Star Wars Battlefront 2 (PC brahs)

[gwem32170191]

This needs to happen with every single game that comes out. The only thing that really hurt EA are those cancelled pre-orders.


lol just lol @ that guy calling it an 'unpopular feature'

[JPeeper]

So the guy on twitter getting death threats basically said, "I am getting death threats because some people don't like a feature" (that feature being pay-to-win ayyy lmao), but people did some digging and he doesn't even work on Battlefront 2, he is just another employee at EA who openly supports the retardation of this pay-to-win non-sense.

He was also commenting to people about fist fighting the people who were making the threats. LOL


So this guy is trying to play the victim, when he has tweeted out (I can't view them he either deleted them or hid them, but reddit users saw them just no screen cap as of now) that he wants to fight people who disagree with him. He also comes off extremely childish in the "I'm keeping track for legal purposes" statement he makes. It's like in a sport when a guy is chirping a guy from behind a ref so the opposing player can't come at him, just a pussy being a pussy.



Also of note if you guys are unaware, was that previously one of the community managers (a different guy from the above) was banned from Reddit because he was bribing the mods of the subreddit with trials for the early alpha of battlefront 1 so they'd delete all unwanted negativity from the game and spew only positive propaganda. He tweeted out yesterday that is was all bs (it wasn't, there is proof, also the old mods were all kicked off the subbreddit), then today he said "I didn't not bribe the reddit", which uh, a) means you did it and b) is pretty terrible english for a FUKING PR Manager.


Also, the EA Community Manager response on reddit is at 500,000 downvotes.

[JPeeper]

They should have just left all the heroes unlocked and just did the star cards in the crates...honestly all those star cards are pretty uselss....difference between level one and Epic is like your ability cooldown goes from 2 min at regular star card to 1 min and 45 at epic level...not a big deal. Glad the community won.

Well yeah they should have done that. My point is if they were hell bent on the idea that people need to feel a sense of accomplishment for unlocking characters, make it fuking reasonable. 40 hours played (which is like my total time in BF1 over 2 years) to unlock 1 of the 5 locked characters is fuking idiotic; with the other side being spend $250+ to buy one, which should be death by impaling to implement such a "feature" in a game.

[yochrisss]

Lets keep fighting. Maybe we can get the game for free

[wheynweed]

Lets keep fighting. Maybe we can get the game for free

150k upvotes in 4 hours on r/gaming to boycott the game so I think there's more to come.

[stasmtl]

for anyone who pre-ordered the game or thinking about purchasing, i strongly encourage you to get a refund or reconsider.

500k+ downvotes

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBat...ocked/dppum98/

[JPeeper]

EA doesn't care if people cancel their pre-orders either unless it's like 2 million people.

In reality if 100,000 people cancel their pre-orders (which actually happened), that's a loss of $4 mil.

Like someone mentioned earlier in the thread, EA made $1.3 BILLION in microtransactions. Even though that number is through all their games over a year (I assume anyway), EA will easily make up that $4 mil loss through all this bs.

[kr1kit]

I've changed my mind a couple times over the last week about this game but with today's development of 75% reduction in hero cost plus the fact that I really don't care about playing as a hero, I think I'll end up buying the game. As much as I hate to support EA in any way, shape, or form, I did have fun during the trial and I'm really craving some Star Wars action.

[QuickNutkus]

Anyone else respect EA's wickedness at this point? They could open a "walk in to get shot" store and still profit off it.

Apparently they reduced the credits you would originally receive from completing the campaign from 20,000k to 5k given the recent reduction in credits needed to obtain the heroes. Good stuff. On the flip side, much more people will simply opt to buy the credits necessary to unlock them now than before.

[JPeeper]

Anyone else respect EA's wickedness at this point? They could open a "walk in to get shot" store and still profit off it.

Apparently they reduced the credits you would originally receive from completing the campaign from 20,000k to 5k given the recent reduction in credits needed to obtain the heroes. Good stuff. On the flip side, much more people will simply opt to buy the credits necessary to unlock them now than before.

Surprised EA isn't run by this fukdonkey:

[Singularity7]

After all this **** that came out. Are people still gonna buy this?

[stasmtl]

After all this **** that came out. Are people still gonna buy this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBat...tell_you_what/

Copy paste from reddit:

I work in electronic media PR - I'll tell you what EA's PR strategy is regarding the "progression system." (self.StarWarsBattlefront)


Here is some information. Make whatever decisions you want with it.
EA spends tens of thousands of man-hours focus testing and doing market research on the optimum way to wring money out of your wallet. This means that one or two days (or weeks or months) of complaining will not get them to change their mind regarding the nature of the progression system. They will not truly "fix" it because they believe that it's working as intended and their accountants and marketing guys will tell them that it is. A certain amount of players are supposed to get sick of it and stop playing. That's built-in to the calculations, like when Wal-Mart assumes that there will be a certain amount of shoplifting.
That said, they understand that they have a cluster**** on their hands, so since they are not interested in fixing it, they are going to use a technique referred to as "making the outrage outdated." This was very clearly what they did with the beta. The beta had a great deal of backlash and instead of fixing anything, they "made changes." The effect of these changes were negligible but it didn't matter because all the articles written about the flaws of the beta and the complaints by users became outdated and replaced by articles and comments about how they were making "changes." This allows them to control the narrative of their product without actually losing any money or making significant changes. The fact that the changes didn't help and potentially made the game worse didn't matter.

(Ubisoft did this in a much more elegant way with Assassin's Creed: Origins by the way - they prevented you from buying loot boxes with real money, knowing there would be a backlash, instead allowing you to purchase the currency needed for loot boxes with real money. The ONLY things that accomplished was allowing them to do interviews saying that you couldn't buy loot boxes with real money during pre-release and make people who wanted to use real money for loot boxes have to click two extra buttons. They didn't have to make the outrage outdated because they controlled the narrative from the jump.)
The reason this works is two-fold: 1. Journalists who cover the initial outrage feel that, ethically, they have to post the follow up but probably aren't going to do the research to figure out if the changes are substantial or effective at fixing the actual issue. (Edit: I've started seeing articles pop up already about the "changes" and at best, all they do is parrot the good research that various Redditors have done.) 2. Loyal fans who get fed up with it and decide not to buy the game are desperately searching for a reason to forgive EA so they can play their neato shooty game so they'll take any crumbs they are given.
Accordingly, I will guarantee this: They will "make changes" with a day 1 patch. That much is obvious, but specifically, the changes they make will be based around reducing the cost of heroes and loot boxes. Sounds good, right? Well, maybe. The actual reason why they're going to reduce it is because right now the complaints are that progression takes too long - specifically about 40 hours to unlock heroes. They will change it, negligibly, so that the story becomes "We fixed the 40 hour hero requirement!" Of course, the change will make it so that still takes about 37 hours (I'm obviously just making up a number here, but the point is that it's still an absurd requirement), but that will be lost in the news cycle of them "making changes."

And of course, inexplicably, forums will be filled with people who for whatever reason are desperate to point out that your outrage is outdated. You'll say "It takes too long to unlock heroes" and they'll pop up to tell you and everyone else that EA "made changes" to that. Complain about loot box percentages? They "made changes!" What changes? Who gives a ****. Changes!!!! Every complaint you have will be met with someone who wants to tell you that the reason you have for being upset is outdated.
This is a very common strategy used for scandals that are linked directly to financials - they will **** you a little less than you expected and hope that you don't do the math on just how much less it is. All the while they will take advantage of the PR resulting from the reduced ****ing.

Edit: To clarify, you shouldn't feel like EA is "ignoring" you. They aren't. It's actually worse than them ignoring you. They have people pouring over these forums (And twitter, more importantly) trying to get a general idea of the negative sentiment. They will then try to quantify that negative sentiment and add it to the previous years of focus testing and market research they've done. The previous focus tests told them the the most financially viable thing to do would be to make the game as it is now, and they will add the current negative sentiment to that formula and come up with something like "reduce microtransaction costs by 1.5%" (Rounded up to the nearest 5 or 9 or 10, again, based on what focus testing tells them is most pleasing to the customer. They also will likely increase progression rather than decrease microctransaction prices to avoid alienating people who bought the microtransactions at the original price - of course, increasing progression speed and decreasing the cost are exactly the same thing, financially.)

Last edit: So EA made some changes and decreased the time required for a hero unlock from (about) 40 to (about) 10-15 hours. This is a much bigger decrease than I expected, but please consult the first paragraph of this post: The nature of the progression system is still the same. If you're cool with that, enjoy your purchase/game as service.

[wisdommaster1]

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBat...tell_you_what/

.

what employee would write that unless he wanted to be fired.

[Daegus]

I'm surprised people are still surprised by the things EA will do to wring cash out of people with their mediocre games which haven't really changed or revolutionized gaming in anyway in 15 years or more. They have been saying for years, at least around the FPS marketed games, they would fix certain aspects and they still show up time after time. If you go into an EA game thinking you aren't getting a lack of content or being screwed, well, you must be new to online gaming.

[ralphlaurenbrah]

I would buy it except for the pay to win ****, so absolutely not ****ing buying it.

[eltwentyone]

[wisdommaster1]

in other news I was watching Shroud play and it's disgusting how much better he is than everyone

[Singularity7]

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBat...tell_you_what/

Copy paste from reddit:

I work in electronic media PR - I'll tell you what EA's PR strategy is regarding the "progression system." (self.StarWarsBattlefront)


Here is some information. Make whatever decisions you want with it.
EA spends tens of thousands of man-hours focus testing and doing market research on the optimum way to wring money out of your wallet. This means that one or two days (or weeks or months) of complaining will not get them to change their mind regarding the nature of the progression system. They will not truly "fix" it because they believe that it's working as intended and their accountants and marketing guys will tell them that it is. A certain amount of players are supposed to get sick of it and stop playing. That's built-in to the calculations, like when Wal-Mart assumes that there will be a certain amount of shoplifting.
That said, they understand that they have a cluster**** on their hands, so since they are not interested in fixing it, they are going to use a technique referred to as "making the outrage outdated." This was very clearly what they did with the beta. The beta had a great deal of backlash and instead of fixing anything, they "made changes." The effect of these changes were negligible but it didn't matter because all the articles written about the flaws of the beta and the complaints by users became outdated and replaced by articles and comments about how they were making "changes." This allows them to control the narrative of their product without actually losing any money or making significant changes. The fact that the changes didn't help and potentially made the game worse didn't matter.

(Ubisoft did this in a much more elegant way with Assassin's Creed: Origins by the way - they prevented you from buying loot boxes with real money, knowing there would be a backlash, instead allowing you to purchase the currency needed for loot boxes with real money. The ONLY things that accomplished was allowing them to do interviews saying that you couldn't buy loot boxes with real money during pre-release and make people who wanted to use real money for loot boxes have to click two extra buttons. They didn't have to make the outrage outdated because they controlled the narrative from the jump.)
The reason this works is two-fold: 1. Journalists who cover the initial outrage feel that, ethically, they have to post the follow up but probably aren't going to do the research to figure out if the changes are substantial or effective at fixing the actual issue. (Edit: I've started seeing articles pop up already about the "changes" and at best, all they do is parrot the good research that various Redditors have done.) 2. Loyal fans who get fed up with it and decide not to buy the game are desperately searching for a reason to forgive EA so they can play their neato shooty game so they'll take any crumbs they are given.
Accordingly, I will guarantee this: They will "make changes" with a day 1 patch. That much is obvious, but specifically, the changes they make will be based around reducing the cost of heroes and loot boxes. Sounds good, right? Well, maybe. The actual reason why they're going to reduce it is because right now the complaints are that progression takes too long - specifically about 40 hours to unlock heroes. They will change it, negligibly, so that the story becomes "We fixed the 40 hour hero requirement!" Of course, the change will make it so that still takes about 37 hours (I'm obviously just making up a number here, but the point is that it's still an absurd requirement), but that will be lost in the news cycle of them "making changes."

And of course, inexplicably, forums will be filled with people who for whatever reason are desperate to point out that your outrage is outdated. You'll say "It takes too long to unlock heroes" and they'll pop up to tell you and everyone else that EA "made changes" to that. Complain about loot box percentages? They "made changes!" What changes? Who gives a ****. Changes!!!! Every complaint you have will be met with someone who wants to tell you that the reason you have for being upset is outdated.
This is a very common strategy used for scandals that are linked directly to financials - they will **** you a little less than you expected and hope that you don't do the math on just how much less it is. All the while they will take advantage of the PR resulting from the reduced ****ing.

Edit: To clarify, you shouldn't feel like EA is "ignoring" you. They aren't. It's actually worse than them ignoring you. They have people pouring over these forums (And twitter, more importantly) trying to get a general idea of the negative sentiment. They will then try to quantify that negative sentiment and add it to the previous years of focus testing and market research they've done. The previous focus tests told them the the most financially viable thing to do would be to make the game as it is now, and they will add the current negative sentiment to that formula and come up with something like "reduce microtransaction costs by 1.5%" (Rounded up to the nearest 5 or 9 or 10, again, based on what focus testing tells them is most pleasing to the customer. They also will likely increase progression rather than decrease microctransaction prices to avoid alienating people who bought the microtransactions at the original price - of course, increasing progression speed and decreasing the cost are exactly the same thing, financially.)

Last edit: So EA made some changes and decreased the time required for a hero unlock from (about) 40 to (about) 10-15 hours. This is a much bigger decrease than I expected, but please consult the first paragraph of this post: The nature of the progression system is still the same. If you're cool with that, enjoy your purchase/game as service.

****. Interesting stuff about thee news cycle drowning out stuff.

[EmmaW4tson]

If you still buy this game and other EA games you are simply feeding the beast. Stop buying their ****.

[stasmtl]

in other news I was watching Shroud play and it's disgusting how much better he is than everyone

did you also happen to catch him spending 100$+ on loot crates?

[wisdommaster1]

did you also happen to catch him spending 100$+ on loot crates?

no but I wouldnt be surprised if he did, by him spending $100 to open crates it probably caused him to get >$100 in donations while opening those crates


Also saw another streamer finish the campaign on hardest difficulty in 5.5 hours, didnt watch any of it though so no idea how it was.

[nkiritsis13]

They can "slash" the prices all they want, but it fails to address the root of the problem:

500 Crystals for £3.99/$4.99
1000 for £7.99/$9.99
2100 for £15.99/$19.99
4400 for £31.99/$39.00
120,000 for £79.99/$99.99

I mean seriously?!? Is anyone falling for this bullsh*t, because $99 is more than an entire goddamn season pass and you don't even *get* anything because all you can do is piss that away on loot boxes.

snipped

As a fan of the original Battlefront series, it's pissening that EA has managed to defecate all over a series rife with potential, and equally grating is that this truly appears to be a case in which people would have actually bought the season pass for Battlefront 2! I agree with your point and guarantee that if EA made polled everyone who signed up for the beta and EA Origin Access Trial: Would you prefer the current model of loot boxes and in-game currency with free DLC or one-time-only paid DLC content, this whole debacle would suddenly have people voting for the latter in droves.

Even at $15 a map pack, it's a steal compared to paying $20 on a bunch of intergalactic poker chips.

When you buy a map pack, you paid for content that was made and not merely soft-locked out of the game you already paid for, like if you had to pay General Motors every time you wanted to use the AC past 40% for 10 minutes. Loot boxes take so little effort to produce that it's a

joke to these companies because they make hand over fist more from doing absolutely nothing extra instead of putting in additional time, resources, and energy towards legitimately new content:

Virtual goods vary from game to game. They can include anything from coins to weapons to trains to horse armor. The practice certainly isn't new to PC gamers or enthusiasts of mobile addictions like "Candy Crush Saga."

But for gamers who play on consoles like the Sony (SNE) PlayStation and Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox, the concept really only took off three or four years ago, spurring a massive growth-engine for publishers.

"The R&D costs are minimal; the economics on that sale are incredible," said [analyst] O'Shea.

Creating widgets out of pixels takes very little time. "Maybe for the developers it's like 30 minutes at lunch," he joked. But the profits are serious: Microtransaction margins can be a whopping 85%-90%.

Also for further clarification, while not necessarily deemed "whales," the larger sum of $100-type spenders are actually given their own totally endearing term: dolphins.


In the case of AAA, full priced games, the dolphin dilemma could actually be worse because in a free to play game, they're reliant upon the smallest percentile of payers to make those margins, whereas AAA titles essentially create a reverse foot-in-the-door situation:

• If a person is playing a freemium game that starts to get too tedious (grind) without paying real money, they can just quit, move on, and lose nothing.
  
• If a person already paid $60 for a game, suddenly it's a lot easier to tempt them into paying small increments to unlock parts of that $60 that are otherwise inaccessible without putting up with the same type of tedium because they have an upfront investment in the game already.

Equally disconcerting is that the chances of regulation are slim unless some "think of the children" campaign can get enough footing or something... or a meteorite containing an alien parasite that imbues common decency and integrity into its host and latches onto the executives of AAA gaming industries. Barring that miracle, any legal ramifications are unlikely because (1) Gambling regulators, and ignorant shills, will outright refuse to label loot crates as true gambling because of technicalities that narrowly skirt by, pretty much in the same way that Pachinko is legal in Japan despite gambling being prohibited, and...
(2)In-game "rating" bodies might as well have a big EA/Activision/Ubisoft/MS/Sony tramp stamp, so they will parrot what (1) says.

If we look at what constitutes as gambling and especially online gambling regulations, we can see the similarities becoming blurred to the point that failing to reconsider some sort of legal action is borderline complacency.

1) Consideration usually means players must pay something of value to be eligible to participate.

2) Prize includes not only money, but anything of value.

3) Chance means the outcome is not determined by skill.
- But Is It Gambling?
14 November 1999

Now, let's compare with

1)

Spoiler!

Consideration and Internet Gambling.
On-line casinos and sports books,
which are unquestionably gambling, operate on an account basis and therefore require
an initial “post-up” (transfer of funds to a customer’s secure on-line account)
by credit card, debit card, or wire transfer. Since these funds must be in place
before any bets can be taken, this constitutes consideration by any standard.
- Same article on online gambling regulations

Spoiler!

If there is an admission charge for the event then there is an element of consideration.
A “casino night” format in which no guest is required to part with anything of value to
participate in games of chance lacks the consideration element of the offense of
gambling. Therefore, if there is no admission charge for the event and all guests are
given gaming pieces (chips or gaming money) there is no consideration. - Elements of Gambling

TL;DR - If gambling chips are representative of cash and still eligible for being "consideration," then what about virtual currencies like Crystals in Star Wars Battlefront 2's case? How is this not using a farcical measure to bypass directly purchasing loot boxes? And in cases in which you can directly buy loot cases, look at how China has instituted regulations requiring companies like Blizzard and Valve to fully disclose drop rates, which brings us to...

2) Without a doubt, loot boxes are 100% chance. Just like a slot machine except if you get all cherries, you get a rare skin, Star Card, gun, or whatever a game uses.

3) The same reason kids can still yank their parents' arms until they pay exorbitant costs for fake Chuck-E-Cheese coins to play carnie games to win tickets that can be exchanged for prizes: You don't technically win money. But if anything, even Chuck-E-Cheese at least rewards tickets based on some skill; loot boxes are pure luck, being predicated on the exact same random number generators that slot machines and the like use.

That hasn't stopped parents for taking action against Chuck-E-Cheese, and the issue of gambling-lite environments have been raised in the past. Carrying a similar environment over to the digital front not only negates the overhead cost of, say, sh*tty pizza and creepy animatronics, but also allows accessibility to skyrocket, increasing exposure to potential fish.

But I digress, because, the mere fact that every outcome technically has a prize and because said prizes don't have a direct monetary value, they skate by on the "prize" requirement.

A final common comparison worth mentioning is randomly packaged playing cards, which are similar to loot boxes:
- Both involve (1) a buy-in of some form, (2) they are pure chance, and (3) they offer a variety of prize items that carry no tangible, real world value... except playing cards do actually carry real world value, but there is a reason that the official purveyors don't acknowledge those real world values dictated by rarity..

Similarly, what companies like EA don't want to admit is that by creating rarity, incentivizing certain outcomes for their specific bonuses, and connecting all of these to an RNG scale that makes them artificially lower on the probability charts, these digital items do have value, it's just lost amidst a murky system designed so that you cannot objectively say, "this loot crate item is worth $5, and this is worth $0.07!" That purposeful obfuscation is why these loot boxes are so insidious, and in a way more so than actual gambling because at least a casino is a pretty open and shut case of, "they're going to take your money," whereas loot boxes and these In-game currencies and resources distance themselves just enough so that the same exact triggers and mechanisms not only pass legal inspection, but crawl into the habits of a far broader, completely unregulated audience.

Now that is f**ked up when you really think about it, and I wouldn't be surprised if full fledged gambling outlets are behind cheap mobile games that also seem innocent, what with their flashing lights and cute cartoon characters. A responsible parent would never let their child play a slot machine, but, "aw look at the adorable cartoon frog..." is a slip in the door that also evades all gaming laws, fees, and licensing requirements. And unlike those pokemon cards, you cannot resell items from a loot box, nor can you buy the items that you specifically want directly, but you can frequently take duplicates and turn them into resources... to buy more loot boxes, creating a viscous circle.

Although I agree that these systems don't constitute as gambling in the strictest sense of the word, nor do I like unwarranted government intervention, this rapidly festering trend of loot boxes is beginning to open up the possible need for it because the law has to evolve with technology and trends. And I'm sure that government bodies would suddenly raise an eyebrow if they found out all of the money being missed out on through all of these loopholes. Video game companies already skip out on their fair share of taxes, and now their bottom line is booming with less of the effort. Forget the whole charade of video game costs rising; more of that is going to marketing instead of the developers working crunch times, so the "poor them" attitude needs to stop because they're fleecing customers and then selling them back cotton balls to stay warm.

The "For Dummies" takeaway here? The more convoluted and labyrinthine the series of in-game currencies, resources, and exchange rates, the more scrutinized that the in-game "economy" should be, and the more accountable it and the developers/publishers should be held. It's just too bad that the average "dummy" is so feeble-minded that we still have people defending the publishers over stagnant prices, acting eternally grateful for the "free" updates and support.

If people can genuinely hold out this one bloody time, it will be one small step for everyone who ever liked playing a video game for fun or wanted to play a Star Wars video game or simply did not want gambling invading their hobby.

[jason_bh]

Also of note if you guys are unaware, was that previously one of the community managers (a different guy from the above) was banned from Reddit because he was bribing the mods of the subreddit with trials for the early alpha of battlefront 1 so they'd delete all unwanted negativity from the game and spew only positive propaganda. He tweeted out yesterday that is was all bs (it wasn't, there is proof, also the old mods were all kicked off the subbreddit), then today he said "I didn't not bribe the reddit", which uh, a) means you did it and b) is pretty terrible english for a FUKING PR Manager.


Also, the EA Community Manager response on reddit is at 500,000 downvotes.

I remember on the EA Battlefront 1 forums, the vast majority of the 'negative' threads were mysteriously deleted. LOL @ EA trying to keep people from posting negative things about their games.

[yochrisss]

I was watching Mr Fruit play Heroes Vs Villians and the only person he could pick was Lando and he was completely getting rekt by Darth Maul and Kylo Ren it was so unbalanced

[stasmtl]

this just in, the game hit a new low, it turns out they have a cooldown on being able to EARN credits when playing arcade mode, it starts at 2-3 hours cooldown and grows to 24 hours if keep playing :



https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableTenderCrowLitFam


oh and to add insult to injury, they removed the "refund" button from the customer portal

[jason_bh]

this just in, the game hit a new low, it turns out they have a cooldown on being able to EARN credits when playing arcade mode, it starts at 2-3 hours cooldown and grows to 24 hours if keep playing :

[img]https://i.imgur.com/tcWWvKf.jpg[/im]

https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableTenderCrowLitFam

LOL. That's it for me.

[FrazettaSilke]

this just in, the game hit a new low, it turns out they have a cooldown on being able to EARN credits when playing arcade mode, it starts at 2-3 hours cooldown and grows to 24 hours if keep playing :

is it too late for you to get a refund?

[wisdommaster1]

this just in, the game hit a new low, it turns out they have a cooldown on being able to EARN credits when playing arcade mode, it starts at 2-3 hours cooldown and grows to 24 hours if keep playing :



[url]https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableTenderCrowLitFam

I'm not that surprised since thats basically a single player/custom type mode, lucky you get anything at all unlike most games

edit: assuming I am correct and this is not the normal multiplayer mode

[stasmtl]

is it too late for you to get a refund?

https://help.ea.com/en-sg/help/accou...cancellations/

[7rmr]

Lol at the responses in this thread. It doesn't matter if they reduce the cost of credits by 99%, the point is you can still pay to win.

There shouldn't be any microstransactions, period. Unlocking characters through play time, or even through random crates awarded for wins etc is fine. But once you buy the game you shouldn't keep getting nickled and dimed.

Definitely not buying this game unless they remove these purchases. Anyone who buys it is just ensuring that more and more games work in these BS transactions.