News - These Warzone 2i Weekly Unlocks Worry Me. Aftermarket Parts & Fomo
This is something I only very briefly touched on in the past, but I do feel like it's worth a call out here. This is the fact that for some of the aftermarket parts, which are conversion kits for a gun, they are going to be unlockable through weekly challenges. And while they have mentioned this in the past, they went into a bit more detail in one of Friday's blog posts, and based on how they've described it, I'm not really liking the sounds of this now.
I do want to be clear up front here; this is by no means a deal-breaker for the game or anything. I'm still looking forward to the game, but when I see something like this that I'm not a fan of, I think it is worth at least calling out so you guys are aware of it.
How aftermarket parts are unlocked
And diving right in, let's explain how this works. So they did mention in that blog post that we're going to be getting six of these aftermarket parts within the launch window of the game, and it looks like five of those are just going to have dedicated challenges.
Once you reach the maximum level for that gun, it opens up that challenge for the aftermarket market. Once you complete that challenge, you have that aftermarket part you can put on that gun, and that sounds perfect to me. It's like a nice little reward for finishing up the max level on that gun.
You get this super powerful or potentially super powerful attachment, or at the very least an attachment that drastically changes how the gun works. The problem here, though, comes with that sixth aftermarket part that's going to be available. Within the launch window, they say it's going to be available as the first weekly challenge, post-launch.
I don't know if they're going to have weekly challenges literally on day one or maybe not till a week later, but this is the Jack Raven kit on the MCW. And it is going to be unlockable via a weekly challenge, and they also mentioned many of the aftermarket parts in the future will also be added in this way where they come as a weekly challenge, and they have a note right here that explains us a little bit further for aftermarket parts that are unlocked through a weekly challenge like this one once the challenge expires at the end of the season the aftermarket part moves into the Armory challenge section for a new and always available unlock challenge, so from the sounds of this these weekly challenges will pop up where you have one week to complete this and if you complete it you get an aftermarket part for a gun and again as far as I can tell if you don't complete it within that week then you have to wait until the next season launches. In order for a permanent challenge to open up that you can complete at any time at your own pace, you don't have to just complete it within one week, assuming I am understanding all of that correctly and I've stated this correctly.
Why this concerns me
I really don't like the sound of this because they're relying on fomo, or the fear of missing out on actual in-game playable content, and fom is a tool they've been using for quite some time now in Call of Duty, but usually with cosmetic content, so like with seasonal battle passes, for instance, if you don't complete that battle pass, anything you miss out on within that battle pass You most likely won't ever be able to unlock that again in the future, and when it comes to the cosmetic content.
I don't really mind all that much if I miss out. I'm just missing out on something that looks different; I'm not missing out on any gameplay content. However, when it comes to playable content, I don't like the sound of this. What if, for whatever reason, you can't play for a particular week? Maybe you have a vacation plan for that week, or you're just a really busy person, or you have a really busy week on your hands.
I don't think any justification is really needed here anyway. This is a article game, not your job. What if you miss out on that week? Well, now you have no option to progress toward that playable content until the next season launches. And what happens if that aftermarket park becomes a very powerful weapon, for instance?
And honestly. I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be the case because if we just look at the beta, we had access to two different aftermarket parts, and both of them were really good, especially that retti conversion kit that turned a secondary weapon into one of the best primary SMGs in the game, at least in my eyes.
But let's just take a look at what I would consider to be a worst-case scenario. With the way this is set up, hopefully it will never actually be this bad, but it's just what could potentially happen with this. Let's just say there's an aftermarket part available as a weekly challenge and it becomes extremely powerful; it actually turns it into the best gun in the game, and for whatever reason again.
I don't think you should need to justify this. You were unable to play for that week or you were unable to play enough that week to unlock this, and since we're looking at the worst case, let's say this is also very early on in a season. Well, it looks like for the rest of that season, you're going to have to deal with playing against people that have this really powerful item that you don't even have a path to unlock at this point.
All you can do to get that is wait for the next season to launch. And then you can complete a challenge, unlock it, and be on the same page as those people. I don't really mind having to grind for something that other people have, but it's going to take you a while to grind for it and get it, and I think even in recent years, they've done a pretty good job keeping things relatively fair and balanced, like with the fact that you get brand new guns and the free version of the battle pass, you don't have to spend a penny.
Sure, it's going to take you a little bit longer to get through those tiers and unlock those guns, compared to somebody who just buys a battle pass and buys the tier skips or buys blueprints, for instance, but at the end of the day, you at least always have a way to progress toward unlocking. You might not have it now, but you can at least always work on getting it every time you log in to play.
You're progressing toward unlocking that thing when it comes to these weekly challenges, though, at least from the sounds of it based on how they've described it. If you miss out on that week, you can't even progress toward that until the season is over, and that will obviously create a lot of frustration for those that miss out on that because, at that stage, they'd be completely locked out of playable content.
