SPECULATION Star Wars: Battlefront II General Discussion

Yeah, it's not good when you've got a big new movie coming out and a company infamous for greedy practices has a PR nightmare just a month in advance.

Honestly, I hope that EA loses its exclusivity deal. Congrats to everyone who likes Battlefront, but I'd like to have some variety in my Star Wars games outside of online shooters, and apparently EA seems unwilling to do that right now, given their interpretation of Games as a Service.

 

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2017, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2017 ---

Spoiler

I'd liked to have spend some more time with Iden and her father. My guess is they were really afraid to keep the player "distracted" with long cutscenes and motivations. With the attention of a 12 year old, the player wants to get back into action within 5 minutes. Other games I played don't give in to such qualms. None of the Iden/father dynamic really made sense, especially when you haven't read Inferno Squad. As for all those EU references, just imagine someone playing it who hasn't got the slightest idea and is completely ignorant of all the new EU. He or she hears about Rax etc. and all sorts of chatter during the battle of Jakku. He or she had bought the game on the promise that one would see "the evolution of the empire into the first order through Iden"...........which basically never happens. It was fun to play, but story-wise rather shallow and rushed. I still don't get why the Han and Lando missions were necessary and what they contributed to the main story. But then again, I have also completed Call of Duty WWII's story and comparing that one to this Battlefront's story I'd say the latter is a jewel and as such can hardly understand why CoD's story and singleplayer receives praise in the first place

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2017 ---

But which publisher should replace it. They're all sinners. The fact that its Star Wars has caused a riot, but I can't really imagine Star Wars games being made by WB, Ubisoft or Activision. Besides each of the Battlefronts is amazing to play and also looks amazing. The problem is with the "games-as-a-service" philosophy, as invented and promoted by EA CEO and which has long since been infesting other EA titles. There is only way to solve it.

Resign.

 

Impressions update:

After I completed the single player campaign I played more multiplayer and it's so much fun. I love the gameplay. I'm still in the process of wrapping my head around everything. For example, there are still many maps I haven't played, which also means I'm not yet sure how diverse Galactic Assault and Strike modes are in practice and whether or not they could end up being monotonous.

However, the loot box system frustrates me due to the randomness of drop. I have nothing against the cards themselves, but it's annoying that I keep getting ones for classes I don't intend to progress in... An option to sell unwanted cards for little amounts of crafting parts would be cool.

 

The whole end scene is incredible. Can't wait for the upcoming additions to the campaign when TLJ is released - I wonder what they're concealing that has to wait until the movie is released...?

Spoiler

Rey's parents revealed?!?! It could be Iden and Del depending on when the daughter was actually born. We see them right after the Batlle of Jakku, and then 30 years passes so there's no definitive date of birth, just some time in between that. Iden is a tough fighter (like...Rey) and Del is an expert at fixing things (like...Rey) I dunno, maybe it's too obvious but it could make sense.

P.S. Del Meeko - what a name!!

 

re: your spoiler:

Spoiler

the timeline doesn't woek given Del refers to them in the interrogation. at this point Rey is already anywhere from 14-19 years old--probably the latter]. so unless their daughter (whose name is Zay), is currently sweating it out on Jakku under a false name without Iden for some reason, it makes no sense. Clearly Kylo Ren's threat refers to a daughter with whom Del still has contact (and whom Kylo Ren himself is already aware of).

all that said, yes! totally enjoyed this.
it'll be interesting to see if Hask turns up somewhere else, though i'm kinda disappointed he's so obviously eville. blergh.

 

Don't spoil my speculation!!

 

I don't think the "hours to cent" is really the metric we should use, though.

For instance, consider single player games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Assassins Creed Origins. You could probably do most of the meatier stuff in those games in 40-60 hours.

Then, consider a game like the latest Call of Duty or Fifa- pretty much replayable as long as you want, though obviously your mileage may vary.

You can't really say accurately how much time at all someone would play COD or Fifa. I got Fifa 2015 used, and have played less than 10 matches- I have friends who have played hundreds of hours of it. Same for COD- I played maybe 15 hours of the last COD I got (Ghosts) but put hundreds of hours into MW2. Also, I've never gotten COD DLC.

I get that game prices have not adjusted well with inflation, not to mention that games are just more expensive to make these days. I can't speak for the gaming community, but if a game released finished with the promise of NO paid DLC or microtransactions, I may have been willing to pay 10-20 bucks extra for it. Overwatch, for example- I'm not really into online shooters anymore anyway, but if I was I'd totally be all in with Overwatch, and if I'd known how well it'd be supported even a year and a half into launch I'd have gladly paid 80 bucks on its release.

 

All controversy aside...

...I am immensely enjoying BF2.

 

Wouldn't that be the ultimate twist...it was under our noses the entire time!

 

I'm glad I'm just in it for the gameplay & than paying for extras.

 

It's a trap!

 

SPOILERS ahead.

Finished the campaign last night, gripes about the fast-moving turncoat narrative and it being too short aside, I mostly thoroughly enjoyed it. Still wish I could have been Iden all the way through, don't see the point of the immersion-breaking hero sections that largely handle like filing cabinets. I found the answer to my own question; Inferno 'Squad' is of no use whatsoever, even when you're playing alongside the "AI" team-mates, they do literally nothing, I'd have been provided better support if I'd been pulling along a Fisher Price telephone on wheels than Del was on Cloud City (so it's definitively no Imperial Commando), but overall it was decent. The banter between Lando and Shriv on Sullust was fantastic and had me laughing out loud, the absolute script performance of the game (please more of Shriv in Star Wars media!) and the battle of Jakku was very well done (except a few glaring graphical short-cuts, such as shooting the AT-ATs from my X-Wing and my lasers going straight through them - even if the whole point was I destroy them after with the orbital bombardment, it made me feel the ground battle wasn't part of the same gameplay unlike in the original where everything on the map from the troops on the ground to the fighters in the sky felt part of the same interactive experience... because they literally were). REALLY hoped and was expecting to see some bridging between the end of the Empire and the start of the First Order (like the retreat to the unknown regions etc), it truly felt like it was building towards that, so was quite disappointed when it just flashed ahead to "decades later" with the FO already formed, but the Kylo Ren section searching for Lor San Tekka was fantastic and loved how it was blending well into the rest of the new sequel-trilogy lore and the links it did make to the bitter former-Imperial forces who were behind its formation.

As for the rest of single player - well Arcade is complete and utter crap. Hate it. It's so empty, repetitive and boring. And the hero battles are the same, just endless pointless hacking through bots with no variety; it's the first Battlefront's loading screen! PLEASE bring back Skirmish so I can play Galactic Assault modes offline. PLEASE. No vehicles, no large maps and no objectives is no fun.

And well, that's all there is to single player really. I don't like playing multiplayer online, I play for an immersive Star Wars experience at my own rate, not to get annoyed and get constantly killed by people with way more time on their hands than I do (an hour of play hurts my eyes anyway), so will probably end up shelving the game until more single player DLC comes out.

 

I can't get over how well the game runs on my two and a half year old PC compared to the beta, which at the time made me very worried about the full game's performance. It feels as if I downloaded a new graphics card along with the game files. At first the extremely long loading screens were killing me, but the recent patch improved it greatly, so it got even better overall.

 

My final verdict on this game is that it looks gorgeous with the frost bite engine, they gave us a campaign, but alas Dice studios has no creativity at all! We wanted Tauntauns, so they gave us Tauntauns, yet... thats it! They didn't make the Dewbacks, Eopies, Rontos, or the Banthas rideable! Are they really Star Wars fans???!!! I don't thinks so! Watch this video, I'll let Joe breakdown the rest of EA and Dice studios major blunder!

I've been playing Call of Duty for years because foR $60 they give you a full and complete game. I bought Battlefield 3 for its gorgeous frost bite engine but after finishing the campaign, and playing multipler for awhile, I went back to Call of Duty because Dice is not a creative studio. Dice is just superficial. They make good looking games but thats it.

I'll continue to play Star Wars Battlefront 2 just to see where they take this game, because I love Star Wars, but I'm going back to playing my Call of Duty World War 2 for the Zombie mode, campaign, multipler, and world league. LFM should have never given Dice this license, because all they're doing is taking advantage of Star Wars fans. I hope they lose it cause I really want a good game... HEY LFM DON'T RENEW EA STAR WARS LICENSE THOSE GUYS ARE PUNKS

And for all those that suck at multipler...

 

Ugh, victory poses are such lame unlockables... Totally useless. If they wanted to give us something in that vein, they should have introduced something like badass character artworks (units, heroes, ships, everything) that you can collect and set as your avatar. You know, like Topps cards. "Collect 5 epic Darth Vader ability cards to unlock this portrait" - and there's your badge of prestige. IMO it would be much cooler than those vaguely distinguishable victory poses.

Also, I'm not a fan of the heavy use of holograms in all the menus. It's a very cool effect, but I would prefer to see those beautiful 3D models more clearly. Make them holograms for a second and then change into normal view. Plus, they should make it possible to browse through factions in the menu (I only see clones).

 

Oh, so that's where the idea comes from. I haven't played Overwatch, but I googled their victory poses and well... one difference is that in Overwatch you can see the characters more clearly, which goes back to my point about holograms.