I know it was mentioned on the recent bombcast, and I finally came across it when diving into the multi-player part of ME3 this weekend - the fact you can purchase weapon/equipment packs; however, what you receive out of them is completely randomized.

I wonder if this is a precedent for DLC - have there been any other games where what you are actually buying is unknown?

I mean, most DLC (whether you think it's extraneous or not - skins, weapons, costumes etc.) are usually a known quantity when you're making your purchase. With ME3, there's sort of a grey area here - it's like gambling in the sense that you don't know what you are actually paying for - the only thing that keeps it from being true gambling is that no matter what you receive something for your points (there's no option where you get nothing).

And while, I know you can just earn the points by playing the game - the fact that people can pay real money to gamble on items seems troubling to me. For my own two cents, I hope this isn't setting some kind of precedent. I'd find it really troubling if future games start adopting a system where instead of buying known DLC, you are using your points to gamble on packs of various content.

What does everyone else think about this?

After saving up points to get 3 spectre packs and unlocking weapons I'll never use and the only character class unlocked being a salarian engineer in a moment of weakness I game them 2 dollars to get another spectre pack...

And I got nothing I wanted.

It kind of turned me off the multiplayer. The demo was the same fucking way for me, I didn't get anything in the packs.

It's been happening in FIFA for years. People need to learn it's bigger and badder there.

@Baillie: Since both are EA games, it makes sense that they would try to expand the concept to other games.

@downtime58 said:

I know you can just earn the points by playing the game - the fact that people can pay real money to gamble on items seems troubling to me.

it's their own fault if they use real money and don't get what they want. i've never bought something for a game i could earn, so i don't see it as a problem.

I love the system.

Using real money to unlock the stuff is stupid, but getting random stuff in the packs has made me play different classes and use different weapons that I would never normally use.

I've already poured money into these packs, because I suck.

You can get those rare booster packs by playing for less than an hour. I've lost all sympathy for people who buy this kind of DLC and then complain about it. It's not like there is some kind of trickery involved here.

While I didn't buy any boosters with IRL money, I am about 30 spectre 10 veteran and 20 recruit booster packs in. The amount of redundant shit is staggering. Haven't gotten a single N7-Ultra-Rare weapon unlock. Still lacking many basic weapon customizations. A bunch of race/class combinations are missing in action too.

It's a superfun mode and I love it, but the whole 'gambling' aspect of the booster packs is retarded and putting me off big time. People with too much money and/or a gambling habit spending money on this... well... they're taking it up the butt badly. I'll just stop playing at some point and not been able to enjoy the full breadth of gameplay. I think I'll reach the 100 hours mark before I move on and I think it's god damn evil to withhold content just to gouge that 1% of players spending real life money on this stuff.

There should be an outcry. I feel like I'm entitled to an unlock scheme that's rewarding me for my effort and time, giving me access to all content within a reasonable timeframe. This is downright free-2-play gamedesign and it's disgusting in a full price title. At least it's good fun. Nonetheless - on behalf of my dissappointing experiences opening countless spectre packs for redundant jack shit. FUCK YOU BIOWARE GO EAT A BAG OF UNWASHED DONKEY DICKS.

@Octaslash said:

You can get those rare booster packs by playing for less than an hour. I've lost all sympathy for people who buy this kind of DLC and then complain about it. It's not like there is some kind of trickery involved here.

I'm like 30 spectre packs (likely more) in, and every item in every pack can be looted 10x before it's being taken out of the loot table. Here's the entire loot table. Go figure how much redundant bullshit you'll end up getting...

Item Pack Info

• All unlocks are random. Each pack will include a certain rarity of unlock.
• The Recruit Pack costs 5,000 Credits. Every item in the list below can be acquired through the Recruit Pack, once you run out Common and Uncommon Items, you’ll begin to unlock Rare and Ultra Rare Items.
• All Weapons can be acquired 10 times; acquiring a weapons more than once will increase that weapon’s upgrade level. Weapon Mods can also be acquired multiple times, also Thermal Clips, Medi-Gel, Cobra Missile Capacity, and other Bonuses.
• The Veteran Pack costs 20,000 Credits. While expensive, this pack has a chance to provide Common, Uncommon, and Rare unlocks.
• The Spectre Pack costs 60,000 Credits. While very expensive, this pack has a chance to provide Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Ultra Rare unlocks.

Multiplayer Item Pack Unlock List

Common

Weapons

• M-3 Predator
• M-23 Katana
• M-4 Shuriken
• M-92 Mantis
• M-8 Avenger

Weapon Mods

• SMG Scope
• Pistol Scope
• Pistol High Caliber Barrel
• Assault Rifle Percision Scope
• Assault Rifle Magazine Upgrade
• Assault Rifle Stability Damper
• Sniper Rifle Spare Thermal Clip
• Shotgun Smart Choke
• Shotgun High Caliber Barrel
• Shotgun Blade Attachment

Capacity Upgrades

• Cobra Missile Launcher
• Thermal Clip Pack
• Ops Survival Pack
• Medi-Gel

Species Unlocks
• Human Characters (Appearance Unlocks)

Pack Specific Bonus

• Ammo Bonus Items Rank 1 (Recruit Pack Only)
• Weapon Bonus Items Rank 1 (Recruit Pack Only)
• Armor Bonus Items Rank 1 (Recruit Pack Only)

Uncommon

Weapons

• M-5 Phalanx
• M-22 Eviscerator
• M-9 Tempest
• M-12 Locust
• M-13 Raptor
• M-27 Scimitar
• M-97 Viper
• M-29 Incisor
• M-96 Mattock
• M-15 Vindicator
• Phaeston

Weapon Mods

• SMG Ultralight Materials
• Pistol Piercing Mod
• Pistol Melee Stun
• Assault Rifle Stability Damper
• Assault Rifle Piercing Mod
• Sniper Rifle Extended Barrel
• Sniper Rifle Enhanced Scope
• Shotgun Shredder Mod
• Shotgun Spare Thermal Clips

Species Unlocks

• Turian Soldier
• Salarian Engineer
• Turian Sentinel
• Quarian Infiltrator
• Asari Vanguard
• Drell Adept

Pack Specific Bonus

• Ammo Bonus Items Rank 2 (Veteran Pack Only)
• Weapon Bonus Items Rank 2 (Veteran Pack Only)
• Armor Bonus Items Rank 2 (Veteran Pack Only)

Rare

Weapons

• M-25 Hornet
• M-6 Carnifex
• Geth Pulse Rifle
• Geth Pulse Shotgun
• M-300 Claymore
• M-98 Widow
• Arc Pistol
• Disciple
• Graal Spike Thrower
• M-37 Falcon
• M-76 Revenant

Capacity Upgrades

• Cobra Missile Launcher Capacity Upgrade +1
• Thermal Clip Pack Capacity Upgrade +1
• Ops Survival Pack Capacity Upgrade +1
• Medi-Gel Capacity Upgrade +1

Unique

• Respec Card

Species Unlocks

• Asari Adept
• Krogan Soldier
• Krogan Sentinel
• Quarian Engineer
• Salarian Infiltrator
• Drell Vanguard

Pack Specific Bonus

• Ammo Bonus Items Rank 3 (Spectre Pack Only)
• Weapon Bonus Items Rank 3 (Spectre Pack Only)
• Armor Bonus Items Rank 3 (Spectre Pack Only)

Ultra Rare

Weapons

• Black Widow
• M-358 Talon
• M-99 Saber
• M-77 Paladin
• M-11 Wraith
• Javelin
• Scorpion

List is copy 'n paste from Gamefront.

Personally I would never degrade myself by buying one of those packs, in Mass Effect, or any other game. Paying for DLC that is otherwise inaccessible is fine but to pay for things you can get in-game pretty damn easily!? It's crazy! At first I thought it was a pretty evil scheme, and in a way, it is, because people who really love that mp, or have really poor self-control, will waste money on it, and yeah it's totally the player's fault for buying that stuff, but if the option wasn't there in the first place, they wouldn't be tempted by it. But really, it's not so terrible I guess... it makes me sad that we're at the point now where I look at this and go "Yeah sure I guess it's ok", but I suppose they're not forcing you to buy it, it's there as an option. I'd rather not see more of it, and please God never ever let it appear in a competitive setting. It nearly already does in FIFA since you can basically spend $20 on gold packs in that game and get yourself an awesome team to go beat people online but it's not quite as bad as it sounds. If something like CoD ever did this then my god... we'd really be up the creek.

It's a shitty system, towards players.
And not just because of randomisation.
FIFA does this on a much larger scale, its one of the worst/best money making  sucker schemes ever.
 
I made posts on this before, so i'll quote myself: 

Any type of pay real money to get more powerfull in a multiplayer type deal disgusts me.
It cheapens the efforts of other players. It is a scummy way to try goosing more money. I never want to see "pay real money to get x virtual item" in game ever, not mp, not sp, fuck that 4rth wall breaking noise.
Saying same other games do it is not a carte blanche justification. I am fully well aware of FIFA system and cringe every time my litle brother buys a pack or some shit and try to steer him away.
Something like this feels like a complete ripoff. Paying for pretty much 0 effort on the other partys behalf.

If you don't feel negative emotions towards such methods, fine I respect your right to not be concerned with it. But then do me the courtsey of the same nature.

@Sammo21 said:

@Tennmuerti: to say you are getting more powerful is a little ridiculous. I don't think this cheapens the game anymore than Gears of War 3 having paid skins for weapons and Jeff didn't seem to mind those too much.

What?
Are you serious?
You are straight up getting better weapons and mods and their relevant upgrades faster then another person who is not paying for them. Or you are getting them without working for them.
Skins don't make your guns shoot stronger, have more bulelts, weight less (hense able to use powers faster). Futhermore the person buying packs is also getting one timew use booster items from them.
The person spending real money is either circumventing the game progression and getting the same stuff you are but without effort, or he is getting more in addition to the stuff he gets for the effort.
 
This is even besides the point that their entire system of how much credits you get per match vs pack cost is deliberately designed to encourage and try to make people buy packs for money and not spend effort.
Because it has been made so incredibly artificially slow to progress. Because you get consumables that give you better odds to finish a mission, hense get more money/XP to by more packs.
The amount of time you would have to sink in to unlock all the guns is phenomenal, i would easilly estimate it would take more then BF3 even.
Meanwhile you are running around the same several tiny maps, over and over and over, chancing bad teams and wasted time/effort, killing the same enemies.
 
I've already seen threads of people spending hundreds of dollars on these packs and it's disgusting.
Its exactly the kind of bullshit that should not be in games.
It's what makes people like me despise FTP games with the same system that tries to sell player power for money.

That chart is daunting. I'll probably quit before I end up with the pistol I want. However, with results likethese, you should probably expect to see this in more games in the future.

They're like Team Fortress 2 crates.

@Tennmuerti said:

It's a shitty system, towards players.
And not because of randomisation.
FIFA does this on a much larger scale, its one of the worst/best money making sucker schemes ever.

I made posts on this before, so i'll quote myself:

Any type of pay real money to get more powerfull in a multiplayer type deal disgusts me.
It cheapens the efforts of other players. It is a scummy way to try goosing more money. I never want to see "pay real money to get x virtual item" in game ever, not mp, not sp, fuck that 4rth wall breaking noise.
Saying same other games do it is not a carte blanche justification. I am fully well aware of FIFA system and cringe every time my litle brother buys a pack or some shit and try to steer him away.
Something like this feels like a complete ripoff. Paying for pretty much 0 effort on the other partys behalf.

If you don't feel negative emotions towards such methods, fine I respect your right to not be concerned with it. But then do me the courtsey of the same nature.

.

@Sammo21 said:

@Tennmuerti: to say you are getting more powerful is a little ridiculous. I don't think this cheapens the game anymore than Gears of War 3 having paid skins for weapons and Jeff didn't seem to mind those too much.

What?
Are you serious?
You are straight up getting better weapons and mods and their relevant upgrades faster then another person who is not paying for them. Or you are getting them without working for them.
Skins don't make your guns shoot stronger, have more bulelts, weight less (hense able to use powers faster). Futhermore the person buying packs is also getting one timew use booster items from them.
The person spending real money is either circumventing the game progression and getting the same stuff you are but without effort, or he is getting more in addition to the stuff he gets for the effort.

This is even besides the point that their entire system of how much credits you get per match vs pack cost is deliberately designed to encourage and try to make people buy packs for money and not spend effort.
Because it has been made so incredibly artificially slow to progress. Because you get consumables that give you better odds to finish a mission, hense get more money/XP to by more packs.
The amount of time you would have to sink in to unlock all the guns is phenomenal, i would easilly estimate it would take more then BF3 even.
Meanwhile you are running around the same several tiny maps, over and over and over, chancing bad teams and wasted time/effort, killing the same enemies.

I've already seen threads of people spending hundreds of dollars on these packs and it's disgusting.
Its exactly the kind of bullshit that should not be in games.
It's what makes people like me despise FTP games with the same system that tries to sell player power for money.

.

I think the point to make is 'time x effort = what reward'. I'm about 50 hours in and I got jack shit to show for it. Still lack playable races, basic weapon mods and haven't gotten a single ultra rare weapon out of 30+ spectre packs.

If a math wizz breaks the unlock scheme down, the 'minimum time and effort' to unlock everything would be so ridiculous. It's obviously exploitative like free-2-play games are. I FUCKING HATE IT SO MUCH.

I got an awesome pistol right at the beginning and stuck with that (for 200% recharge bonus) so it didn't really bother me what I was unlocking after that. It's an unusual way of unlocking content, I would never buy packs with real money but with in game cash I quite enjoy the small potluck thrill of it.

I prefer the more traditional F2P gambling model where you use in-game generated currency (ie your valuable time) to gamble for prizes out of the purchased mystery reward boxes but can also use real money to cover your bad luck or desire to avoid the gambling part and just get something you want right now. That way you can never find yourself totally stuffed by bad luck if you're prepared to pay money for the thing you really want. Let me have some fun with the roll of the dice and see what I get as I play the game and spend my reward currency on risk but when I decide I really need X to continue enjoying the game or play how I want then let me straight up buy it, an exactly it, rather than having to pay real money to gamble for virtual items (which is rather close to requiring significant legal teams to fight your case that the virtual items people are gaining aren't actually 'stuff', because it sure is actual money, and so you don't need to comply with the many gambling laws for wherever you sell your game).

But then this is a full retail game (Hell, the CE for the day 1 DLC is almost the price of two retail releases here in the UK) so I'm not sure how my view of F2P models really connects, other than to say this isn't new for paid games, as mentioned in the posts above and sports titles.

Edit: can't spell, added more text.

I refuse to play any multiplayer game with slot machine unlocks.

The worst part about the system is the inability to do ANYTHING with pack items you don't want. If they want to make it all a high stakes gamble then implement a system where you can randomly reroll an item into anything else. Like a rare pistol could be rerolled into another potentially rare item or just extra medigel - but common items like medigel can't be rerolled into anything higher. One of my recent spectre packs I got, as a rare item, the ability to re-roll my character points - something that seems absolutely useless to me. Let me convert those unwanted items into literally anything. When you save up for Spectre packs you're effectively playing with no rockets or medigel after a while because you don't want to end up after a 30 minute round with 59,000 credits.