Fixing War Spoils - By HelpingHans

Ok so war spoils still need fixing and they can still be greatly improved on.

For starters the drop rate is still way too low and the drops themselves are in no way reflected by the contribution of players. For instance if one player in a 4 v 4 team is pulling all the weight then he or she should be rewarded with the best drops. Furthermore it should be fairly easy to do this through the match statistics by looking at who has dealt the most damage and has the best kill to death ratio.

War spoils should not be random rather have them drop according to what units a player is using. For instance if a player mainly uses one type of tank like the Stug then they should be rewarded with Stug bulletins depending on how well you used them. This could also tie well with a variety of achievements where if players manage to complete one they should be rewarded with a certain bulletin. The rarity of which should be higher or lower depending on the difficulty of the achievement. So if you managed to get a vet 5 King Tiger then that player should be rewarded a rare skin or bulletin for that tank. On the other hand if a player managers to kill 20 grens/volks with the conscript squad then they should be rewarded an average bulletin for that unit. May I add that auto-match rewards should be kept separate from skirmish rewards as players could purposely gain any war spoil through fixing a game.

I believe these small changes would breed new life into the game as players at all levels would now have something to work towards. It would also encourage the average player to get better at the game. Currently players do not have anything to work towards and the prestige system is practically useless. This is another thing which definitely needs to be looked at but I will save that one for another thread.

Relic if you are reading this please share you're thoughts and why these changes haven't already been implemented.

well, i can see the flaw of your design, for most of time, most of players will only use common units to win the game, for instance, ostheer, you will definitely go Grenadier, according to your design, if i did well in one unit, you should be awarded with drops of that unit, but do remember, you have to use grenadier every match, but the intell bulletin of grenadier is limited? how would you fix that? same theory for other units, so random drop is way better than focus on one units, reason one is the number of every specific unit intell bulletin is limited which makes infeasible to implement that way, second reason, for most of time, the unit you are using every match is also limited,i will not go some bad units just simply because i want to get the drop of that unit.

however, i do agree higher level player should be awarded with more drops, depends on the duration of match and some gameplay states and player level to decide how many and how rare the war spoils drop should be.

well, i can see the flaw of your design, for most of time, most of players will only use common units to win the game, for instance, ostheer, you will definitely go Grenadier, according to your design, if i did well in one unit, you should be awarded with drops of that unit, but do remember, you have to use grenadier every match, but the intell bulletin of grenadier is limited? how would you fix that? same theory for other units, so random drop is way better than focus on one units, reason one is the number of every specific unit intell bulletin is limited which makes infeasible to implement that way, second reason, for most of time, the unit you are using every match is also limited,i will not go some bad units just simply because i want to get the drop of that unit.

however, i do agree higher level player should be awarded with more drops, depends on the duration of match and some gameplay states and player level to decide how many and how rare the war spoils drop should be.

You could fix that issue by limiting the number of bulletins for certain units. For instance if you already have all the bulletins for grens then the game should not give you any more but instead give you other bulletins for units that you are using which you don't yet have all the bulletins for. Another solution is limit the bulletins to certain achievements so that you will not receive copies. Also why would you want to receive random bulletins for units that you never use? This allows players to focus on their specific build orders.

The whole bulletin system needs redesign first imo. Bonuses are so minimal and you can only equip three at time so you can't really "customize your army" as I think the bulletins were meant to allow you. There is but a one bulletin which actually gives unit a new ability and that is the ostwind coaxial mg suppression bulletin. I think all bulletins should be like this instead of +2-4% stat increases. In my dreams relic would redesign all the commanders and then add stuff like conscript ppsh and at gun camo as bulletins instead of commander abilities, which would be far more interesting.

i agree with the idea but relic's balancing history says fuck no to that because they'd never, ever be able to get it remotely right.

actually it says garden no...

Well these are actually great thoughts Hans. Hopefully some Relic guys read this and take it into consideration.

It would make it easier to farm specific warspoils, even in automatch. The idea itself is flawed and ridiculous imo. Ita not coh online 2...

Could be cool
- By Sarantini

It would make it easier to farm specific warspoils, even in automatch. The idea itself is flawed and ridiculous imo. Ita not coh online 2...

To be honest even if you could farm them it would be a problem they don't stack anyway do they? if they do then you would just fix that while changing the war spoils system. Atleast this idea is a step in the right direction and will keep people playing.

I don't think your system would work the way you proposed it, or would even be something worth achieving. I'll mostly stick to the example you provided, but it's similar for other modes as well. 4v4 is a team game, if you solo queue or with others, it's still a mode where either your team wins or loses. Trying to reward players depending on how well they did in relation to the others on the team can introduce a whole lot of problems.

Do you really want to help out a side that is struggling a bit? That would certainly lower your K : D ratio a lot and also most likely reduce the damage you deal, as you'll lose unproportionally much units. So just for War Spoils it would be better you stay where you are, even if that means you lose the game. War spoils is not tied to winning or losing.

Do you just ignore your team and fast tech to one of the units known to have a huge impact, something like artillery or fast T34? Your teammates will have to pull a lot of weight fighting 3v4 in the beginning when you spam caches, but once your tanks hit the field you'll deal a lot of damage and have an incredibly high K : D ratio.

If you actually want to somehow weight the impact of a player just accounting for damage dealt and K : D is a bad way. Additionally I don't think comparing to the others on your team as a metric is good either, as that adds competition between the players rather than teamplay.

Instead of doing that, I'd rather suggest having the reward tied to a far more complex system. A player gets a certain amount of points depending on how well their team did overall and another amount depending on how well he did. The team-effort is more geared towards the actual objectives of the game - how good was the map control, how many VPs were remaining, resource income, ...

The player effort is geared more towards personal contribution. This should account for damage dealt, but also for damage healed and repaired. If you provided forward reinforcement you should get a few points for every unit that reinforced there. If you healed or repaired you get a few points. K : D is a bad metric, as units like snipers, ATGs, artillery and tanks do not work well with it. Healing, repairing, damage, OPs build, units produced/reinforced, ... - such values should give a better actual weighting of how well the player himself did.

And in order to fit in with the cool kids:
- By Milka

Is strange, if someone playing as OST, get warspoils for Soviets. I hope, everyone get only spoils for his side.

Instead of doing that, I'd rather suggest having the reward tied to a far more complex system. A player gets a certain amount of points depending on how well their team did overall and another amount depending on how well he did. The team-effort is more geared towards the actual objectives of the game - how good was the map control, how many VPs were remaining, resource income, ...

The player effort is geared more towards personal contribution. This should account for damage dealt, but also for damage healed and repaired. If you provided forward reinforcement you should get a few points for every unit that reinforced there. If you healed or repaired you get a few points. K : D is a bad metric, as units like snipers, ATGs, artillery and tanks do not work well with it. Healing, repairing, damage, OPs build, units produced/reinforced, ... - such values should give a better actual weighting of how well the player himself did.

I agree this would be better however it would take more effort by Relic to implement this. Ideally we should have this but we can only ask so much right?

I believe that fixing war spoils isn't in best interest for Relic (they could get less money)

- by BartonPL

i think, that a points system like milkacow proposed, would be the best way.

as you may know from this thread:
http://www.coh2.org/topic/25522/how-to-farm-war-spoils
im not a friend of having to play a huge amount of time to get the bulletins and commanders you want.

a pointsystem would mean, that you could get the 3 or 4 bulletins you want in a short time and minimize the disadvantage you get by having no good bulletins (yes, you have a disadvantage. many say, that bulletins are bad, but when buffing grenadiers or conscripts, it can actually have quite an impact)


this was 3 conscripts vs 3 conscripts, one side with, the other one without bulletins.
on the side with bulletins 4 of 18 conscripts survived, on the other side none...

Some good points, but some probably wouldn't work. We don't know what Relic has planned for the system yet anyway.

- By Tatatala

Bulletins/skins should only be awarded to the winning player/team.

So I got my first commander through war spoils last night.

I was goofing off trying out Ostruppen again, and finding that they're quite effective these days.

So after a long an arduous match with the Ostruppen commander, I receive through war spoils.... the Ostruppen commander.

I've been too frustrated at the game to play again. Especially since it was one of two commanders I'd already spent money on, along with the assault grenadier commander.

While we are on the subject of Bulletins. Does anyone know how the bulletin stacking works as it confuses me.

I know that if you apply the 5% cheaper panzershreks for volksgrenadiers in all 3 bulletin slots you will get a 15% price reduction but does this apply with other bulletins?

For example if I have 3 of the +3% accuracy increase for conscripts will this now be +9 accuracy for conscripts or will it only take one of them into consideration?

So which ones do and do not stack?

I would love it if someone could clear this up

Also I really like your idea Hans it makes much more sense than the current formula

i think, that a points system like milkacow proposed, would be the best way.

as you may know from this thread:
http://www.coh2.org/topic/25522/how-to-farm-war-spoils
im not a friend of having to play a huge amount of time to get the bulletins and commanders you want.

a pointsystem would mean, that you could get the 3 or 4 bulletins you want in a short time and minimize the disadvantage you get by having no good bulletins (yes, you have a disadvantage. many say, that bulletins are bad, but when buffing grenadiers or conscripts, it can actually have quite an impact)


this was 3 conscripts vs 3 conscripts, one side with, the other one without bulletins.
on the side with bulletins 4 of 18 conscripts survived, on the other side none...

You should had run the experiment a couple of times.

To be honest even if you could farm them it would be a problem they don't stack anyway do they? if they do then you would just fix that while changing the war spoils system. Atleast this idea is a step in the right direction and will keep people playing.

they shouldn't stack imo. I agree with you. I also agree that they should be unlocked in a more reliable way. But in any case, if you just check the history of battlefield 2, unlocks can and will be farmed if just 2 players agree upon it in automatch. With farming I mean: Player A let's 5 of his riflemen squads get killed by Player B's sniper. Player B receives a War Spoil with a rare sniper reloadspeed..

etc. etc.

I think the war spoils could be fun and a fun additive, I agree that it would be MORE fun in your setup. But imo it will just not work.