Right now there are only a few reasons to have money; 1. The main reason is to unlock a custom class, but as most people specialize in a few (and sometimes one) class, there's not a big reason to unlock all of them. 2. The second reason is to buy protags, which are essentially bragging rights but after you unlock your favorite again, there's little reason to buy the rest. 3. The last reason is to build up your money until you're level 99, which serves no real purpose. So, players who've played for a while don't really have a reason to generate money at all, and seeing as how its a game about folks generating money in a stadium it really feels like there should be more reasons to actually have money. So, here are my ideas; 1. protags affecting gameplay Protags could become a secondary "endorsement" and the potency of each would be affected by its price. For example "1337" would be more effective than "elite hax" these tags could affect other aspects of gameplay in smaller ways. For instance if using a turret protag the cost could be reduced, or using a hacking tag could decrease the cost to upgrade the hacking skill. Generally it would reduce the price to upgrade certain things, or the amount of money gained from certain actions such as streaks or killing turrets. If they affected character's more directly (such as more powerful hacks or weapons) it would become a little unbalancing. 2. Purchasing "elite" bots and turrets while dipping into your own funds. For a dlc, one could purchase entirely new turrets (possibly a combination turrets such as heat-seeking rockets and lasers) or buying extra-good turrets (possibly those with hacks already applied) The prices for these however would limit their use, possibly $30,000 or so, bought by your total on-hand cash rather than in-match cash. purchasing jackbots could also be done i this way. 3. More skins/armor styles It's been said again and again, and would probably affect the game the least while providing a decent way to spend your money. 4. Upgrading one of your silver endorsements to gold in only one of your custom classes. Limited to one class, and whenever you want to switch your endorsements on that class it will revert to silver until you re-buy it. 5. Secondary Endorsements Custom Class Rather than buy a custom class with the standard endorsements meant to benefit the player's character directly (rate of fire, health etc) they could opt to purchase a different type of custom class with endorsements that benefit certain gameplay actions. For instance; Bot-be-gone! Turrets built or upgraded by the player deal much more damage to bots MechanoClanx Adds health and damage to spawned robots Shot-of-Rad Enemies shot by the player regenerate health more slowly, and bots shot by the player are slowly damaged. ElectroBurst Bots and turrets shot by the player are slowed to varying degrees depending on the position of the endorsement Nanites! Players do bonus damage to bots and turrets if implemented correctly, it could promote some custom classes to be less about K/D ratio and more about pushing lanes and building/taking down defenses. 6. Purchasing Taunts Simple enough, buying new animations for your character's taunts. Changing the way your level is displayed As a side-idea, I think that the "level" system could be changed to a "skill-indicator." How this could work is instead of being tied to how much total money you have, it would go up or down depending on how much money you generate per match. Up if you're in the top 6, down if you're in the bottom. It could also be affected depending on whether your team won or not to encourage winning and not just money-generating; Up a lot if you're on the winning team and have lots of money, up only a little if you're on the losing team and have lots of money. Anyhow, just tossing some ideas out there. Feel free to add/modify/critique.
All good ideas, but I think there's one more that'd work well Buy your own franchise! Basically, if you and enough other players pool together enough money (probably a several million dollars) you can form an official "franchise" and get access to a clan-tag and a basic art program to make your clan-tag unique (something similar to Halo or Armored Core). You can then prefer to play with franchise members and against other rival franchises. These battles would then allow for a more concrete amount of tournament and league play, and separate the hardcore players in a way they'd probably want, without effecting a casual player too much. Obviously though, this would be a major change and have to come in through a patch or DLC.
I dont like the idea of haveing it affect anything like skills just because I think it may set of blanace a little, and I would rather not mess with that. I would also like to be able to make bots, like customisable ones that you could spawn in a match. You could mix and match any bots you want but within reason, no jack bots with bouncer moves. But something like a buzzer that dosent die but just sucks skills (scrambaler) of one pro it finds might be cool. It would also be nice as someone who likes one class but isent to fond of the bots. "Buy your own franchise!" - hell yes, I would love to have a clan like thing on MNC
