War Spoils explained by Relic

Why are Relic so fucking secretive about everything? It's a gaming company, not the NSA.

Why are Relic so fucking secretive about everything? It's a gaming company, not the NSA.

Dunno if its so much a secrecy thing (the NDA situation on alpha being an exception, and justified somewhat for what it was), rather than there simply not being a guy whos job descrpition would involve communicating such things to the community, or, just nobody bothers to take the time to find out and type it out for us. Ultimately, its usually not up to the guy who either desgigns or implements the mechanic, to be the one to report its details to the community. Not in their job description.

Since its a "random loot drop" thing, like in many other games, we can compare it to how other developers have communicated drop rates and triggers in those. Some dont, and the community generates a mass aggregate % chance from experience basis. Others clearly give a flat % chance in an announcement. In others, someone hacks the game files and determines it that way.

I think War Spoils is a fun and cool system. But I agree, that I wish there was more information on how the rates and drops are determined. Intelligent minds want to know!

I'm assuming you mean Comp Stomps. You can definitely get items from comp stomp.

The way to get stuff is by playing the game. You play and you get stuff.

Yes I know lots of you would like a set of rules to get everything you want. But then you'd go out and do those things and you'd be done.

We built this system so that people can get stuff after a few games, and after a few months and after a few years. If your goal is to catch them all within the first week of playing, then this probably isn't going to help you that much.

If your goal is just to get War Spoils then I understand that this is frustrating. We build this not so people would create games that they don't play just to mine items, but so that people who are playing the game get rewards for playing the game.

We're also going to continue evaluating how it works, and tweak the system. So feedback is definitely welcome, but try to live with the system for a bit before deciding that you love or hate it.

Two things come to mind from this:

1) Run AI battles in the background, while not actively playing. Seems this should add up the hours (apparently required) to get drops. So when you play an actual match, you are set for drops.

2)We cant give feedback on a system we dont even superficially understand. Also, if infactndrops are reliant on hours played as a faction, you wont and cant get feedback on those drops until potentially months from now, when players have accumalated x hours of play. This is a very impractical, protracted and uninformed means of providing feedback. Not only for the drop rates themselves, but, and more importantly, on the balance implicatioms of those drops, because it might be months until even a few players get them.

To throw in a small point- I suspect that a lot of the problem people will have with the commanders at WFA launch is relative scarcity.

People already have a boat load of soviet commanders- the two new ones are new, cool, and worth hoping for. We can dream of one day having them whilst still using dozens of other ones as we please, bought and earned.

OKW and USF have 3 each standard. No buyable commanders, no level commanders, nada.

3 commanders as special drops isn't a huge number, sure... but 50% of your total is. If people want any commander options they HAVE to rely on this system.

IMO only 1 or 2 should have been drops at launch. Add more in as the roster bulks up, sure, but half? Eesh. Rough, guys.


Edit: While I'm at it. I suspect, too, that the actual drop rate will go up over time and patches. For now, there are still a relatively small number of things to get, after all. As the total potential drop pool gets larger so will the rate at which those drops come to players.

Compare to TF2. Drops started off rare as anything. Now, with an inventory of hundreds of items, you'll usually get a couple every time you play.

Not sure how much length of game really affects the drop rate. Last night I played 3 games all as US:

1) 30-minute 2v2 game - 2 war spoils: the US Mechanized Company commander (yay!) and Soviet Conscript Support Tactics (already own)
2) 50+ minute 2v2 game - no drops
3) 1h 3v3 game - no drops

Might be because I just got the drop in that first game that it has a lower chance of dropping in consecutive ones. So far, my commander drop count from war spoils is 5: 2 new US ones and 3 Soviet ones I already have.

I think this way would be best.

You get a chance of drops every x minutes of game time (lets say x = 90).

Then the yield of that drop is calculated from game statistics, points cptured, damage done, faction choice etc.

If you had very active games during the 90 (x) minutes then you get a higher chance of rare drops or multiple common drops. I've sometimes got a triple drop and seen my team mates get them too.

Therefore if you have been AI farming with no points captured or kills, you get no drops or crap drops.


This system rewards then good play and time; and isn't elitist because games are matched evenly so performances in game (points captured, damage done etc.) are not related to skill level, just relative effort level for your skill. (I say elitist for want of a better word).

Lucky! How many hours (before the previous drop) did you play before you got the double commanders?

The timer between drops is probably 2 hours plus.

Not sure how much length of game really affects the drop rate. Last night I played 3 games all as US:

1) 30-minute 2v2 game - 2 war spoils: the US Mechanized Company commander (yay!) and Soviet Conscript Support Tactics (already own)
2) 50+ minute 2v2 game - no drops
3) 1h 3v3 game - no drops

Might be because I just got the drop in that first game that it has a lower chance of dropping in consecutive ones. So far, my commander drop count from war spoils is 5: 2 new US ones and 3 Soviet ones I already have.

Lucky! How many hours (before the previous drop) did you play before you got the double commanders?

The timer between drops is probably 2 hours plus.

I've probably played roughly about 10 - 15 hours since launch, a mixture of compstomping to try out the new armies and online. The first drop was double commanders (1 US + 1 Sov), probably within 24 hours of WFA launch. Then between then and last night's double commander, I got a single Soviet commander drop. Hard to say the exact number of hours in between the drops, but I seem to be going at a rate of 1 commander drop every 2-3 hours of play time.

YMMV.

Thanks, I'll add your win to this thread. You and RR are the most successful ones I've heard of so far:

http://www.coh2.org/topic/19214/what-war-spoils-have-you-won/page/1#post_id172156

^That´s extremely lucky.

So I decided to use a custom map to help me try to cheat the system considering how crap the drop rate is.

1st match 2.5 hrs- Got 3 drops all bullitins
2nd match 2 hrs- nothing, thought maybe it wasn't long enough
3rd match 8 hrs- left game while I slept and made it so it would continue playing. Nothing.

Seems like there might be a limit to how many you can get a day.

I asked a lucky caster who won (2!) WFA commanders. (Elite armored and Recon)

He won one on the day of release and one the day afterwards. Since then, he won nothing else worthwhile.

Is anybody getting bulletins that resemble their build order? For instance, spamming lots of MGs or riflemen- and then getting bulletins that are exclusively catered to that.

Yes, I got a Obersoldaten bulletin after a few games of heavy Obersoldaten play.

Thanks for the info, Noun!

For what it's worth, I really like this new system! One thing, though - does it have to give out duplicates? I find duplicates very frustrating with these progression systems. It was one of the most annoying things in Mass Effect 3's MP. Once you get 90% of the content, you have so little chance of getting anything new that it stalls out.

This system sucks. Cant get any commanders or bulletins for the WFA armies have already played about 20 hours.

SUCKS arse

Is anybody getting bulletins that resemble their build order? For instance, spamming lots of MGs or riflemen- and then getting bulletins that are exclusively catered to that.

Partially maybe. Playing nearly exclusively OKW. Got following bulletins:

Veteran Training: Infantry (+2% Reload +2% cooldown on Volksgrenadier and Riflemen)
Flak Armor Support (OKW Flak Halftrack +5% armor)
Defensive Rush! (10% faster build rate for defensive structures on Sturmpioniere)
Complete Disregard for Safety (Volksgrenadiers receive 10% less suppression)
Grim Reaper Tool (Volksgrenadier upgrade pack cost 5% less)
An Iron Hide (Panzer IV +5% armor)


The Volksgrenadier ones would probably fit to any OKW player, the Sturmpionier one may fit as well. I barely used the Flak Halftrack so far and the Panzer IV I cannot even use because I lack the commander.

Have Relic explained why they allow duplications yet? That is such an idiotic and backwards thing to allow.
Even if they have trading in mind it means you have to harass or beg people to do a swap they agree with (because trading unwanted things is the main reason I play COH2...).

I have no idea why they are so lacking in communication (and marketing) skills.
It's great that they have posted several responses in this thread, but there are still so many unanswered questions.

Newly returning player here so excuse my ignorance since I haven't played in 6 months.

I opened up CoH2 about 3 days ago and noticed the changes including the "treasure box" you now use to view your profile, pick commanders/skins/bulletins/etc. The FIRST time I opened that box, I received about 150 new commanders/skins/bulletins that they were supposedly giving us. A friend of mine who was similar who hadn't opened his game in the same period of time also got the same box full of "free" stuff. Great!!!

A day or so later, I decided to buy the Western Front Armies (both). Since then, my friend and I have played a few comp stomps to get used to the game again and he has all these Commanders and Bulletins I don't. As a matter of fact, I only have like 7-8 bulletins for OKW and Soviet each while he has somewhere close to 80 bulletins each.

Can anyone tell me what is going on and why I don't have what he has?

I should add that I originally bought the Digital Collectors Edition and he did not.

I dont like it that much. Before, there were challenges to complete to get new bulletins. And if you wanted a commander, you could buy it yourself.

As it is now, its pure luck that decides whether i get that no step back soviet commander or not. I cant even buy it for real money. And thats what is pissing people off! Bulletins, Skins etc are fine, but commanders directly affect the gameplay and i dont want to grind to maybe, but just maybe, get the commander i want.