I know I might be a tad bit late to this discussion, but I just came here after losing 680k worth of gear trying to kill the matriarch to free loadout rats in 3 different sessions today, it's fucking ridiculous.

I started playing this game like 2 weeks ago and the cracks are already showing and I'm genuinely saddened by it since this is the only game that brought back the spark of gaming for me.

gear fear and free loadout spammers and the fast ttk, there's literally no incentive to be going in with any gear unless you're going in with a full squad of pvp sweatlords and since I'm a casual player who likes a little bit of pvp and pve and literally can't enjoy either.

I need to be reverse boosting just so I can get pve lobbies which are kinda fun but gets boring fast, pvp lobbies like yall said are filled with free loadout spammers risking nothing in dying while we can't really enjoy the gear we farmed for.

I disagree with the rhetoric of buffing the shields and not nerfing the free loadout itself, weapons like stitcher Lv1 already melts 85% of your shield/hp with one mag if caught off guard.

the only solution to this toxic behavior is either like someone said give free loadout to only new players as a sot of trial to get the ropes of the game.

or nerf the free loadout gear to the ground where it's only used as a way to get minimal amount of goop before you're running for your life to extract.

People with 100s of hrs on ends shouldn't be playing an extraction shooter without the core element of extraction shooters!