Oversimplifying (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, October 23, 2017, 06:51 (2592 days ago) @ Ragashingo

What is the state of Titanfall 2’s microtransactions these days? If I remember right, I could not pay real money to unlock things in the past. Is it different now? Personally, I vastly prefer Destiny 2’s system where the micro transactions are cosmetic only. My impression of Titanfall 2 was that it was Play To Win, where everyone else had awesome guns and scopes and player classes and auto turrets killing me from the rooftop. If you can now pay real money to get those things then how has it not moved straight on to Pay To Win?

All of Titanfall 2's microtransactions are cosmetics. You can buy weapon and armor skins, or unique models of Titans (they look different, but play identically to the standard Titans).

And there's no randomization involved. Want to buy a cosmetic item? You pay a set price for the exact item you want.

New cosmetics are released every month-2 months, along with new maps and game modes which are free for everyone.

I don’t want to hear an excuse of “oh the turret isn’t that great” or whatever. If I jumped back into Titanfall 2 today, I’d be stuck a long long way behind you in terms of what guns and abilities I had. Having to climb that latter while being killed because I don’t have those things, or going back to the old Halo 3 / Halo Reach system where a good bulk of the cosmetic items were vastly out of reach at astronomically high levels of hours played, to me, is far worse than Destiny 2’s little store that might give you an emote that will go away at the end of a season.

IMO, you're misrepresenting what actually happens in Titanfall 2. As you play, you unlock new equipment. But first of all, that new equipment is all unlocked very quickly. As you climb from Rank 1 all the way up to Rank 50 (which doesn't actually take very long at all... maybe a week if you play a little bit every day) you will unlock every weapon and gadget available in the game. These items are unlocked in a set, predictable order (no RNG). Plus, as you play, you earn credits. These credits are an in-game currency. You can use these credits to purchase unlocks of your choosing along the way. So if you see people using one of those turrets, and you want to try one for yourself, you can play 2 or 3 matches and earn enough credits to unlock the turret for yourself, rather than wait until you unlock it through the level climb. Also important to remember that these credits are totally detached from the real money microtransactions (you cannot buy these "credits" with real money, nor can you use real money to purchase the items that are unlocked via credits).

There's 1 other element you are not taking into account. All the gear that you unlock is equipped in place of something else... not in addition to your other gear. This is important because the gear you start with for your very first match is exactly as effective as the gear that you unlock through the normal play progression. So much so that I still use the default starting rifle as my primary weapon, even after all these months. So in order for someone to use that Sentry turret that you're complaining about (;p), they must give up something else that is equally effective. It's not like Destiny where the crucible was plagued by issues like "oh, the entire enemy team is using Thorn, and nobody on my team has got Thorn yet, so I guess we're just screwed".

Gameplay preferences aside, Titanfall 2 handles the entire progression and microtransaction economy so much better than Destiny or Destiny 2, it's not even close. That game should be held up as an example for the rest of the industry to follow, IMO.