I would like to see Proficiency in NOVA be based on use of an item, as in gaining proficiency through practice. Proficiency should be a 5 tiered bonus on an item that is leveled up through using that item.


Proficiency level would be based on:
- Total Damage done with a weapon type or subtype. (Would be a multiple of the weapon's DPS to normalize it.)
- Total number of deployments of a type of equipment (Or possibly total number of times your equipment is used. eg. total number of spawns from your Uplinks.)


The bonus should be moderate so that it does not cause too much of a disparity between new players and vets, but still large enough to reward specialization. (Say 3% damage for weapons, 3% faster spawn times on uplinks, etc.)


The level-up requirements for each tier of Proficiency should be exponential as with Skill tiers in DUST.
Eg. Say the damage requirement to reach Proficiency level 1 was 100 times the weapon's DPS (~100 seconds of damage) then the requirement to get from Proficiency 1 to Proficiency 2 would be double that (200 times the DPS or ~200 seconds of damage).

So with these numbers (which may be way too low*):
- Proficiency 1: 100 seconds of damage (100 seconds of damage total.)
- Proficiency 2: 200 seconds of damage (300 seconds of damage total.)
- Proficiency 3: 400 seconds of damage (700 seconds of damage total.)
- Proficiency 4: 800 seconds of damage (1500 seconds of damage total.)
- Proficiency 5: 1600 seconds of damage (3100 seconds of damage total.)

* I am not sure how much game time it takes to inflict 100 seconds of damage with a weapon, so maybe Proficiency 1 should require 500 or 1000 seconds of damage. Some testing would be required, and then it would have to be determined how long they want it to take for an average player to level up.

If you are confused over what I mean by seconds of damage, imagine a weapon does 300 dps. 100 x 300 = 30,000. So by the time your total damage with that weapon reaches 30,000 you can assume that you have spent 100 seconds with the trigger depressed and a target in your cross hairs.


This would reward players for specializing and inhibit flavor of the month chasing, as there will likely be a new flavor of the month before the people who switched weapons last month get to Proficiency 5.