EA responds to community concerns over Star Wars Battlefront 2 unlocks

EA responded to concerns raised by the community over the progression system in Star Wars Battlefront 2.

Over the weekend there has been a lot of discussion within the Star Wars Battlefront 2 community over the progressions system and unlocks. This alarm was raised when the Origin Access version went live and players starting working out how long it would take to unlock a single hero with credits alone. The number was a staggering 40 hours of gameplay. That is also assuming credits would not be used for any other purchases. A second spreadsheet lists all the Challenge Rewards. These numbers are for this one instance of testing and could vary depending on how many credits are collected during the single-player game.

A spreadsheet was also compiled based on crate opening statistics after spending a whopping $99, an experiment which was carried out by Gamespot. Simply put, to unlock anything for free is going to cost you time, a hell of a lot of it, and certainly more than you might be prepared to spend in the game.

EA has posted the following response today:

Our goal involves creating a compelling progression path for all of our players. There’s a lot of content at launch with even more coming via live service, and we’ll continuously adjust our progression mechanics to give players a sense of accomplishment as they explore all of Battlefront 2.

I posted this in another thread, but feel it would be good to post here as well.

Heroes earned through Credits: The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. We selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.

Credits Earned: We’re looking at the results daily and will be continuing to tune this to ensure that players feel a meaningful sense of reward for the time they spend with Battlefront 2.

We appreciate the conversation here, and our team is working to make the best choices possible for the game and the players. We will provide more details and updates as we can

There is also the issue of pay to win in multiplayer games too with the upgrades. Players could find themselves being overwhelmed by players who have spent money and received upgrades which give them the upper hand. It appears that players will likely never be on a level playing field.

At least EA is prepared to look at the current Star Wars Battlefront 2 numbers on rewards which will likely be tweaked following this weekend’s complaints. Trying to figure out the overcomplicated, and frankly, mad rewards system they have put in place is a nightmare.

The current state of rewards, loot boxes, or whatever they are called in games, is starting to hinder the enjoyment of games and it needs to stop. Bring back the good old days of buying a game and not having to worry about how much more you need to spend to get content that is included in the game you purchased and paid full price for.

Update: Star Wars Battlefront 2 unlocks debate brings rage and death threats