Star Wars Battlefront beta today

SW Battlefront beta:

http://starwars.ea.com/en_AU/starwars/battlefront/beta

Preloading starts in a little while, game is open not too long after that.
Yes, it uses Origin.

I'll be eager to read first impressions and reviews from fellow SimHQ members who play this.

As for Origin, I've never had a problem with it so it's a non-issue for me.

I've watched a lot of gameplay video. It's honestly Battlefield with Star Wars weapons. I'll pick it up on PC for competitive play, but "Battlefront 3" it is not.

If the coop mode is done well I'll get it. I assume this supports a coop mode vs. AI bots. If it doesn't I won't bother.

Negative. There is coop in a survival/wave mode that reminds me of those BF3 coop missions a little, and there's 10 bots per team in squadron mode, and that's it for AI. Pretty big bummer.

There's always a place for a good MP shooter on my PC, but Battlefront was always about big authentic AI battles across the movies and I don't think I ever played MP once with the old games. Think of this as a reboot or a different game sharing a similar name.

Thanks for that info Peally. I may still end up getting it once it's on sale. I'm in no rush.

Have you seen the system requirements? As a Star Wars fan I hoped I might just be a new GPU away, but this would most likely require a new PC.

They're not too bad. Watch the Buy/Sell forum here, I've picked up newer computer parts on the cheap before.

Downloading PC version now, wow, over 10gb. Forgot I had an Origin account. With
a few games in it. Been years since I have done anything with it.

10 GB for a game now is no big deal. Both Shadow of Mordor and Far Cry 4 are over 30 GB each.

Running the beta at 1440x900 res with a
I3 4170
8 GB Ram
R9 270 2 GB Ram
Game auto detect sets everything on medium (need to check that later for more detail information)
And it runs very well.
Only in the opening sequence there are a few hickups but ingame no low fps.

I ran it all on ultra and easily got over 30 fps. Ran very smoothly.
Definitely feels like SW Battlefront to me, but less annoying with how many shots to kill and your shots travel much faster than in the old games.

Just checked. With my Specs above i get 100-140 fps at medium. Will try higher settings.

Played on ps4 last night with my brother. Very fun game to play online with friends, it's easy to join up in a party and play online or coop with friend(s). Coop mode was really fun can't wait to play the other maps, just wish there were more than 4 of them in the full game.

Graphics are really sharp, looks much better than BF4 (It better since there's less people on screen). Clean interface and UI, I really like the white simple design. And oh the sound. It is amazing. Crank it up and I get goosebumps.

Some things I don't like is the dumbed down flight controls. You can't roll like BF4, they made it almost like Starfox flight controls with special moves. Wish there was a more advance control option.

Also don't like the vehicle token spawn instead of seeing the actual vehicles and getting in them like BF4.

I'm also worried about there being enough content. I want more, more, more vehicles, guns, soldiers, maps, ect. I have a feeling they may come in DLC or the sequel in a few years. A few design decisions with this game make it seem like they cut corners to make it simpler to get out before Call of Duty and Episode VII.

I agree. The powerups were a disappointment as was the fact that the vehicles dont just spawn and you dont get to climb in and out (though you can do it magically with E (on pc) but it just feels offputting having your guy pop in and out magically.

I have real doubts that there will be enough content for this to be worth buying. I played it a bit yesterday and after about an hour or so it all felt the same. There was no real variety.

Thanks for that info Master and Kestrel.

I'll definitely be holding off on getting this until it's on a big sale.

Also there wasnt any sort of terrain destruction which felt odd considering this was the battlefield engine. The only destruction was in the vs AI survival where the rock piles you were hiding behind would blow up... I might just not have seen anything. I mostly played Hoth and Hoth is just slow and concrete bunkers so not much to blow up there.

Not realy terrain destructions but those footprints in the snow looks nice from myself or an AT-AT . I saw small rocks sliding downwards and sunk into snow.
Btw: i got 60+ fps on ultra with my PC. The terrains looks realy realistic. The blinking snow on Hoth or the Rocks on Sullust.

Tried it out on PC this morning. It was fun and arcadey. The mouse look was a little delayed here and there but it happened rarely. I like how it was one shot one kill on the Stormtroopers even if oyu shoot them in the toe. Just like in the movie! It was also very intuitive.

I'll play more and report back.

v6,
boNes

Downloaded demo before I saw the specs, I tried to run it anyway, it crashed on the main screen. A 4 Gb vid card and 16 Gigs of RAM is a bit ridiculous for a game doncha think?

I've got the 16GB of memory, but a 2GB card. It ran very well on ultra for me. I could tweak it for more fps, but it was over 30 anyway and ran fluidly.
The game is just too chaotic to play. As good as it looks and sounds, there's just nothing to it. Spawn, die, spawn die. Unlike the old games, you have no control over where you spawn in on the map--either random point or by a squad member you don't know anything about. You can't run to a hanger and take off in a snow speeder, you just get lucky finding a random token on the map. Typically it spawns you in right by an enemy who promptly kills you before you can get your bearings. There's nothing tactical, it's just a contest of individuals working on their k/d ratio.
I hope they change all of that for the actual game, but I doubt it. What a waste of an opportunity. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, but they blew it. Dropping my pre-order.

I, unfortunately, feel the same as RK. I want to love it, but it's really just a lesson in frustration, compounded by the fact that the presentation is so good, the game itself is just way too unorganized. You don't spawn anywhere tactically, it's completely random, and your always surrounded. No one cares about the objectives, there just isn't any tactical game play, it's really just Team Death Match w/ blasters and light sabers. But it's the game itself that shoots itself in the foot, because just a little more effort would have made a huge improvement.

The force is strong in this game, but it's unfortunately, gone to the dark side...

I'm a massive star wars fan, but after reading reviews on it I don't think I'll bother with the beta...

This review spells it out perfectly. About 4 mins in.

[quote=Raw Kryptonite]This review spells it out perfectly. About 4 mins in.


[video:youtube]

Yep he nails it exactly for me as well, uninstalled the beta after an hour.

Spawn, pew-pew-pew, death, rinse and repeat, not fun. Maybe the full game will have more who knows. It's a Star Wars game for kids, and that's cool with me as I won't be playing it.

Mick.

Are grenades really aim assisted? Wow, gonna hold off on this for a while...

Thanks for all of the posts guys. I'll be passing on this game.

Yeah I just don't get these "big" developers anymore. Ubisoft still seems like king of bozos when it comes to braking stuff that wasn't broken or claiming the next title is a reflection of customer feedback only to reveal that it actually is not.

Yeah I can't believe that they couldn't even keep the good maps and destructibility of BF4, they totally missed the mark, I cancelled my preorder.

I played around 1-1.5hr of it. It seems nice enough, a bit faster paced than the BF series. We didn't see all the game modes in action, so I've keeping a relatively open mind. I was hoping for more of a Battlefield, set in the Star Wars universe, as most Battlefield fans were.

I'll wait and see how this plays out and maybe get it later. I won't get DICE'ed again (re: BF4 launch fiasco)

I am a huge star wars fan. But this game looks sh1t. Seriously outright sh1t.

Just because its got skins and music of star wars, does not make it a star wars game.

This pile of poo really isn't for me and the low down dirty trick of offering prizes to reviewers who get people to buy it is disgusting.

Take it and shove it. This pile of excrement won't see my money.

Sad to see this fail. I got excited when watching the trailers, but they seemed to drop the ball big time with this one.

They should do a Star Wars mod for Arma3.

Well, no- it looks and sound amazing. Brilliantly so.

But the gameplay- yes it sticks badly.

http://blueharvest.wix.com/imperialassault

Creatively it seems like a big fail but commercially it may still be a huge success.

Well that is the sad thing. People are happy to sell a polished turd. Worse though is people wanting to buy a polished turd.

Are games that boring that crap like this can sell like hotcakes. Or is the wonders of starwars that is selling this crap

It's definitely the latter. The Phantom Menace did make over 400 million at the box office after all.

Outside of the EA forums, what I hear is mostly critical of the game in general, from mediocre to bad. I have yet to find someone that thinks this is a hit based on the beta. (Yes, it sounds and looks amazing, but that's it so far).

It seems a lot of people are cancelling pre-orders based on what was presented, feeling that the final release will not be worth the admission price.

The recent experiences with publisher reactions to Arkham Knight performance and the escalated pre-order bonus scheme with Deus Ex : Mankind Divided, are evidence that the PC gaming crowd has become a whole lot more vocal and effective and not be lead on by gimmicks for a half assed product.

Return policies on digital downloads have helped that cause too. Gamers have more options to talk with their wallets.

Yeah I cancelled my preorder because I don't want to pay full price for a shallow possibly unfinished game, which will launch in a month and can't be postponed due to the movie tie-in, how much could they change from the beta in a month?

BF4 is a great game now, but it launched in terrible state, let's hope EA can fix this.

I'll try the beta this week and decide, but I doubt I'll get it until a super sale.

Remember that the beta is scheduled to end on October 13.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-battlefront-beta-extended-heres-when-it-/1100-6431331/

Mick.

Other than the lack of space maps and the SP campaign, both of which were already known, I have read nothing here that doesn't confirm it's just like SWBF1 and 2 which came out 10 years ago.

You didn't climb into any vehicles, you pressed a button and you were instantly inside. You blew up the troops on the other side and either fought over control points or simple objectives (mostly "blow up X"). There was no depth.

Now if your complaint is that this game doesn't advance the series any over what came in the previous 2 titles (actually a lot more if you played the PSP ones, I played one of them circa 2008 or so), ok, that's apparent.
Yet it seems to me if you compare SWBF2 with this it's pretty much the same simple idea with better graphics and no space maps.

I also think that charging $60 for what is effectively an MP-only game is ridiculous. I saw one article calling for a free SP campaign DLC to be released later (since obviously they won't have time to get it out now), that might be a good idea.

Yet all these games starting with the original BF42 were shallow and repetitive, and while a few have had SP campaigns, they were never very long or deep, the MP always being the focus.



The Jedi Master

Jedi it's not even close to the same. It's extremely similar to Bad Company's rush mode, only 24/7. No map, no points to capture, just bleeding edge twitch shooter action with lasers.

My average life was about 40 seconds, and I was topping the scoreboards. When one team isn't steamrolling the other that drops to about 15-20 seconds.

I would be HAPPY if this was like BF1 and 2, just updated graphics. PLEASE DO give me those games with the graphics and sound of this one!
The problem is that this game doesn't play like them at all, it's just chaos.
There wasn't anything wrong with the previous games, standing by a speeder and push a button to take off. Who cares about an animation for that? You could go to a hanger and get in. That's what's important. Now, you have to run around the map and get LUCKY finding a magical floating token to spirit you into a vehicle of some sort, or whatever the token decides to give you.
You used to be able to choose which part of the occupied bases to spawn in. Now you're dropped randomly onto the map, likely right in front of the enemy. You don't see the map, positions of friendlies and enemies, helping you choose the best place to spawn. I didn't see a map at all, just a mini-scope of the immediate area. You have no sense of direction or where you need to be. It's just about k/d ratio, there's no working towards an objective.
I'm not really worried about the loss of classes, since you can, presumably, build your own. It would be nice, but that's not the main issue here.
It's more like some large scale Unreal tournament game than a battle.

Agreed.

Even Unreal Tournament was slower paced though.

I don't want anything faster paced than UT, which was pretty much too fast for me as it was. SWBF1 and 2 were a LOT slower than that.

Of course, I only played vs bots, ever, never played against humans in SWBF so I can't say how different it might have been. Likewise I will not play any shooter vs humans again, ever, so that side of the game doesn't matter to me...which is why games that are all or mostly that get skipped.



The Jedi Master

The lack of bots and large open battlefields were probably the biggest mistakes with this one IMO. Battlefront to me and a whole lot of people was coop against a horde of robots/stormtroopers.

ETA: Now that I think of it, take the Star Wars stuff out of the equation and replace it with something like BF 2142's assets. Without the nostalgia the game is honestly just a generic crappy multiplayer shooter.

Everything I'm seeing is that this is an absolutely awful game.

With the movie release, you'd think they can't delay it, but this might actually be bad enough for them to do it. It may come down to how many pre-orders they see canceled.

I must admit i was somewhat frustrated the first day. It was too fast and too chaotic for me. I had a 1:1x kill ratio and should have renamed cannonfodder. But as time went on i grew up somewhat. Played a lot dropzone and switched to walker assault.
Biggest problem was/is that people don't know how to play as rebels. But with a couple of players On the rebel side focusing on objectives i saw walkers going down and rebell win.
I still have big problems with flying using the mouse. I need joystick support wich should be in the release.
There are also a couple of more gamemodes coming.
People seems undicided. Some want them more like the old SWBF series and some more like Battlefield.
Well if you see it as a different game(type) it's not as bad as some describes it.
Dice already confirmed that they will work on balancing and i'm pretty sure that short after release it won't be as chaotic as it was in the few beta days.
There are a few things i would like to see as adding server browser but nothing that stops me from buying it.
Btw Dice mentioned that 9 million people played the beta and i never had connection or lag problems.

Rends

The lack of bots and the lack of a single player story-driven campaign nixed this one for me. I don't play adversarial mode online at all except for the Total War titles.

Well i was a SWBF modder in the past and heck i played 100 of hours but never played the campaign mode. Started it a few times but lost interest after some missions.

I played Battlefield 2, and it was about as good as it could get for a MP only game with lots of people who don't know each other. Let's face it, an MP only game tends to look twitchy because it's impractical to have players get killed in the first 3 minutes and then have to wait out the clock for the map to get done. They have to bring players back to life, resurrect destroyed vehicles, or no one gets to play anymore until the map timer runs out or victory conditions are reached maybe 30 minutes later.

But at least Battlefield had control points, so teams had to work to capture control points, and more parts of the map would fall under their control and influence, giving them more spawn points, taking away spawn points and vehicles from the enemy, eventually momentum would start to swing. You could have very action packed moments when a team is left with just one control point left has to fight ferociously to protect it.

This game appears not only to simplify that, but makes it illogical. Random spawn points mean you don't have to do anything in particular, and it means you won't get the chance to do anything in particular when enemies spawn on top of one another and shoot one another before their brains even understand where they are.

Ah Battlefield 2. My high school career in a nutshell.

I wonder if there is still interest playing it- I still have a copy of it, I forgot what my account and password were long ago. Does anyone know if the MP servers are still supported, or did EA shut all that down?

Question about EA pricelist.
You can get Battlefront for 59€
For 69€ you get some extra content like Han Solos Blaster.
If i get the Standard edition for 59€ will i be able to buy Han Solos blaster and the other stuff later iff i score enough points?
And what is this season stuff? If i buy this will i get all other DLC that will be released later or is this limited?

Rends

Btw: i downloaded Origin for the first time. I never bought an Origin game before. How come that i was already registert at Origin?
The only EA game i own is Bf42.

Origin folded into EA's old services a while back, so if you ever had an account for any other EA games it might have been ported over. EA is only Origin now, but they used to have 2-3 more.

No idea on the DLC plans for it.


The Jedi Master

Nice video someone created

Guess I am too late to sign up for the beta...

Yep, ended this Monday. You didn't miss much.

If you do want to see some gameplay there's a lot of it on YouTube.

Still out of my budget, but if someone wants a deal on it, GMG is having it on sale:

http://slickdeals.net/f/8160368-star-wars-battlefront-pc-pre-order-green-man-gaming-45-00