I’m going to start off with a little disclaimer. If you intend to reply with something like “the last thing Halo needs is more ideas from Call of Duty!” or some nonconstructive BS like that, I politely ask that you delete any text you have been writing in the reply box, scroll to the top of the page, open the dropdown menu at the upper-righthand corner of the screen, and then select sign out. Thanks!
If you’re not someone who wants to throw nonconstructive BS at this, and wants to have a productive discussion, feel free to read all what I’m about to say.
Anyway, what I mean by “REQ Prestige” is probably exactly what you’re thinking of, though it wouldn’t apply to armor or emblems. After unlocking all the REQ certifications (or at least all the ones that were available at launch since), the player would have the option to reset their progression and proceed to unlock all the certifications over again. This probably seems like a silly idea; why the hell would anyone want to reset their progress and no longer get awesome -Yoink- like Nornfangs and Phaetons in REQ packs?
For me, being someone who’s unlocked all the REQs, I’ve hit the point where I have plenty of Ultra Rare and Legendary items, but my supply of more common items—Carbines, Warthogs, Gungeese, etc—is dwindling because I get less than I used to use in games per pack. For example, I used to have 75-ish Carbines as I was working my way towards finishing Common to Rare, but now I have less than 20. I love using the Carbine, especially during the iconic first skirmish against the enemy team at the Spire in Raid of Apex 7, but now I keep my use of them regulated to once per three matches since I’ve been replenishing them so slowly. Worse, some of the recently added items (THE WASP) I find myself getting frustratingly rarely because I have so many other unlocked items that could be in the pack.
Those are just my personal reasons for wanting to be able to reset my REQ unlocks and start anew. Of course, those are not the only benefits. Honestly, simply because the Prestige system in Call of Duty adds so much to player incentive; I myself don’t play CoD, but I couldn’t stop hearing friends of mine who play it constantly talk about how they’re almost at 10th Prestige. It’s a pretty damn huge achievement to make, requires lots of dedication, and is innately something worth bragging about. Sure, it’s incentive enough to reach SR152, but compared to moving through a ranking system ten times in a row, it’s almost nothing. Just the fact that the feature gives so much incentive to play makes me rather shocked Halo hasn’t taken its spin on it already; good ideas are good ideas regardless of where they came from. Alas, under my provisions, a REQ Prestige would be a visible stat with some Achievements and ample gamerscore awarded to those who’ve done it ten or so times.
For us, it’s a win because it lets us go through the glory ages of unlocking a tremendous arsenal of common to rare items (and now knowing to not sell all 250 of my Scout Warthogs because they’re really useful in Firefight but now I hardly get them from Silver or Gold Packs), and because it multiplies the incentive to play by ten and gives us something to put on our resumes because we were all too lazy to do anything notable throughout our lives. For 343, on the other hand, having REQ Prestige will most certainly be a tremendous financial benefit. There’s not as much incentive to buy a REQ pack when you’ve finished unlocking everything, right? I would of course hope this doesn’t give an excuse for 343 not to still work on adding more REQs to the game, but it will either way indeed let 343 continue to gain steady revenue from REQs even after an ever-increasing amount of players hit the last certification.
All in all, I suspect this is going to be a very divisive idea even without the utterly senseless “the last thing Halo needs is more features from Call of Duty!!” argument. And that’s good. Discussion is good. Debates are good. They lead to growth and wisdom for all involved. They hone our writing skills, they expose us to new perspectives we perhaps hadn’t even imagined to consider, and they ultimately train us to find peace with one another even when we disagree.
