Guys I am not a gamer. So I’m not too familiar with “pay to win”
So I’m understanding this correctly, u can basically pay to unlock these characters? And if so how much does it cost to unlock the key characters like Luke and Vader?
I've read a bunch of stuff, but to be honest, until I see it in front of me it's kind of hard to track. It's WAY confusing and over-done. I kinda want to type this out so I can understand it myself. Anyone who's played, please correct me.
There are a handful of currencies/systems to track:
XP
Credits
Crystals
Crates/Star Cards
Scrap
Battle Points
XP earned determines your profile level or rank. Works like most any other game. That said, pretty much everything that needs to be unlocked (heroes, weapons, upgrades, etc) are all gated. Not only do you have to spend one of the other currencies to get them, but you have to have hit a certain rank to be allowed to do so.
Credits are rewarded along with XP. They are the in-game currency and you use them to buy loot crates or unlock heroes. Seems simple-- but that's ALL they are good for. The old simple system of credits being used to unlock everything is gone. You unlock heroes, or buy loot crates.
Crystals function the same as credits, but are bought with real-world money as in-game purchases. $1 = 100 crystals
Crates are the important reward as they contain star cards. They come in three flavors-- assault, starfighter, and hero, and the cards inside are for use in one of those three modes. Star cards can be unlocks, buffs/boosts, or abilities for their specific type. Or they could be poses, emotes, or outfits. The contents of a crate are randomized. So even if you spend a bunch of real world money, you aren't necessarily going to get anything good.
Scrap/crafting parts can be used to craft new cards or perks to existing cards. You get scrap randomly in some crates, or by breaking down duplicate cards in your inventory.
Battle points are another form of XP, but specific to the mode you are playing in. You use them to spawn into a match as a hero / hero vehicle. No more finding hero tokens on the field. But, like the last game, you get to be that hero until you die. That means to spawn in as Vader or Maul or Luke or whomever-- first you have to play enough to have the rank that lets you equip hero cards, you have to have credits to unlock said hero first, then you have to have played a match mode enough times, and done well enough, to earn battle points to have the option to spawn in as the hero. And if, like most of the time I play, you end up on a server with a bunch of no-life having 15 year olds who have the game mastered, you'll get killed within a minute and have to play the match a few more times to get the battle points again.
On top of all that, there are character classes now, which have different stats and use different cards for their boosts, and as a player you have to increase your card level to determine how many star card boosts you can equip.
Different classes have access to different weapons, and weapons are unlocked by passing kill challenges.
yeesh.
People are mad that you have to grind through random boxes for a long ass time to get certain things. Or, you can drop more money (like more than the game costs) to get in-game currency to help you unlock stuff-- but even then, the randomized nature of the loot crates could make it a giant waste.
So again, the game rewards people who spend every waking moment playing, or people who want to pa4 2,3, even 4x the cost of the game to have everything. If you're a casual gamer who just wants to play some Star Wars you're kinda SOL when it comes to multiplayer.
That said, there are offline modes. Arcade mode lets you play similarly to multiplayer, but just by yourself against AIs. It has all the same features and you can get the same stuff for use in multiplayer-- but to keep people from leveling up solo, there is a 24 hour cap on how much it will let you earn. This is basically set to prevent farming, but of course feels like a major ******* move on EA's part.
Campaign is the story mode, it has a very similar system in terms of currencies, but it's all specific to just the single player campaign mode.
At the end of the day, this is confusing AF and everyone is pissed off. EA is going to have to make good, or this game will bomb and Lucasfilm will pull the license.