Feedback Wanted: Limited Time Missions

Feedback & Ideas
#1

Greetings Commanders!

We’re looking to collect feedback on Limited Time Missions (LTMs). We’ve gotten several requests to re-evaluate these Missions, and we want to open up the discussion to collect more feedback than we currently have on the subject before we plan to make the necessary changes.

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We want LTMs to be rewarding for all players, from new players who are just exiting the tutorial to those of you who have been playing War of Nations for years. This means that the step rewards and difficulty of the task should scale appropriately for all players.

With that I’ll leave you with a few questions to help get the conversation started:

  • What are the most difficult LTMs to complete?
  • What LTM rewards do not match their difficulty?
  • What would you change to improve the system for everyone?
#2

What are the most difficult LTMs to complete?
1. Global Conquest LTM (unless jumping teams for the event)
2. Spend gold
3. Commander experience

What LTM rewards do not match their difficulty?

Most at the higher ends of LTQs. Sometimes the end reward is good, but by the time they are reached the costs of completing them far outweigh the rewards. This is a difficult one to fix and in many cases it would be easier to lower difficulty as well as boost rewards instead of trying to match rewards to existing difficulty. Often times rewards that are given at the lower ends are not worth the costs of completing them either, such as veteran trainings or other items that offer insignificant usefulness to both beginner and veteran players.

What would you change to improve the system for everyone?

Lower the difficulty curve towards the end of some LTMs, try to flatten the curve on rewards and mission requirements. Rewards can be exponentially better towards the end but the mission requirements should reflect this to the point of a high-costing LTM mission that cannot be easily repeated each week should have rewards that are balanced to the cost of completing those missions.

Mixed LTMs are generally received better, but the mission requirements cannot be specific to a certain commander or certain warcom commander because if the player does not have that specific commander they either have to consider buying it (if available) or are completely cut out of that content. Applying warcom experience as a mission is inherently bad because players do not have the capacity to constantly make new warcoms without buying and spending lots of gold/money to acquire the XP/Warcoms to do it. This creates an entry barrier that even most competitive/coining players cannot achieve.

In the past we have done one-time missions that span over several days or even a week, these have usually been received well providing the mission requirements aren’t unachievable to most players, such as spending gold, applying warcom XP. It would be good to release details of each mission when such an event is released, giving players the ability to plan for the missions to try and complete them- this is especially true for lower players. Some enjoy the mystery but this tends to benefit coiners who can spend gold/buy items to complete the missions that would otherwise take time and planning to complete. Perhaps new mission ideas could be incorporated into such events to give players something new to figure out and complete. These types of missions best suit casual and high-competitive players, especially if the players are rewarded for reaching the end of missions.

This is just a start to this discussion, hoping others will join in and give their opinions and feedback and we can discuss further.

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#3

The ltm - the first phase of them need to have the following in them

Batteries, scrap metal, microchips, power cells, speed ups, uranium, titanium plus safe area to build up bases, capt training, energy refills, comms, star boosts, 12 hour base shield, 99’s and availability to pick up one decent comm. plus gold, silver and bronze crates and oil, iron and fuel packs. Plus put in some alliance base crates in.

The middle phase should have the following in

  • still above plus tactical mainframe, obsidian keys, quantum keys, tachyon keys, carbon keys, vip points, the research improvements
    Ports, 3 day and 7 day speed ups and another decent comm in here plus a decent warcom of each - all this could be put in campaign to earn in there. So it encourages players to play daily.

The final phase should have
Chrome prints , galaxy keys, mutant keys, advanced boost and advanced boost crates

Now the sh ones - they can normally be achieved by most players so a focus on maximise the start and second phase ones with the last third phase being there but not many of them

The speed up one is way too much to finish and needs to be brought back a bit and be achievable by at least 5 to 10 percent a week.

The war ltm can be open to a lot so the focus must be the first and second phase ones and limit the third phase ones

The Friday raid ltm one mainly brings bulling by raiding so limit to first phase only item.

The gold spending ltm - second phase ones

The cwe ltm - the wins ltm is tough so second and third phase stuff - the team points - first and second phase stuff

The gc - individual is virtually impossible so rein it back to be achievable with second phase stuff

  • the team should be second and last couple being third phase

The comm one should be filled with comm training, 99 and ports.

#4

Also don’t finish the SH Ltm @40m and mission 25 that could easily have double the amount of missions and go up in 5m intervals 45m bp m26 50m bp m27 and so on, at current the ltm is done within 30 minutes and people log of… to enable people have to play longer the LTM needs to be longer.

Currently no LTM in TOS…

Perhaps have a similar one for this event as SH but also add a defence BP LTM to encourage people to actually hold the tower instead of just seeing the event as levelling coms.

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#5

I guess it’s an existential crisis with instant build. The amount of units flying around is crazy high because of the ability to have unlimited units. At the higher end of the LTM for attack points it could probably be higher, as long as it increases at an exponential curve to allow non-instant players to complete some as well as lower/growing players.

We cannot assume that all players have instant build or should have it, or design game features around it because it is not well balanced.

But yes, exponential increasing for BP ltm is probably acceptable since crazy bp is given in an event like stronghold is upwards of billions for many players, most instant-achieved players can make upwards of 400m BP in a single stronghold regardless of the rest of their account progress.

#6

Overall, the outdated rewards for various LTM has always been a sore spot.

The overall reward system needs to be overhauled. Let the ltm rewards color keys instead of specific rewards and let the players “choose” the rewards. I stop playing certain ltm as the rewards sucks, i dont mind spending gold but not when some of the rewards are useless or i already maxed out on a certain item.

At the same a upgrade of xlabs will need to be completed. Some players have 1000’s items or keys they cant use as its outdated with trading down.

How about donating keys to an “new” alliance trading post building with a “tax” imposed of course. The tax can be gold on a sliding scale.

Example: I can donate 100 red keys to the alliance building and the General can disperse them to players in need. My non-coiner teammates would LOVE this concept as it would allow them to close the gap just a little bit faster.

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#7

Add more implant LTM and the change up the rewards to be more implants.

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#8

Thanks for the feedback, this is all very helpful.

#9

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ridiculous rewards… couldn’t even finish it even with coining

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#10

@2Dogs, thanks for the response. In this image, are you pointing out that the reward of 3 Carbon Fragments is painfully low for the cost to speed up, or amount of minutes you need to speed up to is an issue?

#11

I believe he is saying both, the mission requirement is very high, you would need to spend a lot of sapphire keys or gold to get enough speed up items to complete this (and all preceeding missions). And for that amount of items invested the reward is very low.

You can probably do some easy math to figure out the numbers.
150,000 minutes = 14.8 7 day speed ups, which cost 2 sapphire keys each.
So this mission alone (without those before it which equal also a high amount) is 14.8 x 2 (lets round up to 30), 30 sapphire keys (2:1 trade for sapphire to 7 day speed up).

So this mission alone is equivalent of 30 sapphire keys in speed ups, not to mention needing something to apply 150,000 minutes of speed up, as well as all missions before it.

#12

I have a couple items of feedback…

  1. make ltm mission difficulty different based on lvl, or power, and/or bases. Similar to the way resource inventory works. If a player has 9 available bases for instance, the same resource pack is worth less. Using this method you could allow lower players to gain same rewards without needing higher requirement.
  2. create separate ltm based on level entirely with different rewards. While keys and new com upgrade materials may be useful, newer players will never be able to obtain enough ‘extinct’ or less available items to catch up to veterans.
  3. opportunity to select your own ltm. For instance, offering players a one time choice on the ltm they want to complete by offering 2-3 per ltm timeline and players can choose 1 based on their reward needs.
#13

Rewards for active players are repetitive and unused. Either change them or create a process that can be turned into valuable material.
The process of becoming a valuable item can be accomplished by merging several materials together and accessing a valuable item.

#14

Overall there are some LTM’s that are impossible for free players and there are some that no person would spend gold on for the rewards.

Stronghold LTM - I think all active players should be able to achieve in its current state.

Alliance war LTM - I think a lot of players use alts to get this LTM completed, although there are some honest players left. If you are on at the beginning of the event, you can usually complete this LTM; if you start hunting with the event half over, you can spend hours scouting and missiling to find little or no battle points. I don’t really have any suggestions for this, other then removing the event due to players hitting alternate accounts.

Tower of Strength LTM - I think this LTM is almost impossible to complete if there are more than 1 active alliance in the league system. I would suggest a battle point LTM to go along with the tower of strength LTM

Train Unit Value LTM - Any player with instant build can complete this without spending gold. If you do not have instant build, enough units can be queued in factories to complete the first couple of levels. This LTM increased in difficulty substantially in the last year. Overall I don’t think there is an issue with this LTM, other then the rewards.

Merge Max Level Commanders LTM - This LTM is ridiculously difficult. I have never completed it before due to the rewards not being equal to what you have to spend to raise commanders levels. I would recommend reducing it to lvl 1 and going up by 1 per mission, for maybe a max of 10 missions.

Bootcamp LTM - I really enjoy this LTM, it adds a mixture of requirements and actually requires people to do different things instead of clicking the same buttons over again. hitting 50 NPC’s is a little painful, but overall not that difficult. I would think any active player could complete this with spending some trainings, and a couple speedups. Overall I don’t think there is an issue with this LTM,

Warzone LTM - I don’t think most free players complete this one, as it requires you to buy items or have received items from a purchased bundle. I again like the concept of having to do different things, but using items/gold, just to complete an LTM is wasteful for most players. I am not going to use a catalytic injection or advanced deployment if I don’t need to. I would suggest changing the requirements for this LTM.

Weekend LTM - This LTM becomes difficult at the warcom trainings. Most free players don’t have the trainings to complete this, and the last couple of levels of adding experience to a specific commander is not great, as well as merging a specific commander. I would recommend changing the warcom, experience missions, and merge missions to something else Maybe a battle point mixed in with the others.

Box Event LTM - This one is pretty straight forward. any player can get to 5-10 without spending gold. I don’t think there is anything else to do to this other then maybe adjust the drop rates for the box to make it easier.

Gold LTM - I personally don’t do this LTM. I am not going to spend this much gold for the rewards that are dropped. The amount of gold should be reduced by a lot.

Raid Players LTM - I think most players use an alternate account or a friend to complete this LTM. Overall, I don’t see an issue with this one.

Global Domination LTM - The overall points LTM seems to be ok for an active alliance, but may require some gold to be spent. The wins in a row is more difficult, but can be achieved by an active alliance and some gold spending.

Global Conquest LTM - the personal LTM is impossible without spending gold. a free player can get maybe half way if they participate in every battle. This should be adjusted down. The alliance LTM seems to be ok for an active alliance, but I believe still may require some players to spend gold.

Research LTM - A lot of players are done with research and miss out on these rewards. I would suggest giving players the option to do an either/or situation if they don’t have any research left.

EXP LTM - This LTM has increased in difficulty in the last year. The rewards do not compensate for the amount of trainings that are used to complete it. It should be adjusted down.

Campaign LTM - The LTM themselves are ok, the one on Monday’s can be completed without spending gold if you dont waste a lot of energy. The one on Thursday cannot be completed due to less campaign points in admiral base II. I would suggest changing campaing points on admiral base Ii to the same as admiral base I to allow free players to complete this one as well.

Overall i would guess half of the LTM missions can be completed by an active player, and the other half require either too much gold/items to be spend to complete them. The rewards need to be increased for the more difficult ones and/or the difficulty reduced. I think a good ratio would be having 75% of the misions able to be completed by a free player and 25% for spending some items/gold.

#15

Wow, what an amazing post! Thanks.

This is all pretty helpful information. One thing I am planning for the event associated limited time missions is that they will essentially become the “participation” rewards from the event. The way to progress in them would be to participate in the event and get some event based rewards (like the new Spoils of War chests) even if you don’t rank on the leaderboards. The goal here is to make sure that everyone gets some rewards they need to progress and maybe hit the leaderboards in the next event.

I think you’re not too far off what my goals are for the LTM rework. To me, LTMs should cater to all players. It should also be something to help new players measure their progress over time. I’d like a player to look back and reminisce about where they could only get to level 5 in the Campaign LTM and now they can almost finish it.

LTMs are a great way for players to see their own progress, as well as get the items or rewards they need to keep progressing steadily.

#16

Personally, I feel that some of the limited mission should also provide rewards that are useful to that event or task at hand.

I find there is some event in which you are required to spend quite a bit of gold to try and gain those rewards however, the rewards from them aren’t great. There are some events I personally miss out on because they are just difficult to complete or cost far too much more. I think if maybe some of the limited mission rewards were also to provide a way for those that aren’t able to coin or don’t want to coin it would be ideal.

Example:

Stronghold LTM - I feel that this limited mission could have some of its requirements increased to complete the missions but also provide some more beneficial rewards. Right now the only way to gain advanced boost crates is through coining. However, many years ago you could achieve these from events. I think maybe including these and portables as well as army travel speedups and other things would provide a good additional source for free to play players to increase their strength. Yes if you would want to speed up this process you can coin but this would allow for new and currently existing players who haven’t gained these a chance to achieve them.

I feel that there are certain items within the game that can only be achieved by people spending real-life money to allow them to benefit to those features. Although I agree there has to be a macro transaction within the game I do feel that there should also be a way for those who can’t or don’t want to spend money to slowly increase their power levels within the game.

I was happy with VIP points were added into the limited missions for gaining new commanders as this gives people a chance to grow over time.

But I am glad to see that the limited mission rewards are being looked into too.

Thank you.

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