It was that way in Beta for a short bit I believe, and it was stupid. Say, I have a bunch of certs, but I want a new weapon, too bad, because for SOE to maintain the same rate of progression (and therefore irritation to the point of buying a subscription), they would need to halve the current content rate gain to split it between upgrades and new weapons. It adds more BS as it restricts players in the choices they make when it comes to upgrading. The current Cert system is as fluid as possible as I could buy all the weapons and be effective regardless what I do, or focus all my earnings on an engineer and be very effective at that, your system would make both paths twice as long. We cant have Auraxium until we have more continents and the established meta-game that comes with that. When that happens, cool stuff like auraxium could be added, but both territory based and exp based secondary currency systems have been tried and both have failed under the current amount of content.
It again depends on implementation. I would see a completely passive CERT gain to be beneficial, and replacing essentially all of the store-item prices with Auraxium. Let XP be XP and follow the traditional role of being a measure of improving your -character- (abilities, utilities, etc.) and make Auraxium a resource you gain in the field (i.e. money) that you spend on "physical things" like guns, optics and attachments. That way the improving of your character would follow a relatively flat path while the customization would be paid for with what you earn. i.e. the EVE model. Right now XP and certs don't make any sense, both design and lore wise. Why is it governed by my experience if I can wield shotguns, or if I can use NV/IR scopes? Doesn't make any sense. It would make more sense to certify better engines on your plane though because you need experience to fly a faster and more maneuverable plane, etc.
*flies at 225kph* *Certs Racer Airframe* *Flies at 230kph* "holy sh*t man, I'm gonna crash!" XP systems in shooters never make sense. We put up with it in F2P shooters because they need to make money and players put up with it in COD because... cod community... It would be lovely to be able to not have to suspend your disbelief when gaining upgrades/"sidegrades", but as most things in this game, realism should have no bearing on balance or large game mechanics. Certs are fine, if abit strangely named, and will do until the game looses the more casual population to new games, more content is added and with that content, cool and complex things like multiple currencies are added.
That's the thing though, the most common complaint on any review of this game is that the rate of progression is stupid. If Auraxium was gained at half or even a third the speed of certs it would still be better than the current system. I've bought literally one gun with certs because I'd rather save my certs for upgrades that I can get only with certs. I'm going to by station cash eventually and get guns and stuff. It's just dumb that you're boxed in to that degree. Even if it was a long grind to get a gun using resources independent of certs I'd much rather have that option because I'm never really going to throw 1000 certs at a gun.
Yeah you can always nitpick something to death. I find other customization paths simply more appealing than earn XP now you can use a better stick that is LVL2. XP should be about character improvement, its how its always been in every genre that has it, money is for equipment. Not to mention the character improvement in this game is incredibly basic and almost boring compared to other MP games. I've just recently picked Star Conflict up again and it just so much fun improving your pilot with different implants and then additionally buying equipment for your ship as well (weapons, armor, shield, command modules, support, ECM, ECCM) PS2 desperately needs more diversification and more unique class abilities. Ive been playing Ghost Recon Online as well and the classes there feel really sci-fi with all kinds of techno wizardry that supports squad-play. The heavy has a bubble-shield charge that you can make your squad advance in or a directed heat-beam that suppresses all infantry in 90° radius, or an EMP that prevents Recons from cloaking. Assaults have a riot shield they can charge bottle-necks with and eliminate entrenched heavies. Recons have a short-range wall-hack called Oracle system they share with their squad. etc. Its just so many playstyles and variations of interesting things you can do and how to approach objectives rather than running in guns blazing and trying to throw grenades everywhere.
They could just remove resources from those main bases and make a 1 or 2 % XP gain for each one the faction has. Added with all the continents now you have bases worth defending and doesnt promote AFK. That would work right?
