Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2017)

EA is practically giving SWBF1 away for free at the moment ($4.99 for the ultimate edition) and there is still no one playing it online. Unless they have made significant improvements to the gameplay, UI and the server/hosting model, I predict this will experience a similar fate as Titanfail 2.
 
Blade-Runner said:
EA is practically giving SWBF1 away for free at the moment ($4.99 for the ultimate edition) and there is still no one playing it online. Unless they have made significant improvements to the gameplay, UI and the server/hosting model, I predict this will experience a similar fate as Titanfail 2.
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I play pretty much every day and definitely more players on since it went sale + giving away the dlc for free to those with the base game
 
H-street said:
I play pretty much every day and definitely more players on since it went sale + giving away the dlc for free to those with the base game
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24 hour player peak has spiked from 2000 to 5000....wow so many more people playing, definitely sustainable :rolleyes:

Relative to most other online games, it barely registers as a blip on the radar.
 
well its been that level forever.. still no problem finding a game.. i didn't say it was astronomical levels, even this afternoon there were 8 new players all just coming in from the sale..

if you don't play the game and don't know what you are talking about, then pretty much it would be better for you to not even comment on it..
 
The problem with Star Wars Battlefront 1 is that the space combat / fighter combat was shit and the vehicle pickups were an annoying way to deal with them on the battlefield. DICE should simply have copied Battlefield when it came to vehicle combat. The original Star Wars Battlefront games did that and it worked very well. Other people had problems with the fact that you can't look down the sights on the weapons and it has too much of an "arcade" feel to it. I think some of that is somewhat blown out of proportion, but I don't disagree with the sentiments. The idea was to make the game more accessible to the masses, and not necessarily please hardcore FPS players. After all, it is Star Wars which has always tried to go for mass market appeal. I think proper use of the license would still allow this even if it wasn't a "hardcore" FPS game. In fact Star Wars Battlefield 1 is almost a good game if not a great one. It just fails by fucking up the way vehicles and starfighter combat are handled. The earlier games did this well. I liked being able to jump in a fighter and attack the enemy capital ship or even board the thing and fight inside it.

Running around for the vehicle pickups is just annoying and stupid. I understand what they were going for but I don't like it and I don't think any of the BF players who tried the game did either. I didn't mind this for the hero pickups, but it's a no go for vehicle stuff. Starfighter combat is a complete clusterfuck. The controls are shitty, it feels awful and it just doesn't work very well. It's too limiting and the engagements are just boring. The Death Star trench mission borders on good, but again the shitty controls fuck that up.

Honestly, if "accessibility" is what you are after the whole unlock system outside of cosmetic items needs to get dropped. Unlock systems favor basement dwellers who can game 40 hours a week in between jack off sessions. They just need to leave everything open to everyone. We never had unlock systems in arena shooters and we don't need them here. If you want to make vehicle combat more accessible, create game modes where everyone gets vehicles to slug it out. There are ways of improving accessibility without dumbing the game play down. Bot / offline modes were good additions and improved my enjoyment of the game. That works well too for unskilled players who want to grow their skills when they are new to FPS games.
 
Dan_D said:
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Good thing you didn't play back in the good ol' days :) pickups were your actual weapons and ammo :) i remember the camping in Quake 2 for the rocket launcher spawn :)...

personally i like the mechanic just for that.. maybe not for vehicles, i don't play the 40 player game modes that much but i play the 12v12 (Cargo, drop zone, droid run) and the pickups are a great randomness to the game that really can be an awesome dynamic element.. In the 12v12 modes they don't have vehicle pickups or Hero but just the regular (Rocket Launcher, Thermal IMploder, turret, droids, squad shield, refresh, proximity, disruptor)
 
H-street said:
Good thing you didn't play back in the good ol' days :) pickups were your actual weapons and ammo :) i remember the camping in Quake 2 for the rocket launcher spawn :)...

personally i like the mechanic just for that.. maybe not for vehicles, i don't play the 40 player game modes that much but i play the 12v12 (Cargo, drop zone, droid run) and the pickups are a great randomness to the game that really can be an awesome dynamic element.. In the 12v12 modes they don't have vehicle pickups or Hero but just the regular (Rocket Launcher, Thermal IMploder, turret, droids, squad shield, refresh, proximity, disruptor)
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I did play in the good ol' days. My post talks about how I'm against unlock systems. I favor either making the weapons load outs available to everyone, either by unlocking them or as pickups in the maps. The accessibility problem in shooters exists because of unlock systems and "character" progression.
 
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multiplayer beta is next week...October 6th (October 4th if you preordered) through October 9th...EA has in turn revealed the minimum and recommended system requirements you'll want to aim for on that front...

Minimum:
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
  • Processor (AMD): AMD FX-6350.
  • Processor (Intel): Intel Core i5 6600K.
  • Memory: 8GB RAM.
  • Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB.
  • Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB.
  • DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent.
  • Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection.
  • Hard-drive space: 15GB
Recommended:
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later.
  • Processor (AMD): AMD FX 8350 Wraith.
  • Processor (Intel): Intel Core i7 6700 or equivalent.
  • Memory: 16GB RAM.
  • Graphics card (AMD): AMD.
  • Radeon RX 480 4GB.
  • Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB.
  • DirectX: 11.1 Compatible video card or equivalent.
  • Online Connection.
  • Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection.
  • Hard-drive space: 15GB
 
H-street said:
I am Ready!

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Holy shit that looks nice really liked the ATST walking though the forest like that I wonder how it will play out. Looks good though I'm not a die hard star wars fan either. You don't get any more realistic then that in the graphics department.
 
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All of those different game modes will probably have players for the first few months anyway.
The problem with Star Wars right now the Fans are OLD :cry::cry: you won't see too
many Millennials or Gen Zs picking the game up. I'm sure this game was a push for the new Movie in December or vice versa.
 
Comixbooks said:
All of those different game modes will probably have player for the first few months anyway.
The problem with Star Wars right now the Fans are OLD :cry::cry: you won't see too
many Millennials or Gen Zs picking the game up. I'm sure this game was a push for the new Movie in December or vice versa.
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no...Star Wars is ageless...plus Force Awakens brought the series to a new generation of fans (especially since it was pretty much a ripoff of A New Hope)...not to mention that it's the #1 movie of all time in terms of box office...I don't think only 'older' fans brought in $936 million...even Rogue One is the #7 movie of all time...

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm

Battlefront 2 looks really, really good...what the first game should have been with a single player mode, air combat, redesigned power up system plus jaw dropping graphics...even the trailers look gorgeous from a pure texture/lighting/foliage standpoint...will definitely set a new graphics fidelity benchmark
 
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polonyc2 said:
Battlefront 2 looks really, really good...what the first game should have been with a single player mode, air combat, redesigned power up system plus jaw dropping graphics...even the trailers look gorgeous from a pure texture/lighting/foliage standpoint...will definitely set a new graphics fidelity benchmark
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yeah the game looks gorgeous. it seems like they really take full advantage of the frostbite engine for the Battlefront games.

unfortunately i won't be picking this one up. after playing Battlefront 1 it became clear to me that i'm part of the minority group that really just wants a Battlefield game set in the Star Wars universe. i'm not a very a big Star Wars fan, really i was just looking for a Battlefield game with a fresh take on it.
 
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Porter_ said:
yeah the game looks gorgeous. it seems like they really take full advantage of the frostbite engine for the Battlefront games.

unfortunately i won't be picking this one up. after playing Battlefront 1 it became clear to me that i'm part of the minority group that really just wants a Battlefield game set in the Star Wars universe. i'm not a very a big Star Wars fan, really i was just looking for a Battlefield game with a fresh take on it.
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I don't think you were in the minority necessarily. Many of the issues that people had with the game centered around the fact that they changed the Battlefield formula, which is something the two original games didn't do outside of adding the hero characters. Fighters and vehicles were found at a base and were available on a first come, first serve basis. You didn't have pickups to get them. You could also aim down the sights as I recall the same way you could in Battlefield. You can only do this on weapons equipped with a scope in Battlefront 2015 and it's effectively the same with the second game. I am not 100% positive on the vehicles with the second game as I didn't recall seeing any in the short beta they did a few weeks back. Other issues with the 2015 game centered around the poor starfighter combat mode. This is something that definitely seems vastly improved in the new game. Again, this was something that the Battlefront games did well in the past, but the originals were also not as satisfying in that area as they could be. In that instance, I think operating more or less like the air planes in Battlefield in very limited areas was a little off putting, but still mostly enjoyable.
 
Be sure to post some of your impressions about the beta. Although even with a good report, after the first one, i may doubt the staying power over time :)
 
I played a little bit on my lunch break. I was mostly interested in the Starfighter mode. You don't find a game for that quite as quickly as the standard mode, but I got a couple matches in anyway. The mode is fun and its everything fighter combat wasn't in the earlier game. The fighters feel more varied than they did last time in which they felt pretty much the same. Each fighter has distinct behavioral characteristics and the fighters can use the star card system the same as you can for the standard multiplayer. Combat is satisfying, and perfectly controllable with a mouse and keyboard. I think weapons overheat too quickly, but they feel far more powerful than they did before. There are star cards for improved weapon cooling, so this can be mitigated somewhat.

I also played a round of the arcade mode and the standard multiplayer. Arcade mode with Darth Maul sucked. That's the worst part of it. I like the new camera angle, but he doesn't seem to have any defense what so ever for incoming blaster fire. Even if you can kill enemies quickly, your time on the Battlefield seems short. I've got no idea how to mitigate this or handle it. I might be doing something wrong, as I only played it for a few minutes in this mode. It didn't take long to complete the kill total required to clear that one mission. The performance issues I had with the Alpha test were resolved. I'm getting solid frame rates on ultra settings at 4K. So far, the game has more or less lived up to my expectations based on what I've seen today.
 
Epic! Will we have a decent campaign mode this time? The original SWBF II on like regular gen 1 Xbox was still one of the funnest games I ever played! The new BF1 looked great but overall it just sort of sucked, to me... I couldn't get interested in it. Totally missing the story. I used to love it in BF II on the original Xbox when you could actually land inside an enemy spaceship, get out of your fighter, run into the main deck, and blow up the Star Destroyer or whatever from inside the ship!!! That was golden. I hope some of those features come back for the new BF2!
 
MIDIBoss said:
Epic! Will we have a decent campaign mode this time? The original SWBF II on like regular gen 1 Xbox was still one of the funnest games I ever played! The new BF1 looked great but overall it just sort of sucked, to me... I couldn't get interested in it. Totally missing the story. I used to love it in BF II on the original Xbox when you could actually land inside an enemy spaceship, get out of your fighter, run into the main deck, and blow up the Star Destroyer or whatever from inside the ship!!! That was golden. I hope some of those features come back for the new BF2!
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We know next to nothing about the campaign other than it will supposedly give us the story about what happened with the Empire between Return of the Jedi and the Force Awakens. It would seemingly explain how the First Order came to be. My guess is that it parallels the Nazi SS and exists in much the same way as the conspiracy theory nut jobs think the SS and Hitler came out of WWII and went to Antarctica, the center of the Earth or the moon or some such shit.

I don't recall the original Battlefront games having a story of any kind. I think you could do stuff against AI or something like that, or predefined missions that were more or less single player, but it was still the multiplayer maps, similar objectives etc. without any real story. We haven't seen a story based shooter that's in the Star Wars universe since Republic Commando. As for landing in a bay of a ship and doing that sort of thing, I am not sure. So far on the Fondor shipyards map that's not the case. If you can it would be in Galactic Assault. One very nice change they've made is getting rid of the vehicle and hero pickups. You have to earn enough points to access them. Then you respawn as that unit. The starfighter combat is actually good this time around. The controls were shit, flight physics sucked and the shooting was pretty piss poor in the 2015 game.

The class based mechanics of the regular multiplayer seem to work pretty well. None of them feel useless as they sometimes do in previous Battlefield games. The guns all feel like they work well enough and are serviceable, where as the BF2015 game has some weapons that come across as fucking useless.
 
After playing just my first impression is it’s a much slower game than bf2015. It almost feels like battlefield 1. No pickups means the game right now feels much less dynamic than bf2015 as well, hopefully the balance is there to make up for it
 
H-street said:
After playing just my first impression is it’s a much slower game than bf2015. It almost feels like battlefield 1. No pickups means the game right now feels much less dynamic than bf2015 as well, hopefully the balance is there to make up for it
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It does feel less like an arcade game than the previous game did. I think that's a good thing and I don't think I'm alone when it comes to that opinion. Although, there is an arcade mode which feels faster than the actual multiplayer does that I rather enjoyed playing. The move away from the pick ups is one of the best decisions they made with this game. It's one design decision that few people seemed happy with in the 2015 game. I hated that crap personally. I much prefer having to "buy" the heroes and vehicles with accumulated Battlepoints at the time you respawn than to have them scattered as random pickups. I do wish the vehicles were handled the way they were in the original Battlefront games and the Battlefield Series as opposed to the "buy" method during respawn. I still think the new system is a definite improvement, even if it isn't the best design DICE could have used here. It's not a hardcore multiplayer shooter like Battlefield is and I think the developers have tried to make it more accessible for all players while being fun for everyone. That's a hard balance to strike for any game designer.

However, I think spending Battlepoints on the heroes is the way to go for playing the hero characters and ships. At the same time, I feel like excelling enough early on to get the heroes in many cases will practically guarantee you MVP status at the end of the game. Whenever I was able to spawn in as the hero unit early on, I was always able to hit MVP. Although, not all hero units are created equal. The Millenium Falcon and Slave I are particularly hard to kill, but Maul's Ship and Darth Maul are not difficult to kill at all. Poe's X-Wing is a bit nicer than the stock one, and BB-8's repair function extends your longevity with the T-70 X-Wing over the standard T-65 X-wings and Y-Wing fighters which are also capable of self-repair. However, I never felt as though Poe's X-Wing was particularly hard to kill or over powered. However, the hero ships are all easier to kill than they were in the previous game. I don't know how many times I spent half the match trying to kill the Falcon or Slave I in the 2015 game. I'm not sure if it was really that tough, I just always felt like it was harder than it should have been.

The game's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's much better than the 2015 game was based on what I've played so far. The classes feel well balanced and all seem useful. I don't out right hate any of the guns. All the ships feel viable. Bombers can still be lethal, but feel like support craft and destroying smaller capital ships and weapon emplacements seems quite satisfying. However, I do think there are some balance issues that need to be worked out. The TIE/In and TIE Interceptor once again function similarly enough that there really is no reason to choose the standard TIE/In. I don't feel like it's sturdier or better armed. I also don't think it's abilities feel different enough compared to the Interceptor. The bombers are interestingly balanced. The TIE Bomber has a multi-missile system which can be used on any type of target. It's particularly effective and almost guarantees three fighter kills when used. In contrast, it's guns are weak as fuck, bordering on useless and the Y-Wing is the reverse of that. It's dual torpedoes are great, but lack the multi-hit capability of the TIE Bomber, but it's guns are beefy and easy to get kills with.

On a purely technical note, I'm running the game on Ultra settings @ 3840x2160/60Hz and it's felt buttery smooth no matter what. I'm not sure what my actual FPS is, so I'll have to check that. I've also had zero issues with the game crashing or anything like that. The Alpha had me worried because it was shit. The 2015 game, despite some questionable design decisions and a lack of content was at least VERY polished. This one seems to be just as polished as the 2015 game did at the time it's closed / open beta period began prior to it's release.
 
I can't wait to start playing tomorrow...early reports from players sound promising and a definite improvement over the first game
 
how are graphics?...better then the first game?...better then Battlefield 1?
 
polonyc2 said:
how are graphics?...better then the first game?...better then Battlefield 1?
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I haven't seen Battlefield 1 on my machine and videos never do anything justice. The graphics are solid, and at least as good as the first game.
 
Dan_D said:
I haven't seen Battlefield 1 on my machine and videos never do anything justice. The graphics are solid, and at least as good as the first game.
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the Endor and Hoth maps were stunning in the first game...looking forward to seeing what improvements DICE has made...on another forum people have been complaining about the film grain and chromatic aberration in the beta
 
polonyc2 said:
the Endor and Hoth maps were stunning in the first game...looking forward to seeing what improvements DICE has made...on another forum people have been complaining about the film grain and chromatic aberration in the beta
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True. I hated the film grain in the first game but at least you could turn it off.
 
This is a pretty good improvement over the first game. Classes at least have some sort of progression and I like that the vehicles / heroes are unlocked by accumulating points. In the previous game people would just camp the spawns for the pickups and it was fairly difficult to play as a hero if someone was doing that. It also encourages team / objective play so you can earn points faster during the round if you want to unlock them. It was quite fun flying into one of the capture rooms as Boba Fett on the Naboo map and unleashing a rocket barrage that cleared the entire room at once :)

I was in the alpha test and the beta definitely runs much better. It seems pretty well optimized though they should be pretty good with Frostbite at this point.
 
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