Another day, another individual dropping in their havoc thoughts, as it was quite clear the system around the mode was very VERY undercooked, but dang if those good games aren’t the exact thing us ‘top end’ players want, and have some really nice ideas, that I wish I could actually ENGAGE with instead of getting my one 40 clear and going ‘dang, that was super fun, super excited to never do that bs party finder crap again/not worry about failing anymore’.
And that’s the crux of the ‘issue’ to me I feel, the game mode itself is super fun. Even if it does lock your team to specific build set ups and roles to fill, the actual moment to moment once you have a team that’s properly set up is hecktic and probably the most fun I’ve had in this game in a LONG time. Finished a Clandestine Gloriana 40 with a crew where it was a nail biter the whole way through, half the team died at one point, clutches where had, communication was fluent, and the enemies where plentiful and constant and kept everyone moving and fighting desperately for a foothold. The whole experience was just exhilarating, got my heart pumping for the first time in this game beyond attempted solo carries of the like five low rank players trying to still do auric damnations right now, and this was with a fully coordinated team of top end ‘best builds in the business’ rejects.
But after completing it and disbanding, even the idea of ‘chasing that high’ felt like a pip dream, as trying to party find into another match felt like a lost cause (it already took me literally 45 minutes of desperately shooting requests at any mission above 30 that popped up before I finally got into this group, and I feel I got lucky because I’m off this week so I was able to stay up late and get in with a team that was just trying to do their one last try for the night and I happened to be the puzzle piece they needed), and there was just no ‘easy’ way to do it otherwise because I have to wait for the week to end to get my rank/new mission, and even once I get it hosting the team myself was something I just, didn’t want to ever do/deal with.
So, to that end, I have a few thoughts:
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Overall, I think the gamemode is a fine one, and I think if you take nothing else from this post FS, I say please, please, PLEASE introduce some of these practices shown within this game mode outside of it into other modifiers or even an ‘Auric+’ matchmaking tier. I’d love to see those captain squadrons in a ‘normal game’ of auric, I’d love to have a constant flood of enemies that make the traversal difficult. And I’d absolutely adore being able to engage with all that without needing survivalist because ammo drops give 2 bullets, and every single amount of golden toughness under the sun because all our stats are halved. I feel Havoc was a good addition for ‘the pinnacle experience’ where only the best will do, but dang if that density+ actually spawning plentiful and heavy threats was not just so fun, and I’d love to see it literally anywhere else.
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And then to get into the part that actually made me just want this to be a ‘one and done’ instead of actually playing it more, first, remove the ‘punishment’ system. It’s unfun, unneeded, and just promotes elitist garbage mentality even more than a gamemode like this already does. Why would I ever pull in a random jo-shmoe from the street into my 40 havoc run when every lose brings me closer to not being able to play it anymore, while every win lets me play it as much as I want? It’s broken, it’s bad, and this isn’t a pvp game. A ‘ranked ladder’ makes no sense, and you already got the ‘come back weekly to complete a mission again and get more rewards/keep your name displaying the big number’, so why not just leave that as the incentive verses ruining the whole thing with penalties? If I want to pound my head against the hardest stuff in the game I should be allowed to do that to learn what I need to do and get better, not be told ‘you’re to bad at this, also you can’t practice go back to baby’ when a team mate DC’s after going down once for the third time in a row…
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To the point above, it creates a culture where it’s impossible to find games, as nobody wants to risk their own rank to host a lobby when losing 14 times outside of it means nothing. That should already tell you the direction to go in, don’t have this worthless penalty that does nothing, and to that end, I recommend instead just making it a literal ‘level system’. Once you clear on one havoc level, you gain the ability to select a higher one. If you ‘jump’ and complete one vastly above your current level, you unlock every level leading up to that. Suddenly, now you can have people choose the level they found the most fun at, instead of forcing this challenge where people go up to the top and then leave forever because ‘well I can only play at 40 with chorus/bubble/shout etc, I’ll just not do that’. This would allow people to actually do what they want, you know, let choice happen to increase longevity XD.
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And should a system like the above get added, and the needless penalty be removed, I see no reason not to allow people to ‘turn on’ matchmaking for their respective team. Leave the party finder system where it is for those that want to curate and try super hard, but allow those that ‘just want to try their luck’ to start matchmaking for their current mission. Then people within the party finder can ‘opt in’ to matchmake to open games, maybe using that ‘level desired’ slider as an option so you can pick between 20-25, 30-34, 35-40 and so on. And you can pick sliders up to the level you have completed, so if you’ve only done up to 26, you can’t matchmake a 27 and up, but once you have done all 40, you can matchmake into anything if you so choose.
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The above suddenly makes the ‘cost’ of joining a game drastically lower, makes going for the ‘help others with their missions’ rather seamless, and lowers the barrier for those that ‘don’t want to host persay but still want to work their way up their ranks’. It also has the added benefit of if someone leaves an in progress havoc, matchmaking can just be turned on once it’s started, so that it isn’t an immediate lost cause if they don’t return and someone else can ‘save it’.
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and to the idea of allowing one to choose their rank, you get 1 free ‘re-roll’ a week where in you select the level you want and it gives you a mission with modifiers. It then gives you the option to pay up with dockets or what have you, to re-roll and re-select a new level tier, with possibly an escalating cost that gets reset once you complete a mission or something (that might be exploitable…but I feel it’s a start). So you get a modifier you just don’t want to play? re-roll it! Instead of getting stuck on it and just being like ‘welp, I don’t want to play this, guess I’m not doing my havoc this week’, and thus once again the problem of hosting happens where nobody hosts cause nobody has a mission they actually like.
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And to that effect, one could add a form of this to the twins, allowing one to ‘turn on matchmaking’ for it. Then, for those that have completed it, they can click a little check mark next to quick play that allows you to pop in to a twins lobby. It wouldn’t directly fix the issue of special ops being basically dead, but it would at least allow people to ‘do it if they want’, and keep such game modes alive that much longer. As I wouldn’t be upset dropping in and running around on a twins mission her and there, but I’m sure af not party finding to get that experience XD and I’m sure there are many in the community that would feel the same.
But yeah, feel I’ve rambled on enough for this topic. All in all, the playing of Havoc I like a lot/think it has a lot of great ideas. But holy heck, the systems around it where half baked and not thought through, and I’d vastly enjoy seeing that improve as the months go on. As seeing this game mode ‘die like the rest’ due to the cumbersome crap around it seems unwarranted, and I’d like to see that not occur.