make farming to complete sets easier, and as it’s completely cosmetic it doesn’t affect balance at all because of how clothing works.
Now before you ask me what about helmets and the eyepiece, I won’t suggest that we get the helmets from rival ticks (which don’t exist) or the singular eyepiece with no variations (that I know of) from rival seekers (which also don’t exist). I would leave those pieces alone from being locked into a specific loot table, other than increasing their drop chance across all rivals.
If you like the idea, hit the like button for a total count, and/or if you have any suggestions related to the subject, leave a comment. Let’s generate a conversation, yeah?
