Community Transmission - Squad System

[Straatford87]

Incoming Transmission

Star Wars is full of stories where trusted friends and companions adventure together, and Star Wars Battlefront II is no different.

One of our favorite things to hear about is when a player does something awesome, but it’s even better when it is done with a friend or ally on the Battlefront. It’s these types of moments that we want to help create, and the new Squad System aims to do just that.

Coming in the September update, the new Squad System will allow you to rejoin your friends, allies and the action, much quicker than before.

The Glossary
Before we break down the Squad System, we thought we should clarify a selection of naming conventions that will be used throughout this Transmission.

Game Groups
These are formed within the social hub menu of Star Wars Battlefront II.

Squads
These are groups of 4 players that enter a game mode together.

Platform Party
These are groups that are formed outside of Star Wars Battlefront II, as part of your platform of choice.

We should highlight that there is no connection between a Platform Party and Game Groups. There is one exception, and this occurs on PlayStation 4 where players can create a Game Group outside of the game with the Play Together feature.

Forming a Group
If you’re already playing with a group of friends as either a Game Group or Platform Party, you will be placed together into a squad. If your numbers are less than 4, then random players, or other groups will fill up your squad. Consequently,

if you join a game on your own, you will be placed into a random squad.
Squads persist between rounds on the same map. However, new squads are formed when switching maps. When new squads are formed, you will always be put into one with the members of your game group, but if your group consists of less than four people, the random people or other game groups that make up your squad can change.

If you join a game group late and they are already in a game, you will join the squad if there is space. If there is no space in that squad, then you will join a random squad until the maps are switched. At this point, you will join the squad with your game group.

The Spawn System
When you are defeated, you will have the ability to toggle through a spectator camera. This camera will be focused on one of your squad members and you’ll then have the ability to spawn directly onto them. Want to spawn on a different squad member? Simply toggle through the spectator camera until you find the squad member of your choosing.

The ability to spawn directly onto your squad will be limited to the following modes:

• Galactic Assault
• Strike

The reason why squad spawn is limited to these modes is because we need to ensure the gameplay balance remains intact. It works well for Galactic Assault due to its large size, but from our testing, we’ve found that it can become quite powerful.

We will be rolling it out onto Strike as a test case for smaller modes and the potential to roll it out to other smaller modes is there, based on your feedback.

Once defeated, you will be given the chance to go back to the Class selection menu, and spawn immediately back to
action once the respawn timer runs out.

2v2
Joining a 2v2 game mode such as Hero Showdown while in a four player group will enable you to play a private match.

Voice Chat
Voice chat will be turned off for any 4 player squads that have been formed at random. You will be able to enable voice chat with your friends through either your platforms system or by using the Star Wars Battlefront II option. Please note, that selecting your platforms voice chat feature will override the in-game option.

Ongoing Adjustments
Due to the online nature of this feature, we wanted to highlight that once it goes live, there is a possibility that we will be adjusting things within the live environment.

We have built in backend timers that will affect the length of Galactic Assault objectives, just in case we see certain phases in a map being easily exploitable by either side.

For further balancing, we are prepared with several kill-switches which will enable us to turn the feature on and off, per game mode and per map. This will enable us to react quickly should we find balance becoming an issue.
We will be watching your feedback closely and will be ready to act accordingly once the Squad System goes live later this month.

With features that are in development there are chances that things may change as we progress between now and release, but we’ll keep you posted along the way.

We’re looking forward to hearing what you think in the comments below.

Punch it