I had a chance to play the new Scarif content recently and while it's fun and atmospheric, it could stand some serious improvement. So far, I've seen Rebels win once out of four times playing through the whole Infiltration run. It ends up playing out similarly to the Death Star stuff. Rebels always win the first round space battle. Rebels always win the second round sabotage. Rebels almost always lose the "Get the tape to the extraction point" round, and we repeat. I've yet to play anything other than blast and Infiltration, so no walker assault or any other modes.
I have to say that while I do mostly enjoy the game, it's got some major flaws in its design that I hope DICE addresses next time around. Here's what I'd do to VASTLY improve the game:
- Release it with a true offline mode. People need to have a chance to get the hang of the vehicles and learn the maps, and an offline mode with customizable AI difficulty would be ideal for this. It sucks that all we have are the missions and lame skirmish mode limited to original release content, but none of the DLC.
- A true custom playlist for consoles. Well, really for everyone. Set your own preferred map rotation, and the game will simply run matchmaking to take you to those maps. No forced playlist.
- For "chain" rounds (e.g. infiltration), allow each link in the chain to be played as its own separate battle. So, if you just wanna play the sabotage part of Skarif infiltration, you can do that.
- For "Get X to Y location" maps, get rid of the whole "Hold X to interact" thing, or at least change it substantially. Option 1 would be to just have a player running over it pick up the thing like any other pickup. Option 2 would be to have it be a simple single button press, rather than a hold, with a decent sized radius (this is a BIG problem on Scarif where you have to be standing on top of the data tape and looking at it just so to pick it up), and let players press another button to DROP the item if they accidentally grab it.
- Create a new mode that's somewhat similar to Supremacy and Walker Assault. Call it "Holdout" or something. The mode would work as follows: Attackers have a limited number of respawns. Attackers must capture positions before moving forward. This is done similar to the capture points in your standard battlefield game. You need a sufficient number of attackers in the zone, and they have to outnumber defenders by a sufficient amount. Defenders get unlimited respawns and are trying to run out the clock. At the very end of the map, if Defenders have successfully delayed the enemy, they are given a chance to run to escape ships. The escape ships cannot be destroyed, but if the defender successfully escapes they get a big point bonus. Attackers who manage to kill an escaping defender also get a point bonus. There is no respawn at this stage. Kills by defenders of attackers just count for normal kills, so the incentive is really to get the hell out of there.
- Take the former mode and make an "extreme" version of it. In this version, you also have AI troops involved to pad out the battlefield. The AI troops cannot capture or defend zones, and their losses don't affect the total body count. You could also include a defender respawn/reinforcement limit. So, if Attackers manage to wipe out the defenders, then that's it, game over. Attackers win. All player deaths count towards the body count.
- Get rid of Hutt contracts. *****, I HATE this stuff. I'm so tired of grinding to unlock guns. We should just be able to buy them with credits once you hit the eligible level. It's especially annoying when the contracts themselves have some ridiculous requirement like "Kill X number of enemies as a hero in ABC game mode." All that does is make everyone try to become the hero, which is usually quite limited, and detracts from gameplay. The only time this stuff works well is when it "forces" you to try new equipment (e.g. "Use 10 flash grenades.") That stuff is fine. I don't mind it if we absolutely MUST include it. But the rest of it? Screw it. Getting killstreaks to unlock stuff (e.g. "Get to level 3 on XYZ trait") is a huge pain in the ass in a game where time to kill is something like 1-2 seconds max. So either get rid of Hutt contracts, or really change how they work.