Star Wars Battlefront 2 Loot Boxes Return with Revamp

[ItsMitch]

Story coming in from Eurogamer - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-12-04-initial-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-box-related-changes-go-live

 

Quote

 

The first of EA's adjustments to the loot box ecosystem in Star Wars Battlefront 2 has gone live but they're insignificant and skirt the bigger issue. In other words, the loot box system remains the same.

What's changed is the speed at which you can earn things.

End-of-round credit pay-outs have been upped across the board, "specifically bumping the top players on each team by even more". This means skilled players will earn credits more quickly.

 

EA also made a blog post on their site, I'll add a snippet of information from it. 

 

Quote

The end-of-round payout has been increased. This is an area we agree need to be buffed a bit, especially when it comes to rewarding players for doing well in-game. We're upping the number of Credits you get for a match across the board, and specifically bumping the top players on each team by even more. 

Earn 3X more Credits daily in Arcade Mode. It's been made clear that you were hitting the Arcade Mode Credit cap faster than we expected, so we wanted to alleviate that by increasing it to 1500 Credits. While we're still looking into ways to add more content to it the mode in the long-term, we think that this should help in the near-term for those who want rewards for completing the different scenarios. 

Daily Login Crates will now provide more crafting parts than before. You'll notice the change right away when you log in. Crafting the Star Cards you want will help make sure you're progressing in the direction you want, and we absolutely want to empower that. This should help you get where you want to go faster when it comes to crafting and upgrading.

 

My thoughts? Still not a fan of what they've done, they're a shitty organisation and they suffered massively for this colossal fuck up

 

Sauces: https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/battlefront-2/news/changes-progression-credits | http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-12-04-initial-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-box-related-changes-go-live

@Zando Bob you'll probs like this

[spiralfuzion]

oh nooooo

[michaelocarroll007]

at this point i dont think id buy this game unless they Took all purchasing real $ away permanently and made it progression like COD all earnable guns/ perks in a reasonable amount of time. 

[Dissitesuxba11s]

3 minutes ago, spiralfuzion said:

oh nooooo

 

But in all seriousness, this is but a bandage to the gashing wound. As long as some schmo can pay his/her way through the game, the game itself is still broken. 

[Nicnac]

EAmpire strikes back ...

[Zando_]

Ugh. I just want the progression system from Battlefront 2015 with the content, graphics, and classes of Battlefront 2. I'd also like them to let you buy guns with credits so I can get the ones I want instead of having to grind for all of them. Oh, and let me craft attachments, because it does say "Craft and Equip Weapons", but there's no options for crafting that I can see. 

[Daiyus]

Damage is already done; no way am I buying the game until it's in a really deep sale and I won't be touching multiplayer regardless of what they do. I just want to play the campaigns which are worth maybe £10 to me.

 

But this is just laughable on the multiplayer front. Do they really think this in any way addresses the issues with loot-boxes? If they were serious in giving gamers what they wanted they'd have gutted the whole system and given us a real progression system with not a micro-transaction in sight! Their lack of understanding and care is frustratingly transparent.

[DanielMDA]

3 minutes ago, Daiyus said:

Damage is already done; no way am I buying the game until it's in a really deep sale and I won't be touching multiplayer regardless of what they do. I just want to play the campaigns which are worth maybe £10 to me.

 

But this is just laughable on the multiplayer front. Do they really think this in any way addresses the issues with loot-boxes? If they were serious in giving gamers what they wanted they'd have gutted the whole system and given us a real progression system with not a micro-transaction in sight! Their lack of understanding and care is frustratingly transparent.

On the campaign you end up beign a good guy (cliche fuck-up, I wanted to kick Rebel ass)

[Matu20]

Even if this system is okay, people will hate the fuck out it, they needed completely remove any microtransactions at this point to save the game.

[Ryujin2003]

So, all I have to do is gamble just a little bit more that cover price on Lootboxes, and hope I win some good great and abilities like auto ago or increased damage or some shit, so that I'm (as Linus would say) "good enough" to get the boosted credit win at the end of the round.. sounds great.

 

I'm so happy Disney is allowing the abortion to continue with their franchise...

[NumLock21]

So they basically did nothing. Disney should take their game to another publisher.

[mynameisjuan]

But the entire problem is buying loot crates with real money.....they changed only the in-game currency and thought that would be enough? 

 

Are these guys fucking retards or whats going on here?

[ZestyJalapeno]

Have they said anything about the prices of the loot crates and all the shit on sale? Or did they pull another 'reduce grind by 70%, reduce rewards by 70%' trick?

 

In any case, this level of progression shilling should never be on a full price game.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, DanielMDA said:

On the campaign you end up beign a good guy (cliche fuck-up, I wanted to kick Rebel ass)

And change side for the most trivial reasons of all. Almost makes Kallus defect a masterpiece in comparison

[Lathlaer]

28 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

But the entire problem is buying loot crates with real money.....they changed only the in-game currency and thought that would be enough?

It's not that simple. Those problems are strictly connected.

 

The only reason people are mad about the microtransaction p2w aspect is because you can't really unlock best stuff if you are not a hardcore grinder.

 

If you could unlock Vader in 3-5 days of casual play, you wouldn't be salty about some guy who paid $150 to get him, you'd call him stupid. There would be no problem with microtransactions because whatever they gave you, you could simply earn reasonably fast.

 

Anyway, it's late and, knowing EA, probably not enough but giving the best players biggest rewards is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, they might as well make a hundred miles in the right direction but knowing how the gaming community works, it will change nothing.

[Zando_]

2 hours ago, DanielMDA said:

On the campaign you end up beign a good guy (cliche fuck-up, I wanted to kick Rebel ass)

Well, spoilers, but:

Spoiler

The reason Iden turns makes sense, they were destroying her homeward full of innocent people supportive of the Empire. Then one of her men turned on her when she tried to save a few civvies, and she was forced to run for it. She didn't plan to join the Rebels, but they fought to save Naboo and then stayed on, realizing that they were best at fighting and should fight to stop the Empire and projects like Operation Cinder. Like she said (IIRC), Inferno Squad was supposed to protect people from things like Op Cinder, not carry them out. 

 

2 hours ago, Daiyus said:

Damage is already done; no way am I buying the game until it's in a really deep sale and I won't be touching multiplayer regardless of what they do. I just want to play the campaigns which are worth maybe £10 to me.

 

But this is just laughable on the multiplayer front. Do they really think this in any way addresses the issues with loot-boxes? If they were serious in giving gamers what they wanted they'd have gutted the whole system and given us a real progression system with not a micro-transaction in sight! Their lack of understanding and care is frustratingly transparent.

IMO Multiplayer is actually pretty fun. There's some crap matches with guys with epic star cards slaughtering you, but often they're just more skilled players. That, and I'm used to being wasted in Battlefront 2015, since I came on late and there's pretty much a few reasonable players, a ton of pros, and some hackers left. 

 

If you do get it, definitely try strike, it's my favorite mode so far because there's still an objective (sadly most people don't play the objective, but when they do it's heaven), but it's not aimless slaughter like Blast. 

 

And disclaimer, I did get the game from a friend, so it was free to me. But I was waiting for a sale to pick it up anyways, since IMO it's not quite worth $60. Though they have fixed the lag, and if they start fixing more stuff with progression and customization then it'll be worth the full price.

[mr moose]

Is it even really pay to win.  People are unlocking darth vader and luke skywalker without paying a cent for anything.  What other end goal is there?

[Zando_]

40 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Is it even really pay to win.  People are unlocking darth vader and luke skywalker without paying a cent for anything.  What other end goal is there?

It's more like pay to make it easier to get better star cards to buff your classes so you can win more. Sort of an indirect P2W. 

[DanielMDA]

2 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

Well, spoilers, but:

  Hide contents

The reason Iden turns makes sense, they were destroying her homeward full of innocent people supportive of the Empire. Then one of her men turned on her when she tried to save a few civvies, and she was forced to run for it. She didn't plan to join the Rebels, but they fought to save Naboo and then stayed on, realizing that they were best at fighting and should fight to stop the Empire and projects like Operation Cinder. Like she said (IIRC), Inferno Squad was supposed to protect people from things like Op Cinder, not carry them out. 

 

IMO Multiplayer is actually pretty fun. There's some crap matches with guys with epic star cards slaughtering you, but often they're just more skilled players. That, and I'm used to being wasted in Battlefront 2015, since I came on late and there's pretty much a few reasonable players, a ton of pros, and some hackers left. 

 

If you do get it, definitely try strike, it's my favorite mode so far because there's still an objective (sadly most people don't play the objective, but when they do it's heaven), but it's not aimless slaughter like Blast. 

 

And disclaimer, I did get the game from a friend, so it was free to me. But I was waiting for a sale to pick it up anyways, since IMO it's not quite worth $60. Though they have fixed the lag, and if they start fixing more stuff with progression and customization then it'll be worth the full price.

Anyways, I wanted to see some Frank Underwood-style stuff. Ruthlessness at its finest.

[Lathlaer]

45 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Is it even really pay to win.  People are unlocking darth vader and luke skywalker without paying a cent for anything.  What other end goal is there?

 

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

It's more like pay to make it easier to get better star cards to buff your classes so you can win more. Sort of an indirect P2W. 

 

Yeah the problem is the definition of the p2w concept which is hardly homogenous. If you go to any MMO forums and ask about the p2w - and they are debating the term over and over to the death - you will see that basically no one can agree on a common definition. 

 

There are those who say that P2W is black and white, as in - something is only p2w when you can buy something that you can't achieve in game, period. So if there is an exclusive weapon that can't be farmed but can be bought from the store, the game is p2w. As soon as the item becomes farmable (and it doesn't matter how much farming is involved), it stops being p2w and is merely p2progress (faster).

 

There are people on the other side of this black and white spectrum who think that as long as you can buy something that can give you advantage in the game - no matter how small and no matter if it can be farmed or not - the game is p2w. The only paid content allowed is cosmetics.

 

And finally there are people who consider the greyscale. They admit that buying power ups can lead to some p2w situations but that doesn't necessarily make the game p2w if those power ups can be obtained in a reasonably timely fashion. So yea, a bit of grinding but not too much - if it requires you to quit your daily job to compete, then it's p2w. If it saves you few days a week at most (like, say, several hours of gameplay), then some players can p2w if they drop some ridiculus amounts of money but the game itself isn't inherently p2w, because it allows reasonable competition without a paywall.

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

 

 

And finally there are people who consider the greyscale. They admit that buying power ups can lead to some p2w situations but that doesn't necessarily make the game p2w if those power ups can be obtained in a reasonably timely fashion. So yea, a bit of grinding but not too much - if it requires you to quit your daily job to compete, then it's p2w. If it saves you few days a week at most (like, say, several hours of gameplay), then some players can p2w if they drop some ridiculus amounts of money but the game itself isn't inherently p2w, because it allows reasonable competition without a paywall.

This is me.  I did read an article that says you can get darth vader in about 7 hours of play without paying anything.  This is reasonable to me, hell even 20 hours if the game play is good is reasonable. 

 

I'm more concerned when the game play becomes grindy or less fun because other players keep killing you with their purchased power ups.  Savage resurrection comes to mind, I tried that and couldn't even level up once due to dying all the time at the hands of those who bought top level everything.

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I'm more concerned when the game play becomes grindy or less fun because other players keep killing you with their purchased power ups.  Savage resurrection comes to mind, I tried that and couldn't even level up once due to dying all the time at the hands of those who bought top level everything.

This is the frustrating part, since those with higher star cards can get better traits and be more effective in combat and get more kills, getting better weapons and becoming even more dangerous. It's super annoying for average players like me who get 3-5K points a match, since not only am I up against much better players, but also ones with much better weapons which makes it even harder to compete. 

[Lathlaer]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

This is me.  I did read an article that says you can get darth vader in about 7 hours of play without paying anything.  This is reasonable to me, hell even 20 hours if the game play is good is reasonable

Usually when it comes to competing I draw the p2w line in a newbie vs. above average scenario.

 

I couldn't care less if one newbie wins over another because they paid some money but I do care when money is becoming a substitute for skill. So if an above average player cannot beat a newbie who paid some cash to progress, I'd call that a problem.

 

What's important here is that the above scenario isn't only dependant on the construction of microtransactions but the game (fighting) mechanics itself. For instance, the store giving an imaginary powerup that boosts evasion is one side of the coin but a combat system in which enough points in evasion make you literally invincible even against more skilled opponents is the other side. 

[laminutederire]

4 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

So they basically did nothing. Disney should take their game to another publisher.

Star watch dogs ftw!

[Eaglerino]

4 hours ago, laminutederire said:

Star watch dogs ftw!

Or anybody but Ubisoft and EA