Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (DICE)

If they wanted to emulate the obscenely lucrative pay-to-play model of other games they needed to be more covert about their intentions:

They should have started off with a barebones but functional game to hook in the players. With maybe a few perks that can be purchased but always with the sense that purchases are not at the core of the game. As the game gets popular they might introduce more and more interesting kinds of purchases and perks. Also many of existing pay to play games (e.g. Kabam Contest of Champions) started off with a lot more simple leveling and gameplay that made it easy to pick up. Kabam only later started gradually injecting layers of complexity and different forms of currency. The system is now about as convoluted as SWBF2 is starting off with but they did it so gradually that a lot of players who complained were already too invested in the game to quit. EA/DICE built their convoluted system right up front which already intimidates folks from the start.

Also they got too greedy too fast. The game should make it realistic for someone to be able to grind the game for most of the rewards and advance reasonably fast without spending a cent. The reason being is that these folks, as they progress further, will inevitably start spending. But EA/DICE effectively put a cap on grinding and disproportionately rewards folks who only want to spend money from the start to advance. That's the heart of pay to play.

This is a horrible long term plan because it's freezing out most grinders, including me. It's the grinders that remain loyal to a game and produce long term steady income. Also the grinders keep a game popular and sustain the community even if they might not spend much as those handful of players with bottomless pockets. When they biased the game so heavily towards spenders (and penalized the grinders) they're basically playing to one portion of the market. It's the grinders that will study a game's mechanics and are most vocal about promoting or slamming a game.
 
http://www.geekexchange.com/news/star-wars-battlefront-ii-the-hero-character-fiasco-explained/

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Then your friend purchased lootcrates as that is the ONLY way to be able to unlock the characters that quickly. Which is, AGAIN, part of the problems with this game. They've incentivized spending MORE money on a game that is already AAA-title priced (price does vary depending on which version you buy). They've taken the Free-to-Play game model and stuffed it into a standard full price game.

Governments are now getting involved.
No, he didn't. He never spends money on this kind of thing. He's a professional gamer though, so he might just be better and gets more credits. He's not the only one that unlocked most of the stuff quickly. You just need to do challenges and other extra stuff which gives you massive boost with credits.
 
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.

I use to be a heavy call of duty player back in the day of modern warfare 2. I didn’t hear people complaining like this when it came to “prestige-ing”

We would start at level 1, and work or way up to lv50. At level 50 you had the opportunity to “prestige” it rest set your level back to 1 but have you a different badge icon... to get to level 50 took a LONG time... 3 months of straight game play every night. It took me a year to get to level 50 alone...

We didn’t get any extra characters or power up’s they just did it for the badge icons. (Gold skull was the last badge)

I don’t ever recall anyone complaining on how long it to to prestige, and everyone was doing it

I’m amazed at the anger over this game mechanic
 

Even if it costs 2100, there are those that WILL pay it. Especially if it makes you better. Playing SWTOR - the crates their are all cosmetic stuff. On the auction house one day we saw one guy selling 60 crates. The way the price crates vs the buying of cartel coins put it at about $40/crate... At the same time, two other people had 25. And that was a single days worth of looking. People routinely have 10+ crates on auction. You can only get that many spending real money.
 
I use to be a heavy call of duty player back in the day of modern warfare 2. I didn’t hear people complaining like this when it came to “prestige-ing”

We would start at level 1, and work or way up to lv50. At level 50 you had the opportunity to “prestige” it rest set your level back to 1 but have you a different badge icon... to get to level 50 took a LONG time... 3 months of straight game play every night. It took me a year to get to level 50 alone...

We didn’t get any extra characters or power up’s they just did it for the badge icons. (Gold skull was the last badge)

I don’t ever recall anyone complaining on how long it to to prestige, and everyone was doing it

I’m amazed at the anger over this game mechanic

The complaints come from three big reasons I think--

1. COD, or other shooters like it, are always considered a gamer's game. They are known to be grinders and are made for that FPS grinder crowd. Not a pejorative, that is certainly a subset of gamers. Star Wars as an IP is pretty universal and open. I play a fair amount of video games, but I'm certainly not a grinder. I tend to just like story modes. In fact, the last Battlefront was really the first shooter I loved-- mostly because it was such an immersive SWE experience. This new system makes it mean for grinders only-- or people who want to spend money. There's a large subset of gamers who don't fit either of those criteria.

2. This method also creates for a serious imbalance in play as things like armor perks and weapons upgrades come into play. Multiplayer is frustrating enough when there's no level matching. EA thinks it'll balance out in the wash and that grinders with skill and weak equipment can still hold their own against low-skill buyers. But they are ignoring the extremes-- high skill players who will drop the money, or no-skill players with no money. The latter is especially are screwed cause once the game is out for awhile it's going to be a major pain to get anywhere as a low-end player if you're constantly getting killed. If everyone was on the same achievement race and the severs could do some rough level-matching, it would be much better.

3. This is a drastic switch from the last game, which was far more universal and easy to play for grinders and new-comers alike.

- - - Updated - - -

Every time I see an interview with one of the developers all I can see is some neckbeard who wants to get his Lambo a week after launch.

Post of the year. lol!
 
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Every time I see an interview with one of the developers all I can see is some neckbeard who wants to get his Lambo a week after launch.

I hear ya... As an aside, I just found out our health insurance, Anthem, is cancelling all plans in Southern California - it's just put me in a foul ass mood against greed and corruption...
 
The complaints come from three big reasons I think--

1. COD, or other shooters like it, are always considered a gamer's game. They are known to be grinders and are made for that FPS grinder crowd. Not a pejorative, that is certainly a subset of gamers. Star Wars as an IP is pretty universal and open. I play a fair amount of video games, but I'm certainly not a grinder. I tend to just like story modes. In fact, the last Battlefront was really the first shooter I loved-- mostly because it was such an immersive SWE experience. This new system makes it mean for grinders only-- or people who want to spend money. There's a large subset of gamers who don't fit either of those criteria.

2. This method also creates for a serious imbalance in play as things like armor perks and weapons upgrades come into play. Multiplayer is frustrating enough when there's no level matching/ EA thinks it'll balance out int he wash and that grinders with skill and weak equipment can still hold their own against low-skill buyers. But they are ignoring the extremes-- high skill players who will drop the money, or no-skill players with no money. The latter is especially as killed cause once the game is out for awhile it's going to be a major pain to get anywhere as a low-end player if you're constantly getting killed. If everyone was on the same achievement race and the severs could do some rough level-matching, it would be much better.

3. This is a drastic switch from the last game, which was far more universal and easy to play for grinders and new-comers alike.

- - - Updated - - -

Post of the year. lol!


i can only imagine the frustration when it comes to the "pay to win" option. i use to be pretty big into COD, and i remember having to start over when a new game would come out. the jobless teenagers could be on that all day, so a couple days after release i would be getting smoked by every teenage kid. their guys would have all the perks, while i ran around in my heavy boots still and everyone could here me

gets pretty frustrating quick

i really keep forgetting there is more to it then character unlock.
 
Battlefield already showed them the system. XP earned in matches ranks you up and unlocks weapons, camo, etc. Kills with each weapon unlocks accessories for that weapon. It's not hard.
 

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