Battlefield 4

The Game Room
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Battlefield 4 is coming out next week on the 29th. It’s another modern warfare game like BF3 (which is too bad - I’d love to see a revisit to 1942 or 2142) with China as a new faction. I’d hate to see them take the COD path and just keep cranking out endless rehashes of the same game, but it looks like an improved BF3.

Which is okay, since we had a blast with it. We had a very active SDMB player base on PC for the first few months after launch.

Destruction is more detailed. “Levolution” allows big changes to the gameplay of maps based around the destruction that happens. A skyscraper with a capture point can topple and fill the streets with ash and dust. A dam can be broken flooding city streets. Lights can be shot out, fire extinguishers shot to fill a room with mist. Weather events.

Commander mode is back. I’m hoping they did a good job with it. The commander role is a great idea, but it was horribly designed in BF2, they basically just became a glorified spotter/spammer that flooded the com channels and annoyed the shit out of everyone. BF3 is a lot better about keeping the comms and chatter local and relevant, so I suspect it’ll be quite improved. You get a top-down view where you can see the battle unfold, issue orders to your squads, and call in support like air dropped supplies, UAVs, or missile strikes. You can evidently even play the role from a tablet, although then I’m guessing you can’t do the freeroaming camera or anything. I doubt it’ll be as interesting/integral as being the commander in Natural Selection 2, but hopefully they’ll do a good job implementing it and making it matter.

Improvements in sound design (already amazing) and graphics technology. The current gen console versions of this game will be even more stripped down than their version of BF3. It looks pretty incredible. I hope it runs as smoothly as BF3 does.

Apparently they’re revamping assault/medic to be less spammy, with a limited number of revives and cooldowns for the paddles. Which is good - the crazy revive spam of infantry-heavy fights in BF3 could get silly. They reworked the squad-wide perks system - instead of one guy choosing speed, one guy choosing extra ammo - you level up as a squad as you accomplish objectives and then you get to pick extra perks that apply to you. And if your squad gets wiped, you go down a level and lose a bonus. Sounds cool.

The interface and map are apparently significantly improved. Squads have 5 members now rather than 4, which I like overall. Squads can spawn on any squadmate and not just the leader, which I’m not sure I like. Makes the dynamic spawning too powerful and also lessens the importance of the squad leader. Apparently server-adjustable. Suppression effect reduced substantially. More detailed kit options both for infantry and vehicles, both attachments and cosmetics. Vehicles apparently take locational damage which affects their performance.

Some new game modes. Obliteration: a team is tasked with destroying various high value targets around the map using a randomly spawned bomb, the other team defends. Defuse, basically counterstrike in BF3. Domination: infantry-only, can’t spawn at objectives, smaller. The other modes from BF3 are still there, and all modes playable on all 10 maps.

Probably lots of other small changes. I hoped they address the core flaws in BF3 - vehicle combat features too many lock-on weapons. I can’t believe that game designers actually think that lock-on weapons are good for anything. They don’t belong in any game ever, except for simulators. I think I read somewhere that while the SOFLAM now requires the recon to hold it and lock on (instead of deploy), it allows everything including RPGs to be able to lock onto the target. Awful, awful idea. And in infantry combat the time to kill is much too low. Combining COD-style instant death no recoil guns time to kill with massive battles with lots of cover and lots of places to hide and approach from is awful - you end up dying quickly and constantly to things you never see.

Still, overall BF3 was great, we had a ton of fun with it, and I’m hoping to get everyone back together for BF4. If you want to play with us, you’ll need mumble and it’s best to add me (SenorBeef) on both Steam and Origin. I do most of my organizing through steam even though the game is Origin only. I’ll post details about joining the platoon later.

If you preorder, you get the first expansion free.

Multiplayer demonstration from E3

Frostbite 3 features

17 Minutes of single player

Commander trailer

New features/engine/multiplayer

Paracel Storm map trailer

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On a related note, I thought I’d share random goofy videos from BF3 from the SDMB crew. My favorite, even though it makes the game look silly, is The Immortal Chopper. Badly designed game mechanics (engineers repair from within the back seats of transport helicopters) combined with enemies who don’t know how to counter it. It’s ridiculous, but it was fun and good teamwork.

Scout chopper tunnel battle.
Random stupid antics
Torus always dies first
Epic tank shot
I was on the other team and shot down their helicopter. They got revenge.
Stunt fail cracks me up
Chopper vs Jeep

Anyway, if you happen to want to play BF3, we’ve been organizing a few games this week before everyone moves on to BF4. In particular, I never really played the last 2 expansions, so I’ve been trying to get some play time in on those.

If you want to play BF4 with us, add me on steam and I’ll tell you how to get all set up to play with us.

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I played the beta a few weeks ago and the lock on thing was true for that. Your starting rpg would track and kill painted targets. Before it was a stupid mechanic and they essentially buffed it. In order to use it before you had to carry javelins or stingers which would at least trade lock on for decreased utility elsewhere. Now we have lock and no decreased utility. If they are going to do that there should be damage levels based on if lock was used or not. If I can hit a chopper with a dumbfired rocket or turret it should be instant death, earned by my skill. If everyone on the map can lock on and hit the chopper almost at will the damage should be reduced so it takes multiple hits in short sucession to seriously damage it.

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This is looking like it’s going to be a PS4 purchase for me due to some friends who aren’t PC gamers. If that ends up falling through I’ll pick it up later on and join up with you guys.

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Wow, modern video games are just incredible to me. I remember first seeing the Star Wars arcade game back in the day and nearly shitting my pants it was so awesome.

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I still remember my disbelief when Beef’s tank shell rocked my heli from across the map.

Already got this baby pre-orderer. I think you can start pre-loading on Sunday/Saturday as well.

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Me too (more so that I don’t want to spend the money to upgrade my machine). I’ll probably buy the the PS3 version first and then upgrade later (i think you only need to pay $10 for the digital upgrade). I worry about buying these systems when they are first released in case of hardware failure, and then having to go thru the trouble of getting them fixed.

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Are you actually saying that players should be MORE indestructible than they already are in BF3?

I personally think they should have a realistic mode where the damage is relatively accurately modeled, and if you die, there’s no respawn until the next round. Something a lot more like the old Rainbow 6: Raven Shield multiplayer.

That would make multiplayer a lot more interesting than this run & gun arcadey BS that we get now.

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Taking a pass on this one. I’ve caught enough bullets already.

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I would love a return to the older Rainbow Six style of games. My buddy’s and I played the snot out of Rainbow Six 3 for xbox. Of all the shooters I’ve played it was one of the hardest to get competitive at quick deaths meant that any tactical mistakes led to instant death. The older ghost recon and Brothers in Arms games were the same way with Brothers probably being the least forgiving and most simulation style.

That being said Battlefield is not that style of game and never has been. Rainbow is a small squad tactical shooter and the no respawn makes sense under those conditions. With Battlefield we are mimicking giant land battles. In this instance it makes more sense to have a respawn system fed by a ticket system. It helps increase the scope and the size of the feel of battle.

I have no real opinion on how much health players should have, I did not play the beta long enough to get a feel for it. I will say that changing health can have some weird effects. For example I play a lot of mechwarrior online where the ttk is very long. Rather then increasing agression, players are much more cautious and tactical then a normal shooter. You can’t charge into a battle where you are outnumbered and hope to take one or two guys with you with lucky headshots or twitch skills instead you must plan out you engagement in advance

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I don’t know in actual game terms, but the thing is that in real life, soldiers take cover, and don’t expose themselves, because there’s real fear there- they might get killed or seriously wounded.

The CoD and Battlefield games have way too short of a respawn time and allow people to take multiple hits before being killed/incapacitated. This incentivizes stupid run-and-gun style play by taking away any consequences for running around in the open, or charging people or any number of other behaviors that would get real soldiers killed stone dead in seconds.

But, since they can take a couple of rounds without dying, and even if they do, they respawn in 10 seconds or less, the consequences aren’t there.

I’m not saying get rid of regular (whatever it’s called) and hardcore, but add a 3rd official style that’s more simulation-ish. A good measuring stick would be whether or not machine guns like the M249 and M240 are fearsome and effective in normal play; in BF3, they’re only handy for maps like Operation Metro and maybe Grand Bazaar where you can use them to lay down almost continuous fire along a single axis. They should be murderously lethal on Caspian Border, Operation Firestorm, Gulf of Oman and other wide-open maps, but they tend to just get you killed.

I should go play the Arma games, but my friends are primarily Xbox guys, so I’ll play where they play.

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DICE have already stated they are removing the lock-on from the RPG/SMAW which I’m really happy about. Full list of post-beta changes here.

I’ve spent a lot of time hunting choppers with dumb-fire rockets in BF3 and can’t wait to keep going in BF4 with the faster, flatter-shooting RPG :smiley:

I play with The Older Gamers [TOG] - Battlelog handle: BattlePope_au

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I was going to say - Arma might be a better fit for you.

Give it a shot. It’s not like you have to play every game with your friends.

Another awesome sauce to dabble on top is that Nvidia’s Shadowplay is available on Monday, just before BF4 hits, so capturing cool moments should be a breeze.

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I’m going to get it. I want to be there when Torus dies for the first time. It’s like witnessing the beginning of an era.

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Well that’s good news. Part of the reason my play in BF3 tapered off was because it was really fun to fly helicopters early on - no one had the soflam. So you’d watch out for ground-based AA fire, RPGs, enemy aircraft firing at you, stingers. All manageable threats. But then everyone started getting SOFLAM and Javelin combos - suddenly you were always locked onto most of the time, with very little way of avoiding it except to avoid large swaths of the map, and at any time, without any indication or countermeasure, a javelin (or guided tank shell, also really stupid) could instantly track and one shot kill you. It was just incredibly stupid game design and made flying unfun.

I have no idea why game designers think lock on weapons are a good idea. They’re boring for the person shooting the weapon, they’re boring for the person at the receiving end (either your countermeasures are on cooldown or they aren’t), they have no skill curve, just… there’s nothing good about them. Why put them in games?

The way Desert Combat did AA was a whole lot better - basically you had fast moving proximity detonated anti-air rockets. But you’d have to lead them properly, so it took skill to use them. And the pilots had lots of options for trying to avoid them - flying in unpredictable ways, keeping distance from infantry, evading. Instead, now it’s just someone says DERP I STAND HERE FOR 5 SECONDS AND CLICK BUTTON and the pilot says DERP I GUESS I HIT FLARES KEY. It takes what could be an interesting game mechanic and turns it into the most boring, pointless thing in the world.

SOFLAM + RPG sounded like an extremely dumb version of that, so I’m glad at least that little bit is gone. Unfortunately I worry that soflam+whatever retarded lock on weapons they have will ruin flying. I hope they came up with some sort of design solution.

You would’ve loved the stingers in desert combat. But yeah, using RPGs on helicopters is fun.

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BF4 will have the following though:

RPG-7 (unguided, trajectory)
SMAW (unguided, flat-shooting)
Javelin (Lock-on, not sure if its F&F or maintain lock?)
SRAW (Wide-guided) - BC2 AT4 analogue?
Stinger (lock-on, fire & forget)
IGLA (Lock-on, maintain lock)

Plus tanks with guided shells. Choppers won’t have a field-day.

I loved the AT4 in** Bad Company 2**. I’m hoping the SRAW will be just as hard to use but just as much fun.

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I played the beta and my impression is its BF3 mkii, which is a good thing. The destruction of buildings, the interactive environment options, like raising road pilons, and the water effects all are great additions. Plus bringing commander mode back is a good move.
I’d personally prefer to see another BF game set in the future, like BF2142.
As for CoD…I give each new release a try, but get bored sick after a couple hours because they’re just mindless fingertwitch fests, whereas BF games provides a gameframe for individual and squad tactics and an emergent team strategy, and are much more engaging.

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Because in some fashion, they’re trying to model real-world weapons like the Javelin and Stinger (or their Russian equivalents), which are pretty prevalent among infantry.

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So the promise of the immortal helicopter definitely has me intrigued-- but is this something that my 4-ish year old laptop is going to be able to play?

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If you really want an answer to that, you’ll have to provide specs.