+Frank B. Subscriber² Posted December 2, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted December 2, 2009 EA restructures Battlefied: Heroes pricing; fans enraged EA and DICE have dropped a bomb on fans of Battlefield: Heroes: the price for items using in-game currency has been jacked up, while the price for funds purchased using real cash has been lowered. The net change? Gamers now must pay to play with the same weapons they've been long enjoying for free, or they have to grind for hours to earn them. Heroes has become something it used to mock. EA and DICE began a grand experiment in North America with Battlefield: Heroes, a free-to-play, casual shooter that would allow anyone to download the client and play for free. You could buy certain items to give yourself an edge, sure, but it was just as easy to earn in-game Valor Points (VP) to purchase weapons and widgets for use in the game. Many gamers did just this, earning VP in their regular gaming session without ever paying a dime. Others made a few purchases here and there to round out their items. It seems gamers simply weren't spending enough money, though, as a recent price restructuring destroys the ability to play without spending real money. The cost of all items in terms of the free VP has been increased substantially, while the cost of items in "BattleFunds," which you buy with real money, has been decreased. In other words, it's now impossible to earn or keep decent equipment simply by playing; you're going to need to get out the checkbook to stay competitive on the servers. The game's player base is, to put it mildly, enraged. While you'll never be stuck without a gun, upgraded weapons and gear give players a huge advantage in practical terms. The new pricing structure ensures that no one will be able to play enough to earn gear in the game. The response from the community has been immediate and negative: as of publication time, the thread talking about the change has reached 69 pages, each page filled with unhappy gamers. One gamer worked out the math to figure out how much he would now have to play to earn a single super weapon. "So, 450 VP a day... at a maximum of 7 VP a game, that's 50 games a day. About 4 hours worth of playing," he explained. "Now, when you lose a round you can only get 5 VP, making the amount of rounds you need to play each day to keep ONE weapon about 60, which is about 5 hours playtime, every day, for one Uber/Super weapon." That may seem dense with in-game jargon, but the point is clear: no one but the most hardcore players will be able to use high-end weapons without paying for them. Some players have linked , where games that reward grinding are mocked. Ironically, in one update EA and DICE have inflicted Battlefield: Heroes with the very disease it was supposed to cure.What should be troubling is that many of the complaining gamers stated that they were occasionally buying items just to support the game and to give themselves a boost here and there. The trick was no one felt like they had to spend money to have a good time. Now to play at the same level they were enjoying, there is no choice but to dump cold, hard cash into the game. Other gamers make their points clearly, and not a little sadly. "Now it's impossible for me to play the game for free. I can't even afford the long ranged pistol anymore, let alone bandages. Let me make this clear: now it takes 22 wins for us to earn enough VPs to rent a weapon for a day. If each match is 10 minutes long, that means I'll have to play for 3 hours and a half with a stellar team just to afford the weapon. This is not a casual game. I can't even be a knife + pistol commando anymore," one poster wrote. "As a commando, I can't be around a soldier all the time. I need bandages to stop burning bullets, and I need them to heal myself after each knife fight. Since I can't afford bandages anymore, this means that even if I manage to knife a gunner down, I'm going to die next time I attack someone, because I won't have any more HPs. Well, that's not going to happen, because I quit. I don't want to do this, but I really have no choice other than paying to play, and I can't afford it right now." That sort of reasoning is repeated over and over throughout the thread. People want to play, but the new pricing means that in order to be effective in the game you either have to play for hours upon hours a day, or pay money. The "free" nature of the game has been eliminated; as configured now with the current pricing, it simply won't be fun unless you pay for items. The signatures in the game's forum have taken a humorous tern?we've included some of them in this story?but this update has a very real chance of ending the game. People enjoyed Heroes because it didn't require a grind, and it wasn't expensive. Now EA has forced gamers to make a choice between three options: quit, start playing for hours a day, or get out the wallets. Bad news for the game's population, as none of those options are very palatable. News source: Ars Technica EA: Where shooting yourself in the foot looks best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 It's the future of gaming, might as well get it stuffed down your throat right away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted December 2, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted December 2, 2009 To be fair such concepts as this are still fairly new to developers (outside of Korean MMOs), there has got to be some room for learning/balancing. Gamers whine at everything and anything that changes, ever. You can't just make what seems to be a decently fleshed out title then offer it for free, with what parts are cash generated being pretty much unecessary for the hardcore players everyone. The hardcore players are those you should be hoping to earn something back from, where as casuals are going to be happier with free gameplay and not bothered about equipment. If the balance is off and everyone can basically play for nothing, you're going to make no money... I think it's a fairly hard concept to balance properly and not shaft people, whether it's what's happened here and things need to change months later, or from the beginning if you want to play it's going to cost you your house in micro-payments to be any fun. It's admirable trying to offer things for free, but at times sticking to old methods of one off payments, in other worlds a normal retail RRP, is the best way to go. But for anyone poised for the usual EA trolling/I'm not paying for DLC/entitlement generation, try making an absolutely free game on the level of this without looking for some sort of way of clawing back development fees and making some profit. Making a change like this half way through is not helping your case, but it's not that hard to see why change is needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Holy hell Gavin, you posted that massive wall of text to pretty much say the expenses needs to be covered for it to be viable in EA's budget :p ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted December 2, 2009 Subscriber² Share Posted December 2, 2009 Holy hell Gavin, you posted that massive wall of text to pretty much say the expenses needs to be covered for it to be viable in EA's budget :p ? Protecting my ass, I'll be known as an EA fanboy if I put it like you did :p So while that's what I'm essentially saying I do concede making a change as drastic as this months after release is going to dawn bad press and frustration. Plus the huge wall of text, it's a tradition I have to keep up till I get arthritis in my fingers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minifig Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I knew this would happen eventually with BF: Heroes. Playing the beta, I had a feeling EA would never keep it free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spookie Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I knew this would happen eventually with BF: Heroes. Playing the beta, I had a feeling EA would never keep it free. Same, it didn't seem like a viable business model. At least not in it's previous iteration. Unfortunately to make it so steps on a few toes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HilariousNinja Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I was very surprised with the update and the response from the community well, that was inevitable. As a regular Heroes player, I'm sorry to say I probably won't be playing it for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xpgeek Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Both I and my girlfriend were both regular Battlefield Heroes players. We've never spent any money on it, but we only play it for like an hour a day. Yada yada, I uninstalled it, she misses it but isn't playing anymore either. This is only one part of the games real problems too, the gunner class is wayyy overpowered, they've weakened the sniper to the point of useless, and the soldier getting a hugee nerf soon too. The game is horribly unbalanced and only getting worse. I'm through with it unless some major changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x9248 Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Combat Arms is a lot better anyways :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dead.cell Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 To be fair such concepts as this are still fairly new to developers (outside of Korean MMOs), there has got to be some room for learning/balancing. Gamers whine at everything and anything that changes, ever. You can't just make what seems to be a decently fleshed out title then offer it for free, with what parts are cash generated being pretty much unecessary for the hardcore players everyone. The hardcore players are those you should be hoping to earn something back from, where as casuals are going to be happier with free gameplay and not bothered about equipment. If the balance is off and everyone can basically play for nothing, you're going to make no money... I think it's a fairly hard concept to balance properly and not shaft people, whether it's what's happened here and things need to change months later, or from the beginning if you want to play it's going to cost you your house in micro-payments to be any fun. It's admirable trying to offer things for free, but at times sticking to old methods of one off payments, in other worlds a normal retail RRP, is the best way to go. But for anyone poised for the usual EA trolling/I'm not paying for DLC/entitlement generation, try making an absolutely free game on the level of this without looking for some sort of way of clawing back development fees and making some profit. Making a change like this half way through is not helping your case, but it's not that hard to see why change is needed. This post wreaks of obvious EA fanboyism. :shiftyninja: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyLarry Veteran Posted December 3, 2009 Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2009 My only thing is I realize it is an experiment and all, but since that is the case, I just say change your business model so it does not make you come off like a greedy dumb ass. What I mean is go ahead and charge an amount that you agree about up front that you can not only live with but that you would be extremely happy with and would consider a very good profit. If that winds up being to much then lower it a bit and take it from there and do what you need to do to make a good maybe even just a decent profit since it is a newer approach then learn and implement it different in the next iteration. Absolute best case scenario if people have no problem with your intital pricing, then perhaps eventually you release newer better items at a slightly higher rate and make a great profit. Just pretend you care about the customer is all I ask, and it would probably get them way further along, instead there are people right now on forums just like our very own talking just like me what dumb greedy ******* they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightIdea Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Easy fix for this, just play on private servers. :shiftyninja: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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