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Firefall to split PvP and PvE gear for balance

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Red 5 Studios have come up with a solution to make both aspects of PvE and PvP more “balanced and entertaining”, by changing how battleframes work. Now PvP will disallow crafted gear, as well as include fixed abilities to squash the current “all-or-nothing” builds. There will also be only one tier for gear: creating a level playing field for those who choose to fight.

More details after the break.

Justin Hanson (known as Xenogenic), game designer for Red 5 Studios, posted about the change on thedeveloper blog. “It is not possible to provide a balanced and entertaining experience in both PvE and PvP, for both types of players, if both realms use the same gear.” explained Justin.
What’s the solution?
“Disallow crafted gear in PvP, such that every battleframe is only wearing “regulation” PvP gear; remove PvP tiers so there is one tier and one queue, and design all frames to be relatively equal; disallow changing of weapons/ abilities in instanced PvP but re-design the frames’ abilities to have synergistic, interesting, better ability selections (example: one skill shot, one AOE, one movement ability).”
As an example, Justin provides a basic battleframe template with this new system:
A unique weaponA unique passive effect3 unique, synergistic abilitiesAnd possibly, if time and playtesting warrant it, an Ultimate/Super ability.
If you play Firefall, do you think these changes are for the better? There is a reddit thread about the changes, where developers are answering the most popular questions. Go take a look!