EA developers once again tweak Star Wars Battlefront II's progression system

[Cal Jeffrey]

Star Wars Battlefront II has been something of a mess for EA since before its release. Those with pre-orders gained early open-beta access to the game and sharply criticized it for its tedious progression system and loot boxes. It appeared that Electronic Arts was shooting for a full-fledged pay-to-win progression system.

The heat from players got so intense that developers have been continually backpedaling on the aggressively paywalled features. They started by removing some of the more obvious P2W elements like Epic Star Cards coming in Crates (loot boxes). Then they lowered the cost of unlocking heroes and eventually shut down microtransactions altogether, at least temporarily.

The latest change to Battlefront’s progression system is a boost to rewards given. Despite developers’ previous cuts in the costs of upgrading, the system was still far too monotonous, taking hundreds of hours to unlock heroes and upgrade them.

“Today, an update went live that includes some adjustments to the economy and progression,” said EA. “While these are only some initial steps toward making much larger changes, some of these are ready to roll, and are available starting today.”

Players will now have increased rewards in multiplayer matches. Some players are reporting increases are almost doubled in some cases but EA indicated that MP awards are based on player performance, so mileage may vary.

Developers also addressed a big complaint involving the Arcade Mode by tripling the daily credit cap.

“It's been made clear that you were hitting the Arcade Mode Credit cap faster than we expected, so we wanted to alleviate that by increasing it to 1,500 Credits.”

They have also boosted the number of crafting parts that come in the Daily Login Crates. These pieces, used to upgrade Star Cards, are essential for progression. The increase in the number of parts is not huge according to YouTube channel Battlefront Updates but as Star Cards take hundreds of them to upgrade, any boost is welcome.

EA also announced that over the next few weeks, it would be giving away free heroes, maps and vehicles during what it is calling the “Star Wars Battlefront II The Last Jedi Season.”

“Stormtrooper-turned-hero Finn joins the fight for the Resistance and Captain Phasma steps on to the battlefront for the First Order. New locations and vehicles will also arrive: you can fight on the ground on the salt-covered planet of Crait in Galactic Assault mode, or take to space in the Starfighter Assault map of D'Qar (flying Tallie Lintra's RZ-2 A-wing, a vehicle you'll be seeing in the film). And, of course, Iden Versio returns in Star Wars Battlefront II Resurrection during the days of the First Order’s rise to power.”

The changes and free content come after EA shares have fallen in price by more than 15 precent since October 31. The plunge in value equates to a loss of over $3 billion in valuation. The appeasement of players seems to be an attempt to mend or at least slow down the devaluation of shares.

The Last Jedi Season update rolls out tomorrow while the Star Wars Battlefront II Resurrection single-player DLC is set for a December 13 launch.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/72156-ea-developers-continue-tweaks-star-wars-battlefront-ii.html

 

[Comanche]

Today the stock went from $106.00 to $100.00

 

[Uncle Al]

I'd like to see it drop so low they take it off the big board .....

 

[Footlong]

I'm surprised! For once consumers actually voted with their wallets.

 

[mrtraver]

Why is there a credit cap at all on Arcade Mode? Why force people into the cesspool of multiplayer just to earn more credits? Some of us prefer a single player experience, yet we still want to enjoy all heroes and the game content.

 

[m4a4]

Why is there a credit cap at all on Arcade Mode? Why force people into the cesspool of multiplayer just to earn more credits? Some of us prefer a single player experience, yet we still want to enjoy all heroes and the game content.

Because they built the game with F2P mechanics in mind. Artificially capping stuff like that is meant to push you to buy stuff...

 

[BSim500]

You all know full well no matter what "positive changes" they make now it's done purely as temporary panicked damage control that can easily be gradually reversed once the post-release phase is over. That's all these "changes" are - short-term attempts at skewing the scores back up and giving them an excuse to delete "inaccurate" negative reviews.

The game's reputation is already broken beyond repair. Time to move on, stop giving them free publicity and check your backlog's for something else that doesn't insult your intelligence.

 

[Gezzer]

I've been boycotting EA since they rebooted Simcity. The way it was done it became patently obvious to me that EA was no longer making games for gamers. They were making games for stockholders. Or more succinctly making games to increase their stock evaluation.

Pretty much everything that's happened since has only proved me right. EA (and a lot of other corporations as well for that matter) no longer see us as customers. We're a resource to be mined for the real customers, stockholders. So everything they do is with that in mind.

 

[Gabriel Pike]

Still not the Star Wars game we are looking for......

 

[Puiu]

So glad that this game flopped commercially.

 

[Reehahs]

People need to keep at it until the big wigs who force our favourite developers to make disastrous decisions are forced out.

 

[erickmendes]

That freemium crap is destroying games... They believe they can turn a good game into a pay-to-win service without community turmoil... Thanks god they are wrong.

 

[wiyosaya]

People need to keep at it until the big wigs who force our favourite developers to make disastrous decisions are forced out.

It happened with "reality TV" on stations like SyFy, so there might be hope in the gaming industry!

 

[QuaZulu]

Wow, EA and "mess of a release" are two pairs that I hear of together more and more often in recent years. I'm glad that their wholesale slaughter of beloved titles has at least received a check this time. Might they actually listen to fans of such titles as they develop them in the future? (I doubt it but one can always hope, right?)

 

[ghostf1re]

Still not getting my money. Hopefully people don't just give in to this and buy the game.

 

[bolski]

Why is there a credit cap at all on Arcade Mode? Why force people into the cesspool of multiplayer just to earn more credits? Some of us prefer a single player experience, yet we still want to enjoy all heroes and the game content.

Because the PVP environment is where you would have to spend to be able to contend with the other players. It's their greed at work. What else?

 

[bolski]

That freemium crap is destroying games... They believe they can turn a good game into a pay-to-win service without community turmoil... Thanks god they are wrong.

Technically, this isn't freemium. You have to pay for the game first. But I get what you mean.

Freemium is more like a lot of the mobile games (Game of War, Mobile Strike, March to War). Doesn't cost a cent to download and install, but in order to succeed, you have to spend.

March to War actually is making a lot of changes similar to what EA is doing it seems like. Before, your survivors could go into Triage and you only had 3 hours to get to them before they were permanently lost. They changed it to 24 hours, and now apparently a year, and eventually, there will not NO triage time limit. You can keep triaged players forever until you heal them back to health. A lot of people were getting sick of upgrading their survivors only to be wiped out by a whale (big spender) and they ended up quitting the game. We'll see how this all works out.