Battlefield 3

[Artemas]

yeah, the new damage model is great. bf3 is really weird in that in some areas, they're quite progressive, and in others they're a poor cod wannabe, with a touch of conservative fanboy pandering thrown in.

the invincible aav is hilarious though

i am sort of sad they decided to make conquest damavand revolve around the tunnel

the rush map is so cool

[Edward Yee]

man, i dont even know how to level the scout chopper. what category do the utility choppers fall under?

I believe that they count as scout choppers for EXP purposes, although I haven't yet tested whether the passenger slot counts as "vehicle" for EXP purposes (that is, whether EXP gained as a passenger goes to your kit or to your vehicle leveling).

Incidentally, I think that utility choppers are actually more survivable than attack choppers simply because "engie repairing in-flight" is back and they have a lower "fire" (and disabling? or are they identical?) threshold, whereas the 'proper' scout helos have engineer repair but the same disabling threshold as other vehicles it seems.

Also, I can confirm that you can unlock attachments for weapons that you haven't actually unlocked yourself yet -- one of my 64-player Metro Conquest runs got me the 3.4x optic for the PKP Pecheneg, and I haven't even unlocked the M224 Mortar yet.

[weemadando]

Damavand is a piece of shit on Conquest. That tunnel is just pure murderfest.

[Artemas]

yeah, it sure is

being able to fly the scout chopper into the tunnel and shoot up the place does not make up for it

because it turns out thats stupid

[Jordie]

And once you have lock on ground attack missiles unlocked you can start harvesting anything that moves

More so if someone has the SOFLAM unlocked and is painting a tank. The missile will do a top down attack which does more damage.

(Unless they have IR smoke equipped)

If you start your run early and keep the brakes on you'll have more than enough time to get a lock on even if they release smoke.

Damavand is a piece of shit on Conquest. That tunnel is just pure murderfest.

Tank + Autoloader (or really any other passive bonus) + thermal optics + Coax LMG (or Canister Shell, but I haven't had a chance to try it since I unlocked it) makes Damavand fun.

yeah, it sure is

being able to fly the scout chopper into the tunnel and shoot up the place does not make up for it

because it turns out thats stupid

I had both the enemy team and my team do that in the same match. Didn't end well for either of them.

[weemadando]

I was absolutely blasting folks on Firestorm and Caspian Border as T-90 in Rush. Racking up big streaks and just shutting down their assaults. There are areas of the first point of those maps where you can safely park up in hull down and only have to worry about attack from one or two directions due to the map layout.

Things I have noticed though (player behaviour more than anything else).

1) No one is using fucking defibs. Which makes no sense, especially when attacking in Rush.

2) Fucking idiot recons dropping the spawn beacon at their favourite hidey hole. Which just happens to be right next to our base anyhow, so it just negates it.

[Stark]

yeah, the new damage model is great. bf3 is really weird in that in some areas, they're quite progressive, and in others they're a poor cod wannabe, with a touch of conservative fanboy pandering thrown in.

the invincible aav is hilarious though

i am sort of sad they decided to make conquest damavand revolve around the tunnel

the rush map is so cool

They're trying new things, which is good. But some of them are amazingly stupid (like using legal map area to stop vehicle theft instead of fucking locks) and their map design is bad.

And seriously, they responded to 'everyone uses acogs in BC2 for sniper fail which killed pace' with 'have 10 different kinds of acogs lol'. With wierd shit like bullpups that say 'no foregrip' actually having forgrips that are just invisible, it looks like they just rushed out to beat MW3. All they did was highlight their problems (especially on console where the quick match doesn't even fucking work).

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah i'm getting the same impression. DICE is talking big about post-release support with expansion packs like Back to Karkand, which aren't just going to contain new maps but vehicles, weapons, perks, literally all new content. 2 and 2 together they rushed the game out the door incomplete and are going to be *selling you* parts of what the original game should have had in it with the packs.

So, it's 2005 all over again?

[Stark]

A good example of the dodgey relationship between ideas and relatity is weapon unlocks. Going per-weapon is whatever, some like it some don't. However, in a game based on rewarding team effort, partial effort, and cooperation, making weapon unlocks based on kills and kills only is fucking dumb. Sniper gets a dozen 99% kill assists a round? Too bad, you lose. Suppressing with machinegun? You're useless and will never unlock anything until someone's dumb enough to stand up.

Even displayign k/d on the scoreboard is a fucking stupid idea, but using kills instead of 'points acquired by killing dudes' encourages everyone to be assholes to level their new gun. When a game says 'you are rewarded for cooperation and every positive action you make' and then says 'PS NOT REALLY LOL GET MOAR KILLS BRO', that's not good.

[Artemas]

ando, i'm actually having a lot of trouble with defibs

pretty often, using on the guys torso doesnt work, using on the "death" icon (usually near the head) sometimes works, and sometimes i just need to shock the cement two feet to the right of the guys leg. in bc2 you had to shock where the guy "died" i think (where his kit was), with bodies sliding around the map a bit post death. im not sure if its the case here, but its fucking annoying.

and yeah, not tying weapon unlocks to points is a huge step back, and so is identical upgrade trees for weapon types. want a red dot for an assault rifle? HOPE YOU LIKE ACOG FOR SEVENTY KILLS!

as an aside, you can level up the 203 by getting kills with it, but it wont tell you that in battlelog

also ando, freunde me

[Stark]

I wish you could level the SMAW, because it's like my 2nd best weapon. :V

They use points for vehicle unlocks, so I don't know why they don't for weapons.

Aiming defibs is strange because I'm not sure how to tell if a body is still defib-able; it seems to work after the little ECG symbol goes away, but not always. Given how much lag seems to impact the game it could just be that; I get massively unreliable knives too.

[Artemas]

man, can you imagine trying to level the scout chopper only by kills?

im glad that launcheable smoke grenades are back, i was a bit worried

and the sg550 is a bit of a beast

so, both the m16a4 and the m4 appear as unlocks on battlelog, are these actually different from the m16a3 and m4a1 that you already have access to by default?

[Losonti Tokash]

The last unlock for each kit is the ability to use the default weapons of the other team. That's all.

[Artemas]

no, thats not what im talking about, theres a weapon called the m16a4 between the f2000 and the aek that can be unlocked. but trying to bring it up to look at it just takes you to the m16a3 page, and displays all the unlocks you have for that weapon. likewise for the m4, which you unlock before you get to the end of the tree and unlock the m4a1/aks-74u.

they're labelled differently, they have different positions in the unlock tree, but they take you to the same page?

[Stark]

M4/M4A1 is just a trigger group difference.

Want full auto? Have fun levelling up again.

There's like 5 fucking m16s in the game.

[Artemas]

goddamn i was hoping it was just some stupid legacy stuff in battlelog

[Mr Bean]

Have unlocked everything in the Assault Tree tonight hit 23, using nothing but assault.

Gotta say of guns my favorites are the M3A1 the F2000 and that's about it, the AK-74 is inaccurate, the M4A1 is just a slightly better M3 so does not count and the final in the series the AK-91 whatever it's called the wonder assault weapon of BFBC2 is a giant pile of crap. It used to be the 91 was a wonder weapon, a two shot sniper rifle that had big hard hitting bullets, very tight two shot patterns and very nice two shot stacco sound, in BF3 it's a pile of ass, I got my 100 kills Silver star and I never want to touch it again.

I makes me sad my favorite gun Bad Company Gun is now my least favorite gun.

Hmmm, Recon, Support or Engineer. I'm guessing Recon will be last so it's down to LMG's or SMGs for the next two weeks.

[Stark]

Maybe if you responded to the battlefield situation when choosing role instead of bald faced farming for points you wouldn't have these choices?

[Mr Bean]

Maybe if you responded to the battlefield situation when choosing role instead of bald faced farming for points you wouldn't have these choices?

But when would the 91 be useful? It does not have a tight enough spread or high enough damage to be a useful medium range sniper rifle, and as an assault rifle it's garbage since they added a good half second delay between shot pulls meaning you can't as you can with a pistol unload your clip by clicking quickly.

[Edward Yee]

and yeah, not tying weapon unlocks to points is a huge step back, and so is identical upgrade trees for weapon types. want a red dot for an assault rifle? HOPE YOU LIKE ACOG FOR SEVENTY KILLS!

When that comes up, I just go back to the iron sights, but yeah, it would be nice had there been some points system for attachment unlocks.

[Artemas]

or just, you know an actual tree.

level 3 saw? you can choose from three level 3 unlocks, or one from the lower tiers you havent chosen yet.

fuck, anything would be better

anyway, given how silly tough the amtrack is, i dont mind there being no unlocks for it

the humvees/vodniks (vodniki?) not having any is a bit egregious given how much more useful they are though

and its not like theres nothing to give them, or no variants of humvee with ATGMs or SAMs

maybe give them fewer slots, and have weapon systems replace the gun, but there would have been plenty of scope to make, for example, functioning scout vehicles with proximity detectors or IR, or shoot n scoot antitank platforms

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Anyone else noticing the uselessness of stationary weapons?

I used the balls off of stationaries in BF2 and BC2. Sure, you were a little exposed sometimes sitting in one and might get killed now and then, but the kills racked up in one usually paid off. And often it was a critical target, like an annoying tank or chopper.

In BF3, there seems to be about a grand total of 3 stationary weapons scattered throughout the entire map lineup, and all of them in completely useless positions. Has anyone killed anything with one?

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah more evidence of rushing, in BF3 emplacements are in useless positions. I haven't found a single well placed machine gun or TOW launcher anywhere on the maps.

[Artemas]

yeah, like in caspian border theres TWO! tows on the central hill, but they're obscured by trees and shit so they're useless. if they werent, they have a much longer range, the central hill would become vital ground, and the battle might be drawn into the environs of the hill, instead of spread out so much

[Nephtys]

The TOW emplacements are all facing horrible fire lanes. On Caspian, both are actually pointed in the WRONG WAY to their maximum usefulness. If only they were aimed down long roads it'd help, but these little bendy junctions.

I did get a TOW kill before. A Utility Helo wasn't paying attention and I planted one into the cabin.