Can we make BR actually important please ?

This, but for me it was all about finding more mods to play or different maps to explore(Elder Scrolls Syndrome).
Ex. I played hundreds of hours of Tribes 2...sometimes in a mod for construction, sometimes in a mod with MANY deployables, sometimes in a mod with giant mechs.
Ex.2 I played tons of Need For Speed 3: Hotpursuit....I had so many different cars and when NFS4 came out I grabbed a file from NFS4 and put it in NFS3 to allow use of higher polygon count cars.....good times.
Ex. 3 Nude skins for Quake!.....wait....*rushes off to make nude skins for the player studio*.....oh NVM people already have the Vanu for that.

Actually COD has character progression via unlocking weapons and magical skills.

Take out the cap of 100 on the BR.

That would only improve the game, there is no cons.

There are no cons from your perspective, yes.

BR means nothing to me other than I have earned a pile of XP while throwing rez nades around a Biolab fight. Okay, I may have improved a little, after all, I have put in a few hours now, so I must have learned something. But as a TDM Warrior I will always rank BR1...

If only there will be an option to opt out of seeing BRs or progression at all. **** leveling.

Or Unreal Tournament (99 as people seem to want to call it). People still play all the above because they are fun, and because they enjoy it.

yup, kinda off topic here but people are complaining about that in Titanfall. hate it or love it, people say "durr, it doesn't have enough weaponz to unlockz and stuffz"(even though each weapon has a specific role for the sake of balance, unlike BF4 where they throw in so many ******* weapons just because people like unlocking stuff), and because of that "i don't see people playing the game for more than a couple of months".

i played the TF beta, and i played for FUN.

games should be more about improving yourself, instead of being told you are improving via character progression. only a couple of games that come to mind do this, and those are Dark Souls and Counter Strike.

A BR100 mage should have access to epic spells like flame strike from the sky.

Seriously, TFC and CS all but destroyed my early highschool years.

actually, they could make stuff available in the depot for certain BR's
and make discount at levels 80 to 99 (say, 10%) and at level 100 (25%)
exclusive content (like for premium members) and extra discount. win-win

Just remove BR all together and tie decals, titles and loadout slots to xp earned.

They could add a golden wep of choise, like a ns 15m golden or flare or whatever u chose.

Or give every br 100 a golden camo which can be used on everything, that would be so epic.

Thne u know its time to run when a golden tank comes after u lawl

....the ability to add beard on your character will be unlocked when you hit BR100 plx?

Compared to other popular FPSs, PS2 actually takes significantly longer to reach the cap, in my experience. COD has the prestige thing, but that's actually got a little depth since you have to start over on unlocks each time.

Judging by the number of BR100's I see around, changing or uncapping it is going to affect all of like 2% of the population. As such, how would it improve the game for the vast majority in the 20-60 range? Especially since there is no reward for BR anyway. It seems like more a way to show /played past BR100.... which, who cares?

I'm not sure about the rose-tinted "pre-progression games were so much better, I put 10000000 hours into them for no reward!" idea. A) there were vastly fewer choices. B) Most of us were much younger/immature in terms of quality expectations C) the whole industry was much more immature and novel at the time.

I suspect that if COD/BF/PS/whatever was available back in the genres infancy, including progression, people would gravitate toward it over the UT/tribes/CS of old. Granted, there are fans who obviously would have played those games, but I think we are comparing apples to oranges by saying one is better than the other.

umm, isnt unlocking things a MAJOR part of the early game addiction? i know it was for me when this game first released. All MMOs use unlocking as a way to keep new players hooked. every bit of XP provides a rush.

I'm basically done with unlocking things and its a different game to me now.

I make little goals. I check the weapon lists, tool lists and other lists to see what I should unlock. Then I earn certs and unlock it. Sometimes this takes some time, others it doesn't.

That's how I play an MMO, be it an RPG or FPS.

i unlock things here and there, but my main LA is certed out exactly where i want it.

The biggest difference between playing now and playing for XP is that i will log off after a good alert or good fight. Whereas before i would stay on at least an extra hour or two just to make an "even" number of certs before logging off.

Yea, but even now, I'm not going to care much for Xp anyways for levels. Earlier today I got to 500 certs for my second brick of C4 on my LA. I mainly do Engineer or Medic or whatever. I got a lock-on launcher for both ground and air on my HA, so I switch to them whenever I need to.

But yea, it's little goals that make the game more worthwhile than anything. I don't see the point of grinding to 100 and then going all, "oh, I should just log out, nothing to do."

Incidentally the Draken and Composite armor was originally going to be the BR rewards. But then someone had the bright idea to sell it for SC, and cosmetics went downhill from there. Thats why the Draken armor has the same components as Composite, but with less padding.

In fact..... If you look at the icons for Draken, it shows several components that aren't on the Composite icon, but clearly on the Composite armor set when you equip it. The Composite really is just Draken with extra padding attached.


On topic though... prestiging will never work as long as the Unlock system is monetized. Thats just basic logistics. But what really hurts is that they feel dreadfully short of their content development schedule, and recycled too many designs in the meantime to fill the gap. TR got hit by this the worst with the least functional variety in infantry primaries. And then there are the terribly implemented versions of weapons from the first game. The drive to build a class based system, but lacking all the supporting elements in map design, objectives, and class dependency, has done irreparable to infantry game play.

Light assaults were perhaps the biggest example of balance subversion, as ANY weapon half way decent becomes exponentially more powerful in the hands of an LA. The only thing that truly restricts that class is choice of weapons. LMG design is another.... they are all ARs with larger magazines. This is extremely evident on NC and VS, their AR and Carbines have a very real risk of running out of ammo at the worst moment. Never experienced this problem with the LMG.... and by Design, TR weapons bask in this advantage. It was such an obvious problem, that the Devs eventually nerfed TR reload speeds rather then remove the ammo bonus.


Getting back to Progression, THIS is by far the biggest issue with the game's overall design. The advantages offered tend to be substantial in at least one aspect, but often times this drives balance into insanity as everything tuned to the base line. But the moment we deviate from the baseline, things get out of control as players start to stack. With the gameplay being as slow as it is (now), the design intentionally locks itself out of methods it can use to tweak balance and offer variety. And since so much of the game is focused on killing and unlocks, Min/Maxing is just as bad here as it is in an MMORPG..... something that should be inconceivable given the subject matter.


In order to fix all of this, game play needs to be smoothed out and class designs overhauled so that they properly represent the different aspects, rather then one baseline HP that get continually overtaken by a flavor of the month.

This is how the Classes looked like they were intended to work.... (there will be references to PS1 armor Tiers, simply because they seem to work well with the environment of the game).

- Infiltrator being a master of disruption and subterfuge. Meant to sneak past defenses, or getting in close to cause chaos and confusion on the front line, leaving a crack for the main forces to break open. Sniper should not had been option for this class, but SMGs and Scouts do fit this concept perfectly. The major standing issue is how powerful SMGs are in general.
= Ideal design: Cloak and short range, and more things to subvert. This is currently the most under utilized class in terms of game design, despite class specific additions to arsenal.

- Light Assaults: Broken. Sooooo much of the game's map design is outright circumvented by this one class in ways yet to be fully fathomed. C4 n this class was the single biggest mistake in the history of the game. And I'm not saying that out of hate... but pure observation of how they are used from beta to now. Everything this class gets its hands on becomes twice as dangerous due to ambushing and highground advantage. They currently have NO counter other then another LA.
= Ideal design: With the Jetpack, this will always be an issue. Without the jetpack, you can have a highly mobile foot soldier capable of clearing small obstacles, but not scale buildings without the aid of the map. BRINK's concept of alternate paths would work well in this situation, allowing these light, mobile troops to reach places, but not anywhere near as freeform as the Jetpacks allow. That single change would make C4 on this class less...... OP..... then it is now. Standard armor, providing less overall protection, but faster forward movement to off set it. Carbines would remain the standard weapon for this class, but giving them access to sniper rifles as alternative would make more sense, as they can't simply perch where ever they want.... but can get to most places faster.

- Combat Medic: The main stay of mobile infantry, this should comprise a significant portion of the forward assault. Not as support units, but an actual combat class. The ARs allow for solid stopping power at multiple ranges, extending this power out to Med-Long range. Nothing really needs to change about this class, as they are broad purpose, self-sufficient, equally supportive, but lacks any combat specialization besides killing infantry.
= Ideal design: They are essentially where they need to be. Some tweaks in response to other class changes may be warranted, but the expectation of these being the primary infantry force builds your base line to compare other classes to.

- Heavy Assault: This one is fairly straight forward. They need to move slower, but increase armor protection (or heavier shields), and redesign their class ability. I've yet to determine what kind of ability makes sense for them, but the overall concept of Overshields has been too problematic. LMGs in their current state are far too mobile for the kind of killing power they posses. Some mechanical changes need to be implemented to make them a line weapon, or simply designing the weapon layout of the Heavy in general. One suggestion put forth was redoing the LMGs to a semi-stationery weapon, re-purposing it a quick relocation turret. Bipod mechanics or something similar would need to be looked into to make this work. LMGs would also be moved to Tool slot, directly competing with the RLs for loadouts. The primary weapon would then be replaced with med-range PDW for protection while carrying an RL, or a more mobile gun when LMGs would be unfavorable. The Technical RLs (lock-ons in particular) would be moved to the Engineer, and the choice of Dumbfire RLs expanded to meet various indoor and outdoor needs. (Including the much missed Rocklet Launcher). They would remain the primary competition for MAXs. (I would argue that they should keep the ESRLs as their main outdoors anti-vehicle option, but the Striker's mechanic replaced with proximity lock like the Coyotes, to eliminate the flare hard counter and bring its effective range in a bit. I would also argue the Lancer should go back to the PS1 design, as the charge mechanic hinders it at any range a vehicle could shoot back and its current DPS makes the long range a moot point.)
= Ideal design: Repurposed "tool" slot to include LMGs and RLs as choice for their "heavy" weapon. Greater passive health or shields, offset by slightly lowered movement rate. Replace class ability. Lighter primary weapon as a gap filler while mobile.


- Engineer: Repurposed as the primary Support class, they are expected to be mixed in with other infantry. Access to SMGs for point defense, repair tool, fortification deployables (including the Mana AI and AP mines), and Technical Anti-vehicle weapons. This last part includes the AT mines, light self-guided longer ranged missiles (a rebalance of the current lock-ons), and C4. This would task Engineers as the primary infantry based AA, but results in limited effectiveness without support from proper AA. The Mana AV turret would be replaced with a 2-piece javelin style system, requiring one system to paint targets, and the other as the launch platform. Still debating if this should be a 2 man system, or a semi-autonomous system on the launch side. I've heavily considered the ability to shoot down the missiles mid-flight like the Phoenix... but have had substantial trouble conceptualizing a system that allows the firing crew some measure of evasion. This turns it into a cat and mouse game, ala HL2's Gunship vs Rocket battle.

- MAX: Overall, I would give them better damage soaking, but lower their weapon power. They were designed as a mobile weapons platform, capable of sporting more specialized equipment in AV, Anti-Max and Anti-Air roles, and acting as a meat shield for Infantry pushes indoors. To that end increase their damage resistance to small arms fire, slightly increase resistance to explosives, but redesign their weapon loadouts to lower the overall DPS by 30% (or more). This will allow them walk into a room, and not get splattered if exposed for more then 3 seconds, while toning down their ability clear rooms on their own. In 1v1 they still have the clear advantage, with 120% the DPS potential of most infantry between to 2 arms. Preferably I'd rather see the weapon arms redesigned so that they utilize it as a single weapon system, but with 2-parts to determine its usage and behavior. Its something too complex and extensive for this thread, and will take me a lot more time to find a concept that works with Depot setup.