How about no XP at all!!!

[Pilgrim]

Got this off the beta forums thought it was good enough to duplicate here.

Now, please check all preconceived notions at the door. Read this with an open mind, because it differs greatly from how the game is currently, but I think it has merit. If you create a truly unique, engaging, challenging, and most importantly "fun" atmosphere, there will be no reason to encourage players to do anything, because they will seek to do it on their own. Abolish BEP. Leave CEP intact and unaffected. Destroy the current BEP system, and all conventional "level-building." Instead, assign players a greatly reduced number of certification points (reduced from the BR20 level) at character creation. Allow them to store "favorites" much like that of the equipment terminal. To go with this change, reduce all cert costs to 1-2, POSSIBLY with a few that cost 3. In total, a player would not have more than 7-10 total certification points. I have not re-calculated a skill tree at this level, so I can't quote exact numbers.

In effect, this would create a user-defined class based system. Being fully customizable, there are no restrictions on what a player chooses to define himself. However, there are much fewer choices in total of what each specific character can do. For instance, you will see starkly identified grunts, engineers, hackers, infiltrators, MAXs, etc. This will prevent people from becoming a "jack of all trades," but not restrict their experience so far as to allow gameplay to become boring. I would even keep the current "learning" system intact, so that players could only re-spec at Bio Labs and Sanctuary. Many RPGers want to feel like they have a role and purpose in combat, and FPS junkies don't want to play for a few days with a gimped character because they can't afford the spec they want. This lets both work together as a team.


I sure like this idea and wanted to hear what the PSU monkeys thought!

PAX