devtrackers.gg
Hey everyone!
As we announced last week, /u/OnlyForF1, /u/MetalMagic, and myself attended EA Play this year. We had a blast running into familiar faces across the community, from devs to content creators to Battlefront fans, and we are so grateful to EA for inviting us to attend.
As promised, we were there to give you guys on the subreddit eyes and ears on the ground. And while, honestly, we didn’t learn much about upcoming content (aside from the CT we got on Friday), we did manage to run into Battlefront II Designer, CJ, and Battlefront II Associate Producer, Mats Holm, and had a really good conversation about Battlefront’s development.
Droidekas:
First off, we got some fun little details about droidekas from CJ:
- They can hop, so there hopefully won’t be too many problems with getting caught on terrain.
- They will not have a melee attack (kinda obvious, but just confirming).
- They will accelerate a bit faster when rolling downhill, though top speed is not affected.
He also went into the design philosophy of the droidekas a bit. When designing them, there was a real focus on players getting out of ball/roll mode and into firing mode as quickly and as smoothly as possible. That said, there’s still a bit of time when switching between the two forms where the droideka is vulnerable, so it’s not really a “front lines” attacker. Pro tip from CJ: the droideka excels at using its speed and maneuverability to flank around and surprise your opponent.
Memes:
We had a bit of a discussion about the Battlefront community (you guys) after that. How you were reacting to the news, what we thought of the CT, etc. Found out that the dev team loves Sithpost Saturday. Memes from the subreddit get spread around the office. So keep up the good work, Sithposters 👍
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Then we talked with Mats about his role as Associate Producer, and the long term future of the game. Sort of broader strokes of the development goals, not necessarily specific details of what content we are or aren’t going to get.
Events:
We asked about the different configs and levers he had access to in order to bring us content like Heroes Unleashed or on-the-fly changes to HvV. He’s really excited about all the tools and toggles he has access to now, from battle point limits to character spawn limits to objective variables, and he’s constantly asking for more. I won’t go into detail or spoil any, but I will say that they do have plans for more and varied events from these toggles down the road. You all can also look forward to 2x XP every Wednesday from now until 2045, so sorry to players reading this in 2046, you’re going to have to earn XP at the normal rate.
AI:
We asked about the AI, and if there were any plans to bring in the AI from EA SEED. The answer Mats gave us was a resounding “maybe.” It’s something they’d like to do at some point, and that the AI revamp was a bit of an attempt to incorporate a better AI like the one from EA SEED. So maybe if they take another pass at the AI in the future, but they’re currently happy with where things are at right now.
Strike/Extraction:
We asked about the smaller game modes, Strike and Extraction, and if they were going to look into expanding on those aspects of the game. Unfortunately, it sounded like the lower player populations of those modes meant that they were lower on the priority list. No current plans to add content to Strike or Extraction. They would, however, consider moving Extraction into the Strike playlist (if that’s something the players wanted), in order to increase the population and improve matchmaking times for both playlists.
Battlefront 2015 content:
We asked about porting over old content from the 2015 Battlefront. We’ve heard this before from other devs, but just to reiterate: it is a lot of work to import maps from the old title. Not as much work as making a new map, of course, but still a lot. The version of Frostbite that Battlefront used is an older version than Battlefront II, and because of this engine upgrade, some models are broken, sounds don’t work at all, objectives (spawn points, interactive objects, etc) need to be completely rewritten, among other hassles. Mats estimated that, while a brand new map takes months for the team to develop from start to finish, an imported map would take only slightly less time than a brand new map, not significantly less. Still months, just fewer months.
Matchmaking:
We asked about matchmaking, and Mats told us that that was probably his biggest focus. His main goal is to get people into the game and playing what they want with as little hassle as possible. And he is aware that Battlefront needs work on this front, from reducing queue times to moving ping sites around to improve server populations, even at the cost of a bit more lag (looking at you, OCE players). We didn’t really get any specifics here, but it is definitely something they’re looking at improving.
Fallen Order:
And finally, we asked about Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, and if there were any plans for a bit of a crossover between the two games. Mats couldn’t tell us anything about content, but he did say he would love to see more interactivity between Star Wars games. Such as getting crystals in Battlefront for completing Fallen Order, or getting something in Fallen Order for playing Battlefront. There are no plans for anything like that yet, but he’s definitely pushing for that kind of stuff.
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That’s what we have for you all! Hopefully between this and the CT we got, that should hold you all over until we get more information in August.
Until then, I dunno, fly casual
- The mods