The Classic Collection has some Serious Issues that Need to be Addressed

Posted on Mar 14th 2024 07:48:30 in Opinion, Collection, Announcements

The Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection launched last night to thunderous condemnation rather than applause. After the success of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered I had hoped that Aspyr was finally shedding their reputation for mediocre ports, those hopes have been dashed like a TIE Fighter against an asteroid in the Hoth system.

There are a few key issues that are turning what would otherwise be a decent port into a nightmare.

1. Y-Axis Inversion
   • We have discovered that the launch patch for the Classic Collection (1.002.000 on PS5, 1.02 on PS4, Switch, and Xbox) is causing the Y-Axis Invert option to disappear and any profiles made on 1.000.000 to not be usable. As such the default settings for inversion are stuck, that means Normal for on foot and ground vehicles and inverted flying starfighters. This is entirely unacceptable. We know the option is there from people who were able to download the 1.000.000 version (that has since had 1.002.000 forced, at least in North America). Not being able to invert the Y-Axis has rendered the Classic Collection unplayable for me and many others. Conversely the Y-Axis being stuck on inverted for flying has rendered Space impossible to play for others.
2. Aim Acceleration and Deadzones
   • The Classic Collection has no deadzones and no deadzone settings. As such even the slightest touch of your analog stick causes movement and if you have one with drift you have uncontrollable movement. Using a DualSense Edge and manually adjusting the deadzones for the sticks can remedy this, but one shouldn't need to buy a $200 controller to have decent controls in the Classic Collection.
   • Related to this is the aim acceleration. In Star Wars: Battlefront II in particular the aim acceleration is incredibly inconsistent making it wildly difficult to aim with any amount of precision. These two issues are making the Classic Collection needlessly difficult to play.
3. Framerate in Custom Online Matches
   • There seems to be an issue with custom online matches whether either the host or other players in a custom game are locked to 29-30fps. This seems to be tied to the TPS (ticks per second/tickrate/hz) of the custom matches which are set by default to 30hz and are unable to be adjusted. Playing in Aspyr PC Dedicated Servers do not seem to have this issue. In theory this should be an easy fix for Aspyr (easiest would be to set the TPS for custom games to 60). They could also release the PC Dedicated Server program so that players could host their own dedicated servers and that would resolve this issue as well.
4. Unable to Spawn in Matches
   • There are multiple problems causing the same end user issue here. If a player is vote kicked from a match it can cause players to be unable to spawn, getting stuck at 1 on the spawn countdown screen. Leaving the game is the only way to fix it.
   • As well the Classic Collection is not handling the spawn queue correctly so if there are too many units alive on the field you can get stuck at 1 in the spawn countdown until enough units die. The mission scripts were not adjusted properly for 64 players and 64 bots, this should be an incredibly easy fix that just involves changing some numbers in the "SetupTeams" script. 
5. Missing Cutscenes in Rise of the Empire
   • This one is straightforward, the debriefing cutscenes at the end of missions in the Rise of the Empire campaign in Star Wars: Battlefront II are not playing. They seemingly exist, but the trigger to play them is not working.
6. Keybindings in the PC Version are not Functioning Correctly
   • There are instances where custom keybinds on the PC version of the Classic Collection do not work correctly, activate the wrong thing, or somehow trigger outside of the game. A specific example is that it is impossible to build new ships in Galactic Conquest on PC as the keybind for it is not working.
7. Audio Channels are Reversed
   • The audio channels in the Collection are reversed, meaning left audio comes out of right speakers, right audio out of left speakers, front audio out of the back channel (still affects stereo setups), and back audio out of front channel. 
8. There are Serious Graphical Glitches on Some Maps
   • I'm not exactly sure what triggers it, but as you can see below there are serious graphical glitches (this is PlayStation 5 specifically) that make the game unplayable.

I will add more issues as I learn of them.

These gamebreaking issues are unacceptable, Aspyr needs to do right by all of the people who purchased this Classic Collection and fix these. I can live with weird lighting in some places and the odd texture here or there, but the issues above make it difficult if not outright impossible to play the game.

If you have read this to this point please take the time to submit a bug report to Aspyr directly. I hope they do the right thing and address these issues.