Post by halonachos on Oct 9, 2015 12:48:43 GMT
Picked it up and began to play the beta. I will say that the beta is really limited, but seeing as though it's only open for 4 days or so it's okay to see a harsh limit on content. The only two modes available for it are Walker Assault and one where you capture and hold drop pods similar to a hardpoint game mode in CoD.
So some good, bad, and ugly.
Good:
Graphics look nice, the lighting can be a bit too much at times but this is to be expected with the bloom effects that everyone loves now. My computer is finally showing it's age and luckily the game has a lot of graphics options in the beta at least. I had to turn my rendering percentage down to 75% in order to get it to run without a huge loss in FPS, but even then it looks really great.
Vehicle gameplay is pretty even and leveled out so far. Seeing as though this is star wars there are times when the Empire side is going to have a lot of vehicles, luckily even the base weapons carried by infantry can damage them pretty effectively. It can be somewhat annoying though, for example manning a turret in Walker Assault is difficult. AT-STs can one shot these turrets with a missile and sniper rifles can do hefty damage to them. It's a balance that needs to be there though, otherwise certain points could be abused.
Powerups are found on the map itself, if you want a fighter or a vehicle you're going to have to find a powerup and call it in. These spawn in predetermined locations but I found that people were not that willing to go out of their way to find them. In the right hands these can do a good amount of damage but they hardly ever wind up in the right hands. That being said it's rather impressive to see Darth Vader take out 6 rebels in rapid succession.
Bad:
Seems to be some server side lag when it comes to shooting, hit markers usually appear if you aim to the side of a target instead of directly at a target and it's all too easy to abuse this by repeatedly sidestepping left and right. Noticed that even when firing at the direct middle of an enemy trooper that if they were quickly moving left and right that my shots would usually miss. Effectively allowing people to walk through blaster fire.
The bloom, seriously. I thought this trend in games died out in 2010.
Ugly:
Walker Assault mode balancing. I like this mode, it's a really fun mode but I have yet to see the rebel side win one match and it's nearly impossible for them to do so. I can see where the developers would think that the mode is balanced but it is only balanced if the Empire side ran into a perfect storm of an opposing force that could reliably capture and hold points to call in Y-Wings and then use turrets and fighters to attack the AT-ATs. However, that usually does not happen.
In order to effectively do damage to an AT-AT the infantry need to hold points to call in about 5 Y-Wings which will cause the AT-ATs to lose shielding for enough time for coordinated attacks to do a good deal of damage. This coordinate attack would require infantry to either use rockets(which are pick ups on the field), ATGARs(the radar dish lasers on Hoth), and fighters all at the same time. This is never the case as the infantry will only be able to hold the first two points long enough to get 5 Y-Wings and fail to get many for the last two pairs of points. This prevents fighters from attacking as they are also usually dealing with Empire fighters and also prevents turrets and ATGAR emplacements from being used as they are usually being targeted by Empire players who have taken the turrets and ATGAR emplacements for themselves.
This is an Attack/Defend mode and there is no limit to where the players can go and there are three sets of uplink stations for the rebels to use. After the first pair of uplink stations are abandoned the Empire players are typically already behind Rebel lines and have control of the second set of uplink stations. Also they're usually in the turrets that the Rebels rely on to defend against AT-STs. If you've played Battlefield then you've almost already played this mode, just replace the M-COM stations with uplink points and get rid of the ticket count. Then also take away the spawn protection or limit on how far the attacking side can push before the first set of M-COM stations are blown up.
Snowspeeders are only available as a last resort to defend against the AT-ATs. It's not too terribly difficult to use them to take the AT-ATs down, hell even I did it and I kinda really suck at flying. The mechanic is simple, you fly near the AT-AT and press 4 to attach then play a little minigame kinda deal where you keep a ship icon in a gray bar. The bar gets shorter each pass which makes sense as each time you're getting tighter passes. However I am not sure of the requirements to get to use the two cable. The only time that I have seen the icon or had my buddy(who bless his heart is trying to help me test the mechanic but sucks at listening to me set parameters) see the icon was after activating the ability attached to the 3 key and having the shields down on the AT-AT. So I am not sure what allows you to use the cable, but I managed to do it and it was neato.
This is something that can be remedied and should be fixed. I think if they either lock the turrets and ATGAR emplacements to a 180 degree firing arc this would prevent them from being used by the Empire who already has AT-ATs and AT-STs to use. Either that or lock them to being accessible to Rebel only. Setting up a play area is also useful, the Empire should not already be in the second set of uplink stations by the time the Rebels need to use them.
Overall it's still a good game and I hope they make some changes to it. Not game of the year though, would not go that far with it.
So some good, bad, and ugly.
Good:
Graphics look nice, the lighting can be a bit too much at times but this is to be expected with the bloom effects that everyone loves now. My computer is finally showing it's age and luckily the game has a lot of graphics options in the beta at least. I had to turn my rendering percentage down to 75% in order to get it to run without a huge loss in FPS, but even then it looks really great.
Vehicle gameplay is pretty even and leveled out so far. Seeing as though this is star wars there are times when the Empire side is going to have a lot of vehicles, luckily even the base weapons carried by infantry can damage them pretty effectively. It can be somewhat annoying though, for example manning a turret in Walker Assault is difficult. AT-STs can one shot these turrets with a missile and sniper rifles can do hefty damage to them. It's a balance that needs to be there though, otherwise certain points could be abused.
Powerups are found on the map itself, if you want a fighter or a vehicle you're going to have to find a powerup and call it in. These spawn in predetermined locations but I found that people were not that willing to go out of their way to find them. In the right hands these can do a good amount of damage but they hardly ever wind up in the right hands. That being said it's rather impressive to see Darth Vader take out 6 rebels in rapid succession.
Bad:
Seems to be some server side lag when it comes to shooting, hit markers usually appear if you aim to the side of a target instead of directly at a target and it's all too easy to abuse this by repeatedly sidestepping left and right. Noticed that even when firing at the direct middle of an enemy trooper that if they were quickly moving left and right that my shots would usually miss. Effectively allowing people to walk through blaster fire.
The bloom, seriously. I thought this trend in games died out in 2010.
Ugly:
Walker Assault mode balancing. I like this mode, it's a really fun mode but I have yet to see the rebel side win one match and it's nearly impossible for them to do so. I can see where the developers would think that the mode is balanced but it is only balanced if the Empire side ran into a perfect storm of an opposing force that could reliably capture and hold points to call in Y-Wings and then use turrets and fighters to attack the AT-ATs. However, that usually does not happen.
In order to effectively do damage to an AT-AT the infantry need to hold points to call in about 5 Y-Wings which will cause the AT-ATs to lose shielding for enough time for coordinated attacks to do a good deal of damage. This coordinate attack would require infantry to either use rockets(which are pick ups on the field), ATGARs(the radar dish lasers on Hoth), and fighters all at the same time. This is never the case as the infantry will only be able to hold the first two points long enough to get 5 Y-Wings and fail to get many for the last two pairs of points. This prevents fighters from attacking as they are also usually dealing with Empire fighters and also prevents turrets and ATGAR emplacements from being used as they are usually being targeted by Empire players who have taken the turrets and ATGAR emplacements for themselves.
This is an Attack/Defend mode and there is no limit to where the players can go and there are three sets of uplink stations for the rebels to use. After the first pair of uplink stations are abandoned the Empire players are typically already behind Rebel lines and have control of the second set of uplink stations. Also they're usually in the turrets that the Rebels rely on to defend against AT-STs. If you've played Battlefield then you've almost already played this mode, just replace the M-COM stations with uplink points and get rid of the ticket count. Then also take away the spawn protection or limit on how far the attacking side can push before the first set of M-COM stations are blown up.
Snowspeeders are only available as a last resort to defend against the AT-ATs. It's not too terribly difficult to use them to take the AT-ATs down, hell even I did it and I kinda really suck at flying. The mechanic is simple, you fly near the AT-AT and press 4 to attach then play a little minigame kinda deal where you keep a ship icon in a gray bar. The bar gets shorter each pass which makes sense as each time you're getting tighter passes. However I am not sure of the requirements to get to use the two cable. The only time that I have seen the icon or had my buddy(who bless his heart is trying to help me test the mechanic but sucks at listening to me set parameters) see the icon was after activating the ability attached to the 3 key and having the shields down on the AT-AT. So I am not sure what allows you to use the cable, but I managed to do it and it was neato.
This is something that can be remedied and should be fixed. I think if they either lock the turrets and ATGAR emplacements to a 180 degree firing arc this would prevent them from being used by the Empire who already has AT-ATs and AT-STs to use. Either that or lock them to being accessible to Rebel only. Setting up a play area is also useful, the Empire should not already be in the second set of uplink stations by the time the Rebels need to use them.
Overall it's still a good game and I hope they make some changes to it. Not game of the year though, would not go that far with it.