**OFFICIAL** AT Battlefield 3 FAQ and News Thread

[Childs]

Obviously you never played counter-strike, lol. Imagine the frustration of BF3, but every time you die you have to wait ~3-5 minutes before respawning.

Oh yeah, and if you die, instead of respawning with your preferred weapon e.g. an M4, you have to use just a .44 magnum and hope you manage to kill someone to get a better weapon because your team loses every round and you have no money.

Its funny, but at the time that wait didnt bother me. With the new one, even with the rounds being 2 mins I think its still too long.

And losing a weapon never bothered me. For the longest time I only buy the MP5 or deagle, and would just take someone elses AK or AWP when I killed them.

It was so fun pinning the last guy down and have the team kick all the weapons back to spawn. Hiding only gave the other team more time to stock up.

I am totally with you on this. I played BF3 religiously (i.e. almost nightly) until Close Quarters came out (which I didn't buy). I was just getting too worked up with this game. No fault of the game itself (well, except for obvious balance issues) - the competitive nature of it is mostly what got me raging. Made it hard to go to sleep.

lol I hear ya. I dont go to bed on a loss, or at least a poor k/d game. But its not really BF3 specific...I rage in every competitive game. If you aint ragin you aint tryin!

 

[moonbogg]

Eurogamer.net - Battlefield 3: Armored Kill Review

I think I just creamed myself.

 

[acx]

The review mentions most of the action taking place in the skies. I hope that doesn't mean all the ground vehicles are obsolete in the face of a couple of skilled pilots.

 

[QuantumPion]

The review mentions most of the action taking place in the skies. I hope that doesn't mean all the ground vehicles are obsolete in the face of a couple of skilled pilots.

Me too. That is what killed BF2 for me. An ace pilot could single-handedly win the match vs the entire other team.

 

[moonbogg]

Me too. That is what killed BF2 for me. An ace pilot could single-handedly win the match vs the entire other team.

They should make the bombs more effective, but then make the planes land in order to reload. Guns run out of ammo but planes have magical reloading elves onboard?

 

[chucky2]

They should just:

1.) Make vehicles run out of ammo and need to get back to the main base, or, a held objective, to reload. And not just the objective in general, but a specific point. Jets need to land on the runway.

2.) Make air vehicles actually fly at the speeds they really fly at. The problem with the jets is that they are allowed to flow way too slow. They need to make the airspace much more large, and have jets handle like absolute sh1t when they get below normal real life speeds. This would make jets actually be like jets and not attack choppers.

If you do these two things, no matter if you've got a stud or not in a jet or tank, you've evened out the game a whole lot. They're still good and can still make the other team bleed, but, it's not a one person show.

Chuck

 

[moonbogg]

They should just:

1.) Make vehicles run out of ammo and need to get back to the main base, or, a held objective, to reload. And not just the objective in general, but a specific point. Jets need to land on the runway.

2.) Make air vehicles actually fly at the speeds they really fly at. The problem with the jets is that they are allowed to flow way too slow. They need to make the airspace much more large, and have jets handle like absolute sh1t when they get below normal real life speeds. This would make jets actually be like jets and not attack choppers.

If you do these two things, no matter if you've got a stud or not in a jet or tank, you've evened out the game a whole lot. They're still good and can still make the other team bleed, but, it's not a one person show.

Chuck

They have to ditch a lot of realism to maintain balance. If you had realistic jets, you wouldn't be able to hit anything without crashing into the ground. Also, hitting a bunch of hyperactive, bunny hopping noobs would be impossible. Real people are much more stationary and don't dart in random directions at full running speed. Try flying a jet at a steep angle toward the ground while being close enough to see your target, and not crash.
If the jets flew at full speed you would cross the entire map in an instant. Real jet behavior is for a different kind of game, like a war simulator. BF3 is too much of a video game.

 

[destrekor]

They should just:

1.) Make vehicles run out of ammo and need to get back to the main base, or, a held objective, to reload. And not just the objective in general, but a specific point. Jets need to land on the runway.

2.) Make air vehicles actually fly at the speeds they really fly at. The problem with the jets is that they are allowed to flow way too slow. They need to make the airspace much more large, and have jets handle like absolute sh1t when they get below normal real life speeds. This would make jets actually be like jets and not attack choppers.

If you do these two things, no matter if you've got a stud or not in a jet or tank, you've evened out the game a whole lot. They're still good and can still make the other team bleed, but, it's not a one person show.

Chuck

Which would require absolutely insane map sizes. If map sizes remained the same for ground units, the airspace would have to extend beyond for so far that ultimately, the available ground territory would be like 10%, if that, of the available airspace. And that's just enough space to give jets breathing room to maneuver and dog fight with some respect to realism, though still severely limited.
That makes it difficult for ADA, SAMs (GTAMs) and other anti-air defenses to actually do all that much.

It's really difficult to incorporate 32-64 players onto a realistic battle scene AND incorporate modern jets in the picture, AND give the ground a fighting chance against the air, without making it feel like you might be able to go for 15-30 minutes without seeing anyone in the game if you ventured out across the map.

Yes, it would be awesome, but I just don't see how they can possibly make it feasible with current limitations and still provide the intensity for short-duration matches that they currently have on offer. Which is likely how they arrived at the current state of affairs as it is.
It was the same with BF: Vietnam, Desert Combat (though it was a mod), BF2, etc etc.

To keep Battlefield feeling like Battlefield, jets just cannot be made to behave 100% realistically.

 

[moonbogg]

I read some stuff about BF3 moving toward a more Esports friendly format with battlerecorder and spectator mode. I would love this so much words cannot describe. Too bad it won't happen. Spectator mode and an easy way of recording matches would solve a lot of the false hacking accusations that are so frequently made and would discourage blatant admin abuse since the players can confirm if the person is hacking or not. Damn, that would be so nice.

 

[llee]

The jets in this game need to be fixed. The skill gap between the top 1% and top .1% of pilots is night and day, and any patch that increases jet livability has an exponentially positive effect towards the so-called Aces. It's simply unacceptable when one level 100 pilot can shut down the entire air force of the opposing team.

Decrease the effective radius of flares to 100m
Decrease the duration that flares are active to two seconds
Make jets and helicopters equipped with the Stealth specialization invisible to Air Radar
Change Air Radar so that it can only detect air vehicles in a front cone of 120 degrees
Decrease jet maximum health by 50%
Increase AA vehicle primary weapon random spread by 50%
Decrease AA vehicle primary weapon range by 33%
Remove the passive ground vehicle lock-on capability of jet rockets
Increase jet stall speed to 300kph
Increase gravity's effect on jets by 200%
Make the ideal turning speed of jets more forgiving:

330kph - 10.0 g
325/335 - 9.0 g
320/340 - 8.0 g
315/345 - 7.0 g
310/350 - 6.0 g

 

[NikolaeVarius]

The jets in this game need to be fixed. The skill gap between the top 1% and top .1% of pilots is night and day, and any patch that increases jet livability has an exponentially positive effect towards the so-called Aces. It's simply unacceptable when one level 100 pilot can shut down the entire air force of the opposing team.

Decrease the effective radius of flares to 100m
Decrease the duration that flares are active to two seconds
Make jets and helicopters equipped with the Stealth specialization invisible to Air Radar
Change Air Radar so that it can only detect air vehicles in a front cone of 120 degrees
Decrease jet maximum health by 50%
Increase AA vehicle primary weapon random spread by 50%
Decrease AA vehicle primary weapon range by 33%
Remove the passive ground vehicle lock-on capability of jet rockets
Increase jet stall speed to 300kph
Increase gravity's effect on jets by 200%
Make the ideal turning speed of jets more forgiving:

330kph - 10.0 g
325/335 - 9.0 g
320/340 - 8.0 g
315/345 - 7.0 g
310/350 - 6.0 g

Or they could actually reintroduce AA at capture points. Like in BF2.

 

[Anubis]

They should just:


2.) Make air vehicles actually fly at the speeds they really fly at. The problem with the jets is that they are allowed to flow way too slow. They need to make the airspace much more large, and have jets handle like absolute sh1t when they get below normal real life speeds. This would make jets actually be like jets and not attack choppers.

If you do these two things, no matter if you've got a stud or not in a jet or tank, you've evened out the game a whole lot. They're still good and can still make the other team bleed, but, it's not a one person show.

Chuck

seriously that needs to be done, jets should not be able to STOP mid air and jkust coast . they should fall out of the sky, also they need to actually turn like real jets, which cant turn on a dime doing mach 1

 

[NikolaeVarius]

seriously that needs to be done, jets should not be able to STOP mid air and jkust coast . they should fall out of the sky, also they need to actually turn like real jets, which cant turn on a dime doing mach 1

BF2 had planes stall. Only plane that can coast is the F35 from vectored thrust.

The planes in the game don't go anywhere near mach 1

 

[DeadFred]

All jets should be banned, problem solved.........

......for us ground pounders at least

 

[Canbacon]

All jets should be banned, problem solved.........

......for us ground pounders at least

*High Five* Ground pounders unite!

 

[Childs]

All jets should be banned, problem solved.........

......for us ground pounders at least

:thumbsup: And tanks too!

 

[Arkaign]

BF2 was absolutely insanely stupid once people starting owning from the skies. Literally ALL of the top 10,000 players or so were jet pilots, and could go like 130-0 round after round against the completely useless AA. That's why Karkand was so popular, you could have a reasonable ground battle without being relentlessly destroyed by jet cowards.

At least in BF3 you can have a reasonable ground game even with some pretty good pilots up there. It's best when there's a good balance of air power fighting it out above, and incredibly annoying when your side has no air power at all. Nothing like running through the woods in Caspian under the trees only to be instakilled by some douchebag in a jet. Jets should be focused on fighting other jets, helis, and land vehicles, not doing 20mph and strafing infantry that wouldn't even be as large as ants to them.

Other than that, it would be fantastic to have a limited lives and vehicle spawn setup. It would really boost teamplay. Even more awesome would be to combine that mode (3 spawns per player, 2 land vehicle spawns, 1 air vehicle spawns total) with a ratio system for classes, so you don't end up with 14 players out of 16 being engineers or something retarded like that.

 

[Arkaign]

:thumbsup: And tanks too!

There's a big difference though. A smart couple of infantry can take down a tank pretty easily (particularly recon + jav mix!). Unless the jet pilot is absolutely incompetent, there's not jack shit any ground unit can do to bring them down. Even the AA can't bring down a top-level jet pilot, they're too fast and can get out of range quickly. Of course a good/great AA driver can knock down jets that make stupid mistakes (usually charging the AA tank, or too many slow strafing runs within range of the AA on other targets).

I don't mind jets that much though, mainly because they're not nearly the insanely OP bullshit that was in BF2.

Anyway, tanks are slow, turn even slower, are slow to repair, and can be knocked out at very good ranges. Not much for anyone to complain about there unless you just suck (and I know for a fact you're a great player).

/tanker

 

[NikolaeVarius]

BF2 was absolutely insanely stupid once people starting owning from the skies. Literally ALL of the top 10,000 players or so were jet pilots, and could go like 130-0 round after round against the completely useless AA. That's why Karkand was so popular, you could have a reasonable ground battle without being relentlessly destroyed by jet cowards.

At least in BF3 you can have a reasonable ground game even with some pretty good pilots up there. It's best when there's a good balance of air power fighting it out above, and incredibly annoying when your side has no air power at all. Nothing like running through the woods in Caspian under the trees only to be instakilled by some douchebag in a jet. Jets should be focused on fighting other jets, helis, and land vehicles, not doing 20mph and strafing infantry that wouldn't even be as large as ants to them.

Other than that, it would be fantastic to have a limited lives and vehicle spawn setup. It would really boost teamplay. Even more awesome would be to combine that mode (3 spawns per player, 2 land vehicle spawns, 1 air vehicle spawns total) with a ratio system for classes, so you don't end up with 14 players out of 16 being engineers or something retarded like that.

The top player on BF2 Stats

http://www.bf2stats.net/player/129191924/

He has more kills on the ground than on the air, and his favorite map is karkand.

You might want to not use the word "literally" until you realize what it means.

Jets are part of the game. They would be pointless if they couldn't get kills. Never had a problem with jets in BF2. Just bring back AA in every base, do away with the retarded AA placement in BF3 done by blind devs.

There is a reason that Gulf of Oman was one of the most popular maps of all time. Even the Demo still has servers running. Was a great combination of air, ground, and sea warfare.

 

[coldmeat]

The top player on BF2 Stats

http://www.bf2stats.net/player/129191924/

Damn, that guy has played almost 6 hours a day, every day since the game was released.

edit: says enlisted in 2008, that would put him at almost 9 hrs/day.

 

[Childs]

The top player on BF2 Stats

http://www.bf2stats.net/player/129191924/

He has more kills on the ground than on the air, and his favorite map is karkand.

You might want to not use the word "literally" until you realize what it means.

Jets are part of the game. They would be pointless if they couldn't get kills. Never had a problem with jets in BF2. Just bring back AA in every base, do away with the retarded AA placement in BF3 done by blind devs.

There is a reason that Gulf of Oman was one of the most popular maps of all time. Even the Demo still has servers running. Was a great combination of air, ground, and sea warfare.

15K hours, only a 1.8 KD. Number 2 only has 1.5 KD. I think over time grinders have supplanted the top players.

 

[Arkaign]

The top player on BF2 Stats

http://www.bf2stats.net/player/129191924/

He has more kills on the ground than on the air, and his favorite map is karkand.

You might want to not use the word "literally" until you realize what it means.

Jets are part of the game. They would be pointless if they couldn't get kills. Never had a problem with jets in BF2. Just bring back AA in every base, do away with the retarded AA placement in BF3 done by blind devs.

There is a reason that Gulf of Oman was one of the most popular maps of all time. Even the Demo still has servers running. Was a great combination of air, ground, and sea warfare.

How would that level of player remotely classify as a top player? His K/D ratio is terrible, I wouldn't consider him anything other than someone who has played waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much BF2.

When I say 'elite players', I'm talking about the guys who single-handedly can wipe the entire enemy team out like it's nothing. If you played ANY amount of BF2, you know what I'm talking about, or you're just lying. Any map with Jets + a good pilot = total death for everyone else. The AA's range was completely ineffective, you could be shot right out of it before you were able to see the enemy, let alone get a lock on it with a good enough pilot.

THIS is the kind of guy all BF2 vets know full well :

http://www.bf2stats.net/player/92125594/

Air Combat record :

15,004 Kills, 457 Deaths (almost certainly most of those deaths came from other elite pilots, as noted, the AA was worthless in BF2).

 

[Arkaign]

15K hours, only a 1.8 KD. Number 2 only has 1.5 KD. I think over time grinders have supplanted the top players.

Yeah I have no idea how that guy was considered good. I mean if you're going to just count total score or whatever, that's just a measure of how long someone is going to keep playing the game. The worst player in the game, even if they got one kill / capture every 50 rounds, could eventually be very highly ranked if they play the crap for years on end.

Good players are measured in many ways (although lies, damned lies, and statistics, things can be deceiving, and nothing is perfect in assessing this kind of things) :

KDR
Score Per Minute
Number of MVP Medals divided by hours
Flag Capture / Defending Awards divided by hours

Things like total score, total kills, or any real kind of accumulative score is kind of bullshit. If you have a guy who is constantly pulling 50-5 matches, but has only played for 50 hours, he will look vastly inferior by that stupid metric when compared to someone who constantly pulls 20-5, but has played for 850 hours.

 

[Destiny]

joined the korean apple clone club with SLU and I eh?(and destiny was using one too...)

I got the American Apple Clone after giving back my friend's Microcenter one = Nixeus Vue 27" (NX-VUE27)

All jets should be banned, problem solved.........

......for us ground pounders at least

*High Five* Ground pounders unite!

But, I like crashing my Jets and Chopters into Ground Pounders... what the heck I'm going to join the ground pounders club! :thumbsup:

 

[chucky2]

They have to ditch a lot of realism to maintain balance. If you had realistic jets, you wouldn't be able to hit anything without crashing into the ground. Also, hitting a bunch of hyperactive, bunny hopping noobs would be impossible. Real people are much more stationary and don't dart in random directions at full running speed. Try flying a jet at a steep angle toward the ground while being close enough to see your target, and not crash.
If the jets flew at full speed you would cross the entire map in an instant. Real jet behavior is for a different kind of game, like a war simulator. BF3 is too much of a video game.

Which would require absolutely insane map sizes. If map sizes remained the same for ground units, the airspace would have to extend beyond for so far that ultimately, the available ground territory would be like 10%, if that, of the available airspace. And that's just enough space to give jets breathing room to maneuver and dog fight with some respect to realism, though still severely limited.
That makes it difficult for ADA, SAMs (GTAMs) and other anti-air defenses to actually do all that much.

It's really difficult to incorporate 32-64 players onto a realistic battle scene AND incorporate modern jets in the picture, AND give the ground a fighting chance against the air, without making it feel like you might be able to go for 15-30 minutes without seeing anyone in the game if you ventured out across the map.

Yes, it would be awesome, but I just don't see how they can possibly make it feasible with current limitations and still provide the intensity for short-duration matches that they currently have on offer. Which is likely how they arrived at the current state of affairs as it is.
It was the same with BF: Vietnam, Desert Combat (though it was a mod), BF2, etc etc.

To keep Battlefield feeling like Battlefield, jets just cannot be made to behave 100% realistically.

Well, the air portion would be much larger, they'd have to wait until they were in weapons range (both theirs and their opponents) to actually fire on ground targets. Yes, they'd have much less time to actually kill the ground guys: Exactly as it is in real life. In real life jets don't cruise around at 200kts picking off guys on the ground at will, etc etc. I have no problem if the jet guys are having to move so quick their air to ground guy kill ratio is 1/10 of what it is now. For ground vehicles/structures they'll have an easier time obviously, as they'll be bigger and easier to roll in on.

I just want to see air vehicles used as air vehicles should really be used, not how they're able to be used in the game.

Chuck