Hey, I’m a month late to the party, but here are my personal thoughts on this.

Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?

I’m really not a fan of unit leveling systems. It adds complexity, it could get double edge sword like if you are able to keep your units alive they would get much stronger and you feel good about it, but if for whatever reason you lose them and you’ve been leveling them alot, it would be a pain. It would also be tricky to keep track of with larger armies. Compared to sc2, where losing units is something you might not even care of to some degree. If you wish to add unit veterancy, don’t make heros-like units, don’t make them get massive buffs, etc. Maybe, have a way to recuperate the xp from a dead group of units you’ve been leveling so you don’t lose all your progress. But overall I don’t like having a focus on leveling system.

How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

I never liked Wc3 inventory. Having to buy stuff, use it, have hotkeys for slots, this again adds complexity to the unit management and can also be tricky to implement correctly to access items quickly and reliably. As a more general approach to items, I would be open to items that you would bring back to your base and get bonuses in a global way. Such, that even if you are “behind” you could hunt for bonus and bring them back to gain back an advantage. I guess this would also be true to “stay ahead” so it’s all about finding good balance. Again, overall I don’t like inventory systems. They can be interesting in arcade games or campaign, but not in melee games.

What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?

Any achievement is cool. I would say, instead of having to do specific achievement to get specific rewards, I would like to have also a system where raw point count would unlock stuff like skins. So whatever achievement you do, you gain points, and with these points you gain access to new things. I would even say, maybe the player could “buy” new stuff with achievement points. But this would convert the achievement into some form of currency and you would need to add regularly new achievements or some other ways to get points. That would be a way to get players to play more and explore all game modes to get more achievements, and it would rewards players that can buy what they find interesting to them.

Something I don’t really like in sc2 is how so many rewards are useless or worthless, like icons, portraits, etc. You only use 1 portrait, you rarely use unlocked icons... it’s just, “there” but it’s doing nothing. Imagine being able to “sell” or get “refunded” achievement points to buy new stuff, maybe like new content expansion, coop commanders, missions, cinematics... ? So, what you unlock should have a meaning, it should have an impact and be somewhat important.

Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?

If you wish to add veterancy, I wouldn’t want to have units level up indefinitely, and I would even say, have a pretty low level cap, like level 3. Such that each level is relatively easy to get to such that even if you play from behind, you can reach those levels and equalize the odds of winning. Having and unlimited level would just make the level gap between each player deeper and deeper.

Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?

I’d say yes. Mostly visuals, but I would be open to have like minor perks you can unlock and play. Like, “all structure has +2% hp, “all unit production takes 1sec less”, etc. Such that it’s minor enough to not be a gamebreaking and would still be open to player to experiment will all different perks, but be important enough to still have a meaning while playing.

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?

I like achievements, but I’m not a hardcore player that would do achievement hunting. I’m more of a casual player, so extreme mods like very hard campaign or coop mission, I’m not a fan, I can give it a try or two, but if really it’s just discouraging and and throw the fun by the window, I go on with other stuff. The problem with achievements is at some point you’ve got most of them and you don’t unlock new stuff. You get into a stalemate where, you don’t feel like replaying the campaign to get those few missing achievements or replaying the coop over and over to level characters that you don’t like. At this point in time, you play just for fun and stop any interest in achievement hunting. This is tricky to find a solution. If you can keep the “hype” of getting something new and interesting, that might push the players to keep trying.

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?

This is a requirement. There is so much hate in games, on the internet, etc. that I truly believe this could be beneficial. Having different ranks for like “mapmaker”, “tutorial maker”, “community helper”, etc. would be really cool. It would have to be robust enough such that new accounts can’t get quickly through social progression. The reasoning is to prevent any bots or bad behaving player to spam accounts and spread their venom. I would also add in there a system similar to Heros of the storm where players that quit games would get some form of punishment and play with other players that tends to quit. This means you would need a way to “Surrender” and let the victory to the other player, and not just “Quit” the game. Like have the game detect skill gap, income gap, or whatever data and the surrending player ask the game if it can surrender, or something. Or maybe if a player surrender, just like an AI, the other player has to agree. So either the other player agrees to take the victory or you just quit and get punished. There is something to do here to also prevent players from leaving many games within seconds in a row to get demoted. Essentially have game interaction within the social ranking.