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This article includes the Live team's responses to feedback, detailing long and short-term goals for improvements to customization, progression, and Theater/Observer modes. Let's take a closer look at everything we can look forward to in Season 2 and beyond!
In Season 2, we can expect the following changes to arrive on May 3, as provided in the TL;DR of the article:
Shop
Bundles will have more consistent value across different offerings
Battle Pass & Progression
Season 2’s free track will have more customization content than Season 1’s
Players can earn 1000 CR in the S2 Premium Battle Pass
Weekly Challenges will see continued improvements
Ultimate Rewards will be higher value cosmetics such as visors, coatings, and stances, and no longer have emblems or backdrops, throughout the course of the season.
Theater & Observer
Theater & Observer will have updates to address overall stability, issues caused by viewing multiple films in a row, and problems that arise when observing multiple matches in a row
These changes are a great start, but there is more on the way that will arrive during Season 2 and beyond.
"As we investigate what expanding to cross-core customization would require from a tech perspective, our initial focus is on enabling as many helmets, visors, and armor coatings across different cores as possible. In short, our goal is that we will be incrementally moving to a model that has coatings and visors working across all cores; with helmets and chest gear working across canon cores as our first focused changes to make in the system."
As it stands, only a few items are currently cross-core. For Armor, we have:
Armor Emblems
Armor Effects
Mythic Effect Sets
The Live team's goal is to eventually make Armor Coatings and Visors fully cross-core, with Helmets and Chests cross-core for canon cores. Here, canon cores implies that Fracture Armor Cores would not share Helmets and Chests with any other cores.
"In a future update, we’ll be changing the Kit system so that it will allow players to sport individual items from their Kits to use on their own personal Spartans."
Armor and Weapon Kits are currently designed to be preset combinations of customization items that cannot be modified. Trying to change one item in the Kit will unequip it. This will be amended in the future so that individual Kit items can be equipped separately from the rest of the Kit.
"Using multiple armor attachments, weapon model changes, or vehicle model changes, when they don’t overlap with one another is also asked for frequently. Our focus is currently set on cross-core customization and Kits, but we wanted to acknowledge this, and we’ll see what we can do."
While not high on the priority list, using multiple non-conflicting attachments is something the team wants to investigate in the future.
"Season 2 will improve on the free experience by slowly removing armor core limitations to enable more customization options with those free items, having better customization items as weekly Ultimate Rewards, and having even more customization content in Event Passes and the free track of the Battle Pass."
The removal of Armor Core limitations noted above will begin to take effect incrementally during Season 2, in addition to a number of changes to help improve the quality and variety of free awards available to players.
"Last, but certainly not least, we’ve seen the requests to have the Watchdog and Red Shift armor coatings more closely reflect the initial renders we released in 2020. We want to make this right in a future update."
The Watchdog and Red Shift Armor Coatings will be updated to more closely align with their original renders from 2020 in a future update.
"We also agree with all this feedback around allowing the purchase of specific items within bundles, increasing the rate of offer refreshes, and even potentially adding a second page. We’ll be looking to improve these aspects of the Shop in future updates."
There has been a ton of feedback surrounding the Shop since launch, with a large focus on purchasing items within bundles and providing a larger variety of content more quickly. Changes such as more frequent offer refreshes and additional pages in the Shop will be considered for future updates.
"A Career Progression system is in the design phase right now. We want to nail it out of the gate and that’s going to take some time."
A non-Battle Pass related progression system is in the works, but it is still a ways out from releasing.
"Additionally, we know there’s a desire for per-match, which also leverages performance, to plug into this system as well as the Battle Pass. Per-match XP is on the way and will land this year."
Even if the Career Progression system doesn't have a set date for arrival, per-match XP is planned to release within 2022.
"To do so, the free Battle Pass will contain even more customization content than S1’s – including the Lone Wolves armor core early on the in the track. As for the Premium track, we’ve added Credits as another reward tier and will allow players to earn up to 1000 CR."
More free rewards will be included in the S2 Battle Pass, including the Lone Wolves Armor Core. The premium track will also include 1000 CR total.
"[A]s of this week, we’ve removed the Killjoy Challenges from all challenge decks, and you won’t be seeing it again anytime soon."
All challenges involving Killjoys have been removed entirely due to overwhelming feedback against such challenges.
"The feedback here has been heard and we’re happy to say that Season 2’s Ultimate Rewards will feature rewards at a higher and more consistent quality bar. That means they will focus on content like coatings, visors, and stances, and no longer have emblems or backdrops, throughout the course of the season.
"For example, here’s the first five weeks of Ultimate Rewards in S2:
Week 1: Sentry Stance
Week 2: Battleship Haze MA40 AR Coating
Week 3: Alabaster Cognac Razorback Coating
Week 4: Amber Yesterday Visor
Week 5: Spring Mountain Stance
There will still be some emblems in the mix for the rest of Season 1, but Season 2 will no longer feature emblems or backdrops as Ultimate Rewards.
"Longer term, however, we do agree with moving away from time-based XP boosts – especially with per-match XP coming in a future update. We’ll have more to share on both of these at a later date."
While time-based XP Boosts are here to stay for now, the goal is to eventually move away from making them rely on earning XP within a timeframe, possibly integrating them with per-match XP instead.
"[W]e will be doing a better job of making Event content available in the normal matchmaking rotation starting in Season 2."
After Events are completed in Season 2, the event modes will generally be added to the matchmaking rotation, allowing players to experience the modes more frequently after they have debuted.
"Winter Contingency was a great holiday event with festive rewards, but the confusion around how to unlock the customization content proved to be too confusing. If we do run another simple event like this, we’ll be sure to leverage the Event Pass feature in-game so players know what they’ve earned and what they’re working towards."
Winter Contingency was progressed by playing one game per day for 10 days during the Event. While easy to understand once explained, the in-game Event Pass did not clearly communicate this to most players, leading to confusion and frustration. In the future, communication around how to progress the Event Pass will be better provided in-game.
"Down the road, we want to have separate Challenge lists so that Weekly Challenges aren’t blocking Event Challenges and vice versa."
Currently, Event and Weekly Challenges share the same pool, which means there are times when no Event Challenges are available or no Weekly Challenges are available to progress. In the future, this will be adjusted so that both Weekly Challenges and Event Challenges can always be progressed simultaneously.
"There’s a handful of improvements for Theater and Observer coming with a focus on addressing overall stability, issues caused by viewing multiple films in a row, and problems that arise when observing multiple matches in a row. We're constantly making improvements to both of these features and you should start seeing the results with Season 2's release."
Theater and Observer mode fixes are on the way, with the first batch set to arrive when Season 2 begins.
Summary
The Live team is working on making improvements based on player feedback in a variety of areas. Here's a summary of what we can expect:
Starting during Season 2 and continuing incrementally, core restrictions will be reduced or removed for Helmets, Chests, Armor Coatings, and Visors.
Kit items will eventually become applicable outside of the Kit as a whole.
The ability to equip non-conflicting armor, weapon, and vehicle attachments will also be considered.
The Watchdog and Red Shift Armor Coatings will be updated to more closely align with their 2020 renders.
Shop improvements such as being able to purchase items within bundles, more frequently rotating shop listings, and additional shop pages, will be investigated and deployed in future updates.
A Career Progression system is in the works, but will take a while before it is ready for release.
Per-match XP is currently targeted for release in 2022.
The Lone Wolves Armor Core will be part of the Free Season 2 Battle Pass.
1000 CR will be provided in the Premium Season 2 Battle Pass.
Killjoy Challenges have been completely removed.
Season 2 will no longer feature emblems or backdrops as weekly Ultimate Rewards.
Time-based XP Boosts will eventually be phased out for a system that will work better with per-match XP.
Event modes will be added to the normal matchmaking rotation following the conclusion of the event.
Progression details for events such as Winter Contingency will be better communicated in-game in the future.
The team plans to eventually provide separate Challenge lists for Weekly and Event Challenges.
Theater and Observer mode fixes will begin arriving with the launch of Season 2.