Thinking out loud.

I originally posted most of this in response to Tweak's latest video, but wanted to start a much larger conversation. LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kex-oMv27Uw

Map locking: I can agree with level locking labs. I can't agree with level locking any other map.

Prestige system: The prestige system would make sense if we didn't have wipes. Essentially, you'd be doing a self wipe every time you wanted to prestige (turning in your Kappa). I do believe prestige rewards should be vanity only. Or maybe the prestige persists through wipes since it's vanity only. Having a wipe veteran stat would be awesome regardless.

Most of the rest in the video I can't get behind. I think when you remove better weapons/attachments from low-level players you do the opposite of what you want. Tweak made the comparison that people can hit Reserve and get great gear from the scav boss on day one. That makes them pretty much gods. Essentially you're doing the same thing when you level lock weapons/attachments. We can both agree that someone who levels MUCH faster than everyone else is a better player. Giving the best gear to ONLY the best players is only going to cause a much larger gap. IMO you're not leveling the playing field. I believe the changes would make it insanely harder for lower-tiered players. The change would make even a good player extremely hard to kill. Sweat lords would be pretty much untouchable for months. I do like the tiered weapons and attachments system that's in place. I feel like I can build a weapon/kit that I can compete with sweat lords. Take for example the Reap-IR. I'm personally strongly against the Reap-IR changes. Now, only the really good players have access to thermals. This creates an even farther gap between a basic player and a sweat lord. IMO, a free market is where you actually balance the playing field. RMT, I don't believe you're ever going to fully get rid of this without breaking the game for everyone. I believe you're only going to create untouchable gods without a free market. What drew me to this game is that I could play however I wanted. This game was essentially whatever you wanted it to be. There was a game style for everyone. With every update, I feel like we're losing that charm.

Things I think would help level the playing field:

1. Make more items craftable.
2. Lower the prices of the dealers.
3. Make barters about ~20% lower than the cash price.
4. Make it so that dealers pay ~20% less than the purchase price when selling to them.
5. Stop the war on RMT. I think the only thing it's doing is alienating the legit players.
6. OPEN THE MARKET TO ANYTHING and put a daily cap on what you can trade.
   1. Dealers will only allow you to sell 250k per day to each of them.
   2. Daily flea market cap of 2m for selling. (You could sell a single item a day for more)
   3. Daily flea market cap of 5m for buying. (You could buy a single item a day for more)
   4. Put a price cap on items like thicc items cases of something like 10m.
7. OR, Open the market to only weapons/attachments and keep barter items FiR only.
   1. I believe a free market is the winning move. It's my own choice to overpay if I want to be impatient and can't wait to unlock level 4 mechanic.
8. If you're going to hide weapons/attachments behind quests. Make it so that I can choose 1 unlock quest at a time and make all of them available all at once. Then I can choose what weapons/attachments are important to me. Maybe the first thing I want to unlock is a Val. Or maybe it's a hunter. Or maybe the M4A1. Or a 5-7 to do pistol runs.
9. IMO 1 or 2 random daily quests is an absolute must.
10. Weekly quests/tasks would be awesome. Have the core questline to get the Kappa. Give us other stuff to do to get sweet rewards. Do you know how freaking awesome it would be to get a weapons case because I completed 10 tasks that week.

There's probably a bunch of other things that could be discussed here. I feel like there's no real discussion going on within the community. It almost feels like a bunch of complaining and knee jerk reactions. No community discussion is happening about how to legitimately fix this issues in a way that addresses the core issue at hand, but doesn't break the game for others. I'm always up for a sensible discussion. I'd love to hear what you think.