Star Wars Battlefront

[Hero-of-Time]

More DLC details.

 

To the Star Wars™ Battlefront™ community:

 

It's been a busy 2016 for us so far, as we've been working on adding a lot of new, free* content to Star Wars Battlefront, while also launching the first expansion pack as part of Season Pass, Outer Rim.

 

 

We are always listening to community feedback and working to improve the game, and are very excited about what’s to come. In the next few months all players can look forward to free* additions like:

 

New In-Game Events - more double score weekends, community missions and Special Login Events are coming for players to earn more experience, credits and items.

 

New Hutt Contracts - Unlock powerful Star Cards like the Berserker Trait, Bacta Bomb and Ion Neutralizer.

 

More New Content - We also have a couple of surprises in store that we know our fans have been looking for, especially those who have been clamoring for ways to have more options to enjoy Star Wars Battlefront offline. More to come soon.

 

Specific for May the 4th - In celebration of Star Wars™ Day we have cool activities planned that we’ll announce soon.

 

 

This June, Season Pass holders will also receive our second digital expansion pack, Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Bespin. We’re taking players in and around Cloud City, with four new maps for all of our most popular modes. You’ll see AT-ATs in Cloud City, take to the skies in Fighter Squadron, and even spend time in a carbonite chamber. Of course, we’re also adding more blasters and Star Cards, a new game mode, and two new iconic characters we’re really excited about – Lando Calrissian and the cold-blooded bounty hunter, Dengar.

 

Speaking of heroes, we know they have been one of the things you most like about the game; we’re happy to confirm that there will be eight total heroes included in the Star Wars Battlefront Season Pass (which includes Greedo and Niem Nunb released with the Outer Rim pack) – two more each in both the Death Star expansion and our yet-to-be-revealed fourth expansion pack. More on the heroes to come this summer.

 

On behalf of our team at DICE, we look forward to seeing you on the battlefront soon! May the Force™ be with you!

 

Craig McLeod

Producer

Star Wars Battlefront

[Fierce_LiNk]

I figured Lando could potentially be a hero at some point but I've been stuck with villains.

 

Wonder who the others will be:

 

8 characters = 4 heroes and 4 villains.

 

4 Heroes = Nien Nunb, Lando for definite. Chewbacca and Yoda as the others? Wonder if they'll stay away from Yoda due to him being small as fuck and difficult to aim at. C3PO would be fucking hilarious...an outside bet?

 

4 Villains = Greedo and Dengar for definite. I reckon one of the others could be Bossk (another Bounty Hunter from Empire Strikes back) and maybe Grand Moff Tarkin as a Han Solo blaster type of character?

 

I think that would be balanced. It could be even better if they do allow Episode 7 stuff or even things from Rogue One. Ooooh, could that be the final DLC? I know that's the only one unannounced. I reckon that must be it.

[Kav]

I'm not a fan of locking weapons and Star Cards behind the DLC, if they give an advantage over those without the DLC, as it becomes pay to win.

CoD has handled it better in that the new weapons aren't locked behind the DLC and you can get them without paying... even though it's a lottery as to whether you get them.

 

I'm still not sure if I should buy the season pass, I'm playing it a lot more lately but I'm not sure just how much more I will be as the year goes on... especially after moving in with the Mrs in the summer.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Kav

[Julius]

I figured Lando could potentially be a hero at some point but I've been stuck with villains.

 

Wonder who the others will be:

 

8 characters = 4 heroes and 4 villains.

 

4 Heroes = Nien Nunb, Lando for definite. Chewbacca and Yoda as the others? Wonder if they'll stay away from Yoda due to him being small as fuck and difficult to aim at. C3PO would be fucking hilarious...an outside bet?

 

4 Villains = Greedo and Dengar for definite. I reckon one of the others could be Bossk (another Bounty Hunter from Empire Strikes back) and maybe Grand Moff Tarkin as a Han Solo blaster type of character?

 

I think that would be balanced. It could be even better if they do allow Episode 7 stuff or even things from Rogue One. Ooooh, could that be the final DLC? I know that's the only one unannounced. I reckon that must be it.

 

There won't be anything Episode VIIin here I'm afraid, but I've thought for a while that the final DLC expansion will be Rogue One related. Some "leaked" EA documents have done the rounds, and it must be noted that something Battlefront related turned up as a single player mode, possibly campaign (devs have also said time and time again that they're looking into the offline experience for the game).

 

Is a Rogue One: A Star Wars Story campaign afoot?

 

As for heroes and villains...meh. We still don't have Chewie.

 

For the Death Star expansion I'm clueless, I mean both Ben Kenobi and Chewbacca could make sense, but what about the villain? You'd think it would be someone who was on the Death Star on some point (so not another bounty hunter...).

 

I'm not a fan of locking weapons and Star Cards behind the DLC, if they give an advantage over those without the DLC, as it becomes pay to win.

CoD has handled it better in that the new weapons aren't locked behind the DLC and you can get them without paying... even though it's a lottery as to whether you get them.

 

I'm still not sure if I should buy the season pass, I'm playing it a lot more lately but I'm not sure just how much more I will be as the year goes on... especially after moving in with the Mrs in the summer.

 

I've got the Season Oass and it's done nothing for me so far.

 

Actually, I don't earn Credits playing the game at the moment. Might be a glitch. But wtf with the Hutt contracts?

[somme]

You are getting credits. It's just a bug that they don't show up on the post-match screen. Same with the Hutt contracts showing ones you've already done. Annoying, but not game-breaking.

[Eenuh]

Yeah you still get the credits; the same happens to me (not to @Fierce_LiNk for some reason), but if you check your totals, it will still be going up.

 

I have been enjoying the game and the DLC, been playing quite a bit in the evenings. Yesterday, Jim and I finally managed to get the trophy for 10 Cycler Rifle headshots! We were trying out one of the new functions of the PS4, where you can quickly join in on someone's game. Jim joined me playing Battlefront, but was placed on the opposite team... so we decided to kill each other with Cycler Rifle headshots haha.

 

Took quite a while as people kept killing us, so we had to keep moving to the end of the map (Walker Assault mode), shoot the other person in the head, rinse and repeat.

 

Now all I need are the stupid mission trophies (urgh) and the one for taking down an AT-AT with an Airspeeder... never gonna happen. :P

[Hero-of-Time]

I have been enjoying the game and the DLC, been playing quite a bit in the evenings. Yesterday, Jim and I finally managed to get the trophy for 10 Cycler Rifle headshots! We were trying out one of the new functions of the PS4, where you can quickly join in on someone's game. Jim joined me playing Battlefront, but was placed on the opposite team... so we decided to kill each other with Cycler Rifle headshots haha.

 

Trophy boosting? This is what I like to hear. You guys make me so proud!

[Fierce_LiNk]

Trophy boosting? This is what I like to hear. You guys make me so proud!

 

Well...somebody wanted to go to bed at half past 1/quarter to 2 with a cuppa and read The Walking Dead but wasn't allowed to because the other one wanted to get the trophies.

 

I'll give you a clue. It was me.

 

It was quite fun though. Pretty funny when you've got your own arsehole team-mates following you trying to kill @Eenuh. I had one keep partner-spawning on me and killing her, to which she let out a "nooooooooooo". We tried to find really odd and quiet places on the maps where nobody else would turn up. Quite tricky.

[Hero-of-Time]

Well...somebody wanted to go to bed at half past 1/quarter to 2 with a cuppa and read The Walking Dead but wasn't allowed to because the other one wanted to get the trophies.

 

I'll give you a clue. It was me.

 

It was quite fun though. Pretty funny when you've got your own arsehole team-mates following you trying to kill @Eenuh. I had one keep partner-spawning on me and killing her, to which she let out a "nooooooooooo". We tried to find really odd and quiet places on the maps where nobody else would turn up. Quite tricky.

 

Haha.

 

Don't worry, Ive done boosting tactics like that plenty of times over the years while playing on various 360 games. It's crazy, as you are trying to find each other in the middle of a warzone and then go off to a secluded area, only to shoot each other.

[bob]

Dun gone and bought me a second PS4 controller (fuck those things are expensive) so me and my chum can play the coop mode of this. We had a go at the weekend, and they are great fun! We mainly did the Survival mode, which was great. Did them all on normal, and halfway through doing them on hard now. Can you play the other single player modes on coop? Might try venturing online next time, but he's not much of an online gamer and he'll most likely get destroyed and have a miserable experience.

[Julius]

Battlefront II 2 4 2 next year, then!

[bob]

Can't wait to see how it looks. The first one looked incredible, imagine what this one will be like with 2 more years of development!

[somme]

 

Join legendary smuggler Lando Calrissian and cold-blooded bounty hunter Dengar in the Cloud City of Bespin. Take to the skies in the new cloud car vehicle and journey through Cloud City and the Administrator’s Palace. The Bespin digital expansion will feature two new blasters to add to your arsenal. No matter your preference of short or long range combat, there will be something new to try out in Cloud City. Hunt enemies within the Bioniip Laboratories or carbon-freezing chambers with the new X-8 Night Sniper and EE-4 blasters.

 

The Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Bespin digital expansion pack will be available to Season Pass owners two weeks early, starting June 21st.

[Julius]

 

Well, I know what I'm doing after my final exam for the summer!

[Cookyman]

Well, I know what I'm doing after my final exam for the summer!

 

Saying "Et tu, Brute?" then keeling over...

 

: peace:

Edited June 10, 2016 by Cookyman

[somme]

The Bespin DLC is out today for season pass holders.

 

Here are the patch notes:

 

Below are the patch notes specific to PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One for the Star Wars Battlefront Bespin client update.

 

New content for DLC owners:

 

New Environment:

 

Five new maps set around or on Cloud City.

 

New Weapons

X-8 Night Sniper: A blaster pistol with a focus on long range and a night vision scope.

 

EE-4: Spread burst weapon with short-to-medium range and high damage.

 

New Star Cards

 

Shock Grenade: A non-lethal grenade with a small radius that will stun opponents caught in the blast.

 

Scout Binoculars: Outlines enemy soldiers when zooming through the goggles. After pressing fire, any soldiers in line of sight get tagged for your entire team for 4-5 seconds.

 

Disruption: Instantly overheats the weapons of any soldiers in close proximity to the player.

 

New Heroes

 

Lando Calrissian

- Power Blast – Once activated it will give a critical modifier on Lando’s blaster fire for a limited time

- Shocking Trap – Throws a decoy on the ground to confuse the enemy and shock anyone that gets close.

- System Disruption – Disrupt all nearby enemies weapons & star cards, setting them to overheat / cooldown. Also affects Hero abilities.

 

Dengar

- Explosive Rush – Dengar runs forwards and sticks grenades to all enemies he passes.

- Frenzied Blast – Greatly increases the fire-rate for his primary weapon.

- Hurricane Strike – Perform a melee sweeping attack while running forward.

 

New Game Mode: Sabotage

 

The Empire are using Tibanna Gas Generators to power their tractor beams, preventing Rebel transports from escaping Cloud City. The Rebels must blow up the generators and defend their extraction point. The Empire must stop the Rebels and hunt them down.

 

New Hutt Contract:

A new batch of 8 Hutt Contracts.

 

Cloud Car:

Added the Cloud Car as a playable vehicle on the new maps. The cloud car features twin blaster cannons, concussion missiles and a sensor jammer.

 

New content for all players:

 

Ranks: Increased rank cap from 60 to 70.

Appearance: A new unlock for the Rebels, the Bespin wing guard.

Appearance: A new unlock for the Empire, the Shock Trooper

Palpatine: The honor guard have been updated and replaced with Royal Guards.

Leia: The honor guard have been updated and replaced with Alderaan Guards.

 

General:

 

Partner: Staying close to your partner will provide you with reduced cooldowns for all your Star Cards. This is illustrated via an icon above the in-game soldier. An exclamation mark means that you are too far away, a check mark means you are within distance, and a cross means your partner is dead.

 

Partner: Enemies that kill your partner will have a red outline for a brief period.

 

Partner: The game will now always try to auto assign you a new partner whenever you do not have one in-game. There are also in-game notifications to inform you that you’ve lost a partner and if a new partner has been found.

 

Partner: If you are not able to spawn on your partner there are now written explanations as to why. They are: Partner is in danger, Partner is out of bounds, Partner is inside a vehicle, or Partner is dead.

 

Partner: The distance to enemies that prevent spawning on partner has been reduced from 20m to 2m.

 

Private Matches: Bespin and Outer Rim maps and game mode have been added to private matches. Limited to owners of Bespin and Outer Rim DLC and Star Wars Battlefront Season pass.

 

Private Matches: Players are now able to select multiple maps and create a custom map rotation.

 

Private Matches: Team switching functionality has been added and is an option that can be toggled by the host.

Private matches: Team balance functionality has been added and is an option that can be toggled by the host.

 

Immortality: The immortality issue that could occur when spawning in to vehicles has been resolved. The time to spawn in to a vehicle has been reduced and players are no longer protected by immortality during this time period.

 

Social Hub: Resolved the issue related to players getting disconnected when navigating to a friend’s profile in the social Hub.

Rebel Vehicles: Added a modifier to X-Wing, A-Wing, and Millennium Falcon weapon energy when the shield is active. While active, weapons deal 25% less damage than what they do when the shields are not active.

 

Team Scramble: Added functionality for scrambling teams at map change.

 

Team Balance: Fixed various bugs that resulted in that team balance not functioning correctly on small game modes.

 

General: Various minor UI issues.

General: Resolved various spectator issues.

General: Updated various error messages used in game.

General: Updated the localization to resolve various text bugs.

 

UI:

 

Enemy Highlights: Enemies will be highlighted if they are inside the player’s crosshair for more than 1 second. The highlight will be removed after the crosshair isn’t on the enemy for 1 second.

 

Traits: Whenever an enemy has reached the third level with a trait card, it will now be visible above his health bar.

 

Frontend: A Cloud Car has been added in the rotation of FrontEnd objects.

 

Text chat (PC): Has been added to various places in the game, such as loading screens, lobby and End-of-Round.

 

Grenades: Resolved a bug in which there would be two grenade indicators overlapping when throwing a grenade.

 

Text chat (PC): Numpad Enter is no longer used to open the chat. Only regular Enter works.

Idle kick: Improvements to the system have been added and there’s now a countdown timer to illustrate when you will get kicked from the round.

 

Idle kick: The system will now observe if players are idle in the deployment screen.

Deploy screen: Spawn on Partner and regular Spawn have switched places in the deployment screen.

 

Event log: Callouts have been added when a Hero suicides or leaves the game.

 

End-of-Round: The summary page has been updated and now displays a few key stats from the concluded round.

 

End-of-Round: Added a “Skip” button in the end-of-round flow, once the next level has loaded.

 

Kill Card: Resolved a bug in which the trait card would occasionally be blank for some players.

 

Hutt Contracts: Resolved the bug that caused completed Hutt Contracts to stay in the end-of-round screen.

 

Hutt Contracts: Resolved a bug in which the

 

Hutt Contract screen would still be present in the rest of the menu.

 

Match Making: Resolved a bug which caused the status to be displayed as “Expanding search to 0% full games”. The matchmaking systems as not affected by this bug as it was purely a visual issue.

 

Community: Added a unique identifier for all developers in-game.

 

Weapons & Star Cards

 

Charges: Players will be able to deactivate charges by holding down the Y/Triangle button on console and 2 on PC. Once this is done the effect will be removed and the charge will instantly enter a cool down state.

 

Scan Pulse: This card now continuously sends out pulses at set 2 second intervals. When someone is pulsed, they will remain visible for 0.5 seconds.

 

Bowcaster: The fire pattern has been altered. The following pattern will be used when charging the weapon:

- Center projectile

- Left & Right projectiles

- Top & Bottom projectiles

 

Pulse Cannon: A laser glint has been added so players that are being targeted by the pulse cannon will be able to see a green laser on their screen thus revealing the location of the attacker.

 

Explosive Shot: The charge now will cause double the heat buildup on any weapon when being used. To balance this the time the charge is active has been increased for both normal (5 to 7s) and upgraded (7 to 10) cards.

 

Berserker (Trait): The berserker effect will trigger on 78% HP or less

 

Berserker (Trait): A vignette has been added to inform the player that the berserker effect is active.

 

Berserker (Trait): The armor multiplier has been increased while the berserker effect is active.

 

Blaster Cannon: A self-destruct timer has been added and will trigger 45 seconds after the blaster cannon has been used at least once. If the blaster cannon never was used, it will self-destruct after 15 seconds.

 

DLT-19: Raised initial damage from 15 to 17.

 

Ion Disruptor: Increased the explosive radius of the disruptor projectile. Inner explosion from 1 to 2.5m and outer explosion from 2.5 to 7m.

 

Heroes:

 

Heroes: Reduced damage to heroes from Pulse Cannon from 150% to 80%.

 

Palpatine: Increased lighting sustainability from 4 to 7 seconds.

 

Palpatine: Decreased lighting recharge time from 4 to 2 seconds.

 

Palpatine: Increased lightning damage from 20 to 22.

 

Boba Fett: Modified the behavior of the flamethrower to be more responsive.

 

Boba Fett: Increased Boba Fett’s flamethrower active time from 2.5 to 4.5 seconds.

 

Boba Fett: Reduced time for jetpack regeneration from 2 to 1.6 seconds.

 

Boba Fett: Lock-on distance for wrist launcher added for up to 25m.

 

Boba Fett: Increased wrist launcher rocket blast radius from 3 to 4m.

 

Bacta Bomb: Updated some hero abilities to be more effective against players that are currently under the effect of the Bacta Bomb.

 

Heroes: The health pick-up icon has been updated with a new visual look.

 

Leia & Palpatine: Resolved an issue in which the honor guards could spawn on both Leia and Palpatine when they were out of the combat area.

 

Game Modes:

 

UI: Game mode HUD is visible when observing the scoreboard.

 

Pre-round: Combined the in-game lobby and the

 

pre-round timer to be the same. Now the game mode will instantly start as soon as you can join from the in-game lobby.

 

Droid Run: The game mode will no longer end if all three droids are held for 20 seconds. Instead once all three are held by a single team, that team will be gaining points. If the point total for either team reaches 100%, that team will win. If no team reaches 100% before time runs out, the team that has held all three droids for the longest time will be the winner.

 

Droid Run: Decreased the time for capturing a droid from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.

 

Droid Run (audio): Tension music has been added and will trigger whenever a team is close to win.

 

Walker Assault: Improved the system which handles uplink activation and deactivation so that the player can’t interact with them once the Y-wings are about to spawn in.

 

Fighter Squadron: Increased the score limit from 200 to 400.

 

Blast: Resolved an issue in which the round would end in draw when the score was 100/99.

Turning point: Resolved a bug in which the wining team could switch from empire to rebels if there were rebels present on the final control point exactly when the match ended.

 

Heroes Vs Villains: Changed the starting times. First round starts after 60 seconds, all rounds after will start after a 20 second delay.

 

Extraction: Improved the button call out on the Shield & Shipment controls. Before they could appear visible when they weren’t usable.

 

Stats & Progression:

 

Diorama: Dengar, Lando Calrissian, and the Cloud Car have been added to the Diorama.

End-of-Round Summary: Several key gameplay stats have been added to the end of round screen.

 

Scoring: Resolved a bug which caused the player getting 400 points or more for healing an Honor guard with the Bacta Bomb.

Scoring: Removed the event for kill assist & critical kill assist and replaced it with a regular kill. If you deal more than 25 damage to an enemy, you will automatically get a kill.

 

Scoring: Updated the score log and how certain scoring events are presented. Kills will now only state which weapon was used to kill a target as well the name of the target.

 

Scoring: Resolved the issue in which vehicle damage scoring event would clutter the score log when dealing a lot of damage within a very short time-span. Now you will see points accumulate, but the score log will not display any text when dealing damage.

 

Scoring: Explosive bonus and kill streak have been hidden in the score log. Players will keep getting extra points for performing more than 4 kills within a life, but there will be no text in the score log. The amount of

 

Explosive bonus events will be presented in the summary screen after a round has concluded

[Tales]

Excited for this. Will be right on it after work.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I'll give this a go at the weekend, most probably. Bad time for this update when the Euros are on!

[Hero-of-Time]

Big announcements on the battlefront from Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this week. For the first time, we are taking Star Wars™ Battlefront™ to space in the latest expansion pack based on one of the most iconic weapons ever created – the Death Star. The new mode for the expansion pack shown at Gamescom is named Battle Station. This unique mode has players battling across 3 phases - each with a different objective.

 

In Phase 1 you’ll be flying X-wings and A-wings against TIE fighters and TIE interceptors in space! The main objective in this phase is for Rebels to destroy enough TIE fighters until their Y-wing support can come in to weaken the Star Destroyer’s defenses. Once vulnerable, Rebel starfighters can attack the weak spots in an effort to bring the Star Destroyer down. In an effort to help defend this key asset for the Empire, players along with AI ships will be set up to help defend the Star Destroyer.

 

Phase 2 will have players fighting inside this iconic space station [Death Star] among areas inspired by the classic trilogy. Rebel infantry will be tasked with extracting a priority droid from within the Death Star. Amidst the chaos of battle, you’ll be able to gain an advantage by taking up arms as our new heroes Bossk and Chewbacca!

 

And finally, in the culmination of the new mode, players head back into space where the Rebels need to end the battle once and for all - by blowing up the Death Star! Players can become the hero of the Rebellion, Luke Skywalker, in his Red-5 X-wing as they attempt to destroy the Empire’s ultimate weapon. But beware as Darth Vader has been dispatched to protect the Empire's asset in his TIE Advanced.

 

Other new content will also be coming to the Death Star expansion including new Star Cards and Blasters, in addition to the aforementioned Heroes, Bossk and Chewbacca. Make sure to check back for more details as the Death Star expansion will become fully operational in September

 

Sounds great.

[dazzybee]

I've barely -payed this this year. Haven't bought the dlc. Really want to get the dlc and get back into this in a big way... Damn time. I'm hoping buying the dlc kicks me to play it more... Or may I'll buy it and still not play it...

[Choze]

Sold my copy. A hollow lacking game. Simplicity can be fun but this game is not it. No chance of me buying any DICE game soon.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I've had an excellent time with this and am looking forward to this particular DLC. It's the one I've been excited about the most.

 

I only wish there were a few more modes which use the aerial vehicles. This is a good start.

[Tales]

I've had great times with the game too. Looking forward to the next dlc.

[somme]

I loved the game even when some said it was lacking, though there were more than enough modes/maps for me. The DLC has only added to that and I didn't realise the Death Star DLC was so close!

[bob]

I loved the base game, but I'm a bit annoyed at the cost of the dlc. Not sure if I'll buy it at any point. Maybe when Rogue One comes out and my hype levels start to rise.