We just finished up a Battlefest Double XP weekend, and that gave many players a chance to rank up and purchase unlocks for the game. This gives us a fair measure of just how long it will take to unlock the key items in the game, and also how well the game will play when players aren’t going for new achievements nearly as much.
If I Had A Million Dollars…
Actually, I made more than that over the weekend of March 26-28, but I spent enough that I didn’t quite hit the Cash Hoarder amount in the bank. I will get there soon enough. In part, that is because with all weapons and gadgets purchased, and the most useful vehicle upgrades as yet unlocked, I don’t have much that I need to spend on. I can wait to pay for more colorful customization options, though I have obtained some good vouchers.
The 10 Million level will just take more time, but if a weekend was enough to make one million (even with double XP on), I don’t think it will take a terribly long time to reach that either. The challenge isn’t getting the money, it is getting it fast and perhaps, doing so while playing game modes which don’t pay as well as others.
Hacker Is Golden
The Hotwire mode is a solid winner for money earned for time spent. Just get in an objective “hot” car and keep it alive. You won’t do bad taking them out, but it is being in the cars which gives the biggest payoff. But to my surprise, I made as much playing the Hacker once I got my Hacker level into the gold stars. Once you unlock everything, the Hacker is about three times as effective as at the start, and will be constantly putting out actions which earn points (and help the team).
And by constant, I mean that. There is something always coming off cooldown for you to use, along with giving new “Point of Interest” orders to the team. It can get hectic keeping up with all you can do. I ended up doing some actions almost by reflex, simply because I’d be wasting time deciding where to hit next, when I could just hit one spot and soon enough be able to do it again.
Money Balance
The game modes don’t pay evenly for the time spent. That could be fixed up, making the bonuses for game modes which pay poorly higher. But as money isn’t enough to unlock everything, it isn’t the only goal of play. Still, it would make the game a bit more interesting if each mode was worth about the same in terms of XP gains.
A Level Playing Field
Weapons will be patched and tweaked, and that will be nice, as it is hard to feel comfortable being “handicapped” by an inferior weapon when you don’t have another option. But because most weapons will be quickly unlocked for all players, that isn’t going to ruin the effective game balance. Everyone can choose their favorite “best” weapon, and be roughly even with everyone else.
The Syndicate Assignment weapons are a special case. They are not unlocked with mere money, and take some work to get. Overall, other than the .300 Knockout, they don’t seem to be rated highly above the other weapons in the game.
Team Death Match has an issue with spawn locations leading to quick death. But on the flip side, you can get easy kills on players that spawn, so it evens out. I’m sure the spawn locations can and will be made better, but you can’t say that the current system is unfair. It reminds me a bit of playing game modes with too many players for the map — which may be the case here, the maps are small for 64 players — where even with smart spawn locations, there is no real safe point. A squad can use a Satellite Radio to gain some control.
Farming And Grinding
For a while, we can expect that some players will be working hard to gain money to unlock items, and trying to score kills and other actions needed for assignments. The money comes pretty fast, and based on my limited play time I don’t think even very casual players will have a hard time getting enough to unlock all the basic items.
Team Death Match is great for ranking up weapons and getting the Coins needed for many assignments. It can actually be fun to play if you don’t mind the chaos that so many players and not enough safe spawn locations create.
Hotwire is likely to remain the best cash maker, and also a good way to rank up the classes because you get to use your class while in or operating a vehicle. I find the Stunt Driver gadget most useful to get points quickly, but being a passenger also pays well.
Having Fun
Do the unlocks and achievements really matter? I mean, compared to the actual game play?
The chase to rank up and unlock items can be entertaining, and there is a certain satisfaction in achieving awards in a game. Especially those assignments which are hard to pull off. But if the game play isn’t fun in itself, the actions needed to accomplish that can seem like work. As in, boring, only worth doing because of the payoff.
Getting past the early unlocks makes the game play much more of a factor in my enjoyment of all game modes. I like trying them all, and so far have yet to be bored with the game play itself. Too much of one map and game mode can be a bit much to take, but as long as there are other good options in the game, I’m fine with switching to those.
The game has some hard achievements to do, but you can play normally while getting them, rather than sticking only with the one best method to get them. That is a good thing, and gives hope that this game will have longevity.
The DLC sets adding more maps tailored to specific game modes, and perhaps more fun things to use, should enhance that. As the game is now, there is enough stuff to do to keep us busy and have fun doing it.
