J-Lewis
Edimmu Warfighters
Gallente Federation
247
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Posted - 2013.07.25 20:16:00 -
[1] - Quote
I agree with your basic premise. Using incomperables is a great tool to curb power creep.
So here's another cross post (because I totally haven't done enough of that today already).
How to go about such a change is difficult. You can't just remove ADV and PRO; that's slashing content. And in a content starved game, that's a good way to get players to leave.
However, we can do some interesting things to retain the previous depth and feeling of investment, while crafting a system that keeps everything useful.
I'm going to run through a little case scenario to show what I mean.
Here's a skill tree I cooked up for the Skill Tree Think Tank thread.
Looking at the tree, you'll find that I've marked Standard equipment to be unlocked by the basic operation skill. Case example: Hybrid Weapon Operation unlocks standard "tech 1" versions of the Nova Knive; Assault Rifle; Shotgun; Plasma Cannon; Sniper Rifle and Forge Gun. There's also a proficiency skill for each weapon, and a bunch of Weapon Upgrade skills.
So here's where things start to get a bit wild; proficiency unlocks the ability to use ADV and PRO gear, so what do we do?
We can turn ADV weapons into "tech 2" modular weapons which can fit various upgrade modules unlocked by the Weapon Upgrades branch.
By default, the ADV weapons are nothing more but STD weapons in terms of stats, but their modularity allows you to specialize them a la mass effect 3 weapons bench (in other words, you slap a 4x scope on your rifle, you lose hip fire accuracy in exchange). Each ADV weapon has various amounts of slots depending on the weapon in question and is fitted just like any suit or vehicle.
We turn PRO weapons into faction, pirate, and officer weapons. They become semi-rare to very rare loot drops and their performance varies from "straight upgrade from STD but worse than ADV" faction, to "straight upgrade from STD, about as good as ADV" pirate, to "better than ADV" officer.
This solves the current power creep problem.
STD becomes baseline equipment. They scale exceptionally well with your support skills, and have great bang for buck.
ADV becomes a more expensive, but customizable STD weapon where increasing one trait diminishes another.
PRO becomes a high risk reward option that is rarely seen in anything but the most serious fights (adjust drop rates as nessesary).
My thread is here, in case anyone cares about the skill tree. |