Lance Experience & Leveling

[Aardcore]

I'm not sure how many people have gotten their first set of mercenaries to maxed out lvl 10 stats, I personally got my main character, Dekker, Behemoth and Glitch all to 10 in a relatively short time frame, much sooner than I expected but now all they're doing is accumulating XP they can't use... it's redundant, nonsensical and pointless. Between those four, I'm currently sitting on top of probably over 400,000 points of XP that cannot be used, and as I pursue other missions, that number keeps climbing, but nothing can be done with it.

What I'd like to suggest is that if and when you max out a pilot, they enter a "mentor mode" and can have lower level members in a lance gain a portion of whatever experience the maxed out pilots would have. So say your main character and two other maxed out pilots have a lower level pilot with them, upon completion of a mission, the supposed XP the maxed out pilots would get would bleed off into the lowest level pilot, essentially "carrying" them. I would say this makes sense since as your lowest level pilot is on the field with your highest level pilots they can physically observe their movements, are already coordinating with them and afterwards they'll most likely talk about the aftermath of said battle, and giving tips and advice to the lowest level member, thus speeding up the process of getting a new pilot into the crew up to speed.

Surprisingly, another mech game did something in a similar fashion to this concept: Hawken.

I am truly enjoying this game but it is a shame to see that once you max out your pilots there's not much else you can really do with them except use them as masters of whatever mechs you place them in. Knowing your maxed out pilots can help level your lower level pilots out to meet their level would be a great help, considering how often injuries happen to your main, dedicated pilots, and would be nice to know you have other pilots in reserve that were taught by your highest level ones to keep the mission momentum going.

 

[Aardcore]

Allow me to pitch in what a suggested "mentor mode" would look like, and how the exp would bleed off.

Pilot A is "mentor" with MAXED stats, Pilots B, C and D are all low level pilots.

Pilot A's effective exp upon completing a mission would fraction off into B, C and D. Meaning Pilot A's exp would divvy up 33% across B, C and D.
For example, upon completing a mission where 2400 exp would be given to all pilots, the mentor's bleed off exp would divide accordingly:
Pilot A's 2400 becomes 800 added to B, C and D total reward exp; effectively, B, C and D would complete the mission with 3200 exp because of that mentor.

This mentor mode can also be compounded with more "mentors", with the total of 3 max because of the 4th remaining pilot being the only possible low level member in the lance. Which means it would scale accordingly.

Once again, we'll use the completed mission reward of 2400 exp reward as a template:

"Mentors" A+B = 4800 acquired exp. That total exp would bleed off and divvy into 50% to the remaining lower level pilots and would gain 2400 individually, thus C will acquire 4800 and D the same, 4800.
===
If A, B and C are all mentors however, it is the highest, efficient value of exp that a pilot needing leveled up would acquire.

"Mentors" A+B+C =7200, meaning at the end, that one lone low level pilot would have a total of 9600 exp rewarded to them thanks to its 3 maxed "mentors" in the lance.

 

[Lawler]

I think a better scenario would be mech specializations. Give each mech variant a skill tree so pilots can truely make the best of their machines if they keep using the same one. Or spread it out to a few and make the pilot good at Centurion models or whatever. Probably would have to adjust the difficulty scalar though.

 

[Aardcore]

Hell, why not add both features in? If you don't want to use your maxed pilot as a mentor then they can pursue mech specializations and mentorship at your leisure in tandem, but I'd prefer that it doesn't become a single mech they're specialized in. These are pilots that will see constant conflict in many outfits and many scenarios. Broaden the gameplay field by allowing pilots to specialize in ALL mechs and really give players something to do as they jump from planet to planet, mission to mission.

+EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, add in weapon specializations on top of that just to add another diversity of completionist RPQ-esque gameplay to explore.

 

[Fiona Marshe]

You can also edit the JSON file for a higher xp curve (for new campaigns at least). Its currently listed as '100' (don't have the files here to check the exact value name).
Value ---- Level 10
100 --- 38500
150 --- 57750
200 --- 77000
300 --- 154000
etc

:edit:
Found the settings.
"PilotLevelCostExponent" : 2,
"PilotLevelCostMultiplier" : 100,

Two separate options; changing the exponent affects the bell curve; the multiplier is linear.
Exponent 2 = <level>^2 = 100, 400, 900, 1600 etc
Exponent 3 = <level>^3 = 100, 800, 2700, 6400 etc

If you plan to play 'long war' (40+ years), upping the exponent makes L10 pilots mythical.

 

[Aardcore]

Respectfully, this has nothing to do with extending the gameplay by altering the JSON files just to make the experience feel more drawn out. I'm also not a fan of having to alter the game files in any way just for this purpose, which isn't even intended at all. My suggestion is more along the lines of rewarding players by means of continuity and moving forward with the game experience as a whole, and that means being able to do a lot more with players expanding and managing their mercenary outfit the way they see fit. As it stands, you get a couple of hardened veterans and then that's that; I'm simply suggesting a mechanic in the game to further indulge that said experience and give your pilots more purpose.

I can already see a "So fire your veterans and hire more mercs..." rebuttal, but again, that's not the point. You work so hard to get them there, hell, maybe even get attached to them for putting that effort in, but then it all becomes meaningless when you hope there could be, and should be, something more.