Mass Effect 4: 12 Mistakes Bioware's Next Gen Sequel Must Avoid

10. Pay To Win Multiplayer

2014 has not been a good year for game companies involved in microtransactions and free to play games. First, there was Microsoft taking a beating for making people pay tons of money to get good cars in Forza Motorsport 5, then EA was excoriated for making people pay to get things to happen in Dungeon Keeper in reasonable amounts of time. One of the more successful parts of ME3 was its multiplayer component. Unlike many other attempts to add multiplayer to single-player only games, ME3's multiplayer was well executed, received constant balance tweaks, and didn't create a frustrating gulf between rookies and veteran players. One key part in that success was that it was a cooperative multiplayer game instead of a completive one, but another was the random rewards system. Unlike most multiplayer games, players didn't get powerful weapons dumped in their laps as they leveled up. Instead, players would buy packs of consumables, weapon mods, weapons, and new character classes with in-game currency or actual money. Each pack was a random set, so players were never sure whether they'd get what they want, especially since there were several tiers of packs with different probabilities for getting certain character classes and weapons. The packs even updated as free multiplayer DLC was added, meaning the only thing standing between you and new content was a download. Unfortunately, EA's need for money could endanger an ME3 style system for the next Mass Effect. For cynics, it's all too easy to imagine a scenario where EA "encourages" Bioware to make the default game currency prices for anything beyond the basic pack absurdly high, but rather low in real money cost. Or even worse schemes to bilk people out of money, after they've already paid $60+ for it. It's up to Bioware Montreal to convince people that EA hasn't ruined their game.