Well here's the official forums, i saw people asking these questions on there, not sure myself: http://forums.defiance.com/Originally Posted by Shrike
As for it flying under the radar, yes, i also ignored it totally until i got a beta key. I wasn't even planning on watching the TV Series, but i guess this will be a nice immersion factor in conjunction in the game. At least the actors in the real tv series are very recognizable in the game. I think watching the tv series trailers on youtube will probably give you a good idea on the "story" and "theme". It's not exactly post apocalypse in the Fallout sense, there are alien races (one of which you can play as) too , so it's definitely "sci fi" . I actually don't quite know what is going on in detail either, but that's what made me follow the story line, as they trickle feed you all these things.
As for the equivalent of 5-man dungeons and such. I got not clue, from what i read, group size = 4 and there are 4-man dungeons (this is something i think might still be very buggy, alot of people complained about this) . I haven't played any myself, apparently it was part of a queuing/matchmaking system to get into. There's definitely abilities to heal and i believe there's even a "healing gun" (probably a shield re-generator , haven't seen it, don't take my word for it) . However there's no classes in the game, so you can probably fulfill any role you want by "leveling" the right weapons and picking the right perks.
I definitely saw an EGO ability which makes it faster and safer for you to revive your allies (which seems like a support type of ability to me). However i don't think you will get your typical healer-tank-dps setup with this.
EDIT: Here's the EGO Calculator (the main skill system) to give an idea. http://defiance-central.com/ego-calc...-27a-&start=18 . On there you will start with one of the 4 main "active abilities" (the 4 main blocks) and then you work yourself outwards with the smaller blocks, if you reach the other large blocks you can unlock that too, so you are not stuck with 1 of the 4 main abilities. However you can only "equip" 1 of the 4 main abilities at a given time, and a ton of of the small blocks abilities (the amount you can equip is based on how many EGO points/levels you have gained).
I initially started with the stealth ability, but i found i didn't use it alot, so i worked myself to the decoy ability which seems to be alot more useful. However in hindsight i think there's alot of quests i could have completed without killing any mobs by using the stealth ability .
