2782

I went back and played the armored kill levels, to get the hang of the mobile artillery and unlock all its options.

I learned you can press ESC to see where your primary rockets are landing on the map, they show up as white detonation marks. Still a pain to zero in on a target, but if you do, man those rockets are strong.

Anyway, the biggest challenge these days is finding populated AK map servers, where some douche like me isn’t hogging the artillery vehicle all the time. Anti-air, once unlocked (you can do this by capping points in it) is probably the most reliable way to get the kills necessary unlock the anti-infantry rockets.

The anti-air alternate weapon on that mobile artillery is a BEAST. It reloads crazy fast and fires 2 per, and has easily the range of the AA vehicles.

I also played the armor-only mode of AK finally – which was more interesting than I thought it would be, sort of a king of the hill with the quick capture point in the middle, the team that holds it the most wins. Big open map so weird combo of sniping and engineers and tanks all over the place.

I think aftermath is my least favorite expansion in retrospect. The maps are just too busted up and chaotic, I dislike nearly all of the aftermath maps, and that scavenger mode adds nothing.

Let’s play RANK THE EXPANSIONS!

  1. Back to Karkand. Solid maps, new weapons, essential.

  2. Close Quarters. Surprisingly awesome COD style modes. New weapons!

  3. Armored Kill. Tanks, gunship, artillery, big maps, really 100% Battlefield style.

  4. End Game. Like the maps. CTF is interesting at least. Dirt bikes: excellent.

  5. Aftermath. Crossbow: meh. Modified ghetto vehicles: meh. Scavenger is just annoying. Maps chaotic and frustrating. Feels slapped together, which I guess was the intent, but I find it the least fun to play by far.

I guess by the last two they had kind of run out of new weapons to add, so there’s a certain “oh well, all we can do is add maps and tweaks now” to the final expansions. But 1, 2, 3 were excellent expansions, essential really if you like the game at all.

2783
  1. End Game - Maps were great, both in level design and visually. CTF sucked. Bikes are awesome. Air superiority stupid.
  2. Close Quarters - Love the maps and gameplay, HATE that there are so few servers with less than 20 players.
  3. Aftermath - Enjoyed the maps and scavenger mode from time to time. Crossbows are stupid.
  4. Armored Kill - Great, sprawling maps, tank superiority is kinda dumb.
  5. Back to Karkand - My least played expansion, but the maps seem very solid.
2784

I doubt I am going to get BF4 till a pretty big sale hits sometime in 2014. I am multiplayer FPS burned out.

But good news is everyone who has BF3 Premium can at least try the beta!

2785

I hadn’t played a lot of infantry only maps for a while until yesterday and now I know why. The M16A3 is turning infantry maps into the most monotone game I’ve ever played. It’s just medics hopping around with M16’s. Reminds me of the dolphin diving medics with G36E in BF2.

2786

Yeah infantry only never appealed to me in BF3 at all. I did handful of it in BF2. Still, I think I could do OK as a machine gunner on those maps.

2787

Is this the thread we will use to talk about BF4, or we will create a new thread?. Also,what is the state of Bf3? has degenerated like older tittles, to servers where “op weapons” are banned, and shit like that?

2788

We have an excellentsearch functionon the forums, where you can find the thread for Battlefield 4.

As for the rest, Shotguns are banned on several servers, so I guess thats a “yes”.

2789

It is definitely the minority of servers, at least on the 360, where there are weapon bans.

2790

Pretty much all the city maps are like that. Seine, Metro, Bazaar even in normal mode.

The only banned weapon I’ve come across is the RPG against infantry. Other than that everything is usually allowed.

2791

50% off in BF3 Premium
http://store.origin.com/promo?promoID=88022500&linkid=bf3premium

And CQB for free
http://blogs.battlefield.com/2013/06/bf3-e3-2013-fan-celebration/

2792

I have go back to the game, using that promotions (basically, buying all expansions for 14€). I was very confused at first, and slowly getting a grip.

  1. There are now a whole set of maps that play like Metro. In my battlefield.
  2. Air dominate over tanks, so tanks are less appealing, but also dominate over infantry, so WTF.
  3. There are some new vehicles, like the long missed rocket launcher truck. But I have not seen yet a map where using one made sense tactically, but I have not seen all maps.
  4. On the games I played, one team completely dominated the other.
  5. The game is has pretty has I remember, and more. Its a really pretty game.
  6. Nobody has any interest to give ammo to engineers. Even if your team is getting raped by tanks, and you are the only one with rockets. WTF. Teamwork is gone.
  7. At least one server had shotguns banned. eeeek. Also the shotguns where nerfed to mediocrity.
  8. On a server where nobody was less than rank 40, some people called others noobs repeatedly.

Half the problems of the game could be solved by making the anti-air lock-on missile have double the range. The way it is now, a copter can see you, murder you, but you will not even be able to lock-on on him. The lock-on takes maybe 3 seconds, but pilots enter and exit the area you can get a lock faster than that.

I am happy to return, but I don’t find the game in a playable state. Seems more a playfield for some players to dominate on others.

2793

Mostly it’s a bunch of super hardcore level 100 people now and … everyone else. So yeah. There’s quite a bit of “your entire team has no chance” games. Not all the time, but it’s much more common these days, I’d say 1 in 5 games I play is like that, maybe 1 in 4.

There’s also an assload of cheating in my opinion. These DirectX cheats are apparently impossible to stop. Not everyone does it, but the 71-13 people are just way too common, that should never happen, I don’t care how ‘good’ you are, you are not fucking going 71-13 in any sane BF3 game, ever.

They did list better server teams balancing as a bullet point in BF4 so I am optimistic.

Your only hope is to pick and choose game modes and maps to taste, avoiding the spammy ones. Which is definitely possible as there are a lot of players still, albeit with the caveat noted above: lots of level 100 catassers and everyone else. None of this has been covered in BF4 news yet, but I really hope they reduce the number of game modes in BF4 to just the good stuff, because the combinatorial explosion of maps and modes has not been healthy for the community at all. The absurd level of community fragmentation is a bad strategy for DICE.

2794

I’m sorry but I just can’t relate to most of the problem you two are experiencing.

I find that:
*4 out of 5 games are fairly balanced. Could be better but nothing a bit of teamwork can’t solve.
*There is plenty of teamwork in most infantry dominated maps. Less in vehicle dominated maps but I tend to die less there.
*Of the weapons I use I find the M16A3 unbalanced(OP). Mines, Mortar, EOD and SOFLAM could use a little buff. The Stinger and IGLA have a decent range and can disable all air vehicles in one hit which is better than the Heat Seakers on the vehicles. Shotgun are pretty balanced depending on the situation, which is exactly how it should be. The Saiga is a killer on most infantry dominated maps.

I do have a few rules for choosing a server which might be the reason I haven’t encountered these problem. I only play on European servers to avoid lag. I avoid Russian servers which are in my experience cheater magnets. I try to stick to servers that have around 32 players. I play Rush and TDM on infantry dominated maps and Conquest on both.

2795

I still have to see all the stuff that is new to the game. Could be that the current setup of the game its optimized for what you play, rush / infantry combat / 32 players. Thats sorta, Okay, I guess… I had a lot of fun with that setup in BC2.

In larger maps, the game really needs ammo crates and a larger lock-on radio. If air dominate soo strongly, I can’t understand why the devs don’t have balanced this a bit better, by giving locks more way to breath.

2796
2797

w/r/t air dominance, I have seen some helis float way far out at the extreme edges of the map, high up, then snipe with the gunner position. It is very very effective and annoying – and even worse, in this case some idiot let them get our heli (it was Sharqi Peninsula) so the game was basically impossible at that point.

2798

DICE confirmed via Twitter that Battlefield 4 on the PS4 will use the L1/R1 triggers for shooting and aiming. People are replying that they’d like it the way it was on the PS3 with shooting and aiming being done on L2/R2.

Is this actually a thing? People don’t want to use the triggers to shoot? My mind is blown by this. I thought the whole inverted stick in an FPS thing was weird, but this is totally crazy to me.

2799

Yeah, whoever was saying they don’t see cheat dominance on PC, ok, whatever.

Just played 3 rush 48+ player games, all 3 dominated by players going 41-2 and so forth.

It is true that there’s this big natural dichotomy now as the game ages between level 100 catassers and everyone else, but… I gotta get me some of these directx hacks to be competitive again.

2800

I don’t play BF3, but I did play the beta and BC2 a lot, and I saw a lot of bad players. It’s extremely easy for a semi-skilled player to get those scores when the competition is bad, I frequently go ~ 50-5 in CoD Blops2 (pc) and I don’t cheat…rest of the server obviously thinks differently because they can’t look past the scoreboard.

2801

COD is little to nothing like battlefield. It’s not deathmatch and bros.

I just looked out of curiosity and there are a lot of mature cheats for BF3. Like a lot… a lot. They’re just really prevalent from what I can tell. You can read this article for background if you don’t believe me.

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/04/02/extravagant-cheating-via-direct-x/

Rather than join the cheaters, I’ll just stop playing for a bit and wait for BF4 beta instead, it’s the sane thing to do. You get the distinct impression that DICE/EA’s attitude toward cheating at this late age of BF3 is basically “fuck it, we’re full time on BF4 anyway”.

Man I really hope they rein some of this in for BF4. That’d be nice.