David “Vahn” Vonderhaar, Game Design Director at Treyarch for Black Ops 2, has gone into a frankly candid amount of detail about the upcoming game’s multiplayer levelling progression. It’s honestly not that much of a break from the established formula of the previous Call of Duty games, but what’s so great about it is that he’s eliciting community feedback about it all, and seems to generally be open to making changes.
As for the way it’s going to work, it’s fairly typical. You unlock the ability to create a class at Level 4, as well as having 4 ‘Unlock Tokens’ by that point. Once you hit that point, you’ll also get just under a dozen free unlocks, one for each class, as well as a perk for each perk category. This means you can create a class to your liking without having to grind for experience beforehand, and it’s only when you want to properly specialise into one role or weapon class that your unlock tokens start to get eaten up.
Not only that, but each level is going to give you another little tidbit of fun, be it a scorestreak, a perk, or a bit of equipment. This means that even if you splurge all of your unlock tokens on one item, or are just saving up for the biggest gun on the menu, you’re going to be getting new stuff fairly regularly.
What Vahn wants feedback on right now, however, is the order in which things should be unlocked, specifically not because you want them earlier on because they’re your favourite, but logical, game-specific reasons that will make the game more fun for everyone involved.
Having played pretty much every Call of Duty in Multiplayer, Black Ops genuinely did have the best persistent levelling mechanic of all of them, so the fact it’s coming back is welcome.
Maybe you think I’m wrong. Maybe you think I’m genuinely crazy. Maybe I think /you’re/ crazy! You’re not? Convince me.
Or just go help the discussion over on Vahn’s post over here.