I did see Star Wars oranges in the supermarket before the release of Rogue One. That’s kinda weird.
God this is insane.
Hold the microtransactions until after the game launches. Which is… also pretty skeevy.
Ron Paul was right all along.
Also, I almost forgot there was a Star Wars movie coming out.
My guess is that the concerns were more sanguine, more about EA recouping the long term development costs of the game. If the narrative gets so messed up that it is actively harming sales, etc.
Towels don’t make sidebar news on CNBC. I think Woolen Horde’s description of that conversation was pretty spot on.
Star Wars is probably the most valuable IP on the planet now. Anything that diminishes it’s reputation even a little bit and evoking a “move on” mentality from their consumers is DIS stock selloff bad. They have plans for DECADE$ of sales tied to it. -650K dislikes on a major internet site calls all kind of attention. I bet someone at EA VP/Director level was getting texts on how many dislikes were on Reddit once it took off. Big companies pay huge attention to negative social media now.
I’m about to unload my fully operational pay2win $200+ loot crate ultimate god murder king account on some n00bs right now. And they can’t even buy any crates to catch up with me any more. Sad!
I joke, but what’s really sad is people who didn’t get in on the 8+ purple epic cards you get for pre-ordering. Those are pretty spectacular. How come pre-order bonuses aren’t pay2win? Because a lot of people get the same thing, maybe?
Simply make all micro transactions and loot boxes totally about aesthetics. Don’t have the slightest whiff of competitive advantage…none. Overwatch does this and they are cruising along making money.
You need to stream some pwnage. C’mon, man. There are those of us still stuck in the did-not-buy-cause-stuff camp that need some OP gameplay footage to get us through until we buy it anyway.
Careful. I reckon that would turn out very differently from what you expect. Do you not remember last November? :)
OK for those who have actually been playing this game, not honing their intarweb pay2win outrage skills to a fine edge, I have some … observations.
It’s probably best to put a lot of your initial card crafting resources into the bruiser and rocket classes (that is, the two upgraded infantry classes: rocket soldier and wookiee/death). These classes are powerful to start with, and have pretty good card perks like increased health and better activated health regen that keep them alive for a long time if you’re careful, and they can make much more of a difference on the battlefield than regular soldiers. They’re also a lot cheaper to buy with combat credits than the heroes, and in some modes there aren’t heroes, only these upgraded troops to choose from.
(Heroes are obviously great to upgrade for the same reason, because they start out so strong.)
I don’t know if it’s a Star Wars movie authenticity thing or what, but there are a ton of chokepoint corridor / exit / entrance sections on these maps, which leads to extreme chokepoint carnage across so very many of them. If you were a fan of Metro or Operation Locker in Battlefield 3/4, boy howdy have I got a game for you, because Battlefront 2 is full of these goddamn things. Some of them are really bad; I’ve seen that 16 player Strike mode get stuck on a chokepoint for 5+ minutes, in the one where you have to deliver the data to the U-wing. That hangar exit is BRUTAL. Brutal.
Remember how @telefrog (correctly!) complained the beta map was kinda crappy because it was one long outdoor corridor followed by a super spammy room and corridor section after that? Sadly, I’d say about half the maps are similar in design. I hope you like chokepoint carnage, because this game has it in spades. The better maps have at least 2 chokepoints, sometimes 3+, which makes them tenable-ish. I guess they figure the heroes / powerup troops should factor in and help you push into these heavily fortified chokepoints? More often than not, in my experience your troops get chewed to pieces dashing themselves against these chokepoints over and over. There is something about piling up outside a hangar door and firing your weapons into it endlessly, that is like god damn catnip for first person shooter dumbasses.
Which leads me to… you can’t ever pick the damn map you want to play! You can select “yay gimme some 40 person conquest”, or “yay gimme some 16 player strike” but you’ll probably get dumped in the damn beta conquest map because fuck you that’s why.
I wish you could at least tag some maps as “thanks, but no thanks.” I don’t think any of the maps are outright bad gamplay-wise, but sometimes I do grow weary of corridor chokepoint carnage. And a few of them I have played like maybe one time (Mos Eisley, wtf), even though I’d like to pick that particular map to get a better feel for it, I get the luck of the draw soo… I hope you like Jakku. Again.
I will write it down to remenber it later.
“How Disney and Star Wars is teaching your kid Gambling Habits”
Wow, I didn’t think they’d flinch. Besides, isn’t that like the second time they modify the game to placate public uproar in a single week?
I’m hoping for no lootcrates at all, but it’s probably going to be new cosmetics-only lootcrates.
You are right about this. But the narrative quickly shifted from “That EA game is pay to win” to “Disney is endorsing child gambling” And you bet your ass Iger would care about and get involved with any product that threatens Disney’s family friendly brand image.
I think that this about face came from Disney pressure (maybe not at the Iger level but that is also possible).
I’ll be honest I spent $50 on Halloween loot crates the first time around to get Pumpkinhead Reaper. Witch Mercy was a nice bonus.
Too bad that game was ruined by XIM4. Even if Battlefront was a good game, the XIM4 has ruined console shooters for me. It’s not worth the aggravation.
I’ve probably spent over 100 bucks on Dota 2 at this point, but I’ve also clocked in literally thousands of hours into that game and a lot of it is me almost donating money to them because they have given me well over 100 dollars worth of entertainment.
I think there is a balance to micro transactions, even in a pay to win model. The fine line is it needs to always feel like an optional path. The problem comes when companies coerce their players into paying for shit by making the non payment option borderline unobtainable or limit gains with timers. If you are going to do that predatory bullshit you sure as shit need to make it free to play. EA literally did everything wrong here and I’m glad that so far they seem to have gotten their hand caught in the cookie jar.
The Star Wars films are characterized by choke point combat between Stormtroopers and Rebels. Just watch the films, man. It’s part of the canon!
I don’t mind it too much as it did seem like there were chokepoint busters in the earned upgraded classes you can choose. Those heavy infantry bots in the beta were pretty powerful to play as and if you massed a force you could punch through those hallways and doorways. Star Wars combat is chaotic an pretty much a one-hit kill scenario. It’s figuring out how to take two of them for every one of you that turns the tide.
Next Frozen will teach kids about human trafficking.
Also part of the films was about 1000-3000 shot volleys for a stormtrooper to actually hit anything. I’m struggling to remember a single rebel hit with a stormtrooper weapon and dying.
But yep, lots and lots of chokepoints.
And… I bought back in… I feel dirty, but my real life friends are playing tonight…
lordkosc on Origin, friend me if you want.
I’m a Producer at a AAA Studio(I’m more than happy to provide proof to subreddit mods)
This is pretty clear what they’re doing to anyone who works in the industry. They want to maximize their initial sales numbers to show to investors. Once the trade off is worth it(Probably 1-2 months in), they will enable the gamble boxes again because:
- Everyone who was on the fence will have bought the game by now
- You can’t refund the game at this point
- The news will have died down, and if new articles do come out, it won’t be as relevant
- They will already have good numbers to show investors
EA is going to royally fuck over the average gamer who doesn’t have a clue how the industry works on this. This is about as deceptive as it gets. I hope that clarifies things…. but please do not let this extensive clarification distract you from the fact that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table