I believe faction rewards would be an excellent idea. But I think it should mainly come from your races War Council. If the War Council sends you on a mission, or asks you to do something and you obey, you are then considered more loyal in their eyes and therefore, get promotions and better gear. I'm sick of the basic MMO leveling systems and want it to be like a real war scenario. Let's see some ass kissing!
I agree with what others have said, especially Vox de Vacuo who mentioned EVE, that character progression is a massive part of what keeps me coming back for more. I'm not completely opposed to vertical character progression; someone who has been playing the game for two years should have a slight advantage over someone who's just starting, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor in a fire fight. Extensive horizontal progression is where longevity is; massive amounts of little details which go in to fleshing out who and what your character is. Armours, colours, trophies, weapon customization, class specialization, chapter rank, prestige, personal chamber embellishment - the more horizontal visual progression / customization the better.
Character progerrion in eve is horrible and will remain horrible and if this game will have something similar... well I don't even know what to do then it's that horrible. Anyhow I still have high hopes for this game and I hope like most of you seems to hope that the wargear will be the defying thing in this game for character differences. Eve character progression... it degression ffs
You are taking char progress in EVE too plain, mate. Take a complex loot at it: ships+modules+implants+rigs+SOCIAL CAREER are all parts of character progression in EVE-online, skill-system is just a key to all the cookies. Edit: moreover, one of my old-forgotten accounts has frozen corpses of my enemies from forum-wars I had special char piloting some limited gift-frigate with cargo bay full of copses to make nerves-calming voyages in Jita system! I still smile recalling it)) It was my best reward in EVE
From what I understand thus far: You pick your class You have different loadouts for that class I don't think you're tied to one class/character, but I'm not 100% sure on that At the start you'll just have bog-standard gear, but you can tinker with these loadouts in a sidewards-progression type way. I imagine an assault marine might be able to take upgrades to his jetpack power/speed at the cost of some melee power, or sacrifice his bolt pistol for dual-wielding lightning claws or something similar. The emphasis isn't on 'well you've killed 10,000 xenos so you get a Level Up(tm) which gives you +5 health across the board with no drawbacks.' It's just on having more options available to you, which means that if you choose wisely and don't 'main' one loadout like a butthead you will be much more effective in a far greater variety of situations than Joe McNew who only has the one set of gear available to use. Instead of just having a Heavy Bolter to deal with infantry, you'll have anti-vehicle options, a powerful single-target or AoE weapon, armour which gives more protection against melee, or weapon types that Eldar use a lot, but which is useless against Orks. Stuff like that. I think being rewarded for important achievements is very important. I'd rather there was more emphasis on completing difficult tasks than simply being rewarded for stuff like 'kill xyz <insert race here>' though. Defending an important objective against impossible odds, or similarly attacking one and capturing it. Completing a mission given by your war council to move behind enemy lines and sneakily capture an important relic. Being chosen as a Hero and using your devastating powers to simultaneously kill 100 players. Executing important figures of the enemy's army.
Great question and while there have been some response from the Dev side of the house on this, I take every opportunity to express my desire for very deep customization options. The other half of your question is awesome as well. Yes, I would love to see service studs, skulls, all manner of ways to say: this guy has been around. I hope this for all the factions. I would love to advance into a fight and see an Orc as tall as I am, festooned with scars and skulls, maybe a cyborg eye, bellowing challenges as it pins back the 'go' stud on it's dakka. yeah that would be Epic. Of course I would add to his collections of scars, but the sight would just be awesome Having said that, at higher "levels" I should have a greater variety of tools to use, but I should never be unstoppable. A level 1 should be able to kill a level 100 if the level one plays well. The level 100 should just have more options is all.
Skill sets players apart, not progression that leads to being stronger because you've been here longer. That just leads to a fighting field where the basic armor is never around... eventually everyone has the better armor and no new players even want to try. Go play DUST and see how that works out for you. Your skill should earn you accolades, skin unlocks, and awards. I somewhat agree on the reload aspect. Artificer armor should be something only commanders get. Every non-commander/chaplain/librarian should have the same power armor in regards to protection Basic Space Marines can't just upgrade their armor. They are granted better armor through accomplishing great feats and it almost always comes in lieu of a promotion to a command role and more than likely their old armor was destroyed in some epic fight.. Not all Chaos Marines are from the Heresy. Most are just grown in vats or slave's wombs or other processes that the Traitors have devised to replenish their numbers. Even some of the ones from the Heresy don't have thousands of years of experience because they are just now coming out of the Warp through rifts in time. I don't think we're going to be playing as the 10,000 year old traitors.
While I split skulls with my chain-axe, I want the sacrifices to know me by sight as-well as by name. Bring on the unique customisation with added gore. Having said that I would like some increased health/armour/dps for playing longer than that fresh Astartes I just opened up.
Everybody loves getting new kit and the cosmetic stuff is important to me but you need to have permanent progression of skills as well. I just can't see putting in hundreds of hours into a game for a new left boot and then a hundred more for a slightly different left index finger alone. That is where Space Marine lost my interest a little bit. I still love to play but I don't really care about leveling up anymore. I want to be vested in my character not just in the armor options I can attach to a nameless Astartes. "For the Lion!"
