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The current champions online XP system, and a few changes, concepts, and ideas.
sergeantmahoff1
Posts: 138 Arc User
So, in my five years of playing CO (I think it's five. I forget.) I've leveled about... twelve characters, and I gotta say, while the story is thick and rich if you're willing to read, you find it kinda tedious after a while, grinding your way out of westside, then out of Canada/the Desert, and so on. Hearing the same story about four times (it would be more if I hadn't spammed alerts.) can get kinda old if you can basically memorize the in game happenings. Same thing goes for alerts as well. I feel as though leveling gets a bit repetitive, and doesn't necessarily focus on the teamplay aspect as it should in my opinion. So, here's a few suggestions to keep up the hype of CO.
Endless Missons.
Endless missions can be seen as just as tedious if not more tedious than alerts over time. But, let's bare in mind something very important about CO's current missions that aren't bosses(in most cases.)
CO's missions aren't long.
CO's missions take at least, depending on the instance, 5-8 minutes. This may or may not include time taken to travel to the mission. With that in mind, endless missions would definitely be a perfect way to counter that. Now, how exactly would an endless mission come to fruition? Well, there's quite a few ways, actually. First of all, these missions wouldn't be available from NPCs, and they wouldn't only be doable once a day. They'd be doable as many times as the player wanted, and the reason for that will be answered soon. Endless missions can take a shape and form in, as I see it now, two ways.
One would be somewhat of a run and gun style of mission, where a team of five heroes would be put in a perilous situation that they would have to either escape from, or fight off as long as they could. For example, let's say that an UNTIL base was being overrun by VIPER soldiers. So, a select team of heroes were sent to take on the attack on the base. As time went on, the enemies would scale higher and higher. This would be determined by the player's level, as the mission queue would be scaled by 6-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc.. Of course, the scaling can go past 6-10 in the case of a group of level 6-10s joining a queue together, and this would be a very high risk high reward way of playing. Back to how the mission's play out. Players would be tasked with fighting an unlimited amount of VIPER, and with that, helping, or even saving UNTIL soldiers. For every UNTIL soldier saved, the player would gain bonus XP. For every squad of VIPER soldiers defeated, players would gain bonus XP on top of the XP per soldier defeated.
Every now and then (perhaps every two and a half minutes), a boss would be in the center of the map (Which would have to be very large. I mean, the teams are gonna be running around fighting them together, it has to be, right?) The team has the choice of fighting this boss, or choose to keep helping soldiers. The boss however, while difficult, yields a hefty reward of XP, and the chance at a drop, which changes with level(this drop could be anything from gear to devices. Heck, maybe a XP boost guaranteed). Upon defeating the boss, players would be granted a buff as well. "Morale!" A small buff to healing, damage, resistance, all depending on role. (Healers gain buffed healing, Damage gains increased damage, Tanks gain resistance, while hybrids gain a decreased form all buffs. Something to make note of is that, when a hero makes an appearance, the enemy is always alert to their presence, and with that, a very challenging aspect to this would be that players will always be in combat. This would make roles very important, and would give players very important knowledge of said roles. Healers would be tasked with healing more, tanks would pick fights, and damage roles would take their tanks coat tails and hang on for dear life. Of course, that isn't to say threat wipes wouldn't work as they always did. Palliate, and powers like it, would work the same, but the moment that player gains aggro again, they will stay in combat till the next threat wipe. Additionally, to keep players from being in constant danger of death, every five minutes, there will be a threat wipe, and a pause. This pause will allow players to stay, or leave. If a player leaves, they win! They get their XP, and a bonus relative to how long they stayed, 1x for each minute they managed to stay.
Another type I had in mind, was a defensive type mission, somewhat like the Sky Command Rampage. Players would be tasked with, well. Defending something against an infinite number of enemies that attack in waves. Every five or so waves, like the first type of mission, they have the choice to stay, or keep going. This wouldn't necessarily enforce roles as much as the former, but if you plan to stay long, you better bring some healing patches, because you will remain in combat between waves. Unlike the first one however, players won't have to worry about a boss. Instead, they'll have to worry about defending themselves against the infinitely scaling enemies, that come in larger and larger waves. In some cases, players may have environmental hazards they can abuse, such as things to be thrown, switches to be flipped in order to cause an action, or panels to be hacked in order to manipulate something. Just to cushion the higher levels.
Now, what happens if every player is defeated? Nothing. They can choose if they want to keep going. After the first five minutes/waves, a place where they can exit will appear. Upon exiting, they will be rewarded their XP, gear, and whatever else they may have acquired in the mission. In the former mission, at least three players must go to the area in order for the entire team to leave. This is to ensure people don't abandon a team without proper reason. On top of that, a countdown will be issued if three players do decide to leave. This countdown will allow the last two a chance to keep playing, or to just get there. This also gives players a chance to change their mind, cause if one leaves, the countdown stops.
As for how XP rewards work, see below.
XP Changes in general.
In general, CO's leveling is slow. Thankfully, there's a few ways to quickly fix it, which I somewhat touched on earlier. The best way, I theorized, is to give include the concept of bonuses. These bonuses would reward players for making good choices, or for using powers in a smart manner. For example, if a damage character managed to chain multiple kills together, without dying, and kept each kill within five seconds of one another, an XP bonus would be rewarded for being great in that role. If a tank stays in combat, for each second they're not dead, and actively keeping attention on them, they gain a bonus. For every x amount of HP healed, (Level * 100 = HP healed in order to gain bonus.) A healer will gain an XP bonus. Hybrids will basically gain a bonus depending on if they have a defensive, offensive, or supportive stat higher than any other, but with less restriction as the dedicated roles. If they have high con for example, they get XP based on how much damage they take, but do not have to worry about if they are being focused on by enemies, while high str, dex ego, or int, would mean the amount of damage they deal in a certain amount of time will determined the XP bonus being granted. High pre or rec would mean simply being based on how much the hybrid would heal in a certain amount of time.
These XP bonuses would be additive percent based bonuses. For example, if a DPS constantly chained kills together(And for clarity's sake, kills would mean getting the last hit on an enemy.), then for every five, a stacking 5% would be added. This bonus would have no cap, and that would go for every role. At the end of each mission, these bonuses would be applied to your mission's XP reward. So, say you completed a mission that gave 13,200 XP, or something in that area. Say you were a DPS and gained a bonus of 40%. 13,200*.4=52,800+13,200=66,000. So, for that mission, you would gain 66,000 for managing to somehow chain five kills together eight times, on top of completion. This would speed up leveling by a pretty big margin, and also promote mechanics, as well as reward players for good play. XP bonuses from other sources will still apply of course.
Conclusion:
All in all, the leveling system we have now has most players waiting around to do nothing until the next double XP buff. With these changes hopefully that could change. I have fun playing this game, and playing the story, but sometimes, I wanna have variety, y'know? Leave other suggestions below, and I'll work'em in to this post if it synergizes well.
Endless Missons.
Endless missions can be seen as just as tedious if not more tedious than alerts over time. But, let's bare in mind something very important about CO's current missions that aren't bosses(in most cases.)
CO's missions aren't long.
CO's missions take at least, depending on the instance, 5-8 minutes. This may or may not include time taken to travel to the mission. With that in mind, endless missions would definitely be a perfect way to counter that. Now, how exactly would an endless mission come to fruition? Well, there's quite a few ways, actually. First of all, these missions wouldn't be available from NPCs, and they wouldn't only be doable once a day. They'd be doable as many times as the player wanted, and the reason for that will be answered soon. Endless missions can take a shape and form in, as I see it now, two ways.
One would be somewhat of a run and gun style of mission, where a team of five heroes would be put in a perilous situation that they would have to either escape from, or fight off as long as they could. For example, let's say that an UNTIL base was being overrun by VIPER soldiers. So, a select team of heroes were sent to take on the attack on the base. As time went on, the enemies would scale higher and higher. This would be determined by the player's level, as the mission queue would be scaled by 6-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc.. Of course, the scaling can go past 6-10 in the case of a group of level 6-10s joining a queue together, and this would be a very high risk high reward way of playing. Back to how the mission's play out. Players would be tasked with fighting an unlimited amount of VIPER, and with that, helping, or even saving UNTIL soldiers. For every UNTIL soldier saved, the player would gain bonus XP. For every squad of VIPER soldiers defeated, players would gain bonus XP on top of the XP per soldier defeated.
Every now and then (perhaps every two and a half minutes), a boss would be in the center of the map (Which would have to be very large. I mean, the teams are gonna be running around fighting them together, it has to be, right?) The team has the choice of fighting this boss, or choose to keep helping soldiers. The boss however, while difficult, yields a hefty reward of XP, and the chance at a drop, which changes with level(this drop could be anything from gear to devices. Heck, maybe a XP boost guaranteed). Upon defeating the boss, players would be granted a buff as well. "Morale!" A small buff to healing, damage, resistance, all depending on role. (Healers gain buffed healing, Damage gains increased damage, Tanks gain resistance, while hybrids gain a decreased form all buffs. Something to make note of is that, when a hero makes an appearance, the enemy is always alert to their presence, and with that, a very challenging aspect to this would be that players will always be in combat. This would make roles very important, and would give players very important knowledge of said roles. Healers would be tasked with healing more, tanks would pick fights, and damage roles would take their tanks coat tails and hang on for dear life. Of course, that isn't to say threat wipes wouldn't work as they always did. Palliate, and powers like it, would work the same, but the moment that player gains aggro again, they will stay in combat till the next threat wipe. Additionally, to keep players from being in constant danger of death, every five minutes, there will be a threat wipe, and a pause. This pause will allow players to stay, or leave. If a player leaves, they win! They get their XP, and a bonus relative to how long they stayed, 1x for each minute they managed to stay.
Another type I had in mind, was a defensive type mission, somewhat like the Sky Command Rampage. Players would be tasked with, well. Defending something against an infinite number of enemies that attack in waves. Every five or so waves, like the first type of mission, they have the choice to stay, or keep going. This wouldn't necessarily enforce roles as much as the former, but if you plan to stay long, you better bring some healing patches, because you will remain in combat between waves. Unlike the first one however, players won't have to worry about a boss. Instead, they'll have to worry about defending themselves against the infinitely scaling enemies, that come in larger and larger waves. In some cases, players may have environmental hazards they can abuse, such as things to be thrown, switches to be flipped in order to cause an action, or panels to be hacked in order to manipulate something. Just to cushion the higher levels.
Now, what happens if every player is defeated? Nothing. They can choose if they want to keep going. After the first five minutes/waves, a place where they can exit will appear. Upon exiting, they will be rewarded their XP, gear, and whatever else they may have acquired in the mission. In the former mission, at least three players must go to the area in order for the entire team to leave. This is to ensure people don't abandon a team without proper reason. On top of that, a countdown will be issued if three players do decide to leave. This countdown will allow the last two a chance to keep playing, or to just get there. This also gives players a chance to change their mind, cause if one leaves, the countdown stops.
As for how XP rewards work, see below.
XP Changes in general.
In general, CO's leveling is slow. Thankfully, there's a few ways to quickly fix it, which I somewhat touched on earlier. The best way, I theorized, is to give include the concept of bonuses. These bonuses would reward players for making good choices, or for using powers in a smart manner. For example, if a damage character managed to chain multiple kills together, without dying, and kept each kill within five seconds of one another, an XP bonus would be rewarded for being great in that role. If a tank stays in combat, for each second they're not dead, and actively keeping attention on them, they gain a bonus. For every x amount of HP healed, (Level * 100 = HP healed in order to gain bonus.) A healer will gain an XP bonus. Hybrids will basically gain a bonus depending on if they have a defensive, offensive, or supportive stat higher than any other, but with less restriction as the dedicated roles. If they have high con for example, they get XP based on how much damage they take, but do not have to worry about if they are being focused on by enemies, while high str, dex ego, or int, would mean the amount of damage they deal in a certain amount of time will determined the XP bonus being granted. High pre or rec would mean simply being based on how much the hybrid would heal in a certain amount of time.
These XP bonuses would be additive percent based bonuses. For example, if a DPS constantly chained kills together(And for clarity's sake, kills would mean getting the last hit on an enemy.), then for every five, a stacking 5% would be added. This bonus would have no cap, and that would go for every role. At the end of each mission, these bonuses would be applied to your mission's XP reward. So, say you completed a mission that gave 13,200 XP, or something in that area. Say you were a DPS and gained a bonus of 40%. 13,200*.4=52,800+13,200=66,000. So, for that mission, you would gain 66,000 for managing to somehow chain five kills together eight times, on top of completion. This would speed up leveling by a pretty big margin, and also promote mechanics, as well as reward players for good play. XP bonuses from other sources will still apply of course.
Conclusion:
All in all, the leveling system we have now has most players waiting around to do nothing until the next double XP buff. With these changes hopefully that could change. I have fun playing this game, and playing the story, but sometimes, I wanna have variety, y'know? Leave other suggestions below, and I'll work'em in to this post if it synergizes well.
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