On Feb 21, Frost Giant released their next Discussion Topic for the community at large around the idea of different forms of progression. It’s been a while since Frost Giant last asked the community for feedback in their War Chests Discussion Topic in October 2022 (our thoughts here) and their eventual thoughts in December. This makes sense - they’ve been busy with a ton of announcements of their own, namely information about the client, the first external community member playtest, hints at a community summit in May, and an absolutely adorable in-game asset for Valentines day.
Suffice it to say that this winter has been a busy time for Frost Giant, so it is good to see them talking with the community again. In this post, they ask about what they term Match Progression and Meta Progression.
Match Progression
To use Frost Giant’s terms, Match Progression is the system of advancement within a single game - how a player is rewarded for actions they do in a single game. Frost Giant specifically touches upon the concept of Veterancy (we’ll get into that in a second) as a method for allowing this match progression system.
In their post, they touch on two methods of match progression they are looking at - Unit Veterancy and some sort of Inventory System for 3-player co-op. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of Veterancy, they link to an excellent article by WaywardStrategy that gives a summary of the concept as well as pros and cons. The team does state that while they are experimenting with it, they are well aware of the potential snowballing downsides.
With the Inventory system, they are looking at something like what Warcraft III did, where the clearing of creep camps (another idea they are experimenting with) or the completion of objectives would reward commanders with items that change the way the commander and/or entire army is played.
Meta Progression
The other progression paradigm that we see Frost Giant looking at is that of out-of-game progression. Part of this ties into the concept of Battle Passes/War Chests we covered when that discussion post was active, but it also includes other concepts of progression - account levels, achievements, profile rewards, and other things of that ilk. They do, however, want to make it clear that no meta progression system will confer in-game advantages in 1v1 gameplay.
They are also considering some form of meta progression system that ties into the social experience of Stormgate and actively encourages players to act positively within the community - think something like the behavior score system that DOTA 2 employs. They also mention other interesting social rewards such as skin unlocks, a system like the Overwatch system in CSGO, and special privileges in their pending official discord.
Questions for the Community
They end the post with several questions for the community:
- What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
- Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
- How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
- What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
- Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
- Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
- Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
- What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
If you feel like you have answers to some or all of these questions, head on over to the reddit post to make your opinions known! We’ll have our answers to these questions in its own post.
How to Get Involved
As always, if you want to engage with the Frost Giant developers and get information from them as they post it, you should sign up for their newsletter, head on over to /r/Stormgate on reddit, and sign up for the beta and wishlist the game on steam!