I also feel the need to say this before I begin; I like
Battlefield. I don’t wish to come across
as ‘a hater’ or someone who is merely airing their rants through a blog. I just think that Battlefield – specifically
Battlefield 3 and its successors – could learn a thing or two from the problems
in the latest release.
The point in this blog I wish to tackle is, ‘is this game
catering for the casual gamers, a little too much?’ In my opinion – and it is only my opinion – is yes it does. I am a casual gamer (playing around 10-20
hours a week) and even I am finding it a little frustrating at how many ‘mini
systems’ are in place to help players out.
By ‘mini systems’ I mean ways in which the game holds the hands of
players in telling them things which, I believe should be figured out on their
own. For instance, the mini-map,
displayed in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, in-game, can disclose a
little too much information.
Audio spotting is when an enemy shoots his weapon (it’s a
gun game!) and is highlighted as a triangle on your map. Whilst I don’t think it’s particularly fair that
an enemy should not only be able to see my position when I fire my weapon, but
to see which direction I am also looking in, it gives my enemy a huge
advantage. Don’t forget that this is
meant to be a game involving a large amount of team work (which is great!)
which can mean players move in unison, as a team. This gives the player who has been audio
spotted a few potential problems; 1. He is visible to all the enemies around
him; 2. It is likely there will be more than one enemy moving to his position
and 3. It also means that due to the amount of bullets it takes to kill in this
game (again, not a complaint), that it is highly unlikely that the audio
spotted player will survive. I do
appreciate however, that using the silencer attachment gets rid of this problem
(after the patch fixed that bug anyway) by removing the audio spotting at the
expense of a larger degree of bullet drop and more bullets required to kill an
enemy (albeit 1 or 2 bullets difference).
But I can’t help but feel it is still
overpowered. This game mechanic
didn’t exist in any of the previous titles, why this one?
3d spotting is also a mechanic which is arguably somewhat
overpowered. 3d spotting is when an
enemy is identified by your team mates and a button is pressed which then
highlights that enemy on both your mini map and the actual game screen. Whilst I am of the opinion that is actually a
good mechanic to encourage team work, giving the player who ‘spots’ points when
that enemy is killed, the feature is often abused. What is to stop a player from repeatedly
pressing the spot button? To spot an
enemy, you don’t even have to aim down the scope, you can look around in a good
vantage point and press the spot button and a swarm of enemies can light up
like a party of dancing Doritos. Maybe
if the mechanic was only assigned to the appropriately named Recon class, whose
job is to scout areas from afar, using tools such as the MAV and TUGS, then
maybe it would make their job a little more pronounced on the battlefield. As I pointed out with audio spotting, 3d
spotting also shows your team mates which way your enemy is looking. In my opinion, even if the mechanic were to
show you where the enemy was, without knowing which way he was facing (represented
with a circle perhaps?) then it would be improved. It would certainly make the VOIP (If it
worked) more important.
Also in the game, maybe a first for any game, come to think
of it, is vehicle regeneration. I don’t
know about you, but I don’t think it seems very fair for vehicles to magically
repair themselves if they are ‘out of action’ for 15 seconds. Again, this is a feature that wasn’t in other
titles, why this one? Even transformers
don’t have this luxury! They have to
repair themselves if they get injured (fully aware they’re not real!). Engineers exist in the game; why not make
them even more useful by forcing them to do their jobs of repairing damaged
vehicles? It might also make people
better at driving vehicles if they are forced to look after them.
Another game mechanic which irks me somewhat is downed
allies being represented on the mini map as symbols. Again, I understand why they are there, but it reveals too much information. Firstly, it reveals that one of your teams
mates is down and where on the map. Secondly,
you know that if you have a downed ally, an enemy is nearby. This gives you the opportunity to be careful
if you wouldn’t have been otherwise, the proverbial ‘heads-up’ as it were. I think this could be more balanced if they
removed the symbol from the mini map and only showed a symbol on the screen if
the downed ally is directly in your field of view. Another way of tackling the issue could be to
tell medics through the games own audio, that there is an ally down,
encouraging them to look for a body and reviving him.
Enemy equipment showing up on your mini map. Claymore mines, anti tank mines and enemy
recon equipment show up on my mini map, why?
Surely this makes most equipment a little useless, unless someone who
isn’t very good at map reading plays the game?
I hope this is a bug, but if it isn’t, it has to go...
Wall clipping is a bug, but it is also a big problem. Being able to go prone in the game is fine,
hell, if someone was shooting at me, I’d hit the deck... But DICE need to fix
wall clipping. Wall clipping is when
your avatar goes through solid objects such as walls or map scenery. What it means is that if you go prone and
‘clip’ into a solid object, up to 50% of you – or your enemy – is
invincible. Not too good in a
competitive shooting game. I think Call
of Duty got this right, because if there is a wall blocking you, you cannot go
prone and are prompted with a ‘prone blocked’ message. Simple, yet effective and it stops from
giving you an unfair advantage.
BUT! There is good
news, a few leaked patch notes seem to making the right noises (Commo Rose
update for PC!!). I doubt that those
noises include any fixes of the above problems – that might be too little too
late, but weapon balancing issues and attachment balancing is an important
first step in repairing the games post-release frailties. As I have previously stated in my last BF3
blog, found here;
This is a very decent game.
I feel as though I need to keep reiterating this point because I do
enjoy it or at least, I want to enjoy it.
My gripes with the game could be fixed with time, let’s hope they put
that time into this game.
I think the biggest thing DICE can do is come out and say
they know things aren’t 100% right.
However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Saying ‘We nailed it’ doesn’t fill the active
community with much confidence because they know that is not the case. DICE releasing patches tells everyone that
they haven’t ‘nailed it’. Patches are
effectively fixing broken parts of the game.
So what can we expect in the future with DICE? Will there
still be broken voice communications?
Will there still be input lag on the PS3? Will there still be lock on, fire and forget
weapons? Wall clipping? 3d and audio spotting? Will their telemetry – which they appear to
put so much faith in – suggest to them that they include more maps like
Operation Metro? Whilst there seems to
be never ending servers filled to the brim with 24/7 Op-Metro games being
played, is that due to players who are new to the game needing to play it to catch up with the higher levelled players who
have unlocked the better weapons and equipment?
Will they provide even more
‘mini systems’ to help players that are new to the franchise?
I hope not, I even have the hope that they get rid of a few
in the next game, once the newer players feel at home. I cannot imagine they will be gotten rid of
in this game, although they could, if they wanted to. Before I was introduced to the franchise, I,
like many others, played games such as Call of Duty, Quake and Counter Strike. What drew me to this game was the fact it was
that bit more ‘grown up’. It required
more thinking. You couldn’t run around
with any weapon, killing everything in your path, at any range. I remember the sheer terror at coming across
tanks in BF2, finding myself out of reach from my squad mates, I had to lay
low, wait for it to pass and hope it
never saw me. It felt like a scene in
Saving Private Ryan! Now, all you have
to do is 3d spot it and wait for a jet, helicopter, a support with c4 or an
engineer with a RPG to help you out. I
feel as though the moments of suspense in this game are few and far
between.
Maybe the next Battlefield will be released on the next
generation of consoles (the ‘next, next gen?!’). How powerful will these consoles be? Will they be able to handle 64 players
without having to push the machines to the extreme? If they can handle 64 players, will the
latest PCs be able to handle 128 or even 256 players? Where will it end? As I have said in my previous blog, ideally
they need to keep treating consoles and PCs as separate entities. But there is a lot more money to be made
releasing games on consoles, so I cannot see separate games being released any
more. It would mean creating two
separate games, with twice as many programmers/work! Not really a viable business strategy.
Seems like I’ve been wittering on again doesn’t it? How about I end this now, let the game grow
and mature and see where we are in another 6 months.. No game is released without bugs today,
that’s the nature of the beast with the sheer amount of differing
hardware/software available to people these days. I suppose only time will tell us if DICE leave
this title as it is, essentially changing their values to cater for the more
arcade friendly gamers. I just hope that
I am made to look stupid in the next few months. I sincerely hope people can read this back
when BF4 is released and sneer at my short-sightedness.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope you have a great day,
If you enjoyed my ramblings, please follow. Also feel free to leave any feedback; it’s
all very much appreciated.
Mr. C
Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteOne can only imagine what the game would look like if people like you were in charge. I wish.
Have a great day.