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Post by thegentleman on Mar 20, 2015 16:45:44 GMT -5
So, I played through the single player in Hardline since Tuesday, and I really enjoyed it. After experiencing more headaches with AW than I thought I would, frankly I'm ready to make the leap to a new online shooter faster in the CoD lifecycle than has ever happened before. Won't rehash the reasons for that, we've gone over most of them at length in other topics. So here I am, super pumped about this game and feeling like it's going to be right up my alley. I jump into TDM and it is just absolute, unorganized chaos. And I don't mean this in a good way. Note that this is all based on one exhausting hour of playing TDM, so I hope to god other game modes are better. 1. For people who talk about BF having a higher skill gap and a lower TTK, I certainly don't see that here. I was getting melted. 2. SEEING your opponents is a challenge. Often, your enemy will be either too far away for you to make out as being an enemy, so he kills you. Or, he could be a dark figure in a dark room that sees you moving from where you spawn (out in the open), so he kills you from said dark room without you ever knowing he was there. 3. Your initial unlocks seem utterly non-viable, and there seems to be a big discrepancy between what you have access to as a new player and what the "best" configurations are, poking around the symthic (?) forums. The AK is a 3-4 hit kill currently in a game where most of the other ARs seem to have a 4-7HK damage profile. Optics confer a HUGE advantage because seeing people seems to be everything in this game, and I sure as shit don't see them as they gun me down. 4. Spawns, objectively, are possibly the worst I've ever experienced in an online FPS. We talk about "spawning in front of a guy" or "around the corner from a guy" in the CoD community as unforgivable sins. The number of times when I've spawned in front of a guy or he's spawned in front of me in AW? Probably 4, possibly. In Hardline, this happens on the regular. In one game of TDM, the game put me behind three players on the other team facing the other way. As in dropped me into the game 20 feet behind them with no cover or anything to break the line of sight between them and I. In another game of TDM, I was killed by a guy tactical loitering a corner with a sniper rifle. Twice. In a row. Spawned in, got shot. Spawned in again in the same place, got shot once more. Let me reiterate that I am playing the game on launch week and this is so exploitable that people are already abusing this in every lobby I entered into. 5. Some classes are just straight-up bad ideas. There was a map that took place on a city block. This one. Frankly, it looks GREAT. I have driven through shitty-looking towns in California's desert areas that look very much like this. www.simhq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Battle-Field-Hardline-Visceral-Games-2015-BFH-BFHL-3.jpgI chose a shotgun class. I was spawning in the middle of the street. Imagine the street that's outside of your house right now. Yes, that one. Suppose you magically teleport into the middle of this street. How long would it take you to absorb your surroundings and run to the nearest piece of cover? BF:Hardline is not like AW. Random garbage and chest-high walls don't litter the environment. Most of the maps seem modeled after cities or neighborhoods. As a shotgunner or SMG user, you've got to run towards entrenched enemies with guns capable of taking you out about 100 yards away. I'm sure a lot of people familiar with the BF franchise might just say "lol git gud kid." I'm not saying I'm an expert at Battlefield, but having gone through the SP campaign a few times, having really liked it, and knowing the language of first person shooters, playing TDM was a polarizing, almost borderline toxic experience. Design-wise, Hardline was created to try to appeal to CoD players. You've got the designers themselves saying as much. And with fatigue towards the CoD franchise growing, this seems like a good time to steal market share. But did they even consider the experience of those targeted players? Are they capable of looking at this with a fresh set of eyes? They're going to jump into TDM right off the bat, and I can tell you for certain that if I'm having a genuine shudder-worthy experience and can articulate why that is, Timmy no-thumbs who lacks my level of patience is going to march right back into GameStop and trade Hardline in. If this is what casuals can expect, I don't see any one of them sticking around. Final bonus: despite my various criticisms with AW's hit detection, I can confidently say that this has never happened to me before. Culled from the BF Reddit: xboxdvr.com/gamer/Kita%20Kitten/video/466060
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Will
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Post by Will on Mar 20, 2015 17:53:50 GMT -5
Please never ever ever play TDM on a Battlefield game. There is no spawn logic whatsoever, I'm pretty sure it's pure RNG with zero variables. This has been true for every Battlefield game I have played. They really shouldn't even bother having that game mode, and I agree with every complaint you have about it. Play Domination if you want a small player count, no-vehicle game mode.
That is like going to a steakhouse and ordering a yogurt, then complaining that it's not as good as the yogurt at the yogurt store.
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Post by thegentleman on Mar 20, 2015 20:00:17 GMT -5
Right, and I do understand that now that I've explored a few areas like Reddit and Symthic. But I like games, and I like trying to break them down, so I'm cutting it a lot of slack and making the commitment to try a few other modes to see where the strengths are. One of the issues I have with the above is that if the majority of players you're trying to woo are TDM guys through and through, why wouldn't DICE/Visceral/Whoever do some basic market research and try to actually develop a better gamemode that addresses what are apparently obvious and uncontestable complaints?
I agree with your analogy, but if the steakhouse is marketing that it has good yogurt and there's a lot of yogurt eaters out there, people are only going to figure out that the yogurt is shit after they try it, thereby damaging the value of the steakhouse's brand and turning away what might people who also enjoy steak. I didn't know the only thing they made well was steak. I tried it because it was on the menu and didn't have any preconceptions of the restaurant's competency.
There's a lot of the same kind of attitude on Reddit, by the way: hard core BF franchise veterans saying, "Anyone playing TDM in a Battlefield game deserves a shit game mode." It's interesting that BF veterans are so entrenched in that world that it's impossible for them to even consider a TDM mode that could be successful. Past that, why, as a newcomer to the World of Battlefield, should I come to expect that one of the five game modes should be crappy? What did I do as a gamer to deserve the smug negativity that so many people seem to have over there? Especially when DICE/Visceral is trying to win CoD guys like me over, who are probably used to TDM as their bread and butter? There's a rush to blame the victims here.
Anyway, I'm not giving up on it yet, but boy howdy was I tempted.
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Will
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Post by Will on Mar 20, 2015 21:42:02 GMT -5
Sorry if my post came across as "How dare you play TDM"; that is pretty much victim-blaming.
What I mean is, Battlefield can be great outside of TDM, and they are idiots for including such an obviously broken game mode. It would be better off if they didn't have it at all if they can't do it right.
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Post by Megaqwerty on Mar 21, 2015 0:17:57 GMT -5
DICE made four games and people wouldn't stop asking for TDM, so they added it.
If you're telling me that Hardline is better than AW, I believe you. My dog could make a better FPS than AW. And he's not even probaddie.
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Post by thegentleman on Mar 21, 2015 2:44:56 GMT -5
I'm hoping Hardline will be better than AW. I suppose my main point was that Hardline really allows you to put things into perspective.
Regardless of what I end up thinking of the multiplayer in a week's time, Hardline has a pretty neato campaign mode, so anyone looking for something good to play right now would be well-served by romping through it.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Mar 21, 2015 15:56:16 GMT -5
Right, and I do understand that now that I've explored a few areas like Reddit and Symthic. But I like games, and I like trying to break them down, so I'm cutting it a lot of slack and making the commitment to try a few other modes to see where the strengths are. One of the issues I have with the above is that if the majority of players you're trying to woo are TDM guys through and through, why wouldn't DICE/Visceral/Whoever do some basic market research and try to actually develop a better gamemode that addresses what are apparently obvious and uncontestable complaints? What makes you think they didn't do market research? Why do you think your complaints represent the market at large? The most consistently popular maps in these games are ridiculous fu ckfests like Nuketown, Hijacked, Operation Locker, and Operation Metro. 64 players in a small cordoned off chunk of a map sounds like the result of market research to me.
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bradman
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Post by bradman on Mar 22, 2015 10:29:40 GMT -5
DICE made four games and people wouldn't stop asking for TDM, so they added it. If you're telling me that Hardline is better than AW, I believe you. My dog could make a better FPS than AW. And he's not even probaddie. TDM in Battlefield is there for the CoD crowd. It's only useful for quick weapon leveling.
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Post by volgon on Mar 23, 2015 2:45:12 GMT -5
The learning curve on current Battlefield games is really steep compared to COD. Just basic things like actually hitting targets with your bullets is completely different due to the spread system. I can go in depth on stuff if you have questions, for now I'll try to give a few pointers.
1.) Since you're just starting the BF series, play Operator, it's the assault rifle + Medic class. ARs are by far the best weapons in the game (they always are). Your basic unlocks aren't that great, but it won't take that long to build up enough cash to purchase some faction specific weapons (yes, this restriction exists until you get 1250 kills with the faction weapon). Police: M16 is the best AR, Criminals: M416 is my preferred choice due to the accuracy, though AKM is very strong because of its damage model. Gadgets = Med Kit + whatever, I like to use the defib/revival pen (same gadget but differing name depending on faction, and I'm not talking about the Survivalist gadget) or the gas mask. Gas grenades are the best, imo, the effect lasts an annoyingly long time and anyone within the gas' radius takes double damage (so get out of there if you're gassed).
2.) Game modes: probably won't really matter what you play. Battlefield can be frustrating as hell. I like Heist (it's like Demolition and CTF mixed together) and Blood Money (capture money at a fixed central point, run it back to your team's base). Conquest is the most popular game mode in other Battlefield games, though I'm not a fan. Lots of running around and dead areas and dying to someone you didn't see on the capture points.
3.) Spawns: works different in modes other than TDM. BF uses a squad spawn system, meaning you spawn either at your base (or bases you control in Conquest) or on your squad mates. Basically this means that at anytime you are fighting someone, 4 dudes can pop out of their ass to destroy you and rez train everyone you killed.
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banana
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Post by banana on Mar 23, 2015 8:56:05 GMT -5
Why doesn't battlefield just implement that spawning system to tdm?
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Post by iw5000 on Mar 23, 2015 11:12:35 GMT -5
Gentleman.
What you are doing, I did last year with Battlfield 4, when XB1 came out. I put A LOT of time into it, while playing CoD Ghosts. What you are experiencing, I felt the same thing.
But it didn't get better when I went to play the other game modes. I played a lot of Rush, and Conquest (I think that was it). What you mentioned, it was still there. Just a mishmash of sniping, dark corners, bad lighting, bushhiding and otherwise clunky gameplay. The spawn issue sort of died away, but that was replaced by another issue. The whole concept of choosing to spawn either near your teammates or near the rear of the map. It ended up created two bad choices. Spawn away, and then spend 30 to 40 seconds running to action, only to be hit by a guy in the shadows somewhere. Or spawn on teammates, and typically be insta killed by a bad spawn death.
It doesn't get any better.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Mar 23, 2015 11:27:07 GMT -5
If you are looking for a similar but better FPS experience than AW, look no further than... TitanfallIt is safe to say that CoD fans are more likely to enjoy Titanfall than BF, well, at least IMHO. Just the dedicated servers alone can remove a lot of frustrations you have when playing other FPS MP.
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Post by iw5000 on Mar 23, 2015 11:44:45 GMT -5
In fairness to AW. I played a fair amount of AW this weekend, for the clan wars. The lag and other issue stuff, was considerably better.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Mar 23, 2015 12:20:06 GMT -5
In fairness to AW. I played a fair amount of AW this weekend, for the clan wars. The lag and other issue stuff, was considerably better. That's good to know since I am planning to go back to AW sometime in the near future. After all, I paid $60 for the game and need to get my money's worth
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Post by strokedem on Mar 23, 2015 13:11:55 GMT -5
Im loving hardline. I have been playing nothing but rescue though. Sometimes conquest or bloodmoney. Im really liking the rescue game type.I havent had the slightest urge to play AW again since hardlines release. I always see people complain about the spawns in the respawn modes but honestly you get like 5 choices of where to spawn. I feel like my tactical play style and gunskill are rewarded so much more in battlefield. My KD is way higher than its ever been in any CoD and this is the only battlefield ive ever played.
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markopolo
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Post by markopolo on Mar 23, 2015 14:16:52 GMT -5
the last 15 seconds of this video sums up my shotgun experience... in both COD and Destiny... perfectly
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Mar 23, 2015 14:22:54 GMT -5
If you are looking for a similar but better FPS experience than AW, look no further than... TitanfallIt is safe to say that CoD fans are more likely to enjoy Titanfall than BF, well, at least IMHO. Just the dedicated servers alone can remove a lot of frustrations you have when playing other FPS MP. Titanfall definitely is the successor to COD to some extent on a pure gameplay level. But if you like to play at a slower/more defensive pace in COD, if you're into the real-life gun porn aspect of these games, if you are into endless challenges and customization Battlefield might be more up your alley. There's so much shit to unlock and do in Hardline (which I imagine is itself less than what's in BF4) that it's overwhelming. I'm nearing the 30 hour mark for BFH Hardline, and by that point in a game I just want to have everything unlocked and available to use. The COD style repeated prestige grind isn't so bad since I figure out what the good low-level stuff is while I run that treadmill. But man, saving up 90,000 in Hardline-Dollars to unlock a gun for the helicopter, only to find out it's kind of crap anyway... Having to do unlock requirements in addition to coming up with the cash to unlock everything gives me flashbacks to Blops in a bad way. And ugh, the boosts, the stupid boosts. Now I have to enable boosts per class? For the love of god tell me there's an option to auto-boost somewhere! But anyway, there's lots of that shit in BF these days, if you're into that sort of thing.
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Post by thegentleman on Mar 23, 2015 16:01:57 GMT -5
I think I'm learning.
One of the strangest differences is the aiming mechanics. It feels like I can't get the right balance between the ADS aiming speed and general/hipfire aiming speed with my sensitivity. Anything like what I'm used to in CoD either feels WAY too fast and jerky for general walking around if I want a more reactive ADS speed, but leaving it at the sensitivity I used during the campaign, I watch people literally run out of my sights. If they run, I just flat out can't track them.
Unlocked the AKM for criminals. Learning curve there, for sure. A lot of guns in BF don't seem to have recoil. This one certainly does. Almost unlocked some optics, but things that would make a difference to recoil (muzzle break, compensator, foregrips) are like, 90 kills away. Getting the sense that the M16a3 is the best gun in the game, considering that literally everyone on the police team will use it against me. Seems far more represented than the ASM-1 or BAL. Also getting supremely tired of people who run around with riot shields on their back so that you basically can never shoot them from behind. I mean, it's a HUGE area that's covered. There's a lot of stuff in the game that seems hard for newcomers to counter.
Anyway, I think I found a gamemode I like. Conquest small, compared to any CoD map, is actually gargantuan. And your teammates are distributed evenly enough that you can predict, in a general sense, where people are likely to be. Basically, I ended up either breaking even or holding somewhere around a 1.5 K/D, which is a marked improvement from my jaunts into some of the other game modes.
Also, it's funny how basically any non-gunfight moment is basically just walking or running from one place to another hammering the right bumper to spot people in game that you wouldn't normally be able to make out.
In general, I love the gun porn and sense of realism, but something just seems a little distant to me in terms of the play style. I think it comes down to some general sense that my actions as a player aren't neatly translating to how I want the character to move or aim. Could be that CoD is pretty heavy with the aim assist where BF doesn't give as many crutches in that department. But as someone who doesn't have the reflexes of a hummingbird and always thought console controls were a little clunky for FPS games, I really appreciate that in CoD.
Anyway, I still want to get a few classes and guns I like in Hardline, but I haven't felt that burning desire to jump back into the servers over and over.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Mar 23, 2015 18:27:15 GMT -5
Unlike kb+m the look mechanics aren't consistent across games at all which makes it frustrating to go between them. I use a XIM so I can customize my aim mechanics to suit me, but when I do use a controller I think both BF and COD are pretty lacking. Titanfall feels pretty good for the most part, and it has a configurable dead zone, which is huge. But really these games should be much more configurable.
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Post by iw5000 on Mar 24, 2015 9:43:33 GMT -5
I was reading reviews of Hardline. Found this right at the top on GameSpot. Is this person accurate?
"But I play BF for the multiplayer, I love BF because it is nothing like CoD. It is a whole different play style. But everything that made BF better then CoD was all thrown away in BF Hardline. It feels just like CoD. Yes the tanks, heavy artilerty, jets, Attack helicopters and etc. are all gone, but now the game is a face paced load and kill style just like CoD. Every BF fan out there knows exactly what I'm talking about. Even if they do come out with DLC with tanks and such, that will not change the play style. Everything that made this game different is now gone. It just feels like another CoD game. I'm very disappointed in it. The last 5 days I have had it I only played it 2 of those days and the other days I went back to BF4 on the 360. That should tell you everything right there."
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Post by bucket415 on Mar 24, 2015 10:27:50 GMT -5
It is a faster paced game for the most part. The maps are smaller and the vehicles are things that cartel style criminals and militarized police have access to. I like it so far.
The connection has been sketchy. Sometimes your bullets hit and kill, other games they don't. You'll shoot a guy and he won't die for 1 second.
Overall, I like it.
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Post by kylet357 on Mar 24, 2015 13:01:55 GMT -5
So it's pretty much Bad Company 2, with downgraded destruction.
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Post by LeGitBeeSting on Mar 24, 2015 13:24:16 GMT -5
But the SPAS-12 is legit.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Mar 24, 2015 13:35:02 GMT -5
Is it a game that potentially appeals more to a COD player? Probably. It's definitely faster paced. Does it lose the essence of Battlefield or whatever? Not really, in my opinion. Unless your BF play-style is to spawn in a tank, and play defensively as possible. It's not a good game for BF tank guy at all. If the real question is, "Will I have to run for 40 seconds to find something to do", iw5000, then I'd say no, unless you're playing Conquest on one of the handful of large maps and have absolutely no clue what you're doing. If you do get forced to spawn in your team's spawn on a large map, there's always a plethora of fast cars/bikes you can take to get back into the action anyway. Game modes like Heist and Blood Money do a great job of focusing the battle around the objective. My highlights from the first week:
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asasa
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Post by asasa on Mar 24, 2015 16:22:58 GMT -5
I found it kinda weird that they made vehicles worse. Is that just worse in the sense of 'you cant sit back with a repairman and be nearly indestructible, anymore', or they are weaker and/or easier to destroy (outside of repairing)?
That gameplay looked cool, but for me BF was always about vehicles.. so, if they're crap I see no appeal.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Mar 24, 2015 18:50:52 GMT -5
No rocket firing apache, no jets, no tanks etc... I've actually been taking the opportunity to really learn helicopters this game. Though if someone on the other team is dedicated, you're not going to have a fun time in the patrol/rogue chopper. If they are busting out stingers (which are pick-up items on the map now, or also available a an upgrade so you can take one out of the trunk of your car).
So, what you get as vehicles... a bunch of cars and bikes with no weapons. Though as I said there is an upgrade for cars where you can put a Stinger or an RPG in the trunk. There's the mobile command center which I guess people can kind of shoot out of, but it's mostly just a mobile spawn point. There's the armored SUV, which is that thing where I sniped the two gunners in my clip. Generally feel way too exposed gunning in that thing, would rather just hop out and not have to deal with the sluggish turret mechanics. Then you got a couple of vehicles in the turret-boat category that I can't really messed with at all. And the Counter-Attack Vehicle, which is an armored vehicle with a turret for both the driver and co-driver that is surely the most powerful ground vehicle. I'm guessing a couple of dudes who know what they're doing can wreck shit in it.
Also, I haven't put a lot of time into it, but Hotwire is a vehicle focused mode where it's basically Conquest, except the control points are vehicles you have to hop into and drive around. So you get crazy car chases, dudes hanging out of windows with grenade launchers, etc... Also the easiest mode in the game to print money. You might want to look up some Hotwire footage on YouTube and see if the gameplay appeals to you more. If you're a transport gunner in that mode you're going to have lots of juicy targets.
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Post by ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42) on Mar 24, 2015 20:06:24 GMT -5
I loved the beta and it seems like a fun game...the problem I have with it is the price point, so I won't touch it, unless I see it for like $15 somewhere. If they dropped the campaign and released it as a $20 standalone like BF: Vietnam, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But $60 PLUS a $50 season pass? Christ CoD gives you more for that than everything I've heard about this game. 9 Maps. 7 game modes (2 of which are comp and 1 is TDM) Significantly less weapons than BF4 and you can only use them half the time and most of them are complete garbage. LOL 5-9 BTK at the RO933 Just, doesn't seem worth my money.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Mar 24, 2015 21:22:29 GMT -5
So you want a variety of weapons so that you can use the same gun at all times on both sides? I don't really get the pricing argument. Titanfall got shit on for being multiplayer only at full price. Ok, so Hardline shows up with single and multi and still gets shit on. Is COD really that much better of a value? AW with exo-whatever co-op that nobody plays, a single-player of about the same length as Hardline, a handful more of (very small) multiplayer maps? Anyway I'm sure Hardline will be progressively more affordable over the coming months, but personally I always hate getting in on a multiplayer game late.
And yeah, the season pass thing sucks, but that's EA for ya. It'll be worth it for me, but then again I anticipate putting 200+ hours into this game easily.
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Post by ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42) on Mar 24, 2015 21:55:41 GMT -5
And I didn't pay full price for AW and I didn't buy Titanfall. Both games are a waste of money, Hardline even more so because it's literally just BF4 with less shit in it. And what I want is more variety in weapons that I don't have to wait an entire match to use.
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prioc
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Post by prioc on Mar 24, 2015 22:01:11 GMT -5
battlefield hardline has muscle cars though
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