Community Transmission - Squad System Update & Release Notes
September 24, 2018 7:59AM
edited September 2018
Incoming Transmission
It’s time for another Community Transmission and we’re here to talk about the Squad Update. It releases tomorrow (September 25th), so on with the details.
Squad System
The new Squad System will allow you to re-join your friends, allies, and the action much quicker than before. If you’re already playing with a group of friends, you will be placed together into a squad. If you join a game on your own, you will be placed into a random squad.
When you are defeated, you will have the ability to toggle through a spectator camera. This camera will be focused on one of your squad members and you’ll then have the ability to spawn directly onto them. Want to spawn on a different squad member? Simply toggle through the spectator camera until you find the squad member of your choosing.
The new squad system also grants you the ability to play 2v2 Private Matches of Hero Showdown.
We went more in depth on the Squad System in its own dedicated Community Transmission, you can find that here.
91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps
The 91st Recon Cops were a regiment of the Republic during the Clone Wars. Lead by commander CC-8826, or Neyo, the 91st were involved in many battles across the Clone Wars.
104th “Wolf Pack” Battalion
The Wolfpack was a battalion that active throughout the Clone Wars and known for numerous military operations. On one such encounter, they engaged on a night assault on one of the last remaining outposts of General Grievous.
The 104th Battalion can be identified by the iconic Wolf logo that identifies the squad, and the dark blue markings upon their armour.
You can read more about some changes we’re making to the Clone Trooper Appearances by click here
Ping Site Changes
We have added a new default setting to the ping site option. When you have this selected, the game will attempt to match you to any of the ping sites that you have the best ping to. In the real world, this means that if you are located in Europe and have a good ping to both Frankfurt [FRA] and Dublin [DUB], you could be matched to either one, meaning you should find games a lot quicker.
These changes will start to arrive alongside the September update and further updates will be made in the months after, as we continue to tweak and improve the matchmaking system.
Matchmaking
End of Round (EOR) matchmaking is a feature you will have noticed before. It’s something that has been turned on and tested at intermittent periods over the last few months.
The two key benefits to the end of round matchmaking will be:
We go into more detail on the Matchmaking within its own Community Transmission, which you can find here.
Release Notes
NEW CONTENT
FEATURES
QUALITY OF LIFE
HERO CHANGES
LEIA ORGANA
U-WING
LANDO’S MILLENNIUM FALCON
CLASSES & SPECIAL UNITS CHANGES
OFFICER
HEAVY
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
Fixed an issue where the Resourceful Star Card wouldn't correctly lower the ability cooldown when used.
GAME MODE CHANGES
GALACTIC ASSAULT
HERO STARFIGHTERS
STRIKE
MAP CHANGES
JAKKU
ENDOR
TAKODANA
GENERAL CHANGES
KNOWN ISSUES
Punch It
It’s time for another Community Transmission and we’re here to talk about the Squad Update. It releases tomorrow (September 25th), so on with the details.
Squad System
The new Squad System will allow you to re-join your friends, allies, and the action much quicker than before. If you’re already playing with a group of friends, you will be placed together into a squad. If you join a game on your own, you will be placed into a random squad.
When you are defeated, you will have the ability to toggle through a spectator camera. This camera will be focused on one of your squad members and you’ll then have the ability to spawn directly onto them. Want to spawn on a different squad member? Simply toggle through the spectator camera until you find the squad member of your choosing.
The new squad system also grants you the ability to play 2v2 Private Matches of Hero Showdown.
We went more in depth on the Squad System in its own dedicated Community Transmission, you can find that here.
91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps
The 91st Recon Cops were a regiment of the Republic during the Clone Wars. Lead by commander CC-8826, or Neyo, the 91st were involved in many battles across the Clone Wars.
104th “Wolf Pack” Battalion
The Wolfpack was a battalion that active throughout the Clone Wars and known for numerous military operations. On one such encounter, they engaged on a night assault on one of the last remaining outposts of General Grievous.
The 104th Battalion can be identified by the iconic Wolf logo that identifies the squad, and the dark blue markings upon their armour.
You can read more about some changes we’re making to the Clone Trooper Appearances by click here
Ping Site Changes
We have added a new default setting to the ping site option. When you have this selected, the game will attempt to match you to any of the ping sites that you have the best ping to. In the real world, this means that if you are located in Europe and have a good ping to both Frankfurt [FRA] and Dublin [DUB], you could be matched to either one, meaning you should find games a lot quicker.
These changes will start to arrive alongside the September update and further updates will be made in the months after, as we continue to tweak and improve the matchmaking system.
Matchmaking
End of Round (EOR) matchmaking is a feature you will have noticed before. It’s something that has been turned on and tested at intermittent periods over the last few months.
The two key benefits to the end of round matchmaking will be:
- Mixing players up more often. As a result of this it’s less likely that you will find yourself stuck in a poorly balanced game for more than a few rounds.
- We’re changing the matchmaking behaviour so it favours filling up existing servers, as opposed to starting new ones. This means that you should join servers that are trending towards being full, as opposed to joining an empty one.
We go into more detail on the Matchmaking within its own Community Transmission, which you can find here.
Release Notes
NEW CONTENT
FEATURES
- Added ability to get into squads and spawn on squad members on Galactic Assault and Strike
- Improved screen flow for quicker spawning in all modes where Squad Spawn is not present
QUALITY OF LIFE
- More dynamic change of characters shown on the Home and Career screens, due to implementation of backend ability to change those in a live environment
- Implemented various stability fixes for the End of Round (EOR) Matchmaking
- Improved the way the game client looks for an online game, by adding an automated Default option for the best Ping site, as well as simplifying the choice of sites in the menu.
HERO CHANGES
LEIA ORGANA
- Fixed an issue where Leia's Alternate Fire ability could damage a player piloting the AT-ST
U-WING
- Fixed an issue where the "Repair" ability would not properly activate
LANDO’S MILLENNIUM FALCON
- Fixed an issue where the Tactical Jammer ability would have no effect on Lando's Millennium Falcon
CLASSES & SPECIAL UNITS CHANGES
OFFICER
- Fixed an issue that would prevent the Disruption ability to trigger in sync with the animation
HEAVY
- Removed the ability of Ion Turrets to lock and fire on troopers, as requested by the community
- Reduced the damage done by the Ion Torpedo for better balancing
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
Fixed an issue where the Resourceful Star Card wouldn't correctly lower the ability cooldown when used.
GAME MODE CHANGES
GALACTIC ASSAULT
- Implemented backend timers that allow tweaking of the objective duration on Galactic Assault in a live environment
HERO STARFIGHTERS
- Added animations to further enhance the look and feel of the game mode's widget
STRIKE
- Fixed a spelling issue in one of the objective texts
MAP CHANGES
JAKKU
- Fixed an issue where heroes could hide or get stuck behind metal barriers on Jakku
ENDOR
- Fixed an issue that would leave players stuck between tree and mountain assets
TAKODANA
- Fixed an issue where the chicken near the East Turbolaser would not be fleeing from the player
GENERAL CHANGES
- Added Ewok Hunt and Extraction-based challenges to the list of Daily Challenges
- Removed Hero Showdown-based challenges "Perfect Together" and "Vader and Kylo", based on player feedback that they are too hard to achieve in an online environment
- Fixed an issue where Iden's character and description text would be missing from the Campaign's spawn and customization screen
- Fixed an issue where players would not be able to change their Clone Trooper appearances during the pre-round screens on games taking place on Kashyyyk and Kamino
- Added additional UI effects when unlocking an Emote, Victory Pose or Appearance from the menu
- Increased the maximum numbers of players in a group to 20, and the maximum number of players who can play together to 8
- Fixed an issue where the button to get more Crystals would not show up in the Emotes and Victory Poses screens
- Adjusted the "Saviour Kill" stat, so that it tracks relevant kills from the whole team and not just the squad members
- This update will automatically disable CrossFire functionality for players with AMD Graphics Cards running on Windows 8 / 8.1, due to lack of support for multi-GPU with the specified operating system and GPU vendor.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Squad members that are inside certain land vehicles (Armor, Artillery, Speeder, Tauntaun, Mountable Turrets) are not correctly shown as being inside vehicles on the Squad Spawn screen. The fix has been identified and will be implemented in the next update.
- Selecting to spawn on squad members who are inside land vehicles will temporarily disable access to the “Choose Character” screen. The issue gets resolved once players choose to spawn in the Default location. The fix has been identified and will be implemented in the next update.
- The spawn screen UI will, in rare cases, remain on during gameplay on Strike, or Galactic Assault. The issue gets resolved once players choose to respawn. The fix has been identified and will be implemented in the next update.
- The cooldown timer of the Shock Grenade ability would not be affected by the Resourceful Star Card. The fix has been identified and will be implemented in the next update.
Punch It
Post edited by F8RGE on
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Replies
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyUQ3FFqM-TQd-3xtZmHOGQ?view_as=subscriber
Link to all my Guides here in Tips & Tricks: https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/113241/custom-class-hero-loadouts-builds-revisited-pt-2-6-14-2018#latest
"When you ask for trouble, you should not be surprised when it finds you". - Plo Koon
Poe/Hux Concept Ideas: https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/117608/poe-dameron-armitage-hux-concept-ideas/p1?new=1
Edited all caps. - EA_Cian
TAKODANA
Fixed an issue where the chicken near the East Turbolaser would not be fleeing from the player
I feel like they do these fixes as jokes for the ppl who read the patch notes.
Ahsoka, Rex, Padme, Cody, Mace
Bane, Thrawn, Ventress, Jango, Savage
Why there’s no blue flame during overload?
Can we explique expect to see the lightsaber combat reworked?
Will the issue where igniting the lightsaber would interrupt the emotes will be fixed?
Otherwise, great to see this
I expect that the no holographic is good, we’ll see tomorrow
I agree. I thought it was the officer they wanted to nerf to the ground.
Hi @F8RGE ...hopefully you can shed a little more light on some of these questions.
So, we are, indeed, spawning right on top of the selected squad mate? Specialists shall delight in this move--not.
What, specifically will be released, in full working order, with tomorrow's patch? These vague statements are so meaningless to us.
Well, this is already a failed implementation then, given our player base. Have you guys not read the plethora of threads talking about people abandoning steamroll sessions? They don't stick around for an entire match, let alone "a few rounds". The algorithm is pointless if it does not address these issues by EoM. Period.
Does this mean joining more matches that are already over? I absolutely hate that.
Why do you insist on using these ambiguous statements? This reads like marketing gibberish or what a developer writes to business stakeholders as fluff for showing accomplishment.
What exactly did the team do? Is the respawn 10-second countdown timer gone? Has the timer been reduced? Please be specific.
Again...reads like marketing fluff. We are already customers. Just tell it like it is:
"We added a very common website element to the in-game home page: A carousel."
What does this mean? What was "unstable"?
Well, isn't this exactly what the ping site did by default before all of the issues arose requiring all of the player fixes?
Also, the last part reads exactly how I'd expect a server consolidation statement to read. Has that happened?
OK, there was definitely much squawking about the Ion Turret targeting players. I'm certain they'll rejoice at this. Hoth, Naboo, Crait, and Kashyyyk will all see new strategies evolve. But, why on any galactic planet would you also reduce the damage of the Ion Torpedo further?! It's already been nerfed to hell!
This is a classic example of DICE overdoing a nerf to the extreme. Congratulations, you've just made the Ion Turret completely worthless, as you did the Ion Torpedo. Heck, why not just go ahead and remove Ion damage mods from the Trooper weapons as well? I mean, if we, once again, want vehicles to reign supreme, just cut to the chase.
Please tell me that, since effort was put into "enhancing" the look and feel of this mode, that Tallie Lintra's Savior Kills also now track here.
Please. Just...please.
Ug. So, now I'll be forced to, once again, play Ewok Hunt...like when it was first released and every single day for a week saw daily challenges for it. Great.
Also, Extraction already has a Daily Challenge (the very, non-descript "kill players near the payload" one), for which we've been asking clarification of since it first surfaced. What new one(s) has/have been added?
I'll admit I'm a bit tired...but to what is this referring? Are you saying you can have 20 people using group chat but a maximum of 8 that will be grouped together for matchmaking purposes? Johnny #5 needs more input.
This is fantastic news. However, can you clarify if this also applies to the Hero Starfighters mode? It is not specifically stated, so I have to inquire.
Well, while I appreciate a known issues section, this seems a rather obvious test case that should have been caught well before the code was pushed for review. What exactly does the QA team test? The whole "big news" about this release was the new squad feature. Yet, 75% of the known issues all relate to this.
So, the issue exists on the only two modes on which you have turned on the new squad system. Ergo, it's a core issue. Can you elucidate these "rare cases", so we as the players can avoid them if possible?
Finally, since you have identified these known issues, and claim to already have the fixes ready to implement, I strenuously recommend that these be the perfect candidates for a proper hot fix. Do not hold them up for "other" fixes that the team wants to get in. We all know how that turned out last time.
How does this affect the ion turret in blast?
“They were always real to me”
#JoinTheBuzz
You beat me to it.
There are no vehicles in any Blast map, so...
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/123058/officer-nerf-and-buff/p1?new=1
Commander class
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/comment/1235735#Comment_1235735
El-16HFE rof buff
Engineer class
OOM-9
Dual pistols
Commando class, ARC, commando droid, Inferno Squad, Insurgent, Shock Trooper(FO), assassin(Resistance).
Umbara
Utapau
Heavy/Light vehicle classes
Dwarf spider droid
Homing Spider Droid
Snail Tank
Saber tank
RO Jedha tank
Actual bombs coming out of the bomber.
RO season
Probably in the next few updates. He is not game breaking right now, so just give it some time.
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/123058/officer-nerf-and-buff/p1?new=1
Commander class
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/comment/1235735#Comment_1235735
El-16HFE rof buff
Engineer class
OOM-9
Dual pistols
Commando class, ARC, commando droid, Inferno Squad, Insurgent, Shock Trooper(FO), assassin(Resistance).
Umbara
Utapau
Heavy/Light vehicle classes
Dwarf spider droid
Homing Spider Droid
Snail Tank
Saber tank
RO Jedha tank
Actual bombs coming out of the bomber.
RO season
Probably turrets and shields.
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/123058/officer-nerf-and-buff/p1?new=1
Commander class
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/comment/1235735#Comment_1235735
El-16HFE rof buff
Engineer class
OOM-9
Dual pistols
Commando class, ARC, commando droid, Inferno Squad, Insurgent, Shock Trooper(FO), assassin(Resistance).
Umbara
Utapau
Heavy/Light vehicle classes
Dwarf spider droid
Homing Spider Droid
Snail Tank
Saber tank
RO Jedha tank
Actual bombs coming out of the bomber.
RO season
Great, I'm inpatient to play basically the same build I played the last months.
Never tell me the odds. - Han Solo
Thank you! I am constantly targeted by those things as a trooper. Plus, I felt kind of bad for my teammates when I'd be in the AT-ST and I'd see the turret lock on to every pedestrian but never me, the actual vehicle.
Wait, I thought the Ion Torpedo had already been over-nerfed?
Concepts for potential maps:
https://battlefront-forums.ea.com/discussion/126706/a-list-of-maps-they-could-add-to-this-game-spoiler-alert-its-a-long-list#latest
Awesome stuff! Really looking forward to this update. Can't wait for tomorrow!
IT HAS! They want to make sure the ion torpedo is totally useless and ensure air vehicles can effortless take out ground troops without a challenge, leaving ground troops no way to fight back. The air vehicle health recovers so quickly that with this nerf it will not be possible to take out an air vehicles anymore. Probably the same for Officer turrets - no more one shotting those either. So Officer will dominate with the extremely long flash bang and the turret will take longer to destroy too.
Heavy more nerfed? What the heck!?! Ion torrent not targeting troopers? Why have the card just get rid of all star cards give us little blue signs and have us pick them up!
You guys are epic failing this game after ever patch. Period. Dot.
Oh and thanks for the new map. Oh wait no. I mean the new weapons oh wait still no. Oh the ability to have male sniper and heavy female oh wait no to that. I got it thanks for fixing a freaking chicken NOT.
My scrolling finger is becoming callused. Don’t make me be callous.
I've worked in IT for over 18 years and hot fixes go out within a day or two to fix an issue or create a work around. Hot fixes do not exist when it comes to this game.
It is engine problem so they cant fix it that easy. But they are working on it with the Frostibite engine team.