So I just found this little video, and it's pretty darn funny. It's also got an example of one of my favorite little quirks with this game. The fact that the Purge Troopers almost always say something really macho as they are falling to their deaths, as if they are unaware you just shoved them off a ledge. It's got a collection of the goofy bugs and hiccups the game has, but in a comical montage. Just finished watching it, and nothing spoilery really. Just random encounters with the footsoldiers and stuff. Very good.

48 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Yeah that sounds like aggressively stupid conspiracy theory nonsense.

Well, how much serious promotional effort is EA really putting behind what should be a Triple-A title in comparison to their other Triple-A titles, such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Dragon Age: Inquisition, or Battlefront II?

EA has themselves made it clear in public press statements that they don't consider single-player games to be "financially viable," mostly as they're focused on short-term profits that are generated from micro-transactions, especially via loot crates. If this game (a single-player game without micro-transactions) is a runaway success, it puts their entire mantra of "the only games that people want are multiplayer with microtransactions" into question.

So not much of a conspiracy theory when EA's own actions and statements demonstrate it.

"Conspiracy Theory" is a very overused phrase that used to be reserved for flat-earthers and people who thought the martians were infiltrating our governments. Now it's for surmising as to why a company might try to manipulate sales.

I don't know that I agree, but it's certainly not outside what can reasonably be inferred.

Well I mean, it's not like EA has a stellar reputation of fair and reasonable business practices. Given the way they treat their subsidiaries, and the general horrible nature of the current gaming industry when it comes to employee rights and health, it wouldn't surprise me at all that a company would try and tank projects that don't have "a sufficient marketable retention lifespan." I mean, there are several leaked videos out there, of people in the gaming industry, giving talks and lectures on how to milk the consumer base for every penny they can, using psychological manipulation tactics. And you can see those tactics implemented in the current gaming generation.

So yeah, I don't think it's a big stretch to say that EA, not seeing the dump trucks of cash that monetization can get them from a non-microtransaction, single player game, and decide to not put much money into the advertisement of it.

Is that actually a "conspiracy theory" ? ...*shrugs* But words evolve all the time, and we all know the general meaning when someone says that now. "Behind the scenes, secret, underhanded crap going on." is the common usage of it these days.

55 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

So yeah, I don't think it's a big stretch to say that EA, not seeing the dump trucks of cash that monetization can get them from a non-microtransaction, single player game, and decide to not put much money into the advertisement of it.

Scuttlebutt is that one of the driving reasons EA agreed to no micro-transactions in this game was that Disney put pressure on them, especially in the aftermath of the loot box debacle in their Battlefront II. So it's not that much of a stretch that EA agreed to those terms rather than run the risk of them losing what they're hoping will still be a very lucrative license. Avoiding another PR disaster (and thus subsequent loss of stock value) is quite likely another driving factor. There'd been a lot of online speculation (idle thinking to my view) that Disney would yank the license and give it to another major company, but I doubt that was in any danger of actually happening. If anything, if Disney was really dissatisfied with how EA was handling things, they'd simply pass on renewing the contract with EA rather than kill the contract early (as that would undoubtedly involve all sorts of legal hassles and/or fees).

To be honest, given that the overall quality of the game is good (most reviews peg it around 8 out of 10, so not a perfect game by any stretch), I'm hopeful that we'll get DLC at some point (which would earn EA more revenue), perhaps in the vein of how the Dragon Age games handled most of their DLC, as additional missions you can undertake after completing the main quest, and possibly unlocking additional skills or possibly even some cosmetics that provide a minor boost to Cal's performance.

Perhaps it'd even be a way to have Cal run into a few other Jedi survivors who are laying low for the own reasons, bidding their time until Obi-Wan's promised "new hope" emerges, and perhaps have him running into more members of the Inquisitorius beyond the two we see in the game. Heck, maybe even a confrontation with the Grand Inquisitor from Rebels, albeit with the fight ending inconclusively due to the GI needing to be around to show up in Rebels ten years later. Or even a trip to Imperial-held Coruscant to snag some vital relic from the Jedi Temple. Or to Alderaan, to meet with Senator Bail Organa and/or his secret asset Fulcrum.

It's a theory about the secret manipulative behavior of a small cabal of people in (relative) power based on, at best, second hand knowledge of anyone involved.

3 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

It's a theory about the secret manipulative behavior of a small cabal of people in (relative) power based on, at best, second hand knowledge of anyone involved.

The problem with your argument is that it isn't secret. There is a mountain of evidence including but not limited to videographic evidence from internal business meetings, congressional testimony and company memos. Electronic Arts and Activision-Blizzard have made it quite clear that they believe the future of video gaming is in live-service games with a mountain of predatory monetization.

31 minutes ago, BipolarJuice said:

The problem with your argument is that it isn't secret. There is a mountain of evidence including but not limited to videographic evidence from internal business meetings, congressional testimony and company memos. Electronic Arts and Activision-Blizzard have made it quite clear that they believe the future of video gaming is in live-service games with a mountain of predatory monetization.

Yeah, I remember seeing an article when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided came out, talking from the devs, where they flat out stated that their parent company came down and forced them to shovel in microtransactions into the game, forcing them to divert workforce resources last minute, to appease them. They were also forced to cut the game basically in half, because Square Enix demanded they release it by a certain date, to try and hit the...I think it was the Christmas sale hype for that year, instead of giving them the time needed to make the full game.

There have been countless examples, from government inquires around the world, dealing with the issue of these gaming companies trying to find workarounds to laws protecting consumers, all so they can milk more money out of us. The issues with the lootbox/gambling issues are especially laughable, when you see what they implement, and then try and say "but it's not gambling!".

So yeah, doesn't surprise me at all that EA would try and slowly strangle a title they don't think will make them all the money. Because just making them money isn't enough for the share holders in these companies. They need all of it. So if the game isn't projected to make truckloads of cash on an ongoing basis, yeah, they would easily say something along the lines of "well why are we funding this then? When we could be putting those resources into something with microtransactions, and engagement retention mechanics to milk the whales for every penny they have?" Because frankly, they've shown clear evidence that is exactly how they operate. And EA is one of the worst examples of this type of behavior.

OT: Back to the game in question though!

Just beat it about 20 minutes ago. It was fun, kind of ended abruptly, with a clear suggestion of a sequel, or DLC to further the story. I liked how they ended it, as the entire game I'm sitting there asking myself "Ok but why? Why do this? This seems like a bad plan considering what's at stake!"

And again, BD-1 was awesome, and had another "F**k yeah!" moment for me. He's officially my favorite droid, having toppled L3-37 for that spot, though she is a strong 2nd.

I would strongly recommend to just play it on Story mode, because I find the combat annoying. Not overly so, it's just, it gets in the way of the game for me personally.

7 hours ago, BipolarJuice said:

The problem with your argument is that it isn't secret. There is a mountain of evidence including but not limited to videographic evidence from internal business meetings, congressional testimony and company memos. Electronic Arts and Activision-Blizzard have made it quite clear that they believe the future of video gaming is in live-service games with a mountain of predatory monetization.

Then show me EA execs saying they want Fallen Order to fail. Give me a quote.

10 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

I would strongly recommend to just play it on Story mode, because I find the combat annoying. Not overly so, it's just, it gets in the way of the game for me personally.

I agree, though I've heard if you're playing it on XB1 or PS4 Pro, there's a setting toggle for Performance. Switch that on, and the graphics aren't as "crisp" (difference is mostly negligible) but the game's response time to button inputs improves quite a bit. I'll try that out next time I boot up the game and see if there is any appreciable difference.

If you're playing the game on a PC, you'll have to fiddle with the machine's settings to get a similar result, though part of that likely depends on how high above the game's tech requirements your machine is. A machine that just barely meets the minimum requirements is probably still going to have issues, while a high-end gaming machine should be able to improve the performance by not running the graphics at optimal quality.

Finished the game a few days ago, it was awesome. Especially for an EA game. The boss fights were really cool, even some of the sliding sequences (Kashyyyk, you know what I mean) were really cool.

Definitely stealing some ideas for my various rpg groups.

Also, really big respect for the designers of BD-1. Putting so much emotion into a droid that doesn't have mimics.. simply awesome.

On 11/29/2019 at 5:44 AM, MasterZelgadis said:

Finished the game a few days ago, it was awesome. Especially for an EA game. The boss fights were really cool, even some of the sliding sequences (Kashyyyk, you know what I mean) were really cool.

Gotta disagree entirely on this point, the sliding I mean. That was the single most annoying part of this game design for me. I never found it fun or enjoyable, as the controls were just way too clunky. Between the camera angle whipping around, and the joystick input acting like a drunk on the deck of a moving ship, I died more to falling off the side of a slide than actual combat kills.

I do agree on BD-1, he was consistently the most enjoyable part of the game to me. From his adorable and endearing design/behavior, to having some of the more "Heck Yeah!" awesome moments during the narrative.

I enjoyed some of the sliding levels, because I was able to not pay any attention to the sliding . Since I was watching someone else play it, I was able to take in the vistas (like on Kashyyyk) and not have to pay any attention to the actual sliding, which I imagine I'd find extremely annoying. I've never liked it when it's that much on rails.

Yeah, some of the sliding segments were annoying, given you had to anticipate the turn before it actually came up, along with a few of them that if you didn't press the jump/grab button at just the right moment, you'd go plunging into the depths and have to redo the whole sequence all over again.

There was a YouTube video I watched that offered a non-spoiler review (footage was either from pre-existing clips or the initial level), and one thing the guy mentioned as a point in the game's favor was that the combat (and by extension Force usage) had some literal weight to it, and gave the player what was probably a more 'realistic' (for a given weight of that term considering the setting in question) feel for how a Jedi would fight, as opposed to the over-the-top antics of the two Force Unleashed games, which from his perspective were simply "mash buttons to progress" with maybe a few puzzle elements here and there to break up the action. In J:FO, that attacks weren't just "mash button for instant swing," and that at the higher difficulty levels you pretty much need to think at least one step ahead of your foe, which makes the game more challenging but not to the extent of games like Dark Souls or Sekiroh, but still enough that most players won't just sleepwalk through combats. That and along with the option to re-explore planets as you unlock new powers added to the game, provided you're the type that enjoys re-exploring for the sake of re-exploring, given that the rewards are cosmetics that not every player is going to care about.

6 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

There was a YouTube video I watched that offered a non-spoiler review (footage was either from pre-existing clips or the initial level), and one thing the guy mentioned as a point in the game's favor was that the combat (and by extension Force usage) had some literal weight to it, and gave the player what was probably a more 'realistic' (for a given weight of that term considering the setting in question) feel for how a Jedi would fight, as opposed to the over-the-top antics of the two Force Unleashed games, which from his perspective were simply "mash buttons to progress" with maybe a few puzzle elements here and there to break up the action.

I find that an interesting interpretation, given all of the canon examples of Jedi in the films were overwhelmingly of them just walking through enemies with little effort at all, unless you were a Named NPC, or a Plot Device Enemy, like the droidikas. I mean if you were a Roger Roger droid, or a Stormtrooper, beings of equivalent squishyness and threat in the SW-verse, you were basically a "press button and die" enemy. So I don't really see the issue. They sure as heck didn't stand up to actual force trained people while using stun batons. I'm referring to just the regular storm troopers with batons, not the Purge Troopers, who were at least established as having had specific training to fight force users.

That is another thing actually, the combat techniques the Purge Troopers implemented to deal with fighting a force user were really cool. My favorite was the counter to force Pull. That was clever as heck, and really cool to watch.

13 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Gotta disagree entirely on this point, the sliding I mean. That was the single most annoying part of this game design for me. I never found it fun or enjoyable, as the controls were just way too clunky. Between the camera angle whipping around, and the joystick input acting like a drunk on the deck of a moving ship, I died more to falling off the side of a slide than actual combat kills.

I do agree on BD-1, he was consistently the most enjoyable part of the game to me. From his adorable and endearing design/behavior, to having some of the more "Heck Yeah!" awesome moments during the narrative.

I have to say I played with mouse and keyboard and I found it WAY easier to control than with gamepad. I agree the sliding is a bit annoying, BUT the one scene I meant (after you reach the wookie hut on that one tree) was very cool made, with all the things happening around you (don't want to spoil, you know what I mean..)

10 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

I have to say I played with mouse and keyboard and I found it WAY easier to control than with gamepad. I agree the sliding is a bit annoying, BUT the one scene I meant (after you reach the wookie hut on that one tree) was very cool made, with all the things happening around you (don't want to spoil, you know what I mean..)

I vaguely remember the scene you are talking about? Honestly I blocked out most of the sliding sequences, as they were instant frustration for me, and given the control issues, I had to devote pretty much all my attention to trying to wrestle the mechanics into not sending me off a bottomless pit to my death. So I wasn't really watching any of the background stuff.

Having beaten the game roughly a week ago now, I will say that it doesn't really age well? Like, I barely remember much of the game, other than stuff with BD-1 being a little bad***** . Everything about it was....adequate, is probably the best way I can describe my reaction. It was fun, when it wasn't being annoying. The combat wasn't anything to write home about, mostly because all I thought while fighting was "man I wish I was playing Force Unleashed, I had more fun with that combat." (not a fan of Dark Souls combat at all, so slightly biased). The story was fine, but ultimately just...there?

I felt no compulsion to start it up again and go for any second playthrough, and I didn't bother with 100% completion, since I knew all the stuff was just more poncho skins....yay...poncho skins...

I enjoyed it, but I probably would've preferred holding off for a year or more and getting it on sale for like half price or less.

Played (PC) starting on Jedi Knight, going to Jedi Master at one point and then Grandmaster later in the game. Got all the achievements, plan to play again completely on grandmaster. Once you learn the combat system, there's still a chance to slip up, so every combat is still fun, but you get pretty skilled as a player (and the character does too).

It's been really fun, one of my favorite star wars games since the first KotOR. I will agree that the sliding sections are not my favorite. Should there be additional games of this type (Star Wars: Jedi is titled like a series, with - Fallen Order as a specific entry into the series) I would prefer some additional use of Force Powers while platforming and traversing, with less sliding. I would also enjoy more stuff like Force Echoes, which are optional to collect but add to the story, stuff like what happened before you got to a planet, filling in some character backstories and even stuff that's entirely focused on side characters you have the chance of talking to at certain points in the game. The crates and scanned enemies and objects was not very integrated into the story other than just lore and "here's the strategy to beat them" and the crates only gave cosmetic items that you cannot take into a second playthrough as there's no NG+. I did enjoy that you could gain a good amount of xp by exploration, so you weren't required just to kill stuff, which is nice, trying to be a jedi and increasing your abilities by slaughtering everything around you feels very non-jedi, so gaining comparable xp through crates, echoes, secrets and scans was really neat.

Loved the combat, the duels were fun even tho I had to repeat them several times, but it taught the exact thing that a Jedi is supposed to have: patience.

Finished it today. I am well pleased, but as a big fan of the Tomb Raider reboots I should be. Found myself missing a blaster at times though...

Last level was nothing short of epic, but if I have any complaint, despite the big levels and everything, the game felt a bit... small. Not just geographically, but there was also very few characters. They did very well with what they had though. I'd pretty much written off Cal as another generic, boring protagonist, but his relationship with BD-1 and the good storyline pulled him from the scrappy heap.

Not having played any game like Souls, the combat bugged the **** out of me at first. There's a only so many ways you can get eaten by a giant toad before you start tearing your hair out in frustration. After a while, and getting a few upgrade, Cal was doing much better, but more importantly, I was playing much better. It's a steep learning curve, but it was worth the climb to feel like you've actually improved at something.

And then you get sloppy and get your behind handed to you by a couple of scout troopers with stun batons. Oops.

The game's a good illustration of how FFG does enemies. Minions are still threats to experienced heroes.

8 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Last level was nothing short of epic, but if I have any complaint, despite the big levels and everything, the game felt a bit... small. Not just geographically, but there was also very few characters. They did very well with what they had though. I'd pretty much written off Cal as another generic, boring protagonist, but his relationship with BD-1 and the good storyline pulled him from the scrappy heap.

Not having played any game like Souls, the combat bugged the **** out of me at first. There's a only so many ways you can get eaten by a giant toad before you start tearing your hair out in frustration. After a while, and getting a few upgrade, Cal was doing much better, but more importantly, I was playing much better. It's a steep learning curve, but it was worth the climb to feel like you've actually improved at something.

And then you get sloppy and get your behind handed to you by a couple of scout troopers with stun batons. Oops.

I get the feeling that Respawn deliberately tried to avoid going "grand galactic scale" with this game, and to keep the narrative fairly focused and not add too many extraneous bit characters, especially on what is hopefully the first outing for what will be an ongoing series.

Apart from the whole "White Male Protagonist" syndrome (which is more an issue with the lead developer having some very skewed notions about the gamer audience and what they will or won't accept), I don't mind Cal at all. He wasn't annoying or aggravating, but then he wasn't especially engaging either, though that may have been due to having a generally more interesting cast of side characters as well as the story really being about Cere with Cal just along to do the active bits.

Nothing about the overall quest really felt as though Cal had a personal stake in it other than a sort of "because destiny said so" vibe. He very much felt like a kid in way over his head that was struggling for most of the story to keep his head above water, which is not unlike Luke in the OT, though Luke at least had a pretty solid support system to help see him through until he was finally able to stand on his own by the time of RotJ.

As for combat, I've seen a number of reviews (written and video) from streamers that describe the combat as "janky," with one (Maximillian Dood) saying that the game felt like the designers said "hey, this looks cool, let's add it to our game!" and pulling a lot of elements from a variety of titles (Uncharted, Metroidvanias, Dark Souls, Sekiroh, Tomb Raider) but that the game lacked the polish that those titles had in the borrowed aspects. The parry system in J:FO is a prime example, with it not being favorably compared to Sekiroh's parry system, to the point that J:FO's parry mechanic feels like a second-rate knockoff in comparison. I've also seen quite a few reviewers say that the game shows a lot of promise, but that it also really needed some extra time (generally a couple months) spent by Respawn to polish the game; then again with EA's publicly stated view on how single player story-driven games aren't "financially viable," it's amazing this game even got made in the first place.

Between janky combat controls (something a good friend of mine whose played a lot of Soulsesque and "stylish combat" games) and a fairly screwy camera interface, it's frustratingly easy to get overwhelmed by bad guys, as it can become incredibly difficult to properly track which bad guys are where, which (to my view at least) falsely inflates the difficultly of combat encounters, especially in the early going when you don't have a lot of crowd-control effects to fall back on and don't really have the health bar (or stims) to weather the storm.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Between janky combat controls (something a good friend of mine whose played a lot of Soulsesque and "stylish combat" games) and a fairly screwy camera interface, it's frustratingly easy to get overwhelmed by bad guys, as it can become incredibly difficult to properly track which bad guys are where, which (to my view at least) falsely inflates the difficultly of combat encounters, especially in the early going when you don't have a lot of crowd-control effects to fall back on and don't really have the health bar (or stims) to weather the storm.

Having tried sparring against multiple opponents, I'd say this quite accurately inflates the difficulty. But I see your point.

I guess the combat is a bit janky, but I got used to it. I haven't really played any Souls games or Sekiro, so I have little comparison though. Had I not been able to fall back on force powers (Slow, Dash and Pull/Grasp are ridiculously useful). It's a tricky thing to balance I guess, some, I assume, feel that the lightsaber combat should stand completely on it's own, in which case the the force powers will feel like OP cheating, and some feel that force powers should be an integral part of it, and if you end up in a position where you cant use them, you should be semi-screwed anyway. I figure Respawn is leaning towards the latter. I'd look forward to DLCs and/or sequels but I dare not hope. EA burned me by killing the Quarian DLC for Andromeda.

8 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

The game's a good illustration of how FFG does enemies. Minions are still threats to experienced heroes.

Oh, indeed!

A single stormtrooper blasting away at you is suicidal. If there's a whole chunk of them, you're probably fine if you keep them all in more or less one direction and reflect their shots. They shouldn't be a problem to rush either, but if jump into the middle of them and start slashing you're probably going to get hit in the back once or twice. The same group while you get rushed by melee fighters? Seriously annoying.

3 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Having tried sparring against multiple opponents, I'd say this quite accurately inflates the difficulty. But I see your point.

I'm not disagreeing that getting into a fight with multiple opponents shouldn't be harder than fighting a single opponent.

The problem is how this game handles it. At times, it's akin to running a combat encounter in this game and the GM allowing a minion or rival to be able to ignore any and all defensive traits you've got simply because they're not in your immediate line of sight. Which, line of sight might be an issue for regular humans, but it's less of an issue for someone trained in the ways of an order of space wizards for whom combat prescience is a stock ability.

I've run into more than a few instances where I've had my block/guard up prior to the attack, and an enemy mook just didn't give a crap and hit for damage due to being just a bit off center. Or where opponents who were a considerable distance away suddenly teleport into attack range and get what amounts to a free shot because the camera angle obscured their presence until it was too late to do anything about the attack apart for sucking damage.

There are times where it feels like Respawn said, "eh, close enough" and called it a day on several of the combat elements that they lifted from other games where the designers actually took the time to iron out most of the kinks.

Honestly, I'm not sure the developers knew for certain if they wanted the combat system to be able to stand on its own just by using the lightsaber, or make it so that you needed to have Force powers available, especially in some of the later fights.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I've run into more than a few instances where I've had my block/guard up prior to the attack, and an enemy mook just didn't give a crap and hit for damage due to being just a bit off center.

Doesn't parry work in all directions?