Battlefield P4F

[Tams80]

Recent changes to Battlefield Play4Free have left paying players rather irate.

For those of you who have not heard of Battlefield Play4Free, it is essentially a simplified Battlefield 2 that can be played for free. There is also a store where weapons, boosters and equipment can be bought for a mixture of ingame credits or bought ingame currency.

On the 1st of December attachments were added to the game, with the removal of the better paid for weapons. For players who had bought permanent weapons, this change meant they got attachments to make up for the loss of their old weapons. It was soon found that these 'legacy' attachments were too powerful and made the game more unbalanced (the game was already unbalanced by its nature). Therefore as of the 20th December, these 'legacy' attachments have been removed and replaced with weapons with +3 damage.

"What is the problem?" with that you may ask. "You still get a better weapon." Yes, we do. But there is more to virtual weapon than just damage. This nerf affected magazine capacity, deviation and range as well. These were not compensated for and are most certainly not made up for by about +1 damage (the old weapons did more damage anyway). The players who therefore permanently bought weapons no longer have what they bought.

Now, in the terms of service, EA hold the right to do this:

15. Updates to EA Services

IMPORTANT: EA MAY FIND IT NECESSARY TO UPDATE, OR RESET CERTAIN PARAMETERS TO BALANCE GAME PLAY AND USAGE OF EA SERVICES. THESE UPDATES OR "RESETS" MAY CAUSE YOU SETBACKS WITHIN THE RELEVANT GAME WORLD AND MAY AFFECT CHARACTERS, GAMES, GROUPS OR OTHER ENTITLEMENTS UNDER YOUR CONTROL. EA RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE THESE UPDATES AND IS NOT LIABLE TO YOU FOR THESE CHANGES.

Sorry for the caps, they are not mine. Therefore legally (if a ToS counts) there is no recourse. It is however extremely bad customer service and morally does not seem, to me at least to be the right thing to do.

So, what does this forum think of such actions? EA doesn't necessarily have the best reputation and this isn't doing anything good for the free to play market reputation wise.

This thread is not for those who think "well that's what you get for playing an Easy/EA game", "well you shouldn't have bought something in a free game" o"haha, go play Battlefield 3. Why are you playing this game?!". That we played and bought virtual items in the game was our own choice and your opinions on if to do so was right or wrong are neither on topic nor wanted.

Can I just make it clear this is not a 'spread the word' thread. Yes I do play the game, have bought weapons and am annoyed, but that is not the reason for this thread.

[Nalano]

Recent changes to Battlefield Play4Free have left paying players rather irate.

I lol'd.

/10char

[soldant]

Developer balances game, people yell and scream?

It is indeed very strange times we live in.

[Megagun]

Developer balances game, people yell and scream?

It is indeed very strange times we live in.

Well, to be fair, these people did buy an advantage in the game, only to see their advantage getting nerfed later on. It's kind of funny, actually. It sucks for them, but it's still funny in so many different ways.

Also funny that some people used to ask for the IRNV and F2000 to be nerfed in Battlefield 3. Now that they're nerfed, people (I presume different ones) complain about the nerfing. I am now waiting for a buff of the IRNV and the F2000, so that we can start asking for some nerfing again.

[Tams80]

*sigh* I knew this was coming, I even addressed it at the end. Ah well, moving on.

[Megagun]

Next time, state the purpose of your thread clearly, or ask some kind of question that people who reply can answer. The only two real responses I could give to your original post were "cool story, bro" and "sucks for you, dude", neither of which were really interesting enough to post. Threads without any real reason to exist other than to 'spread the word' tend to quickly derail into attempts at humour.

Actually, it's probably best to always ask some kind of question in an original post, if only to keep the attempts at humour away for just a few posts until someone makes some stupid attempt which someone else then uses for attempts at humour. Especially with folks like Nalano around. His signature even states "Attorney at Lawl", and contains a quote from Wizardry! Obvious proof that we've got a funny badass over here! :P

[Tams80]

I'm certainly aware of the humour around here and knew who would be paying a visit. That doesn't take away my entitlement to be slightly annoyed.

I'd have though this community would have been able to see this as an impetus for discussion. I tried to write (type) it so that it gave what information I have to get a discussion started. I certainly did not write it to 'spread the word'; I generally don't even like those threads.

Anyway; question added. I think it makes the thread look condescending and stupid, but it's there non the less.

[soldant]

Megagun has successfully guilt-tripped me into contributing something worthwhile, so here goes:

At its heart, this is a game. I can fully understand that you paid for a weapon and it subsequently got nerfed, but it was clearly done in the interests of improving balance. Nowhere did it state you had the explicit right to always get exactly what you paid for (as the terms of service you quoted state) and that it was subject to rebalancing if required. And apparently it was required. The people who aren't paying are still players too, and ensuring they get killed every few seconds because they didn't pay for new weapons is a good way to get people to go "Screw it, I'm going to go back to (whatever)".

Your weapon still has an advantage. Arguably this move does do good for the F2P market because it shows that people who are playing for free are still part of the considerations for balancing. I'm sure as hell not going to play the game if I absolutely must invest in lots of new weapons just to be able to play effectively. Hell Battlefield 3 and the vehicle unlocks are already a pain in the backside for that (Air Radar in jets is a massive advantage, and flying anything without IR Flares unlocked is suicide).

[Nalano]

Anyway; question added.

So, what does this forum think of such actions?

Good on EA.

Play4Free has been dubbed Pay2Win many a time, and I'm glad to see EA actually doing something to counteract that notion.