After three weeks of playing Star Wars Battlefront, I’m still pretty far from unlocking everything. I’ve made Rank 22, which is short of my goal of hitting Rank 25 in order to get the DL-44 Blaster pistol. It is available to Deluxe purchasers immediately, along with the Ion Torpedo (Rank 4) and Ion Grenade (Rank 9). The latter two are excellent for killing vehicles, but you can reach those ranks very quickly. The DL-44, on the other hand, takes a while to get, and it is overall a very effective weapon for all game modes.
Still, there are lots of players out there who have ranked up much higher than me, Most with more playing time, but in any case, it isn’t going to take all that long to reach Rank 25. The last item unlocked by rank is the Bowcaster Star Card, at Rank 32. I doubt it will take that long to get from where I am now to that.
So will I have everything unlocked? And how much does it matter, for game balance and play, to get the unlocked items?
First, no, it costs credits to actually unlock the items for use, even when you have the rank. And Star Cards can be upgraded, at 7000 credits each, to work even better — generally, a shorter cooldown, and sometimes enhanced activation. You get one credit for every 10 game XP, and you won’t get that XP without also ranking up even further.
Second, there are cosmetic upgrades, if you want to pay for them. Those go up to Rank 50, so far.
Third, the Charged (Top) Star Cards can have charges purchased at 1700 credits for 25 charges. If you start using them a lot, you can burn through credits you’d otherwise use to unlock new items.
Does rank up and new unlocks really matter? Yes. On the one side, the early weapons and unlocks are actually very good — rank 3 will let you have the Thermal Detonator, Scout Pistol, and the DH-17 Pistol and DLT-19 Heavy Blaster, along with the starting E-11 and A-280C. Trust me, you can get a lot of kills with those weapons, and quickly rank up to get even more stuff. But it takes a while to get some of the more powerful tools to use in the game.
The first big upgrade is the Top (Charged) Star Cards. Rank 7 gets you the Cooling Cell, Focus Fire, and Ion Shot. Once you have one of these, you can start collecting charges, and use them when you need their edge in battle. These first three let you shoot longer without overheating (Cooling Cell), hit what you’re aiming at better (Focus Fire), and more damage to vehicles and droids with your blaster (Ion Shot). But it is the higher rank Cards which really alter game play. Rank 13 Scan Pulse lets you (and your team) see enemies through walls for a short time. Rank 18 Explosive Shot lets your blaster do explosive splash damage. And Rank 22 Personal Shield gives you a mobile shield bubble which blocks all blaster shots (both ways, you can’t shoot blasters out either, but explosives work fine).
The second big upgrade is at Rank 15. You unlock Traits at this point, giving you an always-on benefit. There are three Traits to select from at Rank 15: Bodyguard (reduced explosive damage, so you can survive hits), Survivalist (faster healing, so you can recover from hits faster), and Scout (hides you on the minimap, first sprinting, then firing, making it much easier to sneak and flank, and thus avoid getting shot at all).
Rank 26 gives you the Bounty Hunter (chance of Power-Ups from kills) and Sharpshooter (speeds up cooldowns when you get headshots).
The traits do have some limitations and advantages. First, you only get to select one for your character. It isn’t part of your hand, so you cannot change it within a game. Because they cost 7000 credits, it can take a while to get all of them to choose from. They also, however, are the only upgrade you get to apply when you take the role of a hero. That can make a difference in all game modes, but especially in the two Hero-based game modes, where you can expect to always play a Hero (or Villain).
So how much of an advantage does a player get for getting all the unlocks?
I’ll mention again, that the low level gear is quite good enough to have a blast playing the game. But you are going to be at a disadvantage. You can compensate somewhat by focusing your upgrades on a few roles, rather than trying to unlock everything. But that risks missing out on fun weapons and cards to use, and requires some understanding of just how to get the most out of a few weapons and upgrades.
Let’s look at the weapons first:
The DL-44 at rank 25 is the last blaster unlocked. It is quite powerful, capable of one headshot kills at 20 meters, and still dangerous at long ranges — if hard to score hits with. It is roughly comparable to the T-21 Heavy Blaster (rank 10) up close, but has better optics and worse accuracy. You’ll see a lot of people running this, as it rewards aiming skill with lethality. Itr loses its edge at range, with other blasters easier to get kills with, but it can still do damage.
Rank 21 sees the T-21B Targeting Rifle. This offers high damage at range coupled with good optics, making it easier to pick off targets at long range. The closest we get to a sniper rifle, effectively a marksman’s rifle in modern terms. Note that it is the ONLY Targeting Rifle in the game so far, so if you get the Targeting Rifle challenge and are nowhere near close to rank 21, you may wish to trade it in as I did, for something you can complete at your current rank.
The EE-3 (rank 17) and SE-14C (rank 13) give you burst fire precision weapons. These offer very fast fire rates, but require good aim to take advantage of their power.
The T-21 Heavy Blaster is slow firing but with a lot of power, It lacks the nice optics and precision of the T-21B, but still fires faster, making a good alternative for long range accurate killing.
Rank 8 gives you the CA-87 Shock Blaster, essentially a short range shotgun type weapon. You also get to unlock the starting E-11 and A-280C for the other team, so you can always have these available no matter which side you are on. There is only one other weapon to unlock, the RT-97C Heavy Blaster at rank 5.
The first 10 ranks really do come fairly fast, so you will get more weapons options fairly quickly. The four highest rank weapons really are ones which require and reward skilled shooting and accuracy. Or in other words, they won’t automatically make a player more lethal than using one of the other weapons, but can give a good player an advantage with practice.
All in all, the weapons are fairly well balanced, and you will not really be outgunned if you stick with the starting weapons. It simply limits your choices of range for optimum play, but not so much that you can’t do well at any range. The E-11 and A-280C are very well balanced weapons.
The Star Card weapons and gadgets, usable in left and right card slots, do have a few very effective items in the higher ranks. At rank 32, the Bowcaster is the top rank item in the game. Its long range explosive fire can be tricky to use, so in itself it isn’t necessarily overpowering.
Cycler Rifle, Rank 28, gives you a one shot long range weapon, able to score head shot kills and penetrate shields at any range.
The Barrage, Rank 24, is fairly effective in corridor fights, dropping three explosive grenades to smash your enemies. Not as directly lethal in more open spaces, but expect to see this often in close quarters fights.
The Flash Grenade (Rank 20) and Smoke Grenade (Rank 16) aren’t going to directly kill anyone. The Jump Pack (Rank 13), on the other hand, is an extremely powerful device to improve mobility. It both lets you move faster and reach locations you couldn’t otherwise reach. It is, in fact, so good that I’d recommend having it in one of your hands once you unlock it. So many game modes depend on speed of advance in order to score, it is hard to give up its advantage.
The Homing Shot (Rank 11) is a great equalizer. It locks on fast and is very good at getting kills. It is possible to evade it, especially on maps with good cover, but it can be much hard to escape in open areas.
Below this point, the real edge isn’t so much having more powerful gadgets, but having only one custom hand instead of two to choose from, and fewer choices of two good picks to put together effective combinations to fit your game mode.
Overall, just having higher rank doesn’t necessarily mean a lot more power, but it does give a player much more flexibility and choices at all ranges. Anytime your opponent kills you with a gadget you are nowhere near to being able to use, you’ll feel the pain of your low rank. This isn’t a massive, unstoppable advantage, but it still makes it harder to win against a higher ranked enemy.
The Charged Star Cards, on the other hand, offer big power increases for players able to use them. While you get your first one at Rank 7, they can be expensive to actually use. You can collect charges on many maps for free, but otherwise must pay for more, so use them wisely. The top 3 rank Charged Cards give more powerful benefits for the player in most situations, and that can be a big advantage. More firepower, better sensing, better defense — it is hard to undervalue the advantage these all offer.
Then there are Traits. At Rank 15, you get to pick one or more (depending on credits). The first three enhance your survival quite a bit. Hard to quantify, but it can definitely make the difference between life or death. As they don’t require charges or actions to use, these give a direct, substantial advantage to being higher rank. The Rank 26 Traits reward players who are good at killing even better benefits from scoring kill streaks, making them even more lethal. Overall, these are extremely advantageous, and clearly create a power tier between the rank 1-14 players and the rank 15+ heroic players.
But wait! There’s even more. Star Cards can be upgraded, making them even more effective. The cost is 7000 credits each, but they boost the card effectiveness between 15% and 50%. The Thermal Detonator is an especially good example. It drops the 15 second cool down to 10 seconds, giving you three shots in the time a regular non-upgraded user gets two. On the positive side, these upgrades are not restricted by rank. If you can get the item, you can get the upgrade. But the cost generally makes it hard to buy them at lower ranks, while higher ranks mean more credits earned for everything you can use.
So is it fair for higher rank players to have a real combat advantage over lower ranked ones? If nothing else, it gives you something to look forward to, and an incentive to rank up fast. And while the advantages of rank are certainly real, they aren’t great enough to stop a brand new player from killing you — the weapons offered at the start are definitely effective. Just expect to lose more one on one fights against higher ranks than you might like
Now, if you want to rank up and get credits to unlock weapons without facing this disadvantage, there are game modes where the unlocks don’t matter, or matter much less. Fighter Squadron uses none at all. All players get exactly the same choices for fighters, and only skill and experience matter. It is a good way to advance in the game a little before you jump into direct, lethal, troopers on the ground combat.
Heroes vs Villains doesn’t use most unlocks, but Traits work. They don’t matter much in this game mode, plus it gives you a chance to play with all the Hero characters, which is both fun, and good practice for when you get them in other game modes. Hero Hunt can certainly use unlocks to make it easier to kill the hero, but once you get it, you can have fun killing the regular soldiers, despite their higher ranks.
Last word: If it only takes a month or so to get the highest rank unlocks, it isn’t going to matter very much in the long run what advantages they offer. Everyone will get them soon enough.
