SPECULATION Star Wars: Battlefront II General Discussion

Downloading !

 

I just realized I haven't actually pre-ordered the game yet... let me change that.

 

https://kotaku.com/star-wars-battlefront-ii-lets-you-pay-real-money-for-mu-1820333246

 

Spoiler

For those following TLJ spoilers:

 

Just a heads up to the people that are buying this game, in the state that the game is in now it has pay to win microtransactions that will give the players that pay for them a advantage over people that don't, things like better weapon damage, ship repair speed, ability cool down reduction, ect. It also has some grindy mobile game elements too, like trying to unlock hero's to use them things like that. I just though i'd give you guys buying the game a heads up so you know what you're getting into.

 

I watched a recent interview, where it detailed that EA had listened to user feedback from the Beta. Believe EA have addressed this by upgrades only be made available by levelling-up. They seem to have made a concentrated effort to dispel the pay-to-win.

 

Seems like an exaggerated warning. Have you played enough to tell? We all know there are microtransactions and that's what it means - people who spend a lot of money get advantage. It sucks, I know, but this is not news. Let's not panic until it turns out it's impossible to keep up with those who pay by natural progression. Besides, hey, there were no microtransactions in the first game and I was still getting owned by experienced players at the beginning.

 

This is well worth a read.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/10...t-2-loot-crate-system-following-beta-feedback

 

I'll go loot crate crazy in 2 days! I pick up my game on 14th! Seriously though, all the complaints have made a substantial difference. EA is listening to a point, hopefully we will get a better game in the long run.

 

Here's an extensive interview about loot boxes. Joe hates that system, so he asked some really difficult questions. Obviously the DICE guy knows how to dodge, but it's worth watching anyway.

 

Been following the AngryJoe Army for years, loved his Call of Doody WW2 review, the Kevin Spacey part hard me laughing to tears; any who, Joe gave it to those Dice guys making them look like complete idiots

 

Yeah, I really like Joe's channel too.

Anyway, I've just deleted the first Battlefront to make space on my hard drive. It made me a little bit sad, lol - I've spent so many hours in this game. It reminds me of the Rogue One buildup when I was basically playing the game on "autopilot" with my mind fully occupied by speculation about the film. The game wasn't perfect by any means, but I had tons of fun with it. I hope to have at least twice as much fun with BFII. Starting the preload!

 

I played the Star Wars Battlefront 2 Beta, and enjoyed every moment of it. There are some things I don't like but the things I do out weigh the negative. I played the first Star Wars Battlefront game till the last minute. the servers are down for the PS4 so haven't played SW Battlefront for weeks I'm gonna make up for lost time Tuesday and Wednesday though... hehe

 

It's actually got worse since after that beta. The subreddit r/StarWarsBattlefront/ user have been in full revolt over EA and grind wall locked hero's and the poor progression system.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 12, 2017, Original Post Date: Nov 12, 2017 ---

It's not really at all, go take a quick look at the top posts of https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/ if you want to see what i'm taking about.

 

I'm just going go to ahead and add on to this by going over the current state of the "progression system" as of the Origin Access trial.

Not to be the pessimist here, but the "progression system" is very much non-existent. Rather, what EA/DICE has put in place over the 100% loot box reliant system is an almost-as-irritating (to me) grind (with the "option" of getting loot crates) in order to attain unlocks. And the word here is "grind" because that is exactly what you're going to be doing for any of the meaningful unlocks: weapons & heroes. Yes. Heroes. While 4 heroes are already unlocked and ready to use for each faction (Light & Dark sides, respectively), each faction also has 3 heroes that can only be unlocked through credits. This in of itself doesn't sound horrible until you realize the rate at which you earn credits vs. the cost of unlocking each hero. The worst offenders in the category are Luke & Vader which have the cost of 60,000 credits each, when you will be, on average, pulling 100 to 250 credits per match, regardless of how well or poorly you performed per match. Beyond playing matches there are only 2 more ways to earn credits: Complete challenges, or open loot crates. The former adds another layer of to the grind as these require you to earn a specific number of kills with a specific weapon (some of which you have to complete other challenges just to unlock), play as a class for a certain period of time, ect. As for the latter... I'll be saving the loot crates for last.

And since I've brought up weapons this brings me to how you unlock weapons. Basically, each class gets only 3 weapon unlocks. 2 of these can be obtained by completing 2 specific in-game challenges, the third can be obtained either by buying the deluxe edition or, as far as I'm aware, buying loot crates (Which again I will address later). The first of these two challenges isn't bad, get 50 kills with whichever respective class. The second of these, however, is lengthier, requiring the player get 500 kills with that class. Impossible? No, but it will definitely take some time, especially if you're not used to playing these sorts of games. Unless...

And now we get to the elephant that's stirred up a storm since the beta: Loot Crates. Long story short: The only change made, near far as I can tell, is that you can no longer obtain max level star cards from them. That's it. But common, premium, and rare level cards can all still be obtained. So what does any of this have to do with the slow grind to obtain credits or weapons? Simply put: The loot crates also act as a bypass to the current grind system, where if you're lucky enough you will obtain instant access to certain unlocks, such as weapons. Moreover, loot crates are also a good way to obtain credits, as the more star cards you get, the more duplicates you get: which means more credits given. Meaning: Spend more money, get more credits for unlocks, and/or get instant access to weapon unlocks. No grind necessary.

In other words: You are still very much being encouraged, if by sheer aggravation, to spend money on loot crates in an attempt to bypass the amount of time it would take to actually unlock weapons and heroes, never mind the fact that loot crates completely bypass the level gate for upgrading star cards by potentially handing you star cards that are just shy of max level without having to get anywhere near the in-game rank required to upgrade cards using crafting parts.

Does this make the game unplayable? Absolutely not. The gameplay is incredibly well polished and the game runs beautifully, and if the things I've seen over the past few days on reddit are any indicator, Battlefront 2's story is looking like a good addition to the Star Wars mythos. That said, it is still disappointing, if not disturbing, to see EA try to push for this borderline freemium style "progression system" in a full $60 USD game. And while I know the logic is that the micro-transactions are what is going to pay for the free DLC seasons going into the future, I'm not feeling totally sure if it was worth having EA pull something like this to achieve it.

 

Man, I wish I got a "veteran pack" with my 300k+ credits from the first Battlefront.

More seriously, though, I think it's possible credits are capped for the early access. If not, the sh*tstorm is big enough that it's likely they'll tweak the credit drop soon after launch.

 

Unfortunately there is no credit cap for early access, this is pretty much what it is going to look like at launch. Furthermore members of the EA Community Management team only just now started to respond to the mad frenzy over on the subreddit, with... middling answers that both acknowledge the frustration while attempting to defend certain decisions.

This is very much a case of "wait and see what happens", as I doubt they're going to make any drastic changes anytime soon.

 

It's good that players are voicing the concerns then. This is extremely bad PR right before the launch and EA/DICE should feel bound to do something in order to save sales.

Well. Can't wait to see for myself over the upcoming weekend.

Btw. which heroes are unlocked from the start?

 

I don't like this loot box thing at all.
If the original Battlefront 2 didn't have this set up, I see no reason to start now.