[Kalyx triaD]

I had a feeling you had a problem with the word rather than the principle of what we were saying. And it does seem you don't really get what's wrong with the game (perhaps not 'wrong', but not our cup of tea in regard to competitive balance). So I'm gonna respond to without using any spicy terms that may turn you off.

Originally Posted by The Rogerer The fundamentals are shooting other people and that's pretty difficult in itself. The real tactics are more in the bigger picture where you have to be very protective of yourself with the amount of exposure you have, and yet be quite offensive.

Okay; what you're talking about aren't the real tactics of the matter. Yes, you just described the most basic tenet of shooters in that you shoot things while not getting shot, but it also a kind of low-balling how shooters are played. Map control, movement, range, cover, health and ammo management, and many elements that are exclusive to a game are at play. These elements combine to form the game's meta, sub-tactics in the general game.

So while you have to shoot things while not getting shot, there are a ton of things you have to do to maintain that general goal. Like how basketball is putting a ball in a hoop while preventing the other team from doing the same. It isn't a false description, but it's almost a disingenuously basic overview of the game. There's more to it.

Those details you are glossing over are the details that make a shooter. Understanding these details helps you determine the overall balance of a game, giving you mastery of its meta. It is also these details that tell us if a game is balanced, broken, hardcore, or casual. Battlefront, as it is right now, is designed to be a casual shooter.

Random power ups get dropped in and it seems that's all anyone can see.

It has more problems than this, but let's chat about it.

Do you know why competitive Smash players turn off Items? It's not because they're killjoys out to exterminate fun at all costs. It's to remove as many random elements as possible. That is: gameplay elements beyond player agency that could affect the outcome of a match. It is majorly agreed upon that a game with as little random elements as possible offers the most player agency, and thus offers the most undisputed outcome. Though the term isn't accurate to the definition, most gamers call this 'competitive'. Removing items from Smash makes it 'competitive'. Games with more random elements out of player control are called 'casual'. Mario Kart and Mario Party are 'casual'. They have many elements out of player control that determine the outcome of a match.

The distinction between casual and competitive is not analogous to 'good game vs bad game'.

Now in Battlefront we have random items on the map that are not acquired by any in-game action other than being lucky enough to find it. Your skill and positioning had nothing to do with it. This makes it a casual game element. That is not a bad thing, only if you are expecting competitive elements, and wish to have agency over in-game actions.

Those factors, I think, don't have the biggest impact on the game.

They do.

- Low TTK removes the personality of every firearm making their individual stats and handling less prominent and forming a CoD-like 'who sees who first' situation. On one hand you can argue this kinda balances all firearms if it doesn't matter what you choose, but on the other you make player choice pointless. And while low TTK increases the chance of nearly anyone getting kills and feeling great, and usually ends up punishing casual gamers most since they often do not understand the most basic fundamentals of shooters. It screws over the people it means to help the most.
- Since the blasters are all quick to kill, that makes map traversing the key aspect of the game. Map mastery is extremely important as you claim and control strategic areas of a map. However, the maps I've played and seen don't seem to be designed with any rhyme or reason (it's not that they're asymmetrical either). There are no obvious kill-boxes, lanes, power points, etc. They are just... areas. This was deliberate, as combined with the nonsensical spawn system they made sure to remove any player agency in map control. Run around, shoot things. Casual. Not bad, again, but casual.
- The Destiny inspired 'danger zone' radar is one of the worst design ideas I've ever seen in a shooter. It mostly removes player awareness so you're not in full control of your encounters, removing the skill gap between players. There is no argument that could support this kind of radar that isn't support of casual play. And just like low TTK, this ends up screwing over lower tier players the most since a guy like me still has years of experience predicting enemy movement at the very least. Number of enemies, are they flanking, is he rushing or retreating - who knows! Here's a red quadrant, good luck.
- Jokes on them about the simplified aerial controls - they feel unnatural and Battlefront 2 had a much better grasps on it (among other things). While trying to make them accessible for everybody they ended up giving us the least amount of control with its unintuitive set-up. At least with this a simple control change can fix it easy.
- The 'card' system goes beyond simplifying loadouts to remove classes. I wouldn't have had an issue with this except they didn't institute a working ratio system to balance it out. There will absolutely be a 'perfect hand' eventually. Another casual decision that really leads to shallow meta. Not even gonna talk about what some of these cards can do. It is, literally, the Mario Kart of shooters with some of them. Great if you're down for that, not my cup of tea.
- The Partner system is nonsense. There is no logical reason not to simply transplant the squad system, unless they didn't want a good player providing strategic spawns to too many squadmates. Which perfectly ties with every other decision to keep this game casual.

DICE set out to do two things based on what they released, a) An authentic Star Wars experience that looks and sounds incredible and b) Making sure sure every Star Wars fan can actually play it. This makes perfect sense. Not every Star Wars fan is a guy like me who can talk about the nuances of an assault rifle's damage drop-off post-patch all nerdy day. A lot of people are going to buy this because it's Star Wars, and maybe you don't wanna throw them in a pit with fuckers like me. So they make every decision something that defangs me a tad while giving casuals a fighting chance. I totally get it.

But casual shooters don't pan out the way, say, casual racers do. There's a reason we've never seen a shooter take it this far. Even Splatoon, which looks like a Nicktoon, has a great deal of depth that has a notable skill gap. The shooter genre simply rarely got something on this level, and people are calling it out. Just remember they're not making a 'good/bad' judgment call per se. It's about something being casual or competitive, and judging it by their preference. Battlefront is casual, people are judging accordingly.

Don't think we're calling it casual or scrubby out of thin air, tho. There are demonstrable mechanics to showcase one way or the other. This game is casual. That's not bad. Just not our thing.