Phasmophobia Tier IV Mock-Up
These are mock-ups of rough ideas for adding Tier IV equipment into the game.
^(I wanna preface that I understand this might be completely out of pocket and some people may feel this is a stupid idea and that's completely fine, this is just more of getting it off of my chest as I have played so much of the game I can't help but dream of what I might personally like to see added; nothing too deep and I don't want to argue with people about what others feel is or isn't the correct direction of the game. At the end of the day we're only fans of a product that we don't as individuals hold any control over.)
One of the best things about Phasmophobia that I think allows it to stand up against the many years it's been around is it's investigation component as well as it's RNG. The ghosts all have tells and abilities that they do but they all also blend together in a lot of ways to really keep you on the look out and to pay attention to what is going on around you, which allows for even veteran players to get caught off guard by a ghost event as you're leaving to grab more items or the random hunt when you're least expecting it. There's always something new.
I love the game, but I don't see much point in the prestige/"promotion" system the game has currently - past Prestige 20 anyhow as you acquire ID Cards and Badges. Which is fine and all, but they increased the Prestige cap and I saw a lot of players disenfranchised with this choice but it seemed a lot of their voices were drowned out by the complaints about the immersion breaking animations, bugs and "bigger fish" so to speak, and understandably so.
It led me to think about incentivising a player to Prestige in the game past 20, there really is none, unless of course you just enjoy the fresh start - but then I started thinking about another Tier of items, and how that would balance into the game currently.
What I've came up with is this idea of "GHD Tokens", and basically these are earned by a count of 1 per Prestige from Prestige 10 onwards.
They would allow the player to purchase unique cosmetics and Tier IV equipment.
The reason I think this would be an ideal addition into the game as when new players are introduced to Phasmophobia they are usually overwhelmed with the game and get lost and immersed into it, I know I did when I first played it (I had zero idea that Sanity was a mechanic for like 3 days), but I thought about how it's nice to have something to aim for, and I know a lot of us aim toward the Tier III equipment, because almost all of it is the best equipment in the game, but what if there was more reason to play? An objective of sorts to obtain this top tier equipment.
Another reason to reach such a large milestone such as Prestige 10 and onwards, to reward those players who decided to become long-term ghost investigators.
These tokens would allow Kinetic to add incentive to those players who are going to keep playing and give them their own edge in their game in the long run. All of these items are slight upgrades over their Tier III counterparts but I think would slot into the game as a rewarding experience to iron out some of the drawbacks with Tier III equipment and adding what basically would feel like an endgame and remove some of the monotony of promoting in the game.
Now the inverse to this entire post is "Well just don't prestige?" which is a fair point, and I've thought about it, but this is more of a dream of "What if there was more?"
I always thought the game lacked any sort of meaningful grind apart from the ID Card challenges, and the game lacks cosmetic challenges which I think would be also an amazing addition, but it would be nice to add these items and grind for those who dare take it and reward them for their effort in doing so - and for bringing these items into games with low-level players, it might just give them something aspire toward.
- This is all just thought-vomit - this isn't something I'm begging for. I'm just hoping maybe it will get a conversation starting about the game post 1.0
- There would be a difficulty option to disable these Tier IV items in-game
- All images were just pulled off Google and I used Grok to mock up a GHD Token
- I love the game and this is no way meant as a complaint against it, I just feel some of these ideas might be worth discussing or even just imagining
- The game clearly needs to go further in its quality and refinement of pushing out content before anything of this magnitude could even be considered as well
- I understand the whole not wanting to engage in the prestige system is a me problem, I'm more of just imagining what would entice me to engage
- Balancing adjustments could also entail removing the ability to have these items as permanent unlocks and have them available at level 90-100, or only allowing 1 type of Tier IV equipment to be on loadout board at a time.
^(TLDR; Massive fan of the game, these are just some ideas for hypothetical Tier IV equipment and how it would work. I'm not really looking into getting into aggressive discussion about it, it's more of just a vomit of quickly thought ideas from my own issue with prestige and lack of unlocks or grindy content which I feel long-term players could do with having post 1.0 release, which again is just my personal feelings, I still love the game regardless.)