Here’s What 183,000 Credits Gets You in Star Wars Battlefront II

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Troopers

In Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), you earn Credits by playing the game and completing milestones. You then use these Credits to buy randomized loot crates, which contain items you need for progression.

I spent just under month (November 14 through December 13) playing Star Wars Battlefront II every night and completing many of the milestones. I started with the Deluxe Edition, which granted some Purple (Tier 4) Star Cards right off the bat, and I also purchased the $20 Starter Pack, which granted a few additional Star Cards and 1,500 Crystals (which I spent on crates before running this experiment). I opened a Daily Crate every single day. My player level was at 35 by December 13.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Career Page

I unlocked all the heroes first, and then started saving my Credits in anticipation for The Last Jedi season of content. I managed to save 183,000 Credits in that time. Now that the new characters and maps have arrived, I decided to spend all of my Credits at once and see what I got.

I went for Hero Crates exclusively. Why? Well, here’s my reasoning.

Hero Crates are the cheapest loot crate in the game, at 2,200 Credits, as opposed to Starfighter Crates at 2,400 Credits and Trooper Crates at 4,000 Credits. Because each crate contains between 35 and 50 Crafting Parts, no matter the type, you will ultimately end up with almost double the amount of Crafting Parts by opening Hero Crates than you would opening Trooper Crates. And, since Crafting Parts let you craft whichever Star Cards you want, it’s far more valuable than a randomized shot at the specific Star Card you’re looking for.

Battlefront II Trooper Crate

Simply put, you might open 100 Trooper Crates and still not get the one card you’ve been hoping for. With Crafting Parts, you can just craft that card yourself. Since every crate is guaranteed to drop 35 or 5o Crafting Parts, as I mentioned in the paragraph above, that’s the equivalent to one Tier 1 Star Card of your choice, give or take. To me, that seems far more valuable than the chance at a random, likely Tier 1 Star Card, even if it’s in the category you want (Trooper, in this case).

So I recorded myself opening these Hero Crates, and I took an exhaustive inventory of every single item I received.

I opened a total of 100 crates. Yes, the math doesn’t exactly work out on that (100 x 2,200 = 220,000), but keep in mind that many crates feature duplicates and reward you with additional Credits. I kept spending until my Credits were too low to purchase another crate.

So here’s the full breakdown:

  • 100 Hero Crates
  • 4,445 Crafting Parts
  • 288 total Star Cards
  • 11 emotes
  • 21 victory poses
  • 1 weapon
  • 12 payouts of 50 Credits
  • 1 payout of 100 Credits

Those 100 crates break down as such:

  • 64 crates with four items
  • 36 crates with five items

Of the 288 Star Cards, the breakdown is as follows:

  • 220 Grey (Tier 1) Star Cards
  • 49 Green (Tier 2) Star Cards
  • 19 Blue (Tier 3) Star Cards
  • 146 duplicates
  • 13 upgrades from previously earned Star Cards

Star Wars Battlefront II Loot Crate Opened

So here are a few additional things I learned from this data:

  • Crates with five items give you 35 Crafting Parts, while crates with four items give you 50 Crafting Parts.
  • Approximately half my Star Cards were duplicates.
  • Duplicate Grey (Tier 1) Star Cards give you a 200 Credit payout, while duplicate Green (Tier 2) Star Cards give you a 400 Credit payout.
  • I still don’t know what the Credit payout is for duplicate Blue (Tier 3) Star Cards, but my guess would be either 600 or 800 Credits.
  • Very rarely, you are given a payout of 50 or 100 Credits instead of another item. Personally, this seems a little insulting, as even a Grey duplicate gives you 200 Credits. These micro-payouts are less than the value of a duplicate Star Card.
  • Crates with five items are rarer than crates with four.
  • Crates with four items are more valuable than crates with five. Now, this may seem counterintuitive, but hear me out. The additional 15 Crafting Parts are worth more than a duplicate Star Card. Even a duplicate Green card is only worth 400 Credits, so it will take 5.5 duplicate Green cards to buy a Hero Crate. But if you open one crate and receive 50 Crafting Parts, you can craft one Grey (Tier 1) Star Card with it, and have 10 Crafting Parts left over. If you open one crate and get 35 Crafting Parts, you’ll have to open a second crate to even craft a single Star Card.

After all this, I had most of the Star Cards I wanted for the classes I play the most, and I was able to upgrade those cards to Purple (Tier 4) for my Assault class, Heavy class, and Fighter class starfighter.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Assault Class

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Heavy Class

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Fighter Class

Yes, this means I literally cannot advance those units any further unless I decide I want different Star Cards for them.

I also compared this against IGN’s case study on Battlefront II’s loot crates, in which they paid for $100 in Crystals (premium currency) before microtransactions were temporarily disabled from the game. The writer at IGN went for Trooper Crates and was only able to purchase 60 of them with those Crystals. The total value of those crates would have been 240,000, which is more than I spent on Hero Crates, even taking the extra Credit payouts into consideration.

Here are some more data points for comparison:

  • I bought 40 more crates than IGN did (100 vs. 60).
  • I got more than three times the Blue (Tier 3) Star Cards that IGN got (19 vs. 3).
  • EA discreetly lowered the Crafting Parts payout between the time IGN ran this experiment and when I ran my own.
  • Buying Crystals (before microtransactions were disabled) was a horrible value.
  • Hero Crates are a far better value than Trooper Crates, regardless of which category of Star Card you’re trying to get.

I don’t know my play time, because Battlefront II does not yet have a menu where you can check that. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d put in 100 hours, which is in no way representative of the typical Battlefront II experience.

However, I will point out that I came out way, way ahead of anyone who paid $100 for currency before launch in under a month of gameplay. While I’m in no way trying to say Battlefront II‘s economy and progression system aren’t awful, I think this data shows that they aren’t quite as awful as the community was led to believe.

If you want to see me open these 100 crates, I posted the full videos below.

Part 1

Part 2

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