Omniseed, on 10 June 2019 - 04:51 PM, said:
I also think that consolidating all of the loyalist trees into one reward path like the merc tree is a mistake. The current system is a grind to get all the way up a faction's tree, and at the higher levels it is rewarding and feels good to make a new rank. Without the rewards, the ranks are more or less nothing though.
Now I don't see it that way at all. I'll use myself as an example. Currently I am rank 17 (nearly 18) in Davion, 8 Merc, 12 Rasalhague, 10 Kurita, 10 Marik and 6 Liao. I did all of that before the Merc tree was added and am up to Level 8 in the Merc tree since then. (Never played clan on this account) If you total all of that then I am level 20+ in any one faction.
Why is this so, because my unit had identified itself as Merc since its inception and we moved around trying to get as many people free mechbays as we could. I think that system was good as I have not been able to add to any of those totals since the merc tree was added, I am a loyal merc if you will.
However the time of the mechbay tour is over and people want to switch at will so they can get games. in that case in makes a lot more sense to consolidate your LP in one place rather than spreading them all over. You will achieve more levels more often and ranks can be tailored to your faction. Ultimately you will get more and bigger rewards. Although to be honest by the time most people get to rank 20 now 50m Cbills is basically meaning less.
The other reason to consolidate is it makes the system so much less complicated, Alliance's would exist to balance population and provide story fluff, this means they could change depending on the event, but it doesn't mess with your personal accumulation of LP. Your not penalized in anyway for staying loyal and it would be easy to have minor LP loss should you want to change.
If needed we can still have separate Loyalist and Merc trees, these would emphasize stuff (paint, mechbays, cockpit items) for loyalists over Cbills for mercs.
A consolidated tree would not look like what we have now BTW.