I agree. And I would add that it's also these missions in part. For example, in some of the lower-tiered missions, you find some intel, and can "upload" it via your little phone/GPS...thing. HOWEVER, fast-forward to the third tier of the same mission set - say, strongholds. Here, you first have to find a stronghold key card. Slightly difficult, but AIs drop them at random, and with only a small effort, you can find them. Or, you can buy them from some Buy Stations if you have the cash or things to sell. But, then, you have to CLEAR the stronghold of AIs (and sometimes players, because the game has just alerted EVERYONE and their DOG that you, or you and your squad, are attempting it, and the jerks in this community are now swarming to you to kill you and swipe the gear you just ground your arse off to collect, so they don't have to...but, I digress...). SOME of the strongholds don't have a lot of guards, so if you pick a smaller one, it's not too tough. BUT, don't let looks deceive you: some smaller ones seem to have packed in AIs like they are clown cars, and enemies just keep coming (with magically indestructible anti-ballistic shields, I might add), not to mention that you generally draw in nearby guards and/or chopper- and/or ground vehicle-based reinforcements.
Still, it can be done. That said, the NEXT step is to get the 'White Lotus' intel and get it to an exfil site (and, by the way, if you play as a squad, there's only ONE of those 'White Lotus' intel pick-ups, so if you ALL have to do the mission, you have to do this THREE effing times!!), and successfully survive TO exfil (wherein AI reinforcements and jerk players show up just to snipe you out - sometimes even those players who don't actually NEED your gear - they're just there to be assholes and to ruin your day; no other motivation. Typical of MANY in this community. Ooops...digressing again...). Then, you get to move onto the next set of grindy and often pointless missions, wherein you'll likely die without getting your gear out and having to start all over from scratch or, at least, wait four hours to get access to your own weapons and anything else you have access to in your kit.
BUT, if you die BEFORE you can exfil that 'White Lotus' intel, guess what? Yep: you have to RE-acquire a stronghold key card; 0nce AGAIN defeat the AI inside that stronghold; And THEN try to exfil the 'White Lotus' intel ONCE AGAIN.
Wash, rinse, REPEAT (and repeat...and repeat...and...).
My question is: why couldn't that 'White Lotus' intel be "uploaded" via phone/GPS gadget like the earlier intel, and save us the three-peat? Our collective arses have already been kicked (probably several times) at this point - why does it HAVE to be exfilled? It's no longer a challenge at this point, it's ANNOYING and OFFPUTTING!
I have read from folks here in the Forums - and have experienced myself - that doing that particular three-peat gets SO frustrating and is so much harder to complete/grind out than the rewards are worth, that we either quit playing DMZ altogether, or we don't play again for days or longer. So, like the OP suggests, if you want us to actually play this game mode, why make the grind so pointless and frustrating, and why set us up to fail and piss us off so much we QUIT playing? Doesn't make much sense.
While higher tiers probably should come with more challenge, they should ALSO COME WITH GREATER REWARD, not just some skin or blueprint that is on par - or even weaker than - things you ALREADY have (for example, the LMG blueprint reward for completing that first mission set is actually weaker than the LMG you get with the 'Icarus' if you pre-ordered the game, and MUCH weaker than you can equip and tune it to YOURSELF if you rank up that weapon/weapon platform; and with MUCH less grinding and frustration).
Again, as the OP says, it is, indeed, ironic that Activision/Blizzard seem to actually be TRYING to discourage us from playing a mode they are excited about and that COULD be really great. I know this is only in BETA, and there are some tweaks, etc. to make, but there are some things I'm not sure were thought through that should have been before it even REACHED beta...
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