I don’t think Battleborn needs to become F2P at all. I think the pricing model is fine as is. On the other hand a free weekend here or there will help with sales. I’d love to have a demo version of the game and/or a tutorial for the game but I think they need to focus their attention on other things. Diverting resources away from those things would be unwise at this juncture. On the other hand a free weekend here and there will give people a chance to try out the game and see for themselves what it is all about and will probably be the best way to market the game at this time as it’s really hard to get across what kind of game this is. No form of advertising will be able to explain it.
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No - it was 9 million that played the Overwatch beta - it was 2 million that played the battleborn beta. So 60million ps4’s and xboxes are in peoples homes and 2 million of them have so far tried the beta. Seems like a lot of potential customers still out there.
I’m curious on the communities thoughts about this idea of freetoplay BB. I spent 60 bucks on the game and still wouldn’t mind in the least if the game became a freetoplay. It sorely needs higher player pop and, in my opinion, deserves to be played and enjoyed by all the people who’ve had it slip under their radar.
What are your thoughts?
Have to actually fix the game, before you can think about recovering the lost player base.
I’m hoping they release another battleinfo update to inform us all of what they’ve been working on and stuff soon to come. But, what do you think about it being freetoplay?
Topic and its posts have been merged into this one.
No problem, thanks 
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If it really becomes F2P they most likely will lose me as a player of this game.
On the other hand, I don’t think 2K will allow it to become F2P.
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Do you not feel that the player base will dwindle drastically over the next year? It would seem by your response that you feel more players would actually ruin your experience. Could you please explain?
I’d support it, but I’d really want them to limit the f2p content to encourage players to buy the game while still giving them an adequit ammount of content to get a feel for the game. Here’s what I’m thinking:
•1st story mission only (+ Prologue)
•All pvp maps available (obviously)
•3 characters (Oscar, Montana, Miko)
•No character/command rank level ups
•Visual command rank is replaced with a “F2P” or “0”
•NO GEAR
•NO SKINS
Side note about why I picked those characters:
Those characters are part of the original 5. They give you a small taste of everything - damage dealer, tank, support.
I would even support something like this being released on the consoles.
-edit-
It’s been pointed out to me that f2p players would need all 5 starter characters so that there’s never a situation where they have no character to select… I’m just dumb and didn’t think about that lol.
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Maybe instead of it being free to play they can give everyone who purchases a season pass a download code for the standard version of Battleborn to give to a friend. Anything to get more people playing.
Some other ideas (already mentioned above)
- Release a free single player demo version of BB so people can test out at least the first few characters.
- Free to play week / weekends.
I agree completely. I definitely think it could be a powerful motivator in the way of marketing.
You cannot limit them to only 3 characters because if those 3 are picked then they have nothing else. Would have to be 5 minimum free. Gear is fine but should be limited to white/green. Command rank is w/e it doesn’t give you any benefits anyway except for buying higher level packs, which they would be limited to white/green. Skins are fine as long as they are default level skins, no gained pack skins.
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We’ll see, tomorrow would be the day for such a thing to happen, but I’m a bit pessimistic.
I agree that this project should be f2p to enlarge playerbase.
But, to force people stay in this game, base game content should be available even for f2p users.
I would make these changes for f2p:
- Cancel all “season pass”, so free players couldn’t just pay 10$ to unlock all characters.
- Only 1 item build, without option to buy more.
- Only 10 item slots, without option to buy more.
- F2P account gets 50% of experience gain rate and credits
- Heroes can’t be unlocked by getting levels (for paid accounts too)
- Any Hero can be bought for credits or for real money.
- F2P accounts can’t unlock a hero only completing some PVE or PVP quests.
- F2P accounts can choose neither different textures (“skins”), nor emotes, even if they get them.
- Loot packs can be bought for real money or for credits.
- Any “skin” and any emote can be bought for real money or gained from loot packs.
- Characters need custom models (not only different colors, but remodel including visual effects) - in many f2p projects, lots of people pay for customisation.
In other words, BB needs in-game store for in-game currency and real money.
I strongly disagree about “free account for testing”. Why? Because there will be lots of people that will want to try game, but will not pay anything. Probably they will want to buy some specific characters. May even for real money. May be they will also want to buy a custom model and emote for this character. But they won’t buy the whole game. So, 2K should give them an opportunity to pay less and only for content they want to buy.
Without this “micro-transaction” monetization model, there will be a bunch of “newbie” players that will definetely ruin most matches. Most of them, after being wrecked, will just uninstall.
In other words about the “trial” mode. I think you are just greedy. You (me, too) paid for a game. Now you want to get more players AND force them pay. But, as usual in our life, we have to choose.
If i would try this “trial” mode (only 3 characters, no content, no pve, no gear, no character levels), then i would just delete a game without buying it. Every player needs a GOAL to play. For me - I like unlocking stuff: unlocking (buying for in-game currency) characters, achievements, talents and gear.
The harder is the way to unlock (hard missions or whatever) - the bigger is my interest of playing. It is like a challenge: while you try, you are getting used to play.
So, it needs some time to get interested in playing BB. Time that is needed to understand: what you should do, how to do it and when to do it. How to build, who to pick.
If you deny their opportunity to decide (no choice of picking) OR if first f2p player impression will be like “only 3 characters here to play” - most people will uninstall after trial. I would uninstall, actually.
And another thing: if there will be only 3 open characters, then there will be matches with 5 newbies that will have 0 open characters to pick (in matchmaking now there’s an option - only different characters). So, minimal amount of unlocked free characters is equal to 5.
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And if there will be no players to play with - won’t you be “done with it” in this case?
I’d say if they did this there would only be as much content as in the beta or less. They wouldn’t want to give to much of the game away for free or else there would be no point in upgrading. That’s if they did this at all and if It didn’t crash and burn immediately.
It looks like this thread was revived so I’ll recap some of what I said earlier and add to it.
I have no problem with a super demo version as long as the proper restrictions are placed on those players. I personally think 5 characters, prologue, one other story mission, one pvp game type, char rank cap, and inability to buy gear packs other than common (so command rank cap before they can buy others). A limit on the amount of hours played would probably be necessary as well.
I believe the biggest issue with the player base is people will not give the game a try. If gearbox believes in their product they should make a portion of the game free for everyone. If the product is good people will buy the full version.
For a super demo version to work though we will need ranked matchmaking.
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I think the problem is balance and new content. They fix those and the players will come back
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The F2p can only work when all the core issues that are still on the game are fixed + tons of content(proper skins+larger maps or more maps and a way to compensate season pass holders)
With the state of the game right now, the people is going to run away and never comeback, in my opinion f2P is the last card that gbx can use and is too early to use it.