about that "splitting the community" debate...
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You bought the game as a gift because of Skirmish? Pardon me if I gawk at that. You couldn't have gotten them a game they might like ALL of?
What a gift.
Your not going to like everything in a game.
And he didn't say that Skirmish was the only thing that he/she will play.
Your reaction has cracked me up!
It's for my girfirend. She's not a gamer, so I really can't think or anything she'd like actually. She played it because I have it and enjoyed, since she's also a Star Wars fan. We can play together, so I though "why not?". Where I live, it cost no more than going out to a restaurant actually.
There are also those who bought the game unaware of the 90% online situation and they either got a refund or haven't played since then. I don't think they count much as splitting the player base.
I can't speak for anyone besides myself, but it's still fair to say I'm one grain of rice on the other side of the scale. End point is this: if people like playing online, they will play online. If people don't like playing online, they shouldn't have to. I do understand that online play is directly dependent upon mass participation, but arguing that we should withhold offline because people will like it more is directly infringing on those players optimal experience. Look at it like this: when the base game came out we had ten modes. With each additional mode, there are less players in those base modes because they are playing other modes. Therefore, when the little timmys who used to populate Fighter Squadron are now off playing Extraction or Turning Point, it means less of the player base is populating Fighter Squadron. Should we then not consider new modes because they mean fewer people play the base modes? How would we feel if in order to preserve the player base DICE said "We know you love Extraction, but the other modes are getting too sparse so we're axing it"? In this scenario, 1 of 2 things can happen: 1, the hypothetical ex-Fighter Squadron players return to Fighter Squadron or 2, the hypothetical ex-Fighter Squadron players just boycott the game until they get their Extraction back.
Similarly, with the offline movement we have a lot of people who have a mode they would rather play: Offline. Should we dictate what they can and cannot enjoy? I understand that if the migration is huge it will affect your ability to find a game, but, as many people have stated, offline players are in the minority. You can spare a few poor nostalgics who just want to play against bots, can't you?
He said he bought it because of that. If that's the qualifier then they're probably not interested in the rest of the game, otherwise he would have gotten it for them already.
That's great, and kudos to you for making someone else happy, but what does any of this have to do with Skirmish?
That's half true. She's actually shown interest in other modes and even played a little with me using the 4 hour trial. But she gave up because she was far less skilled than other players and wasn't having fun being killed all the time.
She's open to trying multiplayer one day if she gets better.
Because just having Walker Assault is a much richer experience than current offline modes, from a Star Wars universe point of view. Now we'll be able to grab an AT-ST, control a hero, use a tow cable to drop the AT-AT, grab a X-Wing, all in one mode. In iconic maps like Hoth. Skirmish brings that and I thought she would like that a lot more than just missions or survival. Much closer to the movies. And again, she just wasn't comfortable playing it online at all with her current skill.
Fair enough.
Good points @Chronic_Guardian!
What I tried to point out is that the official reason we have the Forced playlist is that otherwise we would see a split in the player base. But as you point out, there are already splits in the player base of people not playing because they`re not MP players. With Skirmish someone at EA/Dice must have taken a new split in the player base into consideration..... and therefor I say that the split in the player base should not be the reason for Forced Playlist.
Every game mode requires different approach in strategy, weapons, star cards and even clothing. If you are a fan of one special game mode you would like to learn how to play it the best way possible. This means lots of practice, learning map layouts and lots of trying new configurations. This is not possible with the Forced playlist. The Flow is abruptly broken buy a new game mode and often a massive escape of players.
When you start playing you have to get a feel of which role you are supposed to have in the game, are there many aimers, you could be the "Go for the objective" guy/girl and so on. But when your team mates disappear every second/fourth/each round you have to do this from scratch again when you find a game and the outcome of the round is very unpredictable..... and of course I HATE to lose a round
Another bad thing about the Forced Playlist is that you very seldom get to try all the maps for a very long time. It took me 6 hours of Bespin to finally play the Carbon Freezing Chamber....
I say the Forced Playlist is scaring players away from the DLCs - They could easily try having a normal playlist for a month and then see what happens - I mean, some of the bugs have been in here for a lot longer than a month
...but yes, I see your point. On that note, it might further aggravate the problem if Extraction and Sabotage became available offline. Why deal with playlists when you can go uninterrupted? That I can see as a viable threat. In a best case scenario, it'll make them get their act together though, right?
I'm all for new single-player content...as long as it's AFTER they fix the day 1 MP bugs, and AFTER they start making better DLC (why no Extraction & Sabotage on vanilla planets?)
Why they don't just set that up and watch the numbers for a month is beyond me.
Again, the devs have confirmed multiple times that they have 2 different teams. The small singleplayer team has probably been working on Skirmish for the past 7 months or so..
If your angry about mutiplayer issues ? Then it's the mutiplayer team you should be frustrated with not the singleplayer guys. Face it.
.... that`s actually what I said
Not true. EA even said there was supposed to be more sp content but theh cut it out to rush it for the FA release. They were even vague about the missions. want me to go to google and show you a bunch of november articles were ppl still did not know what was in the missions aside from fighting AI?
No there is no "we didnt do research" it was, we were kept in the dark. Now idk about you but if they keep saying "theres AI and bots" with nothing else for 6,7 months. Im not gonna fret and keep looking it up 4 weeks before the games release because im not obsessive compulsive. Im gonna think "ok they have said this for months with no other info....so it must be a number of the online modes given offline". I think thats a faor assesment to make, dont you?
Im on ign gamespot gamefaqa and believe me, last time i was on those sites for this game b4 release was mid november and people still had no idea what the single player content entailed. Some even came to the conclusion i had too that it must be online modes given offline.
Go find the SWBF add on YT they even advertise Coop in a commercial as a main feature lolol!
Heck go to the main site here if the page is still the same from release with its features.
Im all for defending the game within reason but lets not Lie because EA even admitted the game was to have more SP content.
>"The small singleplayer team has probably been working on Skirmish for the past 7 months or so."
Almost certainly not. We know most of the team was taking a bit of a break after release. And they had to deal with major bug-fixing & server support for a while after release. And they decided to spend time on more free large maps, after so many complaints by reviewers and gamers. Meanwhile the SP complaints had to ramp-up for a while before DICE would decide they needed to re-visit SP. They probably didn't even start discussing what they might do for SP until Feb or March, and probably didn't even start working on it until March, or more likely, much later.
>"If your angry about mutiplayer issues ? Then it's the mutiplayer team you should be frustrated with not the singleplayer guys. Face it."
I should be frustrated at single-player complainers that forced DICE to divert people from MP support to SP support.
>"They were even vague about the missions."
It was obvious from reviews, which you could read even before picking-up a pre-order, that the SP was token. No campaign, no Instant Action, just some mini-game tutorials.
>"No there is no "we didnt do research" it was, we were kept in the dark.
You didn't bother reading reviews. You kept yourself in the dark.
>"Im not gonna fret and keep looking it up 4 weeks before the games release because im not obsessive compulsive."
I'm going to read reviews so I know whether or not I want to buy the game. Apparently you don't care to inform yourself about what you're buying, and just want to complain afterwards if it doesn't measure up to your imagination.
>"Im gonna think "ok they have said this for months with no other info....so it must be a number of the online modes given offline". I think thats a faor assesment to make, dont you?"
Completely wild assumption/guess. Why don't you imagine they put in a Rancor-riding mini-game too? You won't have any idea what's really in it, unless they explicitly state it, or you read it in a review. Which you should have done.
>"Go find the SWBF add on YT they even advertise Coop in a commercial as a main feature lolol!"
Never believe advertising. Read reviews.
>"lets not Lie because EA even admitted the game was to have more SP content."
It was their original pipe dream to have it all...campaign, everything. They realized in 2013/2014 they couldn't. You could've easily found that out before buying. But you didn't bother.
Then who did those few extra survival missions in February and March? The devs have confirmed they have separate teams. The people saying this are using the devs statement as their source. Whats your source? Single player "complainers" didn't force Dice to do anything. Dice chose to honor our requests. Yes, I am in the offline camp. No, I am not a complainer.
Doesnt matter when it was cut, it matters that they were gonna put it in is the point
You do know your not helping your case when to almost all my points you tell me to read the review for content that should have been revealed a few.months before the game, right?
Thats like telling Halo fans they should wait till the review if they havent heard anything about coop being cancelled for H5 , or wait till the review to find out if our saves and consequences transfer over to mass effect 4 or if it has exploration this time around......
Stop making excuses, its something we should have known before hand not having to wait till or around release date to find out
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
https://forums.battlefront.starwars.ea.com/discussion/51762/would-filling-empty-servers-lobbies-with-ai-work/p1
Having more ways to play makes me play more ways, not less.
The game they made, sold, and you bought, was decided to be, designed to be, MP-centric. You didn't bother to find that out before buying, that's on you.
You know you're not helping your case when you double-down on the fact that you buy things without bothering to read reviews? If you can't spend 10 minutes reading a few reviews, then if you're not happy with your purchase, that's all on you.
>"Thats like telling Halo fans.."
You should read a review for every single game. Some come out super buggy. Some missing expected features. Some changed in ways you won't like. If you don't read a review, then any major dissatisfaction is all on you.
>"its something we should have known before hand not having to wait till or around release date to find out"
I knew it beforehand, from reviews, before release date. Yes, you should have too. But you didn't bother to find out.
Yeah, nice idea... like Fighter Squadron... but no thanks, I´m a multiplayer guy. To me, bots are: at the best stupid, at the worst stupider. To increase the threat from a bot you cannot raise its intelligence - only the aim and vulnerability... but they are still dumb and follow patterns.
Playing a living breathing human being is much more challenging - after all, we humans invented AI, AI did not invent us
If DICE was to release a server lease program for Battlefront we wouldn`t have this discussion at all.. if so, I or another member in my clan, would pay for a server that had the maps and modes that we want to play, regardless of size, location or dlc restrictions like we see in todays solution. This server would of course be ranked so everyone is welcome to play and increase rank, fullfill Hutt Contracts, do challenges and so on... Filling the server with players? well, we have over 120 members in our gang "3PO" - we are living in different timezones, so there would always be one or two or 40 of us playing there
So... did you read reviews about the multiplayer mode and decide you could live with the bugs? Because by the logic that reviews are the only reliable source, just because EA says there will be something there doesn't mean they will support it. They left offline in. If they didn't want to deal with it, they should have cut it out. While they were at it, they should have renamed the game. Why? Because as @Strogg1980 points out, it's a series hallmark. Should people always read reviews to understand if a game has what it says it has? Apparently so. Should they have to? No. If a company promises concrete feature, that should be enough to hold them accountable for it. Again, if they didn't want to deal with these things then all they had to do was admit they weren't making Battlefront and cut survival and battles. If EA isn't accountable for living up to what they promised then you have no grounds for asking for additional multiplayer adjustments, savvy?
Also, please do yourself a quick favor and watch the credits for this game. If the same names that appear in "multiplayer Quality Assurance" (the euphemism for bug testing) also appear in "Single Player development", then you have a point of resources diverted. Otherwise, I'm afraid these aren't the programmers you're looking for. On the corporate level, specialization is a thing. You don't hire a graphic designer to find and fix bugs. Similarly, your AI programmer probably isn't qualified to approach server-side issues in networking. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that we are treating all developers as more or less interchangeable if we think the people working on singleplayer could have been used to fix the MP bugs. Could they? Maybe. Would they be the most effective choice/would it fall within their job description? Probably not.
Finally, no matter which perspective we're advocating here, I think we can all agree that most of what's causing this outcry is that we've seen these things done before so it's difficult to understand why they can't be done again. Rogue Squadron and Battlefront II had hit detection, so why isn't it happening here? Other DICE games have server browsers, so why not this one? If they made a basic AI that can play "capture the flag" in Battlefront II, why can't I play cargo offline? Most of my expectations for this game are based off its heritage, off the fact that these things have been achieved in the past. To that end, I sympathize with you, because I believe some of what you're asking for really is achievable. In game maps, voice chat, choosing a spawn point, these are things we've seen before so we know they're possible. I guess all this goes to show is that there was a lot more work going into these basic features we took for granted than we expected.
That, or they just aren't seen as a priority. In which case, I DEFINITELY understand your frustration that we got an entire offline mode and free maps/skins before that little mini map in the corner.
/Rant over.
Apologies, Stray. I wandered off topic, didn't I...
As far as DLC playlists go, as a non-season pass owner, I feel somewhat unqualified to say anything. However, it couldn't hurt to have a trial period of 1-2 weeks where the playlists are segregated by mode instead of locale. The worst that could happen is people would stop playing for a week before coming back when things go back to normal.
Ppl should have information on a game months before reviews. Most companies give you that. I didnt have to wait for a review before i knew i wanted Skyrim or ME2 for example. I could come to that conclusion long before hand.
Stop defending crap practices. You should have more to go on before a damned review.
Agreed
If EA does not give explicit details about something, reviews are where you find out the details. And whether EA gives you details or not, it's on them to support whatever they give you.
Of course they included offline. They wanted as much offline as they could fit in by release date. Maybe they should have renamed the game. And you could call it "brand suicide" that they didn't. But I still say, read the reviews about anything, before you buy it. Whether it's a game, a camera, a car, etc.
>Should they have to?
If the details aren't detailed, it's on you to find out more, by however you can. And reading reviews is a pretty simple, obvious, quick, free way to find out more.
>If a company promises concrete feature, that should be enough to hold them accountable for it.
Yes, but a vague description of offline leaves them room to deliver anything. It's on you to get the details. If they concretely detailed the maps, modes, options, etc, then of course it's on them. I got concrete offline details via reviews. It was clear it was token tutorial type stuff. And I didn't care, because I like MP. Or real SP campaigns with a story.
>all they had to do was admit they weren't making Battlefront and cut survival and battles.
They felt they captured the most important parts of a "re-imagined" BF, as best they could in the time available. I'm happy with the game.
>If EA isn't accountable for living up to what they promised then you have no grounds for asking for additional multiplayer adjustments, savvy?
I've never said or believed that. Of course they're responsible for bug-fixing & balancing of whatever they provide.
>If the same names that appear in "multiplayer Quality Assurance" (the euphemism for bug testing) also appear in "Single Player development", then you have a point of resources diverted.
No, the credits are irrelevant. When release is done, there's a massive re-shuffling of people. Most of them leave. A small number stay behind to support the game they made. The MP-centric game they made. Which requires primarily people to work on MP. To decide a few months after release to expand SP due to fan complaints, requires people to do work that was never planned. And where do they get workers? The dev budget is gone. EA isn't going to say "here's more dev money to build a new team to do dev on a released game that's hit it's sales targets".
Yes specialization is a thing. Except people are multi-talented. Yes, people specialize in engines, or AI, or map-making, or modeling, or textures, etc, but that doesn't mean that in a pinch they can't do something they're less expert at. People can learn. And the smaller the team, the more jack-of-all-trades you must be.
I've been on small teams inside large corporations where my duties include UI designer and coder, and the DBM, and coding end-user functionality, and middleware programming. Other times it was reporting, or network coding, or release QA, or documentation, etc. I've done AI too, and some game programming, including engine & modeling. Most experienced programmers can do MANY things, even if they currently work in just a few, or even just 1 thing.
And anyone can run a testing script. Even a high-school student that isn't a programmer.
>Would they be the most effective choice
Small teams have to adapt. The support team for SWBF is not going to be huge. It's going to be scaled to be exactly what they thought they needed. MP debugging & balancing, and MP DLC creation. Plus whatever additions they'd already planned (I'm sure Hutt Contracts were on their list before release). It's not going to include much related to SP or AI. Since those were small, completed, and seemed to have been tested enough to need little bug support.
>Finally, no matter which perspective we're advocating here, I think we can all agree that most of what's causing this outcry is that we've seen these things done before so it's difficult to understand why they can't be done again.
Lack of time. And a bad call by EA...they should've said "here's the game in Nov 2015...but we have the following things coming to you, free, in the next few months, as we finish what didn't make it by release". And that should've included more free large maps (we finally got them after ****), more SP, etc. It would've cost EA more, but they would've gotten more sales, more future sales, and happier buyers.
>In game maps, voice chat, choosing a spawn point, these are things we've seen before.... ...we got an entire offline mode and free maps/skins before that little mini map in the corner
I could live without all that, if they'd just fix their mistake with the awful DLC playlists.
>i knew i wanted Skyrim or ME2 for example. I could come to that conclusion long before hand.
Much simpler case though. Same dev, released soon after, you know it's 1 mode, SP. Watch a few vids, read a few things, some game previews...you know you're getting ME, the next iteration. I'd still read a review...but I'd expect no surprises in the content. And if there were bad surprises, or bad bugs, I'd know, and not buy.
BF, it's long after the old games, different dev, more complicated to understand all the modes & options (SP, MP, splitscreen, online/offline co-op, etc). And until you get good details on there, hard to know what's in it.
Honest question.
Seeing that the Original Battlefront Vets community wasn't to thrilled with EA's version.
What do you guys think EA can do to bring that sizable community back into the fold for EA's Battlefront 2?
Respectfully.
Listen to almost ALL complaints. Playlists is the Real huge community divider here. Fix bugs with patches and not having said patches add as much problems as they help fix. More iconic DLC heroes. Keep OT in (altho i feel it still will be to an extent if we are having a campaign). Better flight mechanics and gameplay too. More vehicles, especially for Rebels, idc if rebels get modded old AATs from the old Confederacy, just something for them to make it more war like on the battleground.
Id personally like to ditch the star cards and make it old school where you have your weapons (maybe a grenade and an alternate too) and your wit and thats it. But thats a fat chance
Id say make it cattered to all fans (singleplayer, coop.and MP)like the old games, but they confirmed the next game will have a Skirmish type mode and campaign so no reason to think they wont.
AND heres the biggie, dont rush it out to meet a movie release date or around it. Id rather wait an extra 6 montha than have something half [email protected]#ed