Ways to improve War Spoils

While I believe there is a lot of potential in the war spoil system, it right now is not in such a good shape. It's rudimentary, aggravating, and in some cases broken. Here are some suggestions to help improve the system.


1. Increase drop rate: The system seems to to be designed around the most active of players who play for 10 hours a day and even they find it horribly unrewarding. I can only imagine how bad it is for more casual players or new players. Right now it needs a large increase in drop rate.

2. Make it XP dependent: Right now the system only seems to be based on time. While it encourages players not to leave matches, it doesn't make them be active. The system can even be cheated by setting up custom matches and just leaving your computer playing while doing other things.

3. Add a progress Meter: If you a making players grind for content, it's infuriating not to know just how long the player is grinding for. Giving the player something to shoot for makes thing way more tolerable.

4. Guarantee a commander drop after a certain amount of time: While having other content is nice, we all know what it is that players really want. Commanders! But with all the other content in the game there is a good chance that players can go months without seeing one. Guaranteeing a drop after long periods with out one will help reduce aggrivation.

5. Remove duplicates: Whether it is a bug or not, this issue is ruining the system. It makes getting the new content a very slim chance and should be removed unless there is some purpose added for them later on.

Agree with all of your suggestions. Although, I'm still baffled by their overhaul of their old alpha system. The old alpha system just made sense. Right now, it seems like an intentional time sink that resembles painful MMO grinding. The old system in the Alpha was a path in the right direction IMHO.

Old [Alpha] system

Pros

• More frequent
  
• Leveling felt rewarding (war spoils tied to lvling)
  
• Less Grind
  
• Timed, but can stack
  
• Similar to Titanfall's burn card

Cons

• Timer was real-time

Current system

Pros

• No timer, keep what you earn

Cons

• Less frequent
  
• Lvling doesn't feel rewarding (war spoils are not tied to lvling)
  
• Grindy MMO-like timesink
  
• Punishes players who paid for the original content as they could now be earned freely (no complaints personally, but I could see this being a problem for others)

The only thing i'd have adjusted to the old alpha system was shorten the timer and make it in-game hours spent rather than real time hours spent (similar to how XP boosts work in battlefield, on a short duration timer based on minutes played in-game). It felt more rewarding for the player to see frequent war spoils and would potentially allow Relic to monetize for future DLC if players were willing to buy to keep these items rather than earn them temporarily through war spoils. Try before you buy. No one really complained about this as the player could continue to earn those items through frequent war spoils.

*Reposted opinions about war spoils from official forums*

Nicely said, but I don't think the drop rate in alpha was ever intended to stay that way. It was likely sped up for testing purposes, even though it was probably a better rate then what we have now.

I'd prefer what we have now to a timed system, frankly.

Yep, made sense for testing purposes as it was easy to gain 2 or more war spoils lvling up. However, having it tied to lvling made sense as it seemed less like an arbitrary number you earned while playing. But your suggested progress bar would alleviate that problem. People generally like seeing what progress they're earning in game.

Knowing Relic an increase in drop rate is only going to occur if all other options have failed. So expect that in 3 months minumum.

I thought of point 4 aswell, its one of the options that makes the most sense as long as the interval between each commander drop isnt absurdly long.

Totally agree on point 5 but they wont change it. You will unlock everything within a month as a casual player because all Rus&Ost bulletins were unlocked for everybody (bad decision). So thats never gonna happen.

EDIT: They should never have put the 3 new commanders on USF and OKW in war spoils. When CoH2 came out it came with 5-6 commanders on each side, giving the game some extra strategic value combined with bulletins. Now your stuck with no variety in commanders until you get extremely lucky. And even if you do play 200 hours, it doesnt guarentee you anything because of the damn doubles.

Relic has made an art out of alienating its fanbase. CoH2 came out with no Leaderboards or basic match which did its fair share of damage. Now this mess of War Spoils, which as it is are only for the most hardcore of the hardcore players if you want all new commanders/skins/bulletins.

Whatever you change Relic, please, PLEASE do not bring the timer back! I WANT TO KEEP WHAT I HAVE EARNED!!

1 drop every 30 minutes of gameplay. No dupes..

you want earn new commander? you gotta earn it

Who cares? Bulletins are worthless anyway. The only thing worth getting are commanders, and why would they make those easy drops if they're selling them?

Who cares? Bulletins are worthless anyway. The only thing worth getting are commanders, and why would they make those easy drops if they're selling them?

They're not selling them though.

Here are my (far fetched) suggestions:

1. No duplicates

2. Bulletin rewards based on units built. IE if you frequently play with Obersoldaten, or M20s, etc...make the chances of receiving bulletins for these units more likely. This will give players the feeling that they are being rewarded for the strategies they enjoy playing. Although bulletins in general are pretty worthless other than the basic infantry bulletins. Perhaps giving us 1 bulletin for each unit type could diversify this feature (infantry, support weapons, light vehicles, medium vehicles, heavy vehicles)

3. ~3 game win streak gives you an increased chance of getting non-commander drops. It would be a subtle reward for someone who is playing well. You could add a nice little icon to their player card while in lobbies and loading screens to acknowledge this.

4. Please, no more duplicates

5. I like the XP based idea

you want earn new commander? you gotta luck out

fixed.

I've been playing around 7 hrs a day and have still yet to earn a commander, not even a duplicate. It's been really really frustrating and I'm tired of using the same 3 commanders. At this point I'm thinking about giving up the game til they fix the system.

I've been playing around 7 hrs a day and have still yet to earn a commander, not even a duplicate. It's been really really frustrating and I'm tired of using the same 3 commanders. At this point I'm thinking about giving up the game til they fix the system.

Out of curiosity, what was your motivation to play the game before WFA expansion?

Out of curiosity, what was your motivation to play the game before WFA expansion?

Lot's of different playstyles made the game different every time I played. The thing is that I really want an american commander, so I keep playing them to get one to drop. I don't want to play another faction til I get at least one american. I don't want to switch to another faction, because then odds are I'll get one of the ones I don't really want. So I'm stuck playing the same three american doctrines until I get one.

It's not that I would quit the game forever, but I was already an alpha tester and played americans a lot already. So I might just play other games til the systems fixed.

They should just make you earn XP by playing games and then you can use the XP pool to buy bulletins/commanders etc.

We'd do well to remember the system has only been running a week. If most people had found a commander already imagine how pointless war spoils would seem in a few months.

Add trade options, I'd like to trade some of my items.

They should have 'commander weekends' where all the commanders are unlocked and you get a higher chance to get a commander drop (Like guaranteed commander after 3-4 hours). This will bump player base back up in quiet periods, it could bring players back to see how the game has improved through patches.

I like the crafting idea, if it's worth the time for Relic to implement it. Maybe they have in mind something else.