Suggestions for Improvement

[Soulfire42]

I have been playing Battlefront for a few days now and would like to offer some suggestions for improvement. I realize that there is a good chance these will never get read by anyone relevant... but maybe they will.

 

1. The game's pace is too fast.

 

I realize that the trend in first person shooters is to make them frantic and have things whizzing past at all times, but it does not work well for Battlefront. The excessively fast pace of the game is basically turning it into "Zerg Wars." Twitch reflexes and who can strafe the fastest with the least lag are much more important at this speed of gameplay than strategy, formations and coordination. Keeping the otherwise exactly the same and simply lowering the players run speeds would dramatically improve gameplay and cause a lot more cooperation because you'd actually have time to see what your allies are planning to do and how they plan on doing it. Battlefront currently has a lot of the feeling that Super Mario Bros has... sprinting, jumping and throwing out fireballs (or lasers) as fast as you can. I agree that cooperation and teamwork can take place in this game to some extent, but not nearly as much as would be possible if the pace were simply slowed a bit.

 

2. The menus are not well developed.

 

My friends and I have found the menus rather lackluster and difficult to use. On my computer trying to select a game to join in multiplayer is challenging (to say the least) because a server only highlights at seemingly random intervals when I place my cursor over it. It will flash as "selectable" for a split second and I have to click it while it's highlighted. Scrolling my mouse up and down the list of servers highlights servers in an unusual and unreliable way.

 

3. I can only look at the cheesey loading scene so many times.

 

The blue menus, the spinning loading symbol and watching the triple zoom onto a planet are all very painful to watch anymore. How about some Star Wars lore or something to break up the monotony of the all-to-frequent load screens? I'm also hopeful that you can reduce the load screen time in the future if possible.

 

4. Horrendous manual.

 

The game manual does not bother to mention numerous critical features of the gameplay such as how to activate our jetpacks (double jump), how to tumble to the left or right (press a strafe key and then jump), etc. The manual is more than just skimpy... you cheated us for $50.

 

5. The campaign mode is pretty laughable.

 

A tad more creativity would have went a long way. Also, when I go to select a special ability for a particular mission I generally have no clue what is going on because sometimes my options randomly cyle like some bad game show waiting for one to be arbitrarily picked or it tells me to pick one then tells me I have none available to pick.

 

6. Server lists.

 

What is up with the scroll bars that I can't click and drag down? Why can't I perform a search for particular servers and why isn't there an indication when it has finished refreshing the server list?

 

7. Weapons don't need to be single shot death or machine guns all the time.

 

I'm curious as to why stormtroopers have been issued new uzi versions of their weapons? Trading single blasts or short bursts down hallways like happens in the Star Wars movies would be great compared to the "spray and pray" antics currently in the game. Maybe consider boosting damage on some weapons and significantly reducing their rate of fire. The standard stormtrooper weapons seems to be firing as fast as the portable tripod (bipod?) weapon that the stormtroopers set up in the movies to lay down massive firepower. How about giving us a few fixed weapons batteris like those instead of uzis on stormtroopers?

 

8. Sound problems.

 

All too often my ears are bombarded by some strange and loud scratching noise for no reason I can discern. I'm curious if other people are having this issue as well. Typically it is during music and stuff.

 

9. Fix the problem with entering vehicles.

 

I'm not alone in having problems entering a vehicle reliably. It is very frustrating to be killed because instead of entering a vehicle like we're supposed to we are warped to the back of the vehicle and left standing there for no reason.

 

10. Make sure we don't die when we exit a turret.

 

I've pressed "E" to get out turrets on the Bespin map only to find myself ejected off the side of the building and down to my death far below. It's very unsatisfying to take out an enemy fighter only to fall to our death when we get out of the turret.

 

 

Well, that's enough for now. Hopefully others will add their own suggestions and others will chime in to mention whatever solutions or information they have to any of the problems and/or suggestions I've listed.

[Kivan]

I agree with you. Especially the part about the ST guns.. and what happened to the Battle Droid's gun that was similar to the E-11? oh yea, the server list Is... crap basically, no friends list, no filter etc..

[Iceman_IX]

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1643479#post1643479

[Akamaru_kun]

It's more fun to play the Starwars BF1942 mod then to play SWBF so far. It might not have that mutch chars and diff. maps but at least the gameplay is good and the game don't have 1000 bugs waiting to be fixed.

[Iceman_IX]

If you can't recreate the battle of Hoth with AT-ATs and Speeders with tow-cables, it's not worth playing a StarWars strategical FPS.

[Akamaru_kun]

Exactly what I was thinking. The MP games turns into deathmatches because it's impossible to play correctly in the current context. The chars classes are not well balanced, some vehicules are way too strong, the spaceships are useless because they are too hard to control correctly and not enought powerfull and most of the maps are not well made.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah.. I'll add something.. the graphics are terrible !! I have the impression to play "Starwars : The phantom menace made in 1999 by Lucas Arts"...

[Outlaw_VR]

This is basically what I replied with in the other thread you posted this on.

 

1. The game's pace is too fast.

 

I realize that the trend in first person shooters is to make them frantic and have things whizzing past at all times, but it does not work well for Battlefront. The excessively fast pace of the game is basically turning it into "Zerg Wars." Twitch reflexes and who can strafe the fastest with the least lag are much more important at this speed of gameplay than strategy, formations and coordination. Keeping the otherwise exactly the same and simply lowering the players run speeds would dramatically improve gameplay and cause a lot more cooperation because you'd actually have time to see what your allies are planning to do and how they plan on doing it. Battlefront currently has a lot of the feeling that Super Mario Bros has... sprinting, jumping and throwing out fireballs (or lasers) as fast as you can. I agree that cooperation and teamwork can take place in this game to some extent, but not nearly as much as would be possible if the pace were simply slowed a bit.

 

I partially agree with this. While I don't have a problem with "twitch reflexes" (another word for insane aim ) I do have a problem with 'Strafe Wars' which are decided more on lag rather then skill and tactics.

 

The speed at which the characters strafe and backpeddle is faster then other recent games such as the new UT and BF games. I think since this game was also devolped as a console game, they were given faster speeds to accomodate that audience. But, IMHO, on the PC version it would be appropriate if strafing and back peddling speeds were reduced somewhat (though keep foward speeds the same).

 

This would also help the weak nature of blaster guns. Since the travel speeds on those weapons are some what slow, anyone starfing like madman is extremely hard to hit.

 

This added with improved blaster damage, would go a long way in improving long term gameplay IMO...and at the same time give the game more of a Star Wars feel.

[richcz3]

The speed of character strafing could be toned down. The fact that on some levels the threat of being shot can come from many directions, it should be addressed in the next patch.

 

richcz3