EA discussed their monetization plans and more regarding Battlefield V during their financial conference call for investors and analysts. It looks like the company has learnt from their mistakes with Star Wars: Battlefront II.

The aim with Battlefield V has been to deliver a big and spectacular game that players would continue to engage with over time, similar to Star Wars: Battlefront II. However, the company has re-evaluated their use of progression systems and monetization practices and are using a completely new kind of progression system with Battlefield V. 

Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgenson also stated that EA is looking at the purchasing intent, pre-orders and other elements surrounding the game and they’re quite happy with the results. We can expect the game to be a massive success then- at least based on what EA is saying. Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson stated that there will be a long term service plan so as to continue delivering content to players and to keep them engaged for a long period.

Battlefield V is set to release for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 19.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Mass Effect Andromeda Blunder

When you have what is easily the most well known, respected and loved sci-fi series of the last generation under your belt and need to take it into the next generation, you should probably do all you can to make sure that the series is continued in a way that respects that legacy, right? While the story of what went so terribly, terribly wrong with Mass Effect Andromeda is a long one of ambition, mismanagement, politics and tech within Bioware, it was ultimately Electronic Arts who pushed the game out the door anyways, and then shelved the series indeterminately while splitting up the development team in the process.

Note: Images/screenshots of games used in this article is for representation purposes only. Their inclusion doesn’t mean they are bad games or were failures. Also, these points are just hints that a game “may” be bad or flop. 

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to GamingBolt as an organization.

Late embargo

There can be many reasons for a game to end up disappointing, but one of the best clues comes when a publisher implements an embargo for the day of launch, or sometimes even later. Exceptions such as DOOM 2016 not withstanding, it’s usually indicative that there’s something to hide.

Anyone still playing Star Wars Battlefront II has just come to realize that the game has problems, and that DICE can only be so forthcoming on what they’re working on. But the development team does take some pride in their accomplishments however, and their community manager outlined on their forums a little bit about their upcoming plans for the game.

Community Manager Mat Everett, would make a post outlining some details on what’s in store for the upcoming Progression Update, while noting that he has to be fairly vague because nothing is finalized.

The entire list is shared just below. The team is looking to squash a lot of bugs that effect the game, including micro-stuttering issues, balancing problems, duplicate star cards not awarding credits and some broken trophies on PS4, such as one where you need to reach level 50. Are you still enjoying Star Wars Battlefront II? Let us know in the comments.

• Duplicate Star Cards are still not giving credits.
• DC-15LE is unbalancing the game
• Micro-stuttering frame rates still an issue for some players
• The Aggressor / Defender Milestone still appears bugged for some users
• PS4 trophy “The force is strong with this one” (reach level 50) is reported as broken by some players

Lawbreakers – Health Regeneration

Gears of War scion Cliff Blizenski had some good ideas with his gravity shooter, Lawbreakers but when it didn’t take off like he had hoped, major changes came to the game including introducing regenerating health to resolve the problems gamers were having with dying too often and too fast. But tossing game balance out the window to buff everybody’s health and make it regenerate while not under fire just made games draw out way too long.

While EA has been trying to address the concerns the gaming community has over the pay-to-win model of Star Wars Battlefront II, it hasn’t been going very well. One of the company’s replies to a Reddit post complaining about the pay-to-win model, stated that the intent was to “provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment.” That comment is now the most downvoted comment in all of Reddit with 676,000 downvotes as of now.

Following this controversy, it was announced that DICE would conduct  an AMA on Reddit to clear the air once and for all. Instead of addressing the player’s concerns however, the whole event seems to have been an attempt at damage control. Many of the important questions weren’t directly answered and when the team did answer, they just stated in ambiguous terms that they would look into the issue and make the necessary changes.

Still, it’s nice that the team consisting of John Wasilczyk (Executive Producer), Dennis Brannvall (Associate Design Director)  and Paul Keslin (Producer) at least tried to have a dialogue with the community. Paul answered one question regarding the recent backlash, stating that this AMA was an attempt to “repair the bridge” with the community.

They have tried to assure players that the game will take into account players’ skills when awarding credit rewards and this seems a step in the right direction. Paul stated, “Right now Credits you earn in-match DO take into account your performance. It also takes into account the time you’ve spent in-match. Currently it’s skewed more towards your time spent in-game and we have some work to do to make it more clear that your performance does impact your Credit earn. ”

John Wasilczyk also tried to address the concerns regarding the loot crate system and said “I think this concern has come through loud and clear. We’re going to continue adjusting the crate systems, content, and progression mechanics to hit a point that gives players a great, balanced experience at all skill levels. We’re working on expanding the number of ways that players can progress, putting more control in their hands and providing more options and choice in the way people play. There’s not much in the game that we wouldn’t revisit to improve the game for as many players as possible.”

Additionally, Dennis Brannvall responded to the mediocre review scores that the game has been getting and commented on this saying “I feel that the score was impacted by the feedback on our progression system and obviously would have loved if that wasn’t the case. I believe the gameplay, art, audio and depth warrants higher recognition, but I’m a developer, so I’m not necessarily the most unbiased source. Reviewers are obviously entitled to their own opinions, and we respect that completely.”

You can head over to the AMA and read more of the questions and answers there. It’s nice to see the gaming community has united in their stance against unfair systems which do not respect their consumers. Hopefully, this will lead to some real changes in the industry as a whole.

The internet’s current whipping boy, Star Wars Battlefront 2 has been causing something of a backlash for EA this week. It’s not hard to see why gamers got a bit annoyed by their favourite characters being stuck behind a 40 hour grind and being told it’s for a sense of pride and accomplishment.

However, they’re bringing out more information through Youtube channel ‘BattlefrontUpdates’ with DICE Associate Design Director, Dennis Brannvall. In the video below, Brannvall claims that players can expect another look into the progression systems which have received so much ire from the Star Wars Battlefront community over the past week, and get it in line with what fans expected to begin with.

Players can also expect patches to the game every two weeks, though he wasn’t specific as to if these are title updates or server side hotfixes.

EA is rightly taking a battering from the internet for Star Wars Battlefront II’s shadier monetization elements, earning them the (dishonour?) of the most downvoted comment ever on Reddit when they tried to justify a 40 hour grind to unlock Darth Vader in a Star Wars game. But gamers are finding that their attempts to make right are only half-hearted at best.

We earlier reported that EA had reduced the cost of hero unlocks by 75%, but it’s come to light since that they also dropped credit gains by that much as well, changing only the numbers involved, not the time investment. Further, those who are trying to put in the time in Arcade Mode are being stymied by cool down timers preventing players from earning credits for as long as a day at a time.

Evidence of the cool down systems has popped up on a number of sources, including the Twitter of Andrew Reiner, Executive Editor for Game Informer, who posted that the credit cool down in Arcade Mode was “the worst part of the game”. DICE has issued a statement on its part, promising continued iteration on the in game economy.

https://twitter.com/Andrew_Reiner/status/930209923505557504

Star Wars Battlefront II is one of the many games that is getting enhanced for the Xbox One X. If you’ve been wondering just how well the Xbox One X fares against a high-end gaming pc, YouTuber DEE BATCH has uploaded a video which shows a comparison of Battlefront II running on both PC and Xbox One X.  The PC version is running at Ultra settings and the Xbox One X version runs at 4K mode.

It is impressive that it is quite difficult to even be able to tell the difference between the two versions. To put things in perspective, the PC here is a high-end gaming PC sporting a Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card.  Additionally, the PC has 16 GB of RAM and an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor. This rig costs about 1400$. It is definitely an impressive feat that a 500$ console runs the game with equivalent visuals effect as PC on Ultra settings.

Star Wars Battlefront II is set to release for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One on November 17^th.