The current campaign system is inflexible for future development.
As it stands right now, each battle is its own campaign, with its own progression system, which will break up the playerbase as more campaigns are added.
To avoid fracturing of the playerbase while still allowing future content, I believe that campaigns shouldn’t be based around battles, but rather around years.
For example, the current Moscow campaign could be rebranded as the 1939-1941 campaign, which could eventually include:
Moscow (Germany vs Russia)
Leningrad/Winter War (Germany vs Russia)
The battle of France (Germany and Italy vs France and Britain)
The battles of Khalkin Gol (Russia vs Japan)
Operation Compass (Britain vs Italy)
Battle of Hong Kong (Japan vs Britain)
Battle of Wake Island (Japan vs US)
So the actual campaign levels and equipment would be shared across all of the battles that take place in the same year bracket. If you choose 1939-1941 Russia, you would be put into matchmaking for Leningrad, Khalkin Gol, and Moscow.
The other brackets could be 1942-1943 and 1944-1945, meaning overall the playerbase would be split up into 3 matchmaking pools rather than the 4 matchmaking pools that are currently planned with the battle-based campaign system.
This should go without saying, but the potential for added countries in the same matchmaking bracket also means added lines of progression, giving more staying power with long-term players who could potentially grind through all 8 of the major players of the war though 3 brackets each.
Counting France out for the latter 2 brackets means that a few years down the road, there could be a total of 22 lines of progression across 3 brackets as opposed to the 8 lines of progression across 4 brackets that are on the roadmap.
To add, this will also break us out of the game’s current rut of Russia losing players because of poor winrates. If each nation can queue against multiple other nations, playing a less-popular nation won’t guarantee a loss.
I also think that this could lead to more heavy limitations to what gear goes in what year, limiting weapons to when they were widely available, so no MP40s/MP41s in the 1939-1941 bracket, as they were only barely available and not accesible enough for widespread use.
Another advantage of this is that you can queueshare between diffrent campaigns, so in 1939-1941 Japan can have 3 diffrent campaigns, but share matchmaker for al 3. Russia also has 3, Germany also has 3, Britain and Italy have 2, only the US and France have 1.
I’m heavily in favor of this Idea. I honestly don’t see why there should be different Progression for Moscow and Tunisia or Berlin and Normandy, for Germany in particular as it stand now.
100% agree. I was thinking that myself. Personally , I prefer playing as the US . If not US …Germany. so therefore I’ll just keep wanting to level those two factions. . Pretty much never play Russian maps.
I understand this is a bit off topic but I cant seem to create a new topic for this question so I need to ask i cant seem to change campaigns from Moscow this is my second day playing i could on my first but haven’t been able to do so since any help?
I think you make a good point although I think a good alternative would be to divide up the year brackets via front as well for instance
1939-1941 Eastern Front
Germany and Russia vs Poland
1939-1941 Western Front
for France and England vs Germany and Italy
etc.
I think the benefit here being that when selecting a year bracket you have a more definitive understanding of what your getting yourself into. knowing how many fights were taking place in each year bracket knowing which front you’d be fighting on i think would be nice
I think that would be counterproductive as it would bring us back to where we are now with the same teams always facing eachother.
Whenever matchmaking causing the same 2 playerbases to always fight eachother and nobody else, it turns into a trend where one always wins, like we see now.
The same thing happened in the faction-warfare game mode of Dust 514. There were 4 factions, but rather than queueing against all 3 other factions, you would queue against your 1 consistent rival faction. The result is exactly what we see today, where 2 of the factions would always win their 1v1, and the other 2 would always lose.
Thoroughly enjoy this game and have recommended it to friends too. I regularly started playing both Russian and German squads and like each side very much.
I just wanted to agree with the suggestion made by Shanghai Shrek!
The game would benefit immensely through this suggested approach.
Good luck out there and well met on the battlefield
I agree with some fairly severe chronological limits, but I disagree with the idea of allowing common progression across several campaigns.
If progression is allowed between the different campaigns then this greatly helps the Axis - their squads can progress in every game - whether eastern or western front, Khalkin-Gol or Hong Kong for Japanese.
Allied player progression is split among several nations.
How is that different from the US and Britain fighting on every front?
It would be a stretch with some obscure battles, but every major member of the allies with the exception of China (if that ever happens) would be able to fight every major member of the axis, so none of them would be at a progression disadvantage. Maybe a couple would drop out in certain year brackets.
Britain, Italy, and France had plenty of colonies that took part in the war, after all. Even after France surrendered their colonies kept going. Plus Italy was on the eastern front fighting Russia.
It’s not a real concern either.
A German player can fight 3 battles, and fight a different faction each time.
An American player can fight 3 battles and fight Germany each time.
Both are going to come out with the same amount of battles and the same amount of exp.
Who you fight is irrelevant so long as you’re fighting someone.
The German player can then take that experience to fight the Soviets - the US player probably can’t take it to play the Japanese - at least not at the start.
The US fought Japan before they fought Germany though.
The better comparison is Britain, which still fought both Germany and Japan in the same window, as did Russia. And if Russia vs Japan isn’t added I doubt Britain vs Japan or Japan at all would be added in that window.
Why not just let the player que up for “any” match and make that the default option: all factions, all campaigns.
That would be the fastest way to get into a match and would provide some variety: will I get Sevastopol defence? or US assault on Iwo Jima?
Filters/server browser would allow for fine tuning what and where you want to play, if you’re that picky.
Personally I don’t consider myself a “Russian” or “German” player, I just enjoy the aesthetics and the feel of the Moscow campaign. But I wouldn’t mind visiting other fronts sometimes too.
In fact, I believe disabling the “play as X side” option will be healthier for the game in the long run, as less people will “main” a side and only ever play it exclusively.
I do agree with the idea of splitting the campaigns by years, since I definitely expect to see more Eastern Front maps (Brest, Kharkov, Sevastopol, Stalingrad, Kursk, Leningrad, Königsberg etc) but it would be exhausting to unlock the same items over and over.
Not sure about OP’s isea idea of sharing equipment across different battles and nations, definitely wouldn’t want another COD/BF type of situation with PPSh-41 used on Okinawa.