this is a great game, and we all know that. though sometimes we feel an empty space as if something is missing. this is because there is a major aspect (as well as sub aspects) of this game that are not being pushed towards their full potential. for this thread we will talk about two aspects. the gear shop, and tank customization. Gear Shop: players can have fun spending literally hours just collecting gears for the though of buying cool things in the gear shop. as of right now, a small chunk of players currently have over 10k gears while a considerably larger chunk of players have over 5k gears. at this point, players start to take gears for granted and don't care about them too much. there is simply nothing in the shop that they are interested in or they already bought everything. currency is an important part of any good game that has currency. the proof is that in most games you will find the majority of players having fun grinding for currency and using that currency to attain good things in the game, even if those things are cosmetic. this game is severely lacking that. the gear shop and gear system in general needs to be stimulated. i know it's difficult to make new weapons, and we still need new weapons for most prestige levels, so i won't talk about having more weapons in the gear shop. i also won't talk about maps and victory tunes increase the maximum gear wager to 5. this will be balanced because it will be popular mainly for players above lvl 60 when they desire to collect more gears. it will be balanced because most of these players already have 5k+ gears anyways, so it will serve to help lessen the collection of the losing players while the winning player will get a fair boost in gear count. in an FFA match of 8 the winning player would get 35 gears. this is not bad for a high tier wager. being able to wager 5 gears will help boost incentive to wager during team battles, since the winning gears are split between up to 4 teammates. advanced themes in the shop. themes make for gear cosmetic customization, but having themes with more emphasis would be a delight. these themes will have 2 set colors like the current themes in the gear shop, but they will transition over time based on an event. like for example the more damage the map takes, the more it changes color. or the sky area can be one color while the ground area be a different color, and they can swap over time. these themes can be worth 500-650 gears. sell items in the gear shop. i already went over this in one of my previous threads. it will be a great way to simulate the economy more. http://www.shellshockliveforums.com/threads/items-sold-in-the-gear-shop.12374/ Tank Customization: tank customization in general should be bigger in this game. players should be given more tank parts through levels and achievements. like on reaching lvl 100 they get a full set of crown parts or whatever. putting more focus on tank customization will increase its popularity in the game, so in the gear shop players will be interested in premium tank parts to keep up a cool and unique appearance. TIER 2 tank parts. tank parts are important because players will be able to change the design of their tank to what they like. tier 1 tank parts will just be tank parts that are sold in the shop. tier 2 tank parts might be similar design to tier 1 tank parts, except they will have small bits on them where the player can customize the color (like for example golden and silver rims in SSL2). tier 2 gun barrels can have a bit on the tip, or even around the perimeter which allows color customization. tier 2 track will have colored rims or wheels. tier 2 chassis will have a colored perimeter. tank colors. how it will work is that the player will also be able to buy different colors from the tank parts shop to add to their palette of colors that they can use to color their tier 2 tank parts. colors can cost between 500-1k gears. i suppose you can avoid selling the colors green, blue, and red, to avoid confusion. TIER 3 tank parts. tier 3 tank parts will be similar to tier 2. they can even have the same design. the difference will be that the colored bits on tier 3 parts will transition between 2 colors of the player's choosing. for example if the player has bought two colors from the store, they will have two colors in their palette. the tier 3 tank parts will allow them to select 2 colors for the transitioning. pricing. okay this part is important. i know that making designs can be hard, but a way to make it easier would be to make a set of tier 1 tank gear in the gear shop. then you can take that same design and add the colored bits to it to make it a tier 2 tank design, then take that same design with colored bits and make it transition which would be tier 3. that is 1 set of each tier just like that. naturally, you can also have special standalone parts that aren't part of a set. with that in mind, tiered gear will be very popular between the higher level players. there will be some players who simply prefer the non tiered gear, but this should be available choice. the tier 1 gear should be more easily available to the lower level players to help break them into the habit of buying tank parts. T1 gear: 100-500 gears T2 gear: 1k-2k gears T3 gear: 3k-4k gears Flares: i was only going to talk about two things, so this is more of a bonus. i know flares are in SSL2 and i assumed they weren't initially in this game because either it was not necessary, or to prevent the chance of flare spam. what i have in mind is much better though. these flares will be purely cosmetic. flares will be strictly for decoration. first of all, there can be an option in match lobby (NOT settings) to turn on or off flares during a match. how it will work is that during a player's turn, they can set off only one flare for that turn. the flare will appear from the top of their tank and it will be a decoration. for example it can be some kind of fireworks or even a funny emoticon which will display above their tank at a considerable size. other flare ideas could be rain clouds, troll faces, chrome colored stamps like diamonds or crowns, etc. each flare a player attains will be added to their palette and they can choose to set off any they want, only once and during their turn. flares can only be purchased in the gear shop or attained through achievements. they can cost like 100-1k gears.
