-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Battlefield 3 |OT2| Mine! RendeZook! Wa Isl!
- Thread starter The Faceless Master
- Start date
BattleMonkey
Member
Yup, I rather have in game toggle than having to go to options to do it.
MrOogieBoogie
BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
Maybe I'm crazy but it feels like this game isn't as popular online as Bad Company 2 during its first couple months. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
The player base is definitely larger for BF3 and the game has pretty high numbers right now population wise, probably averaging 80-100 thousand concurrent players. However it does have to contend with being released during the holiday season while BC2 was released in March. BC2 didn't really have any other games to compete with for play time.
Dice put themselves in a really weird, dumb, and compromising position. I think that most can agree that bf3 doesnt do as good a job at being a bc game as bc2. It also doesnt do as good a job as bf2 at being a bf game. The core game is good but the identity of the game isnt it's own. Its trying to be this game and that game and then its own game and the mix doesnt work in its favor.
"bf2 vets" are disappointed that its not more bf than bc and vice versa. They tried way too hard to appease everyone. I'd be pretty pissed if they decided to annouce bc3 but at the same time, i dont want another bf/bc hybrid.
BattleMonkey
Member
How does it not feel "popular". It has more players and far more servers up than BC2 ever did.
More servers, more people playing, the biggest selling BF game in history of the franchise. Don't see how the game is not as "popular" as BC2 or how Dice screwed up. Game is doing well sales wise, it's high up on the charts of games being played. At prime time the game has ton of people playing it.
It's one of the most successful shooters in a long while, still not COD numbers, but doing better than pretty much everything else out there. The complaints don't seem to be affecting the game in any real noticeable way
The Faceless Master
Member
if they announce BC3, i'm sure many people i know who play on console will have some questions about it too before they get excited.
eternaLightness
Member
hehe that's pretty much how I play. I seem to win more matches as Support too. Also the fact that C4 doesn't disappear after you die(which may get patched), having extended mag and extra ammo, it's kind of a beast class. I feel like it makes engineer pretty useless to be honest. Especially when it comes to taking out tanks.
I'm really not sure at this point what determines a 'BC' game and what determines a 'bf' game though.
Bad Company was an extension of where DICE wanted to take Battlefield, as well as a test bed for certain technologies as preparation for BF3. It's of no surprise that there are certain elements present in BF3 that existed in the BC games, because DICE needed those BC games to test and start implementing these ideas. Like the class system for example, that started all the way back in 2142, and I'd beg anyone to try and argue that the class systemin BF3 isn't an improvement over the one in BF2.
I think Rush is an obvious sticking point. But I don't think it has to be a problem for BF vets. Strike at Karkand is regarded as one of the greatest Battlefield maps of all time, and that works perfectly in Rush. In fact most of these B2K maps are excellent in Rush, Wake withstanding.
Bad Company was an extension of where DICE wanted to take Battlefield, as well as a test bed for certain technologies as preparation for BF3. It's of no surprise that there are certain elements present in BF3 that existed in the BC games, because DICE needed those BC games to test and start implementing these ideas. Like the class system for example, that started all the way back in 2142, and I'd beg anyone to try and argue that the class systemin BF3 isn't an improvement over the one in BF2.
I think Rush is an obvious sticking point. But I don't think it has to be a problem for BF vets. Strike at Karkand is regarded as one of the greatest Battlefield maps of all time, and that works perfectly in Rush. In fact most of these B2K maps are excellent in Rush, Wake withstanding.
Well i mean, it seemed pretty obvious that this game would be number 1 in sales for the franchise. With all that pent up anticipation from bf2 fans and with bc2 selling pretty well...i think it was expected. Also, b2k was the backup for bf2 vets that werent really feeling bf3 much. Its been a saving grace for a lot but its also been the last straw. Also i wouldnt say more servers because you HAVE to buy a server now whereas you didnt have to before.
ncsuDuncan
Member
Wait, this game has Rush? I haven't played a single round of it since the beta ended.
In fact, I haven't touched Deathmatch or Campaign either. I've only played Conquest.
In fact, I haven't touched Deathmatch or Campaign either. I've only played Conquest.
Anton Sugar
Member
I completely forgot about Rush w/B2K. Played it last night and the maps actually work really well.
Almost none of the vanilla BF3 maps have what I'd call good map design. Initially, I put Op Firestorm and Kharg ahead of Caspian Border, but neither of them have as good a flow and design as Caspian--I think Caspian is the best vanilla BF3 conquest map. B2K is better than them all, however. Sad and awesome at the same time.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Man this game is running like ass today. Played a couple matches over lunch and, for all the servers, was getting rubberbanding and freezes. Towards the end I was flying a helicopter (a rarity), was being engaged by AA, and then my screen froze for literally 4 seconds, after which it came back, had said I committed suicide, and the chopper crashed into the ground. I figured that was a good point to say 'fuck it' and turn it off.
The Faceless Master
Member
yeah, Wake Rush needed a boat on both sides and the other B2K Rush maps really reminded me of BC1, wide and full of options. even the tv station at Sharqi reminds me of the final set on Ascension. (Hi Sekoku)
BC2 and BF3 both get the CPU hot as hell. It took me awhile to figure out my microstutter in BC2 was caused by my CPU hitting 80 degrees and throttling itself.
Upgraded to a new heatsink and heat is a non-issue now :3
They completely changed the pacing of the game. The game has been sped up tremendously. Theyve changed the gameplay to allow for more instant satisfaction. They made things such as unlimited run, full squad spawning, less recoil/better full auto accuracy standard, regen health, 3d spotting, faster vehicle respawns, kill cams. Theyve removed bf staple features such as commander, waypoints, destroying enemy base stations such as uav, less conquest mode types, commorose (dont mention that gimped version), lowered squad member cap, cappable home bases, etc etc. i could nitpick all day but typing on my phone sucks.
They also stated that their design philosophy changed from "play it our way" to "play it your way".
By releasing a great selling and received game and setting themselves up for guaranteed sales for future dlc? I don't see whats weird, dumb or compromising about that.
I'd go as far to say that Caspian Border is the best map in BF history. Probably a controversial opinion but it just feels "right".
Between putting on some new cooling paste and turning my BF3 settings down is there anything I could do (that doesn't cost me any money)?
Well when it comes to satisfying their customers and trying to convert them into returning customers....yea they are in a weird position. I know ive been tainted and will ne bery cautious of the next bf game. Even after playing the alpha/beta and especially if its multiplatform.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Ugh. I'm really hating B2K at the moment. Everything about them seems to put infantry at such a disadvantage compared to the vanilla maps. Tons of vehicles, much smaller flag AOI's, less/more-destructible cover.... I love Battlefield and how vehicles add flavor to the game, but I play primarily on foot - always have - and these B2K maps are pissing me off.
Karkand is pretty decent, as there seem to be less vehicles, and more avenues of escape for infantry. But Sharqi and Oman are pure bullshit. Capping a flag is ridiculous.
And seriously, where are my zodiac's on Wake?
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Well put. As much as I like BF3, I'd agree with all of this. BF2 is still the better PC game.
BattleMonkey
Member
Player count hasn't wavered though which shows how well it is doing. It actually did go up as well after the initial weeks of play in playercount. B2K saw a spike in players but it was staying steady before it too.
There is nothing showing the game is suffering in any sense or going down the drain, quite the opposite.
Anton Sugar
Member
I don't know--I spend a lot of my time as infantry on these maps. Yes, you do feel the constant pressure of vehicles around you. I think it makes the Recon class and CITV tank station even more important. It's hard to win in these maps without using teamwork to eliminate vehicles.
Zodiacs spawn on the little island--there are like four of them there.
Qwell
Member
For those having issues with the Win 5 SQDM assignment, I feel your pain. I found a server that only had like a 20 point limit I think it was which made the rounds go much much faster. I still went through a ton of losses but at least it was a quick turn around to have another chance. I think the server is the one listed below, but I can't quite remember.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf...174-697160efbf38/lame-server-new-Assignments/
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf...174-697160efbf38/lame-server-new-Assignments/
Personally I've had the exact opposite experience with the game. I'm a customer, I'm satisfied and I will be returning. I can totally appreciate how this game did not meet your expectations for a bf2 sequel. If the philosophy of "play it your way" is not your thing than I get it, dice might have failed you but bf3 was a success as a whole. We will see if your assertions are true when the expansion hits.
Which is why you're currently playing BF2, right?
You could probably tell your BIOS to not shutdown at 100 C. It can probably take higher temperatures than that but I'm not sure I would have risked it.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
But where do you put your SOFLAM? On top of the TV Station is decent, but any chopper pilot worth a damn will just shoot it after about 5 seconds. Other than that I've been having a hard time finding a place with any sort of good vantage point.
I don't know, I just feel there's too much bias towards the vehicles. Widening the flag AOI's would go a long way to solving that, allowing me to contend for the flags while remaining in relative safety.
I guess. I liked it better when they were docked just down the hill from the flag, giving you a quick avenue of approach across the bay.
Personally I've had the exact opposite experience with the game. I'm a customer, I'm satisfied and I will be returning. I can totally appreciate how this game did not meet your expectations for a bf2 sequel. If the philosophy of "play it your way" is not your thing than I get it, dice might have failed you but bf3 was a success as a whole. We will see if your assertions are true when the expansion hits.
Which is why you're currently playing BF2, right?
Oh, i fully expect the dlc to sell well and continue to sell well. Im talking about bf4 but maybe dice found enough of a new fanbase to keep selling as well as bf3.
Im "satisfied" with bf3...i mean, i do have 220 hrs into it already so i got my money's worth. Im also very disappointed with it. They hyped everyone up with the "TRUE sequel to bf2" and "bf3 is a bf game and not bc" and "omg commorose because of fan feedback" oneliners. Then the alpha came and i fully believed them but then came the beta and my hopes got killed. From alpha to beta , they did a COMPLETE 180 with the games design.
Strummerjones
Member
I don't think a plea to populism really helps here (or God knows, talking about videogames in general). I definitely agree with him that BF3 is a less coherent game than its predecessors. The big problem is in the map design, and I think B2K has really exposed how short sighted and silly Dice's inexplicable move towards funelled map design (the worse culprits being Metro and Damarvand Peak) is.
Those maps were clearly a desperate attempt to ape the "intensity" (i.e. small maps leading to a lot of action) of Call of Duty, but instead they merely bring out the worst in the game and break game mechanics that are pretty cool in the wider game. For example, RPGs and grenade launchers doing more damage to enemies behind walls is an interesting and useful addition to bigger, more open maps when fighting infantry. When literally everyone is penned into the same area it just leads to terminal boredom as people are forced to spam explosives endlessly at the same areas of wall/floor mindlessly racking up kills. To experience 64 player Conquest on Metro is to watch the game's design document falling to pieces in front of your eyes.
That's without the simple boneheaded design decisions that permeate individual levels (let's put an indestructable AA gun on Canals! And then make it so it can be used to shoot down aircraft just barely out of the other team's base with no repurcussions! And which can equally be used to grief the other team with equally no comeback!). BF2 was pretty far from perfect and had its own half baked stuff (Commander mode was 50% genius and 50% pure tedium), but I think is pretty undeniably a much more coherent and solidly designed game. The team who worked on BF3 either had a lot of pressure from focus group marketing bullshit (very likely) or just really need to sit the hell down and work out what game they are trying to make.
It isn't that BF3 is "bad" - I love it. It's just flawed in frustrating and obvious ways and overall I would argue is nowhere near as big a "success" in a critical game design sense than its predecessor. There is stuff in BF3 (ironically mostly in B2K) that is glorious and takes it far beyond BF2, but when you have to carefully setup your server filters when you play to remove the maps and gamemodes that are outright broken and especially when those maps/modes make up around 50% of the content of the game, someone fucked up.
Anton Sugar
Member
Most of these complaints are about the maps of BF3, not BF3 itself. How are the core gunplay mechanics, class design, flight models, etc. worse than BF2? It's not perfect, but overall, I think it's better than BF2.
And even though Metro 64 is a LOL joke to all of us, you'll still find its 24/7 server heavily populated. I've used it to grind out some of the stupid unlocks (smoke grenades), but clearly it has strong appeal with a group of players. Unfortunately, that doesn't help against the main criticism of BF3's maps: unfocused, lazy design.
And even though Metro 64 is a LOL joke to all of us, you'll still find its 24/7 server heavily populated. I've used it to grind out some of the stupid unlocks (smoke grenades), but clearly it has strong appeal with a group of players. Unfortunately, that doesn't help against the main criticism of BF3's maps: unfocused, lazy design.
BattleMonkey
Member
I don't let the map issues bother me, by not playing on those maps. Simple fix
No they didn't, they changed the way spawning worked because it was hopeless in the Alpha. I'm not saying what they did was perfect, personally I'd have squad spawning in Rush and SL spawning in Conquest, but as it was in the Alpha, SL spawning made it far too difficult for Attackers.
Anton Sugar
Member
Actually, we have no idea whether or not it was SL spawning that made it difficult, because spawning was broken 75% of the time (for me, at least) in the Alpha. There was no squad leader assigned, thus no one to spawn on, so you frequently had to lose all your progress by falling back to the main base.
Remember when you had that sick day yesterday and we got in a tank and proceeded to win the round on sharqi, clear evidence that vehicles are overpowered. Either that or I am overpowered. I think its the later.
Oman is meant to be a vehicle heavy map. Sharqi the infantry has the advantage against vehicles with all the routes you can flank against vehicles. If there is any map that vehicles are able to sway the balance its Karkand. If your team is retarded and lets them get both tanks and IFVs you are pretty fucked.
edit: I do well in vehicles because first, the other team has no teamwork and second, people are bad.
example: "Why dont I run across 100m of open ground to c4 the mobile AA." Proceeds to get killed. "Herp derp vehicles are overpowered."
I thought it might have been just map design but b2k has kind of just exaggerated the problems with the core mechanics of bf3. Yea the maps are tons better and more open and more thought out but there's still something missing. The maps dont mesh too well with bf3s mechanics and the game's pacing messes with the maps alot .Wish i could elaborate alot more right now...but will do when i get by a pc.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the black Spec Ops camouflage supposed to block all/most of the thermal vision? Because that's all I wear but I'm still getting sniped from tanks and helicopters from ridiculous places.
I think I'm enjoying the BF3 versions of Karkand and Sharqi more than the BF2 originals. Well except losing two flags from Karkand. The addition of all the buildings to hide in has really increased the ability of infantry to escape/avoid armor and the ability to destroy certain cover aspects such as fences and walls opens more avenues for flanking. in BF2 Karkand, getting a solid breakout could be a very trying time and US would lose a ton of tickets just going for that first flag. It seems like on BF3 Karkand, US gets a flag a lot earlier in the game and flags are constantly changing hands across the map (also due to infantry able to "wait it out" inside a building and then cap a flag with some stealth action).
I'm very disappointed with Oman and Wake due to the F35/Flanker imbalance. I know the Mig had a tighter turn radius than the F35 in BF2, but the advantage wasn't this great. Also, the loss of the Bomber for Russians on Oman is rather disappointing. Oman seems to be more of a flag tag in armor with a bunch of SOFLAMs and Javelins thrown in the mix now.
Spec Ops camo got nerfed in the most recent patch when the IRNV was nerfed.
I'm very disappointed with Oman and Wake due to the F35/Flanker imbalance. I know the Mig had a tighter turn radius than the F35 in BF2, but the advantage wasn't this great. Also, the loss of the Bomber for Russians on Oman is rather disappointing. Oman seems to be more of a flag tag in armor with a bunch of SOFLAMs and Javelins thrown in the mix now.
Spec Ops camo got nerfed in the most recent patch when the IRNV was nerfed.
Anton Sugar
Member
I mean, come on. It was us.
Plus, we were playing smartly, calling out targets, covering each others' blind spots. Most drivers/gunners don't do that, and when they do, it only makes sense that it should take a coordinated effort, not one engineer, to take them out. Half of the guys trying to kill us were suicide Support and jav Engy's, which is horrible in urban environments.
They changed the way spawning works, they sped up running speed ALOT, they added squad beacons, changed the way prone works completely and a bunch of other tweaks and changes. Everything they did was to encourage faster and more "intense" gameplay.
I still have footage i recorded from the alpha and i'll post it as soon as i can.
BattleMonkey
Member
Don't see any of these problems, the game is at it's best in B2K. It's the tiny shit maps where the game breaks down as so much wasn't designed for such play
I agree with the game being at its best with b2k but that doesnt mean the maps fit the game. It really just points out how "shitty" the bf3 maps are.
They sped up sprinting, your base movement speed is still low, I think its fine.
Spawn beacons are squad beacons from 2142. They have a good trade off.
Prone speed is fine. If someone comes out of prone and you are covering their position they are dead. Its slower than bf2...
The fast gameplay is not an issue. The only issue is the all squad spawn which they wont change, it appeals to the majority.
I do. Im pretty effective with it. I need a better internet connection and more stable framerate to be more effective. The speed of the game requires you to be quicker and have consistent conditions.
Of course to be more effective I mean doubling everyone else's score. Right now I can get top 5 pretty consistently.
Anton Sugar
Member
I guess if you put in 1% and I put in 99% than techinically it is us
Exactly. You'd be nothing without me.
RebornYeti
Member
I tried to, but it's really not the same. I think it may be the lack of C4.
It's really lame too because whenever I play as an aggressive Recon, I get so many opportunities to blow up tanks if only I had some C4! I hate seeing a tank and not being able to do anything besides target it with a SOFLAM hoping I have teammates competent enough to shoot the tank.
I dodnt say "fast gameplay" was the only issue. Also HC mode says a big fat NO to your full squad theory. I only play on squad leader only spawning servers and im still having these issues. Also, theres a diff between "fast gameplay" and the games pacing. Its not just them speeding up sprinting or whatever...its the "always in the action" mentality that the game has.
And about prone, its not just the speed in which you get up that has changed.
BattleMonkey
Member
Sounds like a ton of personal nit picks and not really game problems others are seeing or having