Following the tidal wave of negative feedback EA and DICE received over the release of Star Wars: Battlefront II's progression and microtransaction systems, the publisher has started to walk back some of the progression sludge that it introduced in other games too. Take the case of Need for Speed: Payback, where it has now made it far easier and swifter to unlock content than was the case at launch.
The backlash over Battlefront II was impressive in its scale and was entirely warranted considering the gross attempt to drive free to play mechanics within a premium game. NFS: Packback wasn't quite as bad, but it was certainly something gamers complained about. Now things should be a little better.
Starting the next time you update the game, Payback will have an increased amount of REP currency you get for taking part in events, an increase in the amount of "Bank" awarded for taking part in events, and higher rewards from "Bait" crates.
Taking on challenges from Roaming Racers will also see increased Bank and REP, air suspension will now appear more frequently in shipments, and there's a slight increase to rewards for coming in first place, making it more worthwhile to "git gud" at the game.
"Today’s changes are just phase one and we have further tweaks coming," the community manager said on Reddit. "Coming shortly will be some changes to the way tune-up shops work, especially around the quality / level of parts they stock. More on that soon."
The response from fans has been generally responsive, with most reserving any criticism for EA, rather than the developer, Ghost Games. Most seem to think that without EA's heavy-handed influence, there wouldn't be any drip fed progression systems in the game at all.
Did any of you buy into Payback? If so, how bad was the progression system before this update?
