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Battlefront 2 Will Be Pay to Win

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So apparently there will be microtransactions in Battlefront 2. Players will be able to spend real money on in-game currency to buy crates that unlock items. I actually didn’t know this at all until yesterday, but that’s okay.

I’m seeing a huge wave of negativity surrounding the microtransaction business model. I’m no fan, either. I get it. Paying real money to get crates that DO provide an advantage isn’t something I’m ‘ok’ with, but it’s also not something that’s going to keep me from playing.

Thankfully, maps and stuff won’t come at a cost. There won’t be the “season pass” (which go for like $20-$40 these days for other games) or any of that nonsense. You buy the game, and you play it as long as you like.

If you want to drop lots of cash and buy crates, you can probably earn an advantage if you get some nice items out of those crates.

Pay to win? Yes

I do wish they’d have gone the route of Overwatch’s crates. I have a friend who spends way too much money on Overwatch stuff, and I’m almost positive it’s just cosmetic. People like cosmetic stuff and will buy it, but perhaps not at the rate people will drop on crates with advantages.

The point has also been made that “star cards” dictate your class’ level, which dictates what you can use. So yes, buying crates on day one will shoot you to the top.

Again, this is indeed pay to win.

But again, I’m still pre-ordering.

Why? Because Battlefront is A LOT of fun. I had my best game tonight loading up a basic Specialist on Graev’s account to get make sure he could get a founder’s crate (he couldn’t play this beta period). So I had the basic rifle and nothing else. I smoked people and was the leader in kills. Other people had all weekend, were level 10, and yet it made no difference. My blaster still killed them fine.

Now the wait until release.

  • Pay to win kills games quite fast. People stop buying and playing once they figure that they’ll need to spend a hundred €/£/$ just to not be roflstomped.

    • I’m hoping that paying money doesn’t grant one the ability to roflstomp. From what I can tell, the ability grant advantages but not godlike powers. The best and most often cited upgrade card is Boba Fett’s 100% damage reduction while using his wrist rockets. I’ve seen it in action — it’s intense — but really not a complete game changer.

  • Reading stuff on this, the barrier to get the actual big impact upgrades is quite a bit higher than playing a weekend. There is stuff like 100% instead of 50% damage reduction while flying as Boba Fett. Things like that have quite a massive impact, and that’ll make me pass. The game will start fine when everyone has nothing for the first week or 2-3 and after that the differences between paid in time/money will become big and very noticable and leech the fun.

    • It may leech some fun, but I’d hope that if you’re not paying money for crates (like me) that as long as you played diligently you would still earn crates and have a chance to get those items too. I hope the difference in power levels will not be so severe that it’s unplayable.

      And in reality, even a fully decorated character isn’t going to be completely unstoppable. In a vacuum, 1v1, sure. Huge difference. But there will often be dozens of players around you. Even the hero units die quickly when focus fired.

      There’s also a hope for balance tweaks. Even now we know they’re looking at it. The EE4 (Specialist E ability) can drop Rey or Darth Maul or Boba Fett in seconds. I took down Darth Maul last night before he could finish his twirl attack at me. Was hilarious to watch, but also grossly OP. I looked on Twitter, and sure enough the devs mentioned it has already been tweaked but didn’t make it into the beta build.

      The Boba Fett ability you’re mentioning is 100% damage reduction when using Missile barrage in the air (something like that). So it’s not like he’s 100% invulnerable running around the map. Duck under some cover and you’re 100% immune from him now. I get the point you’re making, though. There will be a power gap between the “spend $100 on crates” and “just play the game” crowds. How big that gap can be is up to the devs. Fingers are crossed.

  • 1st article – “Crates seem to be the biggest form of progression, at least from what I could tell. Crates give you the ‘cards’ or the big upgrades to your character.”

    2nd article – “…hero units are serious trouble for everyone but other hero units.”

    3rd article – “So yes, buying crates on day one will shoot you to the top. Again, this is indeed pay to win.”

    Selling a fun game the devs purposefully broke that can be repaired with real money is a parasitic monetization scheme.

    I can’t believe people will willing buy a box for $60/$80 and then continue to pay real money to remain competitive.

    Treating your player base like bags of cash to be repeatedly harvested over time through “fun pain”, on top of a premium priced box purchase, is an extremely disrespectful and exploitative business model that I wish people would stop supporting.

    Gamers who still purchase BF2 must realize they are sending EA the counter-productive message that their monetization schemes are viable.

    “There are already people putting on the tinfoil hats saying they found premium currency in the beta files. Reddit is abuzz with doomsday “omg pay-to-win” stuff. I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll ignorantly give them the benefit of the doubt.”

    …but the thing is it no longer can be considered “ignorantly” trusting EA to provide a gamer-friendly business model as experience demonstrates otherwise.

    At this point there should be acknowledged red flag words such as “EA”, “Zygna”, and “Smedley” that forewarn people they are about to be fleeced, and have no one but themselves to blame for allowing themselves to be taken advantage of.

    Perhaps you could hyperlink “EA” in your future articles to this video?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhmBmEa0wYU

    It is hypocritical to condemn F2P games while simultaneously supporting a game that incorporates a F2P P2W type of cash shop, but even worse, on top of a premium box price.

    Is there a more exploitative model than what EA has devised in BF2?

    For the gamer community’s sake, we need to stop supporting overtly exploitative monetization schemes.

    • You’re forgetting about a crucial component of the equation: Fun.

      I’m 100% not a fan of microtransactions. In fact, I’m not even a fan of the kind that only offer cosmetics like Overwatch. Would I rather they not be in the game? 100%.

      I don’t play Overwatch. Why? I actually don’t think it’s all that fun. It’s not a bad game, I just don’t get excited to play, and I bore quickly while playing.

      Star Wars has been fun in beta. A lot of fun. It’s what I wanted Call of Duty WW2 to be for me (and it sorely wasn’t).

      There will be pay-to-win elements of Battlefront 2’s microtransactions. I’m disappointed by that, but I’m going to operate under the assumption that the game is fun enough to overcome that hurdle — and it’s surely a hurdle.

      I condemn F2P games built around their cash shops. 99.9% of F2P games are garbage game that are designed around the shop.

      Battlefront 2 does not appear to be one of those games. Battlefront 2 appears to be a good game with some stupid decisions about crates.

      If they end up releasing a game that is utterly destroyed by their microtransactions, I will be on the front lines condemning it. For now, I’ll buy the game and play my heart out.

  • I do understand that fun things are fun to play because they are fun, but I believe this is an unscrupulous monetization scheme gamers need to stop supporting, and definitively stop defending, as being OK.

    Defending a premium box + microtransactions model on the basis of the game being fun is a gamer’s version of Stockholm Syndrome.

    I mean a good game is supposed to be fun, right? So why support a dev that purposely breaks a great game and then asks you to repair your new purchase with more money to make it maximally fun again?

    If you ever wonder why devs continue to create games with a premium box cost plus microtransactions, don’t be surprised if the they turn and say this to Keen the Blogger…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFl4Yse0xuI

    😉

  • I like the GuildWars 2 and Overwatch models. Neither provide unfair advantages in PVP. Personally I dislike the season pass model. Would rather see all extra content aside cosmetic items be put in proper expansions as they were for nearly 2 1/2 decades.

    I used to be a fan of Paradox but they sell so much piecemeal these days I quite throwing money at them.

  • ugh, this game looks good but the way EA go about milking its customers makes me wanna puke.