Devs promise to change Battlefront II until players are happy

Amid a still-roiling controversy over perceived "pay-to-win" microtransaction design in Star Wars: Battlefront II—which now includes an EA spokesperson post that became the most-downvoted comment in Reddit history—game developer DICE offered three high-ranking designers to participate in an Ask Me Anything Reddit community interview yesterday. The overarching message in most of their responses was summed up by a quote from multiplayer producer Paul Keslin: "We will be looking at data continually and make adjustments to make things as balanced as possible."

Executive Producer John Wasilczyk, for instance, said the developers are "constantly looking at the rate that players are unlocking Crates and Star Cards and will continue adjusting values to make sure that players are able to progress towards their goals without it feeling like a grind." And Design Director Dennis Brannvall added that "if it looks as though the crafting parts aren't being given out quickly enough, we'll look into changes to fix that."

"We'll continue to adapt as fast as possible to things we know aren't working well," Keslin said.

Already, EA and DICE have reduced the in-game cost of many unlockable characters and items by 75 percent, to reduce the time and money players need to expend. Going forward, Brannvall said he wants "players [to] have a clearer, more direct path to getting the stuff you want." The goal, he said, is that microtransactions should be "there for player choice, but won't be a requirement to play or succeed at the game."

Keslin said he now realizes that players would "prefer a system where playing a class or a character specifically will upgrade its level," rather than "offering cards across a wide range of classes."

Anything could change

Even without these changes, Brannvall said that the multiplayer matchmaking system should help flatten out some of the seeming advantages players can get by purchasing items rather than grinding for them. "We take into account not only your gameplay skills, but also inventory and time played, when we match players together in multiplayer," he said. "We're looking at results from millions of matches and will be continuously rebalancing items, unlocks, and matchmaking to create a fair, fun experience for all of our players."

While the trio of developers didn't have a timeline for any upcoming changes to the game, they left their options wide open on what additional changes might come in the future. "There's not much in the game that we wouldn't revisit to improve the game for as many players as possible," Wasilczyk said. "I take pride in that we as developers at DICE will rethink any mechanic or feature if our players do not enjoy them and work hard to quickly get a better version of it out to you," Brannvall added.

These kinds of statements stress a welcome openness among DICE to monitoring and updating the game to be enjoyable well after launch. But the statements are likely disappointing to fans who expect the multiplayer design to be carefully balanced and well-designed from day one. The apparent need for "continuous rebalancing" that could affect "any mechanic or feature" in the game is somewhat standard for online titles these days, but it also highlights how early Battlefront II players might expect an experience that still has some kinks to be worked out.

Brannvall in particular directly expressed disappointment over the initial response to the game, which has been dominated by furor over microtransactions since a trial version launched on EA Access last Wednesday (the full game releases Friday). "We were incredibly saddened by the negative response from you, the community on Reddit about the game," Brannvall said. "In-fact, we hated it, we truly did, because we want to make a game that you love. We've made a really cool, fun and beautiful game but it was overshadowed by issues with the progression system. We will fix this."

Keslin stressed that the team at DICE is committed to continued communication with players. "Jumping into this AMA is just one of the ways we want to start to repair the bridge to our players," he said. "We are committed to continuing this dialogue even if we need to face some harsh feedback."