Off Topic > Star Wars Discussion
Did Ea shoot themselves in the foot with BF2?
Illidan Stormrage:
So Battlefront 2 honestly looked like a great game, until the beta. During the Beta we learned that to compensate for a lack of paid DLC(Season pass) we are getting a loot crate system. Now don't get me wrong their are great loot crate systems out there like CSGOs, or Overwatches, But this one is basically paid to win system to and from. The loot crates can give you: Star cards, weapons, upgrades for heroes, upgrades for fighters, emotes, skins, and a new currency called crafting parts. Now how the system works is like this:
1. Every match you earn credits. The amount of credits you get is dependent on how your TEAM does. Not you. so like Communism, everyone gets the same amount even if you did better then the worst player on your team. You get on average about 150 credits. the highest I ever got was 270 but that once.
2. You get a daily loot crate every time you log in. Other crates are purchased by either credits, or another currency called crystals( real money converted to game currency). The lowest level crate is a 1000 and the other three crate types are 1100. This means on average you have to play over 2 hours of game time to earn the lowest costing crate.
3. Due to how much stuff is in these crates, rarely will you get what you want. For example if I want the CR-2 Naboo security blaster, I have to either get 600 crafting parts, or earn it randomly in a crate drop. Keep in mind you can only get crafting parts in crates and their is no guarantee you will get crafting parts. Also that means you would play on average about over 12 hours to get enough for a weapon.
4. Some star cards are extremely powerful. One card I found and equipped was called "Death from a above" this is a Hero Star Card for Boba Fett. The affect at rank one is 50% damage reduction when using your get pack or Rocket Barrage ability. If you rank this up to max its a 100% damage reduction when using this card. Another card I found useful was two tie bomber cards. 1 gave me increased damage with Proton torpedoes and the muilt-missile thing. the other gave me addition missiles I could fire that could go all the way up to 12 missiles.
5. The amount of cards you can have equip is affect by How many cards you have and what rank are they.
6. You can buy loot crates using real money. Yes this is a pay-to-win system.
7. All DLC will be free, but the DLC weapons, emotes, star cards, and cosmetics will be added to the loot crates. Therefore you will have to constantly play in order to get what you want.
This by far has got to be the worse case of Micro-Transactions and loot crates I have ever seen.
EA basically shot themselves in the foot. It saddens me because If I buy this game I am supporting this practice. That sucks because I honestly want to play the campaign, and I loved the space battles.
what do you guys think?
Pali:
I'd call it pay-to-save-time rather than truly pay-to-win, as you can earn the same rewards through time investment. Star Trek Online's loot boxes, for example are much more of the PTW variety, as they can only be opened through purchase of keys with credits or through the dilithium exchange - credits cost real money, and no matter how much you play there is a cap on dilithium conversion that means at bare minimum you have to wait three days between purchases of keys.
That said, I'm a bit more forgiving than most seem to be when it comes to these kinds of post-release policies. If a game is meant to be heavily multiplayer, or continue to be worked on after release, then the company needs to keep making money off of its continued work. There are a lot of ways to do this, most with their own pros and cons - Paradox combines free content and patches with paid DLC mini-expansions, which lets them keep working on and radically revamp their games for years after release... but it also means that if you want to buy the complete EUIV experience now you need to buy a dozen+ DLCs along with the base game. STO's pay to win style is brutal for competitive players, but for a casual like me who only ever played solo for the atmosphere and stories it was glorious - I got 100+ hours of playtime in the Star Trek universe without ever dropping a penny.
With BF2, they clearly want to keep the game alive for a while, and to do that they need to release DLC. Either they charge for the DLC, or they find a way to make smaller amounts of money more often over time - and loot boxes aren't a terrible way to do that. The advantages afforded by dropping extra cash will balance out over time as other players eventually earn the same rewards.
Illidan Stormrage:
--- Quote from: Pali on October 13, 2017, 08:18:13 PM ---With BF2, they clearly want to keep the game alive for a while, and to do that they need to release DLC. Either they charge for the DLC, or they find a way to make smaller amounts of money more often over time - and loot boxes aren't a terrible way to do that. The advantages afforded by dropping extra cash will balance out over time as other players eventually earn the same rewards.
--- End quote ---
Then why not just make the loot boxes cosmetic only? Just because it saves some people time isn't a reasonable excuse. Other people may pour in more time and feel cheated when they see a guy who rarely plays unlocks advance weapons and gear through paying real life money at the screen.
I can understand with free to play games, but a AAA game already costs $60.
I mean Cosmetic only has worked for CSGO, and Overwatch so why not a cosmetic only crate system. Putting weapons, star cards, and stuff needed to craft weapons makes this even worse.
GreyStar:
--- Quote from: Pali on October 13, 2017, 08:18:13 PM ---I'd call it pay-to-save-time rather than truly pay-to-win, as you can earn the same rewards through time investment.
The advantages afforded by dropping extra cash will balance out over time as other players eventually earn the same rewards.
--- End quote ---
With an entirely RNG progression system with strength tied directly to luck on the slots, and the only way to get luck on the slots is to play for long periods of time or shell out cash, with no in game progression other than luck, and said luck definitely affecting how one preforms in a competitve multiplayer game, it's pay to have a chance of winning. There's not much to say about a situation where you can have two players of equal skill where they've invested the same playtime, but one paid for lootcrates and thus stastically is better than his counterpart in almost every way. That's the situation created here by the crates as even if extreme playtime can overcome an RNG progression system, that doesn't work as to overcome the system they need to win, which they are at a disadvantage at because other players got a few more loot crates and thus being stastically better means they win more often and at better scores.
The last time I saw this in a serious Star Wars game that wasn't trash was Galatic Starfighter where even if I was more skilled, I couldn't beat the other players due to their stastically in every way upgraded ships, and thus I kept losing, so I couldn't progress because of those losses, meaning I would never be able to match them, which means I kept losing.
Also, side note, waiting for the game to come out and a guy unboxes the same gun from 100 lootcrates, and all the crates he makes with those extra guns just keep producing the same gun, so he's stuck in a cycle of never progressing thanks to one in ten million RNG.
Pali:
--- Quote from: Illidan Stormrage on October 13, 2017, 10:50:22 PM ---Then why not just make the loot boxes cosmetic only?
--- End quote ---
Because that almost certainly wouldn't make as much money, and while I'm hardly privy to EA's financial planning, I'd bet that they plan to fund a significant chunk of post-release development and maintenance with income from loot box sales, while the initial up-front $60 sale price is likely budgeted to pay for the development and marketing costs they've already sunk into making the game.
--- Quote from: GreyStar on October 14, 2017, 12:23:52 AM ---With an entirely RNG progression system with strength tied directly to luck on the slots, and the only way to get luck on the slots is to play for long periods of time or shell out cash, with no in game progression other than luck, and said luck definitely affecting how one preforms in a competitve multiplayer game, it's pay to have a chance of winning. There's not much to say about a situation where you can have two players of equal skill where they've invested the same playtime, but one paid for lootcrates and thus stastically is better than his counterpart in almost every way.
--- End quote ---
If it were a 1v1 or small squad game, I'd care more about individual players not being perfectly balanced against each other. In a large team game, it's less of an issue, as both teams will benefit from having well-equipped players. Yes, there will be randomness, and yes, there will be games where one team has a ton of super-equipped people and the other team has jack, but statistically it'll likely balance out for the most part. *shrugs* The main issue would be if the bonuses are too great, but if there's enough blowback they can always be nerfed in patches.
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