Prestige Levels and Legion Levels (to reward the dedicated player who plays way too much)

When it comes to leveling characters, Champions Online has a very odd way of handling things. For a Silver player, getting a character to level 40 is just that. They level the character, and then it's over with. For a Gold or Lifetime player, though, each time a character hits 40, they get a free character slot to make another, thus MAJORLY rewarding a Gold player for grinding to level 40 over and over again (it costs 750Z for a single character slot, 1400Z for two, or 5000Z for a Freeform slot (why would you buy a FF slot if you're Gold/Lifetime?) if you actually buy them.) Yet at the same time, Silver players mostly have Justice gear as an endgame goal, since it takes such a long time to grind for Onslaught secondaries without access to a free daily OV run for each character in the first place, but Gold/Lifetime players have Justice, Onslaught, and have to worry more about meta devices that might be a requirement for minmaxing their fancy, specialized Freeform builds, which takes time and Questionite to grind for and aren't really as necessary for the mostly ready-to-go archetypes that Silvers are confined to. You'd think that things would be intentionally made easier for Gold players, but that isn't really the case outside of Onslaught gear, but with how daunting it is for Silvers to get that sort of thing, they actually have an easier time just focusing on the necessities rather than being pressured to get every little minmaxing piece put into place. What I'm trying to say is that Silvers don't really have as much to worry about end-game as Gold players do, while Gold players not only have more to worry about, but the system also puts an emphasis on grinding characters up to 40 en masse so as not to waste valuable time bashing one's head against the time-gated Cosmics, Rampages and the likes. So why don't we have extra rewards for both focusing on singular characters and leveling multiple characters in order to make things easier? So, I sat down for a bit, and tried to think of something, and these are two parts of the same idea I came up with.







Prestige levels reward continued time and effort invested into a single (or only a few) characters by allowing each one to gain (mostly inconsequential by themselves at least) levels beyond 40, up to 100. 40 is still the maximum a character can achieve for the sake of gear and mods, so no, there will be no level 100 gear and grinding of level 100 NPCs in the hopes a R9 mod will drop, that'd just be ridiculous. However, when a character's level increases beyond 40, they'll be rewarded with permanent buffs for that character alone that do not apply for other characters on the account (unless those characters also level past 40 to get buffed.) The buffs are as follows:

41: +1% Modification Drop Chance
42: +1% Modification Drop Chance
43: +1% Modification Drop Chance
44: +1% Modification Drop Chance
45: +1% Modification Drop Chance
46: +2% Modification Drop Chance
47: +2% Modification Drop Chance
48: +2% Modification Drop Chance
49: +2% Modification Drop Chance
50: +2% Modification Drop Chance
51: +2% Questionite From Rewards
52: +3% Resources From all Sources
53: +2% Mod Fusion Success Chance
54: +500 Daily Questionite Refinement Cap (+1000 if Gold/Lifetime)
55: +10% Bonus to Event Buffs (such as mod fusion success chance from mod fusion week, extra XP and Q from AP week, etcetera.)
56: +10% Bonus to Rampage Token Drop Rate (the bonus is a percentage of the base percentage, not a way to get a flat 50% drop rate)
57: +10% Bonus to SCR Obtained From All Sources
58: +10% Bonus to GCR Obtained From All Sources
59: +20% Discount to Tailor Costs
60: +20% to Resource cap
61: +2% Questionite From Rewards
62: +3% Resources From all Sources
63: +2% Mod Fusion Success Chance
64: +500 Daily Questionite Refinement Cap (+1000 if Gold/Lifetime)
65: +10% Bonus to Event Buffs (such as mod fusion success chance from mod fusion week, extra XP and Q from AP week, etcetera.)
66: +10% Bonus to Rampage Token Drop Rate (the bonus is a percentage of the base percentage, not a way to get a flat 50% drop rate)
67: +10% Bonus to SCR Obtained From All Sources
68: +10% Bonus to GCR Obtained From All Sources
69: +20% Discount to Tailor Costs
70: +20% to Resource cap
71: +2% Questionite From Rewards
72: +3% Resources From all Sources
73: +2% Mod Fusion Success Chance
74: +500 Daily Questionite Refinement Cap (+1000 if Gold/Lifetime)
75: +10% Bonus to Event Buffs (such as mod fusion success chance from mod fusion week, extra XP and Q from AP week, etcetera.)
76: +10% Bonus to Rampage Token Drop Rate (the bonus is a percentage of the base percentage, not a way to get a flat 50% drop rate)
77: +10% Bonus to SCR Obtained From All Sources
78: +10% Bonus to GCR Obtained From All Sources
79: +20% Discount to Tailor Costs
80: +20% to Resource cap
81: +2% Questionite From Rewards
82: +3% Resources From all Sources
83: +2% Mod Fusion Success Chance
84: +500 Daily Questionite Refinement Cap (+1000 if Gold/Lifetime)
85: +10% Bonus to Event Buffs (such as mod fusion success chance from mod fusion week, extra XP and Q from AP week, etcetera.)
86: +10% Bonus to Rampage Token Drop Rate (the bonus is a percentage of the base percentage, not a way to get a flat 50% drop rate)
87: +10% Bonus to SCR Obtained From All Sources
88: +10% Bonus to GCR Obtained From All Sources
89: +20% Discount to Tailor Costs
90: +20% to Resource cap
91: +2% Questionite From Rewards
92: +3% Resources From all Sources
93: +2% Mod Fusion Success Chance
94: +500 Daily Questionite Refinement Cap (+1000 if Gold/Lifetime)
95: +10% Bonus to Event Buffs (such as mod fusion success chance from mod fusion week, extra XP and Q from AP week, etcetera.)
96: +10% Bonus to Rampage Token Drop Rate (the bonus is a percentage of the base percentage, not a way to get a flat 50% drop rate)
97: +10% Bonus to SCR Obtained From All Sources
98: +10% Bonus to GCR Obtained From All Sources
99: +20% Discount to Tailor Costs
100: +20% to Resource cap



Or in short, at level 100, the following bonuses are:

+15% Modification Drop Chance
+10% Questionite From Rewards
+10% Mod Fusion Success Chance
+2500(5000 if Gold/Lifetime) Daily Questionite Refinement cap
+50% to Event Buffs (like mod fusion week's fusion buff, the extra XP and Q from Adventure Pack week, etc.)
+50% extra chance for Rampage Tokens to drop (50% of base, not 50% total, this won't just hand out free tokens every second Rampage.)
+50% SCR from all sources
+50% GCR from all sources
+100% Tailor Cost Discount (free costume changes!)
+100% Resource cap (+500G cap on a Silver non-cap-boosted character, +200000G on a cap-boosted/Gold character.)

This is indeed a huge boost, but keep in mind the experience curve from level 1 (300XP to reach level 2 if memory serves) to the unattainable XP requirement for level 41 due to XP past 40 being locked (920,000XP to next level.) Reaching 100 would take ages, even if the experience curve from 40 to 100 was nerfed compared to the 1-to-40 curve. Getting all of this on even one character would be immensely difficult, arguably far more so than getting a full set of R9 Modded Justice gear with Onslaught secondaries, and getting it on multiple endgame characters would just be a colossal drag. With that said, there's also the other side of the coin...







While Prestige levels reward a large investment of time and effort into a single character, Legion levels reward the player with true dedication, someone who's enough of a lunatic to grind countless characters to level 40 just for the sake of it. All the bonuses that come hand-in-hand with Legion levels hinge entirely on how many level 40 characters the account in question has. As such, it's a lot simpler to keep track of than all those staggered Prestige bonuses. Of course, Legion bonuses apply to every single character on your account regardless of level, and are more suited for quicker leveling. The Legion bonuses are as follows:

+1% experience gained for every character at level 40 (Bluhman's gonna have a field day with this one.)
+1% extra time on consumable status effects and Alert status effects (experience boosters, resource boosters, GRAB bonus, BURST bonus, SMASH bonus, etcetera) for every character at level 40.
+3% UNTIL Recognition gained from all sources for every character at level 40.
+3% rate of regaining Stars for every character at level 40. No longer will you need to attend a myriad of Cosmics to get them back!
+1 character-bound unsellable but deletable Mercenary Primary Pack (the Mercenary gear piece inside is also character-bound and unsellable but deletable) in the inventory of each new character for every 10 characters at level 40. These gear packs can't be opened until level 40.
+1 character-bound unsellable but deletable Mercenary Secondary Pack (the Mercenary gear piece inside is also character-bound and unsellable but deletable) in the inventory of each new character for every 10 characters at level 40. These gear packs can't be opened until level 40.
+1 character-bound unsellable but deletable Heroic Primary Pack (the Heroic gear piece inside is also character-bound and unsellable but deletable) in the inventory of each new character for every 25 characters at level 40. These gear packs can't be opened until level 40.
+1 character-bound unsellable but deletable Legion Secondary Pack (the Legion gear piece inside is also character-bound and unsellable but deletable) in the inventory of each new character for every 25 characters at level 40. These gear packs can't be opened until level 40.

As an example of what someone who doesn't grind too many characters up might have, here.
10 level 40s.
+10% experience.
+10% consumable/alert status effect length.
+30% UNTIL Recognition form all sources.
+30% rate of regaining Stars.
+1 random character-bound Merc Primary gear piece on each new character.
+1 random character bound Merc Secondary gear piece on each new character.

As an example of what someone who DOES grind too many characters up might have, here.
50 level 40s.
+50% experience.
+50% consumable/alert status effect length.
+150% UNTIL Recognition from all sources. (UNTIL recog is almost useless anyways aside from costume unlocks of which there are a billion of anyways.)
+150% rate of regaining Stars.
+5 random character-bound Merc Primary gear piece on each new character.
+5 random character bound Merc Secondary gear piece on each new character.
+2 random character-bound Heroic Primary gear piece on each new character.
+2 random character bound Legion Secondary gear piece on each new character.

Legion level bonuses serve to benefit quickly leveling characters up and slotting them in basic low-tier endgame equipment more quickly, and only really kick in once a number of characters have already been boosted to 40. Don't worry about the free gear packs being overpowered, they're character-bound and unsellable, and everything from them is random just like the real boxes, as well as character-bound and unsellable from the start too, so it's impossible to create new characters over and over again to cheat and get a huge collection of gear to use.





In the end, these bonuses apply to Silvers, Golds and Lifetimes alike, but Silver players likely won't see much from the Legion Levels as they'd have to do even more grinding to acquire extra character slots to use. Really, SOMETHING needs to spice up the eternal 1-to-40 grind and make it a little more rewarding so that the end-game isn't the ONLY game, and there's more to help retain players and make them want to spend on the game. Prestige levels and Legion levels approach this from different angles by rewarding players for investing exorbitant amounts of time into the game, but rewards spending/paying players more by nature of how Gold/Lifetime interacts with the game, and yet at the same time gives Silvers a taste of the extra benefits and time-saving that going Gold could get them. Is this system balanced? I'd say no, far from it, but that's why I'm throwing this idea out there, to get feedback on it and hopefully see it balanced down and maybe implemented one day. Comment away