As you have no undoubtedly heard, the latest EA release, Battlefront 2, is rife with issues before it's even been released to the public. The main culprit is their loot box system, where users must either spend cash on crystals or spend an ungodly amount of time earning credits to unlock heroes or purchase loot boxes, which allow players to "improve their characters". The response to this basically pay-to-win scenario has been overwhelmingly negative, with a post with EA's response to the criticisms receiving the most downvoted posts ever on Reddit which is currently at 676,000+.

In response to this, EA has decided to completely disable all in-game purchases for the Battlefront 2 just before it's release. EA's statement is below:

Thank you to everyone in our community for being the passionate fans that you are.

Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you – devoted Star Wars fans and game players alike. We’ve also had an ongoing commitment to constantly listen, tune and evolve the experience as it grows. You’ve seen this with both the major adjustments, and polish, we have made over the past several weeks.

But as we approach the worldwide launch, it's clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design. We’ve heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages. And we’ve heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn’t get this right.

We hear you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this.

We have created a game that is built on your input, and it will continue to evolve and grow. Star Wars Battlefront II is three times the size of the previous game, bringing to life a brand new Star Wars story, space battles, epic new multiplayer experiences across all three Star Wars eras, with more free content to come. We want you to enjoy it, so please keep your thoughts coming. And we will keep you updated on our progress.

While that's at least a step in the right direction regarding Battlefront 2's pay-to-win loot box system, and while EA has slashed the prices on heroes already, it's still unclear how long exactly it'll take users to unlock popular heroes through normal gameplay.

Source

 

[Subtle Demise]

It'll still be a crap game.

 

[rileysrjay]

The change won't matter if it still ends up to where it takes forever (hopefully not the estimated 40 hours) to unlock a single character.

 

[the_randomizer]

Lol I'm sorry, but that is hilarious, EA finally caved in. What did they expect from this asinine system?

 

[Osha]

They're just turning them off and waiting for people to buy the game as a result to turn them back on. It's a massive honeypot, and the sad part is, it's going to work.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

The change won't matter if it still ends up to where it takes forever (hopefully not the estimated 40 hours) to unlock a single character.

They cut the costs for heroes down after that little tidbit was announced, but I don't think anyone has calculated how long it'll take after the cuts.

 

[the_randomizer]

They're just turning them off and waiting for people to buy the game as a result to turn them back on. It's a massive honeypot, and the sad part is, it's going to work.

Honey bucket would be a better analogy. EA is just going to piss on everyone at some point.

 

[Deleted User]

I still wouldn't buy it or keep my preorder if I were someone who actually wanted the game. I wouldn't want to give EA any money because of this game no matter what after pulling that bullshit.

 

[rileysrjay]

They cut the costs for heroes down after that little tidbit was announced, but I don't think anyone has calculated how long it'll take after the cuts.

True, but I heard they also reduced the amount of in game currency earned from the single player campaign and possibly online matches also.

 

[Deleted User]

True, but I heard they also reduced the amount of in game currency earned from the single player campaign and possibly online matches also.

Heard the same thing too.
Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/DanNerdCubed/status/930234337919950851

 

[RustInPeace]

ELI5, what's "loot box?" Judging by what I read, does it mean basically like Street Fighter 5 at launch? Where unlockables were both available for purchase or through grinding, like this EA shit? I just want to be sure I got that definition right.

 

[VartioArtel]

To correct and inform people what's going on:

They cut certain rewards down by 75% - like Clearing the Campaign went from 15k to 5k - to match the price of the Campaign Heroine's price.

The original estimate was 40,000 without level or challenge credits for Vader, for roughly 24 flat hours of play if I remember. Should now be closer to 6 hours.

The big complaint was that, even after all of the above, with only credits (in-game points) and excluding rewards (leveling and challenge), you'd more than likely spend at least half a year of play straight - as in no sleep, stop, loading screens, etc - to unlock every Epic (Tier 4) card, every hero, etc.

And that Loot crates made this take drastically less... but still would not guarantee you'd be able to obtain all the epics. Someone estimated based on proper usage of Loot crates, you'd spend ~$2100 in crates to unlock everything that's credit exclusive too (IE: Epic Star cards), if I remember.

Of course, a deal of this was made a bit quicker when the sources discovered that Hero Crates give about the same amount of crafting parts as a trooper crate, but not by much. The time to get all cards maxed so you can freely adapt to situations/metas isn't going to change too much.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

They cut the costs for heroes down after that little tidbit was announced, but I don't think anyone has calculated how long it'll take after the cuts.

I did see something about if you paid nothing to just play to unlock everything they have the base game was close to 4,000 hours. I am not sure how legit that is, it sounds kind of bogus to me but I am not interested in the game in the first place.

The only thing that has made it interesting to me is the shit storm lol

 

[Juggalo Debo]

So I got 1500 crystals with purchasing a pack at launch..... now wtf am I to do with em

 

[Kioku]

So I got 1500 crystals with purchasing a pack at launch..... now wtf am I to do with em

Hate yourself for the rest of your life.

 

[Juggalo Debo]

Hate yourself for the rest of your life.

I didn' buy them specifically I bought it for the other items and they just happened to come with lol

 

[Kioku]

I didn' buy them specifically I bought it for the other items and they just happened to come with lol

To be fair they will be enabling in game purchases again down the line. So they're not totally lost.

 

[WiiUBricker]

They disabled microtransactions only temporarily. They will enable them again after people buy the game.

Spoiler

 

[the_randomizer]

Good luck seeing them dig themselves out of this fiasco.

"We didn't expect this kind of feedback"

Gee, really? What did you expect, universal acclaim?

 

[Bladexdsl]

It'll still be a crap game.

as long as EA is in control of it