**** Star Wars: Battlefront ****

After finally sorting out the bug with my equipment cards not appearing in game and also deciding to put up with playing mouse and keyboard (on the floor, since there's no desk), I finally got around to playing a couple of lengthy battles on the Hoth level, one on each side. When I was joining the game, I noticed that the Rebel team was constantly changing, it was never full, people were constantly leaving and joining, thus I got a bad feeling about it. While the Hoth mode is slightly more fun compared to the Drop Pod battle, this is only because the map is more open and much larger and also by the addition of special power-up pickups. This is how players get to do cool things like play as Luke or Darth Vader or pilot an X-Wing/Tie fighter. Unfortunately when one appears, you have to be lucky to be the first one there to pick it up. At one point I picked up the power-up to pilot an A-Wing. Most power-ups stay when you die and I though I'd hold onto it a bit since I was tracking a soldier to kill. It had a timer and once the timer depleted, the power-up vanished. I got a very low K/D lower than usual, not that I care for such things. Rebels obviously lost.

On playing the Imperials side I realised why. As an Imperial, I found the pickups to be more common, I managed to call in an orbital strike, had a go at shooting things with the AT-AT head and even got a little bit of a kill streak upon piloting an AT-ST, all in the one match. I never got to do anything of the sort on the Rebel's side and these power-ups were pretty damn powerful and somewhat common. The Rebels also had very little to combat the AT-STs, no vehicles of the sort, likely for authenticity. A few brave Rebels tried throwing grenades at me, but I shrugged it off and remained above 90% health. I was finally taken down by an A-Wing bombing me. And of course the Imperials won and I had a much higher and positive KD than my time playing the Rebel side.

It's obvious that that mode is unbalanced. Reading around, many folks have said that it should be favoured towards the Imperials, but I think this is bad design for a multiplayer game. There should be a fair chance when playing either side, even if the game-mode may be asymmetrical. I've played asymmetrical games on the WiiU that were much more balanced than this. PLayuers were starting to realsie this and would drop out of a match if they were on the Rebel team, just so that they could play on the Winning team. It was also a discussion that for the Rebels to win, they need to be well organized, not gonna happen when you're playing with a bunch of randoms. The imperials can muck about and still win.

Thus after a good few hours of this game, I condemn it to mediocrity. It's not the Star Wars game we needed, nor the Battlefront game we wanted. It's just a big mess, with shallow gameplay, despite the great effort they put into the aesthetics and atmosphere of the game. Such a shame that a Star Wars game which makes a player feel like they're in the movies, plays so badly. I wouldn't ever buy this game, even if it were on a sale.
 
I'm still not sure if the hoth level really is totally unbalanced or whether the rebels just need to work intelligently while the empire forces can just zerg their way to success.

As Misschief said earlier most rebels don't seem to realise how important it is to get the communications towers activated, and there are various gun emplacements that you can get some joy from (although the downside to these is that the empire forces get to use the ones you left behind from the previous points which really makes a push back impossible combined with the at-ats and at-sts.

On one run on the empire side we had a lot of problems with a rebel A wing that was farming quite effectively.
 
Did anyone else like drop zone? Lots of negative comments about it but I loved the pace of it. Random spawns is a bit of a hit or miss but if you play with your partner as a proper 2 man team it should cover all bases. Still don't like how the party system works, I want to play with friends not against them when in a party.

Grenade, Jetpack and Shield is all you need for that game mode if you're aggressive or swap shield for that riffle for more defensive play. Also tap firing as fast as you can or in short bursts for the high rof weapons at the head ensures the opposition drops down fast. I find that there is some skill involved but not as much as other shooters as you need to lead targets and there is slight "bullet" drop. Recoil is easy to handle as all weapons have the same vertical pattern from what I have seen.

Also how does the sharpshooter traitwork. Does it replace your Hands as I can never select it from my cards?
 
I was thinking it might be designed that way for the imperials to be more powerful on that level, thought they might have mirrored it to the movie when the rebels are outnumbered and out gunned.
 
HazardO said:
I'm still not sure if the hoth level really is totally unbalanced or whether the rebels just need to work intelligently while the empire forces can just zerg their way to success.

As Misschief said earlier most rebels don't seem to realise how important it is to get the communications towers activated, and there are various gun emplacements that you can get some joy from (although the downside to these is that the empire forces get to use the ones you left behind from the previous points which really makes a push back impossible combined with the at-ats and at-sts.

On one run on the empire side we had a lot of problems with a rebel A wing that was farming quite effectively.
Click to expand...

Give the rebels some snow mobiles and C4 and the balance problem will be solved. :D Oh and I still want a squad system.
 
Twirlywoos said:
Give the rebels some snow mobiles and C4 and the balance problem will be solved. :D Oh and I still want a squad system.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan!

Or maybe they could setup some invulnerable bunkers at the back of the map on the rebel side so that the rebels can just sit and snipe all day. :p
 
Have played plenty of matches where the rebels have won. Even one where I saw someone use the landspeeder and use the grappling hook around the AT-ATs legs, just like in the film. I had a go at it and failed miserably, but it's possible. People need to play it a lot more to understand what's going on.

But in saying that, I feel like this beta will be the best the game ever is, what with everyone being at most rank 5, and most people not really knowing what's going on, it can make for some fun matches. When people have played for a while they will have more unlocks so certain things that are hard to combat now might not be then (bit like how in BF3 I think it was, when it first started, people hadn't unlocked all the anti air weapons, so the air vehicles tended to dominate).

I don't plan on buying this at launch, especially since Fallout4 is out before.

Will just play the hell out of the beta this weekend and be done with it until a "complete edition" is available.

I must say though that I think the sound effects are extremely good they have gotten that part perfect. The rest of the game, is alright.
 
HazardO said:
Xfire seems to be working for Tony. My SLI setup was all over the place playing yesterday though. 70-80 fps with everything on high (not ultra).
Click to expand...

I'm playing at 1080p 144hz, 2500k + GTX 780, Everything on Ultra except Ambient occlusion and motion blur. I am getting around 100 fps constantly, Jumps between 95 and 118.
 
  • Ping is hidden - check
  • Health regeneration - check
  • 50 quid asking pice - check

Worth £20 at the most.

No deal.
 
HazardO said:
I'm still not sure if the hoth level really is totally unbalanced or whether the rebels just need to work intelligently while the empire forces can just zerg their way to success.

As Misschief said earlier most rebels don't seem to realise how important it is to get the communications towers activated, and there are various gun emplacements that you can get some joy from (although the downside to these is that the empire forces get to use the ones you left behind from the previous points which really makes a push back impossible combined with the at-ats and at-sts.

On one run on the empire side we had a lot of problems with a rebel A wing that was farming quite effectively.
Click to expand...

Well... If one side has to have good teamwork, focus objectives, use vehicles to max effectiveness while the other just zergs that's pretty much the definition of unbalanced. ;) Plenty of things could be done very easily to make it more balanced, the fact they haven't been is disappointing.

I like it on the whole, if I wanted mega realism and tactics I'd play ARMA3 and if wanted 100v100 I'd play PS2. I think it probably fits a decent niche, and they do get the star wars theme bang on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom