Star Wars Squadron - new EA game

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Re: Star Wars Squadron - new EA game

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XDragon
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Post by XDragon » Sat Dec 12, 2020 9:10 pm

TIE Defender is an Ace's dream. It's slower than the Interceptor but in the right hands will dance like an angel of death. Power management is the key to it and after few dogfights i went from getting vaped to going 8-0. You live or die by your power management skills
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Post by BattleDog » Sun Dec 13, 2020 8:30 am

I'm please to say most still die to my X-wing's guns.

The T/D is interesting, even with the agile hull and unstable engine it's a big football shaped target. The best pilots can get a lot out of it but once your shields go down that's it. Tonight during my warmup (when I play alone in a couple of random dogfights) I had a T/D panic as I was chasing him in my X-wing, his eventually hit a rock and exploded.
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Post by Tuskin » Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:20 am

One thing I miss in this game from the old ones, audio wise, the laser sound changing at low power.

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Post by BattleDog » Tue Dec 15, 2020 1:10 pm

Tuskin wrote:
Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:20 am
One thing I miss in this game from the old ones, audio wise, the laser sound changing at low power.
Well, it kinda does - they sound different when overcharged.
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Post by Tuskin » Tue Dec 15, 2020 6:01 pm

Ah true.

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Post by DarHan » Tue Dec 15, 2020 6:29 pm

Okay, I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that, apparently, it’s far easier to me to bring down a Star Destroyer’s shields with an A-Wing or an X-Wing than with the heaviest Y-Wing or B-Wing loadouts. Huh.
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Post by Tuskin » Wed Dec 16, 2020 9:47 pm

To be fair, it was an A-Wing that took out the shield generators on the Executor :P

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Post by Rookie_One1 » Thu Dec 17, 2020 2:01 pm

It was also an A-Wing which rammed in the executor bridge
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Post by Nymbus » Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:57 pm

Hi guys,

I was very excited when I saw a new XW Like game was gonna come out. Decided to invest in a HOTAS, thought it would remind me of my teenage years.

Bought the game for 25 bucks, a good deal I thought. Played it for a few hours. My impressions on the gameplay:

Positive:

- Awesome graphics, of course it's 2020!
- They tried to rebalance Ties vs. Alliance fighters by making the Ties more resistant, not a bad idea in itself.

Negative:

- They changed the shortcuts... my 40 years old brain cannot adapt. It's like learning a new language, it's getting harder when you get old.
- The whole thing with maneuverability degrading with speed is ridiculous. Ok I get it, it forces the player to adjust its speed and tries to add one more dimension to the gameplay, but then ok, you spend your time almost at 66% while in a dogfight, and get back to 100% when you're done, what's the deal here ?
- The added inertia is just annoying. It looks like it is there to make the game artificially harder. It is becoming ridiculously hard to aim. The gameplay becomes more arcade-like, your aiming skills are the most important, while XWA was more about power management and strategy to know how to select which target to attack when (when defending other crafts...)
- What is this joke with the auto-aiming weapons? Seriously? It's like, I'm gonna add inertia to the gameplay just to, you know, make it hard because I do not want to invest time in designing proper missions for which blasting your way through is not enough, and then, because some guys will get frustrated, I will just invent auto-aiming weapons.
- The SP campaign is a joke. Was mentioned by many already, some will say it is not part of the product, it is supposed to be a MP game.

So as I was playing this and trying to enjoy it, I watched Youtube Videos and accidentally found out about the XWA 2020 Upgrade. Damned! Needed to try that out. Bought XWA (for the second time in 20 years !) and installed the upgrade. I have not played a single Squadron mission since then. What you guys did is awesome, the graphics are great and the gameplay is still the same as 20 years ago, cannot get any better than that! XWA2020 is imho superior to Squadron: better gameplay, better story. XWA was made with love, Squadon was made for money.

Long live XWA! And now looking forward to TFTC!

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Post by DarHan » Mon Jan 18, 2021 11:10 pm

I will again point out that many of us here like XWA and Squadrons. :P

(and I don’t think the gameplay mechanic of manoeuvrability degrading with speed is a new one—even in the X-W/T-F games, the best turning speeds are achieved at 33%, not 100%, leading dogfights to happen mostly at lower speeds.)
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Vince T
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Post by Vince T » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:24 am

Just to point out, the speed/maneuverability aspect is nothing new. Those 66% have always been the sweet spot, at least since XvT, if not longer.
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Post by Det. Bullock » Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:31 am

Nymbus wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:57 pm
Hi guys,

I was very excited when I saw a new XW Like game was gonna come out. Decided to invest in a HOTAS, thought it would remind me of my teenage years.

Bought the game for 25 bucks, a good deal I thought. Played it for a few hours. My impressions on the gameplay:

Positive:

- Awesome graphics, of course it's 2020!
- They tried to rebalance Ties vs. Alliance fighters by making the Ties more resistant, not a bad idea in itself.

Negative:

- They changed the shortcuts... my 40 years old brain cannot adapt. It's like learning a new language, it's getting harder when you get old.
- The whole thing with maneuverability degrading with speed is ridiculous. Ok I get it, it forces the player to adjust its speed and tries to add one more dimension to the gameplay, but then ok, you spend your time almost at 66% while in a dogfight, and get back to 100% when you're done, what's the deal here ?
- The added inertia is just annoying. It looks like it is there to make the game artificially harder. It is becoming ridiculously hard to aim. The gameplay becomes more arcade-like, your aiming skills are the most important, while XWA was more about power management and strategy to know how to select which target to attack when (when defending other crafts...)
- What is this joke with the auto-aiming weapons? Seriously? It's like, I'm gonna add inertia to the gameplay just to, you know, make it hard because I do not want to invest time in designing proper missions for which blasting your way through is not enough, and then, because some guys will get frustrated, I will just invent auto-aiming weapons.
- The SP campaign is a joke. Was mentioned by many already, some will say it is not part of the product, it is supposed to be a MP game.

So as I was playing this and trying to enjoy it, I watched Youtube Videos and accidentally found out about the XWA 2020 Upgrade. Damned! Needed to try that out. Bought XWA (for the second time in 20 years !) and installed the upgrade. I have not played a single Squadron mission since then. What you guys did is awesome, the graphics are great and the gameplay is still the same as 20 years ago, cannot get any better than that! XWA2020 is imho superior to Squadron: better gameplay, better story. XWA was made with love, Squadon was made for money.

Long live XWA! And now looking forward to TFTC!
The story in XWA wasn't better, if anything it was the same kind of vignette designed to fit in the EU.
Other than that apple and oranges: XWA was trying to both create a more personal story for the otherwise featureless protagonist with the family missions and at the same time it was a bit too impersonal with the normal missions. This one instead does have two completely featureless protagonists but it fleshes out your wingmen much more in a way that reminded me of the first Wing Commander. There is also some serviceable writing there and I liked the sleight of hand it does with the empire wingmen by making you almost feel for them and then just being as frank as possible on their being terrible people each in their own way.
[also I think it fits better in the EU context compared to XWA did at the time, much more like TF did by avoiding re-enactments of stuff already seen in novels, comics, TV series and movies, it fits neatly with the absence of Hera Syndulla from the second Alphabet Squadron novel]

Gameplay is largely made with a PS4 or someone who plays from the couch in mind, last time I played there were still so many people that didn't get that throttling to zero isn't a good tactic. The gameplay is a new spin that tries to mimic stuff you see in all the additional movies and cartoons that came out since then which use a lot of "inertia tricks" like the drift which is something that both Poe Dameron and Hera Syndulla pull off in their respective media.

Also, XWA was made with money too, heck if anything considering the rising costs of developing games and inflation they might have had a proportionally lower budget than XWA had at the time because it's quite clear this is a medium budget game not a full triple A production.

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Post by BattleDog » Fri Jan 22, 2021 12:39 am

Vince T wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:24 am
Just to point out, the speed/maneuverability aspect is nothing new. Those 66% have always been the sweet spot, at least since XvT, if not longer.
Pretty sure it was XvT.

It's 50% in SWS, anyway, but you can get around it by dumping more power into engines.

Honestly - this isn't quite as deep a game as XWA was but:

A: It's still much more skill-based than twitch based (I know because I'm shockingly good at it).

B: You can change all the keybindings, most of mine at XWA-like.
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Post by Tuskin » Sat Jan 30, 2021 12:00 am

There is an advanced setting for power management, you're not stuck with the full/ or 50/50/50 settings. I haven't tried it yet.

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Post by Tony Knightcrawler » Sun May 16, 2021 5:35 pm

Sorry to revive an old topic, but I didn't want to start my own for this. I made a video about a possible Squadrons expansion/Squadrons 2 game mode, if anyone is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3TlPQruN0

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Post by Safe-Keeper » Wed Jul 12, 2023 3:56 am

Nymbus wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:57 pm
- What is this joke with the auto-aiming weapons? Seriously? It's like, I'm gonna add inertia to the gameplay just to, you know, make it hard because I do not want to invest time in designing proper missions for which blasting your way through is not enough, and then, because some guys will get frustrated, I will just invent auto-aiming weapons.
Haven't tried Squadrons yet, so don't know how auto-aiming weapons you speak of are or how they work, but remember they had auto-aiming weapons in the movies. Watch the battle of Yavin again, when they have a lock the lasers don't shoot straight forward anymore, they aim so that the bolts hit the target they're locked on to.

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Post by Safe-Keeper » Wed Jul 12, 2023 9:46 pm

Actually bought it now since it was heavily discounted on Steam. Fun little game, like an arcade X-Wing game. Wish you could do more with the mouse (like throttle up and down with the mouse wheel, or right-click to target enemies ahead of you), and remap keys. Playing with mouse and keyboard is a bit cumbersome, maybe I'll pick up a joystick or X-Box controller.

Love how much faster you are in this game, highly doubt it's canon, but it does really make you feel like you're a pilot in the SW universe in a way the X-Wing series game never did. Also, it's kind of laughable how much punishment a TIE Fighter can take, and that they have a magical auto-repair feature on top of that.

edit: turns out you can remap keys, it was just in a completely different menu than the one that just shows controls. Remapped them to something more like XWA's controls and flying is so much more enjoyable now. Only problem is I mapped throttle to the mouse wheel, and that doesn't seem to work ingame for some reason.

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