Battle passes are fine when done right. Deep Rock Galactic, for example, adds all the cosmetics from the pass into the random loot pool after the season ends.
Most battle passes fucking suck though. Like in overwatch where you pay for the privilege of unlocking things through dozens of hours of gameplay.
Ye, ghostship gaming has nailed it. Some items even go into the store and can be bought with earned currency.
The game is so good that I’m serious considering buying some dlc to support them.
I see where you’re coming from, but if the game is designed in a way where it feels like it’s trying to convince me that playing the game for a larger amount of time is worth a reward and not rewarding in its own right then something is definitely off
So you’re against unlocking things through play? Stay away from the rouge-like genre then, you would hate it.
Just about any game that is designed to be played more than once (i.e. not story games like the Witcher) will have some sort of in-game rewards to keep it fresh. Like the Binding of Isaac where you have over a thousand different items to unlock through gameplay. But live service games need a way to keep their game fresh for even longer than most. Themed unlockable cosmetics are a great way to do it. As long as they’re not capitalizing on FOMO, I do not see any problem with it.
I’m not against unlocking things through play, I’m against unlocking things through play-time and that includes “experience points.” Cool stuff should be unlocked in the game, not once the game determines you have played it long enough to have earned something.
For example, unlocking new weapons in Dead Cells because you found them, even if by random chance, is better than unlocking new skins in DOOM Eternal because you played (not won or lost, just played) the same level enough times over to have “earned” them. Wasting time is not an accomplishment.
Yes, unlocks by random chance also technically could be considered unlocks by sufficient play-time, but I’d consider that different because you should be able to accept that you will never unlock certain items.
