Suggestions to EA/Dice regarding Battlefront 2

Right this isn't a thread for EA bashing, we got plenty of that elsewhere lol but basically I think under all the controversy and **** there is a good; potentially great game buried here, so these are my suggestions to try and solve or at least ease some of the biggest issues I have with it.

Arcade:The arcade mode is a fantastic idea full of wasted potential, being able to choose maps, game modes, bot counts, bot difficulty etc. are all great but unfortunately there needs to be more things to choose from.

- We need bigger, more objective based game modes to be included (they were in Skirmish in BF1 so why not here?), galactic assault and starfighter assault are the best choices for this.

- Bring back the "choose era" tab from the first BF2 game, having the maps available to all 3 eras so players can choose their favourite faction no matter the map would help things.

- Unlock all of the blasters, many people play games primarily in single player and as the arcade kills don't count towards the blaster unlocks then have then unlocked already in arcade, so the people who don't spend much time in multiplayer can actually use them.

- And this one is a preemptive strike as it was missing from BF1's Skirmish mode but needs to be included here, when you add cosmetic customisation and skins etc. they need to be in Arcade as well as single player.

Multiplayer: For the most part the multiplayer is solid, the balancing can be a bit off due to the random nature of the lootbox star cards but i'll get to them later lol. These are mainly just suggestions new game modes as I think they could do well in this type of game.

- Classic Conquest: Bring the gameplay of the original 2 Battlefront games to this one, use the large maps (from Galactic Assault) place a spawn point for each faction on either side of the map then place capturable command points throughout the map then the team that holds the majority of the command points when the timer runs out wins. It is what people think of when they think of Battlefront so it would make a great addition to this game (add it to the arcade mode too)

- Squad based attack/defend scenarios - This would be a smaller game mode with one player playing as each of the classes, one team tasked with destroying a target on the map and one team with defending it, would be a great mode for promoting teamwork especially if you implement a party system.

Lootboxes/Progression: Ok, here we go lol. I'm under no illusions about lootboxes being scrapped, they have been built into the games foundations and are probably not going anywhere, but there are ways to make them less awful (maybe).

- Earning Lootboxes: I think a good start to the situation is to reduce the credits grind to an extent, giving the players on the winning team after a match a free lootbox could help towards this and would give incentives for winning.

- Experience based progression instead of crafting: A step towards traditional progression could be once you have a star card (at base level) it can level up by itself the more you use it so you can upgrade the cards you want simply by playing with them.

- Crystals/Cosmetic Lootboxes: Before the crystals are back a cosmetics only box needs to be added, skins for heroes, troopers & vehicles can all be in a new lootbox and this is the only box that crystals can be spent on (eliminating the pay to win concerns)

Burn it all down. Start over and just make Battlefield with a Star Wars skin and cosmetic microtransactions that you can buy with in game currency as well as real money. It's not a hard thing to do. Right now, the majority of issues I have with both Battlefront games has nothing to do with the loot boxes. It's all the shallow gameplay.

@mems1224: I was thinking of potential changes to the current game, just starting a brand new game won't help the people who are playing this one.

If they go that route for BF3 fair enough but honestly I'd prefer to see an attempt to fix this one and if they do add new game modes I'd rather have them lift them from the original Battlefront games than Battlefield, we don't want all of their games to be clones of each other.

@khaosbydesign: @mems1224: Cosmetic mtx are unlikely to happen as every item in Battlefront 2 has to go through Lucas/Disney who are a stickler for authenticity and can take weeks if not months, Battlefront 2 is canon they can't just make stuff up its why cosmetics were coming post launch.

A quick fix would be making all the upgrade side-grades with nothing having a net positive advantage like +increased mobility at the cost of -lower health, lowering the economy across the board and giving players scrap at a fixed rate would be a band aid on progression.

They're not going to take out loot boxes. So it should have been at least free to play. It's too late for that now. Might as well start over. It could have been a full price game with an expansion pack and no mtx, or a free to play game in which you exploit gamers. But even in free to play games it's not generally accepted to let the rich trample the poor. Quite frankly there is so much wrong with the design of this game that it may be better to fire everyone involved with these decisions (including leadership), as they would have to be devoid of a human soul to have even considered this design, and they really have no place in an industry that involves people.

Cosmetic mtx or especially cosmetic lootboxes still suck.

@rasrimra: map packs are way worse than cosmetic only microtransactions. Map packs actively kill a game's community

@mems1224: Then make it one map pack. Make it substantial. There would have been way more people playing if they had taken an approach like that.

This honestly. If they had made a Battlefield 4 skin swap with Star wars and some of the better features of the new iteration of Battlefront thrown in there I would still be playing that theoretical game. I'd never play anything else ever.

@rasrimra: any extra maps you charge for still fragments the community. That's still a bad idea, especially when most multiplayer games these days have turned to offering free maps post launch. Charging for cosmetics has 0 impact on gameplay or the community so until someone comes up with something better thats generally the best solution

Honestly I have more of a problem with cosmetics than an expansion pack. I think with a multimillion franchise like this having a single potent expansion pack that adds for example say, 6 new maps, a new infantry class, maybe some new challenges for $40 wouldn't fragment the player base all that much. It would take some time to make, we're talking maybe 6 months after release so most people will be done with the game anyway until the expansion rolls out.

With cosmetics you get into unethical situations. You get items that may have been taken out of the game to sell separately, because they are small things. There's the chance of players becoming harder to recognize like in Overwatch or the game starting to look silly like in COD. Some items may be made 'rare'. There is the problem of pricing and availability that they could fluctuate based around holidays and such. Making something that looks better available right after many people buy something. I honestly feel like an expansion pack would be the right thing to do, because it's not as corruptible. And I understand that technically cosmetics aren't part of the gameplay, but I do think that cosmetics matter, because I like to look cool in a game. Being able to look cool in a game is honestly a reason for me to buy the game and play the game unless it's mtx based. As one of many gamers who love to use cosmetics I don't want it to become a trend that we're getting f'd by these games, making cosmetics cost (usually a lot of) extra money instead of making and pricing actual gameplay content that we could all want.

We're getting very much into opinion territory though. Maybe we just feel differently about this.

I actually thought about this some more today because I like thinking and as a person we're never entirely right about anything, so you're never done thinking. And I guess I feel this way about cosmetic DLC almost entirely because they never get it right. Cosmetic DLC tends to be limited, shady, very expensive for what they offer and temporary because real soon they'll add more things that you would have actually wanted instead, devaluing your previous purchases. Thinking about it, I guess they could pull off good cosmetic DLC. I think it's possible. Not for EA but for a normal company. If they offered a good one time cosmetic DLC pack that upgrades the look of your infantry classes with minor tweaks, without making them look silly or way different (no christmas troopers please unless it's free and a fun little joke event I would love that), and if they would price it at like $10 total, I would probably buy it.

Wait, one of your solutions is to add MORE lootboxes?!

They've already won...

Given Visceral's experience with Lucas cosmetics would be few and far between also being very limited it wouldn't really be a bankable model. Better for who? Overwatch doesn't make anything near FIFA Ultimate Team or GTAV it would severely limit the scope of future DLC, Overwatch has had a handful of post launch content compared to a Battlefield or even Battlefront 2015.

The Collapse Of Visceral's Ambitious Star Wars Game

Visceral staff say that the creative cabal at Star Wars owner Lucasfilm treated them well, giving them flexibility and freedom, but one of the drawbacks to working with another company’s franchise was that they had to get approval for everything.

On an Uncharted game, for example, one of Nathan Drake’s costumes might go through a few rounds of iteration at Naughty Dog, then be finalized in a week. “With Star Wars you could be talking months—potentially years,” said one Visceral staffer. “Oh, would Dodger really look like this? What would his weapon look like? Potentially years of that. Would he carry this? Would that really work in the Star Wars universe? With Uncharted, they can build any world they come up with, because it’s their world. With Star Wars you have to have that back and forth… People think, ‘Oh it must be so cool to work on Star Wars.’ It actually kind of sucks.”

@superjop said:

No, not really, they've already said they want to add cosmetic skins so it's probably already on its way, so they can either do as I suggest and add 1 more lootbox type with only cosmetic items in and make that one the only one you buy with real money or stick them in with the star cards and make it pay to win again.

Lets face it, they are never getting rid of the lootboxes entirely and they are never keeping the micro-transactions off permanently. I was trying to find a middle ground, I know some people will never be happy as long as a single penny can be spent or a single box can be opened but its never going to happen, we need realistic expectations here.

My understanding is that cosmetic lootboxes simply aren't an option due to the lengthy LucasFilm approval process for every single one. And so that takes the easiest solution right off the table.

I think paid-for map packs are a proven bad idea because of how they split the playerbase.

EA had announced that DLC packs (I think this means story stuff) for the game would be free; and backtracking on that would be a whole other public relations disaster.

The game is already selling at $60 and it seems impossible to raise that base price, and most consumers seem extremely resistant to busting that barrier of initial game price.

With all those barriers, I don't think EA has any realistic options beyond keeping the same basic system, but tweaking the numbers to be extremely player friendly, launching more extensive story-DLC than originally planned, and just generally trying to regain player trust. Try to sell as many units as possible for that initial $60 and take a loss on the game if necessary. The Star Wars license is too valuable to risk permanently sullying (or causing Disney to try to rescind it) on a single game.

@fezrock: I kinda gotta agree, from this point forwards it's all PR, whatever they do has got to be aimed and trying to please at least some of the player base.

As for the cosmetics they said they've already started work on cosmetic skins, but as far as the time it takes for Disney to approve them I think that's why they're a post launch concern, they won't be regularly updated because the approval would take to long so I can only see us getting 2 or 3 skins for each class over games lifetime. Dennis Brannvall (one of the games lead design directors) said

"As you’ve noticed, we weren’t able to get the customization system into the game in time for launch. I’m actually having artists and designers walk up to me today showing me cosmetic stuff they really want to get out there. I think we have probably the best looking Clone Troopers ever made and I know players really want to customize them (I know I do). I can’t really commit to a date just yet, but we’re working on stuff and I believe it will change the game [tremendously] on all levels."

So i think it's more likely than not this is coming.