
EA now has the most downvoted comment of Reddit history - Wimpzilla
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/
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mijoharas
In response to:

    
    
      Seriously? I paid 80$ to have Vader locked?
    

The comment is:

> The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment
> for unlocking different heroes.

> As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta
> and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other
> things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily
> basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have
> challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via
> gameplay.

> We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put
> forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across
> numerous social media outlets.

> Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and
> update everyone as soon and as often as we can.

------
falcolas
There was another post which “did the math” a few days ago: unlocking a hero
would take around 40 hours of play, modulo a few challenges and other
purchases. There was concern about loot boxes and micro transactions affecting
gameplay; I feel it’s safe to say those concerns were justified.

~~~
Bartweiss
Just ran some very approximate numbers for League of Legends. That's also ~40
hours of play to unlock one new hero, except League gives large bonuses for
the first win of the day and lowers prices for old characters as new ones are
released. And offers a rotating lineup of free characters to try them out. And
frequent missions that speed things up.

So... this $80 game is slightly less accessible than a free game where "access
to all characters" was never part of the expectation. That's rough.

~~~
SurrealSoul
To make an even harsher comparison, Dota 2 is free, all characters and
gamemodes, sans cosmetics.

Since Disney / Starwars is probably in control of cosmetics (No green
lightsaber for Vader allowed) the only way for these microtransactions is via
these unlocks.

They bundled up the microtransactions / unlocks and built a game around it

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rocky1138
Slightly off topic but I swore off EA games in the mid-2000s due to customer
hostile behaviour. A few years later it was Rockstar due to GTA4 DRM.

It's been really difficult not playing some of the big games, especially GTA5,
but I just don't need that kind of stress in my life. Games are supposed to be
fun.

~~~
dkersten
Agreed. Sadly, the big-name publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Zenimax) are
all pretty hostile and they've bought the majority of studios, so its
_reeeeeally_ hard to avoid them. I try, but sometimes I fail. Sometimes I
don't even realise I failed until later. I did buy exclusively indie games for
a while, though.

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Wimpzilla
Here you have the direct link to the post with Downvotes counters:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b...](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/)

207K when writing this! What a day to be alive!

~~~
Tomis02
It couldn't matter less, people will still buy the game (and other EA
products).

~~~
Wimpzilla
Yes! Here another interesting post:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cji8a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cji8a/i_work_in_electronic_media_pr_ill_tell_you_what/)

~~~
mikeash
> To clarify, you shouldn't feel like EA is "ignoring" you. They aren't. It's
> actually worse than them ignoring you.

Impressive. The whole thing is worth reading!

------
brudgers
I am reminded of _I don 't care what the newspapers say about me as long as
they spell my name right._

[https://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/3eras1x.html](https://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/3eras1x.html)

------
Wimpzilla
Seems Reddit is taking measures about?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7cddyo/whats_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7cddyo/whats_going_on_with_ea_and_star_wars_battlefront/dpr49tw/)

~~~
stronglikedan
I went straight to _the_ comment without seeing this one. It seems that they
are threatening to ban people for brigading, even though they may never see
the warning, and even if they are truly voting accordingly because they agree
or disagree with it. That's a bit messed up to me, especially considering they
can just lock it. Although, I suppose a reddit ban wouldn't be the worst thing
for productivity.

~~~
Wimpzilla
Understood, thanks you for the clarifications. I'm not a Reddit user.

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fellellor
How does the account have positive karma at this point?

~~~
colanderman
It's been years since I've been active on Reddit, but I believe that, unlike
HN, comment scores don't affect karma, only submissions.

~~~
amyjess
Comment scores do affect karma, but the amount is softcapped. The more
downvotes you get, the less each individual downvote counts towards your
karma. It doesn't kick in until you're past a handful of downvotes, so a score
of -5 will still drop your karma by 5, but a score of -50 won't drop your
karma by the full 50.

If a comment is controversial (i.e. it gets both a lot of upvotes and a lot of
downvotes) but still negative (e.g. you got 300 downvotes and 200 upvotes),
you can even end up gaining karma overall because upvotes aren't softcapped
the same way.

