Yeah.
Borderlands is for fans of looter-shooters like Anthem, Destiny, and Diablo (I know Diablo isn't a looter shooter, but the concept is similar). Drown in loot, sell or deconstruct the garbage and use the best stuff. Keep grinding for the best stuff and hope that at least a few of the "billions of guns" will be worth snagging.
I sincerely hope CD Projekt Red does not go this route with 2077. Better yet, get rid of gear rarities entirely because it's a silly idea that has no place in a more grounded game like this.
Worse, rarities don't make sense when you also have levelled loot. Why is one gun "Legendary" if it's quickly outlevelled by a Common you get a couple hours later? Same applies to clothing, of course.
If I had to pick one actually achievable thing I'd want them to change before launch, it's this.
Skyrim's loot system was actually pretty solid. With tempering and enchantments, even a Steel Sword of Steelness could kick butt in the late-game. And that was a fantasy game.
Progression in 2077 should come not from "Level 5 Pistols" with +2130123 damage, but from cyberware, skill enhancements, and modifications to weapons and gear.
No leveled loot, no loot rarities. Please.
TW3's looting wasn't that far from looter games though... My fear for CP2077 is real.
Yes. I very much hoped that, given Cyberpunk 2077's setting, the fantasy-like loot system would be scrapped.
Totally agree, I saw some things in the demo I didn't really like (overall it was great, but stil), but the only real thing that looked like a serious flaw that could ruin the gaming experience was the loot system.
Yeah, lots of people want to be able to loot every weapon and piece of armor off fallen foes, and while I sort of understand this it ALWAYS makes for a game of inventory management and multiple trips to the vendor. Thus tedious, repetitive, anything but fun gameplay.
From what we saw in the 48 minute demo you can loot new gear you come across but not everything off everyone. If CDPR feels the need to include some sort of loot rewards for every battle make it $ not trash loot.
Nothing says you have to loot everything off of everyone just because you have the chance to do so. In fact, if the game has realistic carry weight, it would be a bad idea to do that.
But Kingdom Come: Deliverance lets you take everything your enemies have, and it works out fine. You can take their fancy plate armor, their mail, everything - but it's very, very heavy, thus impractical.
I'm not sure about this, if you look closely there's a small pink icon (shape of a small V) on each weapon when it's dropped:
you can see it for any enemy from minute 37:00 on, but you need to pay a lot of attention. We know that in that build from august enemies dropped their weapon, weapons had fantasy rarity and vendors are in the game (and it looks like clothes had levels too, in the menu). In my country we say that "3 hints make an evidence": check every weapon to look for the one with better numbers and sell everything else to make money? Work in progress, we don't know how it really was/is, sure, but TW3 was exactly like that and it doesn't look like they want to go for a more realistic approach.
Of course I agree oneverything else you wrote in that post, give me E$ and I'll buy weapons, gear, cyberware from vendors and ripperdocs. The only case where loot can be interesting is for unique items.
Missed that ! Thanks for pointing it out.
But it doesn't seem every kill drops a weapon/armor ... so maybe ... just maybe ... the drops aren't strictly vendor trash (not that I'd bet on that).
Well, I actually think it was, but that's because I consider TW3 itemization at its core to be mainly the Witcher gear (which was a broad set of hand-placed unique items/upgrades).
All that other crap was basically useless busywork around it.
And to be honest the Witcher gear was mostly fine in itself, if not for two problems:
1) it escalated too much in power (the range between early game and end game was too wide, see previous posts about it)
2) It was level-gated, which is rarely ever a good idea in a non-linear game.
4, 6, and 7.
I view the gear I choose to be as iconic to my character design as the face and hair. I much prefer to develop a playstyle, look, and feel, then stick with it. I'm really nonplussed when I'm forced to change my character's armor and chosen weapon simply because the numbers associated with them become too small.
My preference is the Dark Souls approach. Every bit of gear has its own strengths and weaknesses and is useful throughout the game. I choose gear based upon my playstyle and vision for that character, not because I must have better stats to succeed.
Customization, though...yes please!
(The one part of Fallout 4 I never grew tired of was fiddling with gun parts to get different results.)
I view the gear I choose to be as iconic to my character design as the face and hair. I much prefer to develop a playstyle, look, and feel, then stick with it. I'm really nonplussed when I'm forced to change my character's armor and chosen weapon simply because the numbers associated with them become too small.
My preference is the Dark Souls approach. Every bit of gear has its own strengths and weaknesses and is useful throughout the game. I choose gear based upon my playstyle and vision for that character, not because I must have better stats to succeed.
Customization, though...yes please!
(The one part of Fallout 4 I never grew tired of was fiddling with gun parts to get different results.)
Yes, sir! This, definitely. In Skyrim, I don't care how impractical it is, I pick a look I like (even full leather) and roll with it the entire game. A few mods to support that choice, and I'm golden.4, 6, and 7.
I view the gear I choose to be as iconic to my character design as the face and hair. I much prefer to develop a playstyle, look, and feel, then stick with it. I'm really nonplussed when I'm forced to change my character's armor and chosen weapon simply because the numbers associated with them become too small.
My preference is the Dark Souls approach. Every bit of gear has its own strengths and weaknesses and is useful throughout the game. I choose gear based upon my playstyle and vision for that character, not because I must have better stats to succeed.
Customization, though...yes please!
If the game has modding support, I will just create such a mod myself (some sort of scaling stats for armor/weapons).
I agree. Similarly to what @Snowflakez said, I once played through Skyrim in steel armour, simply because it looked good and suited the character I was playing. I didn't even have any mods to buff the armour.
Currently I'm playing through Witcher 3, on DM, in the starting armour (upgraded the chestpiece, though) until level 40, because I don't want to change Geralt's look. I don't care that I keep finding armour that has +70 armour rating, because it doesn't look good.
I don't know, I see those witcher's set more like a problem in balancing the equipment. Those are the best sets by far, making every single other item in the game pretty useless. BUT you need to loot everything anyway, otherwise you don't have money and crafting materials for the witcher sets. And since you have those sets, you are "forced" to keep them until you match the level for their next upgrade, which is kinda annoying (and immersion breaking).
I have serious problems in finding something good about all the loot/gear/level system in TW3. Most people complain about the combat system (which was far from being perfect, but it worked), but the real flaws of that masterpiece are somewhere else.
I'm absolutely fine with the best equipment in a game being unique and hand-placed.
For instance I always liked how in Gothic 1 and 2 the best armors in the games were just a few and tied to your progression inside specific factions ranks.
It gave a lot of "weight" and value to each one of them, making them feel like important milestones to reach.
If anything the disappointment came from how much "noise" there was around the sets in TW3, with most of the other loot feeling not just as "common items" but some bona fide useless crap that you hardly ever needed to use outside of the very early levels. Not to mention the ramp up in stats was a bit too steep.
They also wasted the chance to cut a lot of busywork with the inventory in favor of just a bunch on genuinely remarkable unique items. Even relying on "in lore" logic, an already accomplished swordsman and adventurer as Geralt was not supposed to have such a garbage-tier equipment that basically any random drop from a random enemy could be an upgrade over his gear, so why not to cut the noise in the first place?
For instance I always liked how in Gothic 1 and 2 the best armors in the games were just a few and tied to your progression inside specific factions ranks.
It gave a lot of "weight" and value to each one of them, making them feel like important milestones to reach.
If anything the disappointment came from how much "noise" there was around the sets in TW3, with most of the other loot feeling not just as "common items" but some bona fide useless crap that you hardly ever needed to use outside of the very early levels. Not to mention the ramp up in stats was a bit too steep.
They also wasted the chance to cut a lot of busywork with the inventory in favor of just a bunch on genuinely remarkable unique items. Even relying on "in lore" logic, an already accomplished swordsman and adventurer as Geralt was not supposed to have such a garbage-tier equipment that basically any random drop from a random enemy could be an upgrade over his gear, so why not to cut the noise in the first place?
It's more the loot system in Skyrim that worked well. Well, not so much the loot system, but the gear system.
Skyrim's weaponry and armor system was simple, and for a fantasy setting, reasonably believable. You could use the same Steel Sword for the entire game and do just fine (I can't say the same for the Witcher 3). There was no "Epic Steel Sword" or "Legendary Steel Sword Which Somehow Has +200 Damage."
There were higher-tiered materials, of course, which isn't that hard to stomach, especially given the fantasy setting. Tougher materials last longer, maybe they hold an edge better, whatever. Armor is even easier to justify. And you could temper your weapons and armor (again, not hard to justify), and enchantments were.. well.. it's a fantasy game.
You make a point about level scaling, but that's actually exactly what Skyrim's gear didn't have. Not a single piece of gear levelled with you, unless it was enchanted.
The skills and character systems in Skyrim are another topic, and not what we're discussing here (the gear rarity thread).
Would you rather Cyberpunk 2077 lean more toward Skyrim, or more toward Diablo 3/ Anthem / The Division? Those games are not bad, but they are very different than what I want here.
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