Poll: Defiance. Is it any good?

Moonlight Butterfly

Be the Leaf
Mar 16, 2011
6,157
0
0
I see this fps MMO on steam and think hey this looks like a fun game for me to play with friends but it's expensive for us to buy without knowing more about it. So I look at the internet and the reaction seems to be similar to that of Marmite and Margaret Thatcher.

Have people had bad or good experiences with this game, What do you think of it? Have you seen the tv show related to it (I know wtf?)

Any input to help me and my co op friends?

*Not sure if this is in the right place move to advice forum if needed*
 

hazabaza1

Want Skyrim. Want. Do want.
Nov 26, 2008
9,612
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Just sayin' it's a TPS not an FPS.
But I've heard very mixed reactions. Some people saying it's like a mix between Borderlands and GW2, some saying it's basically WoW but with more shallow mechanics. Personally, I'm waiting until it's like, 20 quid in a steam sale or something similar.
 

AndrewF022

New member
Jan 23, 2010
378
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I put about 10 hours into it at launch and the Borderlands meets Guild Wars meets Rift comparisons are pretty accurate. Obviously without the polish of any one single series.

The shooting is quite fun, and feels just about right for an MMO (it's no PlanetSide 2 though), but if you want top tier TPS mechanics you wont find them here. Also par for the course in an MMO it's highly repetitive. Also it feels like there is not a whole lot of content here.

The obvious draw to Defiance is the tie in with the SciFi show, but I guess time will tell how successful that crossover is, at the moment there is not much except that a couple of characters from the show appear in specific missions (dubbed, episode missions) from time to time. The game is not even set in the same location as the show...
 

WoW Killer

New member
Mar 3, 2012
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I was looking at this one. It didn't seem like it was worth a full box price, but I'll definitely give it a look if it goes on sale sometime. The loot system sounds really interesting, but I'm put off by the reports of the combat being so clunky and shallow. A few years ago I'd have said people were being a bit harsh as you're never going to get stellar combat in an MMO, but some recent games have shown it's totally possible with current tech. For instance, Firefall is very much an MMO in the sense it has a persistent world with a significant PvE side, but it manages to feel like a "real" FPS/TPS with proper projectile physics and collision detection, and basically no side effects from latency. From what I saw of Defiance, it reminded me a bit of Neocron, which was great for its time but very very clunky.
 

SlaveNumber23

A WordlessThing, a ThinglessWord
Aug 9, 2011
1,203
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I've played about 30 hours of it so far, its a little bit dodgy but is overall a good game, its not the greatest thing ever but its definitely not a bad game. Its a lot of fun to play with friends so if you were going to get it you should make sure you will be able to play coop which doesn't seem to be a problem for you. I'm a little hesitant to recommend it, as in my opinion its not quite worth the rather steep price it is going for, but if you don't mind the price then go for it.

Oh yeah and their patcher is an absolute abomination, worst piece of software I have ever used. I was using it to download the game, it was about 90% complete after I had left it running for a long time[footnote]Australian internet yay.[/footnote] and the patcher closes itself and when I reopen it, it restarts the entire download, despite still having the 9GB or so of files sitting there, now useless. You can't bypass their patcher by playing the game on Steam either, which is annoying. Apparently this happened to a lot of people, including Angry Joe:
Also you might want to take a look at his actual review of the game:
(Haven't watched it yet myself so no idea if his review is negative or positive about the game.)

AndrewF022 said:
I put about 10 hours into it at launch and the Borderlands meets Guild Wars meets Rift comparisons are pretty accurate.
I honestly don't understand the Borderlands comparisons at all, Defiance and Borderlands are pretty different from one another apart from trivial things such as they both have guns, both have psychopathic bandit enemies etc.
 

Me55enger

New member
Dec 16, 2008
1,095
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I'm actually rather impressed over Defiance.

Not particuarily for any aspect of the game, but more for the discussion that has been surrounding it. It has not bee overly positive or negative.

The Borderlands comparison is somewhat appropriate. How they handle weapons in terms of statistics and vendors are similar. This is far from a bad thing.
 

Playful Pony

Clop clop!
Sep 11, 2012
531
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It is by no means the most incredible game ever, but does bring a reasonable amount of fun with it, and lasts many hours. I have put 24 hours into it and am nowhere near finishing, but then I'm kind of a slow and not terribly skilled player... I imagine any experienced TPS/MMO player would find many of the missions to be a bit too easy.

Quite a lot of fun guns, I especially like the shotgun as it feels very powerful. Easily the most efficient weapon against your average humanoid enemy is a sniper rifle though! Unfortunately you can only have 2 weapons equipped at the same time, which is very limiting. This is slightly helped by being able to have multiple "kits" that you can change in your character screen, but there is no hotkeys for these and I really wish there was!

The missions are pretty nice I think, not at all as repetetive as I expected. The game world is pretty small, right now anyway, if you go explore you'll have seen it all within an hour or two. It is the missions and the Ark Falls (rifts) that gives the game its lenght, and there are also some challenges lying around, some of which are very entertaining.

I'd say it is a reasonable buy at it's current price, but I wouldn't blame you for waiting a while for the price to decrease, or at least see if the show becomes a hit! If the show fades away it should be fair to asume that the game won't last very long on its own...
 

Kontar

New member
Jan 18, 2008
137
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I have been playing it since launch. It is a ton of fun, it is waaaay more fun than almost any other MMO out there. I love the game so far and have high hopes for it.

Although, I must say, it is not the next coming of Jesus. The game has many problems, it has some bugs (every MMO does). It is dissapointingly short so far. Though they claim to be changing that as the show goes on. Beyond shooting things in the face there isn't much variation (but I love to play an MMO where I can ACTUALLY SHOOT SOMETHING IN THE FACE AND IT MATTTERS (a head-shot is a head-shot)). There aren't that many "quests" main storyline or no. At the moment it feels kinda shallow. Although I love the world events. But it is a very competent third person shooter (TPS). And they have set up some fun shit to do in it. This game will most likely grow due to the show and its following. I understand the hesitation, "SyFy" has been dissapointing to watch lately, but I think this show will rival Battlestar Galactica. And the addition of an interactive experience with it will be awesome.
 

MetalMagpie

New member
Jun 13, 2011
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SlaveNumber23 said:
AndrewF022 said:
I put about 10 hours into it at launch and the Borderlands meets Guild Wars meets Rift comparisons are pretty accurate.
I honestly don't understand the Borderlands comparisons at all, Defiance and Borderlands are pretty different from one another apart from trivial things such as they both have guns, both have psychopathic bandit enemies etc.
From reading reviews, I think the main similarities are that both have randomly generated guns (some with crazy perks), both let you pick a signature special ability at the start (the class-dependent "action skill" in Borderlands), both let you earn points to spend on passive buffs, and both are designed with coop (at least somewhat) in mind.

And bandits, post-apocalyptic-style wasteland, etc.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

Henchgoat Emperor
May 15, 2010
5,499
0
0
Moonlight Butterfly said:
I see this fps MMO on steam and think hey this looks like a fun game for me to play with friends but it's expensive for us to buy without knowing more about it. So I look at the internet and the reaction seems to be similar to that of Marmite and Margaret Thatcher.

Have people had bad or good experiences with this game, What do you think of it? Have you seen the tv show related to it (I know wtf?)

Any input to help me and my co op friends?

*Not sure if this is in the right place move to advice forum if needed*
Wait for it to fail and "re-launch" as F2P. It will because its just bland, faceless and boring. No reason to care about the story because it just isn't engaging. I played the open beta and while graphically it looked neat, the gameplay doesn't warrant a full price model at all. Its no GuildWars and I really expect it to go the way of APB.
And the TV tie-in doesn't mean crap to the game other than the "main storyline".
Also there was a review on Escapist that sums up what I said more elegantly... its 6am and I need coffee.
 

Madman Muntz

New member
Apr 16, 2013
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I think Angry Joe summed the game up quite well. For me personally none of the features that set Defiance aside as its own game, quests, story line, television show tie in, do anything for me. And while I agree the gun play is done well and is the games best feature, I already own more than enough multiplayer games that do the same thing as well or better than Defiance. I would recommend players give the game a miss for now, at least until it and the show its based on have a few months to mature.
 

Comocat

New member
May 24, 2012
382
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Me55enger said:
I'm actually rather impressed over Defiance.

Not particuarily for any aspect of the game, but more for the discussion that has been surrounding it. It has not bee overly positive or negative.

The Borderlands comparison is somewhat appropriate. How they handle weapons in terms of statistics and vendors are similar. This is far from a bad thing.
I think this game could be a good case study in how to release a middle of the road MMO. Plenty of games like SWTOR, Warhammer, or Age of Conan presented themselves like the second coming of Jesus and turns out they were "ok" at best. It's really hard to raise pitchforks on a game I didn't realize had been relased. I think gamers get pissed off not when a game is lousy, but when they were promised the game would change the future of genre (eg SWTOR inventing the 4th pillar of gaming) and then find out it sucks.
 
Aug 19, 2010
611
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Played Beta and Alpha. Now, final releases, as a rule, should be better than the tests, and considering the immense fun i've had with those, the final release should be great.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

Be the Leaf
Mar 16, 2011
6,157
0
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Thanks for the feedback guys. :) I think I'm going to wait and see if it gets a bit cheaper. There are so many good games coming out at the moment it seems I'm going to have to be careful with my cash.
 

squid5580

Elite Member
Feb 20, 2008
5,106
0
41
MetalMagpie said:
SlaveNumber23 said:
AndrewF022 said:
I put about 10 hours into it at launch and the Borderlands meets Guild Wars meets Rift comparisons are pretty accurate.
I honestly don't understand the Borderlands comparisons at all, Defiance and Borderlands are pretty different from one another apart from trivial things such as they both have guns, both have psychopathic bandit enemies etc.
From reading reviews, I think the main similarities are that both have randomly generated guns (some with crazy perks), both let you pick a signature special ability at the start (the class-dependent "action skill" in Borderlands), both let you earn points to spend on passive buffs, and both are designed with coop (at least somewhat) in mind.

And bandits, post-apocalyptic-style wasteland, etc.
Sure randomly generated guns that are all the same. Oh sure 1 may have + 1.5 melee while another has -.10 recoil but for the sake of pvp balance all the guns and shields are pretty much the same.

The co op is alright except for the story missions which will boot you from your group and force all the boss fights to go solo. But once you are done the story (about 10 hours) there isn't a whole lot to do after. There is 3 major arkfalls and a few minor ones that after a few times get boring. And co op instances (4 man raids) which are fun the first few times but get repetative after a while.

The worst offence is the Micro Transactions. 800 ms points for an outfit isn't bad enough. There is a store that sells lockboxes (random weapon boxes). Well you can buy them with in game currency or with real money from the in game store. And there is no confirmation if you accidentally buy it for real money.

There is still lots of bugs and you are better off to wait til it hits the bargain bins before buying.
 

00slash00

New member
Dec 29, 2009
2,321
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i dont plan on getting the game until at least halfway through the season, so i can get a sense of whether or not there will be a season 2 (since the tie in aspects of the games dont come in to play until then). angry joe thought the game was very mediocre but total biscuit seemed to like it (which is odd because tb is usually the one who is hard on games). seems like it could be a good game if they tweak and tighten up a few things
 

rasputin0009

New member
Feb 12, 2013
560
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I watched my friend play it, and I thought it looked boring as all hell to play. He loved it because he could drive his real life car in it: A Dodge Challenger. Oh ya, there's a lot of shameless advertising. Driving mechanics are somehow worse than borderlands. And I noticed the menus were terribly arranged which is pretty important for an rpg mmo. The skill tree looked interesting but nothing too special. I guess the main thing that I got from watching my friend play was that it felt like the shooting mechanics were tacked on as an afterthought. Which is bad for a shooter.