Post by themccannman on Sept 14, 2011 0:30:08 GMT -5
It seems like a lot of my prayers have been answered, but this is an old blog post I wrote up for DRMB. It has been confirmed that the spotting system is getting an overhall, javelins and stingers are going to be in the game, and aircraft have limited ammo/countermeasures.
#2: When you wish for BF3, no diff’rence tween consoles ‘n PC.
I’d like to give you a short background on my gaming experience as an introduction to this post. I have not been in the Battlefield community for very long at all. In fact, when I picked up Bad Company 2 in May of 2010, it was my first Battlefield game. Before that, I played a very small amount of Call of Duty 4 with friends, some Modern Warfare 2 online, and before that, I played RPGs, RTS games, and platformers. My first shooter was Goldeneye 64.
Since I come from an RPG background, I love to look into the statistics of the game, and try to figure out how best to approach a game before I load it up. This style is in direct contrast to an adventurer’s style, which is mainly play with what feels the best, and eventually you will figure out what works in most situations. This can be compared to different poker strategies; one person may make the math calculations, figuring pot odds and compiling percent chances that x player will make y move at z situation, while the other will try for reads, not worry about what they have in their hand as much as what will get the other person to play into their strategy. I am not going to argue for or against one style of play in this post; I personally see the merit in both. I know that my approach to games is based mainly on my personality.
That being said, I do want a game like BF3 to cater to my personality, for perhaps selfish reasons. Generally, I will look on a spreadsheet to find the fastest killing weapon that still has a degree of “useability,” and use it in the class until there is no more weapon achievements to be had with it (currently, that means that I play with only 4 weapons at a time, one for each class, which I have yet to platinum). Since I bought the game in its midlife, I got to skip over the initial balance fiascoes and the console damage increase.
Now that you know my motivations, below I list my suggestions for BF3.
1.) Proper weapon balance out of the gate.
DICE does not have a good recent history with weapon balance when a game is released.
Overused and overpowered weapons that eventually were evened out with the others in their class were (a) the M60, which was a better sniper than most snipers, and (b) the AN-94, with low recoil and very high short range damage (20), it was unstoppable at all ranges. Recently, BF:BC2 Vietnam was released, and it was clear to anyone who looked at the numbers that the (a) AK-47 was the best weapon in the game, as it takes 4 body shots close or at most 5 at any range with magnum ammo while having a 750 RPM fire rate, and (b) the PPSh, with 25 damage up close, you didn’t have to use magnum ammo to keep a 4 bullet kill within your close range - a popular setup for anti-infantry is ammo upgrade and body armor. Even the (c) XM-22 is much more powerful than all guns in its class, with the same damage profile per bullet and faster fire rate by 150 RPM than the RPK. Some have argued that the aesthetics and “useability” of the gun, which is defined by the quality of the iron sights and the large amount of muzzle flash balance out the weapons, but that doesn’t explain the AK47 or PPSh, which have low flash and perfectly clear iron sights. My counter-argument to that is the spotting system eliminates any and all clutter when ADS: the red triangles of spotted enemies appear through weapons, walls, and muzzle flash.
The AN-94 and M60 were completely neutered. They are now in line, or worse, than all of the other guns in their class. I am not saying that overpowered weapons need excessive “nerfing” but they do need to be balanced as early as possible, hopefully before the game hits the shelf.
DICE, please take a good long look at your weapons that you are putting in people’s hands. A good first impression is everything. Along with that, hopefully you learned that the 1.25x multiplier on the console versions was a mistake. We want to play the same game that PC players enjoy.
2.) Improved spotting system.
The spotting system is what separates this game from many others. It is a godsend. However, there are some instances when spotting just doesn’t work the way that it is intended.
For those who do not know, there is a system within spotting that prevents excessive use of the spotting system. It is much like the “heat” and “cooldown” system of the repair tool. It has been brought to my attention that, with the way that it is set up, you can spot indefinitely if you space out your spots every 2 seconds or more. If you rapidly press the spot button, it takes 3-5 presses to “overheat” the system, requiring a lot of precious cooldown time. Also, there is a maximum degree spread on spotting, and there is a maximum distance for “close spots,” whereafter you need to have the reticule directly on the enemy, for all intensive purposes, to spot him. I am not talking about spotting failures when this happens, and I generally agree with these systems which are in place.
What I do notice, though, is that sometimes, I see enemies in cover, aim right to them, and attempt to spot, knowing that I am not currently in cooldown. Because just enough of them is behind a tree, I cannot spot them. If there is any exposure to the spotter’s line of sight, you should be able to spot them. It is a system that is not used enough on the consoles, and any improvement would be welcomed by people like me.
3.) Additional anti-air capabilities.
RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE, TO CLARIFY: I do not want stinger missiles or javelin missiles which automatically lock onto any manned air-vehicle. I do want an easier way to take out pilots, however. As it stands currently, attack helicopters - the Hind, Havoc, and Apache - are close to indestructible on consoles if the enemy air support is cleared out beforehand (surprisingly easy). Whereas before there was a 30 second cooldown on V-Smoke, there is now a 14 second cooldown. A skilled pilot can avoid unguided missiles and most tracer darts, and when traced, can deploy smoke and evade any tracer darts for 14 seconds. This leaves the AT-4, (hard to control on consoles due to maximum zoomed-in rotation speed) mounted turrets, (which leave the infantry exposed to the gunner seat) and anti-air emplacements (which have the same problem). Look at a list of the highest score players: 1 out of 2 on average spends more time in helicopters than he does on the ground.
An easy way to fix the problem without making helicopters useless is to give the pilot who has countermeasures selected as a vehicle specialization a limited amount of flares to deploy. Another is to make it harder for attack helicopters to destroy anti-air vehicles or emplacements. A third is to have more anti-air emplacements, similar to BF:1943. Having unbalanced attack choppers would be an oversight that is unacceptable for a game as big as BF3 will be.
4.) More realistic ballistics.
A few things here: bullets, whether fired from an assault rifle, sniper rifle, or subsonic bullets fired from a silenced sub-machine gun, in BC2, all travel at the exact same speed. There is a few methods that the game hides this: the bullet’s tracer - a luminescent streak that follows a bullet in the game - moves at a different speed than the actual projectile on all guns except for sniper rifles, giving the appearance that sniper rifles’ bullets go faster than all others. The fact of the matter is that the 9x39mm subsonic bullet fired from the 9A-91(~1100 feet/second in the real world) behaves EXACTLY like the 7.62x51mm bullet fired from the M24 (~2500 feet/second IRL), which in turn behaves exactly like the .50 caliber BMG bullet fired from the stationary turrets, tank gunners, and the M95. Note: the 50 cal round from the M95 has a few things that is different than other rounds, notably that it can damage lightly-armored vehicles like helicopters and it has different penetration properties. However, the flight time and trajectory are the same. Also, the bullet velocity in the game is noted for the fact that it is slower than many rounds travel. I am not saying that the projectiles should be sped up to MOH speeds, but perhaps to realistic speeds.
I think that it would bring a lot more spice and variety to the game if different rounds behaved differently once they exit the barrel. I don’t want bullets to be affected by things like wind, bullet yaw, and the like, but I would like subsonic bullets to take longer to reach their target than .308 high powered sniper rounds.
On top of that, the damage profile of rounds is, for the most part, pretty boring. There is a period of high damage, followed by a period of linear dropoff to the longest range, and then the damage is flat after that. All weapons within a class have the same range profiles. Why not incorporate a non-linear equation for bullet damage dropoff? Why not spice up the damage dropoff within different classes of weapons? A good example of this is Rainbow Six: Vegas II, which has a high degree of complexity in the damage modeling.
5.) More graphical and control adjustability.
How about giving console players adjustable FOV (field of view). Having higher FOV gives the unique sensation of looking through a “fisheye” camera lens, where the peripheries are compacted, allowing for target acquisition beyond the usual, say, 90° horizontal up to the human normal 180°. From what I understand, a higher FOV means more required computing power, both processor and video card. If, however, the changes can be made without any sacrifices to graphics, I say let the player choose. Also, higher FOV may cause motion sickness in some, so a high FOV with no adjustability is a bad, bad thing. We don’t want Mirror’s Edge part 2.
The controls of a console FPS are very important when the only directional view change input is with one joystick. The maximum sensitivity in the vanilla version (not Vietnam) was fairly low, which limits players, especially in close range situations. Beyond that, there is a degree of look acceleration, which causes you to not turn at max speed even though you have the thumbstick all the way pushed to the right or left until a certain amount of time. This adds a heaviness that many players enjoy, and many find cumbersome. Why not adjust upwards the maximum sensitivity and allow players to dictate the acceleration coefficient in the controls? This way, the game can fit the experiences and playstyle of all players, whatever backgrounds they choose, without providing unfair tactical advantages.
All four of the suggestions that I made above add complexity to the game. Some changes may make it harder to balance the infantry weapons, but I believe that it will give the developers more tools with which to balance the game.
What do you want to see in BF3 that has not been said before? What do you think DICE can do to make this the best game possible?
I’d like to give you a short background on my gaming experience as an introduction to this post. I have not been in the Battlefield community for very long at all. In fact, when I picked up Bad Company 2 in May of 2010, it was my first Battlefield game. Before that, I played a very small amount of Call of Duty 4 with friends, some Modern Warfare 2 online, and before that, I played RPGs, RTS games, and platformers. My first shooter was Goldeneye 64.
Since I come from an RPG background, I love to look into the statistics of the game, and try to figure out how best to approach a game before I load it up. This style is in direct contrast to an adventurer’s style, which is mainly play with what feels the best, and eventually you will figure out what works in most situations. This can be compared to different poker strategies; one person may make the math calculations, figuring pot odds and compiling percent chances that x player will make y move at z situation, while the other will try for reads, not worry about what they have in their hand as much as what will get the other person to play into their strategy. I am not going to argue for or against one style of play in this post; I personally see the merit in both. I know that my approach to games is based mainly on my personality.
That being said, I do want a game like BF3 to cater to my personality, for perhaps selfish reasons. Generally, I will look on a spreadsheet to find the fastest killing weapon that still has a degree of “useability,” and use it in the class until there is no more weapon achievements to be had with it (currently, that means that I play with only 4 weapons at a time, one for each class, which I have yet to platinum). Since I bought the game in its midlife, I got to skip over the initial balance fiascoes and the console damage increase.
Now that you know my motivations, below I list my suggestions for BF3.
1.) Proper weapon balance out of the gate.
DICE does not have a good recent history with weapon balance when a game is released.
Overused and overpowered weapons that eventually were evened out with the others in their class were (a) the M60, which was a better sniper than most snipers, and (b) the AN-94, with low recoil and very high short range damage (20), it was unstoppable at all ranges. Recently, BF:BC2 Vietnam was released, and it was clear to anyone who looked at the numbers that the (a) AK-47 was the best weapon in the game, as it takes 4 body shots close or at most 5 at any range with magnum ammo while having a 750 RPM fire rate, and (b) the PPSh, with 25 damage up close, you didn’t have to use magnum ammo to keep a 4 bullet kill within your close range - a popular setup for anti-infantry is ammo upgrade and body armor. Even the (c) XM-22 is much more powerful than all guns in its class, with the same damage profile per bullet and faster fire rate by 150 RPM than the RPK. Some have argued that the aesthetics and “useability” of the gun, which is defined by the quality of the iron sights and the large amount of muzzle flash balance out the weapons, but that doesn’t explain the AK47 or PPSh, which have low flash and perfectly clear iron sights. My counter-argument to that is the spotting system eliminates any and all clutter when ADS: the red triangles of spotted enemies appear through weapons, walls, and muzzle flash.
The AN-94 and M60 were completely neutered. They are now in line, or worse, than all of the other guns in their class. I am not saying that overpowered weapons need excessive “nerfing” but they do need to be balanced as early as possible, hopefully before the game hits the shelf.
DICE, please take a good long look at your weapons that you are putting in people’s hands. A good first impression is everything. Along with that, hopefully you learned that the 1.25x multiplier on the console versions was a mistake. We want to play the same game that PC players enjoy.
2.) Improved spotting system.
The spotting system is what separates this game from many others. It is a godsend. However, there are some instances when spotting just doesn’t work the way that it is intended.
For those who do not know, there is a system within spotting that prevents excessive use of the spotting system. It is much like the “heat” and “cooldown” system of the repair tool. It has been brought to my attention that, with the way that it is set up, you can spot indefinitely if you space out your spots every 2 seconds or more. If you rapidly press the spot button, it takes 3-5 presses to “overheat” the system, requiring a lot of precious cooldown time. Also, there is a maximum degree spread on spotting, and there is a maximum distance for “close spots,” whereafter you need to have the reticule directly on the enemy, for all intensive purposes, to spot him. I am not talking about spotting failures when this happens, and I generally agree with these systems which are in place.
What I do notice, though, is that sometimes, I see enemies in cover, aim right to them, and attempt to spot, knowing that I am not currently in cooldown. Because just enough of them is behind a tree, I cannot spot them. If there is any exposure to the spotter’s line of sight, you should be able to spot them. It is a system that is not used enough on the consoles, and any improvement would be welcomed by people like me.
3.) Additional anti-air capabilities.
RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE, TO CLARIFY: I do not want stinger missiles or javelin missiles which automatically lock onto any manned air-vehicle. I do want an easier way to take out pilots, however. As it stands currently, attack helicopters - the Hind, Havoc, and Apache - are close to indestructible on consoles if the enemy air support is cleared out beforehand (surprisingly easy). Whereas before there was a 30 second cooldown on V-Smoke, there is now a 14 second cooldown. A skilled pilot can avoid unguided missiles and most tracer darts, and when traced, can deploy smoke and evade any tracer darts for 14 seconds. This leaves the AT-4, (hard to control on consoles due to maximum zoomed-in rotation speed) mounted turrets, (which leave the infantry exposed to the gunner seat) and anti-air emplacements (which have the same problem). Look at a list of the highest score players: 1 out of 2 on average spends more time in helicopters than he does on the ground.
An easy way to fix the problem without making helicopters useless is to give the pilot who has countermeasures selected as a vehicle specialization a limited amount of flares to deploy. Another is to make it harder for attack helicopters to destroy anti-air vehicles or emplacements. A third is to have more anti-air emplacements, similar to BF:1943. Having unbalanced attack choppers would be an oversight that is unacceptable for a game as big as BF3 will be.
4.) More realistic ballistics.
A few things here: bullets, whether fired from an assault rifle, sniper rifle, or subsonic bullets fired from a silenced sub-machine gun, in BC2, all travel at the exact same speed. There is a few methods that the game hides this: the bullet’s tracer - a luminescent streak that follows a bullet in the game - moves at a different speed than the actual projectile on all guns except for sniper rifles, giving the appearance that sniper rifles’ bullets go faster than all others. The fact of the matter is that the 9x39mm subsonic bullet fired from the 9A-91(~1100 feet/second in the real world) behaves EXACTLY like the 7.62x51mm bullet fired from the M24 (~2500 feet/second IRL), which in turn behaves exactly like the .50 caliber BMG bullet fired from the stationary turrets, tank gunners, and the M95. Note: the 50 cal round from the M95 has a few things that is different than other rounds, notably that it can damage lightly-armored vehicles like helicopters and it has different penetration properties. However, the flight time and trajectory are the same. Also, the bullet velocity in the game is noted for the fact that it is slower than many rounds travel. I am not saying that the projectiles should be sped up to MOH speeds, but perhaps to realistic speeds.
I think that it would bring a lot more spice and variety to the game if different rounds behaved differently once they exit the barrel. I don’t want bullets to be affected by things like wind, bullet yaw, and the like, but I would like subsonic bullets to take longer to reach their target than .308 high powered sniper rounds.
On top of that, the damage profile of rounds is, for the most part, pretty boring. There is a period of high damage, followed by a period of linear dropoff to the longest range, and then the damage is flat after that. All weapons within a class have the same range profiles. Why not incorporate a non-linear equation for bullet damage dropoff? Why not spice up the damage dropoff within different classes of weapons? A good example of this is Rainbow Six: Vegas II, which has a high degree of complexity in the damage modeling.
5.) More graphical and control adjustability.
How about giving console players adjustable FOV (field of view). Having higher FOV gives the unique sensation of looking through a “fisheye” camera lens, where the peripheries are compacted, allowing for target acquisition beyond the usual, say, 90° horizontal up to the human normal 180°. From what I understand, a higher FOV means more required computing power, both processor and video card. If, however, the changes can be made without any sacrifices to graphics, I say let the player choose. Also, higher FOV may cause motion sickness in some, so a high FOV with no adjustability is a bad, bad thing. We don’t want Mirror’s Edge part 2.
The controls of a console FPS are very important when the only directional view change input is with one joystick. The maximum sensitivity in the vanilla version (not Vietnam) was fairly low, which limits players, especially in close range situations. Beyond that, there is a degree of look acceleration, which causes you to not turn at max speed even though you have the thumbstick all the way pushed to the right or left until a certain amount of time. This adds a heaviness that many players enjoy, and many find cumbersome. Why not adjust upwards the maximum sensitivity and allow players to dictate the acceleration coefficient in the controls? This way, the game can fit the experiences and playstyle of all players, whatever backgrounds they choose, without providing unfair tactical advantages.
All four of the suggestions that I made above add complexity to the game. Some changes may make it harder to balance the infantry weapons, but I believe that it will give the developers more tools with which to balance the game.
What do you want to see in BF3 that has not been said before? What do you think DICE can do to make this the best game possible?
Excellent post, i agree with just about everything on there... actually, everything on there.