Intro to Battle passes
For the past couple of years battle passes have been appearing a lot more often, mainly with the latest mainstream games. This is especially the case with the free to play games out right now, implementing battle passes that offer different in game items to bring in revenue. However, due to the growing popularity recently most developers have abused this battle pass system.
Now this doesn’t mean the battle pass is a bad system, like many things it can be done both right and wrong depending on who is behind it. Neither one is a complete replacement for the old DLC format, since you can still see them around today. If anything this new way of monetization can be a great alternative if done correctly.
However, the most common way these systems always go wrong is, when a gaming developer puts up a half-baked battle pass that offers little to no value for gamers. These types are mostly found in mobile games that take advantage of their younger audiences, though it isn’t uncommon to find a triple A game with a bad tier system either. In fact, as of recently some triple A games have received the most hate over their battle passes (Overwatch 2, Halo Infinite and Call of Duty).
The Issues Plaguing these Tier Systems
The first issue to tackle is the time of progression through each tier, while it mostly comes down to your situation, whether gaming is your job or just something you spend most of your day on, you may have a better chance knocking these battle passes out. However, depending how grueling the grind through the tiers is, it may still affect how long you play. Usually playing with friends can help through the long hours, though ultimately a game that can provide different ways to progress is always best.
As for the content offered in these battle passes, they all seem to vary differently depending on the game. However, they all usually promote a cosmetics only system free of pay 2 win mechanics. Sadly this is mostly a front for some of these games, with many putting game changing items deep in the tier system in order to push gamers to buy the pass instead of grinding all the way through.
For example, Overwatch has made each of their new heroes exclusive to its battle pass as well as with call of duty’s pass including a few guns each season only accessible through grinding its tiers. These type of exclusives are game changers, which can be considered pay 2 win by encouraging its players to purchase the pass and tiers to get the latest items before anyone else. Overall, battle passes providing exclusive cosmetic content isn’t the main issue at hand, its the content that gives players certain advantages over others that makes it wrong.
The Best way to do Battle Passes
Some of the best battle passes we’ve had are in Warframe and Fortnite, they each provide great value for its players and a fair system for all. While fortnite does still have the ability to pay through tiers, it does offer enough currency to buy the pass and more by just grinding without spending a penny.
Warframe on the other hand offers no option to buy tiers, with instead having these acts challenges to help progress through. The acts include daily, weekly and elite weekly challenges that rewards players with standings which are used to level up in ranks. Each rank grants unique rewards, which get rarer the higher the rank as well as creds which can be used to buy cred offerings or sold for credits once the series it belongs to ends.
Warframe’s battle pass covers about every point that makes one so enjoyable and worth buying today. Now that doesn’t mean every developer needs to make an exact copy of it, but by at least implementing some of these features it can really go a long way for its community of players. While $10-$15 may not seem like much to spend, it’s the fact that some of these companies only care to exploit their fan bases with this growing monetization system. By at least knowing what to look out for in these battle passes, you may save yourself some money next time around.