f13.net

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCcfJ9uEwvs

The marketing seemed to be squarely aimed at people who remember Xwing and TIE fighter, and is copying the lines used on Fallen Order 'this is a whole game no gacha bullshit'. There are obvious compromises (only 5v5, only a handful of ships across 2 factions), but optimistically, maybe EA have worked out how to fund smaller games that they don't feel compelled to stuff with DLC.

It is on consoles, but no obvious compromises to that - it doesn't seem to be Rogue Squadron. They are promising HOTAS and VR support.

Consoles only?

It's on Origin/Steam/Epic.

With VR support, HOTAS support, and crossplay. There is apparently also semi-AI in the 5v5 mode ( am guessing you have a bit of control over a squadron)

They...they are promising.....wait.  What are they promising?  WHAT ARE THEY PROMISING.

I thought this was going to be some superficial multiplayer bullshit I could ignore.  Instead it might be the missing piece of my entire life.

I can play it without other people?

Yes. Supposed to have a full single player campaign. Also only costs 40 bucks. And i think i heard no microtransactions (but likely MP unlockables)

 I saw all of that hype train BS and I left both presentations asking myself what exactly am I witnessing?  Is it actually X-wing vs Tie Fighter in that it has a robust single player game vs bots and objectives to complete with freedom to move and come up with your own strategy or is this a on the rails game?  No idea which it is because I couldn't tell if I was looking at in game footage or cut scenes.   I suspect it was pretty much all the latter.  I think EA really dropped the ball here.  They should have been a whole lot clearer on what the actual gameplay was.  That makes me really suspicious especially that low $40 price tag.

Pretty sure it is xwing vs tie fighter with a fig leaf single player (XvT had practically none), and limited to 5v5 multiplayer with very basic scenarios (XvT was 4v4), and limited to 8 ships (XvT had 11 after the expansion).  They've been clear in interviews it is not a rail shooter, it is not Rogue Squadron. It is fixed gun dogfighting.

So it is XvT, 24 years prettier, but not 24 years broader in scope. It looks fairly clear how EA have limited their ambition so they can put out an affordable box, cater to the specific dreams of XvT players, and still pay both the Disney and EA tribute.

This after Fallen order is making me hopeful EA have worked how to do smaller projects for people who like games, alongside the horseshit that they are better known for.

If they pull this off as well as they pulled off Fallen Order, maybe they'll start to figure out people are actually interested in this kind of stuff, not the bloviated bullshit they've been crapping out.




Now we can all have a hearty chuckle over that idea.

fly ... ship, ... lasers? possibly wars about stars

So, this is fun.

Wait, is this out?

Yes, depending on where you are (still a couple of hours to go in Pacific Time).

I'm visiting my mother so I won't be able to play until at least tomorrow afternoon. But it's supposed to go live midnight tonight wherever you may be.

well? well???

On Steam it was supposed to be Midnight Eastern Time for all of the US but the launch/unlock is somehow botched and the game shows as "Coming Soon" now.

Edit: looks like it will be available now if you reload page/restart Steam

It is very much an XvT update as advertised.

So if that floats your boat. Is good.

There seems very little that wasn't in XvT. So the gameplay still isn't as good as say Freespace 2.

But there are tie fighters and xwings and it is a genre noone has made an especially interesting game in for 20 years.

This game looks terrible.

I have issues with it, but graphics are not it. Anyway, having fun.

Is there anything to enjoy there for someone with terrible aim and reflexes? Like a Winston or Mei ship?

Each side does have a support ship with heal / buff / debuff type abilities. Don’t have the game so can’t say how effective they are even if you don’t have good reflexes.

No. This is hard. I want to be good at it but I can't and so my answer is no. Overwatch made sure there was something for everyone. It's not the case here. This is twitchy combat and even with huge hitboxes, other players are just much better than us.

There is still enough fun in single player for the sticker price. For me at least.

But I can't help think twitch players won't get in to the level of complexity the game requires, while players who want either the nostalgia or the sim aspect are not going to appreciate the lack of variety and the over aggressive balancing. 

Game's really fun for the little bit I've played so far.

I thankfully haven't run into the technical issues some have been having, on default settings.

I have had to do extensive rebinding on my HOTAS though, and I still have a bit of tweaking to do to get everything feeling completely solid, but I think it'll get there.

Set your power changing setting to ADVANCED. Allows step changes in power instead of all or nothing.
Set your speed to step and step up at 25% like the old Xwing game.

I got it yesterday but have had almost zero time to do anything with it other than take a quick look.  The VR part is indeed a issue.  Framerate really needs to be a lot better than what it is, and they have indeed fucked up the anti-aliasing (using frostbite pretty much guaranteed that), and that is almost a game breaker in VR.  It can be fiddled with, but not enough.  Sound is fucked up to.  It is muted a bit in normal mode, and waaaaay muted in VR.

I will probably let it sit in my inventory until a graphics patch comes.  Worse case, it looks fun in pancake mode, so no loss.

Thankyou!

Bad News I'm afraid- https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsSquadrons/comments/j4yi82/fleet_battle_creep_ai_leads_to_unwinnableunfun/?sort=confidence

Fleet battles are nothing but a MOBA that took all of 3 days to break and make unwinnable/unloseable. Comminity manager said.."oh thanks". Meaning they had NO IDEA this would happen.

I hate MOBA's. Looks like I'm playing squad battles.

While this game is somehow missing the mark for me (meaning I am having fun, but I was expecting more. I am mostly depressed at the fact that I can't play well with the mouse), that piece of news doesn't bother me at all. I am sure the vast majority are in simply for the dogfights, and whatever the problems with fleet battles are they can be fixed quick. Regardless, gameplay makes or breaks a game for me over game modes.

Apparently in VR, everything rendered outside of your cockpit is somehow locked at 60 fps, and it seems like just about everyone has this problem.  Including me.  It unfortunately makes it unplayable in VR.  Anything you hear to the contrary are almost guaranteed from people who do not notice massive reprojection or are otherwise using shitty headsets that normally work at that terrible framerate.

I will probably return, but will also almost certain re-purchase if they fix it.  I can sense the fun that is there to be had.

Other issue I imagine players have with VR, is that outside your normal field of view the cockpit of a tie fighter is just blank walls.

hi its me your resident flight sim expert. this game has some creative visual backdrops and a lot of attention to detail invested in a substantial number of setpieces but the initial flash (which wears off fast) can't cover up that the flight experience and model is subpar and was mechanically watered down to try to enforce balance between the ship classes and the story is unengaging because your character is a shoe-in setpiece who is talked at and does not substantially interface or engage with anyone.

this is made worse by that the entire production isn't ready for primetime and the current way the deadzone currently unfixably works makes this game pretty tepid to wrestle with, and substantively unfun if you're just using a mouse and keyboard, but (as usual) people will get used to M&K for the dramatic edge in multiplayer, as usual. also in VR it's just giving people brain-bending headaches because of framerate locks and the design and thought that went into the multiplayer modes was such a shoehorn that players basically 'solved' fleet battles within days

so in other words, it's the typical kinda unsatisfyingly thin experience of a EA franchise paint-by-numbers game production experience. mneh

wait i take it back. i found this game's alternate "privateer" mode and now i'm having an absolute blast

Also the deadzone issue was fixed.

The bad news is the devs said WE ARE NOT WORKING ON IT ANYMORE, despite the fleet battles being broken. Hopefully they fix that. No expansions though :(

Honestly I don't think expansions would help.

The game is constricted by the balance approach and console style design.

It's a bit over 30 of the most widely used currencies for something that probably only lasts a couple of weeks. I'm OK with that.

What's the "Privateer mode"?

You uninstall it and open Rebel Galaxy Outlaw instead

Is that any good then? Write ups on it are mixed.

I'm so confused is this a good dogfight game you can play without going full HOTAS/VR that has some kind of not dogshit online comp play or not?

I read the thread I don't get what this is. Am I supposed to just play a SP campaign? Is it already dead? wth

I would contend (and write a thorough review for you all on that basis) that it is a really, really great product with a lot of great heart and passion behind it and it shows, and I have to commend the handful of people who made it.

I think of it as the anti star citizen: a game with a neat and tidy scope that knew exactly what kind of experience it wanted to provide, what it was NOT going to be, and how to be memorable at its existing scale. And then it fucking did it and tossed all the goodies out the door and said "have fun! The soundtrack is like a hundred hours long and oh we also included a complete ship paintwork design studio for free go nuts"

I joke about uninstalling squadrons but it is actually to squadrons' peril that i got to kick back and enjoy RGO first, because they simply provided a more indulgent experience

It’s good, it’s fun. The single player story is an interesting twist.

I’m still getting ROFLstomped by people who are obviously rocking HOTAS setups and just fucking up everyone in their path.

I ended up returning it without putting any time into it, but that is simply in hopes that they fix the locked framerate issue in VR.  Otherwise looked fun as hell.

It is a remake of Xwing vs Tie Fighter only with console UI and mission pacing, and with ships all balanced 1v1 rather than simulating the Ip.

This has been growing on me a bit since a few us started playing more regularly as a group.

Just having a team that will try to focus fire and someone flying a u wing/reaper does make it more fun.

Looks like they finally fixed the PC issue that locked the FPS outside the cockpit at 60 frame, making it unplayable in VR.  So I picked it up again, and yeah, much, much better now and runs well enough for a good experience.  I would like a bit more sharpness and would prefer a better AA option, but good enough.  Making a run on a Star Destroyer in VR is something.

so what's this i hear about them adding a b-wing for the rebels and "yet another tie fighter, only obviously more ridiculous" for the empire

Tie defender is in 'TIE Fighter' second only in headcanon status to the original trilogy. I want to know where my Alpha Class Gunboat is dammit.

This is on Black Friday sale on the Playstation digital store for $24. FYI.