It just meant that players couldn’t literally buy their way to victory using real cash. The microtransaction system was yanked literally hours before the game launched, after Disney made EA pull it, but that didn’t solve the problems in the progression system. On a related note, EA now holds the record for the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. When players discovered it would take up to 40 hours to unlock a single hero, EA breezily responded that this requirement would “provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.”
While Battlefront 2 is far from the first game to include microtransactions, the original BF2 progression system was designed to effectively force players to spend money on loot crates.
The problems started when EA decided to create an alternate revenue stream for itself based solely on loot crates and pay-to-win mechanics, with players who purchased loot crates with real money gaining a significant advantage over those who opted to just play the game.