Successor to the Xwing series?

Interesting thread. I think you overstate the case for their difference, but I want to understand what you are saying, because I am an old XWA player too and love the game. 

I never played Battlefront, so I can't make that comparison.

Here's what I know: I spent a great portion of my free time in college playing XvT and XWA. After that game faded away gradually (2004-2005 for me) I was not much of a "gamer" - with the exception of a recurring Civ4 addiction. When Star Citizen came around, I was excited for a "space combat sim," and I became a backer of the game. But *I never played.* Because it wasn't Star Wars. It just couldn't stir me out of my busy adult life.

But Squadrons *has* got me to play. That's why it is a "spiritual successor." It has got the Star Wars space sim community going again, guys who haven't done anything game-wise since XWA, guys like me who have to learn all about Steam and Discord and all this stuff that wasn't around or was in its infancy the last time we were active. And it is *enough* like X-wing, Tie Fighter, and XvT and XWA to keep me wanting to play repeatedly.

That said, I am frustrated with the differences too. I just don't see the same ones as you.

On *power management* - I don't see how you could say that the Xwing series were "sims," but Squadrons is *not* a sim. Power management in Squadrons is actually *more* complicated and intricate than in those older games. I think it's great. This is not a defining factor for me; either system is fine.

I see your point about infinite re-spawns. That's definitely an "arcadey" thing. But it seems a small detail. Like, it could easily be re-programmed on a particular map to not be that way, right? And are we sure the old Xwing and Tie Fighter games never had infinite respawns? It was a long time ago that I played through both games, so I don't recall clearly. I think there were many waves of fighters in some missions, but you could eventually kill them all.

My main problems, as someone who was great at XWA but is just trying to be average in Squadrons, are these:

1) First and foremost, it's too freaking hard to come out of a turn facing the right direction! There is consistent "over-steering" across all ships and control inputs, as far as I can tell, making the need to "counter-steer" whenever you want to come out of a sharp turn. It feels like they did this on purpose to make it harder to hone in and shoot people. Just very frustrating. I used to be a good shot, able to go *quickly* from evasive maneuvers, to aiming and shooting, back to evasive maneuvers. But that kind of precise piloting is just not possible in this game. I SO wish they would change this, or at least dial it down (cut the response time of all the ships to the act of putting your controller back to neutral).

That is really the #1 main problem, with all other things being just interesting changes. But there are some other improvements they could make as options which would help us old XvT / XWA players:

2) Too much crap on the maps. I want to just focus on my opponents and my teammates, not constantly worry about running into a wall. I realize a lot of players like this, so that's fine. But I would like to see a preference for "style of map" in the matchmaking process just like there is a preference for faction. They could make options (with better names than this) for "crowded," "medium," and "open" (deep space).

3) Private matches, or the ability to select our opponents in some way. I know a lot of people are talking about this.

4) Empire vs Empire or New Republic vs New Republic options. Yeah, I know it's not "realistic," but it's the way these games used to be played *online,* so it would be nice to have as an *option* for Squadrons. The culture of the XvT / XWA communities was to get everything the same between the opposing teams, to isolate skill vs. skill and see which competitor would prevail. It would be nice to be able to do that here.

Those are all of the things I see as realistic changes or additions for them to make.

The final main complaint that I and other old players have is not one I would ever expect them to change, just something that's very annoying: it's much harder to kill stuff, in general. I miss the days of being able to take out a TF with one well-placed double laser shot, or a T/I with one well-placed quad shot. Squadrons is way different, way tougher. I am willing to accept that, and get used to that, and adjust tactics for it. I would just have a way easier time making that adjustment if I could TURN and AIM properly (see #1 above).