Star Wars Battlefront II (Nov 17)

[Commander Clueless]

Wait what?

 

[KingBran]

Oh I wasn't throwing any attacks around, just more of a tongue-in-cheek comment about all the videos and stuff about it. I'm just saying it's pay to gamble on maybe getting better.

You're right. In assault, I honestly don't notice a difference. I'm sure it's there and the cards absolutely give you an objective advantage (which is terrible design), but I don't think it's that detrimental to the experience in practice.... at least so far. If that happens, I'll probably stop playing but in the meantime I'm rather enjoying it.

I do think it has a rather large impact on starfighter though...people with those high level cards can blow you to bits very quickly.

Sorry if I came off as thinking you were attacking. I just feel like people who haven't even played the game are acting like they know everything about it and are just sponging up all this negativity because they want something to complain about.

I haven't played Starfighter at all. Not really my cup of tea but that would suck if it gets that bad.

 

[Dolemite]

So I did the pre-order and the beta and got the following at launch:

3000 credits - for participating in the beta which unlocked Boba Fette and Darth Maul

Heroes - Rea (with her Jedi training outfit), Kylo Ren (and his spaceship), Rea and Chewys Falcon, and pretty much a great starter kit for the military classes.

Really not getting the uproar here.

 

[Pilky01]

lol

Does Blueton work for EA?

As someone who checked out on "AAA" gaming years ago, I am loving this. And now EA has actually removed the refund button?!

 

[Papa Francouz]

I know what they meant by "progress" and I stand by what I said, you don't have to do it but you will end up doing it because you will gain money and unlock crates by default and you can spend that money on crates that give you more money, boost cards and scrap that you can spend on more cards. I was only saying "pay to win" because that's what everyone here and in other places was calling it. You are right, it's not pay to win, it's pay to make your guy better IF you want to and IF you don't want to spend the time grinding to do it.


Again, I was only saying "pay to win" because that's what everyone here and in other places was calling it. You are right, it's not pay to win, it's pay to make your guy better IF you want to and IF you don't want to spend the time grinding to do it. I agree that it is a terrible way of doing it but it doesn't ruin the game like some people here think. I was a cardless Vader and I got MVP against a group of Han, Leia, Yoda and Rey who all had at least one card. I think the Han had some tier 4 cards even. My experience so far is that the cards don't make you better unless you already know how to play the game. It's a short amount of experience and a small sample but I hardly see people with high level cards dominating the battlefield.


This guy gets it. Honestly CH, you will be fine online if you don't spend money on micro-transactions. It's getting way blown out of proportion. Like I have been saying, its dumb and I don't agree with doing it but it's hardly a game-changer.


I think a lot of people think that if some dude wants to spend a ton of extra money on beefing up their guy they will be some supreme super dude that will be unstoppable online. Just my experience so far that's not the case and I have never felt inadequate in a match just unlocking things with in game currency and scrap to unlock cards.

With regards to the bolded, it’s all the same in EA’s eyes. If you buy the base game but don’t spend anything on microtransactions, you have still supported EA’s system. EA & DICE have built this game with a progression model built around loot boxes and supports that progression system with paid loot boxes, so it doesn’t matter if you take part in this system. Merely buying & owning a copy of this game gives EA the okay to do what they want because their products are still being supported by consumers. They’ll implement an equally as heinous model in the next game they produce and will hide behind the excuse of “people bought BF2 when this model was in it, so we didn’t think the consumers had an issue with it.”

 

[TheBluePenguin]

I am really glad they dropped the costs, I was following all that shit that went down yesterday on Reddit and started to get worried for my son, he is has been waiting for this game for so long, it was what he asked for his Birthday in July was to pre-order the game. He wanted to stay home from school to play (I said no like a good father) but part of me wanted to call off work and stay home with him, I am a big Star Wars guy but did not get sucked into the first game like he did. But I just want him to have a blast with this since he was so excited.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Holy shit there is stamina, like mobile games, where you have to wait to get more credits out of arcade mode. Holy shit...

 

[CanadianHockey]

lol

Does Blueton work for EA?

As someone who checked out on "AAA" gaming years ago, I am loving this. And now EA has actually removed the refund button?!

Don't you play a lot of Nintendo AAA titles?

With regards to the bolded, it’s all the same in EA’s eyes. If you buy the base game but don’t spend anything on microtransactions, you have still supported EA’s system. EA & DICE have built this game with a progression model built around loot boxes and supports that progression system with paid loot boxes, so it doesn’t matter if you take part in this system. Merely buying & owning a copy of this game gives EA the okay to do what they want because their products are still being supported by consumers. They’ll implement an equally as heinous model in the next game they produce and will hide behind the excuse of “people bought BF2 when this model was in it, so we didn’t think the consumers had an issue with it.”

EA sees microtransactions as viable because the money earned from microtransactions more than offsets microtransaction development costs and lost sales of the base game due to consumers boycotting games with microtransactions.

However, if nobody spent money on microtransactions, EA would abandon the system regardless of whether or not millions of base copies were purchased.

The main reason the microtransaction system works is because people willing shell out cash on microtransactions - not because people buy the base game.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Sorry if I came off as thinking you were attacking. I just feel like people who haven't even played the game are acting like they know everything about it and are just sponging up all this negativity because they want something to complain about.

I haven't played Starfighter at all. Not really my cup of tea but that would suck if it gets that bad.

The time-to-kill for a ground trooper isn't very high, so it can be harder to notice any real advantages in damage, cooldowns and the like. It's probably more impactful for upgraded troopers and heroes.

In starfighter, the time-to-kill is a lot higher, so you REALLY notice when you're in a dogfight with a guy who has 50% increased damage on you from a star card.

Against a team with a bunch of players with high end star cards, and you just start getting destroyed in the spawn...


I'll go so far as to say I might stop playing starfighter, which I enjoyed in the Beta. We'll see.

 

[Papa Francouz]

So I did the pre-order and the beta and got the following at launch:

3000 credits - for participating in the beta which unlocked Boba Fette and Darth Maul

Heroes - Rea (with her Jedi training outfit), Kylo Ren (and his spaceship), Rea and Chewys Falcon, and pretty much a great starter kit for the military classes.

Really not getting the uproar here.

That is the definition of a freemium game - they provide you with enough content at the very beginning of the game, but then require purchases of microtransactions in order to avoid artificially elongated grinding times to get the gear that other people who do pay already have.

Don't you play a lot of Nintendo AAA titles?



EA sees microtransactions as viable because the money earned from microtransactions more than offsets microtransaction development costs and lost sales of the base game due to consumers boycotting games with microtransactions.

However, if nobody spent money on microtransactions, EA would abandon the system regardless of whether or not millions of base copies were purchased.

The main reason the microtransaction system works is because people willing shell out cash on microtransactions - not because people buy the base game.

It’s a bit less definitive than that, though. Even if nobody buys into the microtransactions, EA will still have them in their games just in case someone decides to buy advantages over other players. It provides an incentive to get people to spend more money than the game is worth in order to not be left behind the rest of the player base. We can bemoan microtransactions all we want, but even if nobody bought into them, they would still be there just to provide the incentive to gain the competitive edge over competition.

It’s an uphill battle to fight against these anti-consumer policies in AAA titles, but they won’t go away unless people stop buying the game outright.

 

[KingBran]

lol

Does Blueton work for EA?

As someone who checked out on "AAA" gaming years ago, I am loving this. And now EA has actually removed the refund button?!

Nope. Been saying the whole time I hate crates that boost your guy and micro-transactions. That's exactly why I said it so often... because I knew someone would say something to this effect. But still, it happened. LOL.

I just am not so bothered by it that it ruins the game for be before I buy it. Its the best looking Star Wars game around and super fun to play. Very easy to ignore the crates and just unlock stuff in-game. But people want to whine.

You don't play ANY AAA titles? Haha. Yeah right.

With regards to the bolded, it’s all the same in EA’s eyes. If you buy the base game but don’t spend anything on microtransactions, you have still supported EA’s system. EA & DICE have built this game with a progression model built around loot boxes and supports that progression system with paid loot boxes, so it doesn’t matter if you take part in this system. Merely buying & owning a copy of this game gives EA the okay to do what they want because their products are still being supported by consumers. They’ll implement an equally as heinous model in the next game they produce and will hide behind the excuse of “people bought BF2 when this model was in it, so we didn’t think the consumers had an issue with it.”

]

Not really the same thing at all. That's like saying buying a new phone means you support the useless accessories that some people buy for that phone made by the maker of the phone. For some people they like buying all the extra crap, others don't. But it everyone still bought the phone but didn't buy accessories then they would probably stop making them. I can love my phone and hate buying accessories / choose not to buy them like buying this game and not partaking in the micro-transactions. If nobody bought the loot crates they would stop doing it and just sell games. It would make absolutely zero sense to keep selling micro-transaction type software if nobody paid for the micro-transactions. That would be a lot of wasted resources, time and money spent developing that crap for every game. It's simple supply and demand.

I want the core SW BF2. I am enjoying the core SW BF2. That doesn't say I support micro-transactions at all. You might as well quit being a gamer because games come with micro-transactions now and people keep spending money on them.

 

[Pilky01]

Don't you play a lot of Nintendo AAA titles?

Are Nintendo games still considered AAA the way EA, Activision, etc games are? I sort of view Nintendo as being completely separate from the larger games landscape.

 

[Commander Clueless]

That is the definition of a freemium game - they provide you with enough content at the very beginning of the game, but then require purchases of microtransactions in order to avoid artificially elongated grinding times to get the gear that other people who do pay already have.

Only problem is, this isn't a freemium game because it's not free.

It’s a bit less definitive than that, though. Even if nobody buys into the microtransactions, EA will still have them in their games just in case someone decides to buy advantages over other players. It provides an incentive to get people to spend more money than the game is worth in order to not be left behind the rest of the player base. We can bemoan microtransactions all we want, but even if nobody bought into them, they would still be there just to provide the incentive to gain the competitive edge over competition.

I'm not sure that's true. You have to weigh the PR backlash against micro-transactions vs the profit from them and right now the profit is absolutely dominating.

It stands to reason that, theoretically, they would remove things that people hate if there wasn't a massive advantage to having them. Look at how far they've already backpedaled due to public outrage.

In my mind, EA is much more likely to shit-can projects (heck even entire studios) when sales go down rather than search for the cause. PR backlash from a player base of a successful game, on the other hand, seems to get at least some results.

Problem is, people obviously want these loot boxes. Hell, entire YouTube channels have sprung up around this stuff.

 

[KingBran]

That is the definition of a freemium game - they provide you with enough content at the very beginning of the game, but then require purchases of microtransactions in order to avoid artificially elongated grinding times to get the gear that other people who do pay already have.


It’s a bit less definitive than that, though. Even if nobody buys into the microtransactions, EA will still have them in their games just in case someone decides to buy advantages over other players. It provides an incentive to get people to spend more money than the game is worth in order to not be left behind the rest of the player base. We can bemoan microtransactions all we want, but even if nobody bought into them, they would still be there just to provide the incentive to gain the competitive edge over competition.

It’s an uphill battle to fight against these anti-consumer policies in AAA titles, but they won’t go away unless people stop buying the game outright.

What? Not at all. Have you even played the game? Read any of my posts or other posts from people who have ACTUALLY PLAYED THE GAME. All you people whining and complaining haven't even played it. Where as the people who have are saying it's not as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be, easy to avoid micro-transactions and not hard to get star cards and unlock characters by just playing the game. You aren't required to spend any extra money at all to stay competitive.

You are just lying and making stuff up to justify being a whiner.

 

[KingBran]

Are Nintendo games still considered AAA the way EA, Activision, etc games are? I sort of view Nintendo as being completely separate from the larger games landscape.

Uhhhh... yeah bro. Haha. Nintendo games are some of the biggest AAA titles ever made. They are pretty much the model for it. I think you don't know what AAA really means.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

The fact that it acts like it's a mobile game (which are usually free with microtransactions and stamina/limitations), yet makes you pay $60+ up front is f***ing criminal. Worse yet, there are people that still openly embrace this bullshit. Nobody wins with this game but EA. EA is literally doing as much as it can to take every last dime from people's wallets and I hope that people truly don't fall for this shit. EA and DICE don't deserve your money.

 

[KingBran]

The fact that it acts like it's a mobile game (which are usually free with microtransactions and stamina/limitations), yet makes you pay $60+ up front is ****ing criminal. Worse yet, there are people that still openly embrace this bull****. Nobody wins with this game but EA. EA is literally doing as much as it can to take every last dime from people's wallets and I hope that people truly don't fall for this ****. EA and DICE don't deserve your money.

No more than any other $60 game. I am paying the same as I have for any other brand new game and its super fun and amazing looking on the Xbox One X. Played a bunch online with no issue against people with powered up star cards that I will eventually unlock just by playing the game I paid $60 to play lol.

 

[CanadianHockey]

Are Nintendo games still considered AAA the way EA, Activision, etc games are? I sort of view Nintendo as being completely separate from the larger games landscape.

Honestly, it'd be a good debate. I consider them a AAA developer. Fairly large marketing budgets, certainly churn out sequels fairly frequently.

 

[Pilky01]

Uhhhh... yeah bro. Haha. Nintendo games are some of the biggest AAA titles ever made. They are pretty much the model for it. I think you don't know what AAA really means.

Are they? Their consoles are massively under powered, their online infrastructure is almost non-existent, and they have yet to introduce micro-transactions or loot boxes to any of their games.

 

[CanadianHockey]

It’s a bit less definitive than that, though. Even if nobody buys into the microtransactions, EA will still have them in their games just in case someone decides to buy advantages over other players. It provides an incentive to get people to spend more money than the game is worth in order to not be left behind the rest of the player base. We can bemoan microtransactions all we want, but even if nobody bought into them, they would still be there just to provide the incentive to gain the competitive edge over competition.

It’s an uphill battle to fight against these anti-consumer policies in AAA titles, but they won’t go away unless people stop buying the game outright.

I agree it's an uphill battle, and leveraging all consumers against purchasing the product outright would be the most effective message against microtransactions; but at the end of the day, the people actually paying for microtransactions are clearly enabling the system more than anyone else. EA wouldn't implement microtransactions if they weren't profiting off of it.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

No more than any other $60 game. I am paying the same as I have for any other brand new game and its super fun and amazing looking on the Xbox One X. Played a bunch online with no issue against people with powered up star cards that I will eventually unlock just by playing the game I paid $60 to play lol.

Have fun then. Don't expect the game to last long though. Just remember, when people start getting better Star Cards than you and you keep dying faster than everyone else because they happen to get the luck of the draw or just straight up buy shit, tell me how fair it feels that people do that. Also, I can see why you'd buy the game now for online. It will actually have a community for the first few months. Considering this game is getting way more heat than the first game, and the first game (albeit on PC) losing it's community in a matter of a couple months, I don't suspect it will stay that large. I'm betting by January or February that BF1 will still have a larger community on XB1. But keep in mind, by pre-ordering the game and paying full price, you are telling EA that their practices, even if you aren't spending money on it, is an okay thing to do. The money you pay with = they take it as if they've done a good thing that people want. Keep that in mind.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Are Nintendo games still considered AAA the way EA, Activision, etc games are? I sort of view Nintendo as being completely separate from the larger games landscape.

Honestly, it'd be a good debate. I consider them a AAA developer. Fairly large marketing budgets, certainly churn out sequels fairly frequently.

Nintendo is sort of a hybrid, but I definitely consider them AAA. Perhaps in a tier all their own...

 

[Papa Francouz]

Only problem is, this isn't a freemium game because it's not free.




I'm not sure that's true. You have to wait the PR backlash against micro-transactions vs the profit from them and right now the profit is absolutely dominating.

It stands to reason that, theoretically, they would remove things that people hate if there wasn't a massive advantage to having them. Look at how far they've already backpedaled due to public outrage.

Problem is, people want them.

People only want them because the option is there to give them an advantage over other players. It’s the option being there that fuels the players’ desire to buy into microtransactions. As long as they can feasibly get a leg up over their competition buy spending a little extra money, they will. That’s just game companies manipulating the competitive nature of humans to gain some extra money.

What? Not at all. Have you even played the game? Read any of my posts or other posts from people who have ACTUALLY PLAYED THE GAME. All you people whining and complaining haven't even played it. Where as the people who have are saying it's not as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be, easy to avoid micro-transactions and not hard to get star cards and unlock characters by just playing the game. You aren't required to spend any extra money at all to stay competitive.

You are just lying and making stuff up to justify being a whiner.

That’s a little rude, so let’s take it down a notch. I feel like I’m probably not conveying my points very well if you think I’m whining.

I don’t care about BF2. I won’t buy it, and I won’t support it in any way. I stay away from AAA titles like this as much as I can, so that should answer your question of if I’ve played this game, or not. I primarily play Nintendo titles, or games made by companies that do not employ these anti-consumer policies. That said, I’m rallying against BF2 because of this loot system. Everything I have read and seen has shown that you can buy crates in order to get yourself a competitive advantage over other players. Whether or not you, personally, have done this is not what I am questioning. Whether or not you think this provides an advantage over other players is not up for debate - when you can outdamage opponents using these higher level cards that can be bought in loot crates, that scenario exists.

What I’m saying is that this is the first time I have seen this type of anti-consumer nonsense in a game before. Other games with loot boxes don’t affect the actual gameplay, but in this game the actual gameplay is affected based on what you get in these loot boxes. And the fact that this is the reality of the situation means that there will be people buying loot boxes because they can, and because they want to have an advantage over other players.

And the best solution to solving this crap is to not buy the game at all.

 

[CanadianHockey]

Are they? Their consoles are massively under powered, their online infrastructure is almost non-existent, and they have yet to introduce micro-transactions or loot boxes to any of their games.

AAA, IMO, is not about multiplayer gaming with microtransactions and loot boxes.

AAA is about resources available and leveraged by the company to enhance production values and market a game.

 

[Papa Francouz]

I agree it's an uphill battle, and leveraging all consumers against purchasing the product outright would be the most effective message against microtransactions; but at the end of the day, the people actually paying for microtransactions are clearly enabling the system more than anyone else. EA wouldn't implement microtransactions if they weren't profiting off of it.

You’re definitely not wrong. And given the fact that people will always buy these types of games regardless of whichever new anti-consumer policies are put into place, I feel like I’m just yelling at clouds over here.