A few weeks ago I had mentioned that I was planning to play 3 separate games with battle passes simultaneously. At the time it seemed like a daunting task that would basically suck up all my time and feel like a 'grind' to get through. What actually happened was that I finished all of them with over a month to spare (the duration of the seasons were 8-10 weeks). It required some level of... optimization... but it never felt like a bad grind because ultimately I enjoy playing the games themselves.
Some thoughts about the specific battle passes I completed follow here but it's not primarily what I wanted to talk about;
Call of Duty
This one took about 55-60 hours to complete, which was by far the longest one. What's interesting is that this is the only battle pass where progress is entirely dependent on time played. It does not matter how well you play and it does not have daily/weekly quests to increase engagement. In theory you can finish it in a week if you somehow manage to play 8 hours a day. People also figured out that you get progress by just going AFK in some game modes and it's what many people did to complete it. This is one of those games where you can pay once for a battle pass and if you complete it you will get enough currency to buy the subsequent one and so on.
Overwatch 2
This one took about 29 hours to complete. Progress in this one is almost entirely dependent on completing daily and weekly quests, which means they want you to play the game frequently. The quests themselves aren't hard and don't ask anything specific from you that you wouldn't normally do while playing the game, but, in a multiplayer PVP environment there is no way to control outcomes. So for example, a weekly quest requires you to win 15 matches in a week but depending on your luck that could take anything between 20 and 60 games played. Triple the amount of time because you had a run of bad luck. Still, it's not too hard to complete and Blizzard had a couple of events which really boosted battle pass progression if you happened to play them.
Naraka Bladepoint
This one took roughly 25 hours to complete. Out of all the games, this is the one that really emphasizes engagement and FOMO with constant events happening all the time. They basically want you to play nearly every day, but, it also allows for the most flexibility while completing the battle pass. It's a battle royale game where, again, there is a high amount of variance in outcomes but they also allow you to complete quests while playing against bots. This makes it really easy to stack up objectives and get through them faster than you normally would. Also a game where you can buy the battle pass once and it gives you back enough currency to buy the subsequent one.
What I wanted to ask is what folks think of battle passes in general.
I know many people just playing single player games and are indifferent towards them and others just despise the very idea of them. If you do play multiplayer games, do you engage with the battle passes? If you dislike them, is there any way they can be designed in which you would find them acceptable? Many people say that they are designed to exploit FOMO and keep people engaged with a game, and that's true, but I also think that the main reason they exist are because they are quite possibly the only way to get some people to pay anything at all for games they play. Many free games sell cosmetics for $10-30 or even (much!) more. In contrast to that, I think people find that paying $10 for a hundred different things to be more palatable, even if most of those 'things' have no inherent value (no cosmetics do tbh). Another phenomenon I've witnessed in recent years is that many people refuse to play a game if they don't have a sense of 'progression' while playing it. Meaning they always want to be leveling up or unlocking something or the other to feel like their time spent was 'worth it'. Playing just for the sake of having fun is not enough for those folks. Battle passes give that sense of progression.
Personally, I (clearly) don't mind games with battle passes. They're always entirely cosmetic and you can still have fun with the game without engaging with the whole system. But I know others feel differently. Would like to hear some thoughts from people here.
The reason I bring this up now is because Diablo 4 is going to have battle passes as well. I personally know people who are now reluctant to buy the game because of this, even though they enjoyed the beta last week. I find that interesting. I don't think it'll harm the sales of the game though.
Some thoughts about the specific battle passes I completed follow here but it's not primarily what I wanted to talk about;
Call of Duty
This one took about 55-60 hours to complete, which was by far the longest one. What's interesting is that this is the only battle pass where progress is entirely dependent on time played. It does not matter how well you play and it does not have daily/weekly quests to increase engagement. In theory you can finish it in a week if you somehow manage to play 8 hours a day. People also figured out that you get progress by just going AFK in some game modes and it's what many people did to complete it. This is one of those games where you can pay once for a battle pass and if you complete it you will get enough currency to buy the subsequent one and so on.
Overwatch 2
This one took about 29 hours to complete. Progress in this one is almost entirely dependent on completing daily and weekly quests, which means they want you to play the game frequently. The quests themselves aren't hard and don't ask anything specific from you that you wouldn't normally do while playing the game, but, in a multiplayer PVP environment there is no way to control outcomes. So for example, a weekly quest requires you to win 15 matches in a week but depending on your luck that could take anything between 20 and 60 games played. Triple the amount of time because you had a run of bad luck. Still, it's not too hard to complete and Blizzard had a couple of events which really boosted battle pass progression if you happened to play them.
Naraka Bladepoint
This one took roughly 25 hours to complete. Out of all the games, this is the one that really emphasizes engagement and FOMO with constant events happening all the time. They basically want you to play nearly every day, but, it also allows for the most flexibility while completing the battle pass. It's a battle royale game where, again, there is a high amount of variance in outcomes but they also allow you to complete quests while playing against bots. This makes it really easy to stack up objectives and get through them faster than you normally would. Also a game where you can buy the battle pass once and it gives you back enough currency to buy the subsequent one.
What I wanted to ask is what folks think of battle passes in general.
I know many people just playing single player games and are indifferent towards them and others just despise the very idea of them. If you do play multiplayer games, do you engage with the battle passes? If you dislike them, is there any way they can be designed in which you would find them acceptable? Many people say that they are designed to exploit FOMO and keep people engaged with a game, and that's true, but I also think that the main reason they exist are because they are quite possibly the only way to get some people to pay anything at all for games they play. Many free games sell cosmetics for $10-30 or even (much!) more. In contrast to that, I think people find that paying $10 for a hundred different things to be more palatable, even if most of those 'things' have no inherent value (no cosmetics do tbh). Another phenomenon I've witnessed in recent years is that many people refuse to play a game if they don't have a sense of 'progression' while playing it. Meaning they always want to be leveling up or unlocking something or the other to feel like their time spent was 'worth it'. Playing just for the sake of having fun is not enough for those folks. Battle passes give that sense of progression.
Personally, I (clearly) don't mind games with battle passes. They're always entirely cosmetic and you can still have fun with the game without engaging with the whole system. But I know others feel differently. Would like to hear some thoughts from people here.
The reason I bring this up now is because Diablo 4 is going to have battle passes as well. I personally know people who are now reluctant to buy the game because of this, even though they enjoyed the beta last week. I find that interesting. I don't think it'll harm the sales of the game though.
