Agent MaverickScot reporting.Thought it was about time I joined in since I have been playing since the beta. Agent Level 30, DZ level 41 and gear score 174.
Mav.
Good to see another player here. Hope we meet in-game.
I played about 2 to 3 hours yesterday after the patch was released yesterday and played the new "search and destroy" and "high value target" PvE missions with Scimitar. These new missions make good use of the existing PvE areas outside of the Dark Zone. Playing the "search and destroy" missions will give a new type of currency called "intel" and these are spent on unlocking "high value target" missions which has bosses that will drop high end gear, including gear set pieces as well. You can also stop by the usual crafting material locations as well while you make your way to the mission locations.
As a PvE player, I think these new missions were very much needed and are a great way to earn gear set pieces which previously had to be earned in either the Dark Zone or incursions.
The new incursion Clear Skies came with the patch. I gave that a try but wasn't able to complete it as it was very late in the evening and was one player short of a full team. So far the difficulty of the new incursion seem to be on par with Falcon Lost, so you pretty much need a full team to complete it (unless of course you're among the small number of players with god-level gear scores that can solo them.)
New gear sets came out as well, only this time they each include a weapon as part of the sets.
A noticeable increased frequency of loot drops is another welcome change that not only improves on the chances of picking up high-end gear but also serves as a faster way to gather crafting materials from deconstructing items.
Overall, I think this patch is just what the game needed to address most of the problems in the end-game PvE content.
Well, Ubisoft did make a short movie with YouTubers before the official game release and the game's story is worthy of an actual movie script. It would be interesting if the movie producers cast Ming-Na Wen as Faye Lau because I think the actress looks similar to Faye.
So I get a notification of a new video from YouTuber MarcoStyle and was surprised to learn of a nerf that was not listed in the patch notes. The issue isn't the nerf itself, it's the fact something that greatly affects an entire class of weapon was not mentioned in the patch notes.
I don't think the devs will have a response. As I've said before, the issue isn't the nerf. Marco has shown in a previous video that it was possible to have a 100% critical hit chance so it is understandable why the devs have capped critical hit chance to 60% in the newest patch. I am not disappointed about this nerf as having the possibility of having 100% critical hit chance in PvP is an overpowered advantage. The issue is that the nerf will affect players who have SMG builds, which includes players who aren't necessarily going for a 100% critical hit chance but are trying to get at least 65%-70%. The real issue is the lack of official notification from the devs.
Posted Tue 21 Jun, 2016 3:30 PM –
Last edited by O'Neill; Tue 21 Jun, 2016 8:43 PM.
The recent press conference of Ubisoft at E3 2016 revealed new gear sets and randomly generated missions in the next expansion called Underground.
The new gear sets appears to heavily focus on abilities that would be most helpful in PvE which makes sense considering that the Underground expansion is a series of randomly generated PvE missions.
One of the gear sets features a weapon as part of the set, the BLIND set. As the name of the set implies, the four piece bonus drops a flashbang at the location of a killed enemy. In theory it sounds good for crowd control but enemies don't seem to cluster often. It might work if the enemies were spawning at choke points already on fire or stunned by electric shock. Fun to watch but how practical this set will be remains to be seen.
Two other sets include the Frontline and Firecrest. Frontline is notable for the boosts it provides to ballistic shield durability and the 4-piece bonus which allows the use of SMGs while the shield is deployed, possibly making it a viable option for a dedicated tank player. Firecrest gives extra incendiary ammo which sounds nice but I think Predator's Mark 4-piece set is better for damage. Even though fire will cause enemies to stop shooting and take burning damage, Predator's Mark bleed effect does much more damage when used with a AR, SMG, or shotgun.
I think the Frontline set is the most notable of the sets as it will give the ballistic shield the boost it needs, considering I rarely see anyone using it in PvE.
The Underground update was released yesterday. I played for a few hours and got two 204 weapons from loot drops, a Enhanced G36 assault rifle and a paratrooper SDV sniper rifle. The G36 has a higher base damage than the 204 score Military P416. Rate of fire are kind of similar to each other so it was a clear upgrade.
The SDV however wasn't; it had nearly half the base damage of my 204 Classic M1A sniper rifle and slower rate of fire; 280 rpm, 26k dps SDV; 300 rpm, 40k dps Classic M1A. It would appear the M1A and it's other variants are still the best in dps and rpm.
Seems my search for a 204 SOCOM / First Wave M1A continues.
I managed to get my 4pc 214gs Striker Set and an upgrade for my 164gs Damascus pistol. This is shaping up to be a good expansion. I love the procedurally generated missions.
Got the 229gs G36 Enhanced - completely OP! 229gs Paratrooper SVD - awesome! Loving the expansion so far, especially the talent re-rolls.
Nice. Congrats on getting those. I have yet to re-roll some of my weapon talents. I think they have a limit of 6 re-rolls on each weapon and costs phoenix credits and weapon kits. I was glad to see in the preview videos that weapon talents could be re-rolled.
For a short time this morning, the Appearance vendor in BoO had the Canadian CADPAT weapon skin.
The Army-brat in me squee'd, then bought 6 for both my Agents...
(On a side note, it's not ACTUAL CADPAT, as the algorithm used to generate the pattern is proprietary, and owning uniform pieces that use legitimate CADPAT is illegal under section 419 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which prohibits the unlawful use of military uniforms)