[DEF] Helpful Info I've Learned
[DEF] Helpful Info I've Learned
I sent this to a couple of friends in email, figured I'd share here...
MAP LEGEND
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USE IT Yarr! (one of our gaming buddies) - NO SERIOUSLY!!! There is a legend... LMAO, it has main mission with SQUARE and '!' in it... that is different than OPTIONAL MISSIONS which are DIAMONDS with '!' in them... ROFLMAO... (sorry, I couldn't resist). NOTE THE BLUE SYMBOL fast travel... and the GREEN SYMBOL... evac point if you die... get the idea???
OK, all ribbing aside, you really need to take a second to stop and smell the roses in the menu... before you do anything just go through and familiarize yourself with the menus and specifically the map legends... it's REALLY handy. I started just doing main mission stuff, but went back and did 5 or 6 side missions I have found the side missions to be pretty rewarding as well. I encourage you to do both.
I found out last night that I almost have my first PURSUIT done... which I didn't even know existed, then I stumbled to the GOALS menu... more on that later...
LEVELING
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EXPERIENCE, EGO, PERKS, >>> Goals, Pursuits
Experience is what gets you EGO, the more EGO you have the more Perks you get.
If you want huge EXP multipliers, you need to be aware of what GOALS you are working on.
Higher EGO does several things for you.... it opens up
- better areas on the map
- higher more challenging pursuits
- better rewards
- more perk slots
- more inventory
- more load out slots
- higher tier lock box in random drops
- better drops
- etc...
(I also learned that you CAN have two major powers unlocked, but you need to have the adjacent perk unlocked first... I picked the hologram perk as my starting ability, but entered the ark codes and linked my xbox so received the thick skin perk as well which is adjacent to the ability on the right, overcharge... when I put a point in Thickskin, Overcharge opened up as a main ability as well as all the surrounding abilities... so, very hady when you get multiple loadouts going more later..)
GOALS / PURSUITS
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This is easily the most important thing I can share with you guys.
If you go into your map or character screen, and HOLD DOWN YOUR LEFT TRIGGER, your EGO menu pops up, like the old Shadowrun days - it's a radial menu of sorts. When that radial circle pops up, scroll over to GOALS. This one is important. Dig around in there. Notice that there are PURSUITS. The PURSUITS are GROUPS of various goals, sometimes missions, sometimes kills, or items locations etc.... there are a host of rewards you can accumulate as a result of completing pursuits. These will propel your EGO score. In alignment with the TV SERIES. There are PURSUITS that will change each SEASON. In season 1, there are some 100+ PURSUITS. As you complete 1 pursuit, you get bonus EXPERIENCE. This also will unlock more PURSUITS. Essentially, these are rewarding you normal exp for doing stuff, but with multipliers and reward bonuses for also completing the right combinations of things... so, worth being concious of instead of just running around the open world doing random shit!!!! THIS IS WHERE YOUR GAME FOCUS COMES FROM!!!!!
EGO MENU / DEFIANCE STORE / CLAIMING
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Remember that hold the left trigger trick to get the radial menu while in the map / character screen... you will need it to access the Defiance Store... yeah, I know you are not going to actually BUY anything. However, it is very handy when you win a reward from an ARKFALL like I did last night and you can't figure out where the hell your drop box is... well, you go to the DEFIANCE STORE in your radial menu and look under CLAIM and bam, there it is. Just make sure your inventory is not full when you click it because it will generate two or more AT LEAST UNCOMMON rarity weapons or other goodies for you (so yes, there are weapon rarities, but good luck figuring that shit out!!)
After you LINK your xbox to your Defiance account online, you'll need to use this also... again, the claim...
WEAPON PROFICIENCY / WEAPON LEVEL / WEAPON MODDING
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I'm still figuring this out. However, I noticed weapons have their own 'status' bar. The numbers are in the 500,000 - 750,000 for the most part it seems when you look at them in inventory. The more you use the more the status goes up. Like 42,000 / 500,000 for example. I presently think the weapon itself may have some kind of WEAPON LEVEL, basically the more you stick with that weapon, the better IT gets...
Last night I also learned, out of the blue, that my INFECTOR proficiency went to level 2. My EGO just adviseed me of it out of the blue. I had no idea. I was just shooting some guys and I thought cool, I must have leveled the weapon up so I checked it out in inventory, but the weapon was no where close to being fully leveled up... so this was my own character proficiency, and was something seperate from the weapon itself... so an ability or PROFICIENCY of this category of weapon.
I also learned last night that SOME weapons can be modded and some weapons can have mod SLOTS added to them, even though they don't start with any slots. I'm not sure why or how they are allowed to have slots added to them. It seems very odd. I don't know what dictates when a weapon can be or cannot have a slot ADDED to it. I have several weapons that have 4 slots, some have 'dashes' in the slots, others do not. Some have icons in the slots like a stock or a barrel... those clearly mean they are ready to receive a mod of the icon picture... I got that figured out.... so, I have more to learn here. I also noticed that when you use the MOD matrix and break down a weapon, instead of selling it, you get this green crap... appearently it is used instead of currency in modding. A sort of tinkering currency instead of cash currency. So, if you want to mod, you are going to want to break down your unwanted junk from time to time.
CRITTERS
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Hellbugs... wait for their mouths to open, then shoot them in it. (note, there are all kinds of thes like Elites, workers, Archers, Monarchs... etc... each has their own special attacks and weaknesses and bonuses... but this basic category summarizes them all)
Mutants, head shots, also can shoot them in the groin if they are incapacitated
Scrappers / robot things have a hose that pops out in back of them
099... I have seen them but don't know anything about them yet.
lot more... still learning a lot about the critters...
ARKFALLS
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Arkfalls... there are many different kinds of encounters, but they are all timed. Usually, they are successfully completed in time... less than 5 minutes from what I've seen...
They come in minor, moderate and major encounters from what I've seen.
In the minor ones, it's a small fragment and hell bugs are spawning and you have to break own the crystal. In moderate once, there's a bunch of crystals and all kinds of crap going on. In the major ones I've seen, there are several arkfalls going on all at once and the really big one has some mammoth bug coming out of the ground while lots of small bugs are coming out of the ground. Once you incapacitate the major bug, a flying pain in the ass bug ... think mosquito or wasp looking thing pops out the top, and your EGO tells you to kill the host bug before it goes back inside... then that damn thing needs to be shot... it's rediculous and I've yet to see enough folks have ammo to take that host bug down in time. I keep running out of ammo in the major encounters.
I have noticed that having access to more than one LOADOUT means I can have different guns on the ready, and different guns use different ammo... so all ARs use AR ammo and all Pistols use pistol ammo and all snipers use sniper ammo, etc... So having loadout 1 with Pistol and Shotgun but having loadout 2 with AR and Sniper means I have 4 guns on the ready... but that takes me to switching between loadouts...
LOADOUTS
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I've noticed that there are several LOADOUTS in my character screen. I have 2 unlocked right now, but you can have 5. However when playing the game... Y button just changes between weapons of the CURRENT equipped LOADOUT... which is not as handy... so, to change between loadouts, I have to hit START, Y, B to get back in game.... that's going to get more confusing when I have more than 2 LOADOUTS unlocked...
DEATH
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One of you Effer's asked me what happens when you die. Both of you went through the tutorial, so I'm not sure who wasn't paying attention... I have a feeling it was Yarr... LOL. (why do you buy the ultimate / super duper addition of anything???)
Anyway... you have a self respawn timer, the first time you go down... your dude crawls around and you get a pop up on the HUD which is rather self evident that you can hold X to respawn, you can also crawl around a bit... if you hit x you are back up and your SELF RESPAWN timer starts resetting... I'm not sure how long it is... but it seems that thing is like 3 minutes or so. If you go down again, you are going to need someone to rez you... you get about 20 secs or you can just 'evacuate' or whatever that call it. If you do that, hitting A I think.... again, it's on the HUD and really freakin self evident... then there is a nominal FEE in scrip (money) for doing so. Your evacuate point is indicated on your MAP (See pooint 1 above yarr... read the map legend!!!)
BTW - I'll know if either of you cock knockers read this shit as the commentary from this DEATH portion should come back in feedback :)
GROUPS
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Philthy found a REALLY kick ass group feature. You can TELEPORT right to your group members. Using your D pad, you just select your group member and follow the prompts... its easy, you just read... I know, this is really going to fucking challenge Yarr... but nonetheless, it's easy... just read!
OK, that's all for now.... and way to much for either of you to digest.... much less comprehend... :)
Weapons do get their own XP bar and when it goes up the weapon improves SLIGHTLY. Which brings me to another point, while there is loot to collect don't expect the game to be like Borderlands. The assault rifle you find at level 20 is going to have damage very similar to the one you find at level 1000. They've done this for PvP balance, they don't want high level people to just destroy anyone who wants to play in the shadow war. Instead of getting drastically higher damage values, the minor things about a weapon change. On a level 20 assault rifle it may not have anything, on that level 1000 one it may reduce the cooldown of your grenade by 30% on a critical kill and have improved bloom and recoil. So you may wonder why you'd switch weapons at all.
That's where the weapon XP bar comes into play. The bar at the bottom of your weapon is actually how much damage you've done with it, that's why the numbers are up in the 500k's. Once you max out a weapon it adds a random bonus effect to it which could be anything. 5% better damage, a cooldown on your current ego power upon reloading, anything. I maxed out the first assault rifle I found in the game and it added a fire element to it. Unfortunately that bar doesn't reset so once you get your bonus that's it.
And on the subject of arkfalls. Please people, DO NOT shoot the skitterlings. When your goal is to destroy the crystal, the skitterlings are HELPING you. You can shoot the crystal and do 33 damage normally. But when a skitterling bites it, it grows this big glowing pimple and now it takes 333 damage. I've seen groups of 20 fail an arkfall simply because they were driving cars around the thing to kill the bugs and only doing minor damage, meanwhile my group of 5 can take one by just waiting and all shooting the critical pimple together.
And just a few other things of note:
Xbox invites do nothing in this game. They'll bring you to the same phase of the world as your friend but you might still be on opposite sides of the world. You only need to hit right on the d-pad, go to friends, find your buddy then click go to friend. You'll teleport right beside them.
The 4 player co-op missions are not available right off the bat. There's a mission you do, I think it's the 5th or 6th one that unlocks them for you. Then you can access them via the matchmaking menu from the radial bar at the start screen.
And finally, the tier 4 lock box is a scam. It has a higher chance of giving you a legendary weapon as one of the 4 items you get, but you have a much better chance of getting one from the 16 weapons you'd get buying 8 tier 2 boxes for the same amount of keys.
I'm pretty sure the co-op missions unlock on EGO levels rather than doing missions. I unlocked a 5th co-op mission earlier today after going over 400 EGO rating. That was after I finished all the main story missions. As you keep leveling up more of them get unlocked.
Kamakaze,
Great tips. I did not know that about the Legendary items and have my first weapon so close to leveled I can taste it... cheers for the responses.
There is some way to use Kinect to do this as well. I haven't tried it but i was reading that it's something like pressing downon the D pad saying ECHO and then a command. That may not be it exactly but that's the jist of it for those who have Kinect.
Tank,
Cool, I'll give it a shot tonight. May be awkward to pull off when I'm running surround sound, but will see how it works. Thanks for tip! I dig it!
did anyone else notice that your weapon level is your Ego number at the time you loot the weapon?
Ya that at least SEEMS to be the case. Not that it really matters, i think the only difference between the colored rarity are the # of slots a gun can have and if it has a bonus 'power' or not. The level of a gun seems to be pretty irrelevant, a level 1 gun can be exactly the same as a level 100 gun as far as I can tell. Gun damage really seems to be locked down, you can add mods and level the gun up to get a bonus that may give you incramental improvements to the weapon but overall its not that much different. I read they did this because of PvP, sinceyou take your weapons into PvP the way they are, they didn't want level 400 guys blowing level 50 guys out of the competition otherwise no one would play.
From forums.defiance.com:
Just after going over 500 EGO rating I found a lvl 3 (blue) shield with a slightly bigger shield than a lvl 4 (purple) one of the same type I found at a lower EGO rating.
A few hundred EGO lvls at the start doesn't seem to make a difference but as our EGOs will get higher they should start effecting the items.
I'm sure most of you know about his already but thought I'd post it anyway...
There is a vendor on one of the small southern pennisulas that sells a dune buggie. This vehicle IMO is the best in the game so far. It is a bit faster than the charger and ATV, can mantle off-road obstacles as good, or better, than the ATV, can carry 1 passenger, and handles like the ATV.
The charger is ok but it's not worth a damn off road.
i tend to like the 4wheelers, cause they seem to handle much better when going off road. which is what i almost always do, using boosters to get over that hill if you have a little momentum is pretty easy. ive been wanting the dune buggie but now that everyone seems to want one i might just stick with what i got for the time being.
ive played versus and ive played shadow wars, and i enjoy shadow wars a hell of alot more, them locking the weapons down sucks in this game type. imo versus shouldnt even be in this type of game, shadow wars is one of the funnest things ive played in a long while.
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your post got me thinking, so i did a little bit of digging for those that want a buggy
http://defiance.craftedcrows.com/duni-shetarru/
on right hand side gives locations on map.
I've thought about switching from the charger but i'm like level 12 on 'rollers' now and switching to a buggie, i think i'd start back at level 0.
The Duni-shetarru, Nomad (steam preorder for PC) and dodge challenger are all roller class vehicles from my understanding... maybe I have it wrong.
Either way... the dune buggy is so worth it. boosting up and over hills off road is WAYYYYY easier and more enjoyable with the buggy!
Oh, and my ears thank me for never ever having to listen to the dodge charger ever again... lol... the Duni-shetarru sounds so much more pleasing. It's worth the 14,500 in scrip all day long. Hell, i may buy another one just to have a second color option.
Cheers,
Ugh, my head hurts from all this info, I just wanna shoot something already!!!.gif "4")
Don't get too overzealous, you might loose your primary weapon slot again LoL
More on Enemies...
99r Elites hate head shots... snipers are your friend.
99r shield carriers hate gernades / missiles
99r midget / flamers die easy to everything, but if you pop their tanks, the run off and explode
99r Tankers die well to gernades or gernade shotguns with high rate of fire damage, you can suppress them and keep them on their knees.
Scrappers seems to hate electricity, but when they take enough damage, they go down and have a thing on their back you can just pound the crap out of. BMGs in concert with other guns and expecially if modded can work to good effect.
Dark Matter guys and their Dreadnought walkers REALLY just go down to the desintegrater weaponry... the guns that have th effect to litterally desintegrate stuff. So, if you find an AR, LMG, SMG or other high rate of fire accurate weapon, hold onto it for later in the game when you get to San Fran. These things are gold over there.
+ + +
If you are having trouble adding slots to a gun... try unequipping it... Seems I've told somebody this almost every night.