Prestige and the promotion farming apocalypse.

There's nothing wrong with starting in the lower difficulties. Most of us did. My first ever match was Bronze Ghost (don't remember the kit and gun) and I got killed before I could kill a single trooper. I don't think anybody here complains about the Prestige thing because it forces players to a lower difficulty, but rather because the "only" (ofc, this depends on how much does the Prestige XP end up affecting your stats) way to go up is through promoting, not learning how to play the game.

I started to play a year and a few months ago (very late). I spent a lot of time on bronze and then silver, being scared of Gold, and Platinum was just the dream land of the incredibly good players, the forbidden land. Then some friends took me to the higher difficulties and taught me lots of things about game mechanics, I watched solos by the amazing players on these (well, the late BSN) boards, read posts on the resource library... Even then I don't think I dared pug gold until I had played around 300 hours and was using the TGI (which I don't know if you have unlocked but it is regarded as one of the most OP kits and is very newb-friendly). But I knew the main obstacle was self-confidence and skill. Not grinding promotions (which I only did to get the N7 Mastery and BoTB done, and that I didn't particularly enjoy but I'm a bit of a completionist). I had a motivation in that I realised that if I were to become good enough (if that thing was possible) nothing would separate me from a player that had been playing from the start. We would be in the same conditions. Same kits, same guns (*if manifest allows it), same stats. Maybe different choices on how to spec kits, but that's up to one's personal taste.

I find this kind progression much more interesting that promotions. I personally don't want my characters to become stronger with time/promotions. I want to become a better player.

The way I see it, both systems reward time spent playing. But one allows you more freedom than the other.

Well let's use ME3MP as an example.  Suppose ME3MP had the DAIMP Prestige Farming System.  Given enough playtime, a player would be rewarded with Godmode Status on Bronze, regardless whether or not they had actually gotten any better at the game.  They move on to Silver.

Given enough playtime, the player would be rewarded with Godmode Status on Silver, regardless whether or not they had actually gotten any better at the game. They move on to Gold.

Given enough playtime, the player would be rewarded with Godmode Status on Gold, regardless whether or not they had actually gotten any better at the game. They move on to Platinum.

Given enough playtime, the player would be rewarded with Godmode Status on Platinum, regardless whether or not they had actually gotten any better at the game.  Platinum is no longer a challenge, so they move on to a different game.

People are still playing ME3MP, despite support for it ending four years ago.  With DAIMP's Prestige Farm, the game would have died exactly three and a half years ago.

ADDENDUM:  Just because someone has a Harrier on Bronze, doesn't mean they will be any good.

Sounds like it would be awesome.

I am going to get enough space-willpower so that my Avenger will one-shot all mooks on super-spectre-elite-platinum-breaker difficulty, making it actually deadly on full auto.

But seriously, I don't really understand why this sort of "reward" is necessary, nor did I think it was necessary in DAI.

It's "necessary" because the vast majority of gamers these days are ADD plebs who can't learn, improve, or accept that they are not inherently awesome just for being themselves.  This is what happens when kids get Participation Medals for coming in last place in school competitions.  Thanks, Obama.

ftfy:
don't wanna be political in any way but what you wonderfully described fits (unfortunately) perfectly well almost everywhere

We will have to agree to disagree on this one if you use the same metric fo daimp, 300 hours vs 2000 hours you will get a similar result.  Once you have played 300 hours in daimp you are self sufficient enough to not get killed quick and further more you probably already have all the best weapons.  As far as scoring goes it is very much  class dependent.  There may be a difference but it is really over stated.

I'm not endorsing that me4 use the daimp model but the promotion angle is over player in its importance.

What promotions (using DAMP's model as an example) would do is to make your character more resilient, to a point in which Gold difficult becomes the new Silver. That sounds like fun, but by doing so you are already building up an advantage over a newcomer/casual who, if he happened to play alongside you, would not be able to contribute much not because he lacks skills nor anything of that sort, but rather because his time is limited and plays less than you do.

Now since there is no cap for power farming, Platinum will eventually become the new Silver. To balance that, Bioware will have to release harder difficult settings and possibly stronger weapons. The playerbase becomes divided. You are not going to play with someone who has 2,000 hours but you also won't play with someone who has 30 hours.

I am against all of this. I believe the community has to be as even as possible. I have said in other threads and I believe the gap between Common Weapons and Ultra-Rare weapons in ME3MP is way too wide, and should be narrowed.

Don't forget about the .5% Crit bonus every rogue promotion, which completely wrecks class balance.

Warrior classes with "Flow of Battle, gets a cooldown reduction of 1 second per crit" get enough promotes & you could spam niche, but powerful abilities, i.e. "Walking Fortress" makes you invulnerable, with it's rank 2 "Siege-Breaker" every attack that strikes you reduces your cooldown time and increases your guard. Which turns an ability that you'll only really use vs 6+ enemies due to its duration of 6 seconds & cooldown of 36 seconds, into a everytime occasion

Or my favorite one, the Elementalist's "Flashpoint" after you land a critical hit, your next spell cast doesn't trigger a cooldown period. Free spells for days, & worried about running out of mana? Take "Death Siphon" every time an enemy dies nearby, you regain both health and mana, it's 10% HP, & 20 points of mana. With that in mind you could have bout 5 firestorms going at one time & make everbody's screen look like it's having a seizure. IIRC your firestorms can crit, giving your next firestrom a free CD. Yo dawg i herd you like firestorms.

Those are the 2 examples I have personal experience with, now I didn't have teh +100 promotes into Rogue. I could see where it was going, but I never played again due to PTSD of the key not dropping half the time.

Uhm I *am* casual, so I will just play on the difficulty where I can contribute till I can advance to the next level, because why would I want to insta-die? Because the awards are not locked out or scaled competitive to the contribution like in other games, it is possible and does not appear hopeless. If worse comes to worse, they do appear to have a solo mode to catch up to the curve for the waves.  Also, if I sit long enough on a lower teir to shoe up my character, I will eventually be able to advance in the next tier and unlock more of the manifest. Good players will be able to do it earlier, folks like me - later. 

In the current mode of play I can and am often outscored by 3:1 easily in a silver game, let alone gold, doing like 40-50K to the top scoring player with 120-170K, while in the more even games, everyone scores' come close. Don't really see how it is any different from DAIMP if you play on the tier appropriate for both the gear and character power. A 

I do not say that I like the difficulty degradation, and the problems it presents in the long run with demanding the company to continue to maintain the module, I am just saying that it is manageable for a casual, and might actually help with unlocking more of the cards eventually. Because if I cannot play Gold in the current system, I will unlikely unlock the manifest, no? 

I am sort of sure that I will always have a bit of time to play, but I am on the opposite just as sure that my player skills will not improve past a certain point.  So making my character more powerful with time commitment does help me as a filthy casual. 

First, score is meaningless. And apparently, you are mostly pugging. Second, in ME3MP, at some time point, when you get more or less comfortable pugging gold, things will improve. And platinum is never very comfortable for anybody especially in a pug. In DAIMP, thing will never change. Mostly because others will play more and will have better stats. So, your contribution will worsen and will not improve.

I remember playing with Drasca and V3gan when I was at about 200 hours and they were in the region of 500-600 hours and it was actually quite OK and I felt like I was contributing substantially. When I was at 300 hours, they were at 1000 hours and then, things started to get ugly. So, I progressed but was able to contribute less despite having better weapons and reasonable improvement in understanding of game mechanics. For me, as a pure casual non-promoting player, it was a reverse progress.

Another bad thing about constant promotion is that you are forced to play gimped characters at level 1 without any powers or with limited powers. That is when stats and only stats matter. It amplifies your stat bonus. Let's say you have level 1 soldier with 500 health and level 20 with fitness at 850 health. Also, assume for simplicity that your bonus is 500 health. So, at level 1 it will be double and at level 20 it will be 37%.

I simply don't like to gimp myself with these silly things and don't like to promote. But I understand that for some people it gives some sense of progression. Like getting a new gun or upgrading. Well, you can always start an alt account in ME3 if you like that. Or promote ad nauseum to get 100K+ N7. At least there is also an option to get some experience up to level 12 or further on from experience cards. In DAIMP, there were no such cards. There were some exploits though and BW never fixed them, I think deliberately. They also eventually caved in to whining of people like me and put some respect card in the chests but it was too late to really matter.

So, no, unless you play only with friends, there is no sense of progression in DAIMP, it does not help. You can get somewhat easier time in solos but otherwise, no, no feeling of getting better. I presume beerfish mostly played with friends. Hence his POV and arguments. You also won't be able to "bump" into anybody in pugs. Everyone will be busy farming for experience with friends. Which make me sad.

I am certainly hoping that the Andromeda reward system is more like the ME3MP reward system than DA in that you will get XP cards and that RNG tables are limited to the items you do not yet have. I do like re-levelling characters tbh. The alternative to the quick levelining with promotion system is that the levelling is either ultra slow and you only unlock one or two points per level, or you let go of the entire levelling system, and just start with max powers load outs. So far they did say that the system is toned down from DAIMP, but there is simply no precise information.

I'm still having trouble getting over how absolutely ludicrous that comment about "systematic benefit" and "playing because you like to play" was.. How does a company that makes video games get this simple item of gaming psychology so tragically backwards?