Firefall revamps progression system... again

Red 5 Studios has not been shy about making sweeping changes to its in-beta massively multiplayer shooter Firefall. Entire game systems have been retooled, revamped, and sometimes removed entirely as part of the developers' efforts to improve the game. The latest Firefall devblog has revealed that the game's progression system is back on the operating table for the second time, and it's going to get some more nips and tucks in the March 22nd milestone patch.

Senior Game Designer Cameron Winston states that when the studio first overhauled the game's progression system (replacing the game's more traditional leveling system with battleframe-specific tech trees), the result was certainly for the best, but the change "came with some problems of its own," such as being "hard to understand... [with] arbitrary limitations that prevented players from exploring how they could customize their frames."

To fix these issues, the studio will ensure that players will now have "far more flat access to the frames," meaning that there will still be different battleframe classes such as Assault and Recon, "but each battleframe will now have its own unique progression tree," which the developers hope will give more flexibility and customization options to players. Of course, the specifics of an entire system overhaul can't be adequately described in 300 words or less, so if you want all the fine details, head on over to Firefall's official site.