Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade Deconstructed Part 5 — What’s Hot vs. What’s Not

In the previous posts I provided a somewhat objective analysis of Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade on topics including gameplay, game loop, in-game economy, and monetization. In this final post I’m going to wrap up the analysis and provide my opinions on what Freeblade does well (What’s Hot), areas for improvement (What’s Not), and some specific recommendations I think the dev team should consider to keep Freeblade engaging.

Part 1 — Game Basics
Part 2 — The Game Loop
Part 3 — Game Economy
Part 4 — Monetization
Part 5 — What’s Hot vs. What’s Not

What’s Hot

Core Gameplay:

At the core I really like the skill based aspect of Freeblade. The game feels responsive, the variety of weapons are fun, and the combo system all make the core game really fun and challenging. The core game is what really got me into Freeblade and what has kept me engaged since it came out.

Ads:

Ads in Freeblade were implemented in an non-intrusive way that actually make me feel good about watching them. Ads are always optional, they are usually relevant to me as a player, and the value that I get from watching them feels worth 30 seconds of my time. In addition, I feel like where the ads are used and the timers associated with them are fair. They provide me with a realistic alternative to spending real money that hopefully helps the developers make some supplementary income.

In-game economy:

On the whole I think the in-game economy balance was done fairly well. Ore is provided in a reasonable supply to allow me to craft more powerful gear and I haven’t found myself in a situation with too much or too little ore. In addition, while gold is provided less frequently, I feel like there is enough of a trickle from in-game activities that enables me spend it on things like additional Salvage Team drops, and that feels good.

Options to spend gold:

In many free-to-play games I feel like there are limited options to spend the more valuable currency. In those games the main reason for spending the most valuable currency is to decrease or eliminate your wait time, and that just unlocks MORE wait timers. In Freeblade I feel like there are multiple opportunities to spend gold outside of just reducing wait times, such as the additional Salvage Team drops or additional tries at the in-game events.

In-game Events:

I think the in-game events are one of the better features that have been implemented outside of the core game loop, especially the Daily Event that provides everyone with the same mech. This allows me to engage in a competition with other players and I focus a lot more on maximizing my score in this mode in comparison to other missions.

Graphics:

I feel like I have to put this just because every time I play Freeblade someone comes up to me and asks me what I’m playing (Seriously, this happens almost without fail in a public space). While the frame rate can chug sometimes on my iPhone 6, I feel like this game sets a strong bar for the visual presentation of mobile games. Bravo!

What’s Not

Variety of Gameplay

Critique: While there are a lot of good things about Freeblade, one item I’ve found lacking is the variety of gameplay. Once you hit Chapter 10 the lack of variety in the core gameplay starts to show through especially given the number of Patrol missions you need to grind through. In the words of Rodney Carrington, “There’s only so many green m&m’s a man can eat before he just goes f$%*! I want a red one!”

Recommendation: Aside from creating new enemies and levels, I’d suggest varying the patrol missions in some fun, unique ways that either test the player’s skills, are more goal oriented, or tweak the current gameplay in some fun way similar to Destiny’s Nightfalls. This should at least make the current missions a little more fresh.

Examples could include patrol missions where:
-You have to stop a flow of Orcs from getting into a portal
-You have to shoot a stream of grenades or bombs out of the air
-You only can use your light weapon
-Only critical strikes against large mechs do damage
-The level only has large mechs
-You have to maintain a 2x combo for the entire mission
-You have to get a 60% accuracy rating with your light or medium weapon

In addition, I’d like to see the skill requirements of the gameplay increased to include some kind of precision shots associated with the light or medium weapons. It would be really cool if there were enemies with weak points where you can do bonus damage if you hit them in the right spot. It would also be cool if you had to stun some enemies with one weapon in order to do damage with another. I think the type of player that is attracted to this game appreciates the skill based component, and incrementally increasing the skill requirement would increase engagement among the current player base.

Customizations

Critique: In general, I’m not impressed with the customization features. First of all, customizations are hidden behind menus. In order to access them you have to click on your Freeblade which it not intuitive, then click on “Painting,” click on “Painting” again, then you can customize your Freeblade’s look and feel.

While the ability to change the color of my Freeblade is neat, what I really want is the ability to change what my Freeblade looks like at the physical level. I want to be able to change my Helm to look like Kylo Ren’s mask or my legs to look like the treads of Johnny 5! While I’m not sure what the technical challenges are there, I know that if those options were provided I’d be shelling out cash. Currently I optimize my gear based on quality, so customizing based on appearance isn’t really a consideration.

Finally, I don’t have a meaingful way to show off my Freeblade to other people through the game, which both makes me feel sad, and doesn’t motivate me to spend money to customize my Freeblade.

Recommendation: Ideally a player’s Freeblade should be an expression of them; with that in mind, here are some recommendations
-Completely refactor the menu of the Customizations. As it stands they’re hidden behind layers of menus and should be more accessible.
-Provide customizations that don’t just change the color of a mech, but allow physical changes to the look of each component akin to Diablo’s transmogrification system.
-Allow players to save and share their designs; other players would then be incentivized to purchase the customizations required to complete a set.

Customization Prices

Critique: Something that I find really frustrating is the disparity in prices of paint, emblems, and patterns. While there is no real difference in the shade of the different colors, they range range from 20 gold to 500 gold with no apparent difference in quality. While it’s great that there are some customizations that are more affordable than others, I don’t see a reason for there to be such a large price discrepancy.

Recommendation: Either the customizations should be the same price or there should be some clear distinction between the quality of the customizations. In League of Legends there is a clear distinction between General, Legendary, and Ultimate skins. If you’re going to charge 20 gold for one color and 200 for another color, the only change shouldn’t be a slight tweak to the RGB settings.

Repairs

Critique: While I understand that the Structural Integrity of a Freeblade is equivalent to energy in other free-to-play games, I don’t believe its application is necessary in this instance. Energy in other free-to-play games prevents players from grinding continuously and artificially shortens game sessions to encourage re-engagement. Between the Patrol timers and the gear requirement on levels, I think there are enough gates to prevent players from grinding endlessly.

Recommendation: I have a few different suggestions for the repairs system:
-Get rid of it entirely: While I don’t have data on players watching ads or paying gold to extend their game session length, I would guess that most players just stop playing when their mech damage is reduced, which doesn’t seem like the goal of repairs.
-Mech is fully repaired from watching one ad: This could keep an income source intact and allow players to continue playing as long as they watch an ad.
-Allow players to repair their mechs with Ore: Aside from getting rid of repairs entirely, using Ore to repair your mech would be another sink for Ore and makes a little more sense since gear is crafted from Ore. This would also create a positive feedback loop where you play games, earn ore, wear down your mech, then pay ore to repair it if you choose.
-Structural Integrity only decreases when you fail a mission: Finally, an option would be to only decrease the integrity when you fail a mission. This would prevent players from trying to grind missions repeatedly if they don’t have the gear required to successfully complete missions.

Forge

Critique: As I’ve gotten to a higher level one problem I’ve seen several times it that I’m not able to craft gear that is higher quality than the gear I currently have with the resources I have. In addition, due to this same problem, I’m not able to make use of the forge slots that I’ve unlocked.

Recommendation: I think there should be an item that can be purchased with gold or cash that allows you to ‘boost’ the quality of forge items. This ‘Quality Boost’ would be a one-time boost and would allow you to guarantee the quality of the item you forge. Taking this one step further, I would love to see a crafting system that allows you to imbue qualities into your weapons. Currently the properties of weapons and armor seem random, and I would like to have more control over the properties of the items I’m crafting. Perhaps additional items could be added to the crafting process, similar to gems in Diablo, that ensure specific qualities.

Patrol Grind

Critique: Completing 50 patrols to unlock subsequent chapters is way too grindy and something that I think can actually contribute to player churn. While I was able to suffer through the grind to get to Chapter 10, the Patrol Mission grind to unlock Chapter 11 is extremely high. The lack of variety in Patrol mission gameplay makes this grind that much more painful.

Recommendation: I recommend getting rid of the Patrol mission requirement to unlock chapters, but increase the Wargear requirements to access higher-level missions. As a player, it feels pretty bad to grind through Patrol missions just to get enough medals to unlock the next chapter. However, if I was running missions in order to collect materials to craft higher-level gear I believe I would find that more engaging. Even if some poor player did pay gold to unlock a chapter I imagine they wouldn’t have the Wargear rating required to participate in missions which would feel really bad.

Loyalty

Critique: Finally, I don’t currently like the indirect way Loyalty is acquired. While I think the perks associated with Loyalty are valuable, I can’t justify buying the items currently available to reach the next Loyalty tier. While part of that problem comes down to my perceived value of items currently available, the other aspect is that I don’t feel the absence of the Loyalty perks, so I’m not motivated to purchase items to get to the next Loyalty level.

Recommendations: I recommend a few things for loyalty that I mentioned in my previous post.
-Make Loyalty directly purchasable so it doesn’t seem locked behind other content that I don’t really want.
-Make the Loyalty Ranks rent-able for different time periods similar to World of Tanks and their Premium Account.
-Provide players with Loyalty Ranks based on how consistently they’ve logged in. For example, if a play has logged in for 30 days in a row unlock Loyalty II. In this respect you are rewarding loyalty through engagement.
-Provide a weekend of the next highest Loyalty tier so players get a taste of what they’re missing.

Social Interactions

Critique: The last critique I have for Freeblade is the lack of Social interactions with other players. While the single-player component was fun for awhile, I’d like to be able to engage or compete with other players in a more direct way. I think the events are a good start, but I’d like to see more opportunities to interact with other players.

Recommendation: I’d like to see some kind of club or guilds system that allows players to contribute resources to each other similar to Clash Royale. In addition, it would be really cool to have some kind of team competition where Guilds are competing for territory similar to the Mortal Kombat X Factions system. I think having a system where players group together toward a common goal could be a cool end-game mechanic and extend engagement beyond just maxing out the Wargear rating of your mech.

After providing all these criticisms, I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed playing Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade and look forward to all the new features the devs have in store for us!

If you liked this analysis and would like to see more, let me know. I had fun taking a critical look at Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade primarily because I like the game, I think it does a lot of things well, and I hope that there are some valuable lessons that others can learn from.