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Edited by Hylebos: 6/10/2013 10:02:32 PM
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Battlefront III needs to decide on what type of game it wants to be.

[quote][b]Warning:[/b] Constructive Criticism and Opinions ahead. Try not to have a knee jerk reaction, it will just make you look really silly.[/quote]So it appears that Battlefront III has been announced and the forums are full of clearly hyped individuals who have waited for this day for a long time. This is well and good. However, I would like to take a moment to garner your opinion on what direction the series should take going forward. I'm going to cut to the chase: Battlefront II was not a very well balanced game. Don't get me wrong, it was very fun, and I did invest quite a bit of time into playing it; that's why I know that it wasn't a very balanced game. In my mind the core problem that plagued Battlefront II was the addition of Player Controlled Heroes. While it's fun to lead your army into battle as various Jedis and non-Jedis from the Star Wars Universe, the way that the Hero system worked in Battlefront II was extremely poor from a Game Design standpoint. The dominant strategy of the game revolved around farming as many points as possible so that you could unlock the chance to play as your Faction's Hero. At that point, you would immediately find the Enemy Hero at some location at the center of the map and duel him to the death. The result of this duel would decide the outcome of the match, because there are very few ways for the default units to coordinate an attack against a Jedi opponent, they are simply too powerful. For one, Jedis had extreme mobillity. I've played games where I won that Lightsaber Duel and I would immediately dash off to the rear base to capture it before my opponent could respawn. The enemy AI, now attacked on two fronts by my forces, would soon collapse. Occasionally, I'd find that the enemy player would be attempting to recapture one of the outposts I'd have taken. I'd simply dash over and execute him, and in the time it took him to respawn I'd already half captured another base. I never even needed to fight any player controlled characters to win the game, if encountered one by one of the command posts, I could just sprint off to the other and capture it by the time he caught up to me. It was pretty ridiculous. I also hope I don't need to convince the reader of the Jedi's Dominance in combat. You can literally mow through scores of enemy soldiers in seconds with your dash attack, dwindling the enemy stock by dozens every time you pass through their base. Many of the force powers were also very unbalanced, if you wer lucky enough to get a Jedi that had Force Pull, you had the exclusive right to win against every Playable Character no matter what they did, there's just no way to stop force attacks. Battlefront with Jedi heroes is just far too binary. Either your Jedi wins and you are roflstomping the enemy team, or your Jedi has lost and you are fighting tooth and nail to hold on against an opponent with superior mobillity and superior firepower. And on certain maps, there wasn't even a balanced "Jedi vs Jedi" matchup, you'd have something ridiculous like Leia vs. Darth Vadar. There's no way that's balanced or good game design, that's just throwing elements of the sandbox together and hoping that wishful thinking with make everything work. Battlerfront III needs to make a decision on what sort of game it wants to be, because in this day and age of connectivity and online play, the sort of things that happened in Battlefront II are unacceptable, and people won't want to play an unbalanced and unfair game, no matter how nostalgic it is. On one hand, Battlefront could return to it's roots. The original Battlefront was a great shooter, with good maps, solid controls, and a sort of relatively balanced fun that could last for hours. Hero units could exists as rewards for players who are doing well, they just need to be balanced. Giving people control over Leia or Boba Fett was never too bad, because those characters had roughly the same amount of mobillity as the default units did, and they were most certainly more killable than the Jedis that could force pull you or block your attacks with their Lightsabers. And you know what? If they did that, Battlefront III could still be a pretty fun game, even if you can't dash around the map slaughtering everything with Lighsabers. On the other hand, Battlefront could both embrace and properly own the concept of Jedi Heroes. If people are drawn to Battlefront because they want to zip around the map as super powerful Jedi, then why even bother with the infantry bullcrap? A much more balanced way of implementing Jedis that avoids the entire binary outcome that plagued Battlefront II is to spawn people as Jedis instead of forcing people to unlock them as a temporary powerup. If you balance the game around the idea that you are playing as a Jedi who is leading his army into battle, it could be a very different but still very fun version of Battlefront, much more like a MOBA than the original. What do you folks think is the better path? An Infantry based Battlefront, or a Hero based Battlefront? Or do you have an even better idea? Because Battlefront needs to evolve to survive the modern era in many ways, the Hero unit is but one aspect of the game that I feel could use work, and if people aren't too put off by my constructive criticism, I would be happy to discuss it more in the future. I put together this topic rather hastily so forgive me if there are any errors, and if you feel that I'm wrong about anything, feel free to let me know politely, we can debate a bit over the disagreement.

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    [i]You have to decide what kind of game you want to be, Battlefront. Whatever that game is, it's gonna change the world.[/i]

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    • I actually enjoyed the hero aspect of II, it may have been unbalanced, but it was fun. I think I speak for most people when I say I didn't really play online at all. Now it's different. Multiplayer is much more accessible and yes you are 100% correct here. I'd still like Jedis to be in the game, but maybe in some form of playlist where only they exist, and no infantry is involved.

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    • Edited by ToastyWaffles: 6/11/2013 10:01:05 AM
      [quote]I'd also like a few flying vehicles on planetary maps to[/quote] This. I was sad when they were gone in BFII. Regarding heroes, I don't mind them making a come back if they're balanced. I like the idea of making jedi/sith default classes. Make them much less fast than in BFII, only give them one power, and make them more vulnerable to sustained blaster fire (or at least, from multiple opponents). Also hoping bots will make a comeback, although I expect they'd only be playable with an internet connection.

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    • I want it to be similar to Planetside 2 in size of Army force size

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    • I don't know why the separated space and land combat for two. Yes space battles were fun, and with Next Gen certainly have a greater chance at being fully fleshed out, but I'd also like a few flying vehicles on planetary maps to.

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    • Racing

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    • I usually turned the hero option off in Battlefronts 2, just 'cause I found it more fun playing as a grunt... with an elite pistol... and guided rockets... ...

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      • Make it infantry based, but keep player controlled heroes, just make then much more difficult to obtain.

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      • I really don't give a flying shit; it's -blam!-ing BATTLEFIELD BABY!

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      • When I heard DICE was doing it I just thought "Star Wars themed Battlefield game".

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      • dat wall

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      • I just want offline bot support and I will be thrilled.

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        • Edited by lVlzone: 6/11/2013 1:11:46 AM
          Honestly, I never thought that heroes were that hard to kill. One tank, detpack, mine, or rocket and they were dead.

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        • I would rather have an infantry war rather than hero spam. A game type of all heroes could be fun though.

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        • I'm surprised there was no mention of the award guns. The rifle could 1-hit any basic unit if every shot hit.

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          • I agree that the hero system was flawed in many ways, and in a competitive setting with many players, it would be lopsided. While I don't know how the game will turnout, I enjoyed it when there were only soldiers to play as.

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            • Heroes weren't OP. The -blam!-ing Precision Pistol, on the other hand, made Halo CE's Magnum look like a cap gun. But it was still awesome.

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              • If there are heroes, I want Plo Koon. That is all. I will use Plo Koon, and I will destroy everything that gets in my way.

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              • You could turn heroes on and off. I can't really see Dice's Battlefront having heroes in online multiplayer. Likely it's going to be very close to Battlefield 4: Star Wars. You'll be able to customize your classes for each faction. Maybe some game modes might have them available, but the core gametypes probably wouldn't if they were really only supposed to be used against AI. People would whine and whine about heroes being overpowered or unfair no matter how they executed them, so they'll be kept out of the core. Dice knows how to do multiplayer, and they know what's not gonna fly in this day and age. You could play Battlefront 1 and 2 online, but most people didn't and they really weren't designed with it in mind. Battlefront 3 will be. In fact, given the dev, the focus will likely be the online multiplayer entirely.

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              • I didn't read the whole thing, but I would like to mention that the CIS was pretty OP, particularly with the SBDs being the base unit and having an infinite ammo shotgun as a secondary, a rocket launcher on top of the standard rifle. And the droideka.

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                • Playing as a Force user [i]is[/i] overpowered in Battlefront 2, you're right. My gut reaction would be to cut Force-users from the game. We have enough games to let you play as Jedi. I want to pound ground as a trooper, shooting up other troopers. Why not MLG the game up a bit. At the same time I remember playing as Darth Maul is ri-donk-ulous fun messin' up clones all over the place. So maybe Heroes should only be permitted in certain playlists or custom games, like how certain playlists restricted armor abilities in Reach. Unlike armor abilities, Heroes would be not in the default gamemode. I agree with you on how the gunslinging Heroes weren't that OP compared to standard troopers, but I'd still prefer heavy armor and a trusty blaster rifle to Han and Leia's clothes/nonarmor and pistols.

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                • ... It can have both. Because it's mother !@#$ing Battlefront. I want both aspects of gameplay. To roflstomp and to infantry it up and to fly around in spaceships.

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                  • I don't know exactly what they'll do with it... it may be a bit fanboyish but with DICE on the case I feel like they'll find a good balance point. I feel they have the track record to put some stock in their abilities with this kind of game. They'll probably lean towards the side of nerfing the heroes and keep to the "infantry and vehicle" side of things which made Battlefront so appealing. All these interesting weapons and vehicles to explore when most games stay on the "Jedi hero" storylines. It might become too "Battlefield: Star wars skin" but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Space battles alone would make it hard to make that "copy/paste" comparison.

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                    • I'm in favor of no Jedis (or Heros) but if they do add Jedis they should be AI controlled (i.e. stupid) and they should only be given to a team that is losing badly as a sort of last ditch effort to come back.

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                    • I loved the Jedi aspect. And because you had that health metre it meant you constantly had to be in action - so I didn't find it too bad.

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                    • Infantry option all the way. I liked playing as heroes back in BF2 but looking back now, it horribly broke the game. I'm all for having a hero vs hero mode like in Mos Eisley in BF2, maybe even a Hero vs Infantry mode, but keep them out of the main game modes damnit. I'd like to see more of a focus on teamwork too. In BF2 a lot of times I'd usually see a lone soldier somewhere off outside the battle running around alone.

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