Battlefront Beta...HNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Watching about one round of the game as somebody who had Battlefront 1 and 2 firmly in the category of "split screen games I played when a friend came over" made me want to slit my wrists. There wasn't anything mechanically wrong about it and as a Battlefield game it looks pretty cool.

But the battles feel EVEN SMALLER than the psp version of battlefront, not even mentioning XL mode on the old PC version. Seriously XL mode on the PC version actually looked like the battle of Hoth. There were enough npc's and whatnot on the map that it looked like a serious battle! But here, this? I played this on the ps3 I think it was called Killzone and it looked exactly as good if not better and it wasn't EA stamping all over another IP until it was a shit brown battlefield shaped pile of mush.

If it was called "Star Wars Battles" or "Dice doesn't have a very big range of games they can make" or "EA doesn't want to risk making any shooters other than battlefield clones" I wouldn't even care but this is so lazy, this is every other modern warfare shooter with star wars stamped on top of it and I hate that so much.

 

[StormShaun]

I haven't played, only watched it.
So my thoughts aren't finalized or set in stone. Most likely, reviews and final game opinions might change it. Can I see myself buying this? I doubt it, but getting into more detail...

It looks like a nice FPS.
It plays like a nice Star Wars FPS.
Yet the question I ask, is it Battlefront?

Yes, that question changes depending who you are. EA/DICE have even said that this is a completely different Battlefront, and I do not like that thought, not one bit. Still, while I may be pessimistic, I'm not going to be a hater for the game, I guess you could call me, cautiously pessimistic, heh.

Still, I am looking forward to the final game... at least reputation wise.
Either there will be cities (forums) on fire, or people will be surprised. Once again, I'm betting on the former.

Looking at some details at the game, I can immediately say I am not really a fan of the re-chargeable heavy/secondary weapons/abilities. Then there is the jetpack, which is more like a jump boost (at least from a viewing angle), and of course, I dislike the modern health system. It feels like you die too easy... but, that comes from my bias of preferring the former Battlefront games (sure, you died a little less quickly, but it feels like a big difference).

Whatever though, I'm now wondering how EA/DICE will change the game from this beta.
Are they confident, or are they shitting themselves? From what I'm seeing, both people in favour and 'not' in favour seem to be rather vocal.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Played Co-Op survival with a friend. Had fun, game looks great, thought everything was going great. Played Hoth as Imperials - Fun on the bun. Did terrible, but was having a blast. Played a match as Rebels, but I had to walk away for a bit, so I just caught the end of it. Played another Imperial match, getting better at it. Played as Rebels again.

And that's when I stopped having fun.

Spawn and run out, get a few pot shots off, an assist, then die. Spawn at the back of our base.

Die 2 seconds later, shot in the back by an Imperial player. I spawn again.

Shot in the back, a second after spawning.

Spawn again. Shot in the back by one of our turrets, manned by enemy players.

Spawn again. Get shot in the back. By an AT-ST.

Die 12 times in the first 5 mins, all but the first of them a few seconds after spawning by enemies I had no hope of even spotting, let alone fighting back against. And its not just me - Entire team is basically stuck in one giant death loop that no one can escape.

Finally get away from our spawn, because a teammate spawned behind me and bought me enough time to bail. Find a A-Wing power up, figure this is my chance to even the score. Spawn an A-Wing, spot a TIE, try to engage. Find that no keyboard keys work for steering, and the only way to turn is by mouse. But the screen automatically pulls your reticle to the center, so to turn fast you have to flail your mouse around like a mad man, picking it up over and over (There may be a better way to turn, but if there is, its just as retarded, as it follows no known control scheme to me). The TIE either knows something I don't or has a controller, and circles behind me while I try to control my stupid piece of shit brick A-Wing.

Rage Quit.

So, spawning problems, Hoth map appears to be unbalanced, Keyboard+Mouse controls are either completely unusable or so bizarre they're going to have to include a 30 minute tutorial (And without a tutorial, I sure as shit aren't going to try to figure it out on the fly).

It looks good though, and the on the ground combat is nice. It just seems like the game needs a metric ton of fixes. Which is forgivable, I suppose, since it is in beta. But I obviously don't care enough about it to struggle and cry through it.

 

[Zhukov]

...
I'm glad I got to play it though. Ensured that I don't go making some kind of stupid impulse buy and waste $90.
...

Ninety dollars? Jesus Christ, I had to check the prices just to make sure, but it's true. Ninety god damn dollars for this? Other than the fact that it's Star Wars, hence, they can get away with charging on name recognition alone, why should this game be ninety dollars? I've watched various sources of footage, and while I'm aware that it's still in beta, I don't see how some run of the mill multiplayer shooter could warrant such a price.

Bear in mind I was referring to the Australian price, in AU dollars, as displayed on Origin.

That's not unusual for a new, big-budget game here. Although some publishers have started charging less.

I have no idea where in the world you are or how much it costs in your currency.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

...
I'm glad I got to play it though. Ensured that I don't go making some kind of stupid impulse buy and waste $90.
...

Ninety dollars? Jesus Christ, I had to check the prices just to make sure, but it's true. Ninety god damn dollars for this? Other than the fact that it's Star Wars, hence, they can get away with charging on name recognition alone, why should this game be ninety dollars? I've watched various sources of footage, and while I'm aware that it's still in beta, I don't see how some run of the mill multiplayer shooter could warrant such a price.

Bear in mind I was referring to the Australian price, in AU dollars, as displayed on Origin.

That's not unusual for a new, big-budget game here. Although some publishers have started charging less.

I have no idea where in the world you are or how much it costs in your currency.

It costs the same where I am, since I'm also in Australia. Actually, when checking, it seems that the AUD is simply particularly low at the moment and I just didn't notice, rather than this game being particularly expensive (it costs about 66$ US).

Eh, either way, since I don't really buy new games, or any games at the moment due to having more uncompleted games than time to play, I don't really care one way or another.

 

[Azure23]

That's all well and good, but how does it feel as a Battlefront game? Is it still Battlefront, or is it something more perverse.

Battlefront were third-person class-based shooters with excellent integration of vehicles with the infantry combat. This thing is a first person classless shooter where vehicles are power ups and AT-ATs are simply turrets on rails. DICE and EA weren't trying to make it like the first two at all, and it really isn't. The problem is that if you like this sort of thing, you're better off going with the CoD series, because they do it better.[/quote]

Pretty much this. Played a few games and thought "Huh, this isn't as bad as I'd feared, it's super telling that they spawn you in first person though" which quickly transformed into "wow these are the worst spawns I've ever seen in a multiplayer shooter, it's almost like the command post system was a good idea." And the longer I played, the more I found to criticize. The lack of a combat roll means every firefight degrades into two character strafing at each other painfully slowly. The lack of a prone option (I hate this convention in shooters nowadays) means if you take a cycles rifle shot from three hundred meters away you can kiss your ass goodbye, good luck finding something that'll actually provide you with cover when all you can do is lower your head two feet. The regenerating health encourages players to just cheese firefights, instead of tension filled moments where you're crouching next to a med droid, praying you'll capture the command post before a squad spawns on you. There's no sense of being in a larger battle, despite all the fancy effects trying so hard to convince you you are, and this is largely because of how vehicles are treated. Your character just disappearing when they go into a vehicle is frustrating, several times I've almost gotten a kill and then they sprint around a corner and teleport into an a wing. Vehicles and heavy weapons being tied to random power ups (and as far as I've seen, they ARE random, there are a bunch of possible spawn points, but no consistency in what appears) is a baffling decision that adds nothing but rng to an otherwise tactical and team based game style (talking bout the old Battlefronts here).

It's really disappointing, because it looks and sounds like Star Wars, but it feels like crap.

Edit: messed up quoting, too lazy to fix it.

 

[God'sFist]

Since I do not have a rig that can handle the demo or a next gen console my opinion is based solely on the way the game looked. I have played both of the old battlefront games and from the outlook aside from the blasters it is different. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing but it looks like a battlefield/cod clone with star wars skin. I think most of the people on here who actually like the game probably like the cod and battlefield games and so this is just another good game that looks gorgeous to them. From my perspective it looks drop dead gorgeous the blaster shots impacting rocks and the planets look amazing. But that's all there is to it.

Bottom line: Battlefield/Cod with blasters looks amazing 7/10

 

[laggyteabag]

Not bad (and looks great) but basic as fuck, if it werent for the visuals it would be one of those indie games that try to do something but fall short since they are a small team in the end. For DICE and EA that isnt an excuse so having such a basic as fuck game feels like a missed opportunity.

So yeah, even something like Galactic Warfare seems to have more content, and lets not talk of RTS mods

Comparing this Battlefront to the previous ones seems wrong since the old ones had so much more going on for them.

How is it that a free mod for a 2007 game looks a whole lot better than a $60 2015 AAA that has had money pumped into it by one of the largest publishers? Oh yeah, EA.

That mod looks great, though. Looks like a lot of fun, and probably has a soul, too.

 

[Rastrelly]

Checked it out. Rather boring. I'll go back to Quake. Good luck grinding everyone.

 

[Something Amyss]

Edit: Oh I forgot one thing:
The spawns are AWFUL. The game will routinely spawn you right in front of a bunch of enemies and you just instantly die.

Or not. I actually spawned with my back to three guys and the three of them combined couldn't manage to kill me. This isn't to brag about my skill--I was oblivious to them until long after I should have been dead.

Also, on console versions the aim assist costs me kills. I don't know why the game would decide that dead center over the enemy's chest was wrong, that I really wanted to be aimed three feet to the left.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Edit: Oh I forgot one thing:
The spawns are AWFUL. The game will routinely spawn you right in front of a bunch of enemies and you just instantly die.

Or not. I actually spawned with my back to three guys and the three of them combined couldn't manage to kill me. This isn't to brag about my skill--I was oblivious to them until long after I should have been dead.

Also, on console versions the aim assist costs me kills. I don't know why the game would decide that dead center over the enemy's chest was wrong, that I really wanted to be aimed three feet to the left.

Is there a setting to turn off auto-aim assist? On PC, since there isn't auto-aim-assist, everything felt like it was shooting straight where the crosshair was pointed.

Also I noticed that spawns on Drop Zone were sometimes great and sometimes randomly placing me near enemies. I wonder if they planned it that way or if its a bug. It wasn't enough though to make the game imbalanced, just annoying to get spawn killed 1/8 of the time.

 

[Something Amyss]

Is there a setting to turn off auto-aim assist? On PC, since there isn't auto-aim-assist, everything felt like it was shooting straight where the crosshair was pointed.

Also I noticed that spawns on Drop Zone were sometimes great and sometimes randomly placing me near enemies. I wonder if they planned it that way or if its a bug. It wasn't enough though to make the game imbalanced, just annoying to get spawn killed 1/8 of the time.

Yeah, you can turn it off, but you can't access settings in a match for some bizarre reason.

I started just sp[awning at my buddy, because at least I knew where he was. I do like this as an option. I don't know if he did, however, because I kept making "scooter brothers" comments.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I started just sp[awning at my buddy, because at least I knew where he was. I do like this as an option. I don't know if he did, however, because I kept making "scooter brothers" comments.

That right there... I'd have probably been laughing so hard I'd have to turn the game off if someone started spawning on me saying that. 10/10 would read again.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I haven't been on here for forever, but looking at everyone's reactions here, I thought I would share my own.

The game looks and sounds great. You've heard it a million times, so I'll move on.

It runs for the most part flawlessly, but for some reason there were audio bugs in the loading screens. I've gotten lag, but then I live in the country that has the worst internet in Asia, so i would be worried if there wasn't lag.

The game has this cool spawn screen where you can see whats going on in the entire map, and you can follow your teammates with a camera.

The minimalistic design makes me hard.

The options and settings are oddly bare for a DICE game.

Now, onto the important things.

The game actually tells you to play Drop Zone on Sullust first. The map is beautiful yet ugly. It looks like rocky road ice cream. It plays well though, with rock formations that form mazes. I like especially that there are places for people who want to play sneakily with their sniper rifles but don't completely hide them, with a few well placed shots you can take any sniper down. To win the game, you need to find, capture, then defend escape pods. When the escape pod has been fully defended, it poops out pickups. The team with the most pods defended win. The mode's mechanics are fun, but a pod is captured way too fast, and when you are spawned more than a hundred meters away from a half capped objective, you will just say "meh". But for some reason people actually capped the pod, instead of just going full on deathmatch. Well, there were a few who got like 2 KDs by just running around killing people who were getting to the objectives. But they always, ALWAYS, lost. And I approve mightily of that. The mode seems to be pretty balanced as well, I only had two games where we won by more than one point.

Walker Assault is... interesting. I've played about 5 rounds, three as rebels and two as Imperials. The mode is a fresh take on attack and defend. The Rebels need to activate uplinks that will call in a Ywing bomber strike, at which point the ATATs shields will drop and you can damage them, even with your puny handgun. The uplinks can be deactivated by the Stormtroopers. Asides from that, they essentially need to protect the ATAT. The map/mode is definitely in favor of the Empire, but of the three times I played as Rebels we won twice. Winning as the Rebels isnt as impossible as people think, you just really, really, have to work for it. And just like Drop Zone, we (the Rebels) had horrible KDs, but we fricking won. And winning is everything.

The gameplay is for the most part pretty similar to anyone who played Battlefront. The main differences are no rolling, infinite ammo for everything, guns have actual recoil now, there are no classes, you can pick your own loadout, the weapon unlock system is asymmetric, and quite a lot of gadgets are pickups. The similarities are weapons can overheat, you can shoot all the time (even when jumping), turrets can be entered and destroyed, and you can switch between 1st and 3rd perspective while in-game.

There are four weapons right now. i dont know their names, so I will just name them other things. The SMG: Its actually a pistol that is automatic, with an insane fire rate. It is for some reason fairly accurate at long ranges. A good weapon, no balances needed. The AK47: The Rebel gun seen in the movies. Its a good gun, nothing particularly interesting. Its your rookie gun for the Rebel side. The M16: The Imperial gun. Its actually a pretty shit gun, i was getting outgunned all the time. It needs an accuracy buff IMO. The LMG: One word- nerf. Nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf. NERf.

Oh yeah, you can only have one primary weapon in this game. No switching to your sidearm for you.

There are these things called "Star Cards" that are basically gadgets. You can have grenades (two different kinds!) and sniper rifles, and other stuff. Some are great, others are a bit meh.

The flight controls are hot garbage. However, some people have already mastered it. Weird. I would skip out on flying.

I have yet to get into an ATST or ATAT. I do know that they are insanely powerful and may need nerfs.

The hit detection feels extremely off to me- or maybe I'm just shit at aiming

The game needs an autobalancer, because at one point we were 8 vs 3.

In conclusion, I love this game so far, but the beta is pretty shit as betas go. For one, there is probably only an eighth of the game available. This kinda lead to some imbalance, as the Rebels didn't get the rocket launchers that were supposed to help with taking out the ATSTs and ATATs. The pathetic two maps in the game are great, but after 6 hours of watching gameplay and 4 hours of playing, when I got to sleep I have nightmares of being stepped on by an ATAT (which is an instakill BTW, just like the ATSTs). Second, they showcased Hoth Walker Assault when we've already seen it so many times. I think Tatooine would have been a better choice. Third, the beta period is so short. Its practically ending in two days.

But as I said, I am loving this game. Its even more objective focused than Battlefield. When you see your name on the scoreboard, with a negative KD, yet you got top 5, you feel accomplished. I never felt like that in BF4. People who just camp (seriously, one guy got 10 kills by camping an activated uplink. he just sat there shooting from behind his waist high cover, not giving a fuck as we took down his ATAT) will lose.

Does the game do anything new? Kinda. Not that much. But is it fun? In my opinion, yes. It is.

EDIT: I forgot, spawns are shit.

 

[Elfgore]

Is that the Battefront game I've been waiting for? Hell no, not even close. Is this the best Battlefield game I've played with a star wars skin? Yes.

First thing is the immersion. On Sullust, you have a massive space battle going on above, explosions going off from other battlefields, and the sounds of your battlefield. I felt like I was in a warzone. Graphics are decent, nothing to write home about and I also had a few textures that had to load. From what I can see, ammo no longer exists. Everything just seems to be on a cooldown timer. Balance needs work really bad on the AT-AT stage, rebels will die pretty much nonstop.

All in all, this is a fun Battlefield game. Might have upgraded from abomination to something I'll buy at thirty dollars. But this is not a good Battlefront game and really should not even be using the name.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Is that the Battefront game I've been waiting for? Hell no, not even close. Is this the best Battlefield game I've played with a star wars skin? Yes.

First thing is the immersion. On Sullust, you have a massive space battle going on above, explosions going off from other battlefields, and the sounds of your battlefield. I felt like I was in a warzone. Graphics are decent, nothing to write home about and I also had a few textures that had to load. From what I can see, ammo no longer exists. Everything just seems to be on a cooldown timer. Balance needs work really bad on the AT-AT stage, rebels will die pretty much nonstop.

All in all, this is a fun Battlefield game. Might have upgraded from abomination to something I'll buy at thirty dollars. But this is not a good Battlefront game and really should not even be using the name.

Good summary tbh.

I'd buy it cheap too. But not at full price for what is basically multiplayer only. Its not a Battlefront game.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Balance needs work really bad on the AT-AT stage, rebels will die pretty much nonstop.

I'd say that it really hits home just how outmatched and outclassed the Rebels were on Hoth. Its a losing battle, but I have seen Rebels win it with good tactics, its mainly having good pilots in X-Wings/A-Wings to take the troops out with well coordinated air assaults to keep the Y-Wings in the air and a good crew running Snowspeeders to take the AT-AT's out after the shields are down. Its not impossible but the Imperials certainly have the advantage and it really does echo (no pun intended) the hopeless situation shown in Empire Strikes Back.

 

[shintakie10]

Is that the Battefront game I've been waiting for? Hell no, not even close. Is this the best Battlefield game I've played with a star wars skin? Yes.

First thing is the immersion. On Sullust, you have a massive space battle going on above, explosions going off from other battlefields, and the sounds of your battlefield. I felt like I was in a warzone. Graphics are decent, nothing to write home about and I also had a few textures that had to load. From what I can see, ammo no longer exists. Everything just seems to be on a cooldown timer. Balance needs work really bad on the AT-AT stage, rebels will die pretty much nonstop.

All in all, this is a fun Battlefield game. Might have upgraded from abomination to something I'll buy at thirty dollars. But this is not a good Battlefront game and really should not even be using the name.

I dont get why people call it Battlefield with a Star Wars skin.

Have you played Battlefield before?

Battlefield has classes. Battlefield doesn't have random powerups. Battlefield vehicles can be jumped in and out of as needed. Battlefield doesn't have ridiculous cooldowns that allow people to spam grenades like they're grenade dispensing robots. Battlefield actually explains its mechanics and there's a good balance between vehicles/infantry/air power. Battlefield actually rewards aiming, unlike this game where aiming isn't actually a thing and firing from the hip is paradoxically more accurate and doesn't slow you down.

This is absolutely not Battlefield, if it was I would have enjoyed it more.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Balance needs work really bad on the AT-AT stage, rebels will die pretty much nonstop.

I'd say that it really hits home just how outmatched and outclassed the Rebels were on Hoth. Its a losing battle, but I have seen Rebels win it with good tactics, its mainly having good pilots in X-Wings/A-Wings to take the troops out with well coordinated air assaults to keep the Y-Wings in the air and a good crew running Snowspeeders to take the AT-AT's out after the shields are down. Its not impossible but the Imperials certainly have the advantage and it really does echo (no pun intended) the hopeless situation shown in Empire Strikes Back.

While I understand that point, I'll have to disagree. In a multiplayer shooter, balance is more important than story. The first time people play it they may appreciate its resemblance to the movie, but after a few matches they'll want a balanced game, not one where the rebels get thematically slaughtered if they aren't working as a perfect team.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

While I understand that point, I'll have to disagree. In a multiplayer shooter, balance is more important than story. The first time people play it they may appreciate its resemblance to the movie, but after a few matches they'll want a balanced game, not one where the rebels get thematically slaughtered if they aren't working as a perfect team.

See your last point is exactly why it works. In any competitive match that involves teams, there should be that element of teamwork making the match or breaking it. I don't believe its set up so that the Rebel side always fails unless they're perfect. Rather it does not reward people who don't work as a team. It also works in the other direction. The Empire side may have the superior firepower, but they can still be hampered by poor teamwork. I think there's a few wrinkles, a few imbalances overall in the game that happens on both sides, but it's ultimately good or poor teamwork that makes the matches what they are.
Seriously though, if you want Hoth to ultimately be "fair" then both sides need AT-ATs and AT-ST's, and I think more people would complain about that being wrong because its not how Hoth was portrayed. A map involving that battle just isn't possible to be perfectly balanced, but as it is it isn't impossible nor even near-impossible to win as Rebels. It just means people are rewarded for working together, and lose if they can't do so. Hence the whole idea of team based play.