This post will focus on the current state and future of weekly and custom mutations. Let us start with a quote from the interview on Teamliquid.net, where Lead Co-op Designer David Sum said:
Weekly Mutations
Weekly mutations have been on the rotation for over three months now. It's disappointing that they are not considered important enough to continue their support. Players used to look forward to playing them, they were excited to see what the next week will bring, to try them out and to discuss optimal strategies with other players. That is no more. If you are curious, what the next week's mutations is, you only have to check Ctg's mutation database. And when you are at it, you can see old discussions and videos on how to beat those mutations.
The reason behind mutators (e.g., Void Rifts) being separate from
mutations (e.g., Burning Legion), was so that creating new
mutations is as simple as possible. And while adding new mutators is good,
it's not necessary. There is a vast number of possible combinations for
new mutations even without adding any new mutators. Furthermore, some
mutators like Heroes from the Storm took considerable amount of
work to make and were used only once. The same thing applies to maps - Scythe of Amon was used once,
while Malwarfare and Part and Parcel
weren’t used at all. And we won't see them as long as weekly
mutations are being recycled.
Special holiday mutations were extremely fun, and Blizzard set a high standard with them. Remember killing turkeys or fighting for gifts? Unfortunately, there are no new holiday mutations, and the order of mutations wasn't even adjusted to compensate for not aligned rotation.
In the interview it's indicated that there is a possibility of engaging community to create new mutations. I would love to participate, and we already had a topic for suggesting mutators. There is big potential, but it has to be used and so far there was no move on that.
So what could be a good course of action? Before anything else, align holiday mutations. Then add new mutations or work with the community to create new ones. Reusing mutations is acceptable in some cases, but it should be explained why is the repeated mutation special. On a side note, I would keep the current format of weekly mutations. There were suggestions that players could vote on future mutations or choose mutations from a list. But doing that, weekly mutations would lose their flavor.
Custom Mutations
Custom mutations have vast and untapped potential. They can be very fun, but in their current state the majority of players won't touch them. Furthermore, they are meant to cover for the lack of genuinely hard difficulty option, but that's not working out well either. It's because of how difficult and inconvenient is to get a partner, decide on mutators and create a game; and all that for less reward than normal missions. All I can offer are few ideas on what could be done with this mode. These ideas are mostly independent of each other, some might be good and some not so much.
A) Further improve custom mutations
-
Add missing mutators to the custom mutator selection.
-
Lobbies for custom mutators - map, difficulty, mutators, commanders and masteries would be chosen from the lobby. Players can join open lobbies. This could work the same way as other custom games or arcade.
- List of old weekly mutations in lobbies.
- Small
experience bonus for completing custom mutators - not enough
to make this mode good for leveling, but at least equivalent
to random mission bonus.
-
Matchmaking for random mutations or the Wheel of Misfortune.
B) Other modes using custom mutations
A lot could be done with custom mutations. One option is a strategic layer that ties missions together. This is rather common feature and was used in various campaigns (Starcraft 2, Dawn of War II, C&C3's Global Conquest, etc). It adds more sense of progression and some meaning to each game. Adapting this into Co-op will take work, but it would be well worth it. There are more ways how to approach this:
-
Small-scale campaign for limited amount of players (similar to my Beehive).
-
Big domination map on which all players join forces together against Amon.
-
Team-based domination map, where two or more teams compete against each other. This could incorporate more advanced mechanics, such as players being able to gain and move mutators, effectively reinforcing their territory.
With this, players would work towards a common goal and games would have more meaning. Rewards could include experience, achievements, trophies, portraits, decals, heroic unit skins and emotes.
Another
interesting idea would be a matchmaking queue for a changing
mutation. The first team to beat the mutation could change
it with some limitations. For example each player could switch one
mutator for one of the five semi-randomly chosen mutators made
available to him. The name
of the new mutation would be randomly generated and contained
players' names, for example "ZTX's and Shiya's Nuclear Surprise"
or "Shortsighted Nick and Lenz's Burning Undead". Info about
personal mutations could be found in player's profile.
The bonus experience for everyone that
has beaten the mutation could depend on the number of players that were
unsuccessful
at least once, or on the time the mutation stayed unbeaten.
That would make harder mutations to provide more reward. Separate queues
for each difficulty would probably work the best. It would keep the
difficulty of
challenges consistent, and players would see more often the
names of players with similar skill level to theirs.
Wrap up
Weekly mutations used to draw players back each week, and their fate significantly affects player retention. While releasing commanders and maps is good, being able to offer other content, that players can enjoy with their commanders, is crucial for the longevity of Co-op. There are other options such as infinite survival map that can serve the same purpose, but mutations offer themselves as a prime instrument for this.
