Prestige System in PS:N

[PsychoXR-20]

I think a prestige system, like the CoD games have, would work very in PlanetSide. Once you reach BR20 you would have the option to prestige and be brought down to BR1, with a couple extra perks. This is the way I imagine it would/could work.

BR1-20 work as normal. 7 and 14 would grant you color upgrades. At level 20 you could prestige back to BR1, keeping your BR20 color scheme, and gaining the CR1 shin guard (I assume CR is going to work much different), from this point every time you prestige you get another armor upgrade. By the 5th one you would have all the armor upgrades, shin guards, armor guards and backpack. The 6th one would change you color scheme, and the next 5 would change the armor upgrades to match and so on and so forth.

The reason I would put the old CR armor into this prestige system is the CR armor is very visible, you could do it with a merit, but merits are hard to see, and in the heat of battle, they are the absolute last thing you are looking at. The CR armor however is very visible, and seeing a guy in full CR gear means he's leveled 120 levels, just like now it would be a indicator of experience.

Every prestige would also grant you an additional favorites slot, and perhaps some extra locker space. Nothing game breaking, but a nice reward for those who put in the effort.

A lot of people enjoy having that goal of a next level, and currently when you hit max BR, that goes away. Sure, they could just add more BR's like they did in PlanetSide, but then you end up with empty levels, and players who have far to many certification points. A prestige system would allow for hundreds of levels without ever having empty levels and without players ever having to many certs.

There would also be the added challenge that some may enjoy of being brought back to level one and being forced to work with minimal certification points.

The nice thing is that this would be totally optional. You wouldn't be at any more of a disadvantage if you choose not to do this, nor would you be at any more of an advantage if you did do this. The only reward is that you can show off a bit.

[Bags]

As long as my TR rexo looks a lot like my current Br25 CR5 at the end I'm game.

No to the perks though.

[Raymac]

Yes to all of it. Make any "upgrade" you get from prestiging be merely cosmetic, and open up an additional favorite slot every other time you prestige. Thats it, no special buffs. Adding a favorite slot just adds convenience, not power. I'd love to see this idea, especially as an alternative to just raising the BR cap to 40 or 50 or infinty.

[Furret]

Definitely would be a good improvement, as long as it doesnt change game mechanics. Colored guns for instance? Instead of having your gun be gray and stupid looking, you could make it silver (shiny) gold (gold) or your empires colors?

Obviously favorite slots are a good bonus for all of your hard work.

Only problem is if you cant tell if someone is just a BR whore (no offense to anyone) or a commander. If the armor 'upgrades' are different, there wouldn't be a problem.

It would probably make the game more fun, because you'd be farmin teh newbs having a good 'ol time until some guy decked out in 10th prestige BR20 armor comes up the stairs and outplays you.

[KayOneElRoy]

Absolutely not, I hated it in CoD and I'll hate it in Planetside.

It just encourages rank whores and exp farming/exploits. Say you can prestige 10 times. A lot of people will just exploit different glitches/cheats in the game (much like they do in CoD) in order prestige faster. Also if any weapon happens to be OP'd it will be widely used, and the prestige mode will only encourage empire hoping (to alternate characters) with each new patch (and new exploits that come along with those patches). It will not promote better game play, it will only interfere with it.

What it could do is provide a certain degree of re-playability, but Planetside can do this in different ways such as an achievement list (like CoD 4 had, with no prestige included.). You could unlock different cosmetics/emblems/color schemes/weapons skins from completing achievement categories 100%. This will enhance re-playability, and it will reduce BR whoring (as BR points won't be useful once you reach the top level). It will also encourage using all of the different vehicles and weapons in the game for an extended amount of time, instead of only using the weapons with the highest killing potentials.

Perhaps they could include an achievement list prestige reset, but they should never add an exp based prestige reset.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by KayOneElRoy

Absolutely not, I hated it in CoD and I'll hate it in Planetside.

It just encourages rank whores and exp farming/exploits. Say you can prestige 10 times. A lot of people will just exploit different glitches/cheats in the game (much like they do in CoD) in order prestige faster. Also if any weapon happens to be OP'd it will be widely used, and the prestige mode will only encourage empire hoping (to alternate characters) with each new patch (and new exploits that come along with those patches). It will not promote better game play, it will only interfere with it.

What it could do is provide a certain degree of re-playability, but Planetside can do this in different ways such as an achievement list (like CoD 4 had, with no prestige included.). You could unlock different cosmetics/emblems/color schemes/weapons skins from completing achievement categories 100%. This will enhance re-playability, and it will reduce BR whoring (as BR points won't be useful once you reach the top level). It will also encourage using all of the different vehicles and weapons in the game for an extended amount of time, instead of only using the weapons with the highest killing potentials.

Perhaps they could include an achievement list prestige reset, but they should never add an exp based prestige reset.

I honestly don't think you'd see that very much in Planetside. I don't know if there was ever much of a problem of people exploiting for xp even in the early days. Frankly, you get tons of xp just playing the game.

Plus if some people are off in some corner doing some sort of brand new boosting exploit that never showed up in 8 years of the game, what effect would that have on you or any of us? So they didn't "earn" their pretty armor, so what?

Gaining experience has been in the game since the beginning. If boosting was ever a problem, it would have shown up by now. No reason to think some cosmetic treats would be the genesis of that.

[PsychoXR-20]

Lets not forget that if people found some exploit to farm XP (which in turn means either farming kills or bases, the only sources of XP in the game), they will abuse it regardless if there is XP involved. Why do people hack in PS? It's not for the experience, I can tell you that much.

As for certain weapons being overpowered, again, if weapon A is the most powerful gun in the game, everyone will use it, even if they are BR20, BR25, BR40, or BR 1,000,000. It makes killing people easier, which buffs their stats, makes other people angry, and makes them feel good about themselves. People don't magically stop using the best weapon just because they aren't earning XP anymore.

[Traak]

And, the bigger your prestige, then the bigger your codpiece, if a male player, and bra if you're female, so we could tell by looking who was straight pimpin' yo!

[Hamma]

Interesting ideas I agree there should be more character upgrades and visual customizations. 2011 is a much different time than 2003 in terms of video games. People expect allot of the features we talk about here. Although I must admit I'm not sure if a prestige system is the answer to make it happen.

Rbstr again makes a good point in that you cannot limit game features in fear of hackers. Modern cheat prevention technology as well as this being an MMO you have even more ability to stop people from hacking.