which is hard to do for new players or returning players as long as people support games that only reward people with less responsibilities in life an advantage over other players. Putting things that effect gameplay behind a grind do not belong in Team PVP games. Carrot on the stick grind and all that stuff should stay in RPGs and MMORPGs where they belong. Doesn't matter if it takes 10 mins to unlock everything or 40 hours. An advantage is an advantage is an advantage.
You, sir, are preaching to the choir. I HATE progression/unlock systems in PvP games. I hate that RPG-like mechanics exist in these games. You want to put that in single-player? Fine. But keep your Skinner boxes out of my PvP.
That said, the game is still a lot of fun. And the grind -- at least for the initial phase -- isn't that bad, especially if you play it smart. More on that in a bit.
Having to over come a gear gap on top of a skill gap is tedious, that's not fun.. that's a second job just being farmed and crapped on until you're finally at a point yourself where the only disadvantage is now skill.. oh but don't worry, here comes a new DLC to drop with new cards and weapons for you to fall behind again and start the climb again.
To add insult to injury, these advantages when given to players with high skill basically make them nigh impossible to kill unless you get lucky or tag team him. In a Team PVP game everything should be avaible to each team from the start and wins and losses determined by skill and teamwork or lack of. Only thing in loot crates should be cosmetics that have 0 impact on game play.
At least that's my opinion and biggest gripe about playing this game and every Battlefield game since BF2 and why I end up losing interest about a month or so in because that's the point you really start seeing these gaps between players with load outs vs players still working their way through and games start being horrible one sided.
Yup. those are undeniably problems with most modern games, and especially with DICE games. This game, in that respect, is worse than most, because its upgrades are true upgrades, not just "sidegrades". (Although sidegrades are still an advantage.) Sadly, at least for the time being, that's what's available.
HOWEVER
There are ways to manage the system in this game and make it suck...less. With that in mind, I'm going to offer a few tips. If not for you, then perhaps for someone else who'll be curious about the game, but daunted by starting out when other people have been playing a while.
- First, and most importantly
only buy Hero crates. The card drop system for crates basically guarantees that you'll get 1-2 cards for the "type" of the crate, and between 2-3 other cards that are totally random. In my experience, a hero crate gives me a guaranteed hero card, and a grab bag otherwise. That means that, although you want trooper cards (more on that in a sec) to start, DO NOT BUY A TROOPER CRATE. Trooper crates drop 4-6 cards, with 2-3 guaranteed as trooper cards...but they cost double what the hero crate does, and the hero crate still gives you 4-5 cards at a time. So, bottom line, the hero crates give you the most bang for your buck.
Only buy Hero crates.
- Second, and almost as important as the first part
don't spend your credits on heroes to start. Even if you're gonna play a ton of Heroes vs. Villains, Heroes should be viewed as a luxury, rather than a necessity. Your "free" heroes are all perfectly good and useable. Light side gets Yoda, Rey, Han, and Lando, and if you play during the TLJ season you get Finn for free (he'll cost credits later, we think). Dark side gets Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Bossk, and Kylo Ren, and if you play during TLJ you get Cpt. Phasma free (same deal as Finn). Besides, you'll be gradually building up your heroes with your trooper crates anyway. The unlockable heroes are good, but they aren't THAT much better than the free ones, and in some ways they're worse. I kick ass with Lando, even with only two tier 1 cards. Rey is an absolute beast if you use her effectively. And Bossk is probably my favorite Dark side villain. Fett is interesting, too, if you can get used to his style (I can't, really). Instead of buying heroes, spend your money on...hero crates. You'll build up heroes, AND troopers pretty evenly that way. I know the lure of heroes can be tempting, but unless you're consistently scoring ~8000 battlepoints per game, it's a waste of credits. And heroes aren't even in every game mode, like Blast and Strike (which are actually pretty fun).
- Third, you can get 1500 credits per day from the arcade. This takes about 15-20 min per day, but the reward rate is a LOT faster than what you'd earn live in-game. To put it in perspective, a long game of Galactic Assault might yield you 500-ish credits if it lasts 20 min,
not including load times. You can earn
3 times that much, including load times, in the arcade. Basically, you either set up a custom game mode where you have double health as a hero, against 10 one-hit kill enemies and just win the match, OR you can play the third tier of the Dark Side final mission where you start with 3 second. Make one kill, the counter adds another 3 seconds, and then just wait. Grand total of 6 seconds, match ends, start over.
- Early on, you can earn a bunch of credits doing pretty easy challenges. Play one round of each game style (to completion -- you can't just log in and quit immediately). Stuff like that. There's some similar ones in the arcade you can do, too. Play the single player campaign. It's a decent story, it's not very hard, and you'll earn a bunch of credits and crafting parts along the way (crystals, too, but I haven't used any of those). The final mission will yield you 5000 credits (which is enough to buy Iden, but...eh...I don't find her all that great so far). Basically, the early stuff will probably give you around 20K credits or so, maybe a bit more, all while you're still earning credits from arcade play and live play. Again, use those credits for hero crates.
- Study the cards you think you want for each class of trooper and starfighter, and craft them or craft upgrades to them. There are challenges that require the use of certain cards, but don't sweat those. You'll eventually get those as crate drops. It costs 40 crafting parts to make a basic card. They are highly useful, but usually aren't THAT much of an upgrade over the base trooper's abilities. Many of the cards are traditional "sidegrades" at the basic level (e.g. replacing the officer's turret with a deployable shield). The upgrades to the cards are useful, too, but not always a huge finger on the scale. The real difference is the jump from level 3 (blue) to level 4 (purple). It's also worth bearing in mind that the percentage jumps may look impressive, but may not mean that much. If your grenade blast radius is 3m, then a jump of +30% means...your blast radius is now 4m. Huzzah? I mean, it makes a difference, but it's not like "OMG +30% radius?! That must be like another 40m!!!" necessarily. Anyway, focus on the cards you want with your crafting points. Each hero crate will drop 35-50 crafting points, and you get more from various challenges and the campaign. Use those to kit your troopers and fighter craft out. and figure you'll probably pull upgrade cards a long the way. Maybe not often, but you'll pull some. I've pulled maybe...5-6 blue cards and a bunch of green ones.
I'm happy to answer questions for folks if they are curious about whether I think XYZ card is worth it or how it'd be useful.