EA Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)

[Dan]

I'm skeptical that most this stuff won't be available offine and in splitscreen. Obviously the campaign will be available offline, but if at least half of these extra gameplay modes aren't available offline, I'll be quite disappointed.

Agreed. They really dropped the ball with SWBF15. Skirmish mode was a joke. It could have been so much more, but it felt like DICE put zero effort into it.

 

[NW48]

The beta has gone live today for those who have pre ordered the game, and will go live on the 6th of October for the rest of the world. The beta has a fair bit of content in it, so I'll be downloading it for sure. Can't wait to see what it's like to play.

 

[Casey]

I was looking forward to this game after playing the beta some but now I'm not sure how I feel now after EA closed Visceral today. I got a feeling they are gonna force more micro transactions into the game.

 

[Lain]

A New Hero, a Story Untold- In an emotionally gripping new Star Wars campaign that spans over 30 years.

They don't mean 30 years of the Star Wars story with this, they mean it'll literally take you 30 years of grinding to unlock all the content... unless you pay up.

Apparently it'll take about 40 hours of grinding to unlock a single hero character. And the EA PR team's attempt to justify it on Reddit is getting downvoted into oblivion, I think it's actually the single most downvoted comment on all of Reddit at this point: Ouch...

 

[doblocruiser]

I can understand those people voicing their frustrating when they buy it to play the multiplayer. Development of content needs to be payed one way or another. There is no season pass and all DLC will be free. Lootboxes aren't the issue here but it is the content that is in those boxes. Those lootboxes should contain cosmetic stuff only and surely shouldn't be a pay to win model which it still is.

I don't even bother going online there and I will solely buy this game for its single player experience and content. I have never ever in my life been attracted to Star Wars but since I saw Battlefront 2 campaign stuff I got pulled in and I even watched the 2 latest Star Wars movies which where an absolute joy.

 

[NW48]

Apparently it'll take about 40 hours of grinding to unlock a single hero character. And the EA PR team's attempt to justify it on Reddit is getting downvoted into oblivion, I think it's actually the single most downvoted comment on all of Reddit at this point: Ouch...

Umm, that 40 hour number is nowhere near correct. It's estimated that it'll only take around 4hrs to get a single hero character by playing online, story and single player/splitscreen challenges. At least that's from what I've read. A lot of people seem to just be getting their panties in a bunch for no particular reason. Not everything in life can be free. It's either lootboxes and free DLC, or costly DLC and no lootboxes. It's not posible for a company to have both and still make enough of a profit to be successful.

Wait till the finished game is actually released, and if there's been no change or the heroes are unrealistically priced, then people can complain. EA can't please everyone and still run a successful company. Compromises have to be made.

 

[Moglet]

Not everything in life can be free. It's either lootboxes and free DLC, or costly DLC and no lootboxes. It's not possible for a company to have both and still make enough of a profit to be successful.

Loot boxes that contain characters are totally unnecessary. They are random chance, and could be considered gambling. GTA Online is a good example of how it can be done; it manages to make a huge profit without introducing a loot box or random chance system.

What EA are doing is locking playable game content behind loot boxes and making out like they can be achieved realistically through gameplay. While they can they certainly appear balanced towards encouraging people to pay for them. Even then you're not guaranteed to get what you want via the loot box.

I have no problem with loot boxes for things like skins or visual mods, but actual game content like characters? That's where I draw the line.

 

[Dan]

I think it's actually the single most downvoted comment on all of Reddit at this point: Ouch...

That's hilarious. I wonder how many r/SWBF "community members" are just EA employees on sock accounts.

 

[doblocruiser]

Negativity surrounding their business model really seems to take off atm.. Many places , many furious people... Wonder what will change....

 

[Dan]

Negativity surrounding their business model really seems to take off atm.. Many places , many furious people... Wonder what will change....

Probably nothing since people never seem to grasp the concept of "vote with your wallet."

 

[NW48]

Loot boxes that contain characters are totally unnecessary. They are random chance, and could be considered gambling.

The loot boxes do not contain the characters though from what I understand. They do contain currency to buy the characters though.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Not everything in life can be free. It's either lootboxes and free DLC, or costly DLC and no lootboxes. It's not posible for a company to have both and still make enough of a profit to be successful.

I see your point but there's always understandable chagrin when some Day One content isn't included in the £60 you've stumped up in the store.

 

[Moglet]

The loot boxes do not contain the characters though from what I understand. They do contain currency to buy the characters though.

You're absolutely right, my bad. They've made the characters cost enough to tempt you into buying the currency, though.

I don't believe anything will change based on internet feedback though, there are still enough users out in the general public who will lap these games up and will happily pour money into unlocks.

 

[doblocruiser]

Well I am holding off due to this major cluster you know what. Also I've never seen such a huge negative backlash just before a game releases. I simply hope that the reviewing press takes EA business model into consideration!

 

[Spitfire77]

I don't use micro transactions and they had an extra $10 off coupon (best buy) for this game which stacks with GCU. So I am getting this for $35 on launch day. It also comes with a $10 reward for whatever I buy next.

I am excited to play the campaign - hopefully it is good. I enjoyed the beta so I will easily get my money's worth out of it.

 

[NW48]

I'm hoping that my slow internet downloads the game before I get back home today. I started it last night so hopefully it finishes by this afternoon. I'm just excited to see how good this campaign is going to be. I've got high hopes for it.

 

[Lain]

In response to the massive backlash, EA is going to reduce the cost of unlocking heroes by 75%. Not bad

 

[longshot1314]

I have to admit the hero costs isn't what bothered me, it's how much they neutered match rewards to support their new system. If I read the spreadsheet that's online correctly there's virtually no discernible benefit to doing well on a consist basis. It's worse when I think the way they had set up progression in the first game was fine since it directly correlated to match score. Frankly I don't necessarily disagree with loot boxes, but I think you need to do something similar to Overwatch where you're not providing pay to play players a significant advantage when compared to people who don't buy into it. EA is certainly going about it the wrong way given they've been pulling the plug on studios that can't incorporate this model into their games and shoehorned it into games like Need for Speed.

 

[dylpro]

It's the "freemium" scheming in a full priced game. We've seen through the charade, guiy!

 

[doblocruiser]

Worth it for all the mêmes and comments. Wonder how it will go down. Only thing to cool down the situation is to drop the system as a whole or make lootboxes cosmetic only.

 

[Jawehawk]

What surprises me is that people are surprised that an EA produced game features a anti consumer business model. I can't think of any big recent EA game that didn't. Day one DLC, releasing unfinished content, overpriced season passes and microtransactions. EA does it all, and will continue to do so until people stop buying into it, which will never happen. I suspect it's mainly the casual gamers who buy this stuff, rather than the ones keeping tabs with the industry as a whole, and it's difficult to blame them. I mean, if you only buy 1-5 games a year, it's not difficult to justify spending a premium on those few. It's those of us who buy and play a lot of games who has the problem, as we're constantly losing out on content.

 

[Moglet]

In response to the massive backlash, EA is going to reduce the cost of unlocking heroes by 75%. Not bad

According to one reviewer they also cut the rewards by 75% though....

 

[NW48]

According to one reviewer they also cut the rewards by 75% though....

That was only the reward for completing the campaign though, so not that big of a deal.

 

[Moglet]

That was only the reward for completing the campaign though, so not that big of a deal.

That's good to hear. It seems like they're actually listening somewhat after the whole thing really blew up, it's just a shame it took it getting this far. I'm excited for the AMA, I'm going to need some popcorn for that one.

 

[shoemaker]

Not even in 4k on xbox one x ! Disappointed, why can pc players play in 4k and we cant ? Lazyness by ea? If assassins creed can run in 4k, why not star wars I wonder.

 

[The Chosen One]

Source

There is a grand total of 324 cards. Upgrading these will require a total of 155,520 crafting parts. This requires opening a grand total of 3,111 loot crates which will require 4,528 hours of gameplay.
The 600 credits received from a hero crate is worth 27% the cost of a hero crate. This is equivalent to 30 crystals. To account for this, I reduced the cost of a hero crate from 110 crystals to 80 crystals. 12,000 crystals can be bought for $100.

Opening the required 3,111 loot crates requires 248,880 crystals. If you only purchase $100 crystal packs, this will cost $2,100.

 

[Minty]

Not even in 4k on xbox one x ! Disappointed, why can pc players play in 4k and we cant ? Lazyness by ea? If assassins creed can run in 4k, why not star wars I wonder.

I can run Assassin's Creed in 4k on my PC without issue, but even with a GTX1080,16GB of RAM and an i5 6600k Battlefront in 4k runs like a slideshow when I've got it on anything above medium settings(except space battles, they run buttery smooth). The number of players running around and creating explosions and other particle effects make it a very resource-heavy game. The Xbox One X is the first console that's really impressed me in terms of power, but for $500 there are going to be compromises.

That said, this is all experience from the beta, I refuse to buy the game until I see that the rewards have been properly balanced. Which is a shame, because I loved the beta.

 

[Dan]

Worth it for all the mêmes and comments. Wonder how it will go down. Only thing to cool down the situation is to drop the system as a whole or make lootboxes cosmetic only.

I can guarantee that the devs are only going to respond to AstroTurf comments and completely ignore real questions from real customers.

 

[The Chosen One]

I can guarantee that the devs are only going to respond to AstroTurf comments and completely ignore real questions from real customers.

There have been major efforts by /r/StarWarsBattlefront moderators as of yesterday to prevent and remind members about astroturfing, however, I'm not sure how effective it will be.

 

[Dan]

There have been major efforts by /r/StarWarsBattlefront moderators as of yesterday to prevent and remind members about astroturfing, however, I'm not sure how effective it will be.

I was worried that at least one moderator was part of the astroturfing team, but this is a little more reassuring.