8 hours ago, Jo Jo said:

Big ole 'meh' story line that plays too much fan service and ends too abruptly. I think you play as much as other characters than Iden herself.

I didn't mind the storyline too much.

Arcade mode is there to teach you the in's and out's of multiplayer. Not the campaign.

1 hour ago, Jo Jo said:

I did not like all the main hero's missions the game puts you in. Should have played as Iden on Naboo and not Leia. Didn't need the Han mission. Didn't need the Lando mission either. Piloting the Falcon was fun, but throw that in as an arcade mission. Its like playing Halo and half the time you aren't Master Chief.

Wotwotwot...

...but I liked Halo 2!

Well sales figures are out they sold 60% less that the first game, can't help but smile every time I think about it.

EA worst company award for the third time?

All I got to say and I can't believe I am saying this, But thank god for Da Mouse

The call was to express Disney's unhappiness at how the outrage reflected on their marquee property. CAUTION: Language

Da Mouse had to come down and tell EA who runs Da Show, and Da Show must go on, with or without EA!

When did JoeBossRedSeven possess Marinealver?

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

When did JoeBossRedSeven possess Marinealver?

Long suspected, finally confirmed

Played a bit of the campaign, then dived into Multiplayer. Maps are very variable, with some that I really like (the AT-AT hangar base one) and some I can't bear (Mos Eisley) but on the whole I like it. It can get really frenetic in a way I don't think the original Battlefront really did, and there seems to be less sense of a 'front line' in the fighting a lot of the time.

Theres single player dlc being released on 12/13 which will continue the story.

Whats the code to post hidden contents again?

15 minutes ago, treybert said:

Theres single player dlc being released on 12/13 which will continue the story.

Whats the code to post hidden contents again?

On 11/20/2017 at 2:10 PM, Jo Jo said:

The storyline needed a few more missions as an Imperial. You so abruptly switch sides that it's a bit jarring, you are shooting Stormtroopers within the first hour. Which is kind of a bait in switch the way this campaign was marketed. This is a campaign from the Imperial POV. Yeah for all of what 3 missions? I sort of get why she defected, but it still seemed rather quick. Her dad is an Imperial Admiral for Pete's sake. You would think she would have mulled it over a bit more. But with the time/budget constraints I guess that's the best they could have done.

I did not like all the main hero's missions the game puts you in. Should have played as Iden on Naboo and not Leia. Didn't need the Han mission. Didn't need the Lando mission either. Piloting the Falcon was fun, but throw that in as an arcade mission. Its like playing Halo and half the time you aren't Master Chief.

I get this.

I was talking to a friend on monday evening, and we were reminiscing over The X-wing Series, and Starlancer, and Freespace, each of which had space combat campaigns with several dozen missions, and despite the lesser technology involved often felt more epic. Starlancer and Freespace were both particularly noted for levels where you'd be dogfighting between two duelling capital ships and really affect the outcome, as torpedos and cap-ship gun shots fly back and forward that you can shoot down - or get hit by.

Yes, Jakku looked awesome with capital ships slugging away. But at least once I had to 'go around' a fight to get from where I was to an objective and my feelings were "but I want to get involved in that ! It looks awesome !"

But of course it's a pre-scripted fight you can't affect, and the clock is ticking for the next inept NPC who needs their backside hauling out of the fire, so around you go.

The thing is, a purely 'space dogfight' game takes much less time and effort to do for the same amount of gameplay time - because even with prefab 'block' terrain elements I dread to think of the hours spent creating and rendering (for example) Endor compared to 'open space + backdrop + asteroids', so even with the superior tools, there's an exponential drop in the amount of actual gameplay experience (different settings and characters) with every generation of a game. By comparison, with only a limited 'toolbox' of terrain objects and backdrops, it's relatively easy to create new non-skirmish content for a space setting.

Which is annoying, because to most of my friends the space combat is the best bit and it's massively compressed in favour of trying to make a game 'do everything' (I realise I and many people reading this are biased; by default if you're on a forum for the X-wing tabletop game you have at least a passing interest in star wars dogfights).

But it just makes me wonder how much of an awesome campaign, mission flexibility, etc, you could achieve if you took something akin to battlefront in scale and budget and said "you know what, nuts to ground combat, let's just make a 'Black Squadron*' game" and threw all those writing and programming man-hours into that , not creating yet another slightly-different-coloured series of chest-high walls.

* Poe Dameron's or "Mauler" Mithel's as you see fit. I'm not picky.

Caution Language and Profanity But I ROFLMAO

I want buy this game, eventually, but I cannot help fearing that I will be burned like I was with the first game. I never paid full price for the game or the season pass, so that is a bonus.

How does SWBF2 play out? Can I play private, LAN style games on any map whenever I want? Or is it more like the first one, you can only play maps/missions if there are enough live players wanting the same thing? I tried to play a Starfighter Assault on a Bespin map earlier today...no live players, too bad...

I have the game. A bit more of a review here.

The game is beautiful to look at. Top notch graphics and sound.

The campaign is short but it is as entertaining as any of these types of things are. I thought it was a tad easy. I played it on hard and didn't ever consider turning the difficulty down. I haven't read them but I think the story is meant to tie in with the Aftermath novels. And also the new film or they were just setting up story for a sequel. I thought there were a few things in the story that "happened off screen" as it were but I liked it.

There is an Arcade mode with solo, split screen co-op, and a split screen battle. I haven't played any of the split-screen modes.

There are also 8 solo battles for each of light and dark side. They are in various locales utilizing part of the mult-player maps. Most of them have two heroes and various classes that you play. There is a team battle where it is you and some AI soldiers against enemy AI soldiers. There is an onslaught mode where you're one of two heroes. You have various amounts of time to eliminate a number of enemies. Each kill adding time back to the clock.

There is a custom mode where you can choose the map and types of enemies and which heroes and classes you can play as well as various modifiers.

You do not need to have unlocked the heroes with credits to use them in their maps on arcade mode. The arcade mode is largely in my opinion meant to let you learn how to use the various hero abilities. Star Cards you've pulled from lootboxes or crafted with parts (we'll get to more on this) can be equipped to the heroes when you use them in arcade. You can not use any of the locked cards though.

You can earn about 500 credits a day for playing solo arcade matches. There are also milestones in arcade (as well as in multi-player and from the single-player) to complete that give you either credits, crystals, or parts. These are the game's three currencies.

Credits are similar to the 2015 version of the game. Finish a game earn credits. Finish a milestone earn credits.

Crystals can also be earned with milestones. Before the micro-transactions were removed you could pay money to get crystals.

Crystals and Credits are used to get the infamous lootcrates. Crates provide emotes, victory poses (for the round summary screen in MP.) star cards, and most importantly parts. Parts are how you craft cards you want but haven't pulled and how you upgrade cards.

The crates are where you progress in multi-player. The progression really hangs over the whole multi-player which is fun in my opinion. The starfighter mode this go around is far superior to the 2015 version. But the random nature of crates...

I can elaborate on the progression and MP if anyone wants to know from someone who has played the game for a bit now.

Frimmel, is SWBF2 like the first one where I am restricted from playing certain maps/missions if there are not enough live players? That was the biggest drawback for me.

20 hours ago, Vellcrow said:

Frimmel, is SWBF2 like the first one where I am restricted from playing certain maps/missions if there are not enough live players? That was the biggest drawback for me.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at but so far none of the multi-player maps are available in their entirety for Arcade mode. Parts of them are used in Arcade mode but for example you can't do the first bit of Multi-player Galactic Assault on Hoth where you're attacking/defending with/from the AT-ATs alone against AI.

There is an aracde onslaught with Darth Maul that happens on the last stage of the Naboo multi-player map but it is just the environment. Most of the arcade maps are this sort of thing. Part of one of the MP maps.

So far you don't have to wait to get into a MP game although it does happen past 10pm Eastern time. There are minimum numbers of players for the MP modes though but it doesn't shunt you into a Blast match if you were looking for Galactic Assault. There isn't anything like the DLC playlists in Battlefront 2015 so far. Since the DLC is going to be free there shouldn't be either.

You can also only join the mode. There is no map selection within the mode option.

There's a large part of me that wants to buy this game. But there's just too much uncertainty about the title for me to throw money at it.

Look at it this way. If FFG went down the drain tomorrow, we'd still have our figures. We wouldn't have updates or tournaments, but what we had would still be ours and there would still be the possibility of buying stuff from former players selling off their collection. If Nintendo went out of business, I wouldn't have to worry about them coming into my house with sledge hammers and smashing all my old consoles.

Thing is, EA's first Battlefront was 95% multiplayer and 5% singleplayer. That game lasted what 1-2 years? And then BFFII2 was released and a good chunk of the population moved on and the older game's servers took a major hit to population. Eventually it will get to the point that EA will no longer be making money off of it and the servers will go down. Now 95% of my game is useless and the any time, money, or energy that I put into it has evaporated. BFII2 is about 75-80% multiplayer. Considering EA's propensity to release a new title every few years, that is still too much of a reliance on the original company to keep their own game afloat.

This is why traditionally multiplayer has always been a secondary function in games. It was meant to be a way to keep the game fresh after the SP experience went stale. Heck, look at X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. They eventually made a campaign that you could take part in by yourself because the game wasn't holding up well enough with MP alone.

Now, there are exceptions to the rule. Team Fortress, Starcraft, and a few other titles have seen all or the vast majority of their success come from MP. You also have MMORPGs that, while you can solo them, still rely on the company to keep the game world spinning. But the titles that withstand the test of time are relatively few and those that do succeed do their relative best to keep things on the same game and just keep the game growing over time.

I legitimately don't think that EA is capable of having that kind of patience with a title if they found that kind of golden egg in their nest. Eventually greed and temptation would overcome prudence and they would cut open the belly of the goose.

I'm not on any kind of crusade to change the gaming industry. I just know that a company needs my loyalty and trust in their product before I'll start investing in them and EA, be it through Mass Effect, Command and Conquer, or now Battlefront, has shown itself totally incapable of producing long term investments or earning my trust. They are looking more and more like Atari did in the 1980's with the internet tacked on for extra money grabs. Atari just assumed that the consumer would gobble up whatever they put out on the market and went belly up when one of their biggest ventures wound up buried in the desert rather than making them the guaranteed mint that they figured it would.

13 hours ago, Frimmel said:

You can also only join the mode. There is no map selection within the mode option.

I heard that you join a new server affer each match, leading to a larger chance to keep playing the same maps over again instead of always rotating to the next. Is that accurate?

On 11/23/2017 at 1:09 PM, Vellcrow said:

I want buy this game, eventually, but I cannot help fearing that I will be burned like I was with the first game. I never paid full price for the game or the season pass, so that is a bonus.

How does SWBF2 play out? Can I play private, LAN style games on any map whenever I want? Or is it more like the first one, you can only play maps/missions if there are enough live players wanting the same thing? I tried to play a Starfighter Assault on a Bespin map earlier today...no live players, too bad...

No you cannot private LAN or create your own private match and invite a buddy. Its one of the most annoying omissions. There is a custom battle mode, but its only singleplayer. I really do hope they add it in the future, but it is probably unlikely. I believe you can splitscreen on consoles and play the arcade modes, but of course not on PC.

4 hours ago, ViscerothSWG said:

I heard that you join a new server affer each match, leading to a larger chance to keep playing the same maps over again instead of always rotating to the next. Is that accurate?

I don't think so. You will play the same map twice in a row a lot of times, but you switch sides. I don't think I've ever had to play the same map and side twice in a row after joining a game.

Other annoying things are there is no spawn protection for starfighters in galactic assault mode. A lot of seasoned players (jerks) will know exactly where you ship will spawn and just camp that area. You will get instantly killed. Which is annoying since you spent battle points to get that X-wing. They need to put in random spawn zones or give the spawned ship a brief period of invulnerability to give you a fighting chance.

Another thing I noticed is a lot of the matches can be very lopsided affairs. Not sure if its just the matches I have been getting into or not.

I've already ran into my first hacker (on PC). He was clearly using an aimbot that got him instant headshots. I think he ended up with 80 something kills or some ridiculous number.

4 hours ago, ViscerothSWG said:

I heard that you join a new server affer each match, leading to a larger chance to keep playing the same maps over again instead of always rotating to the next. Is that accurate?

Usually you play once on the light side and then again on the dark side and move to a new map. I have not had to play the same map twice in a row after once on each side. However, I have played a new map and then gone back to that first map. I played over a week before I played on the Mos Eisley Galactic Assault map. It isn't very bad but yesterday it seemed like I was on Yavin every fourth match.

There is a matchmaking thing in effect that is meant to keep you from ending up as a new player in a match where everyone has bunches of way better star cards than you do. I think that shuffles you around and combines with matchmaking trying to keep the servers full and keeping you within acceptable ping to the server. I suspect that assuring you play all the maps before repeating one is not a top priority for the algorithm.

On 11/20/2017 at 2:11 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

I didn't mind the storyline too much.

• A battlefront game using single player as (amongst other things) teaching you the tools for multiplayer (which is part of it whether we like it or not) needs to have both rebel and imperial elements to the single-player. To be honest, if there wasn't both regardless someone would have been upset.
  • This could be a rebel and imperial campaign but with the costs of development these days, a single campaign is easier.
  • This means an imperial then rebel one, because a 'hero' character defecting to the empire doesn't make too much sense (unless it's one of the nastier bits of the rebellion, which since the Rebellion is always shown as sweetness, light, candy and unicorns with Saw's partisans pretty much the only exception to date) so it's inevitably going to be an imperial defecting to the empire
• Jakku seems like a nice sensible end-point. Yes, the story jumps ahead but almost by definition there won't be too many battles between the two points.
• Seeing what's happening from Kylo/Victim's perspective during a mind-scan is interesting.
• I did think Lando was perfect:
  • "What was that?"
  • "The sound of my plan working perfectly!" (you can hear the smugface)
  • "It's going to explode, isn't it?"
  • "Yes. We should run."

"Big plot implications"

• it does seem to be hinting that Iden and Del are Rey's parents, either biological or adopted (I'd guess the former because of how much they look like her and the inevitable imperial officer english accent).
• Someone pointed out a really bad pun.
• Del is said to 'find the force' on world-with-the-emperor's-storage-shed which would give Rey at least one force-sensitive parent
• The compass they find is presumably Luke's map (or some stage in finding it).
• It would explain why Kylo knows about " what girl? ", because he knows Del has a daughter and he's clearly captured Del as a stage prior to Lor San Tekka (the map you gave to the old man) prior to him in turn giving it to Poe, prior to giving it to BB-8. If he knew Del had a daughter, probably on Jakku, and the force's there-are-no-coincidences tendancy...
• ....It would also mean Rey isn't lying when she said she was 'no-one' in the grand scheme of things; in this case she would be the child of a couple of X-wing pilots who set up home on Jakku.
• It would explain where her father went - if he in some way was responsible for finding the map/helping find the map and became aware he was being hunted by Kylo Ren and couldn't return without putting her in danger.
• It doesn't explain why she was left completely alone; her mother may have died, or gone along as well - she was about 5 and being left with unkar plutt, which seems like a poor life choice if you have any alternative unless he's changed a lot as a person......

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

A simlar thought grabbed me.

More importantly, the idea of "the contingency" seems contradictory. This might just be a result of plotlines being shoe-horned into an established universe or it might be a plot element of significance...

• Assuming if he was dead Vader was (or would be soon enough) is not unreasonable. Vader was a blunt instrument and if the Emperor died, despite his own plans Vader wasn't going to hold the empire together, and the only way he was going to exit stage left was dead.
• I never really felt Palpatine just let Mace put him in that position. Windu did, after all, beat him and prior to Anakin entering the room there's no indication he was in any way going easy on Windu.
• Palpatine wanting everyone who failed him/beat him to die horribly fits his personality; it's basically a galaxy-wide version of the Thrawn Trilogy's Y OU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER
• Nevertheless, the sheer amount of effort involved for someone who by all accounts didn't think he was going to (or even could ) lose seems excessive, to the point of feeling a bit petty; you're dead, who cares?
• Equally, if he wants to burn and smash everything, secreting away forces to 'create a new and better empire' seems oddly idealistic and massively out of character. One think Palpatine was not was idealistic.
• I'm wondering if we might see palpatine 'surviving' - the Dark Empire's clone approach is one option (maybe a bit too obvious given the pointedly signposted fact that according to the Aftermath books, apparently one of the ships the Emperor squirreled away to create the First Order was the SSD Eclipse which gives the whole thing a bit of a Dark Empire vibe), or else the Emperor as a Force Ghost (the Nightsister ghosts in Rebels implies such a thing can exist).
• The latter would give an interesting possibility to what Snoke (if he's got palpatine either whispering in his ear or hijacking him) wants as an endgame for Kylo/Rey - a young, impressionable mind who's strong in the force.....

The messenger droid thing wasn't completely out of character for the Emperor, but the Operation Cinder thing did seem odd. Maybe it wasn't the Emperor at all who programmed the droids.

Currently the powers that be are falling all over themselves to try and clean up the fundamentally flawed setup provided in Force Awakens. I just read the new Poe trade paperback. And the story is pretty good but every time they have to talk on or touch something around The Senate, First Order, and Resistance and the resulting conflict it sort of just goes "clunk."

9 hours ago, Jo Jo said:

The messenger droid thing wasn't completely out of character for the Emperor, but the Operation Cinder thing did seem odd. Maybe it wasn't the Emperor at all who programmed the droids.

Maybe operation cinder was cover. They did extract a single person from Vardos, who