I'm not really interested in debating the progression anymore. You seem to find it perfectly fine and I think it's utter shit. Opinions and all that, whatever.
But let me break down pay-to-win for you. First, do the items you get from crates give you a statistical advantage? Yes or no? The answer, of course, is YES. Yes they do, you get damage increases, speed increases, damage radius increases, etc etc. You get game-play advantages. Once again, you can argue if they are relevant or not, but they do exist. Second, (before they pulled them) could you buy them with money? Yes or no? The answer, again, is YES. Yes you could, and that makes it pay-to-win. Period. It doesn't matter if it gives a 10% bonus or a 1000% bonus. It is literal pay-to-win. You are wrong. Argue all you want about if the benefits really matter, or how often they result in someone "winning" a fight they wouldn't have otherwise, or any other straw-man you can come up with. But you are just avoiding the point.
"Also, of course EA could afford the free content without the microtransactions, but that's really not the issue". Um... I was specifically responding to your statement: "EA was obviously trying to come up with something that would allow them to offer free content throughout its (likely) two year lifespan until Episode IX drops". So yea, that was the issue? You can change or ignore the issue if you want...
Finally, do you previously work at, are employed, have stock in, or have friends/family that work at EA? I just don't understand how someone can be so defensive of a game that insults it's user base so much. Or do you just get upset about other people being upset?
1) The progression is "terrible". The majority of the progression is based entirely on random chance. I mean, I'm not sure how much more obvious it could be that is a terrible experience. Well unless you are into gambling I guess? No other game has this level of bullshit for progression. Either you get things for classes you play as (ala battlefield) or you have a linear progression based on experience (ala COD) or your progression is based on what you want to unlock (ala titanfall) or something else in between. Also, I don't even want to touch the terrible design of a progression that is giving players that either pay or have played for longer number advantages over newer or poorer players.
2) The crates are "not pay-to-win". The crates are the literal definition of pay-to-win. You are literally paying money to get crates to unlock gameplay and number enhancing bonuses. You can debate about what level of effect they have and if it even matters, but you cannot argue that they are not pay-to-win.
3) EA needs to have these micro-transactions to "afford" to give out free content for the next 2 years of the games life. Lets see, 2 years ago battlefront 1 sold over 14-15 million copies. I'm sure they had expectations to sell even more this time around (and they might have done it if they didn't try to fuck over their customers). Even w/o micro-transactions they could easily afford to give out free content if they wanted to, and they only have to support the game for a year or so before they get ready to release a "brand-new" battlefront with an incremented number (hello most of EAs other titles).
Those of us that actually enjoy Battlefront II, we aren't being contrarian, it's just too many people placing too much importance on the Star Card concept. The gun unlocks are the only things that matter and most of the Star Card perks do not contribute to the kill count that you're working towards to get them. It's not that the card progression is bad, it's that the perks associated are underwhelming. It's flawed...yes, but far from the trainwreck folks continue to make it out to be.
It’s a bummer that every criticism is about the stupid loot boxes. I enjoy the game because my enjoyment isn’t tied to the progression: the campaign is like playing a movie and the multiplayer is just fun Star Wars battles. I unlocked Luke because I wanted a light side option that didn’t suck and haven’t engaged with any of the loot because I don’t need it, yet that is central to everyone’s opinion of it.
Because they are doing their job as games journalists? Sure, I can understanding someone who doesn't care about games or the industry and just wants to hear and see Star Wars stuff not giving the progression or boxes any second thoughts. It's why the game will still sell well and they'll continue to milk the battlefront cow for years to come.
But for anyone in the industry, or that cares about the industry, or that wants games to continue being an enjoyable pastime, it's impossible to overlook. Just the sheer fucking hubris of EA to not only release a game with such a terrible, broken progression system, combined with literal pay-to-win, and then repeatedly having to backpedal because you are more interested in seeing just how far you can take it instead of providing an enjoyable experience?
Yea, fuck EA. Games have always been a balance of creative freedom vs "shareholder value". Most other companies manage to maintain somewhat of a balance, but EA? They probably have their "worst company in America" awards mounted and on prominent display in their offices.
Coach dan "totally not going to say anything unless she specifically asks me for it" rykert. Proceeds to immediately spoil about alternating punches and every fight after that w/o any request by abbie... (at least up to flamingo were I'm at).
My constructive feedback would be to actually let her find things out on her own a little?
Jeez, you'd think the people who's job it is to cover video games would know what's going on with one of the 3 major console makers. Why even bother talking about the Xbox?
yeah :-(
I'm not sure what the big deal is. Last generation the positions were flipped and they barely spent any time with the PS3. And as far as the new "mid generation" consoles go, they've spent WAY more time on the xbox one x (article, unboxing, interview, spending an hour going through some of the updated games) than they did on the ps4 pro. They didn't even do an unboxing of the ps4 pro (much less any other content besides an article)!
Who the fuck is actually buying this? As much as I dislike the loot crate system in Forza 7, that game is actually fun and easy to get into and play.
People who want to play a racing game where they can be challenged playing against other human beings w/o fear of getting trolled?
I mean I get all the hyperbole about how pretentious GT:S can come off as; but if we skip past the sarcasm it's pretty easy to see exactly what is going on here and exactly what GT is going on about.
I get that, for people who want to play a faithful, accurate racing game, Sportsmanship is important.
But MAN the devs went about that in CONPLETELY the wrong manner. Telling players, "Don't do this! And don't do that! And we are SOOOO going to fuck you over if you DARE do this, too!" all basically translates to, "Hey, we're going to TELL you how to enjoy this game. Experimentation and learning-as-you-go SHALL BE PUNISHED."
And somehow, not a single person on the dev team thought, "Hey, let's just make a 'Casual Mode' and hardcore 'Sportsman Mode'".
There is a casual mode, it is the lobby where you can find rooms to race against other people where your SR doesn't get effected (or any of the arcade AI stuff). But honestly, if you aren't looking to play clean this isn't the game for you anyways. And as someone who doesn't watch a single second of real-world racing but does occasionally enjoy racing games and really loves the idea of promoting people not being assholes in the race it really isn't that difficult to raise your sportsmanship. Just avoid the high-powered races (gr3-4) and then use common sense and some caution when you are driving.
Sure, you'll end up probably losing a few positions in the race to make sure your sportsmanship stays high/goes up but eventually (literally 2-3 clean races) you'll jump up to group B and start having much better races (though even the "default" C groups have been overall decent on the n/gr3 power races).
Look, there are a lot of rough corners and things I'd like to see addressed. But so far it's been a really great experience being able to race against other actual human beings (because let's face it, AI racing still is super boring) that don't act like 12 year olds at the amusement park playing bumper cars.
@rich666: Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this to you, but you can backup your current ps4 to an external HD and then reinstall it on a ps4 pro to keep all your games (PT included). I'm pretty sure it also works with the cable connecting transfer thing as well; though when I moved to the pro I just did the disk backup.
@pyrodactyl: of course, because if it was an actual encounter they would force a party wipe when you lost a flag instead of bringing it back to the gate. /s #butTheyWouldTotallyDoItThatWay.
@ev77: the encounters don't require flawless play. You can totally salvage a poor run. The GB crew doesn't do that because they barely have a grasp on the encounters.
As for your changes, they're more harsh than the current system and would enable anyone to bumble their way through. It seems to come from a lack of understanding of how raids work. Team wipe mechanics are necessary if you want encounters to be challenging and fun. The other way to make encounters challenging is to make enemies super tanky and super lethal. Trust me, that is terrible design (see vanilla Destiny Nightfalls).
I think there are plenty of ways to make the encounters challenging without enemies being super tanky and super lethal and w/o "team wipe" mechanics. And honestly I wouldn't mind having team wipe mechanics every so often as it makes sense and to add a little spice to things. But when almost every single encounter (thus far I've seen) has it by default it screams lazy design (the 3 flag thing is a good example of something along the lines of decent design). Guess we are just going to have to agree to disagree.
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