Levelling and customisation

Machiave11i

I was hoping for some XP and levelling.
With each Rank gain a few minor customisations for armour or some colouring for the aliens

deathmonger

That's what combat maps are for.

Laosh'Ra

Which is a game-mode ns1 had. You have no commander or base-building and spend your levelups on several upgrades. Some ppl made it as a mod for ns2, too. It might still be running on some server...

But i think he is talking about levelups in the actual base-oriented game. The major problem here is how to balance that: people might start doing silly things like intentionally not ending the game in order to increase their xp-gain.

As for customization of armor and alien colors, i belive UWE mentioned this in a stream. It's obviously a low priority though.

Benson

I think he's talking about cosmetic leveling. The different looks you get can be customized by what "level" you are in the game (black armor is automatically level 1 billion). I would be a nice cosmetic feature to have customizable looks based on how succesfull you are at the game, and balance wouldn't be an issue since its all cosmetic. Bragging rights have to be a big feature in any competitive game :)

We just have to wait and see what the devs decide once the game is feature complete and fully polished in the public build.

xDaitenshi

I like the Idea of cosmetic leveling, having played many-a-game with unbalanced leveling systems i think cosmetic is the best route to go. It adds a bit of persistence and sense of overall accomplishment to the game.

Jekt

Do we even know if Cory is into fashion design?

Lobbys and team balance would be a better use of statistic tracking then the cosmetics, maybe one day.
As long as I can turn off your pink helmet with aviator sunglasses wardrobe, you can wear whatever you like lovelies.

Laosh'Ra

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i disagree here. prestige/fame/customization can be just as motivating as gameplay benefits. don't get me wrong, i love this idea! but i still think some people will try to abuse any kind of leveling system.

to give you an example: alien swarm (a coop campaign shooter which is free2play on steam) gives you levelups which unlock new choices when it comes to chosing your loadout for every mission. once you reach the maximum level (27), you can promote yourself with a medal. but promoting yourself will set your level back to 1, dramatically lowering your choices for equipment! you can repeat this process 6 times (so there are more than 150 levels) and each new medal will cause the level-up progess to slow down significantly.
people could certainly stop at the first time they reach level 27 and simply not promote themselves. but what do you think happens? i think the amount of people i have seen doing that are <5% (and i've played this game a lot, reaching highest medal long ago). almost everyone has some medals, the others usually have not reached the first level 27 yet so i cannot tell for those.
luckily, that game is coop vs AI and there are several mechanics to prevent players from things like farming etc.: you get a flat amount of 1000 points per mission and you can only get up to 100 points for kills per mission. furthermore, you get up to 100 points for finishing a mission quickly, up to 100 for not recieving any damage and up to 100 for not hitting any teammates (there are some more boni but you get the idea). even then i've seen a lot of idiots who camp a spawning point to farm their kills (which is not even effective in terms of total points), they might do this for some achievements though. i imagine this to be a lot worse, e.g. if kills are the only thing that matters.

even if you take the most general metric you can think of (wins vs losses), it will still depend on the duration of the match as well as the people you play with. plus there might be some mods involved...

you could also simply count the duration of game-time on steam, but then people would just idle while doing something else.
<b>the only decent metric i can think of</b> is actual time you spend on a server, not being afk (there are already methods to kick those people so i guess it'd work). this will not directly reflect your skill (does it have to? it's about cosmetics...) but it will at least reflect your knowledge about the mechanics of the game. this could also be helpful for other players: they might be more forgiving regarding newbies and be more likely to listen to suggestions of the more experienced players.

plausiblesarge

This game is unique. If you want ranks and levelups go play cod.

I seriously hope the devs do not listen to people like this and turn the game into a generic shooter

EDIT: If you mean purely cosmetic rewards for playing, then yeah I am all for it within reason (I dont want ridiculous hats). I DO NOT support a system whereby weapons and such are doled out for kills etc though.

ellnic

No no no nooooo. That what makes games bad. Games like Call of duty where far better games befor you you had xp and leveling up. I like the way NS2 is with its classic feel to it. Also i dont see anyway that it could be implemented, with all upgrades being done by the commader during that game, they would be no benefits to gaining Xp and being a higher level. Also its a team game and having a leveling system would see selfish gameplay and uncooperative playstyles like we see on games like COD/BF.

antacid

NS2 menu already has a sort of "badge rank" on the front, I think that is good, a simple badge beside your name to show how experienced you are (for incentives and mainly for commanders).

Of course NS1 kind of turned into a sort of "if you have no commanded 100x on this server you will be insta-kicked if you dare even try" so that could happen aswell.

plausiblesarge

I would support a rank symbol next to peoples names (and custom symbols that you could choose which you could unlock for doing special actions like preordering, doing all achievements etc.)

Machiave11i

I was thinking of cosmetics only, I heard guild wars 2 had a similar system for their PVP.
I just like having something to work towards. A 'pat on the head' for playing X amount of games.

IeptBarakat

I support cosmetic leveling, it provides extra incentive for being a dedicated player. It's almost a requirement in games these days. Halo: Reach probably had the best implementation of cosmetic leveling to date, so a similar design would work excellent.

Everyone just wants to make 'their' character.

plausiblesarge

needs more robot arm