To those responsible at Electronic Arts:

First of all, I enjoyed the recent Multiplayer Beta for the upcoming game Star Wars Battlefront 2 and I think a lot of passionate Star Wars fans can agree on that. Therefore it's a great shame so see EA / Dice spoil a potentially awsome game through the implementation of a greedy and consumer-unfriendly loot crate system which resembles the business model of free to play online games while being a full price title. The following are the major points of criticism:

- The star cards obtained from the crates grant meaningful gameplay advantages (like defensive / offensive upgrades for starships to make them more durable / deal more damage) and are divided into different grades of impact which means that players buying crates with real-world money are going to have gameplay advantages until other players have the opportunity to catch up / unlock the top-tier cards by earning the ingame currency (which takes far too long in the beta)

- The whole progression system is locked behind loot crates with completely random content and players will be forced to buy crates until the point when they finally draw the desired star card - frustration caused by random low-tier card drops will urge players to spend additional money

- The player has no control of his personal progression (apart from the crafting which doesn't help right now)

- The "crafting" system is close to a fraud the way it is designed right now: It's way too hard to earn enough scrap to craft a desired (non-random) weapon and the scrap drops of 10 / 20 from loot crates are laughable considering the weapon price of 600

Overall, the system implemented by EA elevates loot crate microtranactions in full price games to a new level - in a negative way. Players should not accept this and demand a fair, rewarding progression system which rewards us for levelling up in an appropriate way - the player must be able to earn ingame currency and actually buy the desired (non-random) weapons, weapon attachments or star cards with it. Loot crates should contain cosmetic items or experience / currency boosts to level up / earn ingame currency faster.

I want to encourage EA to consider a more consumer-friendly approach and not continue the trend of loot crate microtransactions in full price games. The present sysem will continue to cause backlash within the playerbase. The upcoming, free DLC content is appriciated - but it's a bad deal for players if game balance and a proper progession system (very important for any multiplayer) are sacrificed. The heated discussions on the Battlefront subreddit are proof of that. It's now EA's turn to issue a statement on the topic and not simply ignore the concerns of players.