Battlefield 3

[AdmiralViscen]

Why did I supposedly get a dozen dog tags and I can't use any of them?

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Why did I supposedly get a dozen dog tags and I can't use any of them?

Edit your profile on the battlelog site

[Stoney Mason]

Two minor gripes.

Why didn't that fix the issue where you can't quit in the post game lobby. You have to wait for the next game to load before you can quit like in Bad Company 2.

Also I wish I could create discreet custom class slots like in COD instead of always having to muck with the options during my wait for respawn screen. I would like to set up a few discreet classes I could switch to by just scrolling and not having to fiddle with that sub menu.

[fistfulofmetal]

The battlelog site.totally works.on my phone. Awesome.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

my origin: ceebeegeebee

[AdmiralViscen]

Two minor gripes.

Why didn't that fix the issue where you can't quit in the post game lobby. You have to wait for the next game to load before you can quit like in Bad Company 2.

Also I wish I could create discreet custom class slots like in COD instead of always having to muck with the options during my wait for respawn screen. I would like to set up a few discreet classes I could switch to by just scrolling and not having to fiddle with that sub menu.

Agreed, especially since the classes are all muddled now.

[Stoney Mason]

lulz. Worked for me last night and earlier today but now that I try to play when people are getting home, can't connect to EA servers and stuck on loading screen.


What a surprise.   

edit: seems to be working now. Maybe EA learned from past battlefield launches.

2nd edit: And down again 

[AdmiralViscen]

I played the game for an hour and experienced 2 dropped games during loading and a hard freeze of the console. the party system is shit btw, even Resistance 2 was better. Customizing your character is kind of a pain in the ass too. Aside from the lack of presets, the game has lots of "cool" visual noise that occurs when you switch guns and it takes too many buttons to do it.

[Stoney Mason]

the party system is shit btw,

Yeah I'm noticing that now. It's splitting up the parties on separate teams and its hard to figure out how to join specific squads.

[AdmiralViscen]

I cannot join a fucking match without a server error. Fuck this piece of shit.

[Eel O'Brian]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/25/psa-xbox-360-battlefield-3-servers-are-down-ea-aware/

[fistfulofmetal]

this is bad company 2 with battlefield 2 style games.

pretty much exactly what i wanted.

also knifing is much better in retail. gonna see if i can get to 1k knife kills again

[fistfulofmetal]

single player seems ok.

i really enjoyed the plane mission up until it went all COD4 ac-130 mission on me.

probably won't bother with it much more.

[Stoney Mason]

Played a healthy number of games tonight. The server performance was off and on. Sometimes the servers were down. Sometimes it would dump us from games etc. I assuming this is the typical launch day jitters that every big mp game has but still after all EA's talk about how the beta was specifically to address these issues its annoying.

The party system is also just as borked as it was in the beta. Sometimes the people in your party don't get into the game. Often they are put on the opposite team. They almost never are put in the same squad as you. Another thing that EA claimed the beta would fix and didn't. And leaving and joining squads to get with your party members is confusing. weird menu layout there.

As far as the gameplay its as enjoyable as I expected when everything is working. The game has a different feel to it than bad company. I kinda think I like the maps from BC 2 better though. The maps in BF 3 are really uneven. Some are good and then some just don't work imo. It's also very easy to spawn trap on some of them.

Now I just have to work at unlocked all the stuff. I feel like I'm not really playing the game for real until I have all the stuff I need for the classes. In that sense the unlock system is more annoying than in a cod game because the cod unlocks feel like extra. Some of the battlefield classes are worthless until you unlock some of the stuff you need.

[cool breeze]

what the fuck.  I thought not letting you bind mouse buttons (and other bindings) was a dumb, stupid, dumb glitch from the beta.  but it's actually intended? what?

I feel like I'm missing something here.  this can't be right. 

[cool breeze]

wow, single player is really call of duty.  I'm supposed to stand in this parking lot and shoot arabs or something.  I notice they're all jumping over this one wall, so I walk around the wall and a message pops up saying "DON'T LOOK BACK HERE OR DIE IN 5 SECONDS."  I go back, and the arabs are still jumping over.  Like, why don't I just shoot them before they jump over the wall, right? but no, it's sacred back there.  it's not even like Call of Duty where you get shot.  Why would you even make a way to go back there?

[cool breeze]

I don't know if this is a good thing, but I like that enemies speak farsi.

man, this is a really pretty game

running high settings on an msi gtx 460 cyclone, getting anywhere from mid-70s to mid-40s fps, never drops below 45, averages in the mid-50s

might try ultra next just to see my sept 2010 purchase become slowly obsolete

I tried ultra on my 560ti and it ran at around 25 to 30 fps compared to about 60+ on high with 2xAA.  Looks incredible but I prefer the smoothness.

also tried it on low for kicks.  it actually looks pretty good on low.

[fistfulofmetal]

what the fuck.  I thought not letting you bind mouse buttons (and other bindings) was a dumb, stupid, dumb glitch from the beta.  but it's actually intended? what?

I feel like I'm missing something here.  this can't be right. 

there are three columns for control mapping. keyboard, mouse, and joystick. you have to map the control under the "mouse" column.

i mapped melee to middle mouse click.

[cool breeze]

what the fuck.  I thought not letting you bind mouse buttons (and other bindings) was a dumb, stupid, dumb glitch from the beta.  but it's actually intended? what?

I feel like I'm missing something here.  this can't be right. 

there are three columns for control mapping. keyboard, mouse, and joystick. you have to map the control under the "mouse" column.

i mapped melee to middle mouse click.

yeah, I think it has something to do with raw mouse input (?).  when I turned it off, it let me bind it.  still can't freely bind the mouse wheel but it's good enough.

I don't know if it's a Frostbite 2 thing, but I really like how changing the graphical settings happens instantly in real time.  Most other games take a few seconds or you're required to restart.

[Brehvolution]

wow, single player is really call of duty.  I'm supposed to stand in this parking lot and shoot arabs or something.  I notice they're all jumping over this one wall, so I walk around the wall and a message pops up saying "DON'T LOOK BACK HERE OR DIE IN 5 SECONDS."  I go back, and the arabs are still jumping over.  Like, why don't I just shoot them before they jump over the wall, right? but no, it's sacred back there.  it's not even like Call of Duty where you get shot.  Why would you even make a way to go back there?

[Raban]

wow, single player is really call of duty.  I'm supposed to stand in this parking lot and shoot arabs or something.  I notice they're all jumping over this one wall, so I walk around the wall and a message pops up saying "DON'T LOOK BACK HERE OR DIE IN 5 SECONDS."  I go back, and the arabs are still jumping over.  Like, why don't I just shoot them before they jump over the wall, right? but no, it's sacred back there.  it's not even like Call of Duty where you get shot.  Why would you even make a way to go back there?

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

when this gAme works right it is literally amazing. I was standing in the middle of a road when all of a sudden two of my team planes crashed alongside me and then a enemy helicopter did. I somehow managed to live. I was like "HOLY SHIT THIS GAME RULES" then I got ran over by a jeep.


BATTLEFIELD

[Stoney Mason]

Servers were solid today. This evening. Played a lot. Had a ton of fun. I think FatalT joined my squad a couple of times. I tried one of the co-op missions. Its simple stuff but I actually liked it. I prefer it to the campaign.

[cool breeze]

when the reviews called this single player mediocre, I guess that's coming from people who love Call of Duty campaigns.  BF3 feels like a parody of the Call of Duty games.  I can't believe it's actually serious.  BC2 was linear but opened up shoots outs to feel different.  BF3 is a few steps above Gameloft in shamelessly copying other games.

The jet mission goes like--
Interrogator guy: "what do you know about blah blah"
Dishdetergent: "what?"
*random jet mission*
Dish: "what?"
Interrogator: "shut up.  NOW TELL US ABOUT THE NUMBERS."

the missions are walking down a straight path, shooting enemies, then waiting for someone to open a door, or just waiting in general.  there's a lot of waiting and watching nonsensical tom clancy fanfiction.  t...the russians a...and..nukes? yeah, nukes...b..brown people...this is gonna be so hot.

at least it looks crazy good

edit:  I should specify, they're copying gameplay wholesale from Call of Duty 4.  The story is the wank from MW2 and Black Ops, but stuff like endlessly respawning enemies all up in this game.  I saw an enemy materialize out of thin air and run to the same spot as this guy I shot.

maybe it gets better.  I dunno.  I'm at the tank mission and grabbed my iphone because I remember this shit from E3..a whole lot of waiting.  So far this is the worst shooter campaign I've played since, uh, Resistance 2 or The Conduit.

[Stoney Mason]

The story concept is very similar to Black Ops which is probably just bad luck on the timing for them. The problem with campaign is simply that the scripting is either broken in some cases, poorly constructed in others, and just boring in others. Much like MOH its everything you've seen in a COD game but done worse. The quick time events in this game are probably the worse use of quick time I've ever seen in a game. It's completely pointless and off time. You're just watching animations and then for some reason hitting a button during the animation.

To give it some credit it does pick up. The first few missions are completely awful. The missions after that have been mediocre.


I tried one of the co-op missions and simply playing with some one else and removing the need to actually script stuff in a story format mostly improves the experience although its also nowhere as good as something like Spec Ops in Modern Warfare.

[cool breeze]

that gif is funny.  well I'm hoping it picks up.  really, the only real strength is how good it looks, and it looks really good.

random observation: the subtitles aren't entirely accurate for the PLR are saying

[Stoney Mason]

What guns are people liking in MP so far?

I'm digging the M416 AR right now and the M27 IAR LMG

The recon class seems to have been nerfed from BC 2 where they were super powerful with their motion mines and air strikes. I find myself either playing support or engineer the most. Both classes can deal with enemy vehicles which seem more prevalent than in BC 2.

[cool breeze]

ok, the campaign is bad and a waste of time.  I'm filled with regret because I could have spend those hours doing anything else.  other than how gorgeous everything looked, it's one of the dullest games I've ever played.

at least if you're going to copy call of duty, improve on it or something.  better yet, design a campaign to emphasize battlefield's strengths.  medal of honor airborne is a good starting point.

is co-op even worth checking out? or straight into multiplayer to realize why I spent money on this

[Stoney Mason]

The main reason to probably play those co-op missions is that there are six unlockable weapons in the mp for it that can't be gotten any other way.

MP412 Rex (Revolver)
KH2002 (Assault Rifle)
M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle (Semi auto Sniper, think M14 EBR)
G3A3 (Assault Rifle)
SG553 (Carbine)
MP7 (Machine Pistol / All kits)
M93R (Burst fire pistol)

It's okay. It's nothing mind blowing or amazing but just playing with another human improves it although you could pretty much say that about any game ever made.

[cool breeze]

it's a bad campaign full stop.  every campaign since modern combat on the xbox, the first real attempt at single player in battlefield, has been better.

The best was probably Bad Company 1.  It has problems, but it was the most interesting and Battlefield feeling.  Bad Company 1 plus improvements plus co-op and they could have something great.  Bad Company 2 went more linear but kept larger firefights and some battlefield personality.  Battlefield 3 campaign has no personality, no excitement, no wit, no nothing.  It's a crass Call of Duty, which is a really stupid statement to make. 

I can't remember the last time I've really disliked a game as much as Battlefield 3's campaign.  HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

[fistfulofmetal]

The main reason to probably play those co-op missions is that there are six unlockable weapons in the mp for it that can't be gotten any other way.


M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle (Semi auto Sniper, think M14 EBR)

....WHAT

this was my main in BC2. i need this

[fistfulofmetal]

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/thursday-night-throwdown-1027-battlefield-3/3773/

Giantbomb will be playing BF3 tonight on PC for their TNT.

they have a 64 player dedicated server up too

[fistfulofmetal]

a few people at work and i are looking to setup a dedicated server ourselves. apparently it's 99cents per slot. so a full server would be 63 and change a month.

[Crushed]

The campaign seems mediocre and by-the-numbers so far but I'm not getting the vitriol towards it unless the last half is the game just punching you in the dick for 2 hours.

[cool breeze]

last half (or like one or two levels) actually get slightly better

I don't know why either.  I like most games I play, but this I hated.  I think it's because DICE's solution to single player in a Battlefield game has become a poor knock off of Call of Duty.  It's like they gave up trying to do anything ambitious or remotely like the multiplayer.  Mostly because I think a single player battlefield experience could be awesome.  In a lot of ways Crysis, MoH Airborne, Bad Company 1, and a few other games are where it should go.  I'm just upset that DICE, creators of best of breed multiplayer shooters and Mirror's Edge, spent any amount of time, budget, or effort on the campaign.

like I said, I'm not exactly sure why I'm angry about it.  I didn't even have any expectations before playing it, and I haven't been following gaf's reaction.  but shit, I can't remember the last time I hated the single player of a game this much.

[Eel O'Brian]

i am fucking terrible at this game, also i hatehatehate level unlocks considering i am only gonna be able to play sporadically and it will take forever to unlock anything

[Stoney Mason]

I beat the campaign tonight because the multiplayer on 360 was down for a lot of the night. It was bad. Average in some areas. Laughably terrible in others. Worse than BC 2 and MOH by a longshot and its not like those two were titans or anything.

As far as the MP I'm thinking shotguns may be overpowered.

[fistfulofmetal]

anyone know of any good placed to rent a server?

[AdmiralViscen]

this is the first time ive ever wished that the achievements were more multi oriented than single player

[Stoney Mason]

Anyone up for trying the co-op?

The second mission is so stupid. They make it a helicopter mission but you can't pick who is the gunner and who  flies the chopper. I can't fly at all in Battlefield games. So I have to keep on reloading everytime I play it until I'm the gunner. Fucking stupid.

[fistfulofmetal]

i would play some co-op. just so i can unlock the M14.

so i have ~ 7 hours logged in multiplayer. here's my map rankings (conquest large only)

God Tier:
Grand Bazaar
Caspian Border

Great Tier:
Operation Firestorm
Noshahr Canals

Good Tier:
Kharg Island
Damavand Peak

OK Tier:
Tehran Highway

Shit Tier:
Seine Crossing

SHIT AWFUL Tier:
Operation Metro

[cool breeze]

I didn't mind metro in the beta, so it's exciting to hear it's the worst.

for people on PC, what are your origin names? I'm wonder if there should be a Bore platoon/squad/thing.  Mine's 'Linkzg' (I think).

[fistfulofmetal]

Metro is fine for RUSH but as a Conquest map, it's unbelievably awful. It's a 3 capture point map all focused around the subway section. Basically the area around the escalators becomes a literal meat grinder. It's mindless and awful.

In regard to adding each other, better to provide your Battlelog names because that's what is used to join games with each other. Mine is Fistfulofmetal (shock)

[Vizzys]

metro conquest is battlefields nuketown

I expect to see 24/7 metro servers any day

[Stoney Mason]

I've finished 3 of the co-op missions and unlocked the first two weapons. The co-op missions are "okay" I suppose. You have to grind them though meaning beat them lots of times to unlock all the weapons which is kinda annoying.


As far as the game it can be pretty amazing when everything is working. I had an absolutely intense game today on Seine Crossing on Rush. We were at the last set of M-com's and we were stuck after blowing through the others quite easily. It's in this heavily defensed room and we only had 20 tickets left. I though we had no chance and we were just running in and dying every time.


Amazingly in the end it's armed and I'm sitting in a room with all my teammates and zero tickets left and praying no one dies and we don't lose and for the damn thing to explode. It does and we win. Absolutely amazing fucking match.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/gate/?returnUrl=|bf3|battlereport|show|1865476|2|174919060|

Here is the battlereport for it and why I love battlefield. I was only 8 and 13 in the game. Lots of people had better KDR's than me. But my score was almost 2000 points above everybody else in the game because I was arming and blowing up the m-com's. I love that you can contribute greatly to your team and not just have it be with kills.

Rush is so much better in BF 3 than it was was in BC 2 simply because you have to actually arm the M-com's. You can't just drop down the building on them by having a team abusing mortar strikes and shelling the building long distance with tanks. I didn't like playing Rush in BC 2 but its darn fun in this game.

I also like how the recon class has been nerfed hard. So many wannabe snipers are complaining about it but I so hope dice doesn't buff them. The game is really engineer heavy honestly because there are so many tanks, humvee's, and LAV's on most maps.

I think Metro is a good rush map. It's a shit conquest map but that's dice's fault for trying to make every map playable in every mode. They also need to address the lag and rubberbanding that is going on. For what is supposed to be dedicated servers, the connections are often quite sketchy. 



 edit: Also there is tons of sound drop out on the 360 version along with lots of other assorted bugs. You can tell this was rushed at the end.

[FatalT]

I beat all 6 of the co-op missions. Of you need help with them let me know!

[cool breeze]

I did the first two co-op missions.  Both were actually pretty fun! shows that adding another human player can make anything a bit more interesting.

first mission felt like black hawk down because my bro and I were dual sniping enemies from a fixed point.

second mission I was gunner for the first two times; both times we lost.  then I became the pilot and we did it in the first try.  they really toss you in with no explanation on how to control the helicopter.  it said "press x for extinguisher" but nothing was happening! a few minutes in it clicked, although an analog controller or flightpad would help.  having to tap to hover and use WSAD/arrow keys is tough.  By the end I was humming the air wolf tune and even started rolling instead of yawing everywhere!

[youtube=560,345]nr_CJL1YQRc[/youtube]

edit:

the entire co-op campaign is pretty fun.  the last mission seems bugged and me and this guy tried twice to finish it.  our characters randomly fall down during a qte or something.

[Herr Mafflard]

will have to try co-op soon

My battlelog name is InfectedGib.

I love that tight corridors and alleyways become rocket shows in this game.

[Eel O'Brian]

battlelog name = HondoCochise

[cool breeze]

the co-op sniper mission is a pain if the other guy doesn't get the vague ways you're trying to communicate.  there's no text chat for some reason.  I tried to establish several times that when I tag an enemy, it means I'll shoot them.  Or when I purposefully stand on your left, it means I'm going for the left targets.    when it works, it can be pretty awesome.  last night I played with a guy who understood.  like pros we ran through it just sniping pairs of enemies without either realizing what happened.

I also played the helicopter mission with a guy who couldn't fly at all.  After two rounds, I was in the pilot seat and we got through it easily.  in the last ~10 seconds of the mission, after ~10 minutes of flying perfectly, I tried to do a barrel roll and crashed into the ground.

[Stoney Mason]

OMG that MAV is amazing. Especially if the other team doesn't bother to try to take it out. I completely had the other marked for my team the entire freaking game. '

But  my god the LAG.

Everyday seems worse than the previous one on that front.

[Stoney Mason]

Grinding these co-op missions to unlock the extra weapons is the fucking worst. Boo Dice. BOO!

 

[Sho Nuff]

Picked this up for free with this morning's B1G1 glitch at Target. Might as well get some online action

[Stoney Mason]

Mortars need a slight nerf. Either long cool down or limit number of them during one life.

[cool breeze]

Grinding these co-op missions to unlock the extra weapons is the fucking worst. Boo Dice. BOO!

 

I was legitimately surprised when I realized that was the case.  I thought finishing each mission would give you a new weapon, or just on hard.  one weapon for each mission and he last for completing the whole set.  There's hardly a large point difference between playing on easy versus hard; you're meant to grind.  That's such baffling design since the weapons unlocked aren't even for that mode.

I really want to hear DICE explain it.  I don't think anyone could make sense of it.

[Stoney Mason]

I grinded them out all last night until I got the weapons. Very boring and annoying.

Following a number of problems affecting the online functionality of EA’s chart-topping shooter, the publisher has said it can at last see the light at the end of the tunnel.
 

Speaking by email to Kotaku about early online teething problems, EA said the majority of its Battlefield 3 servers had been stable over the past weekend.
 
“We are happy to report that PS3 and PC players experienced server stability all weekend, and Xbox 360 servers are at 95 percent and climbing. There were a number of different factors that impacted server connectivity across the platforms. Regardless of the cause or platform, our Online teams are standing by to identify the issues and addressed them as they arise. We will not rest until we’re at 100 percent.”
 
PC versions of Battlefield 3 had problems with the anti-cheat software Punkbuster, though these have apparently been rectified, whilst EA’s digital service Origin contributed some issues of its own.
 
“In the first 48 hours of launch, a small amount of Battlefield 3 PC players using Origin experienced an authentication issue,” the spokesperson said. “This is a known issue which has now stabilized. We continue to monitor the situation and are standing by to quickly resolve any future issues that might arise.”
 
Although a number of Battlefield players have experienced problems regardless of format, it’s Xbox 360 players that appear to have been worst hit. The EA spokesperson that responded to Kotaku’s questions acknowledged “There are a number of different factors impacting server connectivity on Xbox 360. It is a particularly complex server architecture and we continue to work with Microsoft to improve connectivity.”
 
It seems, though, that a significant contributor to many of the problems since launch is sheer weight of numbers.
 
“With such huge interest in the game, demand outstripped even our best expectations coming out of the beta,” admitted EA. “This is an evolving process that we are committed to improving. Even with a successful beta, systems under load will reveal new opportunities for optimization and improvement. When we see those opportunities, we would rather move immediately and create short-term inconvenience (maintenance period) to improve the long-term experience for all players.”

“We believe that the major issues are behind us, but our Online teams will not be happy until we’re at 100%. We continue to work on solving for each issue.”

Also this is bullshit. I still get disconnected and the lag is still bad (and worse than bc 2) most of the time at least on 360.

[cool breeze]

theoretically, you can unlock all the weapons by repeatedly playing the first co-op level on easy.  you don't even need to finish the first co-op level since you still get experience for failing.

it's not about encouraging people to play co-op at all.  it's just grinding for experience.

[Eel O'Brian]

Mortars need a slight nerf. Either long cool down or limit number of them during one life.

holy christ do they ever

i was playing a game the other day and thought it was some kind of scripted natural disaster

[Stoney Mason]

theoretically, you can unlock all the weapons by repeatedly playing the first co-op level on easy.  you don't even need to finish the first co-op level since you still get experience for failing.

it's not about encouraging people to play co-op at all.  it's just grinding for experience.

I just played the hit and run mission over and over again because its fast and easy. I still haven't played the last two missions yet.

Mortars need a slight nerf. Either long cool down or limit number of them during one life.

holy christ do they ever

i was playing a game the other day and thought it was some kind of scripted natural disaster

In rush its really bad because the person can just sit in his spawn and launch them on a smaller map and shell the m-com and you can't kill him. You have to have counter mortar people to stop him but either people are too dumb to do this or they haven't unlocked it yet at this early stage. But yeah either way it needs a nerf.

I also miss the throwable motion sensors from BC 2. They were a great device to root out campers. With the addition of prone,  the amount of people camping around the map is noticably higher now than in BC 2. (I'm not couting the people who play sniper recon dude who will always camp)

[ZephyrFate]

I need this game in my asshole. I just... just need the money  :'(