The start of the new season of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 curtailed a way to receive additional cosmetic loot – much to the dismay of numerous fans. However, Treyarch responded quickly and improved the Black Market .
What happened? With the start of Operation Grand Heist, the Black Market, the in-game shop of Black Ops 4, was revised among other things.
While new loot boxes were introduced, a method to earn additional cosmetic items was also restricted. This caused further criticism from the community in addition to the outcry over the loot boxes.
What was the problem? The new smuggling goods stream, a kind of battle pass for the Black Market, offers players 100 ranks where they can earn fixed cosmetic rewards at each rank.
At the same time, they can earn loot boxes in-game (or buy them with real money). These contain random items from the reserves. Reserves were previously obtained when a player reached the last regular rank (100) of a stream and then continued to level up.
While players could earn reserve boxes before reaching rank 100, the current stream of Operation Grand Heist ended at level 100. Once this rank was reached, there were no more reserve boxes available, unlike before.
Additionally, the progress to earn these loot boxes was too slow for many. All of this led to a new wave of criticism. However, Treyarch took the feedback to heart and quickly improved the Black Market based on fan feedback.
How Treyarch made improvements: Reserve boxes can now not only be earned from the start but also through gameplay progress after reaching rank 100.
Moreover, the free tier promotions that can be earned daily now also guarantee reserve boxes after reaching tier 100. This had not worked properly before.
Additionally, reserve boxes can now be earned twice as fast.
If you have already reached rank 100 in the current smuggling goods stream, you will be retroactively rewarded with reserve boxes. The number of these corresponds to the ranks you have earned after reaching tier 100. So no progress or rewards are lost.
How fans are reacting to the changes: Many fans are pleased that the developers responded so quickly to their criticism. The system is now considerably better than it was at the beginning of the new season.
Additionally, fans feel a sense of small personal victory and are proud that they were able to prompt Treyarch to take action – even though many players previously thought this rather unlikely.
What do you think? Is the loot box system of Black Ops 4 in its current form acceptable to you?
