• EA responds to community criticism of Battlefront 2 unlock system
    33 replies, posted
[url]http://www.pcgamer.com/ea-responds-to-community-criticism-of-battlefront-2-unlock-system[/url]
[quote]It also responded to a different thread started by a user who was angry at having paid $80 for the game only for Darth Vader to be locked behind the game's progression system. "This is a joke... this age of 'micro-transactions' has gone way too far," the user said. EA responded in a similar way to the other post, adding that "the intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes".[/quote] This is dumb. People are going to have Vader unlocked on day 1 because of your slot mach--Lootboxes. So players who don't fork out the cash and pray to RNGesus, nor have they put in 40+ hours yet, are going to see people playing with content that they don't have unlocked. That's not rewarding for anyone but the one guy in the game who has Vader, And frustrating to those who wish they could play him. What accomplishment is there in spending 40 hours to unlock something or straight up forking out money to skip it? Big deal, you could AFK that. Some accomplishment That's not rewarding, that's frustrating. Rewarding is unlocking a cosmetic after reaching a milestone and anyone who sees you on the killcam or runs past you sees the cosmetic and knows you've completed that. Putting stuff behind a level, or buying an unlock with credits that you earn based on time spent rather than performance isn't a rewarding system, it's a time grind for content you'd expect to be able to play with after forking out $60+ Battlefield 3 and 4 did unlocks and customization right. It was based on performance with specific goals to unlock everything, plus some extra camo patterns if you pay for them to kick some extra cash to fund the game post launch. There's almost no better franchise to do this exact model with than Star Wars
[QUOTE=TheTalon;52883509]This is dumb. People are going to have Vader unlocked on day 1 because of your slot mach--Lootboxes. So players who don't fork out the cash and pray to RNGesus, nor have they put in 40+ hours yet, are going to see people playing with content that they don't have unlocked. That's not rewarding for anyone but the one guy in the game who has Vader, And frustrating to those who wish they could play him. What accomplishment is there in spending 40 hours to unlock something or straight up forking out money to skip it? Big deal, you could AFK that. Some accomplishment That's not rewarding, that's frustrating. Rewarding is unlocking a cosmetic after reaching a milestone and anyone who sees you on the killcam or runs past you sees the cosmetic and knows you've completed that. Putting stuff behind a level, or buying an unlock with credits that you earn based on time spent rather than performance isn't a rewarding system, it's a time grind for content you'd expect to be able to play with after forking out $60+ Battlefield 3 and 4 did unlocks and customization right. It was based on performance with specific goals to unlock everything, plus some extra camo patterns if you pay for them to kick some extra cash to fund the game post launch. There's almost no better franchise to do this exact model with than Star Wars[/QUOTE] See, you talk like someone with a brain between your ears and as someone who sees sense. EA's pulling the "Management sent PR this" approach, and only cares about the numbers at the end of the month however. The sad thing is - [I]even if we do vote with our wallets[/I], EA will probably just close the studio down instead of actually changing this shite lootbox system. They're a bunch of imbeciles and we just can't win in the end. Either we get some idiots shovelling a metric fuck-ton of money into the system (making it look lucrative, so EA do it again), or we don't and the studio closes due to EA's short sightedness and idiocy - so we get fucked out of [I]another[/I] dev studio with talent. Regarding the long run - I think Activision and EA are both fighting for the "the most shit game's publisher of the year" award since they're butting heads over who can implement the [I]worst[/I] Loot Box system.
[QUOTE=Zenamez;52883779]See, you talk like someone with a brain between your ears and as someone who sees sense. EA's pulling the "Management sent PR this" approach, and only cares about the numbers at the end of the month however. The sad thing is - [I]even if we do vote with our wallets[/I], EA will probably just close the studio down instead of actually changing this shite lootbox system. They're a bunch of imbeciles and we just can't win in the end. Either we get some idiots shovelling a metric fuck-ton of money into the system, or we don't and the studio closes due to EA's short sightedness and idiocy - so we get fucked out of [I]another[/I] dev studio with talent. Regarding the long run - I think Activision and EA are both fighting for the "the most shit game's publisher of the year" award since they're butting heads over who can implement the [I]worst[/I] Loot Box system.[/QUOTE] Lol they ain't gonna shut down dice
[QUOTE=redBadger;52883789]Lol they ain't gonna shut down dice[/QUOTE] They're known to shutter studios who "don't meet their sales expectations". After all, no one saw the Visceral Games closure until it happened and that only happened because Dead Space 3 didn't sell well enough to meet EA's ludicrous expectations (mainly because EA gimped Dead Space 3 with microtransactions and a needlessly stapled on Co-Op mode). Bioware is heading in the same direction, what with pretty bad Mass Effect sales to the point they've put the series on hold. Now, I'm not saying it'll be immediate, but if Battlefront doesn't sell well you can almost guarantee it'll be on the cards in the future.
[QUOTE=Zenamez;52883794]They're known to shutter studios who "don't meet their sales expectations". After all, no one saw the Visceral Games closure until it happened and that only happened because Dead Space 3 didn't sell well enough to meet EA's ludicrous expectations[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure them making Battlefield: Hardline didn't help much either.
[QUOTE=Zenamez;52883794]They're known to shutter studios who "don't meet their sales expectations". After all, no one saw the Visceral Games closure until it happened and that only happened because Dead Space 3 didn't sell well enough to meet EA's ludicrous expectations (mainly because EA gimped Dead Space 3 with microtransactions and a needlessly stapled on Co-Op mode). Bioware is heading in the same direction, what with pretty bad Mass Effect sales to the point they've put the series on hold. Now, I'm not saying it'll be immediate, but if Battlefront doesn't sell well you can almost guarantee it'll be on the cards in the future.[/QUOTE] Why would they completely shutter Battlefield in addition if Battlefront doesn't work out?
Oops the Battlefront community manager called Battlefront fans "Armchair Developers" over the criticism and has since deleted the tweet. And so it begins
[QUOTE=TheTalon;52883878]Oops the Battlefront community manager called Battlefront fans "Armchair Developers" over the criticism and has since deleted the tweet. And so it begins[/QUOTE] That better be archived...
It should be pretty obvious why this is bullshit. If they really wanted to give you a sense of satisfaction, they wouldn't let it be RNG/let you buy the crates to get it. It's like they're basically saying "You should be thanking us, if you'd bought it your only putting yourself at a disadvantage by removing your sense of satisfaction!" No one is going to get any sense of satisfaction from knowing that rather than hand over an absurd amount of money for something so iconic and integral to Star Wars that it should have been available in the game right away, they've instead spent 40 hours grinding monotonous content to unlock it, and get to do it 5 more times for the other heroes because EA decided money is more important than your experience.
[QUOTE=Van-man;52883888]That better be archived...[/QUOTE] [url]http://archive.is/DenaU[/url] There you go
[QUOTE=Zenamez;52883794]They're known to shutter studios who "don't meet their sales expectations". After all, no one saw the Visceral Games closure until it happened and that only happened because Dead Space 3 didn't sell well enough to meet EA's ludicrous expectations (mainly because EA gimped Dead Space 3 with microtransactions and a needlessly stapled on Co-Op mode). Bioware is heading in the same direction, what with pretty bad Mass Effect sales to the point they've put the series on hold. Now, I'm not saying it'll be immediate, but if Battlefront doesn't sell well you can almost guarantee it'll be on the cards in the future.[/QUOTE] Battlefront is almost guaranteed to sell well. Major franchise and a brand new movie coming out next month? A lot of people don't care about microtransactions.
The depressing thing about this is how Disney gave them a monopoly on Star Wars, all we're going to see is more of these bland micro-transaction infested shooters. No hope for a cool Star Wars RPG on par with the Witcher 3, or any games that appeal to niche audiences developed by smaller studios and game companies.
[QUOTE=TheTalon;52883900][url]http://archive.is/DenaU[/url] There you go[/QUOTE] Community manager making a blunder like that, good job
[QUOTE=LAMB SAUCE;52884183]Community manager making a blunder like that, good job[/QUOTE] He didn't even get fired when he got banned globally from reddit.com for paying mods to censor and silence people on /r/SWBattlefront during the last game's life He even had tweets accusing reddit of lying and has recently deleted them as people started linking it as proof when it was being discussed in the thread showing that tweet
I cant believe people are so deadset against this game even having a progression system is seen as bad
[QUOTE=Saxon;52884175]No hope for a cool Star Wars RPG on par with the Witcher 3, or any games that appeal to niche audiences developed by smaller studios and game companies.[/QUOTE] not under EA, no. they're famous for delivering bland games. it's getting worse every game/year, no matter the genre. appealing to the mass market to make the most of cash just makes their games really, i mean REALLY boring. after a while i wanted to play a round of Battlefield 1 again. on hardcore mode. turned out the only single hardcore mode server was in South America. doesn't help that EA only added hardcore mode with a patch afterwards. shows me pretty well the direction it's going, gameplay-wise. but i just can't stand that autoheal bullshit and low damage weaponry. EA and Dice can try to stuff more content into the games but it's no use if the gameply itself is shallow af. and now with all the microtransactions, lootboxes and whatnot on top of that, it's super easy to just ignore the games from big publishers. at least to me. the big issue i see here is simply the lack of competition. nobody else is allowed to make another SW game, due to obvious reasons (licensing etc.), which is leading to abusive behaviour from the publisher, like i see here. most recent examples from EA: NFS:Payback and SW:BF2. Zenimax, Activision, 2K Games, WB Games, EA, Ubisoft ... fuck 'em all to death. :( maybe Ubisoft is the least worse of the ones i mentioned (yet) but we'll see what the next Far Cry will be like. and most important, what kinds of "cash spending opportunities" will or will not be added.
[QUOTE=Tetracycline;52884250]I cant believe people are so deadset against this game even having a progression system is seen as bad[/QUOTE] This kind of mindset is the reason why this keeps happening, you see this big company blatantly nickle-and-diming you for everything you have, with content in an 80$ game behind paywalls, the only alternative method of unlocking it being a 40-hour massive grind, and you jump to their defense. I'd call it Stockholm Syndrome but you're not even being forced to buy the game, you'll do it on your own. Like, for real. You can call Overwatch's crap a "progression system" because eventually you'll exhaust all the drops in the game and get everything without spending money if you keep leveling up, but you'd have to be daft to call it that because the time investment you'd have to put in is longer in hours than most games' lifespans.
[QUOTE=Tetracycline;52884250]I cant believe people are so deadset against this game [b]even having a progression system is seen as bad[/b][/QUOTE] it's about [b]how[/b] the progression is handled here.
[QUOTE=Tetracycline;52884250]I cant believe people are so deadset against this game even having a progression system is seen as bad[/QUOTE] It's only progression if you sink hundreds of hours into it, or dollars. That's not a realistic progression system at all. A good progression system will see you earning or unlocking SOMETHING every time you play until you have everything you want or there is. Imagine if you can only play 2 hours a day, which given a lot of people's schedules and lifestyles, that's generous. It would take you 20 days of not unlocking ANYTHING to save up enough to unlock a hero. One. Ha
[QUOTE=gk99;52883856]Why would they completely shutter Battlefield in addition if Battlefront doesn't work out?[/QUOTE] You could say the same about Visceral, or Maxis etc. EA potters along doing it's own thing, and we only find out when it's too late. As soon as the numbers change into ones they don't like - they'll axe the company, and it seems they don't care about the portfolio on offer, just how much the studio is earning EA.
[QUOTE=Zenamez;52883794]They're known to shutter studios who "don't meet their sales expectations". After all, no one saw the Visceral Games closure until it happened [/QUOTE] [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOSUWFgLWGU"]Jim Sterling called it two years ago[/URL].
[QUOTE=Lovely Leslie;52884310]This kind of mindset is the reason why this keeps happening, you see this big company blatantly nickle-and-diming you for everything you have, with content in an 80$ game behind paywalls, the only alternative method of unlocking it being a 40-hour massive grind, and you jump to their defense. I'd call it Stockholm Syndrome but you're not even being forced to buy the game, you'll do it on your own. Like, for real. You can call Overwatch's crap a "progression system" because eventually you'll exhaust all the drops in the game and get everything without spending money if you keep leveling up, but you'd have to be daft to call it that because the time investment you'd have to put in is longer in hours than most games' lifespans.[/QUOTE] Yes, there are lots of games that you pay for where you then have to earn content in the game, sorry to say. [editline]12th November 2017[/editline] It is sad that EA has to fuck us to make their shareholders happy, but that's just capitalism...so get over it? I hope they scale the grind back some but ultimately all they will care about is $ and if our criticism makes them think they'll lose sales then it could be good.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;52884657]the only 60 dollar game i can think of with this level of grind for a new character is r6 siege, and it's only like that for the dlc operators, and it's only half the time i don't see how you don't see the problem here a AAA mp shooter is at best gonna keep my attention for maybe a couple hundred hours, at the absolute most who the fuck has all the time to unlock this bullshit[/QUOTE] Also worth reiterating that these timetables take into consideratoin that you don't use your money on literally anything else. So on top of playing 40 hours to unlock a hero you are getting shit on by people who are spending all their credits on trooper/starship cards that are just flat statistical upgrades.
[QUOTE=nagachief;52884431][URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOSUWFgLWGU"]Jim Sterling called it two years ago[/URL].[/QUOTE] Sadly he seemed to be the only one who did. If more "journalism" outlets actually reported on the rumour, maybe something may have happened but here we are...
[QUOTE=Tetracycline;52884619]Yes, there are lots of games that you pay for where you then have to earn content in the game, sorry to say.[/QUOTE] Hot zinger How many of these games from this supposedly large pool can you name where the base game is 60$+ AND where "earning" the content in the game involves 40 whole fucking hours of nonstop gameplay [editline]14th November 2017[/editline] If you wanna be really cool, list a game where there isn't some form of lootboxes to obtain the conrent without going through the grind regularly
[QUOTE=Lovely Leslie;52884310]This kind of mindset is the reason why this keeps happening, you see this big company blatantly nickle-and-diming you for everything you have, with content in an 80$ game behind paywalls, the only alternative method of unlocking it being a 40-hour massive grind, and you jump to their defense. I'd call it Stockholm Syndrome but you're not even being forced to buy the game, you'll do it on your own. Like, for real. You can call Overwatch's crap a "progression system" because eventually you'll exhaust all the drops in the game and get everything without spending money if you keep leveling up, but you'd have to be daft to call it that because the time investment you'd have to put in is longer in hours than most games' lifespans.[/QUOTE] Overwatch has no progression though, it's all just cosmetics. [editline]13th November 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Zenamez;52884345]You could say the same about Visceral, or Maxis etc. EA potters along doing it's own thing, and we only find out when it's too late. As soon as the numbers change into ones they don't like - they'll axe the company, and it seems they don't care about the portfolio on offer, just how much the studio is earning EA.[/QUOTE] I can't say the same about Visceral or Maxis, because their recent games have all been fucked. Dead Space 3 has microtransactions Hardline wasn't nearly as popular as a main series title and lost its playerbase at a much higher rate Sim City and TS4 were both downgrades from previous games and centers of controversies, especially because Sim City had always-online DRM and they pulled the "can't be removed" card
[QUOTE=gk99;52885888] I can't say the same about Visceral or Maxis, because their recent games have all been fucked. Dead Space 3 has microtransactions Hardline wasn't nearly as popular as a main series title and lost its playerbase at a much higher rate Sim City and TS4 were both downgrades from previous games and centers of controversies, especially because Sim City had always-online DRM and they pulled the "can't be removed" card[/QUOTE] Then you've got to look past the surface to see why those games were fucked... and we find EA behind the problems and their desire to [I]squeeze[/I] as much as they can (moneywise) out of the player. The development teams were doing fine until EA stepped in and started meddling with their formula (also known as "The kiss of death"). After all, as an ex-Bioware dev said- [URL="http://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/bioware/268438/former-bioware-developer-speaks-out-against-ea"]"EA just wants to turn games into Microtransaction Machines."[/URL] They put their dirty hands into the mix, it goes tits up and then they just close the company because it didn't work out in the end. Dead Space 3 is a great example of this. They've put their hands into Battlefront, are playing ignorant about the backlash and will probably end up merging the development team into some other team in the future as a result. Before that happens, Bioware is in the waiting list to be stabbed in the back by EA first however.
[QUOTE=Zenamez;52885996]Then you've got to look past the surface to see why those games were fucked... and we find EA behind the problems and their desire to [I]squeeze[/I] as much as they can (moneywise) out of the player. The development teams were doing fine until EA stepped in and started meddling with their formula (also known as "The kiss of death"). After all, as an ex-Bioware dev said- [URL="http://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/bioware/268438/former-bioware-developer-speaks-out-against-ea"]"EA just wants to turn games into Microtransaction Machines."[/URL] They put their dirty hands into the mix, it goes tits up and then they just close the company because it didn't work out in the end. Dead Space 3 is a great example of this. They've put their hands into Battlefront, are playing ignorant about the backlash and will probably end up merging the development team into some other team in the future as a result. Before that happens, Bioware is in the waiting list to be stabbed in the back by EA first however.[/QUOTE] Why the games were fucked is unimportant to this argument. I'm not arguing that it's the studios' fault, I'm arguing that DICE isn't going to close because they're still useful as it stands. The PS4 playercount of [url=https://battlefieldtracker.com/bf1/insights/population]Battlefield 1[/url] alone is more than the overall population of [url=https://battlefieldtracker.com/bf4/population]Battlefield 4[/url], which EA is going to see as "ah, it's still a franchise we can release every few years and have people move onto even if we completely shift the theme, good." Mirror's Edge: Catalyst was a piece of shit. Battlefront 1 was a piece of shit. Battlefront 2 is shaping up to be the biggest piece of shit of them all. But Battlefield is still a dependable, mainstay brand for them and they're not going to kill that because of other flops. Neither of those studios had that going for them. If your only series flops, or you get unlucky enough to have multiple of them flop, you're done. It doesn't matter that your publisher is the entire reason, they're the ones who fire you.
[QUOTE=gk99;52886310]Why the games were fucked is unimportant to this argument. I'm not arguing that it's the studios' fault, I'm arguing that DICE isn't going to close because they're still useful as it stands. The PS4 playercount of [url=https://battlefieldtracker.com/bf1/insights/population]Battlefield 1[/url] alone is more than the overall population of [url=https://battlefieldtracker.com/bf4/population]Battlefield 4[/url], which EA is going to see as "ah, it's still a franchise we can release every few years and have people move onto even if we completely shift the theme, good." Mirror's Edge: Catalyst was a piece of shit. Battlefront 1 was a piece of shit. Battlefront 2 is shaping up to be the biggest piece of shit of them all. But Battlefield is still a dependable, mainstay brand for them and they're not going to kill that because of other flops. Neither of those studios had that going for them. If your only series flops, or you get unlucky enough to have multiple of them flop, you're done. It doesn't matter that your publisher is the entire reason, they're the ones who fire you.[/QUOTE] Battlefield as a series maybe pottering along just fine [I]at the moment[/I] but it only takes the next few games to sell pretty badly to see the writing on the wall. You've already mentioned Catalyst and Battlefront 1 + 2 and someone else mentioned Hardline - so their only "saving grace" at the moment would be Battlefield 1 going by player count. Now the issue is - that's their only "worthwhile" game in EA's eyes out from them at the moment (and something I'd argue is the only thing keeping DICE from the chopping block in the meantime (or a merger)), and it only takes EA to dip its toes into the next few Battlefield games to make the player count drop. Think of it as the Battlefront treatment but in Battlefield instead (lootboxes, gear grinding etc). That was the point of my previous post (EA pushing their way in and getting the studio to implement something EA wants, but ends up backfiring). They can shift the theme much like CoD, but that may also end up backfiring slightly (just as how people are sick of the "future" turn the series took) but worst out of the lot is if EA implement Battlefront 2's "loot" system into future titles, regardless of the backlash they've got at the moment. That'll be the nail in the coffin regarding the series if it sells badly (just like Mass Effect). Knowing EA, they'll ignore the controversy surrounding Battlefront 2 and probably have this kind of loot system on the drawing board for future titles as well.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.