BF4 campaign kinda sucks

[Stringjam]

FPS games aren't meant to be singleplayer.

Why not? I've had more fun playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than any online FPS.

Nothing wrong with MP FPS, but it gets boring and repetitive so quickly for me. Nothing draws me in like a good single-player story.

Devs love MP, because they don't have to script AI behaviors, weave together an interesting story and develop characters, etc...

Doing those things well is an art, but it is also expensive. I would like to see more resources placed into advanced AI scripting. Fewer NPC's that are far smarter.

 

[waggy]

FPS games aren't meant to be singleplayer.
.

thats just silly and wrong.

 

[Lonyo]

Non-id Software FPS games way back in the early days of PC gamin were always meant to be singleplayer. Wolf3D, Heretic, Duke3d, Shadow Warrior.

Quake 3: Arena was the first FPS that started the downfall of the SP FPS and the upswing of the MP FPS.



I understand that. Good single player games would easily make their money back if they are good. I think a lot of devs do make bad games on purpose, because the online crowd of idiots don't care about bad SP, they only care about online play.



I can't play a multiplayer game for thousands of hours, I can barely play one for 10 before I get bored of it. Except for the original Unreal Tournament. I put many many hours in that game.

I play games to be told a story. I just don't have any interest in going online and shooting at people with no driving purpose behind it. The only non-story SP games I play are racing games.

I agree with you that devs should focus on one aspect or the other. Either make an amazing single player game and it'll sell well, or make a multiplayer only game that I can ignore.

If BF4 didn't have a campaign, I wouldn't have paid even the $20 I did for it.

edit: Forgot to mention Eve Online, I have played that one off and on for the past 4 years or so, and STO. Those are the only online games I play, and STO is a basically a connected SP game.

So feel free to stick to all the SP games that are out there you seem to be forgetting about.
We don't need only SP games. We currently have a very good mix of SP, MP and SP/MP games.
Just because you don't like MP games doesn't mean you have to trash people who prefer MP, or games which are MP focused.
Most people would probably think of the SP campaign as a "bonus" and probably wouldn't care if it didn't exist at all. I spend about 10 minutes in the BF3 SP campaign and a few hundred hours in MP.
Having an SP is a value add that some people may enjoy. You are suggesting devs should take away content. How crazy is that?

 

[TheSlamma]

I don't think BF games should bother with the SP at all. One thing BF3 did right was the coop though, that is fun.

I do wish they would have brought that back and maybe even did 4 player.

There are plenty of awesome SP FPS's out there and still on the way. Thief 4 is lookin really fun, Bioshock Inf, Dishonored were all good SP FPS's recently released.

 

[Northern Lawn]

I play games to be told a story. I just don't have any interest in going online and shooting at people with no driving purpose behind it.

I play single players for the storys as well, even if the story is silly I like it if the game is ok. For instance halo 1 on pc. It reminded me of one of my favorite books Ringworld, so i liked it by association. The first far cry was silly as well, even the actors voice and all those mercs, it was hilarious and the game play was great, part of that was no quick save... added tension.

I think of multi player like a competition, no story at all, just gameplay. It's also a way to procrastinate.

 

[Anteaus]

I'm not usually one of those people who blames every change on consoles, but in this case that's exactly the reason. None of the major PC only Battlefield releases prior to 3 had a campaign. My guess is that EA figured that console players wouldn't pay $60 for a game that had zero offline, single player capability.

Could you imagine if BF4 had been released on consoles with no signal player and then had all those server problems?

I think BF 3/4 had single player purely as a backup for multiplayer and so that they could try and cash in on the type of people who only played Call of Duty for the single player (yes, they do exist). That's my take anyway. I own both BF 3 and 4 and have yet to fire up either single player campaign. I could care less about unlocks.

 

[Childs]

People like you are the reason why good single player story lines are dying and everything is online now. Go back to Xbox live, you dudebro.

Singleplayer doesnt belong in BF, unless its just bots. I would say Dice doesnt even know how to do singleplayer, but some say BC2 singleplayer was alright. In other games I would say the opposite, like Far Cry, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, etc, but BF has always been multiplayer focused. Whats annoying about BF is they now tie multiplayer weapons singleplayer.

 

[Harabec]

I never thought people actually bought BF3/4 for the single player.
I went through 3-4 missions in BF3 before giving up.

On the other hand, I bought Far Cry 3 ($7.5 O_O) yesterday and am enjoying its giant world, 10 hours in.

 

[TheSlamma]

Too much story and you just end up with a Final Fantasy click and read (fallback for people who failed to make it in Hollywood/Tokyo). No thanks, I want to interact and do something.

 

[biostud]

I think it was ok, but generally I'm bored with BF and CoD and similar series, it's all the same. I've just started playing the first Bioshock, and the single player game is orders of magnitudes better tham BF and CoD. For MP I miss Quake 3, Unreal Tournament or Quake Wars type of games.

 

[JumBie]

The battlefield series campaign is a waste of money and resources that could be put to better use in terms of making the game its self more stable and more fun.

Honestly I dont see the point in having a single player experience in a game that everyone already knows is multiplayer dominated. Screw those kids who purchase it to play the campaign, they are irrelevant. Make the game strictly multiplayer and prosper.

 

[Grooveriding]

Played about 5 minutes of BF3's campaign and I've never even loaded up BF4's yet, but I have 100s of hours in the multi player of both. I just don't see BF as a single player franchise and would rather they put the resources they, imo, waste on single player into multi player.

The only modern FPS games with good single player I've played are the Metro series, Crysis and Borderlands. Otherwise they're mostly all crap imo. Incredible single player FPS games are mostly games of the past imo; half life, nolf, fear etc.

 

[KentState]

Looking at my library of games on both Steam and Origin, it looks like there have been a lot of FPS and 3rd person games out over the last few years compared to BF3 in 2011 and BF4 in 2013, perennial CoD, Arma2 and DayZ stand-alone. Seems there is still plenty of options for those that want a SP experience.

 

[Raduque]

So feel free to stick to all the SP games that are out there you seem to be forgetting about.
We don't need only SP games. We currently have a very good mix of SP, MP and SP/MP games.
Just because you don't like MP games doesn't mean you have to trash people who prefer MP, or games which are MP focused.
Most people would probably think of the SP campaign as a "bonus" and probably wouldn't care if it didn't exist at all. I spend about 10 minutes in the BF3 SP campaign and a few hundred hours in MP.
Having an SP is a value add that some people may enjoy. You are suggesting devs should take away content. How crazy is that?

That's just the thing: I don't consider multiplayer "content".

And where were you when Northern Lawn was advocating the same thing, in reverse?

The battlefield series campaign is a waste of money and resources that could be put to better use in terms of making the game its self more stable and more fun.

Honestly I dont see the point in having a single player experience in a game that everyone already knows is multiplayer dominated. Screw those kids who purchase it to play the campaign, they are irrelevant. Make the game strictly multiplayer and prosper.

Honestly, I'd be perfectly fine with it if DICE come out and said "We're not making a single player mode at all. Our next Battlefield game will be purely multiplayer only." And it probably would be amazing because they wouldn't have to divide focus. I also wouldn't give DICE any more of my money, which is ok, because they don't want it anyway.

And for the record, Bad Company 2 had the best SP of the BF games(also for the record, I never finished BF3 because I couldn't get it to run right). Maybe they should just dedicate the Bad Company sub-series to SP and actually make BF the online-only component.

 

[Anteaus]

Some people are getting the impression we are talking about removing content, when in reality we are talking about DICE shoving content into places where it wasn't previously. Battlefield earned it's war stripes from it's multiplayer. If keeping DICE from spending time and money developing single player content hard core BF fans didn't want in the first place means they redirect that money into additional multiplayer content (maps, etc) and/or testing then that's a compromise many of us are willing to make. I'm guessing it's mainly the people who jumped in with BF3 and weren't around for the greatness that was BF1942/DC and BF2 who are the most appalled at us disparaging the single player content. I can respect that though.

Back then, single player meant running an empty map in order to learn how to fly the damn aircraft. Haha.

 

[Maximilian]

Oh come on guys you think if they hadn't tacked on that short campaign they would have spotted and fixed all the bugs before release??

This is EA we're talking about. Money and resources not going towards campaign? Ok that money will stay in the EA coffers, or we will use it to finish multiplayer quicker and release it sooner.

No campaign wouldn't have changed a thing!

 

[Anteaus]

Oh come on guys you think if they hadn't tacked on that short campaign they would have spotted and fixed all the bugs before release??

This is EA we're talking about. Money and resources not going towards campaign? Ok that money will stay in the EA coffers, or we will use it to finish multiplayer quicker and release it sooner.

No campaign wouldn't have changed a thing!

Of course you're right, but these threads are always more fun with contrarian attitudes. Besides, this is EA. No one can truly predict what would come from them in a given situation.

 

[desura]

I mean...literally...the campaign in BF4 is inferior to BF3. There isn't really any creative use of vehicles here, unlike in BF3 where some levels, specifically the jetfighter level and the tank platoon level really showcased the game engine's abilities.

Like, I was stuck for the longest time on a stupid mission where...you're in a tank and have to get from point A to point B, while having to swat away infantry and other vehicles. It wasn't a creative use of vehicles at all...just served to be annoying because tanks are annoying to drive around in games.

 

[LtMikePowelll]

Singleplayer doesnt belong in BF, unless its just bots. I would say Dice doesnt even know how to do singleplayer, but some say BC2 singleplayer was alright. In other games I would say the opposite, like Far Cry, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, etc, but BF has always been multiplayer focused. Whats annoying about BF is they now tie multiplayer weapons singleplayer.

I play the whole campaign the night the game release for the M249 since I hate the starter LMG. I play BF ever since 1942 and I don't really care much about having something to burn time on.

 

[Childs]

No campaign wouldn't have changed a thing!

At least it would have been one less thing to complain about. :biggrin:

 

[will889]

There are folks that get off on the SP aspect the same way you have folks that get off on the MP aspects. Both are gamers, and both deserve good games. When I play MP games I play older games, specifically Urban Terror because it's quick in, a few games and them i'm out. I don't want over-involved BS interactions with a squad and social chit chat in my headset constantly with 'gaming banter' going on sounding like lonely nerds. It's just not my thing. I believe BF4 should have made two separate games one for the SP crowd and yet another for the MP crowd based on the same graphics but different maps. I enjoy being told a story and playing it out I DO NOT enjoy over involvement in MP with BF4 types. It's just not my crowd.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

There are folks that get off on the SP aspect the same way you have folks that get off on the MP aspects. Both are gamers, and both deserve good games. When I play MP games I play older games, specifically Urban Terror because it's quick in, a few games and them i'm out. I don't want over-involved BS interactions with a squad and social chit chat in my headset constantly with 'gaming banter' going on sounding like lonely nerds. It's just not my thing. I believe BF4 should have made two separate games one for the SP crowd and yet another for the MP crowd based on the same graphics but different maps. I enjoy being told a story and playing it out I DO NOT enjoy over involvement in MP with BF4 types. It's just not my crowd.

Not really. If that's what you're looking for then obviously BF4 wasn't the game for you.

 

[Childs]

There are folks that get off on the SP aspect the same way you have folks that get off on the MP aspects. Both are gamers, and both deserve good games. When I play MP games I play older games, specifically Urban Terror because it's quick in, a few games and them i'm out. I don't want over-involved BS interactions with a squad and social chit chat in my headset constantly with 'gaming banter' going on sounding like lonely nerds. It's just not my thing. I believe BF4 should have made two separate games one for the SP crowd and yet another for the MP crowd based on the same graphics but different maps. I enjoy being told a story and playing it out I DO NOT enjoy over involvement in MP with BF4 types. It's just not my crowd.

You might like the recent Medal of Honor games.

 

[Maximilian]

At least it would have been one less thing to complain about. :biggrin:

Tru dat :biggrin:

 

[Fire&Blood]

It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, making a good SP game doesn't imply that MP has to suck or the other way around. Yet games with both good SP & MP are hard to come by.

Should DICE concede and not bother with singleplayer? If they take that route, BF might become a F2P or a monthly subscription grinder MMO. On the other hand, it's clear there is a huge disparity between their SP & MP despite the obvious effort to make a good SP mode.