Is it time to retire grades/pips entirely?
So, the Grade system. Let's talk about it.
It's been a common sentiment in the community that nobody really plays for grades or pips anymore, other than a nice extra chunk of change at the end of the month. However playtime in modes alone gives more BP per month than Grades do per month. It's very easy to play a lot, and rack up millions in BP if you save it all using various offerings, or even just by playing Killer. There are also dailies, tome challenges, and often BP boosting events that give more, if not the same amount as, an Iri I grade does over the course of many games. Most players, it seems, don't "play for pips/grade" and just ignore it, collecting their payout at the end of the month. Though there are achievements tied to grades, once these are claimed there seems little further incentive to engage with this mechanic, especially because after lots of play BP flows freely and it's easy to bank at least 10k per match both sides if you are any good at the game.
It's also known that pipping has been contentious from the get go, with most opting to ignore this system entirely. It seems like very few people grind for pips/grades seriously. It also seems like the system falsely fools new players into thinking grade means skill at the game, or that grade is somehow part of a "ranked ladder" which hasn't been the case for many years (ranks were retired some time ago now). People falsely equate grade as being more important than it is, which begs the question… is it truly even needed at all?
2v8 has also proven that people will happily play a game without concern for grades and pips, as long as the BP incentive is enough. If we were to increase Survivor gains by 400% basekit permanently, it would eliminate the need for grades and would probably encourage more people to play Survivor, since there is something tangible in it for them. MMR would improve, match quality would improve, and many issues people have with "not getting enough BP" or anxieties over failure to pip in new players (and thus encouraging sweat) might disappear.
What do you think? Do you care about grades at all? Are they something you even like to grind for, or do you find them pointless/stressful? Do you think it's time to just give everyone better BP gains and eliminate grades altogether?
Comments
As long as there's a BP cap that can only be worked around by random gifts, weekly gifts, rift levels and Grade monthly rewards (a rather generous 2 mil that isn't affected by the cap) then Grades should stay.
It also encourages Survivors to use teamwork (heal, rescues, coop actions etc.) and Killers to not camp (as Chaser emblem gets penalty if the Killer stays around) so it's always a good thing.
No.
Not only are there lots of player created challenges based around pips and grades, they still serve as a nice little bonus/goal to the game. They would also have to rewrite so many archive challenges.
The only thing you mention as a problem is the possibility of confusing new players, which I guess is a possible issue, but its usually corrected pretty easily when it comes up and could be solved by a tooltip.
I've said this in a few other threads, but 400% BP is not a long term solution. People played it because it was unique. If the BP level was always high it wouldn't really have any value to it.
removing free BP is never a good idea
In my opinion no
Even if it has no rank relevance the satisfaction of getting that 2 pip at the end of a game is why this game feels good to play sometimes