When it comes to Amplifiers, there is very good reason to only focus on those which increase damage or healing values. There are the odd few others which are useful for other stuff, like reducing repair costs or increasing crew skill success rates.
Today's post is dedicated to one of the little-celebrated Amplifiers and how useful it can be in specific situations: Starship Booty.
When evaluating how much I like all the Star Wars films, one of the things I often look at is what their sequences involving starfighters are like. Each of the films has at least one, and some are among the most iconic sequences in their respective films.
This is not to say that I feel a
decent or even great starfighter sequence automatically makes such a product
“good” as a whole. For example, one of my least favourite Star Wars films, Attack of
the Clones, has a sequence which I would probably just place outside of my
top five. Sure, the film scores more than a handful of points for it (most of
which go to the glorious sound design of the seismic charges!) but
nowhere near enough to make up for the majority of its flaws in the grand
scheme of things.
When it comes to Star Wars
games, I tend to view things just a little differently. Unlike with a film,
where a starfighter sequence tends be expected as part of the main plot,
starfighter experiences in games depend heavily on the game in-question. Either
the entire game is built around them (Rogue Squadron, TIE Fighter,
X-Wing), they’re a compulsory part of some campaigns (Battlefront II,
LEGO Star Wars), or they don’t feature at all apart from maybe some
turret sections (Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Knights of the Old
Republic, The Force Unleashed). In the rarest of instances, they are
present but are so much of a side thing that you can play the entire game
however you want without once having to encounter them (The Old Republic).
Thus, while I still look out for
them, I do not always include “has a decent starfighter experience” as part of
my criteria for evaluating a game. For example, SWTOR’s original
starfighter experience is anything but “fun” to me, since it is purely an
on-rails shooter. Furthermore, it eventually ramps up the difficulty to an
obscene level and thus becomes impractical as an activity. 2014’s
mini-expansion Galactic Starfighter, on the other hand, brought in an
entirely different starfighter experience which I still am a huge fan of to
this day.
I was therefore quite excited to
learn that EA would be publishing a new Star Wars game which
focused purely on the starfighter experience. Squadrons is basically a
massive love-letter to the starfighter experience from the developers, and it
can easily be regarded as “the modern X-Wing game”. It also shares
several similarities with SWTOR’s Galactic Starfighter mode. As such, I have chosen to dedicate today's post to a comparison between both games.
To some people playing Squadrons,
this choice of comparator will be more than a little bit odd. There have been
several starfighter-based games across the years, and many of these will be
closer in spirit to Squadrons than Starfighter.However, I
have not played all these games and it has been well over a decade since I have
played those which I owned. Due to changing focus away from the PC to the PS2
and PS3 between 2004 and 2011, I believe that I can say with confidence that it
would have been over sixteenyears since I played any game which
can be deemed “more relevant” for comparison purposes. Thus, even if I were to
pick those games up again, I would still refrain from focusing on them as it
would be wrong for me to present myself as a voice of experience after a gap of
nearly two decades.
This should go without saying, but this is not meant to be a comprehensive review of Squadrons as a game. Any bugs, game issues, or specific story details will not be discussed. This is purely meant to be a comparison between one game and another for the features that they include.
A year ago today, the Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion launched, bringing with it nine new Chapters of Story Content, five new mini-Flashpoint experiences known as Uprisings, Veteran Chapter Difficulty for all Chapters of both Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne, and the controversial system known as Galactic Command.
A year down the line, what's changed, been introduced, or remained stagnant?
There seems to be a common trend in several of the 5.5 changes. Outside of Class Balance changes and the GSF changes in particular, the majority of the changes made relate to cosmetic changes. The Cartel Market and Inventory got a visual update, more Companion Customisations were made available, and of course the server list got its new truncated look a few weeks too early.
Just in general, there's a lot of changes to talk about with 5.5, so let's get started.
Today we'll be learning what changes will be coming to Galactic Starfighter in SWtOR. It's been a long, long time since this mode received any love, and tomorrow's 5.5 patch will be changing things extensively. I fully-expect them to nerf Repair Probes and Charged Plating in particular, because ships like the FT-7B Clarion - albeit one of my favourite ships - just has a shedton of defensive potential without really trying.
On a similar subject to Galactic Starfighter, I've been indulging in the Star Wars Battlefront II Beta since Wednesday, and have been having an absolute blast in the game's Starfighter Assault mode. To summarise its mechanics, it is basically a significantly simplified version of Galactic Starfighter.
To start with the similarities:
Targeting an opponent is the exact same as in GSF; you need to aim for a small circle in front of your target which is showing which direction they're heading if you want to deal maximum damage or lock-on to them. There are some exceptions to this which we'll get to in a moment, but on the whole if you know how to dogfight in GSF you pretty much know how to play Starfighter Assault.
Indeed, to make the transition easier you can of course remap controls to fit your GSF playstyle. For example the Right Mouse-Button by default is a "Zoom" while your abilities are initially keyed to Q, E, and F, with the third ability being your missile. I personally prefer to scrap the zoom entirely (it's pretty useless) and remap the missile to it instead as an alternate key (since you can remap to a keyboard and to a mouse simultaneously) and remap the other two abilities to 1 and 2 respectively since I use those far more frequently than keyboard letters due to having a programmable mouse.
That's pretty much it for the similarities. Yes, there's only one. I did say it was significantly simplified!
The differences are more than a bit extensive:
By default, a system known as "auto-levelling" is turned on, which rights your ship to the 'proper' level automatically should it become too tilted. This makes no sense in space and can thankfully be toggled off via turning on "Advanced Flight", and this drastically improves flight in general and makes it more akin to GSF flight.
In GSF there are only a couple of missiles which can be fired unguided without requiring a lock-on. In BFII, every missile has both unguided and lock-on capabilities; holding (or toggling, waiting, and then toggling again, which is another option) the button will cause it to lock-on, while tapping it twice in quick succession will fire it off unguided in a straight line. This is good for quick fly-bys of objectives provided you can be sure that your missile(s) will hit.
Health automatically regenerates for everybody after a while of not being hit. Whilst some ships do have ways to repair the damage taken, you don't need to have these abilities to restore health in general. This means that you can keep fighting for longer, even if you have to dip in-and-out of combat just to heal back up again. On a similar subject, there is not the option to prioritise shield, weapon, or engine strength. There isn't even a directional deflector shield, which is somewhat surprising considering that they're audibly made use of in the battle of Yavin in Episode IV.
There are only a handful of ways to evade missiles. Only a couple of ships (at the moment) can break a missile lock entirely, while everyone else either just has to outrun them or hope that they can not only survive the hit but avoid taking damage long enough for them to heal straight back up. On a similar note, only a few ships (AKA Fighters which don't have an Astromech heal and all Interceptors) have a speed boost, which then goes on cooldown. The most that can be accomplished at any other time is pushing throttle to full, and it is worth noting that the acceleration key does not need to be held down; your throttle will remain the same speed you push it to at all times unless you turn or deliberately slow down.
Similar to Domination, each side has offensive and defensive objectives as well as the opportunity for dogfighting and you ideally need a good balance of both; the dogfighters need to eliminate opponents so that other team members can focus on objectives without interruptions. However, the differences here are that the objectives aren't necessarily to capture, but rather destroy, and one faction has a clear-cut advantage in that if they eliminate all of the reinforcements in a single phase the game ends immediately with their victory. In the thirty or forty games I've played, I've only seen the Rebellion win six times often due to priority errors, some of which will be highlighted in a video at the end of this post.
While each side can have a maximum of 12 players, in actuality there are far more ships flying around than the supposed max of 24. This is because AI ships are flying around on both sides as well, some of whom are generic pilots while others are objective-NPCs for the defending faction to kill. Destroying the Objective NPC ships - be they Cruisers, Corvettes, or Bombers - has a significant impact on the team they support; either the phase progresses or the attacking team loses reinforcement points per each successful complete destruction.
All ships have good offensive capability, although it is worth stressing that time-to-kill itself in Battlefront is significantly lower than in GSF. The ship classes themselves are fairly similar to GSF; you have the fast light Scout/Interceptor, the middle-ground Strike Fighter/Fighter, and the spongy Bomber. However, unlike GSF where the Bomber is the weakest in terms of general attack, in Battlefront it's as good as - if not sometimes better than - the other two ships. For example, the TIE/sa Bomber has access to a multi-missile ability which targets three random targets in its flight path, while the BTL-A4 Y-Wing has an ion turret which both weakens and damages its target.
As you have probably already guessed from the above paragraph, the lack of mention of Gunships means that there aren't any in Starfighter Assault. The only Gunships which exist are slow-moving on-rails ships available as reinforcements for the ground Galactic Assault mode. The lack of an at-range sniper ship means that fighters have the opportunity to get up-close and personal and engage in some proper dogfighting, and it's amazing how much difference it makes.
Whilst there aren't Gunships to worry about, there are exclusive Hero ships which can also be seen flying around the place. Some of these are only a tiny bit bigger than standard ships, so the normal hitbox and targeting mechanic applies, but others - notably Slave I - have got a far bigger hitbox because the ship itself is a lot bigger and thus easier to hit. In the previous game, Heroes could only be found as a pick-up, whereas in this game you earn them by playing the game and being good at various things, which is a significant improvement because it means that - theoretically - everyone has a chance to become one rather than have to solely rely on chance alone.
The worst difference - by far - surrounds the method of progressing through individual ship levels and acquiring upgrades. In GSF, it makes sense. You play the game, earn currency, and spend it on purchasing individual upgrades, thus improving your ships slowly and deliberately as you play more of the game.
Battlefront II's system in general makes Galactic Command - even in its original state - look good. In order to get your ships higher in level or with the right upgrades, you need to be lucky with RNG Crates which can give you anything for any one of your four ground soldiers, three ships, four reinforcements, or twenty-odd heroes (although range-specific crates can be purchased, this supposedly only guarantees you one item of the three for your chosen range and even then this isn't a certainty - I once got two sets of Crafting Parts and a Han Solo MvP victory pose from a Starfighter-only Crate).
Playing the game only raises your overall level, not the level of your chosen ship or soldier. Considering that it will be possible to buy these Crates with real money at-launch, some people will be going into any mode with several additional character or ship levels and upgrades over other players should they decide to inject money into it. It doesn't matter how much you play your ships; you may love Fighter and play it most of all, but due to the 'progression' RNG your highest-level ship might be your Interceptor even if you haven't played a single match with it.
This isn't right, and ideally it needs fixing. However, we're only a few weeks away from launch now, so it is exceedingly unlikely that anything significant will be changed between now and then, but a lot of people are making noise about it so hopefully things will improve at some point even if it isn't immediate.
Then again, this is EA we're talking about.
Anyway. I've prattled on for long enough.
To conclude, it's clear that both GSF and Starfighter Assault, while similar on a fundamental level, both do something better than the other somewhere along the line. Assault is far better at allowing proper dogfighting and balance between ships is pretty damn good, while GSF has a significantly better progression system and all of the ships do have their own identity.
Such is my love for Starfighter Assault that I recorded a few matches earlier this morning and uploaded one to my now-rather-bereft YouTube Channel. I fully-intend to continue doing so when the game launches properly since this is probably the most fun mode I've played in a game for quite some time.
Earlier in the post I mentioned that a balance was needed between dogfighting and objective-completion. This first video highlights two dangers of focusing too much on the former personally and not doing enough to help with the objectives; firstly, that the match itself was a close defeat in the second phase and secondly, that accomplishing a lot of kills can of course have a negative effect on relationships with individuals on the enemy team.
We here at Galactic Antics would like to apologise to any individuals whose feelings were hurt during the course of this match. Your feedback is appreciated and will be taken into account for future renditions of your Galactic Antics product.
Galactic StarFighter, as I've already talked about before, is fairly brutal for a new player or character to get really 'introduced to'; from the sheer amount of time it takes to upgrade a ship to the clunky UI to the fact that some systems are left completely unexplained, there's a lot for new participants to take in.
So it is with Galactic Command that new players will be introducing themselves to the activity in an attempt to get as much out of the system as possible, since GSF is one of the most rewarding things you can do (a victory with eight medals earns at least 1,060 CXP dependent on whether or not your Alignment is winning or you have a CXP Booster on).
I'm not exempt from this; I really enjoyed GSF back in the day on Ziodus, but he was the only character who ever really did anything. Because I don't really want him to only be doing GSF (which he pretty much would be if he ever gets to 70, since I largely only refer to him as "the GSF character"), I figured it would finally be time to put my preachings about the activity being tedious for new players/characters to the test and get Calph her own set of ships.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not doing this purely so I can farm CXP. I just got caught up in the wind of fresh activity which hasn't been felt around GSF for so damn long, and I'm really enjoying being back, and it made more sense to me to get a currently-regularly-used character doing things rather than have the essentially-retired but more-experienced GSF character only doing GSF and nothing else. Having a new character with their own fresh potential does make things more interesting, although I don't think I'll be straying too far from what my previous playstyle was like...
After about two-and-a-half weeks of getting back into it... yes, it is brutal for a new character, but I do admit that I am coming from this with more than a base understanding of how each and every ship works, so my 'new' experience is totally different from somebody who is actually new to the activity. I may be somewhat rusty nowadays, but I do pick things up quickly when I am reminded of them visually.
Indeed, so far the most confusing thing to get my head around again is what exactly Communication does for the ship. Dampening and Sensor Range are fairly obvious (although Sensor Focus Range is another matter of confusion), but there's nothing to indicate what increasing your Communication range does for you. From what I understand, having needed to research it, it puts enemies your allies detect on the map if their own Communication range overlaps with yours.
So you may be 36,000 kilometers away from a pesky Gunship, but if a player on your team with a 23,000 km sensor range detects them whilst their 7,000 km communication range overlaps even slightly with your 15,000 km communication range, you can see them too.
When it comes to battles themselves, it is easy to see why new blood isn't easily kept, particularly on the Republic side. For whatever reason, at least on The Red Eclipse, in Deathmatches Imperials always seem to be the ones who use mostly-Gunship teams whilst Republic players, in their armies of Scouts and Strikes with only a few Gunships, get mown down in their dozens. When you get in matches like that, yeah, even veterans can get just a teeny bit despondent...
~~~
All in all, I am pleased to be back doing GSF. It's nice to see that Command XP has managed to increase interest and activity, even if - again - it can simply be derided as people trying their best to stay afloat in the Command System.
Ultimately, this does touch on something of a point. A lot of people do do whatever they can for Command XP without much care for what it actually is. Ranked and Casual PvP have both been 'infested' by CXP grinders, for example, which doesn't really result in a 'good' Ranked environment. The key to coping with the Command System and CXP is truly to focus mainly on stuff you enjoy, not to senselessly grind whatever you can since this will burn you out.
So, sure, take up whatever activities you want, but if you aren't enjoying taking part in whatever gives the most CXP, then this will ultimately harm your game experience since you will only see the grind and nothing else which could make these certain activities enjoyable. GSF, PvP, Operations, they all give a lot, but there is so much more to each of these which sadly the rush to grind is just making people ignore.
One thing which hasn't been featured much in this blog is PvP. Wednesday Warzones will rectify this to a great extent for the ordinary PvP, of course, but this still leaves Galactic Starfighter hanging out to dry.
