Other than Loadout Cards, we’ve been a bit quiet on our plans regarding what goals we’ll be providing to keep players striving for in Dirty Bomb, but there have been plans within plans. We’re happy with Loadout Cards as an interesting feature for committed players who want to dive deeper into experimenting with styles of play, but we felt that we needed to look at complementary features for newer and mid-use players.
UNLOCKING MERCS & THE WEEKLY FREE MERC ROTATION
After a great deal of thought and discussion we’ve decided to move back towards a scheme that allows you to unlock the Mercs of their choice as they play. This is accomplished through earning Credits for undertaking missions in the Exclusion Zone of irradiated London. Players will also be able to skip this by spending real money for those who don’t have lots of time to invest in the game. Philosophically, we’ve always been very much against pay-to-win in Dirty Bomb, and we’re applying that same approach when it comes to finding the right conversation rate between time and money.
Aura and Skyhammer will be available to all players all of the time as a reward for completing the tutorial mission… or, as a reward for skipping the tutorial! Apart from that, all players will be also able to play with three Mercs that are available globally, which will change each week… behold the “Weekly Free Merc Rotation”. This will allow players to get a chance to try out Mercs before they decide whether to permanently add them to their roster.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR PLAYER & MERC LEVELS
The levelling of individual Mercs will remain unchanged, but the overall player level system is changing fairly drastically. Since Mercs are no longer unlocked in that way, it made more sense to have a player’s level be a more prestige-like element that says how much XP a given player has accrued in Dirty Bomb. We’ll still use the first levels to gate game modes and give rewards early on, but it won’t limit anything after that.
FINDING THE SWEET SPOT
When it comes to how quickly Credits are earned and the unlock price for Mercs, the key word here is most definitely “initial”; when you all see this system go live it will still take a little while for us to get the numbers dialled-in, so please bear with us on these matters. We’re also working on things like daily and weekly reward systems that will help players earn Credits faster should they want to, but these systems won’t be going live at the same time as the Merc unlocks.
We look forward to seeing what you all think!
:stroggbanana: