[2023] Our Thoughts on War Chests (Battle Passes)

over 1 year ago - /u/FrostGiant_Studios - Direct link

It’s that time again!

We’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts in response to our last discussion topic on War Chests, better known in the games industry as Battle Passes. This is a super-important topic for the long-term health of the game and your feedback was constructive, thoughtful, and incredibly valuable to us.

Time waits for no man

It’s not money, gas, or minerals – time is the most valuable resource as it’s the only commodity that can’t be replaced. Many of us who once enjoyed long nights and weekends playing our favorite games now have other responsibilities that demand our attention. Many of you, including /u/Absolutes22, /u/googlesomethingonce, /u/Omno555, and /u/Vicalio called out the importance of being able to finish out a War Chest at your own pace. /u/EvilBrew wasn’t shy about letting us know how he hates feeling ripped off if time runs out before he can earn all the collectibles.

We hear this feedback loud and clear and are looking into mechanisms or approaches that will provide some flexibility to how long players have to earn the rewards they pay for.

We like the idea of keeping things fresh by tying each War Chest to a season so that players feel excited to come back to Stormgate every few months, but we also know many of you may not have as much time to play. We are likely going to try to have our cake and eat it too by enforcing a time restriction for purchasing a War Chest, though that period should be suitably long. Conversely, we may also explore ways for newer accounts to pick up past War Chests they may have missed out on, years later. The idea of players activating a War Chest to work on is an intriguing one, and one of many that will require investigating on the engineering side of things.

To exclude, or not to exclude, that is the question

Some of you, including /u/TROPtastic, spoke up in favor of allowing players to “catch up” and purchase individual un-earned rewards at the end of a given season. This sort of system could help players without as much time on their hands by making it so that their War Chest purchase is sure to offer them a consistently good value. Others, like /u/Jazzbear, think that players who purchase a War Chest and earn their rewards by earning experience will get them quickly, but everyone who purchased the War Chest would automatically get those cosmetics sometime relatively far in the future.

/u/Blutmilan, on the other hand, points to games like League of Legends that bring formerly-exclusive skins back to the story years later, perhaps once or twice a year, for people who missed out the first time. We plan to support Stormgate for many, many years to come, and a system that gives new players the opportunity to acquire past army skins has some appeal to us, though we’d also be looking to provide exclusive rewards to those who earned their rewards during a season.

Our formula for War Chests in SC2 was to offer skins for sale almost immediately following the War Chest period and we are likely to do something similar in Stormgate.

As for older content that you may have missed, we might bring back legacy skins at some point in the future, but we also plan to provide exclusive rewards for those who do earn their rewards during a given season. These might be smaller in scope than full army skins, but could include things like army colors, portraits, or banners. The aim would be to give you ways to show your friends what you were able to achieve during a season without creating a situation where players are frustrated that they can’t purchase a cool skin that we may have made available in the past.

The choice is yours

Quite a few of you, including /u/Jakezorg, /u/Blutmilan, /u/RayRay_9000, and /u/pyrokid235, chimed in on a topic we feel very strongly about–not feeling forced to play Stormgate a certain way. We like how RayRay_9000 put it: “Encourage, but don’t force.” We’ll be looking for ways to allow players to make progress on a War Chest by playing the game the way they enjoy. We like the idea of challenges that can expedite progression, but you should also be able to complete a War Chest by playing any of our story, cooperative, or competitive modes. Encouraging players to explore other modes can work wonders to keep the game fresh, but we aim to make them just an efficient option, and not a requirement. Rewards that you can earn exclusively by completing certain challenges, as suggested by /u/pyrokid235, may be a fun approach as well, serving as visible records of your accomplishments.

What’s in the box?

A few of you provided recommendations for cosmetic rewards that we could explore as part of our War Chest. /u/Blutmilan would be excited about portraits, skins, new loading screens, or other forms of profile customization. We’re thinking about providing these sorts of rewards as season-exclusive items, as opposed to larger rewards like army skins that would become available again to players in the future. We’ll be limited at first with what sorts of cosmetics we can include for our first War Chests, so expect that we’ll begin by focusing on army skins, but these are exactly the kinds of ideas we’re eager to explore.

We’d like to give a shout-out to /u/SorteKanin, /u/Blutmilan, /u/pyrokid235, /u/Omno555, and all the esports fans out there who expressed their desire for the War Chest to support a thriving competitive scene. Many of us spend as much time watching games as we do playing them ourselves, and our hope is that the best RTS players of today and tomorrow will all be competing in Stormgate.

Would you do us a favor?

If you haven’t already signed up for the beta, be sure to do so at PlayStormgate.com. If you’re looking for another way to support us, please be sure to Wishlist Stormgate on Steam. It might not seem like much, but the number of players who do so has a major impact, as it affects whether we are included in certain promotions, top upcoming games lists, and so on. It's also one of the best ways to let Steam know that you’re excited about the future of RTS.

Thank you for reading and we’ll see you all in the next discussion topic!

-The Frost Giant Team

Previous Discussion Topics:

Previous Responses:

External link →

over 1 year ago - /u/FrostGiant_Studios - Direct link

It’s that time again!

We’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts in response to our last discussion topic on War Chests, better known in the games industry as Battle Passes. This is a super-important topic for the long-term health of the game and your feedback was constructive, thoughtful, and incredibly valuable to us.

Time waits for no man

It’s not money, gas, or minerals – time is the most valuable resource as it’s the only commodity that can’t be replaced. Many of us who once enjoyed long nights and weekends playing our favorite games now have other responsibilities that demand our attention. Many of you, including /u/Absolutes22, /u/googlesomethingonce, /u/Omno555, and /u/Vicalio called out the importance of being able to finish out a War Chest at your own pace. /u/EvilBrew wasn’t shy about letting us know how he hates feeling ripped off if time runs out before he can earn all the collectibles.

We hear this feedback loud and clear and are looking into mechanisms or approaches that will provide some flexibility to how long players have to earn the rewards they pay for.

We like the idea of keeping things fresh by tying each War Chest to a season so that players feel excited to come back to Stormgate every few months, but we also know many of you may not have as much time to play. We are likely going to try to have our cake and eat it too by enforcing a time restriction for purchasing a War Chest, though that period should be suitably long. Conversely, we may also explore ways for newer accounts to pick up past War Chests they may have missed out on, years later. The idea of players activating a War Chest to work on is an intriguing one, and one of many that will require investigating on the engineering side of things.

To exclude, or not to exclude, that is the question

Some of you, including /u/TROPtastic, spoke up in favor of allowing players to “catch up” and purchase individual un-earned rewards at the end of a given season. This sort of system could help players without as much time on their hands by making it so that their War Chest purchase is sure to offer them a consistently good value. Others, like /u/Jazzbear, think that players who purchase a War Chest and earn their rewards by earning experience will get them quickly, but everyone who purchased the War Chest would automatically get those cosmetics sometime relatively far in the future.

/u/Blutmilan, on the other hand, points to games like League of Legends that bring formerly-exclusive skins back to the story years later, perhaps once or twice a year, for people who missed out the first time. We plan to support Stormgate for many, many years to come, and a system that gives new players the opportunity to acquire past army skins has some appeal to us, though we’d also be looking to provide exclusive rewards to those who earned their rewards during a season.

Our formula for War Chests in SC2 was to offer skins for sale almost immediately following the War Chest period and we are likely to do something similar in Stormgate.

As for older content that you may have missed, we might bring back legacy skins at some point in the future, but we also plan to provide exclusive rewards for those who do earn their rewards during a given season. These might be smaller in scope than full army skins, but could include things like army colors, portraits, or banners. The aim would be to give you ways to show your friends what you were able to achieve during a season without creating a situation where players are frustrated that they can’t purchase a cool skin that we may have made available in the past.

The choice is yours

Quite a few of you, including /u/Jakezorg, /u/Blutmilan, /u/RayRay_9000, and /u/pyrokid235, chimed in on a topic we feel very strongly about–not feeling forced to play Stormgate a certain way. We like how RayRay_9000 put it: “Encourage, but don’t force.” We’ll be looking for ways to allow players to make progress on a War Chest by playing the game the way they enjoy. We like the idea of challenges that can expedite progression, but you should also be able to complete a War Chest by playing any of our story, cooperative, or competitive modes. Encouraging players to explore other modes can work wonders to keep the game fresh, but we aim to make them just an efficient option, and not a requirement. Rewards that you can earn exclusively by completing certain challenges, as suggested by /u/pyrokid235, may be a fun approach as well, serving as visible records of your accomplishments.

What’s in the box?

A few of you provided recommendations for cosmetic rewards that we could explore as part of our War Chest. /u/Blutmilan would be excited about portraits, skins, new loading screens, or other forms of profile customization. We’re thinking about providing these sorts of rewards as season-exclusive items, as opposed to larger rewards like army skins that would become available again to players in the future. We’ll be limited at first with what sorts of cosmetics we can include for our first War Chests, so expect that we’ll begin by focusing on army skins, but these are exactly the kinds of ideas we’re eager to explore.

We’d like to give a shout-out to /u/SorteKanin, /u/Blutmilan, /u/pyrokid235, /u/Omno555, and all the esports fans out there who expressed their desire for the War Chest to support a thriving competitive scene. Many of us spend as much time watching games as we do playing them ourselves, and our hope is that the best RTS players of today and tomorrow will all be competing in Stormgate.

Would you do us a favor?

If you haven’t already signed up for the beta, be sure to do so at PlayStormgate.com. If you’re looking for another way to support us, please be sure to Wishlist Stormgate on Steam. It might not seem like much, but the number of players who do so has a major impact, as it affects whether we are included in certain promotions, top upcoming games lists, and so on. It's also one of the best ways to let Steam know that you’re excited about the future of RTS.

Thank you for reading and we’ll see you all in the next discussion topic!

-The Frost Giant Team

Previous Discussion Topics:

Previous Responses:

External link →

over 1 year ago - /u/FrostGiant_Studios - Direct link

Originally posted by Exherm

This is a bit tangential to the target discussion, but I feel like it is still important. With the launch of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, Blizzard is both targeting new audiences whilst supporting their content creators with Twitch drops.

Streamers are streaming the game more which further advertises the game and more people are watching to get the loot which boosts streamer income resulting in more content from the game itself.

To link back to the discussion, I believe that further success can be had by supporting streaming content creators with drops. Maybe even consider old content from battle passes, or two free chests, or extra in game currency for a tier of the pass or two tiers or whatever the value may be. This not only keeps people watching the game's content, but it keeps creators creating content for the game.

Thanks for reaching out! We are absolutely looking at ways to support our awesome content creator community, including things like Twitch Drops for their viewers.

over 1 year ago - /u/FrostGiant_Studios - Direct link

Originally posted by fslyy

never played any rts ever before but somehow i stumbled over this subreddit and for some reason i decided maybe its my time to start my rts journey with this game if it comes out. i am looking forward to it :D

One of us! One of us!

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