devtrackers.gg
Please forgive the click-baity title. I think it's true, I just don't think it's intentional.
I made this video because I honestly think this is a small change that could go a long way towards player retention.
Discovering gear has made me MUCH more interested in this game, and it pains me to think most people interested in co-op will never see it.
I'll be honest, I was just getting a couple co-op games in last week because I was getting close to level 10 anyways, and at the time I was sort of checked out. I thought co-op was okay, but there wasn't anything crazy I could do with it, beyond having optimized my fast hoplites with Amara. I figured if there was going to be any major power spikes, they would come from levelling.
So, I just barely didn't hit level 10 one game, so I queued another, got the full 100 000 and I thought, well, what the heck, I'll push to 11 to see what gear is about.
I hit level 11. And holy shit. I couldn't BELIEVE how much cool stuff there was. BIO UNITS START AT TIER 3 ARE YOU NUTS!?
So, I hopped on reddit to chat about it, and I assumed (because there's nothing to indicate otherwise), that what I was looking at was all the gear that could go into either slot. Then I learned from a user here that there was MORE gear at level 13, and I was hooked.
I can't wait to level up blockade now and try some of that bio gear or the mining gear.
That's ANOTHER awesome part of this by the way: Blockade's gear is fantastic! This is actually very free to play friendly overall!!
But, Frost Giant, people can't see it! We can see the unlocks from level 1-10, and with a few exceptions they're not that gripping.
Worse still, not being able to see the gear turns one of the best parts of it into a negative:
Because the gear unlocks with specific commanders, but can be USED by any commander (fantastic idea) we actually are incentivized to level other commanders! But, not if we can't see what gear they unlock. In fact, at level 11 or 13 a lot of people are gonna look at some of the other unlocks and think "well, that WOULD have been cool if I had known about it, but I don't want to start from scratch again to get all the way to it, that sounds like a lot of work".
Plus, there's a great mix of f2p and non-f2p gear here. Blockade unlocks some of the best gear, but you know what gear also looks SPICY? Warz' get resources back from killing guys! Oh my GOODNESS could that be a gamechanger to couple that with as much offense as one can muster (and, with Amara her hoplites, that's very much doable). Legit, I'm probably going to buy Warz just for that. I can't be the only one who would be tempted by that, if we could actually see that earlier than the ~10 hours it currently takes to get to level 13 to view that second gear slot.
I know, the weekend is coming up. But please, u/FGS_Gerald/ can you see if it's possible to let us see and get hyped about the gear in-game, by changing the level we can view it at (not unlock! Just see it so we know what we're working towards) from level 11, and 13, to level 1? We can see all the rest of the unlocks from level 1.