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Battlefront 2 Finally Changes Star Card Progression

Tomorrow the patch will FINALLY come out that addresses the infamous Star Card progression system. Assuming there might be one person out there who didn’t follow the drama, let me explain why it had to change.

Star Cards were previously obtained in loot crates which were purchased with real life monies, though they could also be purchased with in-game currency too. The gripe was how players could spend RL money and obtain a significant gameplay advantage. Fair critique.

When the outrage happened — before the game even launched, mind you — EA turned off all transactions, essentially making the crates only purchasable with in-game funds. The system felt broken, and rightfully so.

With tomorrow’s patch, the Star Card system is changing entirely.

With this update, progression is now linear. Star Cards, or any other item impacting gameplay, will only be earned through gameplay and will not be available for purchase. Instead, you’ll earn experience points for the classes, hero characters, and ships that you choose to play in multiplayer. If you earn enough experience points to gain a level for that unit, you’ll receive one Skill Point that can be used to unlock or upgrade the eligible Star Card you’d like to equip.

Crates no longer include Star Cards and cannot be purchased. Crates are earned by logging in daily, completing Milestones, and through timed challenges. Inside of these crates, you’ll find Credits or cosmetic items, such as emotes or victory poses, but nothing that impacts gameplay.

Now there shouldn’t be any complaints. The problem I have is that it took them 4 whole months! I still enjoy the game, but my interest waned. I was hyped and would have had so much more enjoyment months ago. I do not understand why the change took so long. The problem for me is whether I want to go through the effort to reinstall the game — talk about friction.

What will bring me back are significant changes to the game. Lots of new maps, guns, etc. I need a big enticement at this point.

  • There will still be complaints.

    Complaints for having milked the loot crate monetization scheme for every penny they could prior to enacting the change.

    Complaints about reintroducing parasitic microtransactions in April in what should be a B2P game.

    Complaints about cosmetic microtransactions breaking canon, something EA CFO Blake Jorgensen previously stated was a reason why they did not offer cosmetic-only items in their loot boxes:

    “If you did a bunch of cosmetic things, you might start to violate the canon”, “Darth Vader in white probably doesn’t make sense, versus in black. Not to mention you probably don’t want Darth Vader in pink. No offense to pink, but I don’t think that’s right in the canon”

    …the CFO’s words, not mine, and with that say hello to the new Rodian Resistance fighter, soon to be available at virtual stores near you.

    Funny how a few simple things like missing projected sales figures and losing ~$3 billion in stock value since launch can affect a CFO’s core philosophies. 😛

    • My biggest complaint is how the Star Wars IP has been smeared with EA’s stank, to such a degree that I will be assured to never play this game on principle.

      It should be recognized the reason why the loot crate system is being changed is not because they felt sympathetic to the pleas of dedicated fans who already purchased the game, but due to the clear loss of revenue from those who refused, being turned off by EA’s predatory monetization practices.

      EA goes from game to game, crapping on their own brand and fan’s beloved IP’s, with the full expectation they can still puppeteer gamers into buying their next fiasco with a massive PR campaign.

      Just say no to buying into parasitic monetization schemes, it’s up to you to change current industry standards, it’s easy m’kay…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyPSd66HHsc

    • Looks like the issues you’re taking aren’t with the new progression system, but with other opinions you have about the company and past decisions. Super unfortunate for them that they’ve angered people to such a point.

      It’ll all be forgotten by 99% of the frothing masses though once a game comes out (from the start) that doesn’t make the mistakes. If they released some uber Star Wars survivale battle royale, people would lose their minds over how awesome it is.