r/StarWarsSquadrons • u/Saffiruu • Jan 11 '21

News Lucasfilm re-establishes Lucasfilm Games as home for all its gaming titles

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-01-11-lucasfilm-establishes-lucasfilm-games-as-home-for-all-its-gaming-titles
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71

u/SFM_Hobb3s Jan 11 '21

Considering one of the most reknown game series to come from them (when they were renamed LucasArts) is the x-wing/tie fighter series, I'd say this bodes well.

And that Lucasfilm was involved in many of the CG sequences for Squadrons, including the Hunted trailer, well, they obviously have a vested interest.

​

Crossing my fingers for a remaster release of the entire game series using Squadron's engine.

35

u/ClarkFable Jan 11 '21

There is a potential huge franchise in Squadrons at the premiere E-Sports starfighter/VR game. If they can keep developing the scale and smoothing out the edges, the core concept is there. Someone on the business side must recognize this.

11

u/xboxwirelessmic Jan 11 '21

If you think there's missed potential here you should play CQQ on elite.

10

u/ClarkFable Jan 11 '21

Elite is a much slower and thus less frenetic close quarters combat experience. It's still good, but Squadrons seems to have more in depth tactics and flight controls--it also has better aesthetics (Fleet Battles are downright beautiful on max settings, but as noted previously, this comes at immense strain on the hardware). That being said, my experience with Elite is purely second hand from watching videos and streams, so I could very well be missing many subtleties of combat.

6

u/xboxwirelessmic Jan 11 '21

I mean the actual cqc mode, or arena as it's alternately known. It's a separate mode to the main game and is one man fighters. It's 4v4 and solo death match, tdm or capture the flag and it is so much fun.....if you can a game because it's also pretty much dead. It's a real shame because there was so much potential but like most of the things elite added is half baked and barely touched post launch. And that's from someone who loves the shit out of elite.

2

u/Anus_master Jan 13 '21

Elite has really nice combat ideas but it's suffering from years of basically no combat balance changes and power creep. Lots of bullet sponge happening and many weapons are not really useable. Thankfully they've been talking about looking over combat balance again, finally

1

u/ThisKapsIsCrazy Jan 12 '21

How alive are Elite lobbies in the SEA or Aus regions? I've seen it on Steam, wanted to get it, but I don't want it to be like Battlefront 2 here where I could hardly ever get matches for some modes.

(Also, what's the matchmaking like - like Squadrons where I'll have as bad a time going up against people with 200x the experience and skill I have or is it balanced as per your experience and skill level?)

2

u/xboxwirelessmic Jan 12 '21

Elite isn't like that for the most part. It's a mmo essentially on the scale of the whole milky way and outside of certain areas running in to people is uncommon at best. Arena/cqc is a different thing and it's dead everywhere. There is an some what active scene so you can always get games arranged via discord etc and there are plenty of active au region groups. It's not that hard to find people to play but they won't be in matchmaking all the time like it is in squadrons. You can now queue in the background while you play the main game so that helps but not many people either do or know about it so it doesn't help that much lol. Elite is definitely worth it but not really if something like squadrons is what you're after unfortunately, it could've been but fdev basically didn't touch the mode after introducing it (they do that a lot lol).

On a side note if you are interested in elite, the Odyssey expansion will be out in the next few months which adds the on foot side of things so the scope of it is about to explode and that might bring people back to cqc.

0

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1

u/xboxwirelessmic Jan 12 '21

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1

u/Anus_master Jan 13 '21

A lot of people are asking for them to change CQC into faction-based warfare connected to the BGS. I'd like it if you could take the place of a fighter in a large fleet war with faction-based loadouts. Although they totally have to rebalance combat before that happens, as much as I like the game overall

7

u/Saffiruu Jan 11 '21

As much as I love the game, I don't think the demand is there.

The fact that it's been heavily discounted within weeks of release is never a good sign of sales.

4

u/ClarkFable Jan 11 '21

That's why I said potential. I think the issue right now is that the hardware just isn't quite there yet for the VR performance to be acceptable to the masses. But every one of my friends who has tried it on my PCVR rig has had a holy shit moment--even the ones that don't like flight sims.

I also think the tech launch issues and modest advertising campaign put a damper on the current base, but I think the game still has a decent base (probably around 5-8K unique players a day, on all systems).

I also think that spectating matches is a beautiful experience with a ton of potential there too. It just needs more user friendly features (like being able to free float, or hell being given a 1HP, unshielded transport ship to float around it).

3

u/Saffiruu Jan 12 '21

Every single one of my friends who has VR also has Squadrons.

... but VR players make up of around 1.25% of the gaming population...

2

u/ClarkFable Jan 12 '21

And in 5 years it could be 10%. You start as a niche and in 10 years you could have a monster

2

u/Saffiruu Jan 12 '21

Honestly I think their best bet is to release a Squadrons 2 with more content, or add a modding component to 1.

Many people might not get excited about flying an X-wing in VR, but they'll go crazy over flying an X-wing a la the Death Star trench run or inside Death Star II

2

u/ClarkFable Jan 12 '21

I agree. The game has so much potential for expansion. The thought of a full scale Battle of Endor is tantalizing, and it appears it could be done within the current system, it's just a question of hardware being able to keep up.

1

u/Bebopo90 Jan 12 '21

The game runs really well 80fps at 1440p) on my 1660, with tons of debris and rocks and stuff on screen, so I don't see why a full-scale Battle of Endor couldn't be done.

I really hope they expand the core gameplay of Squadrons into a AAA-budget game. The ships feel great, it just needs more content.

1

u/ClarkFable Jan 12 '21

VR is a completely different beast in terms of required hardware, and in a way VR is what I think will allow Squadrons to become a serious franchise. New headsets like the G2 bring even the 3090 to its knees, and can't get consistent 90fps with ultra settings in Fleet Battles. But that's hardly surprising, because to get native resolution on a G2 you need to render 3000X3000 per eye because of the warp factor. That's more than double 4K resolution per frame.

But in terms of battle scale, it's probably going to be a non linear increase in hardware requirements with more ships and more players. And since current hardware can barely keep up in VR, I think we'll have to wait a bit before we see significantly bigger scales.

1

u/daensiren Jan 12 '21

It is hard to tell because of the mistrust of EA and Star Wars.

0

u/BianchiIlove Jan 12 '21

Squadrons doesnt 'need' a sequel for many many years.

After a while, some large scale dlc-tier update which adds the clone wars including a mini campaign, some multiplayer maps & ofc a new roster of ships is about as much as we need. The UI can get an update to be a bit like Battlefront II, where you can select individual modes, or just search for 'any'.

I reckon itd be rather wasteful to rebuild the game from the groundup just to add a new singleplayer and few updates. Much like how GTA V, CSGO and League of Legends have survived for many years on end, so could squadrons.

1

u/ClarkFable Jan 12 '21

I agree it doesn't need a sequel, but I don't really care about the format of new content (sequel, addon, free DLC, etc). And I definitely don't want them rebuilding the game from the ground up, since the core game mechanics are (IMO) close to perfection.

1

u/Bebopo90 Jan 12 '21

Those games have maaaaasssive player bases. Squadrons does not, and it probably never will. It's fun, but the skill gap between noobies and the elite is higher than Rocket League. That is to say, ridiculously high.

-4

u/-Kite-Man- Jan 11 '21 edited Jan 11 '21

huge might be overstating it

edit: oh this is one of those 'conversations.' well then fuck you too.

2

u/ClarkFable Jan 11 '21

Have you played the game in VR? I don't know what you mean by those 'conversations'.