Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Beta Raises Pay-To-Win Fears

It has a loot crate-based progression system that can be sped up by spending real money.

[lukferr]

Apparently you can EARN the same type of loot boxes really quickly while playing. Can any beta players confirm this? I heard like 4 in a couple of hours. But still... I really hate the way the industry is going.

[shaun mcwayne]

I played for a good while yesterday, it looks like you have challenges in this one like kill so many with this class or 50 kills with certain weapon, complete these and you get rewards loot boxes , also you earn coin to spend on boxes. I liked it, its definitely an improvement on previous game which felt unfinished in my opinion. Im getting a bit tired of hearing this pay to win stuff, buy all the loot boxes you want, wont help you, skill and map knowledge will win in most cases. Also buying ingame lootboxes with real money leads to the dark side. Darth maul bought a loot box, got a double lightsaber, look what happened to him, remember the face he made as obi wan chopped him, that was a "but I paid to win" look.

[Aries83]

@Shaun

LMAO! That was brilliant!!!

[OB1Biker]

Progression is easier in Beta than launch game but still it should be easy enough when you play regularly.
I mean I understand the concern and EA should come out and say the option is limited to a certain extend to avoid unbalance.
However I don't think its worth it to buy your way in the game. A bit similar to the way some gamers buy the deluxe edition £20 more for a few upgrades. Its not worth it. You can unlock these upgrades playing the game and be more happy about it.

[arkard]

It may be pay to win for the first few days... Someone wants to drop an additional 50$ or whatever to unlock better weapons hen so be it. It will only help them for a week at most before people that didn't pay for loot boxes start getting those same weapons. I'm not worried.

[OB1Biker]

@arkard
I tend to think the same it's typically people who play for a few weeks and then move on. Hey I'm on for at least a year playing this game, possibly longer since I'm not into fps games like cod or bf Not worried either about quick come and go gamers. Not to mention it was also possible to buy stuff on previous game or other games too
I'm just being genuine there

[AcidDvl]

I know, but mate, this allows a free season pass.

All future content will be free for everyone. This means that you don't pay more than what the game costs you and the player base doesn't get split up.

You're trading a reasonably slower progression for free future content and the entire player based united. Fair trade IMHO.

[FITgamer]

Yeah you can. I unlocked between 5-10 loot boxes in about 2 hours of playing.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Seriously this trash is why gamers are so judgmental of gaming companies.

[SegaGamer]

Seriously, who are the idiots that buy this crap ? There must be a lot or they wouldn't include it in games. I can't think of a bigger waste of money.

[ocelot07]

Thing is though you may think of them as idiot's but they are most likely people with addictive personalities or in another word gambling addicts. This is who loot boxes are targeted at and it's scummy from publishers.

Don't get me wrong I can see why you think these people are idiot's. But really they are people who are suffering from an illness. Here is an example: Guy want's a new skin for his Assassin's Creed character but you can't buy it out right it's only available in loot boxes so essentially it's a gamble. User thinks ohhh it's only $2 a loot box ill buy $10 worth. After opening his loot boxes. The user didn't get the skin he wanted. So he thinks ohh ill buy another 5 loot boxes it's only $10. An hour later and $100 out of pocket the user still does not have the skin he so desperately wants.

Am not saying this is how Assassin's Creed Origins is going to work. But this is how some games work and I think it's scum of the publishers. This sort of thing could lead to people with an addicting personality to money debt. Which could then lead to other problems such as self harming or even suicide.

Loot boxes should be banned. Or at least ones that allow you to pay for them with real money.

[SegaGamer]

Actually, you make a good point. They aren't idiots, just people with an addiction to gambling.

[Magnetar]

Look at the bright side, those idiots make it so everyone else gets free content for a year or two.

[nitus10]

Err no!

Shure the game will be Adult only but you would have to be living under a rock to think that children won't get to play this and they are very susceptible to gambling incentives.

Yes, there are idiots (approx 2.9%) who will get sucked into gambling but that does not make it right and these "greedy" publishers know this.

BTW. A simple Google search of "gambling addiction" will show the percentage of people who are seriously addicted to gambling and over 3 million hits. Happy reading.

[WePlayDirty]

And this is why I've quit playing AAA third party games. The amount of anti-consumerism is appalling.

[slate91]

Im tired of loot boxes.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

The "Vegas" Generation of gaming.......

[GamesMaster1982]

None of this bothers me in the slightest. Because it's story mode only for me.

[The_Jackel]

lmao 8 disagrees because you want SP.... SP should have been in the first one to begin with not that coop crap they put in it. although the MP was fun aswell

[GamesMaster1982]

Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not against the online part it's just i mainly play games for the story's . And a new Star War's story mode who in the hell does not want this. I mean it's Star Wars. So this story campaign comes first for me more than anything else this game has to offer.

[WePlayDirty]

Gone are the days where playing games took skill. 'Git gud' has turned into 'let me get out my wallet'.

[datriax]

Fears? It's EA, you can pretty much take it to the bank.

[MunchMiller00]

So glad I don't give the slightest s**t about this, or anything like it.

[quenomamen]

Not even bothering with this game

[Doomster1971]

I'm not sure about this game. Over here it's going to cost me £60 to get the game when It first comes out. I've never spent that amount of money on a game and I'm not about to start. The only reason it's £60 is because it's a Star Wars game and EA know loads of idiots will pay that to get the game. So in reality EA is going to charge an extortionate amount of money to get the game and then dig for more money because they know they can. I'm lucky in the fact that (when I do eventually get it in a sale) I'll only really be getting it for the single player campaign. I'll also be playing the game split screen with my son. The poor boy is going to have to wait for a sale though.

[aconnellan]

"The only reason it's £60 is because it's a Star Wars game and EA know loads of idiots will pay that to get the game"

Isn't it the same prive as all/most other AAA game releases? I think it's that price because of AAA dev cost, not just cause 'Star Wars=money'

[RAM0N]

I'll still body them.

[sprinterboy]

Played the beta for a couple of hrs, it just seems so dam slow, gonna rent for sp experience then move on tbh.

[Liqu1d]

Noticed this when I played. Not interested in a game where power is obtained through randomised loot boxes which can be bought with real money.

[Bruh]

It's a norm in gaming and the small group of hardcore on this site protesting it won't do anything. The mass market will eat it up especially because YOU ARENT FORCED TO BUT IT.

[optimus]

Seriously, outside of the fact that you can end up accumulating them as you play and can take several minutes to redeem for items that may or may not be worth it. In the end, I don't mind as it can become it's own little "slot machine" game.... Injustice 2 has loot boxes too and it hasn't hampered any gameplay for me; i still manage to kick ass on any players that have better stuff than i do.

[OB1Biker]

Exactly. You aren't forced to but it

Seriously haha. I don't think it's a big deal. They just should come out and clarify how limited a pay to win it can be to be fair to gamers but that's all

[PatriotOfIron]

Oh well, people will still buy this and fuck us over slowly but surely. RIP the freemarket, you barely had a good run (start of humanity - 1913)

[Artemidorus]

Season Passes are done to death so now it's looting systems.

Fuck you EA.

[ShadowWolf712]

I'd rather this than the season passes tbh. At least that way I can play everything.

And frankly... these aren't game breaking.

[ZombieKiller]

This game not having a season pass was telling me this from the start. Come on, it's EA. Helen Keller could have seen this one coming. They're better at making money than they are at making games lol

[ShadowWolf712]

We've known there'd be Micros in the MP for a while now.

That said... you get free loot boxes daily, you get a nice one just for having played the first Battlefront on your system, and while Star Cards do give you a boost, it's really not enough to be a "pay to win" balancing issue. I actually played several matches pretty well before I even knew where to go to get my cards in the Beta, and that includes kills on folks who had them. You go down just the same if you're flanked or caught off guard.

So while ideally they shouldn't be there, at least it IS just in the MP, and it's NOT game-breaking.

[Drakul]

Loot boxes are the cancer of gaming....

[optimus]

It's crazy how much hate ea has (not by me). When I went to their site for the early beta code it was labeled as an "untrusted site" by my web browser. That's messed up by the general public. I don't understand why, I like most of their games.

[Good-Smurf]

I'm so done with this game after a guy just won a match in well less than 10 minutes using Rey and destroy my team.
So basically if you can get that few thousand points first get to wreck shit up and cut short anyone's enjoyment out of that match.
Classes are merely a steeping stone to use Reinforcements and Heroes and it's easy to since most classes other than Heavy are so weak and very situational and that's the perfect bait for players to use Pay-To-Win strategy.
Microtrans really made this an easy decision for me to wait for price cut (like 60% off or I wouldn't touch it second hand copy)
Game still really lacked depth compared to BF4 and Pandemic's Battlefront 2.