Paladins developer Hi-Rez Studios recently announced an updated progression system for its free-to-play hero shooter, and many players are angry over its apparent similarities to Star Wars Battlefront 2’s Star Card system, arguing it is pay-to-win.

Previously, stat-boosting cards needed to be unlocked either through randomized loot boxes called chests or by crafting specific ones. Under the reworked system, dubbed Cards Unbound, all cards are available to all players, but have also been split into levels ranging from one to five, with higher-level cards offering better bonuses.

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Watch the official dev update above for a full breakdown of Cards Unbound.

To upgrade a card, players must collect a set number of duplicates of it. However, the currency previously used to craft specific cards has been removed, so the only way to obtain duplicates is opening chests purchased with gold or crystals, respectively Paladins' in-game and real-money currencies - though real-money purchases have been temporarily turned off while the new system is balanced.

Many players argue that this system not only makes earning powerful cards considerably more time-consuming, it also strongly incentivizes spending real money to speed up progress. Others are complaining that progression is now too random, as they can no longer directly craft cards to upgrade the heroes they want to play.

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To accommodate this new system, Paladins' competitive and quickplay modes have also received radical changes.

“ Players with level 5 cards have a considerable advantage over those who don't.

Instead of the existing competitive loadout system, in which players divided power points between the cards in their decks, all cards are now normalized to level three. Many suggest that while this evens the competitive playing field for new players, it also limits high-level strategies.

Casual mode, meanwhile, has been replaced by a quickplay mode which does not normalize card levels, meaning players with level five cards have a considerable advantage against players with low-level cards.

Comparisons to Star Wars Battlefront 2 are unsurprising. In fact, it seems Hi-Rez expected them as well: in the full Cards Unbound patch notes, the studio described the update as "a major change that may be controversial, particularly given some recent questionable moves by full-price games."

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Nevertheless, Hi-Rez insists the new system makes Paladins "even more free to play" and "more balanced and competitive than ever before."

We reached out to the studio for comment following community backlash and received the following statement:



The Cards Unbound system has been released to our Public Test Server, with no microtransactions allowed, so we can work with the community to refine it before it goes live As we continue to develop this system, we do so with three key goals in mind: 1. Creating the ultimate Competitive mode that is 100% fair and 100% free. No matter how much time or money is spent, everyone will be on equal footing. 2. Enhancing our Casual mode to be less restrictive and more over-the-top to serve our many players who have asked for a fun-first experience. 3. Ensuring the free-to-play experience is excellent. We recognize that 90% of our players will never spend money with us and those players are the lifeblood of our multiplayer game We plan to update and adjust the PTS version approximately every two days, with changes driven by community feedback and surveys. What is being played on PTS is very much a work in progress, and we will iterate on the Cards Unbound system until we meet the goals above.

Austin Wood is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter here.