It seems like we’ve been hearing about the impending Battle of Geonosis update coming to Star Wars Battlefront II forever now, but it finally arrived! The eagerly anticipated updates brought two long-awaited additions to DICE’s 2017 shooter. Legendary Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi has become the latest Star Wars hero to become playable, based on Ewan McGregor’s portrayal in the prequel trilogy. In addition, the planet of Geonosis, where the climax of Attack of the Clones took place, is now a map for Galactic Assault missions.
Check out the update’s official trailer, which shows us our first look at Obi-Wan in-game:
Obi-Wan costs 35,000 credits to use, but for those who want his “Robed” appearance, that will set you back 40,000 credits (or 1,000 crystals). Obi-Wan also brings the 212th Attack Batallion with him, which are skins for the Galactic Republic. Obi-Wan’s rival, General Grievous, also gets a new appearance in this update. His “Shattered Armor” look, which isn’t based off of any prior media, comes in at a cool 80,000 credits, or 2,000 credits.
Here are the full patch notes for the Battle of Geonosis Update:
NEW CONTENT
FEATURES
- New Galactic Assault mission taking place on the planet of Geonosis
- New playable land vehicles are available on Geonosis: STAP, BARC Speeder, AT-TE.
- Obi-Wan Kenobi is now playable. Obi-Wan comes with three abilities: All-Out Push, Defensive Rush and Restricted Mind Trick. One alternative appearance is available to unlock.
- More Clone Trooper appearances are now available (212th Attack Battalion)
- A new “Shattered Armor” appearance for General Grievous is available to unlock
QUALITY OF LIFE
- The Stamina indicator for heroes is now easier to read, as it is being depleted, instead of being filled up
CHANGES TO CLASSES AND SPECIAL UNITS
OFFICER
- Flash Grenade: Removed movement impairing effects that would occur when affected by the flash
- Inspiring Presence: Lowered score gained (15->10 points per tick)
- Blurrg-1120: Reduced Start Damage *(*32->25) and End Damage (14->12)
- SE-44C: Reduced Start Damage (33->31) and End Damage (17->15)
- S-5: Reduced distance before damage fall off starts (20->15)
SPECIALIST
- Fixed an issue where the crosshair for the Specialist’s weapon would change, whenever the player is equipping the weapon with a magnification attachment
HERO CHANGES
GENERAL GRIEVOUS
- Improved the reliability of Unrelenting Advance blocking incoming blaster shots from the front side. Unrelenting Advance will not be blocking explosive shots or special Hero abilities
- Improved Grievous’ rotation speed when using Unrelenting Advance
- Increased Unrelenting Advance damage from 75 to 110 points
- Reduced how often Grievous’ Unrelenting Advance deals damage from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds
- Fixed issues that would occasionally allow Grievous to re-trigger the Unrelenting Advance ability
- Fixed an issue where Grievous’ hands during Unrelenting Advance would not be visibly spinning for other players
- Improved the chances of Thrust Surge connecting with the enemy. Enemies who manage to get out of the way in a timely manner, can still avoid Grievous’ Thrust Surge.
- Fixed an issue where Grievous would get locked into a spinning and running animation after performing Thrust Surge on a dead enemy
- Improved the UI for Grievous’ Thrust Surge indicator. The UI indicator comes up faster and more reliably when the ability is ready to be performed on an enemy.
- Fixed an issue where Grievous’ lightsabers would change halfway through the “Thrust Surge” animation
- Fixed a visual issue where Grievous’ hand would be partially visible when observed from a distance
- Fixed an issue where Grievous’ stun animation would last longer compared to other stunned heroes
- Fixed an issue where Grievous’ Victory Poses would overlap with other heroes on the End-Of-Round screen
- Fixed an issue where equipping the “Line Up, Weaklings” Star Card would cause Claw Rush to not deal damage to more than 1 enemy when playing on Arcade
- Further iterated on SFX, VFX and Animations in regards to Grievous’ movement, attacks and abilities
LUKE SKYWALKER
- Fixed an issue where Luke Skywalker’s first damage would not always register against an enemy
CHEWBACCA
Made adjustments to Chewbacca’s Stun Grenade, as well as the fire rate and bullet heat per shot of the Furious Bowcaster, to prevent possible instant kills when Chewbacca has full health.
- Reduced fire rate of Furious Bowcaster from 110 to 90
- Reduced stun time of the Stun Grenade from 1 second to 0.75 seconds
- Increased overheat per bullet from 0.057 to 0.075
- Reduced number of shots possible with Furious Bowcaster from 14 to 10
- Reduced the cooldown for the Furious Bowcaster ability from 25 to 20 to improve Chewbacca’s reliability in Galactic Assault
Reduced Chewbacca’s explosive damage and increased the blaster damage to balance Chewbacca’s attacks against Lightsaber-wielding enemies.
- Reduced explosive damage of main bullet from 40 to 25
- Increased blaster damage from main bullet from 30 to 40
- Increased end damage of main bullet from 30 to 35
- Reduced explosive damage of Scatter bullet from Furious Bowcaster from 15 to 10
- Increased blaster damage of Scatter bullet from Furious Bowcaster from 20 to 25
ARCADE CHANGES
- Improved gameplay flow on Arcade, by removing Spawn timer on Arcade
STARFIGHTER CUSTOM ARCADE
- Fixed an issue where players playing as Separatist Starfighters, would spawn inside Out Of Bounds areas of the map on Ryloth and Kamino
SQUAD SPAWN CHANGES
- Delayed the timer for squad formation until the game mode starts, to prevent issues with group squads not forming while the End-Of-Round matchmaking is on
- Enabled ability to squad spawn on the Clone Jump Trooper
- Removed the “In Combat” effect for when players would shoot their gun without a target
MATCHMAKING CHANGES
- Various stability fixes for End-Of-Round Matchmaking in regards to players playing with friends in parties
MAP CHANGES
KAMINO
- Fixed an issue where the game on PC, would occasionally freeze for a couple of seconds after advancing to the last phase.
KESSEL
- Collision fixes to prevent clipping through specific rock assets
JABBA’S PALACE
- Collision fixes to prevent clipping through the wall and outside the playable area
VEHICLE CHANGES
- Reduced speeders collision damage to prevent road kills at low speed
74-Z SPEEDER BIKE
- Applied gamepad aiming improvements to the 74-Z Speeder Bike
AAT
- Increased High Explosive Shells blast damage from 100 to 150 points
- Added a reticle for the High Explosive Shells ability
- Fixed an issue that prevented the Siege Mode ability on the AAT from increasing damage correctly
GENERAL CHANGES/MISC
- Fixed an issue where the progression towards Timed Challenges would not show up during the End-Of-Round screen
- Fixed an issue where a box counting down to new Timed Challenges would not show up on the Home screen
- Fixed an issue that would cause a notification for the completed timed challenges to appear every time the title is booted
- Fixed an issue where the pop-up for completing an inactive timed challenge would show up with an empty description
- Fixed an issue where the player would be occasionally prompted with nine Timed Challenges, instead of three
- Fixed an issue where players would occasionally receive the wrong prompt when completing the “Blast Them To Pieces” Timed Challenge
- Fixed an issue where selected heroes were not always highlighted on the deploy screen when playing Heroes Vs. Villains or Hero Showdown.
- Fixed various visual issues in regards to lighting and reflections in the Spawn and End-Of-Round screens
KNOWN ISSUES
- An issue has occurred where some of the explosion VFX will occasionally not be visible when they should. The issue currently affects Han Solo’s Detonite Charge grenade and parts of the AT-TE body. The issue is being investigated and expected to be fixed at a later update.
- The Blaster Turret and the Ion Turret will occasionally not successfully lock-on an enemy AT-TE. The issue is being investigated and expected to be fixed at a later update.
[Source: EA]
