At of the time of this post, I see 12 distinct maps on the normal mission board. With the update coming in June…
…that means that, instead of 3-4 choices of map per level, we’ll have 3-4x that many.
There’s no word in that little blurb about how modifiers will work, but I’m struggling to imagine free reign of modifier selection, which would mean a crazy number of possible permutations/lobbies. The quickplay bonus would have to be crazy jacked up or some other limitation would need to be in place…like making a (full?) party before starting a mission. The alternative is likely a bunch of empty games.
But I’m also having a hard time imagining the modifiers being locked to specific missions across difficulties (e.g. grims + Dark Rituals for Malice+) because some of those combinations are quite punishing.
These thoughts, along with this…
…are making me think we’re going to see a pretty big shakeup of the mission board! Excited to see what it is. /musing
Indeed they gave us concepts of a plan but who knows how it will finally work. I assume most use quick play for convenience but they know, those who start matches may have more map control while rest have more variety in quick play rng.
i just hope this doesn’t end up hurting variety. i have always appreciated being able to just hit quick play and not have it drop you just into the 2-3 meta maps
I imagine the board could be all of the missions, with a difficulty setting like we have for quickplay now. Different difficulty settings would cycle in/out different modifiers and side objectives. And each instance of a mission could be given a different priority, which would reflect the efforts/impact of the warband. Sorta similar to HD2, putting a narrative spin on different fronts, but also dynamically offering increasing rewards to funnel players towards lesser-played maps.
From how the post was phrased, it looks like FS has indeed been reading forum feedback (especially because a story-based mission line like @Ragnarok101 mentioned all the way back in March seems to be in development) and is implementing a set of story missions, while still keeping random quickplay on the table.
As for mission selection, I share the same concerns you do. Does this mean empty lobbies? Probably not. The “debriefing” part seems to harken back to Fatshark’s original promise of an evolving storyline all the way back in the beta, but scaled back.
I expect this update to be a positive change and a step in the right direction, but I’ll reserve judgement.
I’m very curious to see how the new “campaign” will be handled, but we have an evolving story already. It’s slow, but it’s been steady. The twins are the clearest through line, but narratively everything has been progressing/evolving. Brahms getting more involved, Swagger’s and Dukane’s introductions, Brunt going missing, the Cult of Admonition being revealed as the true source of the corruption, the question about who the well-connected traitor is, etc.
I hope the map becomes interactable like Helldivers, please give us a map to just look around in! This would also fit perfect with warhammer being warhammer.