A possible explanation of "20% Better At Highest Level"

[LZachariah]

So, I've been thinking about the extremely deep leveling system, and I'm very excited. Yes, someone can become a generalist, and that's great, but i have ALWAYS been the type to specialize. So, I'm thinking about what various skills there might be for specific skill trees. Higsby said that (and I'm paraphrasing) "at the maximum, a high-level player will have a 20% advantage over a starting-level (or potentially, an untrained) player."

So what does this mean? Well, I assume that there will be ABUNDANT skills and unlocks that offer more abilities and perks (rather than adjusting a number or calculation). For instance- let us take the example of Combat Engineering, specifically Combat Demolitions, which is my favorite aspect of any wargame. So, let's take the remote-detonated explosives, Boomers.

Various unlocks that offer benefits rather than adjusting some calculation could be 1. You can have twice as many explosives planted at one time, 2. You carry twice as many explosives, 3. Your explosives now deal additional burn damage, 4. Your explosives are now invulnerable to other explosions and gunfire (except a direct shot from a bolt-driver, etc).

Those are more like "abilities." Now, when we are talking about this 20% rule, I can imagine various skills adjusting certain calculations. For instance: 1. Explosives have a 20% bigger blast radius, 2. Explosives deal 20% more damage, 3. Explosives reduce armor by 20% before dealing their damage.

Those sound reasonable to me. Now, the question is: would we feel that difference? Would 20% extra damage really feel significant? This is a problem that Global Agenda had. In Global Agenda, you needed to buy MULTIPLE skills at max level that ALL boosted, say, reduced cooldown time, before you really felt the benefits. Yes, fine, if you max out one of those skills, your cooldown is reduced from 20 seconds to 17 seconds, but no one can really significantly feel that unless you're actually just counting the seconds to feel like you got your money's worth.

I have faith that SOE is going to do this game right, I'm simply throwing this out there to hash out the ideas somewhat. If you can increase like, 8 dimensions of a certain weapon or tool by 20%, I bet that would start to feel EXTREMELY significant, but I wonder if 20% is too little, and people would just favor the "abilities" instead. IE- why make your explosives do 20% more damage when you could just buy the ability that lets you lay down twice as many? Etc. Obviously, my examples are just conjectural, but I think that you guys understand what I'm saying.

Thoughts?

~Zachariah