In many ways, Call of Duty Black Ops 4’s Black Market system is a clear success. Activision and Treyarch wisely moved away from loot boxes, instead embracing a monetization model that feels much less gross. However, as user-friendly as the Black Market is, it also has some glaring weak points. If Treyarch really wants to win over more long-term players, implementing the changes I’ve outlined below would certainly help.
Daily/Weekly Missions
Treyarch clearly took a page out of Fortnite’s book when designing Black Ops 4’s Black Market system. In many ways, the system mimics Fortnite’s widely popular Battle Pass by allowing players to unlock tier-based rewards. The Black Market, though, is extremely limited in how it grants tier progress.
In Fortnite, players can complete an ever-growing list of weekly challenges as well as a rotating list of daily challenges. No such daily/weekly challenge system currently exists in Black Ops 4, players just slowly earn tier progress by playing. This is especially odd considering that daily/weekly missions were incorporated into previous Call of Duty games.
It’s nice that Treyarch ties tier progress to time spent playing rather than a player’s individual performance. However, the rate at which tiers are earned can feel painfully slow, especially when playing Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode. If there were daily/weekly missions to provide small boosts to tier progress, more casual players might feel encouraged to stick around.
Structured Blackout Challenges
Speaking of Blackout, the current Blackout progression system holds virtually no appeal for casual players. It’s entirely possible for a less-skilled player to come away from a Blackout match with nothing to show for it. The mode’s super-strict conditions for awarding merits ensures that only the highly-skilled have any hope of reaching higher Echelon ranks.
Structured Blackout challenges would negate this detractor by giving less-skilled players clear goals to work towards. The presence of varied challenges is honestly why I prefer Fortnite so much. If I get even a single kill in a battle royale match, I consider it a miracle. Finding hidden treasures or moving from point A to point B, however, is something I can absolutely do.
Zombies Contraband Stream Progress
I know this will be a controversial suggestion, but I’m sure there are ways to implement it fairly. The issue with enabling contraband stream progress for Zombies is that it would be too easy to exploit. Players could just glitch their way into an area where the zombies cannot reach them, gaining unlimited tier progress.
Treyarch recently implemented daily tier skips which are earned by surviving 15 waves in a Zombies match. I think a similar system could work for enabling contraband stream progress, it would simply have to be limited in some way. Maybe make it so that players can’t earn more than one contraband tier per day through Zombies. Or maybe no more than five tiers per week. These additional tiers would stack with the daily tier skips Zombies players can already earn.
I enjoy the idea of Zombies, especially with the daily tier skips. However, not being able to earn contraband stream progress like I can in multiplayer and Blackout really sucks. These limited progress milestones I have proposed would negate that detractor.
For more on Black Ops 4, be sure to read about the new Blackout custom games feature. We’ve also got the full patch notes for the game’s 1.10 update.