[2023] 42000 Free XP Brisbane Missions but NO Operations allowed. Wut?

I've escalated this question internally and will see if we can get Operations turned on for the 42k FreeXP grind. Operations were enabled for the first mission chain in the event which needed 27k FreeXP.

For the moment, though, I can encourage the use of higher Tier premium/special ships as higher Tiers tend to yield more Base XP while premium ships have bonus credit earning, reduced service cost, and increased rewards through active Bonus Packages.

I did a quick Salem game with a Green FreeXP boost equipped. It wasn't a great game, but yielded over 500 FreeXP. That would mean 84 matches would be needed, or about 4-6 hours without using better FreeXP boosts or having better matches than 392 Base XP. (Note: This is with Premium Time)

15 "Rare Bonuses" containers are available in the Free Track of the Battle Pass. That is 45 Blue Bonuses for Free-to-Play folks.

Ranked also reward Blue FreeXP Bonuses for Gold Ranked played. The number is 10 per sprint, which is 10 available per two weeks.

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Red Bonuses are typically event bound or behind some form of Doubloon expenditure outside of Clan Battles, so you are correct that they are not very replaceable for Free-to-Play. However, Doubloons can be earned through Ranked play.

Update:

Not including Operations on the 42k FreeXP section was indeed a mistake. They were included on the earlier 27k FreeXP section and should have been extended to the other.

We are now 20+ days into the event, so we aren't going to be able to change the coding. Many players have interacted with the event and there is always a risk when altering something on live server. Previous "mode additions" were caught fairly early after the event went live, so participation was much lower/less-invested at time of coding-interaction.

Green FreeXP Bonuses are fairly common and are great to use for this task. Blue bonuses are less common, but the rewards for the event are quite cool (19 point commander with voiceover or a Tier 10 Ship) so that does make use of them more worthwhile if you value the offerings at the end of the chain.

I don't believe the "occurs on fairly regular basis" is correct. There are times where we add additional modes by community request or concern, but overall that is rather rare. I think it's needed to happen maybe 4 or 5 times in the past year, and I'm not sure it's needed to happen at all across the past several months?

One of the more recurring issues last year was the lack of Co-Op Compatibility. That means a mission chain might require Achievements and be a hard blocker for a Co-Op Only player, or may not even have the mode listed at all which would also be exclusionary. As a response for our large Co-Op main population on NA, I personally check each update prior to release with a Co-Op Compatibility Review. Basically, "Can this be done in Co-Op?". Main and Side Events need to have a path to completion which is typically a grind path for an achievable reward as Co-Op is more conducive to grinds as opposed to "one-shots"/"challenges" ("In a single battle, do X"). Where challenges exist, an Or condition providing a Co-Op grind path exists unless the challenge is completely optional (like the last mission in a weekly dockyard chain that is not needed to complete the week).

The only outlier which has existed since then have been the Supership Supporting missions, which are Random Battle only because they directly exist to increase Random Battle Participation with Superships (because the Service Cost is prohibitive). They function on a basic level as a resource exchange as they change Credits into Research Points or Coal or Steel, but they primarily exist for queue time comfort.

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The Operations mode has seen a revival since Random Operations were released in 0.11.8, and players have started requesting them to be included in more of the types of grinds. Some grinds are not conducive to use of the mode, because the amount of Damage or Kills which can be consistently hoovered up in Operations is simply massive. Others could likely be bumped to bizarre levels with some organized play that uses the operation in non-intended ways. However, Base XP and Free XP look to be compatible with the mode as they were both active for the Matilda Kelly chains so I will be aware of that for the future and can include those grind-types in my checks.

The mission is completable as written (Co-Op Compatible). Others, including Co-Op Mains, have been able to complete the chain already as it's been out for over 20 days.

Use of Boosters yields additional resources whether there is an external combat mission or not. External missions can add value to the use of them, but the missions are optional and it's up to the player in how they choose to interact with them. Some skip the content if they aren't interested in the rewards or the time investment, which is perfectly normal as everyone has different levels of engagement.

Earlier in the thread it was mentioned that the 42k section can be completed in about 80 battles (4-5 hours of Co-Op grind) with Green Bonuses or about 1/4th that time with use of Blue Bonuses. Blue Bonuses are distributed for free via our Battle Pass's free track and other in-game activities, so it can certainly be helpful to keep some for rainy days such as long or intense grinds that yield cool rewards you are particularly interested in.

If you can pull examples, it would be helpful actually. I don't recall any off the top of my head, so it'd be good to have a reminder of anything that's slipping my memory.

As for the "4-5 times is too many", you should realize that we responded to a request from Co-Op Mains to make absolutely sure that the mode is included in main/side missions. Previously, we made events as we saw fit and the modes were reflective of the idea or theme that mission creator was making. We did have an internal push prior to my joining the team to be more inclusive, but the Co-Op Compatibility review was a process to make sure Co-Op saw more entrenched compatibility. Co-Op and Randoms are very different and Randoms is the core gamemode for us, but Co-Op is a viable play experience and the requests for greater inclusion were understandable and doable, so we adjusted our processes for that.

I don't think we've released that information, but it's on the calendar to appear in a future update <3