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Star Wars Battlefront II or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and the Love the Loot Box - Michael Bitt
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Star Wars Battlefront II or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and the Love the Loot Box - Michael Bitton - MMORPG.com
Much digital ink has been spilled over the past week on the alarming state of loot boxes in general, but more specifically, for games like Star Wars: Battlefront II, for which EA has locked the entirety of the game’s progression behind the much-maligned feature. But are things as bad as they would appear? Not necessarily.
Comments
First of all comparing a terrible idea and justifying it based on other bad ideas does not sell the idea to me at all.
Yes i look at the problem from the straight vanilla fact that it is p2w and i am ok with that because anything excuse is just trying to detract from the fact it is p2w.
Even if it were not p2w i still would never condone loot boxes...period for ANY reason.I said from the very first day,devs will test the waters and slowly make them more intrusive over the years.
"paying more"well let them try and charge more,the market determines the price,if it is worth more,people will pay ,if not they won't simple really.This loot box idea was MEANT to be deceptive,meant to force more money out of gamer's.
Imo the players have full right to full refunds,even above that nonsense Steam tries to pull with the 2 hours played so no refund,that alone is bullshit because it can sometimes take more than 2 hours before you see when a developer is locking out gameplay/content/abilities behind another hidden paywall.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Even when there are laws,those corporations,businesses are still using lawyers to find ways around circumventing the law.Geesh even the governments are trying to circumvent their own law/legislature with new legislature that claims to be on behalf of homeland security,people all over the world are SOB's,corrupt and trying to exploit other people.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It will require you to open 720 crates, depending on if you get scrapes in every crate before you have enough to make all guns. Star cards (class power ups pretty much) are in the same boat as you require scrapes to upgrade them.
The game revolves around these loot boxes and it's painstakingly slow to earn coins to gain loot boxes, even playing well doesn't help. A last placed person earns the exact same amount of coins as someone who is in first place after a match.
If things are implemented as they are now on launch, people will either be sick to death of the grind and lack of progression or sick to death having their ass handed to them constantly before they even catch up.
We will have to wait an see. but overall there is no need for lootboxes in a B2P game, i'd rather have DLC than P2W
Sadly it's a problem that starts with the gamers. "Fun" is no longer the objective for gamers, it's success, bragging rights, or for many streamers...money. A shame.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
How about a video game, when you have all this upgrades/weapons/scraps, but you unlock them by progress, and buying them only with in-game currency.
Remember the older games, Michael?
Or you just too young of a gamer to remember that?
I know that the staff of this site is tired of accusation of being paid by companies, but this article?
"Ooh, it's not so bad, ooh, it'll be ok"
What is this shit?!
Reading this makes me automaticly searching for sign "This article is sponsored by EA".
Disgusting.
Remember the RMAH fiasco with Diablo 3? It tarnished the franchise name and it took Blizzard a couple years and an expansion to fix it. And D3 didn’t even have PVP!
This is a poor choice on EA’s part and I know the backlash is going to be strong. The question is, are enough people going to vote with their wallets and voice their concerns through the appropriate channels, or will the Star Wars label and release of a new movie overshadow the gamebreaking pay-2-win?
I hope for the former, but being a huge Star Wars nerd myself I know people are going to gobble this game up and make EA millions in the first week. I can’t say I blame them, we’ve been deprived of AAA Star Wars games since Lucasarts went under.
The backlash on this is overblown and will make very little difference to the sales of battlefront 2. Most people don't care, despite the rage on youtube and some gaming sites. They just don't go on forums and talk about it, because they are playing the game or just don't care enough to go to forums or even use forums.
Its like the new middle earth game. Its done really well in sales despite some rage at whatever was going on with it (loot boxes? dunno, didn't bother to look). However my console gaming friends are really enjoying the new middle earth game and don't care about any controversy with it.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Might be true as opposed to some other bad options but not sure learning to live with it is the right way to go.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Games used to be creative experiences with a price tag on them. A team of people would come together and create something fun. Sometimes a publisher would try to cut corners and shift the vision, but in the end, you'd have an experience for a set price nevertheless.
Movies are still like that. You pay a set price and get a set experience. Some box sets have bonus content, but the core experience is always there - whether it's a DVD, BluRay, TV or going to the movies. People wouldn't tolerate this excessive micro-transaction bullshit there, why do we tolerate it in games?
When I go watch the new Star Wars movie, they don't pause the movie at the first big battle and say "We will play this battle 50 times. But you could pay $1.99 for a chance to go on with the story". If that was the case, people would walk out the cinema. They would not be writing editorials saying "I like these new movie lootboxes, before, I'd have to wait 2 hours to see the ending. Now there's a 0.01% chance I'll get to it right away! And if I'm unlucky, I can always watch the battle 50 times. Win win right there."
These days, games are clearly money milking machines first, experiences second. Battlefront 2 is a prime example of this - the core design is literally about buying loot boxes, with a game play moulded around it.
Since when have single player games and shooters had subscriptions? And if box fees aren't covering development costs I wonder how much money games like Wolfenstein 2 are losing if that really is the case.
IMO it's just an imported concept from the F2P world where, the argument can clearly be made that they are needed. It helps to rationalize their inclusion in games where the same argument makes no sense.
Until I see proof (and fat chance any of them will open their books enough to prove it,) I'm looking at all of these as extra profit, not as covering the cost of development.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
They cant deal with the cheating now, imagine how many people are going to spend 10 bucks on a aimbot instead of some stupid loot crate hahaha
this game is so doomed on PC, will probably sell a boat load because its star wars but population of players will be next to nothing in 6 months.
Just to clear things up: If you're referring to the Boba Fett upgrade, that card only reduces incoming damage while flying and firing his Rocket Barrage ability (30s CD in the beta). He isn't just walking or flying around taking 50-100% less damage due to a Star Card. It's basically your standard sort of "take less damage when channeling X ability" type upgrade and only if he's flying at the same time.
I'm actually highly concerned about aimbots in SWBF2 in general. SWBF1 had rampant cheaters everywhere. DICE needs to step things up here.
Palpatine with shades is creepy? Pfft.
We shouldn't even be in a situation where we have to evaluate the worth of playing a game based on the micro transactions that come with it but here we are.. analysing every game.. accepting it.. still buying the games.. still using the micro transactions.
If it's free to play then fair enough, they can put in whatever transactions they want, you can't complain if it didn't cost you anything in the first place. If you pay for the game and the transactions aren't cosmetic or, at the absolute 'worst', just simple XP boosters then it's the devil at work.
Battlefront loot crates give clear unlimited tactical and combat advantages if you keep buying them due to the game's card system. You can not have an unlimited advantage without paying, no matter how good you are. You can get 'some' cards without paying, but those that do pay can have cards active all the time and can keep getting the exact cards they want. No argument, no discussion... it's pay to win. This is the definition of pay to win; advantages you can not get without paying.
I hate to think what gaming is going to be like in another 10 years.