I'm curious about what amount of money the average player spends on equipment packs. On every character build I see, a rare level X weapon is recommended and I have no idea how many packs you'd have to go through before fully upgrading something like the Graal Spike Thrower.

Personally, I haven't spent any money but have played quite a bit, so I have the majority of the weapons on level 1.

None, and never would. I just don't care enough about any multiplayer to spend money on something like that. Also doesn't help that my Xbox is currently dead. I had kinda stopped playing Mass Effect 3 online before it died, though.

0 Dollars.

Not a single penny, because its randomized loot and betting is silly.

About £5. No harm in it. I enjoy the multiplayer, I wanted to see what I would get out of it. I've earnt 100x more stuff in game than I've paid for. Won't be spending more money, I'm fine with what I've got.

More than I care to admit.... (ok, about $15...)

Around $10 I think. I was drunk. Not an excuse, just an explanation.

Zero bradbucks have been spent

0

240MSP I had left over.
Never again.

Maybe if it was free I would spend money on it but since I payed 60 for the game I refuse to spend any money on the multiplyer.

@XeroxPunk said:

On every character build I see, a rare level X weapon is recommended and I have no idea how many packs you'd have to go through before fully upgrading something like the Graal Spike Thrower.

It's random, so of course you don't know how many packs it would take to get one. Some people get rare stuff the first time they purchase a pack.

0 dollars with 00 cents ..... all the stuff has been got through playing the game and earning in game credits

@BraveToaster said:

@XeroxPunk said:

On every character build I see, a rare level X weapon is recommended and I have no idea how many packs you'd have to go through before fully upgrading something like the Graal Spike Thrower.

It's random, so of course you don't know how many packs it would take to get one. Some people get rare stuff the first time they purchase a pack.

I didn't ask about getting one, anyone can get lucky. I'd like to hear from someone about how many it took to get the same rare weapon TEN times.

A bunch of credits ... real money? 0, I'm not that lazy to play a couple of Silver maches to buy a Specter pack

@YetiAntics said:

240MSP I had left over. Never again.

You could have bought 3 quality Xbox Live Indie titles for that money. At least you said never again.

Zero dollars!

(Couldn't think of whether this was lame or not)

@believer258 said:

(Couldn't think of whether this was lame or not)

I'll see your image and raise you this:

How much is gold per year? Cause I've played almost nothing but ME3 for the last 2 months solid...so $8? I guess technically speaking I've also played FX2 Pinball, but not online w/ anyone.

I have spent exactly zero dollars on the packs!

MS gave me some free points when I renewed Live. I blew those on packs and I think i spent 2 dollars after that by accident.

I've spent jack squat on any of the packs and plan to keep it that way. Why anyone would spend money on that is beyond me.

0.00 USD

zilch, i use the ingame credits and still get crap, no way i'm putting money into it

I bought exactly one Spectre pack, whatever that's worth. In my defense, It was 3 am and I got crap on the Spectre pack I bought with my in-game credits, so my groggy self caved. Never again.

Too much.

Not a single, solitary cent.

@XeroxPunk said:

@BraveToaster said:

@XeroxPunk said:

On every character build I see, a rare level X weapon is recommended and I have no idea how many packs you'd have to go through before fully upgrading something like the Graal Spike Thrower.

It's random, so of course you don't know how many packs it would take to get one. Some people get rare stuff the first time they purchase a pack.

I didn't ask about getting one, anyone can get lucky. I'd like to hear from someone about how many it took to get the same rare weapon TEN times.

It's really random how it doles out stuff. I've got maybe 60% of the weapons at level I, but for some reason I've got the stupid Hornet SMG at IX. Simiarly, I keep getting the Drell Vanguard in Spectre packs, so now he's maxed out, but I'm still missing half of the characters.

As far as real cash spent: Big ol' goose egg.

$0. I'm wondering if that if why I'm still missing the javelin & black widow

@juice8367 said:

$0. I'm wondering if that if why I'm still missing the javelin & black widow

Black Widows are nice, but the Valiant is better IMO. The Javelin is basically a widow that can see through and shoot through walls, and reloads slightly faster than the widow. The best thing about that weapon is the sound it makes. I'd still take a Valiant over either.

None, but I don't own the game!

I dunno, $35? $40? Something like that.

Play gold matches. If you need better equipment, play Gold matches on Firebase White, with Geth enemies. It's really easy, if you know what you're doing, and your squadmates know what they're doing.

You can (will) make about 150,000 credits per hour, provided you get full extraction, which you'll get about 4/5 times.

Also, only buy premium spectre packs - you get 2 rares per pack, and a better chance for the great N7 weapons. Play enough, and you'll start getting high-level weapons more and more.

@Potts said:

You can (will) make about 150,000 credits per hour, provided you get full extraction, which you'll get about 4/5 times.

Wave objectives are the only thing that earns you money. After you finish the wave 10 objective, you don't even have to finish the wave itself to earn full credits. Extractions don't matter in the least. I won't even use consumables after I finish the objective on wave 10.

None. I'd rather be disappointed with shit loot after exchanging in-game credits as opposed to using MSP purchased with my money.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

@Potts said:

You can (will) make about 150,000 credits per hour, provided you get full extraction, which you'll get about 4/5 times.

Wave objectives are the only thing that earns you money. After you finish the wave 10 objective, you don't even have to finish the wave itself to earn full credits. Extractions don't matter in the least. I won't even use consumables after I finish the objective on wave 10.

Hmm. I've done a few where we all died or got partial extraction, and I seem to remember not getting ~70K. Could be mistaken though. I know if you don't make it through Wave 10, it significantly decreases your credits.

@Potts said:

@SpaceInsomniac said:

@Potts said:

You can (will) make about 150,000 credits per hour, provided you get full extraction, which you'll get about 4/5 times.

Wave objectives are the only thing that earns you money. After you finish the wave 10 objective, you don't even have to finish the wave itself to earn full credits. Extractions don't matter in the least. I won't even use consumables after I finish the objective on wave 10.

Hmm. I've done a few where we all died or got partial extraction, and I seem to remember not getting ~70K. Could be mistaken though. I know if you don't make it through Wave 10, it significantly decreases your credits.

Getting the objectives done quickly is the only thing that changes the amount of money you can earn. If you doubt that, try playing a bronze match where you take your time with the objectives and earn a full extraction, then another match where you complete all the objectives as quickly as you can, and then die on wave 10 after completing the objectives.

The only thing extractions are good for is earning experience points. Sad but true.

$0.00

@SpaceInsomniac: I'm not doubting you at all. What I was saying is that not completing wave 10 (which is always an objective wave) can really effect the amount of credits you get.

I also said "I could be mistaken..."

0 dollars as I played multiplayer once. Also I have had the game since March and haven't gotten past the first mission once you get your ship. So I win here.

80 MS points. They were leftover points from a previous purchase so I don't feel that bad about it

When I first got the game, I kept getting kicked from multiplayer matches, so I bought a resurgence pack with the idea that people wouldn't kick me. How naive I am :)

I'd pay a hobo a dollar to smack everyone in the face with his shit hand (the hand used for wiping ass), whom paid IRL money for unlock packs. I don't know how much I'd pay to make this trend stop for good. I want to earn all unlocks in-game with a well-paced unlock scheme. Last I checked, I paid 80$ to play Mass Effect 3. Why wasn't a reasonable unlock scheme included in that? Free 2 Play business modell multiplayer in my paid-permium singleplayer game? Heresy!

Oh well - ME3 MP gets freemium content support. Not that I care. I don't do free 2 play.

All of my money. I could not stop and am now bankrupt.

Too much for sure for me. Nothing rediculous but still. Not a great trend agreed, but it does seem to be one we'll continue to see. And the free DLC is cool but just a component of the micros. And if wasn't so god damned fun then.... arrggghh.

0

I've played a nice amount of the multi-player and its fun, but I'm fine with just earning credits in-game and spending those. I support Bioware though, I bought all the Mass Effect games brand new and actually went with the collectors edition for the 3rd installment.

$0. Have all the characters (even though most of them aren't customizable beyond the first two settings), all common and uncommon weapons are at X, and barely got my M-98 Widow last week and now it's up to three. Just a matter of taking the commons and uncommons out of the pool by purchasing a shit ton of recruit and veteran packs, and even through those I've gotten the Saber and Geth Infiltrator.

0 bits.

@Seppli said:

I'd pay a hobo a dollar to smack everyone in the face with his shit hand (the hand used for wiping ass), whom paid IRL money for unlock packs. I don't know how much I'd pay to make this trend stop for good. I want to earn all unlocks in-game with a well-paced unlock scheme. Last I checked, I paid 80$ to play Mass Effect 3. Why wasn't a reasonable unlock scheme included in that? Free 2 Play business modell multiplayer in my paid-permium singleplayer game? Heresy!

Oh well - ME3 MP gets freemium content support. Not that I care. I don't do free 2 play.

Some of us don't have 18 hours a day free to play the multiplayer like you apparantly do. I have about 3 hours a week available to play this game, if even that, and I like to enjoy the game when I play it. Now, I enjoy the game a lot more if I have a selection of weapons that are better than the initial peashooters you start with, so if I want to drop a few bucks to save myself 16 hours of tedious bronze matches, so I can actually enjoy playing games with my friends, with characters that aren't the default humans, I don't see why it should offend you so much.

Are the microtransactions intended to make extra money for the developers/publishers? Yes. Do they benefit the gamer? It depends on the gamer, but in my experience, yes. These are designed as time savers - they may be a bit expensive ($3 for a spectre pack amounts to about 30min - 2 hours of gameplay, depending on difficulty,) but I bought a few and it got me a bunch of characters and rare weapons, and now I actually have fun playing when I actually get to play.

What I don't get is why you get all worked up over something that's entirely optional. You obviously haven't given them any money for it, so why do you care? The base cost of the game gives you the whole SP experience. (the From Ashes DLC is free if you actually bought the game new, so no bitching allowed about that.) And there is a reasonable unlock scheme - play a match for 30min on Gold, and you get 70-75k credits - enough for a spectre pack, and then some. Play for a weekend, and you can unlock quite a bit of stuff. 30 hours of Gold matches should give you about 4 million credits, provided you're not waiting for matches for too long. That's 66 spectre packs, or 40 premium spectre packs.

Basically, what I'm asking is this: how is this trend a bad thing? If a dev puts something behind a paywall, with no other way of getting it, yeah, that's shady. But in this case, where you can unlock everything with time, I fail to see how it's a problem.