A Noob Plays Battlefield: Day 7
“AHHHH THESE GRAPHICS ARE SO GOOOD!”
One of my favorite upgrades over the Call of Duty series other than the presence of vehicles is the destructible environments. They’re nothing crazy mind-blowing in terms of physics, but the ability to blow open a wall with an RPG or tank shell, or demolish cover with a gatling gun is extremely gratifying. I was doing my best to control a helicopter once when I careened into the side of a building. I thought I was dead, but I crashed right through it, and crawled from the smoldering wreckage alive inside. Pretty damn cool.
I haven’t played much Rush since last we spoke, and I’m going to give that more of a go this week as I hear it’s pretty fun once you figure it out. Rather, I decided to see what Battlfield’s take on Team Deathmatch, the staple Call of Duty mode, would be.
I believe the operative word is “shitshow.”
The mind boggles at how much of a clusterf*ck Deathmatch is in this game. They’ve taken every level and reduced it to about an eighth of its original size. They’ve taken out all the vehicles, and each match regresses into either two sides shooting it out on opposite sides of the map like they’re playing dodgeball, or on the tiniest levels, running around like chickens with their heads cut off spraying bullets randomly at anything that moves.
Spawn killing has been a big problem in many of the smaller Call of Duty maps, where you spawn in a location and immediately are killed by an enemy, but it’s taken to a whole new level here in Battlefield. When each match starts, every player is spawned in a random location, meaning you can often be five feet away from an enemy one second into the game. It’s a matter of who runs out in front of who first, and it’s unclear why they wouldn’t spawn the two teams on respective sides of the map to avoid this.
The guys in the middle and on the right are on different teams and just haven’t spotted each other yet.
But it gets worse. I’ve been in a full out sprint and had an enemy spawn directly in front of me so that I literally had to stop because I ran directly into them. I’ve been killed by three enemies in a high up fortified position in a building, only to have the game spawn me on top of their catwalk, letting me kill all three of them as their backs were turned. It’s madness, and I don’t understand why the maps have to be cut down this much, why you can’t use vehicles, and how someone released this mode with spawning as bad as it is.
The only real reason I’ve played Team Deathmatch is to get quick unlocks for guns, as unlike Conquest, where the closest enemy can often be a mile away, you can kill someone about once every twenty seconds if you just stay in one spot and wait for them to run by on the absurdly tiny map.
Deathmatch ridiculousness aside, I really am enjoying the game, and I think ultimately more so than I have with past Call of Duty installments. I think the overall “feel” of the Modern Warfare games, like how it feels, looks and sounds when you shoot and kill, might be a bit better, but with vehicles, classes, destructible environments and strategic game modes, there’s a lot more to like.
But what makes Battlefield better I think is what’s missing. I really don’t miss killstreaks, which were often autodeaths you couldn’t do anything about. There’s nothing like running along and getting nailed in the back of the head by a predator missile out of nowhere, or gunned down by a autopiloted harrier jet, AC-130 or eaten by a pack of wild dogs. Also, there aren’t any incredibly annoying perks or weapons that I’ve seen as of yet. I’m not tripping over claymores every ten damn feet, I’m not watching someone lunge up ten stairs to one hit kill me with a knife, I’m not getting blown up by randomly fired noob toob grenades in my direction. When I die, there’s usually something I could have done to prevent it.
That’s all for now, and the next time I’ll do a Battlefield journal, I’ll have Modern Warfare 3 to compare it to.
Recon’s good for setting up a spawn point behind enemy lines, but other than that it’s mainly a sniper class. Sometimes I’ll equip a shotgun and rush to the furthest objective as quick as possible just to place the spawn point.
When it comes to jets & helicopters I’m not really sure what to tell you, at first both were a pain in the ass, but then when I finally got the hang of helicopters it’s probably the most fun I’ve had in a while. Try to get with a friend in the co-op helicopter mission, that way you can actually pilot the helicopter without having to worry about being shot down inside of 1 minute. You may fail the mission a couple of times, but that’s to be expected if you dont know how to fly at all. Basically it’s all about small movements at first, slowly pitching your helo to whatever angle you need to get to and then from there hopefully you can figure out the controls from there. Co-Op mode is the shit when you play with a friend, try it out.
I was pretty familiar with the jets because of Battlefield 1943’s Air Superiority mode, so I guess the best advice is to get that game, seeing as there wont be as many people there to shoot you down, but it’s still gonna take some time. I know that seems a bit extreme, buying an arcade game simply to learn how to fly, but it pays off in the end.
As for the connection issues I’ve had a few of the same. Sqaud memebers dissapearing altogether, only me getting into a match, being on opposite teams, but that’s about it. I havent had the no HUD problem, the no reticle problem or even the additional weapon problem yet, and I hope it stays like that. First thing I did when I got the game was install, so maybe that helped?
Here’s a link to some other user tips that we’ve been throwing around on the IMDb message boards: http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000053/flat/190496886
If you ever need assistance my gamertag is TheDukeOfDookie.
I’m inordinately baffled by how many glitches and bugs you’ve encountered. Granted, I’ve only played a grand total of like 4 hours due to excessive schoolwork (fuck UofM triple majors…), but I’ve NEVER encountered ANY problems with joining servers, nor have I experienced in-game bugs.
I really hope it works out for you soon, because every match I’ve been in I’ve had a grand old time.
Also, my gamertag is SuperSalsaShark. I don’t really have many friends who play the game on XBL. Let’s play.
i love how people complain about the killstreaks and claymors and how in this special game “When I die, there’s usually something I could have done to prevent it.”. if you were half way good at mw2, you would have had a class with coldnblooded and a stinger and shoot down any killstreak the minute it killed you once. If there were claymores everywhere, either shiled it or marathon through them, not to mention scrambler pro to delay them or flash bangs to disarm them temporarily.
sounds to me like BF3 is marginal, with some pro’s and cons. i will wait for mw3, to hope its a blend of the playing style and feel of mw2 with the smart game play fixes of fail ops.
the choppers are cool, but you really have to think when you are flying. half the time ill just be chillin and forget yaw ing and rolling and just go at the ground sideways in a blaze of glory.
I found that the controls were easiest for me on the jet and helicopter when I set them both to Legendary Southpaw. Give it a whirl, might work. It allows you to roll with the right joystick and pitch and yaw with the left, effectively allowing you to slightly adjust the angle of your turn without changing your pitch.
It’s fun when it wants to work, but it’s damn near unplayable on the multiplayer side. My single player works fine. Instead I’m plagued by this non-sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxJolKn1dRM
At least one of those screenshots is from Socom and not BF3
“…I’m not getting blown up by randomly fired noob toob grenades in my direction.”
Obviously no one on your server has unlocked Support’s mortar yet. Then you’ll remember what “noob toob” means…
Hey, so I’ve logged 20 hours so far in Battlefield, though I did not get it opening day (got it the weekend it came out instead) and I gotta say (in my defense, I am freshly graduated & unemployed and there are only so many waking hours I can spend applying to jobs before I don’t remember if I’ve already applied and I’m a dick for sending my 9th application to the same position).
And I’ve had maybe… two or three glitches, none of them game-enders and not really glitches either.
-I’ve had the game freeze once, but I think that may have been more my part for playing music and playing at the same time–that always ends badly for me (using the new, black & slim X360 here by the way). BUT, my friends have had it happen way more often, I think the reason may be that I am a former PC gamer, so I have a habit of installing the Xbox games to my HD always (more to stop that bleeding runway noise that emanates from the Xbox than for the performance boost though). See if that helps you?
—Also, are you trying to join specific servers or do you just do quick match? Because I use the latter to no problems.
-The other issues, and the only repeat one I’ve noticed is I’ll sometimes lose connection to servers (like 1/20 times) BUT, it ain’t no biggie because unlike CoD I’ve noticed that it saves what I’ve done up to that point in the game and any progress I’ve made (note that it does not resume with the same stats/points if I re-join the server though) is saved.. which is great because many a time in CoD the host is a total butthole and quits (by the way, how annoying was that?) which either resulted in a host transfer (meaning someone else got the BS advantage of being the host and the extra reaction time) or the game would crash and my party of friends would all get booted, nothing would be saved, and we’d have to all join up together again (more annoying than you think once it would get up to like 6-8 of us playing together).
-Speaking of, I will acknowledge that in BF3 it’s difficult to get everyone on the same “squad”, much less the same squad, and I think this is a by-product of the ridiculous amount of users vs the number of official servers. I don’t know about you (because I don’t know what coast you’re on, but I feel like you’re also East Coast) but I rarely ever see a game with more than one slot open, much less 3 or more. BUT, I have to say, I don’t mind the game refusing to pair me and my friends together because it creates a fun additional twist to the game where we’re seeing who can rack up the most points and more importantly, the most knife kills among ourselves–so it always raises the game another level when you’re sneaking up on someone and you think it’s your friend or you’re watching yourself getting stabbed and pray that it’s not your best friend shanking you in that alley because you’ll absolutely hear it from him in a second.
-The Recon class is what I primarily use and I love it because you can’t snipe in games like call of duty because the levels are so small by comparison but the Recon class is more than just sniping from a distance, it’s Recon after all, so mark targets, vehicles and opponents by pressing the back button (select, if you’re old school) on your controller to mark enemies, both for your teammates and yourself so that if you do miss that headshot you can track them as they run away.
-As for your love of C4, wait until you realize you can stick it onto the front of a HUMVEE, drive that thing towards a group of enemies and hop out well before it gets there and see the momentum carry it into them and you pull that trigger. (it’s a trick I’ve used since battlefield 1942 on the PC)
-I agree with you on planes and helicopters, because it sucks you have to unlock such basic things like IR flares (or you know, missiles for the jets) because it means that once you get locked onto you’re screwed and in the case of the jets it’s more than just slightly difficult to advance in the kit set when all you have is a machine gun attachment and you’re flying at 400mph (just a guess).
-That’s about all I can think of for now to disagree/agree/comment about. Hit me up on Live if you want someone to run with that has a little more experience with the franchise: Beardrian
PS
To the guy above me with the Mortar comment, yeah but you’re a very easy target when you’re using that thing, especially for stabbings.. mmm I think that’s the only reason I won’t be purchasing CoD this year, I’ve convinced all my friends to get this game because of the uhh… Dogtag collection…`
Your first problem like alot of Americans is you use a buggy as shit Xbox360. Why not buy a good console like the PS3 that doesn’t charge you to play the games you already own online (fuck you microsoft). Also I have only owned 1 Ps3 while I have owned 3 Xbox360’s before just giving my last one to a friend without ever plugging it in because its fucking shit. Also the controls are fucked on the 360, its like they don’t want you to ever play it.
I am almost certain that most of your problems would go away if you used a good console (hell the Wii is better than a 360). Once you have done this (and don’t get charged to play online anymore which is one of the biggest scams ever and why only Americans fell for it I have no idea).
From Ric The Real Stooge
http://dailystooge.com/
WELCOME TO THE STOOGE REVOLUTION, Unless you use a 360 then WELCOME TO RED RINGS OF DEATH (if it hasn’t happened to you yet its coming)
All I can say is that this game is best on PC. I realize it’s expensive, but it looks amazing, just like the screenshots, and it plays very well.
The mortars are annoying, but you have to work with your team to flank to take him down, he is just sitting there.
The game is so much better than MW. I will stick with BF3.
Playing Battlefield 3 on a console is like driving a Lamborghini with the engine of a Prius.
@ Ric
Fanboy it up more. Havent had a problem with BF3 on 360 at all, also, my credit card information is safe.
Crazy how that works.
@J5
Is your credit card information with Microsoft? Then you’re not safe at all. They’re going to make you pay forever.