BATTLEFIELD V

[TEEEPO]

[Stoney Mason]

[TEEEPO]

id be beyond fucking excited if dice didn't just entirely fuck their own game after what was an incredible update

[TEEEPO]

[benjipwns]

I had to laugh at the part where he's complaining about the range changes while he's sniping with an unmounted MG.

[Stoney Mason]

As usual I disagree with whatever the community is carping about. I'm fine with bitching about bugs and such. But the youtube community and the reddit community have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to game balance/gun balance, etc. They just bitch and bitch and bitch and echo chamber each other.

[TEEEPO]

but reddit and youtube community weren't bitching about balance? how did you miss this?

[Stoney Mason]

but reddit and youtube community weren't bitching about balance? how did you miss this?

I'm talking about post changes. Or whenever any things changes that community thinks they have perfect insight into. Imo the long rang ability to delete everything  was a problem. So extending the ttk with certain weapons was needed imo. (Mounted and prone mmg's being a prime offender.) Also visibility and not being able to see certain people proned up in certain areas have always been a problem since day one. The up close thing where you can see people spotted is also fine to me. I don't agree with the current complaining. There were problems in various areas and there continue to be which is why they made certain changes. I played the game post changes and it was fine to me. (Outside of the metric tons of bugs which got introduced which DICE should be railed at on)

They are entitled to their opinion of course. I just don't agree.

[TEEEPO]

but reddit and youtube community weren't bitching about balance? how did you miss this?

I'm talking about post changes. Or whenever any things changes that community thinks they have perfect insight into. Imo the long rang ability to delete everything  was a problem. So extending the ttk with certain weapons was needed imo. (Mounted and prone mmg's being a prime offender.) Also visibility and not being able to see certain people proned up in certain areas have always been a problem since day one. The up close thing where you can see people spotted is also fine to me. I don't agree with the current complaining. There were problems in various areas and there continue to be which is why they made certain changes. I played the game post changes and it was fine to me. (Outside of the metric tons of bugs which got introduced which DICE should be railed at on)

They are entitled to their opinion of course. I just don't agree.

yet the community single handily saved bf4 through the community test environment? i've never been part of a game community that has never had a positive impact on a title when developers not only take the time to listen but allow for them to test the product through its various phases in a cte before those said changes go live. some of the more popular game modes in titles i've played were designed by the community themselves. hell, relic literally gave the company of heroes 2 community full reign over balance changes and now only staffs 1 full-time employee to help implement those said changes and the game is in a better state today than it ever has been in its 6-year history, when there was often a full dev team behind it. you might not understand how massive of an undertaking that is with a game with as many variables and units to balance as coh2 but it speaks volumes as to what a dedicated community of thousands can accomplish. don't be so dismissive of the battlefield community, or any community.

yes, bfv is always going to have its critics. that it is a given with how split the battlefield community has been since the release of bad company 2 and its subsequent sequels where each one catered to a different subset of gamers. there is simply no way dice can create a battlefield game that will please all fans of battlefield, especially one that looks to the past for influence versus modern game trends. the design ethos for bfv was simple: have a ruleset akin to 1942/bf2 which modern gamers would consider hardcore nowadays and to have players play the actual game versus the ui. balancing weapons through engagement ranges when those said ranges are well within the weapons respective historical ranges thus filling their respective roles, increasing the ttk through btk changes and introducing spotting mechanics go against the very grain of its design, especially when by in large, not a single member of the community wanted either of these things changed; they were near perfect as is. it shouldn't need any illustrating but how often do you find communities content with a game's balance?

and i'm saying all this because there was no fucking denying that bfv was having its rainbow six siege moment leading up to the launch of the pacific content. the parallels between both titles are uncanny given each team looked towards their respective pasts to design a game that returns the series to the core that made them so special in the first place. the easiest part of the past battlefield and rainbow six titles was getting killed, and the community at large for these games fucking loved it because it had more emphasis on strategic decision making and team play is more heavily rewarded. this is why dice was largely stupid to fuck with what they've accomplished. if dice had stayed true to their vision, i do not doubt that the early detractors would've returned with tempered expectations and would've not only enjoyed the title, but potentially love it. this is the exact point jackfrags made in his video: a lot of his friends who were wary of the title had returned after operation metro and have grown to love it. hell, this thread got bumped because of operation metro.

and early signs are showing that even the developers themselves were against these changes. some dice employed recently streamed himself for hours exclusively using the revolver and jungle carbine on top of abusing the broken autospotting feature which only further illustrates how fucking stupid these changes are. i'd like to say it's great that you in large part enjoy these changes but i don't see how you can say this patch as a whole is positive when the near entirety of the community is backlashing against it. it's important to question dice's intent, or should i say ea's rather than your own biases when it comes to battlefield. yes, bfv might not be the game you wanted based on what you've described, but i don't see how you can put yourself on a pedestal here when you're well in the minority.

[Stoney Mason]

Won't go into a long thing here but the entire community has backlashed about all kind of stupid stuff the entire life cycle of battlefield V. They have often been flat out wrong imo. Because DICE caves on something does nothing to validate the community. If enough people bitch and moan about anything rightly or wrongly, a company will cave. That is the way of modern youtube gaming and reddit gaming. They made the changes for a reason in the first place. Reverting is easy enough. It doesn't actually fix the problems with the game. It's just another version of pretending those problems don't exist. But as I continue to say. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. I simply don't agree with them as the community clearly don't agree with me. Which I'm fine with. I haven't agreed with the community on most of battlefield v.

[TEEEPO]

not as if anyone care but after three long months, dice is reverting 95% of the ttk back to the 5.0 values


and on the topic of incompetence:



sirland was the lead mp designer/producer for bfv and it seems like the changes to management are why he and many of the core dice staff have left for greener pastures in recent months, which doesn't bode well for future battlefield titles especially now that respawn has taken over dice la. fucking upper management. sirland, who worked at dice for 11 years, did promise that he'll be writing a lengthy post on the current state of the company so that should be juicy

[Momo]

Hey man, i still played just about every other day even through the TTK garbage, as much as i love to hate the game, it's still somehow a thing that relaxes me after work.

[TEEEPO]

me too, or at least it was. i can't wait for bfv to be back in my life

 

i really love that stupid game despite the cheats/teambalance issues, the gameplay loop was perfection  :'(

[Momo]

In terms of balance they really need to nerf planes or buff AA it's absolutely atrocious at the moment, I tend to back out everytime I see a british pilot go up in a VB these days, fuck that lmao 

[thisismyusername]

sirland was the lead mp designer/producer for bfv and it seems like the changes to management are why he and many of the core dice staff have left for greener pastures in recent months, which doesn't bode well for future battlefield titles especially now that respawn has taken over dice la. fucking upper management. sirland, who worked at dice for 11 years, did promise that he'll be writing a lengthy post on the current state of the company so that should be juicy

I'm sure the tell-all will be a fluff piece.

He listened to the wrong people for BF4 balance, so really... I don't get the reverence for him. Yes, he was in charge of CTE and sure -LA/Respawn/Danger Close fixed the issues that -SE/DICE did. But they never did anything of their own, so...

[toku]

[Momo]

Battlefield 3 was really my fav. I'm done with BFV btw, they pulled support for local servers and im not playing with 3000000 ping

[Mr Gilhaney]

After BF4 I lost all will to play that series again tbh. How you can shit so hard on a fanbase, and release such an unfinished piece of shit, I dont know. But that is DICE and EA I guess.

[thisismyusername]

Battlefield 3 was really my fav. I'm done with BFV btw, they pulled support for local servers and im not playing with 3000000 ping

Ouch, I'm sorry. The rent-a-server program for BF has been getting sparser and sparser.

After BF4 I lost all will to play that series again tbh. How you can shit so hard on a fanbase, and release such an unfinished piece of shit, I dont know. But that is DICE and EA I guess.

4 turned around and with 2-4 (forgetting, I think it's 3?) years support, and doing a community map effort (where the community was able to voice a majority opinion on making one map) after the year/season pass ended, I have good things to say about 4. It's everything post-4 that has sucked because most of the team that made 4 turn from a disaster launch into a great game left.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Though the folks that left after Bad Company 2 were the gold-era of DICE.

[close]

[Borealis]

Yeah, I just don't get wtf DICE are up to? Dreadful direction and leadership that's just led to fans packing up for CoD, other alternatives, or back to BF3/4.

BF1 had its moments, but bullshit like the "comeback" behemoths and absolutely atrocious post-launch support puts it behind it's predecessors, think inconsistent DLC releases and rubbish bugs lasting for months on end, especially one's you're just astounded got past their Q/A.

After all this time, DICE:
- cutting away at community servers (once a staple, now thrown aside for funneled matchmaking)
- avoiding CTEs (having even less community engagement after recent shitshows)
- offering up non-existent anti-cheat systems, and non-existent team balancers

should rightfully put it at "fuck off" status with whatever they and EA try to show next.

The shittier and shitter UI of each passing game is just the icing on this turd of a branded "development group".
 

[toku]

I think chasing innovation kinda fucked them. They would be killing rn still if they had taken BF3 and just...CoD'd it. Little and incremental system changes on a year by year basis. Then maybe a bigger game/engine change every 3 or so years. Imagine instead of going for collapsing buildings and massive map changes they did a game with more realistic or detailed interiors? I think at it's core, the best aspect of BF is that it's a giant sandbox. Instead of always changing the sandbox, maybe just add more toys instead?

[thisismyusername]

After all this time, DICE:
- cutting away at community servers (once a staple, now thrown aside for funneled matchmaking)

What's funny is that they introduced the RAS program on consoles, to where the matchmaking could've been entirely avoided. But Demize99 has a bug up his ass because "lol who uses server browsers, I DON'T!" when most of the community does to find populated servers quickly. So they started to cut back on that to force people in the matchmaking.

- avoiding CTEs (having even less community engagement after recent shitshows)

Being fair and as a CTE person: The CTE was a disaster. They NEVER listened to minority mode opinions (me being a primary Rush or Obliteration player in 4, for instance) and instead listened to Youtubers like DannyonPC (*spit*), JackFrags, and others over those of us that are like "while this may work for Conquest, changing the balance here will fuck over Rush/Obliteration in some regards to balance." And the CTE community was already SMALL. So 1's CTE (in addition to the disaster that was it's launch and initial reception/balance) killed the CTE of that even further because "Why bother?"

- offering up non-existent anti-cheat systems, and non-existent team balancers

The Team Balancers in general fuck over people too much to where I can't be on board with that.

*Play for an hour, stomping the other side, suddenly they all leave before the winning objective blows*
YOU'VE BEEN TEAMBALANCED, GOOD LUCK!
#GeeThanksDICE

The issue is with leavers and the pub-stacks of clans. But that throws in the shitty matchmaking and not filtering out folks that have a full party (or 2-3 players) with the same clan-tag to where one side is 20 "[ABC]" or whatever clan-tag while the other side is public people that can't work as a team. It's like "what the fuck do you expect me (someone trying to play the objective) to do? I can't fight 5+ people for every 1 of me on this team because the rest of the team wants to snipe?"

The anti-cheat system is whatever. The game already had hackers with Punkbuster (which is shit, for the record: There's a reason a lot of game companies started to drop it around mid-2012) and FairFight was already useless since it only looks for KDR or whatever and doesn't actually LOOK at the processes/etc to ban with. But even before these, BF2 had hackers, so rent-a-server programs/admins needed to be in their servers/etc.

Which runs into another issue with RAS: The community is "toxic"/can't handle losses because "muh rank/stats" to where they kick people that are kicking their/clans asses to the point where the "team balancer" has to kick in [but doesn't because RAS turns that shit off or balances non-clan folks onto the other side] to make up for the fast losses because they're salty.

Honestly the series needs to:
-Drop the rent-a-server program or keep it and expand it
-Drop stats entirely. They're pointless e-wanking that does nothing for the "play the objective"/sandbox nature of the game. If we lose? So fucking what? It doesn't hurt your stats.
-Maybe have a "half the team can't be sniper" limit, which is something I LOATHE to avoid recommending (because then it becomes impossible for folks like ME that actually know how to use the class and spot folks/shoot priority targets) get fucked over because someone loads in faster than you/me and gets the slot before you
-Rebalance the classes or
-Allow you to actually steal health/ammo/grenades from folks. Something Hardline did right (thereby you could heal if the person was a complete idiot and wouldn't put down kit items), in allowing you "team play" even if the person that wasn't supporting you was a complete idiot.
-Get rid of the ammo requisition system: Nobody plays as a team, to where running back to the ammo boxes in V is an annoyance and takes you out of the front-line for longer than need be
-Make better sight of enemies to where they don't blend in (a problem in V)
-Have CTE go from Alpha to launch [and beyond] and include folks that play minority modes in addition to Conquest instead of listening to solely Conquest-only [majority mode] players to get a vast wealth of opinions
-Get Gordon Van Dyke, et. al. Bad Company and earlier folks back to DICE, which is impossible but at least get their consultation because DICE Doesn't know why folks like Bad Company 2. Hint: Because it was fucking fun.
-Get rid of the progression system (goes with dropping the stats) or have the progression system, but have it be done pretty fast like Bad Company 2 [IIRC, BC2's can be done in 20-40 hours MAX and doesn't have gazillions of attachments]
-Balance the destruction (which they seem to have done pretty well IMO in 4-1-5)
-Balance the guns/perks (3's suppression issues, 4's... forgetting been a while, 1's Gas Grenades spam, 5's whatever-I-Never-Played-5-Past-The-Terrible-Beta)

I think chasing innovation kinda fucked them. They would be killing rn still if they had taken BF3 and just...CoD'd it. Little and incremental system changes on a year by year basis. Then maybe a bigger game/engine change every 3 or so years. Imagine instead of going for collapsing buildings and massive map changes they did a game with more realistic or detailed interiors? I think at it's core, the best aspect of BF is that it's a giant sandbox. Instead of always changing the sandbox, maybe just add more toys instead?

CoD'ing it isn't what the series fans want.

The Frostbite engine being made into a middleware fucked over DICE. I honestly feel if they didn't need to rework it for EA, we'd have had Frostbite 2 for 4 instead of them announcing "FB 3" for 4's release/redoing the engine after putting work into FB2.

Also they need to:

-Work on their fucking pipeline. The fact they can't port maps over to the next entry is DISMAL. Having to "redo/reimagine" the same fucking map (Caspian Border 3->4, Operation Metro 3->4->1[IIRC?]->5) is bullshit.

Imagine instead of going for collapsing buildings and massive map changes they did a game with more realistic or detailed interiors?

Or do both. But that requires performance-balancing act. I honestly like collapsing buildings [but it runs into destruction balance and having both sides be able to get around the map/have proper cover].

I think at it's core, the best aspect of BF is that it's a giant sandbox. Instead of always changing the sandbox,

And Bingo was it's name-o: That's exactly what Series fans know/want from the series.

maybe just add more toys instead?

SystemShockNah.wav

BC2's unlock system/toys were fine (Magnum Ammo and Body Armor aside). There's no need for gazillions of attachments. There IS a need for:

-Conquest
-Rush (though given DICE has nobody from BC1-2 left now a days... maybe not)
-Oblieration (best mode introduced in 4 and then forgotten because it was minority played [like 1-2% of the base played it because "LOL WHO WANTS TO BE A BLINKING LIGHT WITH THE BOMB I'M JUST GONNA SNIPE SINCE IT'S POINTLESS TO MOVE AROUND/BE A MOVING TARGET" (#REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE @ stupid fanbase)]
-Team Deathmatch
-Operations/Shock Operations (maybe, this is a mix of Rush/Conquest so could drop both of those modes and have this or drop this and have the two separated and distinct from each other)

Not keep adding more modes past launch that are only played for like a week max and then dropped (Chain-link, Frontlines, etc.)

[TEEEPO]

I think chasing innovation kinda fucked them. They would be killing rn still if they had taken BF3 and just...CoD'd it. Little and incremental system changes on a year by year basis. Then maybe a bigger game/engine change every 3 or so years. Imagine instead of going for collapsing buildings and massive map changes they did a game with more realistic or detailed interiors? I think at it's core, the best aspect of BF is that it's a giant sandbox. Instead of always changing the sandbox, maybe just add more toys instead?

as far as more detailed interiors, they did this with the cqb expansion for bf3, which is one of the few things i did enjoy about that game. bf3 was atrocious for conquest and i didn't really fuck with the rush mode after 20 or so hours of playing it.

funny enough, dice allocated a lot of resources into a 5v5 mode for bfv where the smaller maps they designed used the max allocated amount of memory that is allowed by the engine, but alas, it was nixed. it would've been an odd fit regardless but i always hoped it would be reworked into a f2p title, but dice is dumb. still, bfv is a fantastic game imo, and the best bf since 2 if you're a fan of conquest though it just has so many little nagging issues like lack of auto team balance and virtually no anti-cheat system.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BattlefieldV/comments/b4covb/bfv_data_mining_first_5v5_game_mode_details/



also fuck rush, though bfv's rush mode is surprisingly really fun? too bad it's a limited-timed mode dependent on the weekly tides of war playlist, so maybe you'll get it once every two months.

[TEEEPO]

Battlefield 3 was really my fav. I'm done with BFV btw, they pulled support for local servers and im not playing with 3000000 ping

sorry they nixed the servers. they didn't even announce it until someone called them out for it on twitter, must've felt bad man

[thisismyusername]

Gold Rush > Conquest.

I miss End of the Line, though it had some really horrible balance in regards to the map in the opening assault.

[Nintex]

BF3 was the best for me but that was also because I played it the most with my friends.

Still I can see where jackfrags is coming from. BF1/5 both lack that spark that BF3 and to a lesser extend BF4 had.
The options to drop in with choppers, the rocket jumps, the fast spawning vehicles etc. . It was always very fun to play but in terms not balance not really 'competitive'.
I think DICE made it more grounded because competitive gameplay became a thing. You can't do that if you can stick some C4's on a quad and launch it into an enemy base even if that was more fun.
My feeling always was that they wanted Battlefield to take off as e-Sports but it never did.

Also, in BFV none of the vehicles feel really fun to drive. In BF3 you could just race around with these tanks and APC's.

[thisismyusername]

My feeling always was that they wanted Battlefield to take off as e-Sports but it never did.

Zh1nt0 tried for that for like 5 games, it never took off. They had a competitive mode in 4 (and Battlelog) but I can not tell you of ANYONE I know of that used it. Consoles or PC. 1 had a "competitive mode" that was tested like CTE and then cancelled/never released despite work being put into it for a good YEAR or more.

Nu-DICE is fucked.

[TEEEPO]

also sky lords ruin every bf game. i heard this problem isn't as pronounced on the consoles but plane autists are a special breed and it only takes 1 to destroy a game.

i fucking hate dice

[Momo]

Battlefield 3 was really my fav. I'm done with BFV btw, they pulled support for local servers and im not playing with 3000000 ping

sorry they nixed the servers. they didn't even announce it until someone called them out for it on twitter, must've felt bad man

Felt like every other breakup tbh

[Mr Gilhaney]

Perfecting the balance, or even just getting good balance in a much smaller scope game that BF is hard. With the amount of different elements and open nature of battlefield, it just never lent itself well to esport. Especially not when EA wants a new one every 2 to 3 years. Valve wouldnt have a balanced csgo either, if they had to make new weapons and fucking vehicles every few years either.

[thisismyusername]

Solution: Stop making new weapons, vehicles. BC2 didn't do that.

The only thing FPS need past launch modes and weapons is MOAR MAPZZZZzzzzz.

[Momo]

The mere fact that they have to make their 'competitive' mode sans vehicles says a lot about how confident they are in their own balance

[thisismyusername]

Technically, 4's had the ATV's included. But yeah... they basically made competitive Obliteration (which nobody played because those of us that played Obliteration [#BestNewMode] just played the 32-64 players version) and had the ATV's for moving the bomb quickly. But it just didn't have the "chaos"/fun factor that the non-competitive version had. So someone with an ATV could quickly get across the map and there wasn't much the defending/other team could do to stop it beyond hope someone else brought their ATV over.

1's CTE-like competitive mode tested was Conquest but with Domination rules, IIRC.

[toku]

I should clarify that by toys i didn't mean six billion attachments. I hated that aspect about 4 in particular which was od. I was talking more interesting vehicles and building? More complex buildings, etc.

I was thinking in this modern era, thanks to the 24/7 news everyone knows what a contemporary bombed and depleted fucking city looks like thanks to Syria etc. Why not try to reverse engineer that look so it's something the players experience/do/effect throughout a match. So you end matches in near bare grey cement and dust.

Idk. I like BF but not as much as you guys and didn't even play this one so. Bless up though.

[benjipwns]

EA's probably hampered Frostbite by trying to make it the company engine instead of allowing DICE to use it purely for Battlefield.

Then after forcing the entire company onto this framework with seemingly no plan for how it would effect the development process for everything from sports to racing to Bioware back to Battlefield for half a decade or more, when they actually need a game out quickly, they go and let one of their studios just pull Unreal 4 out. And that same studios random F2P BR hit traces back to them licensing Source half a decade ago. While they struggle massively to get BR into BF (and even to iterate BF itself) with how many hands on it.

[Momo]

I played BF3 on PC again yesterday, game's still good but the servers are all *MY FAVORITE MAP 24/7 50000000 tickets* lmao

[TEEEPO]

any cqb servers up and running?

[thisismyusername]

I played BF3 on PC again yesterday, game's still good but the servers are all *MY FAVORITE MAP 24/7 50000000 tickets* lmao

You mean Metro (in Conquest)? That was the only map besides Damavand (in Rush) the US last time I tried. The browser plug-in is the biggest stumbling block for 3 now.

[thisismyusername]

https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/battlefield/battlefield-5/news/the-future-of-battlefield-v

RIPiss.

[Momo]

Not even gonna read already uninstalled

[thisismyusername]

Not even gonna read already uninstalled

Let me save you time:

After June, the game is buried. No more updates. Tides of War is unfinished, etc.

[Nintex]

I see this play out in two ways.
EA needs to consolidate resources towars Apex Legends and Anthem 2.0 
Or they're planning to repack the cancelled USSR DLC in a next game game in the form of Battlefield Russian Front or whatever.

[thisismyusername]

I doubt they're repacking Russia. Nobody gives a fuck about WW2 beyond a small minority of players. Folks want a modern day or futurism Battlefield.

But in addition to that, they want DICE to unfuck Battlefield and that requires them to drop Battlefront, which like hell is EA going to do.

The series is dead. RIPiss post-4.

[Nintex]

It isn't dead until EA does a failed reboot.

Battlefield Kids

[thisismyusername]

It isn't dead until EA does a failed reboot.

That's what this game is, dude

[toku]

[Nintex]

Hehe, I like how he didn't go for

spoiler (click to show/hide)

BF3

[close]

like everyone else.

[thisismyusername]

"I'm not gonna talk about Bad Company today."

SpongeBobEveryoneLeaving.gif

"I do think it's dumb that DICE and EA haven't continued that side-series/franchise in addition to the main series."

JustWhenIThoughtIWasOutHePullsMeBackIn.gif

I don't agree with him in that the fog provided balance. It was an unintentional thing for them in the attempt to help PC's of the early 00's run the Refactor engine successfully with the draw-distance being hidden. I do however agree with the map design issue for the remakes. There's times where players abuse that (him showing the helicopter on Sharqi Peninsula is a key example of DICE not actually play-testing their maps.

"Too Many Modes"

Agree.

• Rush
• Conquest
• Oblieration
• Team Deathmatch
• Shock Operations

(which could just replace Rush and/or Conquest)

And that's it.

----

Oh god, he shows the "private" server. I fully expect EA to C&D them like Battlelog.co/Revive Network was done by.

Also holy shit he's old. I thought he was mid 30's. Not in his 40's.

I don't agree with him (and other BF2 old fogies) in "go back to the BF2 drawing board" because 1) that genie has already been put into the bottle and thrown into the ocean and 2) that alienates the playerbase that came into the series.

Now, I know him and a few others may go "GOOD! FUCK THEM!" but that's EA's target market for better or worse. They can't alienate the players that find BC2, BF3-4 fun and go back to a clunky piss-poor shooting experience.

Mods? They aren't coming back, ever. DICE has admitted that the middleware they use can not be licensed. That's the nature of the game design industry now. Mods in BF aren't happening unless DICE removes EA's ANT animation systems (thereby doing the animation work themselves), physics/destruction engine (Havok? IIRC?), and the like.

A lot of these folks (BF2 die-hards) don't seem to understand that the BF series blew up by making design decisions that DON'T fit what they're going for (Hardcore, Friendly Fire on, etc). DICE threw these folks a bone with the "Old School" mod in BF4 and on, and... nobody besides like 30 players (depending on the region and server counts) played that mode. Everyone played "Normal"/3D spotting on, no friendly fire, third perosn in vehicles on... settings or "Hardcore" for "no HUD and 1-shot snipers." Nobody played the BF2 mode.

This guy at least seems to understand that, for the most part. But I don't think "DICE should take a look at BF2 only" is the correct answer.

He gives some of the answers (map design, too many modes, team-play/community) in this video, but this... IMO, isn't as good a response as he could give. I don't blame him, he admits that he didn't want to do it because he's been harping about issues for six years, but I don't necessarily think he did a good "deep-dive" into the problems with the series by focusing just on BF2.[/list]

[Nintex]

Going back to BF2 is nonsense. I think Insurgency: Sandstorm is what those people should go and play if they want more realistic gun play.
I totally agree that there isn't a big group of people waiting for a nostalgic remastering of BF2 at this point.

The best way for DICE to move forward is to look back at what made BF3 a better game than BF4/BF1/BF5 and why Call of Duty and other games took a lot of inspiration from BF3 for their new games.
The alternative is to come up with something new but with both BC2 and BF3 they had great concepts to build on. BF4 was actually very good once they had patched it about a dozen times.
That game simply dropped off because it took too long to get into shape.

BF1 had a pretty good reception at launch but was just limited in what you could do with WW1. Most people also considered it to be a spin-off of sorts.
BF5 was just a mess from the start and they kept changing direction and chasing the market two steps behind the competition instead of committing to their original vision for the game.
It also didn't feel nearly as fun to play as BF1 and in some ways introduced even more limitations.

[thisismyusername]

That game simply dropped off because it took too long to get into shape.

nicca, what? People are still playing (not in massive numbers, obviously) BF4 6-7+ years into it's life. It was massively popular, despite the bugs. It was getting around 30,000 people on each platform, a year after launch.

BF1/5 is the one where the series starts to nose-dive. Why? Because they didn't develop it for the "Battlefield" series, they built is a WW1 Star Wars: Battlefront mod, and it showed.

Nobody considered it a "spin-off." They did consider it a mod (like Hardline, but that's not DICE made so let's ignore that) and pretty piss-poor in comparison to BF4 in regards to vehicle balance and sandbox design.

IMO, and speaking as a non-BF2 fogey that actually OWNS BF2 on Steam (before it got pulled and Gamespy killed it before private servers) and BF2142 on Origin (before that got pulled as well) and owns 1942: These three games have pretty poor shooting (now a days) compared to Bad Company 1-2 and on. There's no reason to go back to those gameplay systems.

The one good thing I'll say about BF2 is that it's map design gave out-of-bounds the proper spacing for the player count, like (Non)Sense claims in his video. BC2 sort of did this with the "all modes on the map" design (Squad Deathmatch would be in a small area, rush would be a linear map, Conquest [which got the short-end of the stick in BC2 I'll admit for Conquest fans] was an expanded 1-2 sets of Rush) and it was sort-of successful. But they "drip-fed" it because they had no DLC plans beyond Vietnam and needed to do that to make the "VIP" online pass system for consoles "worthwhile."

But BF3 and on didn't use that design, and cram player-counts past 32 into maps that CLEARLY didn't need them. This is apparent in BF3-4's Rush mode on 64 players. DICE flat out admits it's not designed for 64-players (default is 32 or less) and PC servers have 64 players. The result? NOBODY can get past the first set. 99% of Rush games I played on PC in comparson to console NEVER got past the first set. Because at 64-players there is too many people on the map and "set" boundaries to where the defending team can see the attackers coming and blow all the cover faster than the attackers can get there.

Looking at Youtube, I see a few games that ACTUALLY DO get past the first set (or the person joins in-progress to where lower player counts push this fast, so I can't really say on that), but generally 64-players was too much for Rush mode. In Conquest, this isn't as huge an issue because Conquest had "Conquest Large" on PC which pushed the boundaries and gave 2 more flags on the map to let people attack/defend and not have them all sardined into the map.

BUT on "Conquest" (32 player console-focused) in BF3? Same shit as Rush happens at 64-players. Too many people on 2-3 points to where the attack/defense is easily decided in the first five minutes to where you then have a 45-minute meat-grinder.

Metro is a key example of this, but made worse with the "Conquest Large" to where the choke-point in the Metro station was notorious as the "firing line" for either side.

[Nintex]

Metro was still fun though. I remember having good times on that map even though it was horribly broken.

If a game handles well it is easier to look past some of the faults. In BF3 I could race around with a tank and do all sorts of crazy stunts like one of those Russian tank competitions.
In BFV the tanks can barely move at all and driving a tank is boring af.

It's not the 'realism' either, it's just boring. And that's the case with much of their mechanics these days. They're simply boring and very limited.

[Tuckers Law]

As an old BF2 fogey that also liked BC2 and loved BF1943:  anyone know if there’s a current game that scratches a similar itch with its multiplayer?

[Nintex]

As an old BF2 fogey that also liked BC2 and loved BF1943:  anyone know if there’s a current game that scratches a similar itch with its multiplayer?

Insurgency: Sandstorm

[Tuckers Law]

I’ve heard that about Insurgency Sandstorm, but am hesitant after the devs left Day Of Infamy to die on the vine and lose all its population (DOI is really good).

[benjipwns]

How is it similar, Nintex? I kinda want to add a new shootbang.

[Nintex]

I’ve heard that about Insurgency Sandstorm, but am hesitant after the devs left Day Of Infamy to die on the vine and lose all its population (DOI is really good).

They had no choice because they had to move onto a new engine and DOI alone could not pay the bills as sales weren't as good as projected (they commented on this in the documentary as well).
After all DOI was already a sort of extension/mod of Insurgency Source that got big enough to become a stand alone title. But that game showed the team that they needed to up their game to be able to be competitive and keep the lights on.

With Sandstorm they're getting more new players with every update (the latest Nightfall patch did really well) and the console version is still in development.
 

How is it similar, Nintex? I kinda want to add a new shootbang.

Gunplay feels more realistic with a fast TTK like BF2 and it relies on teamwork more so than being a lone wolf like in modern BF games.
Also a lot of freedom in terms of movement as opposed to invisible walls everywhere.

LevelCap did a nice video on the current state of the game and the latest update:



And here's some vanilla gameplay in a new map

[Tuckers Law]

You know what, Nintex: you’ve convinced me.  It’s currently on sale so I might as well give it a shot.

[TEEEPO]

insurgency is incredible

especially the gunplay and especially the proximity voice chat

[benjipwns]

I'm not criticizing the game, but after having played some of it, Nintex is a liar, Sandstorm is not really like Bad Company 2 at all lmao

FACT CHECK: NINTEX IS A LIAR, SOMETIMES

[thisismyusername]

Being fair to Nazi-X: He said BattleField 2. Not Bad Company 2.