Progression megathread, meant to combine the following threads into one:
Other sources:
This thread is only ment to be about progression and their tied-in monetization models. I will give every big, written out suggestion from the other threads their own generalized name (although due to time constraints, I will add them over time. For now, I will start with the default system), then lay out how that progression system would work.
Each system will be split into diffrent parts:
- Campaign progression
- Squad progression
- Soldier progression
- Weapon progression
When giving feedback, please do so on a per-part basis. For example, you might enjoy the proposed soldier progression of one of these systems, but hate the squad and campaing progessions of that system. The final community approved system would most likely be a mix and match of parts from diffrent systems. Note that this is a community thread. I have no ties with the developers and this thread gives no guarantees that anything will get changed.
First, I want everyone to fully understand the current progression system, as well as what problems it has:
Origional progression system:
- Campaign progression:
The current campaign progression is XP based and goes up the more you play. It is divided between the 2 factions, meaning you have to choose one to progress with. The campaign progression system gives access to more squads, soldier types, weapon types, perk types and equipment types. All other progression systems change the more stuff you unlock in the campaign. For example, you can not obtain a light machine gun until you unlock it in the campaign, but more on this in the other progression system sections. As it stands, the most efficient way to level up quickly is to get a lot of kills. Captures, vehicle kills, assists etc are not worth as much XP in comparison. Furthermore, bonus XP upgrades from the squad or soldier tabs do not seem to improve XP gain for the campaign (needs further testing), but again, more on that later. The biggest issue of the current system is that it heavily favors veteran players over new players. Veterans get more powerful weapons, soldiers and squads, as well as more flexibility. The main thing to change here would be to reduce the dependance of campaign level for the other progression systems.- Weapon progression:
Weapon progression has 2 subsections: Obtaining weapons and upgrading weapons. There are currently 3 ways of obtaining new weapons:
- Order for troops
Every soldier, except for pilots and drivers, come with a free Kar98k by default, as well as a knife.- Unlocking new squad through campaign
When you unlock a new squad through the campaign, you always get 1 3-star soldier equipped with the weapon you unlock alongside that squad. For example, unlocking the mortar squad yields you 1 mortarman with 1 mortar.- Order for weaponry
The main source of weapons. You obtain orders at a roughly 1 every 5.000 campaign XP rate and when redeemed, it gives you one random weapon among all weapons you have unlocked throughout the campaign, with a bias towards the kar98k This means that if you only have the Kar98k and MP35 unlocked, you will almost always recieve kar98k’s from weapon orders. The best way to somewhat get around this is to just save up all of your weapon orders until you have unlocked 4+ weapons, yielding you more special weapons. “Able to carry X weapon” upgrades in the soldiers tab do not affect what weapons you can unlock. The main thing to change here would be removing Kar98ks from possible drops, as well as allowing any weapon that your soldiers can carry to drop.
- As for weapon upgrades, it currently requires you to disassemble spare weapons to get stat increases on one instance of the weapon. These upgrades cost a lot of spare weapons and have a chance to fail (20% when upgrading from 1 star to 2, 30% when from 2 to 3 and 40% when from 3 to 4), resulting in the loss of all spare parts spend on the upgrade. You do not lose your weapon on a failed upgrade, it simply fails to upgrade. To efficiently upgrade a weapon you need to research all the upgrade nodes for that weapon, giving you a big discount to upgrades, as well as an increase of parts gained per disassembled weapon. The biggest issues with this system is that:
1: The upgrades make the weapon strictly better, with better stats, including better controllability or a +20% higher rate of fire on the first upgrade and +20% damage on the 2nd upgrade. Modifications should be optional sidegrades instead of mandatory upgrades to level the playing field between new and veteran players.
2: The weapon obtainability is random. You can not guarantee to get 6+ MP40s to upgrade one MP40 to 3 stars, making progression inconsistent.
3: Weapon upgrades are random of itself. Every weapon gives a random ammount of parts when disassembled, meaning you might need 3 weapons to upgrade your 4th to max, or 8 weapons to do the exact same thing because you got unlucky, and that is asuming your upgrade is a success. There will be a 0.01% of the playerbase that will fail their first 20 upgrade attempts, leading to massive frustration
The biggest improvement here would be to reduce randomness by a large margin. Remove the random upgrade failures, as well as make the ammount of parts gained per weapon disassembly consistent (about halfway between the current minimum and maxmimum possible parts gained)- Soldier progression:
Again split into 2 parts:
Obtainability, which has the same issues as weapon obtainability: Higher chance of getting troopers at lower levels, as well as a higher chance of getting 1-2 star soldiers at lower levels. But another issue is that specialized soldiers do not come with a copy of the weapon they came with when you unlocked that squad, meaning you will have to obtain one of those weapons for every soldier you get individually. Upgrading soldiers, however, is much better than weapon upgrades, which I cover in-depth in this topic: Perk Balance Megathread - #14 by 10110388
There are some unknown things/bugs about soldier upgrades though:- You do not have to combine 3 soldiers of the same class to get a higher rank soldier of that class. The first soldier you put into the academy is the one you get back. All equipment carried by the soldiers you put into the academy is lost, so make SURE to return them to default kar98k+knife. Upgrading soldiers that are still in squads can lead to gamebreaking bugs preventing you from equipping soldiers to squads. Make SURE to remove the soldier from their squad before upgrading. Lastly, the biggest one of them all: AI seems smarter when operating a high level soldier than a low level soldier (needs testing), they get better pathing, response times, longer detection range, etc.
- Upgrades for soldiers in the upgrade tab will be covered in the squad progression section:
- Squad progression:
Split into 3 catagories:
1: Squad upgrades: Using a certain squad in battle yields squad XP. Leveling up your squad gives squad upgrade points you can spend on squad upgrades, personnel upgrades and workshop upgrades. The best perks to start with are the squad XP perks, as they will increase squad XP gain, leading to earning more upgrade points faster. Squad upgrades allows a squad to have more specialized soldiers, as well as a higher max soldier count, meaning you get more respawns per squad death as a veteran, so more chances to get a lot of kills without having to walk from spawn tot he battlefield. These upgrades are another reason why veterans have a big advantage over new players.
2: Personnel upgrades. These determine what weapons a specific soldier type can carry, whether they can carry secondaries or sidearms, how many backpack slots they have, as well as the max rank and XP gain of that soldier type. Currently, you have to use a certain squad to improve that soldier type. For example, using a sniper in your assaulter squad will not lead to XP gain for the sniper squad. I personally think these upgrade trees could be seperated so using snipers will give XP for the sniper personell upgrades no metter what squad the sniper is in, etc.
3: Weapon upgrades. Absolutely mandatory is you wanna start upgrading rarer weapons. Annoyingly, certain weapons used by a lot of soldier types (mainly the kar98k and gewehr41) require you to progress with one specific squad to improve that weapon. Again, I think seperating the trees so using Gewehr41s gives XP for the Gewehr41 upgrade tree could fix this.- Overal, this progression system is heavily RNG based and seems to try to make people spend money on the currently unknown monetization systems to circumvent the RNG or XP grind. Furthermore, new players will have to fight an uphill battle against veterans as they have less soldiers per squad (4 vs 7), less specialized weapons (full squad of MP40s vs single MP35) that are also worse weapons (20% higher rate of fire and damage for veterans), less grenades, health packs, perks, worse AI and have less options as to what squads they can take into battle (trooper, sniper and assualter squads vs fully kitted assaulter, gunner and SMG-carrying shotgunner squads)
I hope this gives some insight to the current progression system. Again, I will be adding more progression systems from the other thread to this thread when I get more time. Enjoy the discussion!
