Treasure Maps? Bah... How About Some Daily Campaigns?!?

RIP WIP ??

By: George Argyropoulos

a/k/a Dragon_Bane   

Out of the blue with no hint or even a fun little tease, we get an update that brings a new option to players that could have significant ramifications to many players' games. It shows some brilliant potential. I hope Kixeye takes advantage of a potentially game altering option by using it to its fullest potential, but only time will tell. This new option? Daily Campaigns.

In this limited introduction of these Daily Campaigns, the upper most 'difficult level' of Campaigns will be available for players level 80 or above. Daily Campaigns are Bracketed and will be released in a staggered fashion weekly until all are available.

Starting the staggered release with the higher level players makes some sense as the tuning is far easier for those that (presumably) have a higher tech-depth than other players in the game. Additionally - Daily Campaigns are level locked!! You will not be allowed to engage Daily Campaigns outside of your Bracketed Level. Currently there are only two designed Campaigns to be released this week and as stated previously, only for players level 80 or above. They are:

Mega Mayhem (Assault Style)

Reaver Tide (Base Defense Style)

These Campaigns will be available for only 24 hours each time they are offered. At the end of the 24 hour period (Midnight PST) another campaign is offered randomly. Should you be active in a Campaign when this timer ends, you will be allowed to complete, and earn your prize, for the Campaign in which you are engaged. Have to give kudos to Kixeye for some forethought there, though I'm a little ambivalent towards players that don't pay attention to those timers by now.

Once activated, you will have only 1 hour to complete the Campaign which entail 1 level with 3 engagements. If you complete the Campaign in the allotted time you will receive your prize. In this instance, the prize is the quintessential pirate booty: A Treasure Chest. Each Bracketed Level of Campaigns will have their own style of chest:

80+ : Reinforced Chest (you have to have those strong chests to hold the good stuff!)

50-79 : Salvaged Chest (you guys get the dregs that are left behind after the bigger players pillage.)

?-50 : Unknown, but I'll guess : Shipwrecked Chest (Let's be honest, at these levels, your taking what you can find.)

These Chests are set-up thus: Each Chest will have a guaranteed minimum of basic resources to win, however, there will be a random chance of other prizes that could be won that will be determined for each level of chest. Currently we know that in the Reinforced Chest released this week there will be a chance for Uranium, Base Parts or Tokens. What Tokens, I have no idea as yet.

Really, I only want more Ship Build Tokens, but I fear that may not be in the cards. Every Chest has a small chance for a 'Jackpot' prize of a larger boon of Uranium or Base Parts. Personally, I'd have killed that and went with a 2 Day Ship Build Token. That would about guarantee my daily participation (or at least an attempt) daily. Just sayin'.

Of particular note : If you are maxed out on Uranium, Base Parts or Tokens be aware that when you open a Chest, you will NOT be allowed to overfill any of these. You will lose any winnings that go over your maximum capacity in any of those areas. You can 'stack' Chests, in other words, you can win them and keep them rather than open them.


There was mention of "...Fragments, etc. ..." in the release notes, however, I am not sure if that is going to be only for the lower Bracketed Levels or what. Please remember, this is completely new and being actively tuned as they roll out the Bracketed Levels. Things are fluid right now and will undoubtedly change as players engage these Campaigns and Kixeye reviews the data collected from them. I urge patience in this process folks.

Mini-rant: As I mentioned at the beginning, this has some really huge potential, particularly for lower level players if Kixeye decided to get serious about bringing in new player and increasing their retention rates of players beyond level 50. It would be very easy to throw in Blueprints and Crews in these Chests for these players allowing Kixeye an avenue to get (let's be truthful here) essentially required tech to these players faster to encourage engagement and increase these players' feeling of overall relevancy in the game. There is no doubt in my mind that items like Rhino Blueprints, Apollo Frags and other various Foundry Fragments should be in these for the lower two Bracketed Levels.
And they should NOT be 'Jackpot' chance prizes. I want these players to advance, advance fast, and be able to play at a higher level, far quicker than it took me because really - I want them as content for myself and other players.

And an important side note before I go... There was a nice little surprise found in the Bug Fixes & Tuning section of the update today, namely the reduced repair time of the Pandemonium Mortar from 1440 seconds to 18 seconds. This makes for a .01 Repair Coefficient for this particular item. This is unprecedented. This is one of those huge little things that cognizant players take full advantage of in the game to gain that little edge.  I'm not sure if this is a typo or not, but it would shatter the current king of this area - the Coaxial Firestorm whose .143. It boasts a better repair coefficient than even the Vanquisher. I'll cross my fingers hoping this isn't a mistake, but I have a feeling (actually I expect) this may be corrected going forward much like the repair time of Dock 12. We shall see.