Re: Next game idea: XP

Good thoughts! 👍

XP should be addressed well in a potential future shooter, because it has been a large component in the current 3 shooters. The way that you suggest that it would be implemented in a future shooter means that XP will always have a use and will never go to waste, which is something that would benefit the game as players might otherwise get deterred from continuing to play the game if they have run out of uses for XP. Despite the fact that I have not reached max rank in a shooter yet, it would be nice knowing that I have an incentive to constantly keep playing in this game, and that there is not necessarily even a max rank either. The XP system seemed mostly fine in BfN, but it would become pointless to get XP once you complete all of the Prize Maps and max out all of your characters.

With the no level cap, it means that players would be able to level up their characters as much as they desire. Players would benefit by being able to level up any of their characters at any time. Players can decide how much they want to level up each character, and you are never techincally forced to level up every single character with loads of levels just to hit a max rank, it is a cool milestone to achieve but not every player decides to do that. If players wanted to only really ever use about one character on each faction, they could do that without really missing out on anything (it would probably be better to try out all the characters though to determine the player's favourite playstyles). I do not necessarily include Coins here, it means that players can level up characters as they desire (any character) and they will get more Coins for their efforts, which is a cool extra bonus.

Having all character upgrades unlocked at the start may be useful as higher level characters do not easily triumph over lower levelled characters. Normally though, apart from reaching max rank, character upgrades through levelling up were always exciting to get as well, so there may be less incentive to level up characters overall. However, that said, being able to gain some aesthetic benefits from levelling up would always be nice to check out, and it would not be like not having character upgrades, instead it would just be that everyone unlocks them from the start without being able to level up instead. Perhaps an exception could be Legendary Upgrades, which you could purchase from Rux, or as you suggested in a different post, in a Prize Map for around 3 months, and then if players missed the upgrade, they could permanently access it via Rux for Coins?

With XP progression, requiring the same amount of XP for each level, rather than it be an uphill climb, could actually work well. After a certain amount of time, if there was an uphill climb for more XP based on each level, the level grind for characters would feel extremely tedious, to the point where it may seem like it is not even worth trying to level up those respective characters. This would be especially relevant if there was no XP cap and no character promotions. However, requiring the same amount of XP for each level seems like a simpler option balance no XP cap and no character promotions out. At the earlier levels, it may seem longer than usual to gain a level on a character, since normally in the current shooters it is quite quick, however it will seem much smoother to level up once you have levelled up a character high enough, especially at really high levels.

With XP boosts, while character upgrades might start as unlocked already, you would gain benefits from getting additional XP, such as more Coins, and being able to unlock the cool cosmetics for specific characters faster. This could work in a similar way to GW2, such as completing enough quests on the quest board and logging in every couple of days to keep the multiplier high, or like in BfN where you can use a Levelling Up upgrade (probably not as useful though). If character upgrades were to still stay locked by default though, where you unlock them only by levelling up, then these XP boosts would become more relevant as it would assist in giving players the helpful upgrades faster. That said, the XP boosts would still be relevant either way, whether it helps players get Coins, cosmetics or upgrades faster, the boosts would be a nice feature to have regardless.

In Conclusion

In all of the shooters, XP has always been a core part of the game, allowing players to make their characters stronger and unlock upgrades for them, for instance. The problem is that in most of the current shooters, it would get to a point where XP means nothing and any XP those players would earn would be wasted instead. If there was no level cap, players would be freely able to level up their characters as they like and XP would always have a use, having Coins (as well as other aestethic benefits) be a reward for levelling up also means that there is a quite steady and renewable source of Coins as well. For this system to work effectively though, the XP required to gain a level should need to be the same for each level, so that it does not become a steep climb of grinding to gain a single level, because otherwise it will get to the point where players might as well think XP is worthless anyway. XP boosts will help players level up faster if they wish to. This system would never let XP get wasted, allows players to level up which characters they want at any time and would allow characters to have similar power over each other due to the free choice of character upgrades from the start.