Designing Weapon Leveling Pursuits In Loot Games
Engagement in long term progression
Intent
A player in a looter style game where you gain power over time may feel disengaged with systems that don’t offer constant progression feedback. Its easy to throw away items you have no investment in. This system can solve multiple feedback loop problems by giving constant progression early and offering late game power gains based on all of the play time invested.
Give players a feeling of progress and a long term goal to work towards
Never feel like using a weapon is wasted time
Team members wont ask you to switch loadouts as they know you are using your mastery weapons (Opens up more build variety)
Gives an inherent reason to spend more time in endgame content
Weapon Progression System
Each weapon would have its own internal level which gains experience when engaging in combat activities such as killing enemies or clearing levels. The first half of the leveling system would award perk unlocks inherent to the specific weapon. This allows for the player to gain a new attribute to try out as they level up and continue to play. The second half rewards longer commitments to spending time with a weapon by granting overall stat buffs such as +1% damage.
Secondary Leveling system granting new abilities on a regular basis
At endgame this system continues to reward commitment with permanent buffs
Lets call the first half Proficiency and the endgame half Mastery
Proficiency Levels
Gain exp towards leveling up the gun from level 1 - 10 (Max Proficiency)
Any time this specific gun drops and is uses it counts towards the same proficiency level gains. Never lose progress.
Mastery Levels
Gain exp towards leveling up the gun from level 11 - 20 (Max Mastery)
Every level of Mastery adds +1% dmg to the weapon. 10% dmg increase at max mastery
Players are rewarded for time spent and can benefit teams in co-op by having done this
Considering the amount of weapons presented in these types of games, players can have hundreds of potential hours invested in this system alone.
Notes:
Mastery levels should require a significant amount of time to acquire, but not too much that an average player will never see benefits. This will require iteration and feedback to properly balance. A quick example goal would be for a causal player to sit around 1 - 5 Master on there favorite weapon and a dedicated player to be at 10.
*Levels indicated above are examples for illustration purposes.