The rise of the BR20's and the power of experience.

[Zompton]

I have been a subscriber to PlanetSide since day one. During the last few months I have been building a new computer leaving me with no way to play PlanetSide. Over these long months I have been thinking about PlanetSide and what I hope to see in it�s future. I had two ideas in particular that I think are great ideas to be implemented in PlanetSide.
Imagine being in this situation while playing PlanetSide. A level twenty and a level five go head to head, one on one. Both soldiers are wearing the same armor and are using the same weapon and ammo. Now pretend that each player has exact equal skills, as if they were clones of each other, though it is not possible just pretend. This would mean that both the level twenty and level five soldiers have a 50% chance of winning. But one is level twenty, and the other is level five. Shouldn�t the level twenty have a for sure win since he is a way higher level? Yes, he should have an obvious advantage, but he doesn�t. The two ideas I have come up with will give that level twenty the advantage he deserves.
The first idea is character stats. Each character will have the five attributes; strength, accuracy, agility, stamina, and weapon handling. Each attribute affects a certain skill from each other; strength affects the damage per hit you take, accuracy makes you a more accurate shot, agility affects your footwork and speed on foot, stamina determines how fast your stamina regenerates, and weapon handling allows you to reload faster and throw grenades farther. Each attribute can have more of an affect, and there can be more than just five, because these are the beginnings of an idea.
Each attribute will start with zero out of a total of six points per attribute. You gain a point to add to the attribute of your choice every time you gain a new level. The reason you can only have six points per attribute is so no one soldier is too powerful in one attribute. With this stat system, or something similar, that level twenty will surely have the advantage over that level five, as he should.
Another similar yet simple idea I had, which will also give that level twenty his deserved advantage, is weapon skills. On each weapon, you are able to gain up to ten weapon skills points. These points are gained by the amount of damage or kills you cause with a certain weapon. Once you have caused so much damage or a kill with a certain weapon, a weapon skill point is added to it. Each weapon is able to gain up to ten weapon skill points.
The affect that the weapon skill points will have is that it makes you better with that particular weapon. It can affect certain attributes of the weapon such as accuracy, range, reload times, and many others. But there would have to be restrictions for balance reasons. You can gain a total of ten points for each weapon, but to get all ten, you must be at the maximum level of twenty. To get seven, you must be level fourteen, and so on. This is to prevent one person from max�n out a weapons� skill by level thirteen, for balance reasons.
Both of these ideas I have thought up are fantastic ideas for PlanetSide. At this point in time, I don�t feel it is a first priority for PlanetSide, because a few other things are more important for the game right now. But when it comes time for new ideas to implement in PlanetSide, I think these are a must. Those higher levels deserve some sort of character advantage, not just player advantage. But, when implementing this idea you MUST KEEP BALANCE IN MIND, as it has been a big issue in PlanetSide.

[JuSTCHiLLiN]

Wouldn't be too bad. I'd play it. However, it shouldn't affect it too much. Instead of 50/50 the odds should be 52.5/47.5. Nothing too major. This is supposed to be a skill based game afterall. On the other hand, you're getting farther away from a FPS if you did this.

If sony was smart they would have done something like this at the start. Make levels go forever (cert points stop at 20 though) and have each level minutely increase your stats. Many people wouldn't have dropped there accounts just because there's a way to make their e-penis bigger in planetside.

[Zompton]

Without a doubt this should have been in PlanetSide since the begginings of development.

[Ait'al]

Its needs to something very suttle and small or it will fuck up the games feel and lean it to far toward the Rpg side! It has to stay on that wobbly place between them to stay a FPRPGAG/w guns.=first person role playing adventure game with guns. When you think balancing think atmosphere to an old style adventure game!(Or what they should have become it they had been alowed to develop lke they would have) 8) itl keep you thinking suttle creative to the point balance fixs everytime.

[TeraHertz]

level 5 and level 20 go head to head. Each with same armour weapons and skill.
level 5 kills level 20
level 20 goes and gets a big bloody max and wipes level 5 out.
level 5 cant do jack ****.

the end.

[Bad Mojo]

If you want this style of play, I recommend the many other MMOG's out there where "level" matters. In Planetside, the concept of BEP is to never let one person be more powerful outright than another, but to grant flexability to those who have played longer. Flexability to pick and choose a wider assortment of equipment.

Planetside isn't about giving power to people who have more time on their hands. DAoC, EQ, etc. all fit that bill allready.

[Reload]

PS is a FPS with RPG elements. To tamper with the FPS skill side of the game would turn it into a RPG with FPS elements. Please leave it as it is, there are plenty of MMORPGs out there already, but only one MMOFPS.

[SilverLord]

That BR 5 could be a guy that has another BR 20 or more, so you would have to add all those ranks up. SO he could literally be BR 20 + 5, so that means 5 more levels of experience. Let's try and keep this Planetside, not EverQuest.

[Queensidecastle]

See the level 20 can duck behind a tree and use Medical, and Engineering. They can use surge, darklight, and Audio Amp all at the same time for a huge advantage and they can be gunning the guy down with Heavy Assault or switch to Special Assault. If they are in a bad spot they can hack a terminal into a MAX suit or grab a vehicle.

The BR5 cannot, hell they dont even have access to Surge

[DeadTeddy]

no way. the dev team and SOE have always bragged about how planetside, unlike the MMORPG's out there gives everyone a fair chance. planetside is MMOFPS and the reason for BR is to limit the use of weapons and to create diversity. CR is to make a chain of command.
I would personally HATE it if the game became any more RPG then it is today, it takes the skills out of gameplay, creates XP whores, and rewards people for time played instead of real skills.

want RPG? go play everquest. no offence.

[Cider_Ownz]

Bad, bad idea.

The whole point of PlanetSide is to create a perfectly fair system, so BR's only give you more implants and certs, not an actual handicap bonus.

Maybe you could make skills like a Mediacl skill- increases the hp healed by the medical appicator. Or maybe the ability to generate medpacks?. Lots of skills in engennering could give you the ability to heal vehicles with that little soldier and MAX armor healing, errm, thingy.

Tweaks like this only give an indirect bonus, not giving any bonuses in a 1 on 1 fight. Pure 50%, like any FPS should be .

[Kyonye]

I don't think it would be a good idea. this is a fps, not an rpg. in fps's like counter strike, Mohaa, battlefield, etc. they don't have properties where one person can be better then another person except for the person playing. an fps is based on the person who plays the game, not the character.

[_-Gunslinger-_]

IF you happen to own HL go download cs1.6 (steam) and play a warcraftIII savedxp server. Its not very fun until your lvl 10 and you have an even playing field. This is what your asking for. PS would lose alot of fresh blood to your new system. Boo to that I say...

[Zompton]

It seems few think if this is done a level 5 cant beat a level 20, but thats not how this idea works. It simpily gives higher levels their deserved advantage, but if it was implemented the devs must be VERY CAREFUL with the balance.

Also, it seems people dont want any RPG aspects in PS(even though SOE did advertise this game as a MMOFPS/RPG at first). This i can understand but PS would be incredibly far from an RPG with these ideas. But, i can see how it can be a bit too much "RPG like" for some people, so maybe just adding the weapon skills would be better. Personaly, i think both ideas are great, but weapon skills should have been in PS since day one.

[Phaden]

Another kinda knock off ide aon Deus Ex: As your character does more stuff, he gets better at it. So if you find yourself hoofin it alot and long ways, you get to run faster and maybe even build up some stamina when running. The more you use a weapon, the tighter the COF becomes. It would have to of course start wider, but i think itd be neat to gain things when you use certaint hings again and again. For vehichles, you could have them a bit more manuverable or even have some more armour or something. Of course all these things would have to be balanced, but this is just a rough idea that would allow some cool character progression. It wouldnt be left to the lvl, but to the time a person uses and plays things. Now that im thinkin about it, it might not have been Deus Ex, but who knows.