Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Origin Access players have been making their voices heard over the game's unlock system ahead of its release next week. In particular, they've taken to Reddit to complain about iconic characters like Darth Vader being locked from the start as well as the length of time it takes to unlock characters.
One user calculated that because of the fact you earn in-game credits based on time played, rather than your score in a match, it will take up to 40 hours to earn enough credits to unlock characters like Luke Skywalker, who costs 60,000 (the cheapest character costs 20,000). Their calculations purely take into account credits earned during matches, not credits earned by completing challenges early in the game: eliminating your first five opponents earns you 1,000, for example.
"I understand these values don't include what you earn in challenges, but I am mainly doing this to figure out what it's going to be like after the first week and I am done chasing the easy challenges," the user said. "At the current price of 60,000 credits it will take you 40 hours of gameplay time to earn the right to unlock one hero or villain. That means 40 hours of saving each and every credit, no buying any crates at all, so no bonus credits from getting duplicates in crates." The user created a detailed spreadsheet showing how long it will take to unlock loot crates, too. Impressive work.
EA has responded to the claim on the Reddit thread. It says it is "looking at the results daily" for the time taken to earn credits and will be "continuing to tune this to ensure that players feel a meaningful sense of reward".
"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." Click here to read the company's full response.
It also responded to a different thread started by a user who was angry at having paid $80 for the game only for Darth Vader to be locked behind the game's progression system. "This is a joke... this age of 'micro-transactions' has gone way too far," the user said.
EA responded in a similar way to the other post, adding that "the intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes".
"Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can," it said. Read its full response here.
Battlefront 2 is due to release on Friday November 17. For more on exactly how the game's loot boxes and progression work, read Tyler's piece.
