Feedback: The Shop, Bundles, Battlepass and AI - Not Good!
Some extremely important feedback regarding the above:
- Generative AI should NOT be used on the frontend, and sold to players. Many of these shop backgrounds and stickers are almost certainly AI, with some not even resembling weapons or characters in the game. When we can generate that stuff for free, why should we pay for it? If anything, it's insulting to the consumer and the development team.
- The pricing - if we simply want a skin, why does it have to be bundled with this AI slop? As game developers, this practice should be completely outlawed for art based designs that the consumer sees. I'd rather a poorly done piece by a person than AI. Fortnite is bad enough with it's skins, but at least they give you purchase options.
- The Battlepass contains too much "filler". Backgrounds, random stickers, and other bits and bobs. I'd rather more time spent on skins and new weapons, rather than filler material that is barely going to get looked at or used. Fortnite offers a variety of skins and variants to work towards. We get a few, with more requiring a big separate purchase. The Battlepass is 1100 coins, when a single skin with AI slop we can't remove, is 1900. Who thought up this pricing model? Some have been heavily reduced, and still never seen any in game. It's clearly not a winning financial plan.
- New Squads should be unlocked. Stryx Raiders, for example. Why are they not in the battlepass, and instead we have to do a massive extra payment to get them? The shop should be singular, cool alternative skins, not the above, and not locking key new characters away behind a big paywall. While sometimes we get an extra version of a skin for the newer squads, it feels a bit silly to lock the focus of the new modes and story away for an extra price.
Overall, it needs a massive rework. I don't feel remotely compelled to check the shop, as I know what kind of items will be there. AI.
