Re: Is this a joke, Popcap?
I think you're forgetting some of us have jobs and personal lives. We can't all be teenagers/young men that can afford to spend hours on end on a single game.
Forum Discussion
10 Replies
- @TrumpTheGreat69 Well the point that a lot are missing is that you're not meant to get it on the first day if you've got a life. The map is designed to be completed over a month, but it can be completed in a lot less time.
I understand that we're all desperate to get Wizard and that can be uncomfortable but to complain so much because of it is just.. back in my day there was a little thing called Garden Warfare. Those times of treacherous grind and lootbox tomfoolery are merely forgotten dreams now. @shurikeninjaI'm sorry, but I hate this argument. Every person I see who says something like this always fails to consider how subjective time is. Its inconsiderate to just assume someone could dedicate such a steady amount of their time each and every month to just BFN. For pete's sake this a game, not a job. Ideally, nothing about it should be unfun or slow for the sake of being unfun.. and slow! Games should be fun! What a novel concept! 🤒
You're right though. The prizemap is designed to be completed in a month, and they do this by purposely slowing you down with useless filler. Its a slow and unrewarding experience that has no respect for your time. This is intentional design meant to pressure you into just buying your way through the map. Compare BFN's prizemaps and rainbow stars to the so called "treacherous grind" of GW.. and there is quite a big difference. You are ignoring the fact that GW1/2, for the most part, had no time limits on their unlockables. On top of that you are constantly rewarded from playing and aren't ever really purposely dragged down. Its not like that one variant or customization is going to disappear forever next month. Neither will you spend your 75k hard earned coins on a character pack and unlock one single chat message. Don't get me wrong, I really hate some aspects of GW1/2's monetization ( I have always hated Rux and I always will! ) , but it is absolutely silly to even try and compare it to the horror that BFN's monetization is.
- @brady3176 Heck torchwood and hovergoat could also be earned without playing the event portal through regualr stars due to the seagull, meanwhile bfn has no alternatives to earning any other forms of currency from one another except buying bulbs with rainbow stars which can be bought with real money. Also without plumbing gig or the deadbeard glitch most players will earn about 5 bulbs a day and thats including the daily challenges.
Really testing my loyalty, I've cut back to just playing most days for daily challenges and most of character challenges if I could be bothered.
New characters should just be unlocked like overeatxh did when introducing them.
Now I log in get bunch of can't connect to ea server blah blah, finanly get in check challengers OK go to switch char get invisible bug, close game out log back, OK 15 kills with certain char goes giddy park 14 kills *disconnect host has left* log back in 0/15 kills.
Really testing my patience.
- @FarQM8 Exactly, stuff like this is why developers need to actually test and make sure their games aren't buggy before releasing features, especially ones that involve limited time events, otherwise you end up with players who physically cannot get into the game because the developers did a bad job at making it actually work. The game being really buggy is why I only play it near the end of each prize map to get the stuff I want, then I leave for another 3/4 of a month to play GW2.
To be honest, I was fine with the prize maps when it was all costumes and hats and such. Last month putting the upgrade in the pass and now a new character I think is a bad idea, even though I went and unlocked them.
Paladins have a battle pass system where you unlock skins, grave markers etc. and the new one just started. It's a bug-ridden mess, but new characters are never put in the battle pass, just skins and other cosmetic stuff. Now the game's model is different, it's F2P or you can buy the pack that means you always get champions when they're released, or you can use gold (coins basically) or their crystals (the RL money currency) to grab new champions. It works pretty well and since you can play that game for free, it makes sense there, not so much in BfN. BfN has an upfront cost so I feel characters should be immediately available to everyone and not in the prize map. As a live service game I know it's expected that people will spend money to support ongoing development (and some of us do), but the monetization of the game is a jumble; it feels like partly a B2P game and a F2P game at the same time.
The legendary upgrades are a great idea and I love that the Shogun Guard doesn't feel OP, just an option, but 300 rainbow stars for new/returning players vs. just playing through February is not going to help call people to return to the game if they've left for awhile, and new players will feel they have to burn through a lot of cash to catch up, that's going to turn a lot of people off.
You can earn rainbow stars in game, and the weekly challenges have been much better the last few weeks than they first were, but at 60 a week + 150 from the map that's a 390 in 4 weeks. You can buy 1 upgrade with that but let's say 5 upgrades are added by the end of the year and someone gets the game for Xmas, that's 1500 rainbow stars to catch up. That's bad optics and can be very frustrating. BfN, like both GW games, needs a large playerbase to survive and thrive. I really don't want such high barriers to entry like this. 500k coins for the wizard next month sounds decent to most of us as we sit on millions of coins that don't do anything but daunting to a new player.
I personally like the idea of the timers for spawning bots and pots instead of stickers as it means we can't single-handedly flood a point with outhouse zombies. I also like that when I buy capsules I'm not getting thousands of self-revives and team retries that I'll use a tiny fraction of. But with the lack of sticker packs and the very limited amount of items in the reward-o-tron, coins feel pointless. And while I love the free roam regions, they're possibly my favorite part of the game, these regional currencies are also currently pointless once you 100% everything. This makes the Rux store all the more grating as a lot of the stuff he sells should be in reward-o-tron and it would give us a use for all these coins and/or regional currencies.
On top of that, the grand master ranks don't feel like they much of a point. No new upgrades, 1k coins per level, and increasing your rank plate number (while the plate doesn't change) all feel pointless. Why not add the legendary upgrades to these ranks or give players some more useful reward for these ranks?
One of many reasons I uninstalled Overwatch was their garbage loot box system. A full price game with an obnoxious gamble crate system was bogus and unlike the sticker packs in GW1 and 2, you could, and did, get a lot of repeats that give you a pittance of a currency that you couldn't even use on some time limited items, that game was huge into FOMO. Don't do that here. We need some substantial changes to BfN's currency, prize map, and character/upgrade system that makes the game more welcoming to new people, and more friendly to people's time. We need both long term players like me to stick around, and for people that want to play very casually to feel like they can login and not miss characters and other crucial things, just some costumes and other extra stuff that won't hurt their chance to compete.
- @Iron_Guard8 Bfn overall just needs a total rehaul, the pve areas are nothing but grinding zones once you complete them, giddy park is pretty pointless, currency system needs a massive overhaul or rework, and the prize map should have just been wizard cosmetics and everything else should have gone to the reward o tron.
- @brady3176 It's all about perspective, really. Yes it is inconsiderate but at the same time games are meant to be fun you say, so it shouldn't matter if you don't complete it with an extra 50 prize bulbs at the end. The reward-o-tron is that thing that never goes away. Popcap know their playerbase, they know that they're collectors, they know that they get annoyed when they run out of stuff to collect, etc. so the prize map system is great, especially because of how easy it is to complete. But I can understand the situation of the people who can only play BFN for 20 minutes a day, that must suck.
What I hate is how people will say BFN's systems suck and then compare it to the great Garden Warfare games. I can understand disliking BFN's systems because it's not like they give characters and new upgrades for free (which would be desirable as you want them to consider those who can barely play this game) but Garden Warfare is just so much worse. Let me preface this by saying that I love the GW games, I regard them as some of the greatest games of all time. Whenever I recommend these great games to people and they open up the Sticker Shop and find out about the game's systems as they grumble "EA strikes again" I'm always ready to defend them and explain "well actually it's relatively fair!".Despite the fact that GW2's system is all well and dandy, it just isn't as good as BFN's.
I had to work 55 hour weeks during GW2's life-cycle. I hate looking back on those times, playing my favourite games but punched in the face by the horror that is EA's system. There's a clear difference between these two games: GW2 is about getting more gameplay, BFN doesn't have that. There are no variants, say what you will about those, I love them, but the way they're implemented in GW2 isn't right (if I'm looking at it from the black-tinted glasses that you're viewing BFN with) for people who can't play. So instantly in the argument BFN has the added luxury of not having to consider this, pure cosmetics matter, but it's acceptable to be lenient with them (especially when prize maps are so easy to complete).
It's because of these variants that while playing GW2 I always felt gut-punched watching my friends advance while I progressed at an atrocious rate. I always watched youtube videos of cool variants and wanted them badly, so the Hero Showcases were always huge for me. I could never get what I wanted because of stupid lootboxes. Don't say that although I'm not getting what I wanted, I'm still getting a fun variant to play with, because that's similiar to just saying "don't worry about not getting the wizard, you're still getting new upgrades to play around with." Oh wow, my Peashooter does fire damage. Oh wow, my Super Brainz has a 4th punch. I want Iron Citron. I want Wizard.
You could argue GW2's balance is decent, but if you argue that BFN's isn't, then again it's a simliar case where GW2 is just so much worse when you compare the two.
Legendary characters was another EA strikes again moment, so obviously better than the rest and so much harder to obtain without paying up. Getting the new characters was also much more difficult than BFN is, I felt pressured into purchasing the DLC's. Whenever you say it's inconsiderate to not consider the perspective of those who can barely play, you can also apply it to GW2. GW2 doesn't need prizemaps because the sheer overwhelming grind is already there, and it won't run out like the reward-o-tron. BFN needs that, because it's proven that players care about cosmetics. So yes, time-gated content is fair provided that it is not difficult to complete at least the majority of the prize map. And don't get me started on the consumables and the garbage Upgrade System.
"Ideally, nothing about it should be unfun or slow for the sake of being unfun.. and slow! Games should be fun! What a novel concept!" People always do the math for unlocking stuff on BFN but they should do it for GW2 too. With so many variants and pointless ugly cosmetics (so many ugly cosmetics) and showered in consumables (which also ruin gameplay) you could argue that it's atrocious and that for pete's sake, games should be fun and not purposely slowed down with useless filler. Its a slow and unrewarding experience that has no respect for your time. This is intentional design meant to pressure you into just buying coins. You're also constantly rewarded for playing in BFN, be it the prize-map, reward-o-tron, or even free PvE cosmetics. The reward-o-tron has to be more lame because you're not paying for a booster pack where 90% of the stuff you get you don't really care about. Think about the reward-o-tron as a really big prize map. Only you have infinite time to complete it. Those "bad" capsules that I open don't hurt when I consider the bigger picture and how I'm always constantly being rewarded in other ways. It is honestly a rewarding experience (unless you've already got everything).
The upgrades too. You're grinding for the *chance* to get a variant when you find that Rux is selling an upgrade. 500,000 coins hurts the overall progress massively when you only play 20 minutes a day. Compared to BFN, where you can earn the coins as you get rainbow stars (which only takes a month if you've got 0, and they've also improved the earn-rate significantly, so you don't need to complete the whole map and weekly challenges).
Lesson of the day, live-service games suck for people who can barely play. We truly do live in a society. If I put on the black-tinted glasses, I can tell you the BFN experience is better than the GW experience. But if I drop those glasses, I can argue for both games being fine! (this isn't really directed at you) And games can be about having fun, if you stop being addicted to chasing cosmetics. Should they even be regarded so highly when you've got so little time to play? At that point I'd just worry about the gameplay and having a good time. It's a great shame that you won't be able to get Wizard the first month though. The thing is I couldn't look at it this way with GW2 as you're actually getting gameplay experiences that are important and so it really does matter more than a costume.
It's all about perspective, what glasses you're wearing and what you find truly important. Both games are amazing. But one thing I'm sure of: it really isn't absolutely silly to even try and compare it to the horror that BFN's monetization is. @shurikeninjaI hate that it has come to this. Defending predatory practices saying this one is worse than this one, when in reality they are both pretty terrible. We shouldn't have to argue about predatory practices in a game made for children. Games should just be fun. Its such a shame that has changed for a lot of big developers. Might be worth it to consider why exactly EA has such a bad rep.
I don't think GW 2 is a perfect child or anything, and completely agree with a lot of your criticisms, its just that BFN clearly targets people susceptible to the FOMO more so than GW 2 by entirely relying on limited time events that purposely slow you down, and by pay walling content "collectors" are clearly going to want. Of course, the FOMO affects people differently... and it depends on your "perspective" and how you feel about cosmetics. Its just that.... Why should any predatory practices be acceptable? You paid for the game already. That should be it. Why is that not enough? Why do we have to go down these dangerous routes of taking advantage of players, when they could very well just sell DLC PVE regions or something. When we are here, trying to rationalize mechanics specifically made to be unfun and take advantage of the player, something has gone terribly wrong.
These phycological traps work on a lot of people, as they did in GW 2, though I'd argue there was a lot less pressure there. Someone out there probably has bought their way through the entire prizemap. I know some like to make fun of people who fall for stuff like this, "I mean, what a rich loser... stupid whale!" But.............. maybe they aren't just "whales" and truly couldn't wait to get their hands on the wizard. Traps.. and immense pressure like this have no place in full priced games... especially when they are made for children. The game industry... and, well... lets just say a lot of other industries are just despicable right now.
- @brady3176 Very true. I'm just saying, it's not my fault that this is successful. I'm one of the players who would play BFN everyday even if there was no prize-map. Which subsequently means not complaining about having obtained everything or lack of new monthly cosmetics. Because if we look at it plainly, you're right it's better to have no prizemaps (although they're easy to complete) and just have all the content as direct purchase unlockables. Popcap are worried that players won't bother purchasing the Gestures that their team put hard work and effort into creating? Then lock costumes behind collection systems, i.e. obtain all items in the collection first before getting a costume as a reward. That's what I would have done (if it weren't for how players unfortunately are).
Because sadly, if they did remove prizemaps and stop drip-feeding us content, there would be some players who strive for completion (perfectly fine) but then proceed to complain about lack of content. Notice prizemaps are monthly. That's a player retention tactic.
At the end of the day, I've got to agree with you though. Although personally, I don't see it as bad as you do. My son wanted to spend stars to get the wizard early as he has homework and school so he can't play much. But it's not like I took a moment to face-palm before sighing and mumbling something along the lines of "we live in a society". I just had to teach him, just like how I did with those toys that he's obsessed with.
You could argue you're actually getting "content" with the toys but it's still the same thing. Same response from the parent. Same reaction from the child. We shouldn't even be forced to look at advertising for buying prize-bulbs, sure, but it's made considerable amounts of money by smart adults who made their own choice. Although you could say that FOMO has varying levels of effectiveness with different adults. It is an uncomfortable topic calling out those who have done the deed an interesting topic at that. What was the stronger culpirt: FOMO or the person's choice? In conclusion, you're right. Good day.
Featured Places
