Life after BR20 - Spork speaks

[Marsman]

The following is from this post with Questions from MaximGatling and Answers by Sporkfire.

[MaximGatling] Can you guys shed some light and/or dispel some rumors about Post-BR20 advancement plans?

Q1. Will there be a Battle Rank 21?

A1. Yes. And I am going to give you a whole bunch of information that could change at a moment's notice. This is simply where Design discussions stand right now. We are targeting the Summer to accomplish this, though don't take that as a firm timeframe yet (and there will be some other really cool stuff between now and then to get you through the wait).

Q2. Will there be defined 'Specialist' Classes we can pick? Specialist abilities or 'open-ended'-specialize-as-you-see-fit abilities?

A2. One of the concepts floating around in the post-BR20 discussions is Elite Abilities. That is, being able to do much cooler stuff than the certs you already have allow (such as barrel rolls for pilots, more hackable items, etc.)

Q3. Will a BR20+ character be any harder to kill before he reaches the equipment terminal than a BR1 character would? (a lot of people are worried about this one)

A3. As this design goes through, we'll try and stay away from that, though a marginally better chance of survival at higher levels is not out of the question yet.

Q4. Will there be additional equipment/uniform upgrades?

A4. Not sure yet. Art has not yet been determined.

Q5. Will exp be a factor and if so, will exp earned now be retroactive?

A5. Again, this is not hammered out in stone in the design.

[dscytherulez]

Nifty!

[SecondRaven]

At first glance this might be kick ass, but we have to remember now that we can go past BR20 we are going to have people with every cert...(not literaly) but depending on how much further we can go the more everyone is going to look like a super solidger. Ohwell we have to see what happens

[Spee]

Even fi you have EVERY cert, that doesnt mean squat. You cannot use every cert at once, thus leaving you just as vulnerable as you were before.

[Incompetent]

Not neccesarilly, i would imagine they are going to try to keep around the same ratio of available certs/possible certs they have now as they add more BRs.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by SecondRaven

but we have to remember now that we can go past BR20 we are going to have people with every cert...(not literaly) but depending on how much further we can go the more everyone is going to look like a super solidger.

Except that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the developers recognize this problem and said "After BR20 there is no more cert-points gained when you increase BR.

Thus we have this concept, which Sporkfire touched on, and may be their answer to what you see as an impending bad thing.

Originally Posted by SporkfirePS

One of the concepts floating around in the post-BR20 discussions is Elite Abilities. That is, being able to do much cooler stuff than the certs you already have allow (such as barrel rolls for pilots, more hackable items, etc.)

BR21: choose an Elite Ability: barrel roll, hack a wall turret in a base, hack a terminal and actually pull out enemy-empire equipment, blah blah yada yada...

[Kikinchikin]

thats awesome. i'd like to see the ability to supe up land vehicles with NOS myself. or maybe enhanced handling/hand braking?

and maybe infils will finally get the famed REK slot. or u could go as far as giving grunts another pistol slot and/or more speed. IE giving rexo dudes 50 percent of the speed advantage an agile has over it. and you could have a timer of say 48 hours on ur elite abilities, making it more crucial to choose the right one even more so than certs.

edit: another good idea maybe is that lets say u go up to BR 30. You gain a small lil armor upgrade (maybe medals or patches, new color i dunno something nifty. maybe even a new commander ability and or something new to do as a grunt i dunno. at br 25 u get ur first elite choice. but u also get the choice of tradng in ur elite choice for 3 cert points. so at 25 u'd have 27 cert points if u traded in the elite. and same at 30 u get another elite choice but ucan have more certs. so theoretically u get 30 cert points at level 30 maximum. odd how that works out. it could be a good idea tho.

[Morrik]

Great! When I play for three months and finally reach that goal... then I can worry about it!

[TheN00b]

Meh, this might deter n00bs a bit. Imagine you buy this great new game, which just won a Game of the Year award from a premier magazine. You begin to play, sweating with anticipation, and... Get blown to smithereens every time you're alive by super soldiers Not good.

[infinite loop]

Originally Posted by TheN00b

Meh, this might deter n00bs a bit. Imagine you buy this great new game, which just won a Game of the Year award from a premier magazine. You begin to play, sweating with anticipation, and... Get blown to smithereens every time you're alive by super soldiers Not good.

Dude that happens right now. Simple fact is, a new player is at a severe disadvantage, no matter how good they are. There is a huge ramp-up time to really getting a feel for this game, and it has nothing to do with BR. I'll say again, the biggest negative thing about PS is the cap on BR and CR. Why shouldn't I be able to have every cert in the game, if I worked to get them? I can't use my MAX while I'm in rexo with HA, nor can I fly my reaver while I'm in a MAX. More certs does not equal lack of sepcialization, that's a BS argument. I can only hope that this means they are starting to agree, but I don't think I can wait till summer!

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by infinite loop

Dude that happens right now. Simple fact is, a new player is at a severe disadvantage, no matter how good they are.

Totally true. I was used to playing a lot of multi-players FPS's and Planetside was a whole different beast. You're conditioned for one on one battles with the occasional frag-fest where 5-6 guys end up in the same room at the same time. Playing Planetside like that gets you a lot of tickets to the spawn room. Add the team play factor in (other FPS's can have team play, but it's completely different than the specialized way PS goes about it) and that's a lot to take in/adapt to.

[Destroyeron]

Originally Posted by TheN00b

Meh, this might deter n00bs a bit. Imagine you buy this great new game, which just won a Game of the Year award from a premier magazine. You begin to play, sweating with anticipation, and... Get blown to smithereens every time you're alive by super soldiers Not good.

N00b with supressor vs. HA

HA wins

duh

[Dunce]

Whilst we are discussing methods of further progression in the game, here's my idea. I'd like to see certification specific experience-based enhancements. This would mean that players would be able to unlock new abilties for various certs once they had gained a certain amount of XP whilst using that cert. For example, the ability to barrel-roll the reaver would be unlocked once you had earned a certain XP for flying it. XP gained for that player whilst not in the reaver would not count towards this enhancement. If you swapped the cert then you would lose all progression towards that enhancement. This would encourage players to stick with a cert and become good at it. Support based certifications would have to be worked diffently since they don't give XP (though I think this should be changed so they do - using support tools in or near a hotspot should give XP)

[Arkitan]

Originally Posted by Destroyeron

N00b with supressor vs. HA

HA wins

duh

thats true but even new characters can get HA right out of VR training.

[Queensidecastle]

I am a fan of specilization because it allows you to create a custom character. If we could have all the certs we wanted everyone would be exactly the same and Planetside wouldnt be any different than Quake or UT. At that point they might as well remove the battle rank system entirely.

Much better is the ability to create an identity and role for yourself. People will know of you as a great pilot or a great hacker because you spent the time and energy creating yourself that way. People will want you along for those reasons because they know you are really good at your job. It also models life in a slight way. Its not very often that a person spends thier first 35 years becoming a top surgeon and then want to change to being a top architech. It just doesnt work that way. Also, you can drop all your certs and re-speciliaze how ever you like anyways, so its not like you cant try something new or change your mind