Questions about the game Battlefield 2

I have some more questions about this game:

Those pack things that are left by the dead bodies after they disappear - what are they? The things that look like little boom-boxes with either the U.S. or M.E.C. flag on them and a little picture of what the dead guy’s role was (medic, special forces, etc.) I’m up to Gunnery Sergeant in the game and I still can’t figure out what to do with them.

When I die, and then get revived by a medic, why do I sometimes have a different kit (set of equipment?) I usually play as a medic or a sniper, but when I’m revived by a medic sometimes I’ll randomly have anti-tank equipment, special forces stuff, or whatever. What is going on here?

Some of the servers have little messages saying that “stat-padders” will be kicked. What does this mean? Likewise for “teabaggers.”

Why is it that the commanders can spot enemy infantry or whatever over and over and over again to the point where it’s insanely annoying (especially when I’m on MEC?) Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! Enemy Infantry Spotted! over and over again. Sometimes I’ll even tell them over my microphone to knock it off, and they don’t. Why don’t these annoying assholes get kicked? If a regular player tries to repeatedly shout out stuff using the command selector thing, he gets blocked for 30 seconds. Why can the commander do this without penalty?

Teabagging, in this context, refers to the practice of repeatedly crouching over a slain enemy, so it looks like you’re rubbing your crotch in his face.

That’s all I got.

The other questions are more pressing to me but thanks. (It’s happened to me more than once.)

I’m bumping this before I go to bed because the damn questions are absolutely driving me bonkers (especially the “pack” things) and I can’t find hide nor hair of information on them anywhere online.

The “pack” things represent the “kit”, or starting equipment, of each player. They’re there in case you want to change classes, or use enemy equipment. Say you’re a US special forces guy and you kill a MEC sniper: if you step up to his equipment and hit a certain key (“g”, I think), you can drop your medic stuff, pick up his sniper stuff, and run around with a MEC sniper kit until you either die or pick up new equipment. Note that this doesn’t change your team affiliation, so you’ll still be playing for the US… just with different gear. In the case of a medic respawn changing your equipment, my uninformed guess is that the respawn script just causes you to pick up whatever gear is closest, and if another peep happens to die right on top of you, there’s a chance that you’ll pick up their gear instead of your own.

Hey Argent. I registered so I could answer you. I’ve spent WAYYY too much time in this game.

Let me see if I can answer everything. . .

“Stat-Padding” is spending time doing things that aren’t important to the game in order to gain experience points, usually so you can get a weapon unlock, or in some cases, have a bigger e-penis(stats).

A common example would be 3 people joining a server, with one of them joining say, the MEC team for this example, and the other 2 joining the U.S. team. All 3 get together in a remote corner of the map. The one person alone on the MEC team then ‘kills’ one of the two players on the U.S. team, thus improving his # of kills. The teammate of the ‘dead’ player then resuscitates his teammate, so that he does not suffer a death (in his stats). The ‘kill’ still counts though, and the teammate doing the resuscitating gets points for bringing him back. Lather, rinse and repeat for maximum effect. A bit convoluted to explain, but I hope you get the idea.

The packs left behind after someone dies is their kit. You can pick up their kit and have the weapons, ammo, and ability of that person, instead of the kit you chose when you spawned. If you don’t have all of your weapon unlocks, this is a good way to try out new weapons before you choose them permanently. Not sure if you want to get a sniper rifle or shotgun with your next unlock? Start picking up kits on the battlefield and maybe you’ll get to test-drive them. Also, you can use these kits for a momentary advantage. Say you killed a medic, but now you’re badly wounded. Pick up his old kit, throw out some med packs, and now you’re all healed! If you don’t want to play as a medic, just pick up your old kit again after you’re healed. This also comes in handy when you need ammo and you spot a support kit.

You know, I’ve played this game since it came out, and I’m not sure what key I hit to pick up a kit. It’s just instinct now, but I think it’s the USE/ENTER key, the key you press to enter vehicles(whatever you defined that to be).

If you die and are revived, ending up with a different kit, it’s because you died next to someone else who died, and the computer got confused and gave you the wrong kit when you were revived. I’ve seen cases where people were revived and somehow their kit was too far from their body, so they had NO kit. The player-characters run around with their arms out to their sides at weird, odd angles, so they’re called ‘scarecrows’. This is pretty rare, though. Also, if you die as a medic, some players will grab your medic kit and use it to revive you, but then they’re stuck as a medic(until the find another kit), and you end up with whatever kit they dropped.

The commander spams the comm channel for a few possible reasons. Maybe he’s trying to be helpful and no one is noticing the imminent danger that he is fervently pointing out. Maybe he’s pointing out everyone as fast as he can at all times in a (sometimes misguided) attempt to give as much intel as possible, or maybe he’s just a dick.

A lot of ppl who should be kicked/banned aren’t, and many who don’t deserve it are. It’s the internet. The best thing for a good game experience is to find a clan that shares your general feelings/ideals about the game. That way, when you’re playing on your server, you can shout, “I’m the god! I’m the god now!” as you swing your banhanner, like everyone else does. . . or maybe the shouting part is just me. :smiley:

I’m looking for a clan myself, since my old one gave up BF2.

Crap, I took too long typing this up, and got beat to the punch. I’m posting it anyway :slight_smile:

On further thought, Ii think Kami is correct with the ‘G’ key being used to pick up kits. I just couldn’t remember it consciously, even though I’ve done it hundreds of times. Weird, huh?

The game designers are absolutely moronic. When he was doing this, he was doing his job. Commanders can see units on their screen from a few sources, and they can make them appear on the minimap of all players, but they need to identify them first. This both gives their team greater situational awareness and gives the commander points.

However, it also creates an absolutely insane amount of aural spam that completely wrecks your game experience. There are so many details of the game that are so incredibly stupid and yet you have no control over them that I couldn’t play the game. After playing BF1942/desert combat a LOT, I couldn’t stomach BF2 for long. The “enemy ____ spotted” thing alone became so annoying that once I started noticing it, it was like nails on chalkboard, and just got worse and worse until it made me quit the game. Something so stupid, so useless, and yet so omnipresent and annoying - what horrible game design.

I didn’t want to give up on the game either. I went onto a BF2 forum and asked if there was anything I could do - an option somewhere, a console command, even modifying the game files to delete those sounds - but nope. Learning to ignore the absurd amount of spam is your only option. I couldn’t, and as a result, DICE will never see anything cent from me.

Which is online tradition. A server that bans the practice should be tried for heresy!

I know what the answer to the different gear is. Basically, just as you can pick up the packs of the dead, they can pick up your packs when you’re dead. And what happens is that you actually swap the packs over. So what’s happened is that you’ve died, someone’s taken your pack (and left you the one they had), and you’ve then been revived with their pack.

I just browsed some forums and was stunned by the number of people DEFENDING the annoying commander spam. Do these guys spend so much time playing the game that they’re able to completely tune it out? Or are they just morons? I really am at my wits end with the spam, but I like everything else about the game so much. Not sure what to do.

Well, I’m glad I went to the effort of joining and posting.

It’s good to see someone else here that plays Battlefield. Your responses are very much appreciated. Someone on one of the boards said that you could turn down the sound effects in the options to get rid of the commander spam, but I assume that would also mute the sounds of the weapons and everything? In that case, no way. Maybe there is an audio file you can find and delete but someone on another forum said that doing so would screw up the Punkbuster client thing.

He’s doing is job. Would you rather some MEC guy come up behind you and knife you in the back? USMC takes the back spawn on Karkand and it’s all but over for MEC, but don’t bother pointing them out. God for bid someone might be annoyed.

Yes, I would rather be knifed in the back than listen to Enemy Infantry Spotted repeated literally dozens of times, on end, with no reprieve. Your response is exactly the same as the ones I’ve read on all those forums - “he’s doing his job.” That may well be, but as SenorBeef said, it’s bullshit on the part of the game developers. I find it insanely annoying, and I’m utterly stunned that 1. Such a massively popular game by such a gigantic company would have such an annoying flaw, and 2. that more people aren’t bothered by it.

I can’t begin to try to put myself in the mindset of someone who can hear “Enemy Infantry Spotted” repeated thirty times, in the same exact voice and tone, and not be annoyed. Maybe it’s a generational thing - it could be that at 21 years old I’m just too much of a crotchety old geezer to tolerate it. Maybe I should pack up and move to a nursing home.

Battlefield 2 has, in my experience, the potential to be both an insanely good and an insanely bad game. If both teams sport mature, reasonably skilled players who form balanced squads, listen to their squad leader, and coordinate with a (reasonable) commander, the game is unbelievably fun. I’ve had a few extremely good games of this sort, and I suspect that your best bet for finding consistent, reliable fun would be joining a decent guild.

If you can’t find any decent games but you still enjoy the game in theory, I would recommend Team Fortress 2. The maps are smaller and the player roles are more specialized, but it’s designed (quite intentionally, I suspect) with teamwork in mind: because of the hyperspecialized nature of each player class, almost anything you do will directly help your team and there’s very little you can do that directly annoys or hinders your team.