Unlocking Heroes Costs Way Too Many Credits
I made the same post over in the Battlefront forums, but for maximum visibility I'm going to post here as well.
For the record, I do not have EA Access and thus haven't played the trial. However, I've been paying attention to news that has come out having to do with the Heroes and I have to voice my concerns.
To put it bluntly, the credit cost needed to unlock Heroes for use in multiplayer is completely absurd. Iden costs 20k, Palpatine, Leia, and Chewbacca all cost 40k, and Luke and Vader each cost 60k. That means that in order to unlock every Hero character currently available, a player would have to earn 260,000 credits. There are several huge problems with this:
1. The rate at which credits are earned makes it so that this would take far too long. Someone on Reddit crunched the numbers and found that the average amount of credits earned per minute of play in a Galactic Assault match is close to 25. At that rate, earning the 260,000 credits needed to unlock all the characters would take 170 hours spent in matches (and that doesn't count time spent in loading screens or menus and whatnot, meaning that the actual time one would have to spend playing the game is even higher). Granted, Challenges do reward the player with credits, but apparently the total amount of credits one can earn from completing all Challenges is 50k. That only brings the credit requirement for unlocking everybody down to 210,000, which still equates to almost 140 hours of grinding. I've heard that credits are rewarded to the player for every XP level up, but how much this helps is unclear.
2. If you want to save up credits to buy a hero, you can't spend any credits on crates. Buying a crate would set you back several hours' worth of progress in getting the hero you want. For players that don't wish to spend real-world money buying crates, they're left with two options: either spend credits on crates so as not to be left behind in terms of upgrading your classes but be left unable to play as your favorite Hero, or save up money for the Hero, but in the process not spend any credits on crates, leaving you at the mercy of all the other players online that received better Star Cards than you have because they spent credits on crates and you didn't.
3. Future Heroes added to the game will only make this problem worse. Finn and Captain Phasma are coming to the game next month; if they're both locked behind a 40k credit paywall, it will take 50 hours for players to earn the opportunity to play as both of them if they solely focus on that and nothing else. The same applies for every other Hero that will come post-launch. Should players be forced to grind for dozens of hours when Obi-Wan and Grievous come out? What about Anakin? Dooku? Jango? Ahsoka? Thrawn?
It is clear to me that at current prices and rates of earning credits, this system for unlocking Heroes is completely unsustainable and will only lead to much anger from the community as practically nobody will get the chance to play all the characters in multiplayer. There is speculation in some parts of the community right now that the prices for both crates and Heroes have been made ridiculously high so that those playing the trial before launch don't get very far ahead of the rest of the playerbase before the game officially releases. If this is indeed the case, the developers should come out and say so in order to allay the community's current worries, as the credit cost for all things (not just heroes, but crates as well) being so high is the biggest problem facing what otherwise seems to be a very fun, well-made game.
If this speculation is wrong and current credit prices for Heroes are intended to be this high at launch, I implore whoever was in charge of making this decision (either at EA or DICE) to reconsider. Ideally, the Heroes would be available to all players right from the start and players would only have to worry about getting Star Cards for them. If it is insisted upon that they be unlocked with credits, however, the prices should be drastically reduced. Luke and Vader should both cost 10k credits, and all other heroes (including future ones) should cost 5k. This would make it so that one could unlock all the current characters with 40k credits, which translates to roughly 26 hours' worth of time spent in Galactic Assault matches. It'd still be somewhat of a grind, but between Challenges and credits earned from level ups to speed the process along, it'd be far more reasonable. Also, whenever any new characters are added, players would only have to spend a bit over three hours to unlock each one instead of a couple dozen.
Also, for one minor suggestion: make it so that Iden Versio can be unlocked by beating the campaign, maybe on the hardest difficulty.
Hopefully somebody at DICE or EA sees this post and passes these points to the higher ups for consideration. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed for the sake of the game's future health. The prices for loot crates and the P2W aspects are of course another major problem related to this, but I just wanted to focus on the Heroes with this thread. There are many characters I would like to see added to this game in the future so that I can play as them, and if I'm unable to do so because I'd be stuck behind a massive grind it would greatly decrease my incentive to play the game.
For the record, I do not have EA Access and thus haven't played the trial. However, I've been paying attention to news that has come out having to do with the Heroes and I have to voice my concerns.
To put it bluntly, the credit cost needed to unlock Heroes for use in multiplayer is completely absurd. Iden costs 20k, Palpatine, Leia, and Chewbacca all cost 40k, and Luke and Vader each cost 60k. That means that in order to unlock every Hero character currently available, a player would have to earn 260,000 credits. There are several huge problems with this:
1. The rate at which credits are earned makes it so that this would take far too long. Someone on Reddit crunched the numbers and found that the average amount of credits earned per minute of play in a Galactic Assault match is close to 25. At that rate, earning the 260,000 credits needed to unlock all the characters would take 170 hours spent in matches (and that doesn't count time spent in loading screens or menus and whatnot, meaning that the actual time one would have to spend playing the game is even higher). Granted, Challenges do reward the player with credits, but apparently the total amount of credits one can earn from completing all Challenges is 50k. That only brings the credit requirement for unlocking everybody down to 210,000, which still equates to almost 140 hours of grinding. I've heard that credits are rewarded to the player for every XP level up, but how much this helps is unclear.
2. If you want to save up credits to buy a hero, you can't spend any credits on crates. Buying a crate would set you back several hours' worth of progress in getting the hero you want. For players that don't wish to spend real-world money buying crates, they're left with two options: either spend credits on crates so as not to be left behind in terms of upgrading your classes but be left unable to play as your favorite Hero, or save up money for the Hero, but in the process not spend any credits on crates, leaving you at the mercy of all the other players online that received better Star Cards than you have because they spent credits on crates and you didn't.
3. Future Heroes added to the game will only make this problem worse. Finn and Captain Phasma are coming to the game next month; if they're both locked behind a 40k credit paywall, it will take 50 hours for players to earn the opportunity to play as both of them if they solely focus on that and nothing else. The same applies for every other Hero that will come post-launch. Should players be forced to grind for dozens of hours when Obi-Wan and Grievous come out? What about Anakin? Dooku? Jango? Ahsoka? Thrawn?
It is clear to me that at current prices and rates of earning credits, this system for unlocking Heroes is completely unsustainable and will only lead to much anger from the community as practically nobody will get the chance to play all the characters in multiplayer. There is speculation in some parts of the community right now that the prices for both crates and Heroes have been made ridiculously high so that those playing the trial before launch don't get very far ahead of the rest of the playerbase before the game officially releases. If this is indeed the case, the developers should come out and say so in order to allay the community's current worries, as the credit cost for all things (not just heroes, but crates as well) being so high is the biggest problem facing what otherwise seems to be a very fun, well-made game.
If this speculation is wrong and current credit prices for Heroes are intended to be this high at launch, I implore whoever was in charge of making this decision (either at EA or DICE) to reconsider. Ideally, the Heroes would be available to all players right from the start and players would only have to worry about getting Star Cards for them. If it is insisted upon that they be unlocked with credits, however, the prices should be drastically reduced. Luke and Vader should both cost 10k credits, and all other heroes (including future ones) should cost 5k. This would make it so that one could unlock all the current characters with 40k credits, which translates to roughly 26 hours' worth of time spent in Galactic Assault matches. It'd still be somewhat of a grind, but between Challenges and credits earned from level ups to speed the process along, it'd be far more reasonable. Also, whenever any new characters are added, players would only have to spend a bit over three hours to unlock each one instead of a couple dozen.
Also, for one minor suggestion: make it so that Iden Versio can be unlocked by beating the campaign, maybe on the hardest difficulty.
Hopefully somebody at DICE or EA sees this post and passes these points to the higher ups for consideration. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed for the sake of the game's future health. The prices for loot crates and the P2W aspects are of course another major problem related to this, but I just wanted to focus on the Heroes with this thread. There are many characters I would like to see added to this game in the future so that I can play as them, and if I'm unable to do so because I'd be stuck behind a massive grind it would greatly decrease my incentive to play the game.
