I haven't played the newest Call of Duty, but isn't the progression system in Battlefront II objectively better? Is a big part of the backlash not necessarily the system but the confusion of how roundabout it is?
In a traditional Call of Duty game, you need to achieve X level to unlock a specific perk. This means you'd be forced to level up many times, and earn many perks you don't intend to use, before you can earn your desired ones.
In Battlefront II, each Lootbox gives you enough Crafting Parts to unlock a Starcard, or perk by another name, of your choice. So each time you earn 4,400 credits (or 2,200 if you buy a Hero crate), you essentially "level up" and can purchase a new perk of your choice. While grinding matches can take awhile, the heft of low-level achievements mean that you earn plenty of Lootboxes, or "level ups", right at the start. In the Quicklook, Dan has about 220 Crafting Parts, meaning he could unlock 6 perks of his choice that he has chosen not to.
This means that if you want to unlock the Killstreak Infiltration perk for your sniper, you can do it right off the bat. Want the Ion Turret for your heavy? You don't need to unlock 3 different grenades you won't use until you get it. Want to unlock a more damaging main cannon for your Starfighter without an ability upgrade your always forget to use anyway? Go for it. When you account for achievement points, the random cards you get from Lootboxes are actually just a bonus compared to the Crafting Parts you get.
Does the system have problems? Sure. Duplicate cards should upgrade your card level, not refund you some credits. Level 3 and 4 card upgrades become very expensive and can require quite a bit of grinding (perhaps the only case where spending real money would have made a big impact), but the difference between level 1 and 4 cards, especially the Trooper ones, are never substantial. The inability to buy Hero cards with Crafting Parts feels like an oversight. Could the game do a better job of telling you that buying multiple level one cards is what allows you to unlock extra perk slots for a specific class? Sure.
But on the whole, isn't the ability to pick whatever perks you want right off the bat instead of waiting to hit an arbitrary level requirement the better way to go?
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