devtrackers.gg
I have some experience in game mechanics and encounter design and as a fan of Wildlands and somebody who’s interested in and excited about Breakpoint I wanted to offer my own hot and unasked-for take on certain modes we might expect to see in the upcoming game. I’ll specifically focus on a couple of PvE modes which we saw make their way to Wildlands (as we haven’t seen public info on PvP yet, and as the notion that Wildlands’s new Mercenaries mode is basically a test bed for a mode in Breakpoint is technically just speculation): Tier mode, and Ghost Mode.
TL;DR: I have complex ideas on how I think Tier mode and Ghost Mode in Wildlands should return to Breakpoint, which I discuss here (look for TL;DR’s on each below).
I will start with Tier mode, as I think it is a feature which should be available from the game’s launch. A lot of people seem to agree with the idea that Tier mode offered some decent challenge up to a point, but past that point it’s an ungodly, unbalanced chore where long-range, dual-wielding SMG aimbots kill you in a fraction of a second, and where success almost requires cheesing for most people (or, at the very least, requires you to not engage with many of the game’s core mechanics). It’s difficult but arbitrarily so; it’s inflated damage numbers and bloat.
This time around, I think that Tier mode should be an optional setting which can be turned on or off at will, and in any game mode. It’s separate from the difficulty modes, and rather than just being “hard,” what it should seek to be is “realistic.” I use quotes there because I’m not suggesting it should be a sim, but realism here means features which add to challenge in fun, dynamic, engaging, sensible ways.
In Tier mode, players will gain access to additional game features that make for a tougher, more tactical, and more engaging experience. In exchange, they will earn bonus rewards, experience, credits, etc. (I’m not going to come up with an exact reward structure because I don’t know what reward economies in Breakpoint look like), based on the number of features they choose to activate--each “challenge” feature (or immersion feature, whatever you want to call it) acts like a handicap that not only makes for a more realistic experience, but a more rewarding one. And each one can be set by the player themselves.
Features would include (but not be limited to; this is not a comprehensive list):
--limited to carrying a single primary weapon
--locking the difficulty (difficulty modes--and player-enemy damage values--are 100% independent from Tier mode; choosing to lock the difficulty, and playing on higher difficulty, simply offers greater rewards, and you’re never forced to play with a damage and detection model you don’t like)
--loadout lock: can’t change weapons or gear outside the bivouac
--no automatic ammo pickup: ammo is dropped on the ground when enemies are killed and must be manually picked up; can’t just run over it
--friendly fire on
--no fast travel
--turning off certain HUD elements (mostly I think HUD features should remain up to the player and have no impact on scoring or the perception of difficulty, because they’re largely about accessibility more than difficulty, but turning off detection clouds, the radar, and/or marking might be worth examining as “challenge” options)
--realistic reload (I actually wouldn’t mind if the “drop that mag and lose remaining rounds” feature wasn’t present; what I want to see more is a system that remembers your magazines and how much ammo they all had, then cycles through them -- that’s actually realistic)
--lone wolf (this option would lock out co-op or AI squadmates when those are added)
--permadeath (deletes that campaign save; having this option turned on is “worth” the most points, see below)
Now, the “Tier” part comes from how many of the challenge/immersion/”realism” options you activate, and it depends on how many are actually available. Could be 5, 10, 25, whatever number is balanced for depending on how many options are on the list. You start at the highest, and the more options you turn on, the lower your tier--and the lower your tier, the more options you have to activate to push it further (such that reaching Tier 1 requires playing with a majority of these options turned on; also, some options could be “weighted” more than others, so they raise your tier level more--like permadeath, which would probably push you a third of the way up the ladder all by itself).
--An additional example, for clarity: say there are 10 options, as I listed above. Tier mode offers 3 Tiers (which is more in keeping with actual tiers we refer to in the real world, rather than the goofy Tier 50 from Wildlands, though I don’t think Tier 3 is really much of a thing), and each of the 3 tiers gives you different reward levels. Each option is worth at least 1 point. To play on Tier 3, you need 1 point (so you need to turn on at least 1 of those options). To reach Tier 2, you need 5 total points. To reach Tier 3, you need 10 total points (and remember, some of the options might be worth more than one point).--
And your Tier determines your score or reward multiplier: lower Tier leads to more rewards (exp., currencies, whatever). Importantly, these rewards are also adjusted so that, while in Tier mode, they are withheld until you reach a Bivouac, at which time they are paid out. If you turn Tier mode off at any time before “cashing out” your rewards, you lose any bonuses (you keep regular base game experience and currencies you obtain, those don’t change).
This prevents cheesing because you have to basically keep Tier mode on from bivouac to bivouac, and it reinforces Breakpoint’s “planning>infiltration>objective>exfiltration” gameplay loop. It creates a way players can increase their rewards earned from regular play, while also creating a series of genuine challenges that are far more dynamic and interesting than what Tier mode was in Wildlands.
TL;DR for Tier mode: toggle “realism” handicaps on and off independently of other options and game mode to increase rewards and multipliers, resulting in better forms of challenge than just “enemies shoot harder and have more health.”
Now, for Ghost Mode. You’ll note that a lot of what I suggested in Tier mode is actually stuff you see in Wildlands’s Ghost Mode. All of it, in fact. Because I believe that what we got in Ghost Mode was basically what Tier mode should have been--Ghost Mode actually put real, interesting restrictions on us that made the game more challenging in far more interesting ways than Tier mode did.
So we’re not even gonna call this Ghost Mode. Instead, we’re going to call it Ghost Ops, and it’s the thing a huge, huge portion of the community has been asking for since the Wildlands beta: an endgame, unlimited, repeatable, random objective mission generator. Ghost Ops won’t be available at launch; it’s endgame PvE content meant to be done alongside the raids, and it doesn’t need to show up right away.
Ghost Ops is a mode that drops you in an AO somewhere on Auroa (think the side-ops from Metal Gear Solid V), and you’re given 3 random objectives. You launch from, and can return to, the bivouac but must complete the mission in one go, one sitting. The objectives can be all kinds of things (such as):
--destroy a convoy
--capture a vehicle or convoy
--assassinate a target
--hack a computer
--rescue an HVT
--interrogate an officer
--collect intel
--dismantle some kind of tech (drone, jammer, etc.)
--some kind of wave defense
--deliver something (race A to B against the clock) etc. etc. etc.
The objectives get successively harder (different possible objectives might be grouped into three batches based on how challenging they are, or the same objective appearing later in the mission might have a harder variant with more or tougher enemies, or lower-difficulty objectives might just get stacked together so you have to do multiple tasks).
And in Breakpoint, we know that these kinds of missions in the campaign require more scouting on the part of the player (so you might get no waypoint and vague instructions like, “target is south of the lake”--see E3 footage for examples), so this isn’t hand-holdy--you’re meant to really do your work here.
Once the three objectives are done, you have to exfil from the AO. This can simply mean escaping on foot or by vehicle, but you may also be tasked with clearing an LZ for a chopper, which you’d have to defend (like the exfil phase of Wildlands’s new Mercenaries mode, except PvE so it’s not a dumpster fire).
Once you get out you get a mission ranking screen and a score. Permadeath isn’t active by default here, but if you/your squad wipes, the mission’s over, and you get scored based on how far you got. Whatever the case, you’re rewarded based on your performance with whatever currencies are relevant, up to and including top tier loot. And since Tier mode is a gameplay modifier you can activate it here to increase those payouts.
Importantly, what Ghost Ops also offers is the ability for players (and Ubi) to curate missions. That’s right, it’s a player-facing mission generator (Ubisoft has already deployed a mission generator in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey so this should be well within reason). You write the briefing text and objective clues, you select what goes down and the types of enemies encountered. Maybe they go real wild and even let you place specific enemies, or numbers, or all those kinds of minutia--but I’d be happy just to pick the objectives and locations. Submit and share, and the top-voted ops of the week/month can be featured on the title page or community websites. And when Ubi introduces new objectives or new gear, they can drop them in their own curated levels, or put the gear unlocks as rewards.
This gives players something to do after they beat the campaign. It can be rewarding (especially thanks to Tier mode), but by putting these options in the hands of players what it really does is provide a reason for people to keep playing even when they have all the rewards they want (people still make up their own missions for Wildlands--putting that in the game adds longevity in a way no raid or new game+ ever could).
TL;DR for Ghost Mode: call it Ghost Ops, and it’s a random mission generator that players can use to create and share their own custom missions; compatible with Tier mode.
Thanks for reading, and for sticking with me this far. In my opinion, as a designer but more importantly a player, this is the type of content I want to see in Breakpoint. And I think it’s stuff that reaches the greatest number of players, offering something for everybody in a rewarding way that respects people’s time, desires, and playstyles.
External link →