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Video Games: May the force of your wallet be with you


Corvinus85

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It was time for a new thread.

And since we don't know the opinion @Pony Queen Jace on the matter, I'm re-posting the Thrones of Britannia trailer.

On another subject, I've started playing Battlefront II on Origin Access, and if there is any justice in the universe, this game should fail as ME: Andromeda did.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

It was time for a new thread.

And since we don't know the opinion @Pony Queen Jace on the matter, I'm re-posting the Thrones of Britannia trailer.

On another subject, I've started playing Battlefront II on Origin Access, and if there is any justice in the universe, this game should fail as ME: Andromeda did.

 

 

ME:A should never have failed.  The gameplay was superior to the trilogy.  It launched with inexcusable animation issues, but if compared structurally/narratively to ME1 it is a good story.

Personally, I don’t care for open world games that try to tell a story.  Hated Inquisition because of those failings with weak gameplay.  This game had those shortcomings, but great gameplay.

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RE:  The thread title

I saw an article pass through my FB feed that I interpreted to mean that the loot boxes were particularly egregious with Battlefront.  I did not click through to read details.

What has EA done that is worse than usual here?

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On DC Universe online, I've just been feat hunting through different categories such as styles, salvaging in R&D, P v P, and episode previews while they're available so I can collect stat points and use them to increase the damage of my powers and weapons. That, and collecting various forms of currency and the new artifacts feature is what keeps me interested in playing the game. 

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1 minute ago, Rhom said:

RE:  The thread title

I saw an article pass through my FB feed that I interpreted to mean that the loot boxes were particularly egregious with Battlefront.  I did not click through to read details.

What has EA done that is worse than usual here?

I don't know exactly what the loot boxes are, but there are two things EA did that is pissing people off

  • there is a pay to get better stuff system, that would actually help you in the game, so not just prettier armor, or whatever
  • there is an in-game pay system, simply called credits, which you pay to unlock stuff, including all the hero characters; unfortunately, apparently they made the unlocking of these characters a very mind-numbly long process; it takes dozens of play hours to be able to unlock someone like Vader or Luke; and it appears that getting credits is solely dependent on the amount of time you put into matches, and not how well you do... SOCIALISM!!! :P
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I saw in the FAQ that Thrones of Britannia will have content up to around 1066, so I wonder if that means the Norman invasion is in or out.

12 minutes ago, Rhom said:

RE:  The thread title

I saw an article pass through my FB feed that I interpreted to mean that the loot boxes were particularly egregious with Battlefront.  I did not click through to read details.

What has EA done that is worse than usual here?

A lot of the significant characters (e.g. Luke, Vader or Palpatine) need to be unlocked with credits or obtained from a loot box. People worked out that to get enough credits to play as Luke (who is one of the most expensive) you would need to play something like 40 hours of multiplayer. So to get them all you'd be sinking a ridiculous amount of time in.

A question of my own: is it standard practise for loot boxes to tell you the chance you have of winning a particular item/character, or are you going in blind when you buy one?

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10 minutes ago, The Drunkard said:

I saw in the FAQ that Thrones of Britannia will have content up to around 1066, so I wonder if that means the Norman invasion is in or out.

A lot of the significant characters (e.g. Luke, Vader or Palpatine) need to be unlocked with credits or obtained from a loot box. People worked out that to get enough credits to play as Luke (who is one of the most expensive) you would need to play something like 40 hours of multiplayer. So to get them all you'd be sinking a ridiculous amount of time in.

A question of my own: is it standard practise for loot boxes to tell you the chance you have of winning a particular item/character, or are you going in blind when you buy one?

You are going in blind. I believe China recently passed some legislation (or tried to) saying that companies will be required to disclose the exact odds for their lootboxes though. 

Certain things have been figured out though, depending on the game. For example Hearthstone has a "pity timer" on legendary cards. For every pack you open without a legendary in it the chance to get a legendary in your next pack increased by some small percentage, until eventually it hits 100% and you're guaranteed a legendary in your next pack. In HS's case this is the 40th pack you open. Then it resets. 

I assume most games with lootboxes have a similar system. 

Fuck lootboxes in general also. 

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5 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

You are going in blind. I believe China recently passed some legislation (or tried to) saying that companies will be required to disclose the exact odds for their lootboxes though. 

Certain things have been figured out though, depending on the game. For example Hearthstone has a "pity timer" on legendary cards. For every pack you open without a legendary in it the chance to get a legendary in your next pack increased by some small percentage, until eventually it hits 100% and you're guaranteed a legendary in your next pack. In HS's case this is the 40th pack you open. Then it resets. 

I assume most games with lootboxes have a similar system. 

Fuck lootboxes in general also. 

Yeeeeah that's really dodgy. Surprises me that the ESRB doesn't consider it gambling because, at the least, you'll get something in return. Casinos should start handing out lollipops with every turn on a slot machine to skirt all those pesky laws. 

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7 hours ago, Rhom said:

RE:  The thread title

I saw an article pass through my FB feed that I interpreted to mean that the loot boxes were particularly egregious with Battlefront.  I did not click through to read details.

What has EA done that is worse than usual here?

Unless they seriously changed it from the beta the lootboxes literally control how powerful you are in multiplayer.

In multiplayer you can add cards to each character/vehicle that can seriously improve power and performance.  The problem I had, which is why I decided not to buy it, is that how many cards you can add to each character is dependent on that characters level.  The only way to level up a character is to get more and better cards out of loot crates.  So someone could spend a hundred bucks on loot crates and be clearly more powerful then someone who hasn't spent a dime.

I'm ok with loot boxes as long as it is only cosmetic stuff and the game lets you earn them without paying.  Basically the way Overwatch does.  They should make it so, if you wanted you could just pay for certain cosmetics, IMO.  I can't stand loot crates that give more powerful versions of weapons or equipment (I'm looking right at you Call of Duty).  

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7 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

You are going in blind. I believe China recently passed some legislation (or tried to) saying that companies will be required to disclose the exact odds for their lootboxes though. 

So far, Blizzard has figured out how to get around China's rules, and probably other companies have done this as well. In Overwatch, Chinese players no longer buy lootboxes. Instead they buy extremely small amounts of in-game currency from Blizzard for the old price of a lootbox, and receive a "gift" of a free lootbox. China's rules only applied to purchased randomized items because they considered it gambling.

At least, that's the situation over the summer. I don't know if China took action to close that loophole.

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

So far, Blizzard has figured out how to get around China's rules, and probably other companies have done this as well. In Overwatch, Chinese players no longer buy lootboxes. Instead they buy extremely small amounts of in-game currency from Blizzard for the old price of a lootbox, and receive a "gift" of a free lootbox. China's rules only applied to purchased randomized items because they considered it gambling.

At least, that's the situation over the summer. I don't know if China took action to close that loophole.

Not surprising. Most games with lootboxes don't have you buying them directly anyway, presumably to get around potential legislation like this in the future. You buy their Disney Dollars and then spend those on the boxes. 

Blizzard is in the incredible position of being as scummy as they like while never losing any shred of fan loyalty. It's pretty amazing. Watching them roasting EA over the Star Wars stuff yesterday was ridiculous considering they're the ones who popularized loot boxes and pretty much created this craze in the fucking first place. 

I'm so sick of micro-transactions in games with an up front cost. 

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2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Not surprising. Most games with lootboxes don't have you buying them directly anyway, presumably to get around potential legislation like this in the future. You buy their Disney Dollars and then spend those on the boxes. 

Blizzard is in the incredible position of being as scummy as they like while never losing any shred of fan loyalty. It's pretty amazing. Watching them roasting EA over the Star Wars stuff yesterday was ridiculous considering they're the ones who popularized loot boxes and pretty much created this craze in the fucking first place. 

I'm so sick of micro-transactions in games with an up front cost. 

Blizzard created loot boxes???

I seem to recall several other MMO companies that moved to a micro transaction model after their failed WoW killers didn’t generate subscriptions.

 

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4 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Blizzard created loot boxes???

I seem to recall several other MMO companies that moved to a micro transaction model after their failed WoW killers didn’t generate subscriptions.

 

They didn't create them, but Overwatch definitely popularized them. That was the beginning of this recent explosion of loot boxes in non-F2P games. 

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4 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Blizzard created loot boxes???

I seem to recall several other MMO companies that moved to a micro transaction model after their failed WoW killers didn’t generate subscriptions.

 

I don't know about Asian games, especially the Korean MMOs, but in the West, I think Valve actually created loot boxes with Team Fortress 2.

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Repeating my post from before.

As far as lootboxes go, I think the way Blizzard does it with Overwatch is great actually.

1. Its just cosmetic.

2. Its possible to use in game means to obtain it. You don't need to pay.

3. Its not completely RNG. You can use ingame gold to purchase if you can't get it through boxes.

4. They aren't releasing it as DLC, although I am also supportive of cosmetic DLC.

5. They are still updating the base game with content.

This is in contrast to say, Rocket League, where you need to pay for a key to open RNG crates for cosmetics and they also have DLC that aren't purely cosmetic. I think its fair still, just annoying.

16 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

They didn't create them, but Overwatch definitely popularized them. That was the beginning of this recent explosion of loot boxes in non-F2P games. 

Dirty Bomb might be F2P, but I'd much rather they went the Overwatch route than that shit system.

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22 hours ago, Corvinus said:

It was time for a new thread.

And since we don't know the opinion @Pony Queen Jace on the matter, I'm re-posting the Thrones of Britannia trailer.

On another subject, I've started playing Battlefront II on Origin Access, and if there is any justice in the universe, this game should fail as ME: Andromeda did.

 

 

I don't get it. What is this thing again?

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8 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I don't get it. What is this thing again?

A standalone total war game set in the British Isles starting in 878 AD. One of things CA will be making in the foreseeable future is a bunch of games that are standalone, but revisit a part of an era we've seen before. This one will probably look close to Attila. Think Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but with Total War.

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23 hours ago, The Drunkard said:

I saw in the FAQ that Thrones of Britannia will have content up to around 1066, so I wonder if that means the Norman invasion is in or out.

A lot of the significant characters (e.g. Luke, Vader or Palpatine) need to be unlocked with credits or obtained from a loot box. People worked out that to get enough credits to play as Luke (who is one of the most expensive) you would need to play something like 40 hours of multiplayer. So to get them all you'd be sinking a ridiculous amount of time in. question of my own: is it standard practise for loot boxes to tell you the chance you have of winning a particular item/character, or are you going in blind when you buy one?

Thankfully EA paid attention to reddits most downvoted comment ever (about Luke and Vader's price) and cut the price for them and all other heroes you pay for by 75%.

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3 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Thankfully EA paid attention to reddits most downvoted comment ever (about Luke and Vader's price) and cut the price for them and all other heroes you pay for by 75%.

Yeah. But they also lowered the amount of credits you get for beating the campaign. 

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