The Crew

Well it found more ways to disappoint. Supremacy, really the only game mode I was kind of looking forward to... is not your old tried and true Conquest. It is Conquest, but you know all those back and forth maps that aren't so much fun in BF3 and BF4? Well... not all of them exactly are linear... but... you are only allowed to capture 1 enemy point and defend 1 of your points in a line at at time. The team to push the other team "off the planet" or hold at least the mid-point by the end of the like 10 minute time limit wins. Flexibility? Screw flexibility!

However, even so, some of the maps more than others, you have huge flanking capability. Also, heroes can be a massive help for capturing a point if the person using it is smart. Being helpful on capture points seems to reward you with points fairly well compared to BF4 and pre-update BF3, though you'd still struggle to completely top the board over the 30+ kill players (or hackers). The Emperor actually gets 2 bodyguards which players can choose to be when they are about to respawn, if they want. Sadly, actual heroes are still set location pick-ups. The body guards kind of oddly get 2 types of rocket launchers or something like that, but their regular gun is pretty powerful compared to normal players... and of course they have a lot more health. Han Solo has a dash power, which is pretty much the speed of a jedi jump forward... just without a lightsaber, and it looks rather silly. Immersion? Naahhh.... A welcome change to heroes however is that your health is no longer based on a timer & damage. It works normally, like it should. Though this means ignoring them as a player is less the obvious choice because they could live longer now, but you'll still get wrecked by them if you catch their attention.

In Supremacy, as I guess to be expected... again... air combat is almost completely pointless to the match, unless 1 team has air superiority and has a chance to take out some ground targets. It's still pretty much impossible to see ground targets (sound familiar, Battlefield?) but if you are able to get your crosshair almost exactly on a ground turret with an enemy in it, it will show a little red circle. You have to be very exact with this and your only hints on were they are are by the vague guidelining of what the map looks like from up in the sky... with no visible ground models. Again, you have to be very exact... with your guessed aiming for the circle to show up. It's better than nothing I guess, if you even know it's there.

Endor looks graphically incredible, and you can go pretty much anywhere in between the trees and rocks and river canyons. It's extremely rugged. And somehow only occasionally annoyingly so. Use it to your advantage. Again, it's generally linear-ish, but it's very wide and hugely flankable. I'm learning how to use the motion detector better. Generally ignore the outer right, even if it's extremely red. But pay close attention to the extremely slight changes to the main circle and get the jump on your enemy.

Now... the spawns are still ass in this game. Obnoxiously and frustratingly so. They seem to shift, but generally, for some reason, they are just in ahead of your captured point... so your defensive point is generally behind you and/or to the side. Add on the flankability of the map. The team who has the most players who literally do a 180 at spawn and head out the flank route the hardest is the team that wins. And because of the spawns being in the middle of everything instead of in the back (which of course hasn't always necessarily worked out for DICE either), getting instakilled on spawn happens frequently. Add on top of that the turrets they place directly on a lot of the spawns, turrets are easy-spot targets for attackers, but when you're getting instakilled by enemies in your own turrets 10 feet in front of you, you are completely helpless. How is it that DICE is so completely awful at designing spawns? Remember which maps worked better? The ones with spawns in the back with very wide flank routes. Those few were harder to camp in BC2 DLC. Spawns do not need to be bottlenecks... which isn't really the case in Battlefront, but they're way too far up.

I think I'm forgetting some stuff I wanted to say right now, but even so, it's a fun romp for a day or so at a time. Playing this daily for any length of time? Helll no....
And 4 maps (per game mode), with 10 minute matches on the largest game mode?.... Brutal....   Talk about making a game feel small....

Oh yeah, and the method of capping/defending (2 points) in a line this way is kind of silly... It happens a little bit somewhat often, but I had a match where we went several minutes where players from both teams were sitting on each others points and it just capped back and forth... /eyeroll

Oh and I'm kind of in love with the homing missile card (weapon), even if it is a little weak.  Especially on Endor.  In Endor you can hide almost anywhere.  Hear an AT-ST and whip it out.  For where I usually am, they pretty much just spawned.  It only takes like 1/3 of their damage per charge and... I'm as ass for doing it, but man I love it.  Also forgot to mention that part of the Endor map does have the trees with the Ewok spiraling ramps and wooden bridges (very good hiding and melee points).  If you come up one ramp you'll even be chasing an Ewok into his tree.  It looks incredible visually (and audibly), but shooting him does nothing of course.  Also, at one of the far ends of Tatooine way up on the side next to one of the team's final points you'll have this huge crustacean thing like the height of your knee run across in front of you.  Certainly made me hold my breath.