Growth Point System (new ideas)

Hello fellow fraggers, I would like to talk a bit about the character customization and more specifically it's talent three system. It is a subject that can divides a bit the player base but at the same time it has not been often brang once the beta ended. Nonetheless it remains interesting and an important topic in my opinion.

What we had during the beta was basic but very functional. You earned a certain ammount of points each new level that you could spend (almost) where you wanted and modify at any time between games in case you miss clicked or naturally looked to try something else. There were a total of 50 points, and a maximum of 10 points per passive talent.

(click on the image to expand)

As you can see or remember, the whole system was splitted into 3 category : Attack (Ammo increases, Reload speed increases, Damage increases at low HP), Survival (HP recovers when out of combat, Armor efficiency increases) and Assault (Movement speed increases, Aim down sight speed increases).

To go further in each category, let's take Attack for the exemple, you needed to spend at least 10 points in Ammo increases to unlock the possibility to boost your Reload speed increases. The same schema applied to Damage increases at low HP and to Survival and Assault.

Before approaching the new ideas, we will go deeper to make sure everyone understand in details how it worked and why changes are needed all while having the possibility to keep more or less the same architecture that I personally like.

As a reminder, here it was the bonus offered by each point spent in a talent :

Attack

• Ammo increases: +10%, +20%, +30%, +40%, +50%, +60%, +70%, +80%, +90%, +100%

• Reload speed increases: +1%, +2%, +3%, +4%, +5%, +6%, +7%, +8%, +9%, +10%

• Damage increases at low HP: +5%, +10%, +15%, +20%, +25%, +30%, +35%, +40%, +45%, + 50%

Survival

• HP recovers when out of combat: +2, +4, +6, +8, +10, +12, +14, +16, +18, +20 (HPs/sec)

• Armor efficiency increases: +1%, +2%, +3%, +4%, +5%, +6%, +7%, +8%, +9%, +10%

Assault

• Movement speed increases: +1%, +2%, +3%, +4%, +5%, +6%, +7%, +8%, +9%, +10%

• Aim down sight speed increases: +1%, +2%, +3%, +4%, +5%, +6%, +7%, +8%, +9%, +10%

To conclude on this part, there was only a limited number of viable builds in Classic which were :

The Survival one which offered the highest survivability rate and the best overall in 1v1 situations. There was no real needs to have an extra damage buff to initiate the duel because of the efficiency of HP recovers when out of combat. I have personally used it from the start to the end of the beta.

20 Attack, 20 Survival 10 Assault : Ammo increases 100%, Reload speed increases 10%, HP recovers when out of combat 20 HPs/sec, Armor efficiency increases +10% and Movement speed increases +10%.

The Attack one (30 Attack, 10 Survival 10 Assault or 30 Attack, 15 Survival 5 Assault) which could have provided an interesting damage boost at the first look with a huge +50% bonus was clearly a fake friend. To benefit of it, you would have to either remove all of your 10 Armor effiency increases points, or either 4-6 Armor effiency increases points + 4-6 Movement speed increases points. It's useless to say that even with doing it, the 20 HPs/sec provided are starting after only 5 seconds without taking any damages so this build is definitively not playable. It still can save your life in a difficult scenario but it's worth to notice that we are not looking for something that can saves us but something that gives us the possibility to avoid needing something to put points in just for the purpose to save our life because we have not managed to make a more consistant build. It seems nothing, and I am not sure that my english skills are not decent enought to express this thought but it's all what the optimization is about.

There are so much more to say on this and I would truely by happy to find someone with who talk about this and enter further in details but we will now go to the objective of this thread : the enhancement of this system in the first time, and how can we make of this tool something competitive, in the second time.

The Enhancement :

The GPS (Growth Point System) brought by the development team has been intermediately well received by the community. Indeed, there were some complains because of it's unfair advantage that it delivers to older players and more generally because of it's intrasically uncompetitiveness. Which is true and an irrefutable evidence. I am part of those that will have all their points, but I fully understand this fear. But at the same time, we need to understand the devs trying to impact the global retention and reward their most active users. If you would ask me to pick between this, or a random box loot to unlock OP weapons or get them directly from the shop, I would pick the GPS anyday. The more you play, the more you have points, and we are not going to lie, only a few games were necessary to unlock all of them.

I am trying to place myself, and it's a really difficult exercice between the players that want CLASSIC only without unfair features like this and the ones that are excited by it, all while also being one of those that like it but not enough to keep it as it is in it's current state.

The system itself was not perfectly balanced so it needs in any cases some adjustements on certain valors : some people found the Aim down sight speed increases useless because of the few changes it brangs even maxed, some other found the Speed increases too powerful, same for the HP regen etc... If I found it as a whole relatively interesting and bringing a lot of dynamism compared to CS, it is still not enough to consider it as "the magic trick".

I believe that the sense of freedom in a tool like is one of it's most important aspect, as much as for the beginners than for the older players that want to experience different combinations. On a competitive scale, it can also be interesting to see players in the same team using a mix of builds in order to be the more efficient, following players playstyles or different situations. To grow this feeling, we can logically start with adding some new variables to it such as a defuse time decrease, or a bomb plant time decrease. Also, we can remove the prerequisite of completing the Movement speed increases set to being able to unlock Aim down sight speed increases which is something that is not specially needed for snipers for example.

That being said, that's only if we keep the pre-existing model, which I think will be case and not something we should be too angry toward the devs.

Now, if we are still allowed to dream in this world, and that is actually a very personal opinion, having some sort of economy would be a plus. I am not saying that the game would be better, or less repetitive, or less boring to watch, I am just stating the fact that it would augment it's profundity. As explained above, I am not totally for the GPS (as it is right now) but neither a purist that doesn't want any changes. In my ideal world, there is an Economy system, yes, but something different than CS. And yes there is also a talent three system, but giving the same chances to everyone.

I really believe than mixing both things should be a good compromise. To stay totally different from Shadowrun and it's ACTIVE perks and make it even more fair, we could assign our points before the first round start and at half time. To make it also different from CS, each players would receive the exact same amount of points independantly of frags or any individual stats which does not impact on the total credit.

This is an original idea, and what I believe could make the most sense when thinking to a new Economy system for CrossfireX.