So i’ve been on a bit of a Battlefield franchise binge the last few days, even enjoying Battlefield 2 again, which always used to annoy me with it’s horrifically innacurate guns and over-reliance on explosives. As part of my little adventure, I had a crack at Battlefield Heroes (Which you can play, completely free, right here). I made a wonderful ‘German Heavy’ who looked as hot as that TF2 style could let him, and then joined the first random game I could.
Now, I don’t want to go stroking my own horn here, but I’d like to think I’m not too bad at shooters, and indeed I finished first a number of games, however, I had one major, MAJOR gripe with the game. During the game, I saw one enemy in a long trenchcoat running about with a Thompson SMG I think. Each shot he fired would set me on fire and cause a DoT which would kill me in ~5 seconds, even if I was mashing my heal and unloading my chaingun into him, I’d always die first. In the end it took THREE of us to take him down. This is not him running around buildings, jumping over walls and demonstating other skills, we all used our health and sheilds just as much as he did, and if he’s stood still, the same would have happened. He was basically so overpowered that during the game he died _ONCE_ and had the highest number of kills, not through being a better player, but by simply having weapons so overpowered, we couldn’t hurt him quick enough before having our health DoTed away.
Now this brings me on to my point of this article: In that situation, in that one example, is it _FAIR_ for me to say the balance is poor? Is it fair for me to say that the game is broken? I’ve put nothing toward this game, no time or money, this guy has essentially bought the game and it’s perks, and is being rewarded for it by being a considerably more powerful soldier. Should it be a cake walk for him in situations like this, or should he only be grouped with other Pay2Play players, rather than the Free2Play? Should he be punished for constantly killing and joining games with F2P players or lowbies?
Now… if WoW or something where to pull a stunt like this, yeah i’d be more annoyed (No the Pet store does not count, they do not make you uber powerful) but with BF:H I can kinda see exactly why it’s done. The game is free after all.
What’s your opinion on Micro-transactions both in the case of BF:H and other products?
{ 4 } Comments
Hi! The ability you are referring to is called Burning Bullets, and is something anyone that plays the soldier class can spend Hero Points on. You get Hero Points by levelling up only. While you can buy better weapons for the in-game currencies, these do only offer very minor advantage (5 more rounds in clips that otherwise holds 40 rounds, then you can just reload since ammo is infinite)
Hello, HelloAndy! Anndd Fair enough!
I wasn’t aware anyone could have those unlocks, but all the same it did feel a little unfair that it was actually impossible for me to kill that guy one on one without obtaining some upgrade or other.
What’s your opinion on the rest of the article? How do you feel about Micro Transactions as a whole?
The matchmaking should put you with players in your own level, but it doesnt stop people from joining their low-level friends. So it can happen that you meet opponents with more unlocked abilities than you, just like in Warcraft you mentioned. After you played a few hours you should be able to maximize your shield (gunners) which helps a lot. The game is quite balanced.
As a player I love the idea of playing games for free, and if I like them a lot also be able to pay small sums to enhance my game experience. If I dont like the game I can just move on to the next one until I find the right one, not losing any money at all.
Well, I was going to comment on this early, and I’ve come back to do so now, but since HelloAndy cleared up the Burning Bullets thing, my opinion on the matter is somewhat idfferent now. :)
Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of microtransactions at all, perhaps coloured by bad experience with Korean MMOs and other such crap in the past. I know it’s one of those tropes like episodic gaming that works great from a business point of view and I’m just bitterly opposed to change at times, but having to pay real-world money to get a gameplay advantage over other players just doesn’t quite sit right with me.
As it stands, though, being an upgrade that anyone can get simply by earning enough XP? Interesting concept, though I’m not sure it’s one I’d really support as the FPS model generally doesn’t fit comfortably with levelling. Compare, say, PlanetSide — where even a freshly-rolled rookie can contribute effectively to the fight — at least in that system, there’s less of a feeling of being underpowered and useless before levelling up to a certain point. Modern Warfare 1 and 2 are similar in that regard, I think.
But then, let’s face it: I’m biased about such things, and I’m not even going to try to pretend otherwise. ;)
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