Hey All, BopNSwap here, with our third Dev Q&A for Season 1: Flashpoint.
We’ve had a lot of questions around the new Buy Menu:
- What’s changing?
- Is it just a visual update?
- Will there be new weapon pairs?
We’ve dedicated this entire Q&A to Buy Menu 2.0, which is a complete overhaul from what you’ve experienced previously. Let’s dive in!
The Original Buy Menu
One of the major skill checks we want players to master is Weapon Breadth. We think FPSs are at their best when players are enjoying a variety of weapons, trying to discover the situations where each weapon excels to gain an edge and to outplay the competition.
Additionally, we wanted weapon pairs to lean into our unique Duality mechanic and force players to think differently about how they set up an attack or defense. Players need to think about their pair of competitors, using them both in the best combination of positions to compliment their round strategy. We also hoped players would get to live the Duality dream of covering their own OP body with a short ranged weapon as they get pushed.
A paired weapon system came with a unique challenge in that players could potentially have different weapon power levels on each body. For our first iteration, we really wanted to maintain power consistency when purchasing, so we grouped all pairs into Tiers where all weapons within a tier have similar power levels. This decision made it easy to understand your overall strength at a glance when making a purchase (e.g. Tier 4 > Tier 3) and to understand what you were up against mid-round.
The fallout of these goals was that the menu was more confusing than we liked for new players. While veterans learned the menu quickly, new players would struggle to wrap their heads around the pair concept. The original Buy Menu was simply not like anything seen in any other shooter in a way that added to confusion. On hover button state changes further exacerbated this problem. While we got many gameplay benefits, we paid a high price in terms of onboarding.
We eventually added a “Quick Buys” tab to the Buy Menu that could reduce cognitive load as a player was onboarding, but it wasn’t enough on its own.
With these pros and cons in mind, we set out to do better…
Buy Menu 2.0
Our new iteration of the Buy Menu will allow players to build weapon pairs on the fly. Players can choose any Body 1 weapon and freely pair it with any Body 2 weapon. Players will have way more freedom to craft the perfect pair that meets the needs of their strategy in a given round.
First and foremost, we’ve massively increased weapon pair choice and freedom. Always dreamed of a Bouncer + Crusader combo? Or a Reaver + Trident for you headshot fiends? Now’s your chance. We’ve gone from 20 pairs to 56 - all while making it easier to understand! You’ll have more chances to get creative, more direct control over the amount of money you want to spend, and far fewer moments where you feel stuck with a weapon that doesn’t pair with something that augments your strategy.
Mastering a variety of weapons is still a core tenant of this system, while also allowing you more opportunities to play your own way. We’ve relaxed the weapon power level restrictions, so you can now pair what was a Tier 1 weapon in the old system with what was a Tier 4 weapon. We’ve adjusted the prices of a number of weapons as well, due to the impact of this flexibility. You’ll more easily get one high powered rifle, but it will be harder to get the Crusader/Blackout or Crusader/Reaver pair to compensate. Additionally, the machine guns have come down in price, so Berserker fans rejoice :)
Second, we wanted to ensure that the menu was overall much, much easier to understand. Gone are the state-changing buttons and tier restrictions. We’ve split the UI into two halves (one for each body) which feels more intuitive and more naturally communicates the most important information players need. The weapons themselves have also had their models updated and are now shown in full color for easier readability.
Simply buy a weapon from the Body 1 section and another from the Body 2 section and you’re good to go (assuming you have enough cash!). The buttons more clearly reflect what you’re getting and how the system works, which should help onboarding and learning significantly.
We’re also making a number of changes that will help players at all skill levels avoid feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information on screen, such as reducing the total amount of text displayed by introducing new iconography, and improving how your teammates’ current inventories are shown to you (hidden by default).
Third, the new Buy Menu is now “smarter” and it will help your team save money through the team inventory whenever possible. In the old version, you had to purchase a pair after a weapon was placed into the team inventory to get the benefits of the free weapon. The new Buy Menu will do this for you automatically whenever there is an opportunity to do so, saving you that hard-earned cash!
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This updated menu should feel great to use on both PC and console, and we’re confident that the updated visuals and improved design will help players no matter which platform they’re playing on.
This feature will completely change the way you play Spectre and we can’t wait for you all to try it soon!
See you all in Breakwater (2.0) 🙂,
BopNSwap