While Modern Warfare 3 will likely sell the most first person shooter copies during the upcoming Holiday season, gamers no doubt enjoy picking-apart every Battlefield 3 detail that comes through the pipeline. Whether you're a Call of Duty die-hard, an ardent supporter of the Battlefield franchise, or just a fan of first person shooters (who doesn't bother with title wars), there's no doubt been a lot of information coming out of DICE to discuss.

Now, one week after the developer unveiled the Battlefield 3 pre-order bonuses, DICE has now revealed the rewards and unlocks that will be awarded to players as they climb the online multiplayer ranks. In addition, an early (and unofficial) report suggests that the Battlefield point system will see some substantial tweaks in the third installment.

Rewards and Unlocks

DICE now claims, via the official Battleblog, that their upcoming title will be the "deepest shooter in DICE history" and offer "years worth of unlocks and rewards" - certainly an intriguing pair of statements, given the extensive ranking unlocks in prior Battlefield titles. DICE has previously stated that annualizing the Battlefield series would "kill the franchise" - so it's not entirely surprising to hear that the developer is attempting to build a deep unlock system, to keep players engaged in Battlefield multiplayer until the next title debuts.

We've included some of the juiciest Battlefield 3 unlock and reward details below (check out the DICE Battleblog for the full report):

Compared to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 will have more than 10 times the hardware unlocks spread over weapons, weapons attachments, gadgets, and a huge unlock tree for vehicles alone.

Players will also be richly rewarded with medals, ribbons and service stars displaying their skill, commitment, and teamplay prowess.

Skill-driven rewards are typically handed out in the form of ribbons, and good players can often get more than one ribbon in a single round.

You will also be rewarded for true dedication and commitment, such as playing x amount of hours as a U.S. soldier. These honors come in the form of the much harder to get medals. They are typically given at specific milestones in your career.

Even if you hit the max rank, there is always more glory to strive for with the new concept of Service Stars that we are introducing in Battlefield 3. Even getting your first Service Star would be a major achievement. But keep playing, and you will be eligible for even further promotion by getting Service Stars added to your weapon skill badge, your vehicle, your kit, and your overall rank. Anytime your kill card is displayed, everyone will see exactly how experienced you are with your current equipment. The ultimate bragging right would be for a player to be awarded the rank of Colonel with 100 Service Stars attached, and to have 100 stars in all weapons, kits, and vehicles.

The playable classes are not rigidly defined in what they are supposed to play like. While all four classes in Battlefield 3 (Assault, Engineer, Support, Recon) start out with everything they need to be an efficient soldier in the field, it is totally up to you and your personal preferences how you want to tailor them. That’s the way all of the unlocks and upgrades work. They are specifically designed to be tactical in nature, forcing you to choose loadout based on the map and situation.

While the actual approach to customization in Battlefield 3 isn't exactly original (customizable classes - with tactical load-outs), the team-based gameplay in the series no doubt makes tailoring a load-out for a specific map, or set of teammates, all the more important.

The reward system revolves around the skill-based kill card profile - which offers a quick but robust look at a combatant's play-style and experience. We'll have to wait until the game releases for the full run-down of rewards, but given the sheer number of weapons, weapons attachments, gadgets, and vehicles in the title, it's easy to imagine a very challenging (and addictive) set of requirements to acquire the various medals, ribbons and service stars in the title - offering the most dedicated players some crazy-exhaustive bragging rights.

Battlefield 3 SDCC Multiplayer

Point System

How are players going to acquire all those rewards and rank unlocks? A reported breakdown of the Battlefield 3 multiplayer point system recently appeared on BF3Blog, an unofficial fan-run news site for Battlefield 3. In general, experience points increased across the board (with a few exceptions), meaning that, despite years worth of rewards and unlocks, players could be tearing through the ranks a bit quicker.

It's worth mentioning that, until we receive official word from DICE, it's possible that the point system will be tweaked during the upcoming multiplayer beta.

That said, here's the Battlefield 3 Point System, as it currently stands:

Kill points:

  • Kill enemy: 100 points
  • Knife kill: 300 points
  • Comeback kill: 60 points
  • Headshot bonus: +10 points
  • Eliminate enemy squad: +10 points
  • Savior bonus: +20 points
  • Avenger bonus: +10 points
  • Destroy vehicle: 200 points
  • Disable vehicle: 100 points

Assist points:

  • Kill assist: from 10 to 60 points
  • Spot assist: 10 points
  • Squad kill assist: from 10 to 60 points
  • Squad spot assist: 20 points
  • Suppressive fire assist: +10 points
  • Squad spawn on you: +10 points

M-COM objective points:

  • M-COM arm: 200 points
  • M-COM disarm: 200 points
  • M-COM destroy: 200 points
  • M-COM attack bonus: +20 points
  • M-COM defend bonus: +20 points

Support

  • Revive teammate: 100 points
  • Squad revive: +20 points
  • Squad Spawn on you: 10 points
  • Repair: +20 points
  • Squad repair: +30 points

Any XP hungry readers will no doubt zero-in on the knife kill's +300; however, the +300 is only attributed to knife kills to the back of an unsuspecting player. Regular run and swipe knife kills only count for the +100.

The point system increases earnings by substantial amounts - example: killing an enemy now earns the player +100 points (up from +50 points in Battlefield: Bad Company 2). The inflated values are probably an attempt to attribute reasonable points for smaller squad-based actions, such as a squad member spawning on a teammate (+10) - without dragging down the value of larger (often kill-based) actions.

A more robust point system, with a variety of ways to contribute, certainly falls in line with DICE's interest in creating an experience that gamers with varying play-styles can enjoy. While team-based action points have always been part of the Battlefield multiplayer experience, the new system creates more room for players to contribute, even if they aren't the most skilled marksman, without dragging down the value of skill-based actions.

Of course, as mentioned, the beta will no doubt test the new point system - and it's certainly possible that the breakdown will see further tweaks.

Battlefield 3 is scheduled for an October 25th release for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

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Follow me on Twitter @benkendrick.

Sources: Battleblog and BF3Blog