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DICE talks about BF3 Beta reactions, certification delays, and post-release support

Did anyone here play BF2 and 1942? The series has always had bullet-sponge enemies, making teamwork much more important.

Atleast I prefer it that way.
 
AllIsOneIsNone said:
The less damage the better, at least for my play style. But armor wielding games like Halo and Crysis 2 are my favorite; I like a confrontation that requires precision (persistent accuracy), not just the element of surprise. Someone can jump behind me and if they are of equal skill level they'll likely beat me, but if I'm better than them I still have a chance to face them and win the firefight.

Is it less "war-like"? Maybe. But realism is always thrown out the window when you respawn after you die. Lack of self-preservation is why war games will never be realistic.

Sneaking up on people is part of the skill.
 
Sneaking up on people and stabbing or shooting them in the head definitely takes skill. Hiding in a bush and shooting people as they go past, not so much.
 
Wow, they fucked up the damage model? And that's after the unnecessary nerf to PDWs as well.

Awesome. Proof that children who cry because they're terrible always get what they want.

Keep catering to the lowest common denominator, DICE.
 
Izayoi said:
Wow, they fucked up the damage model? And that's after the unnecessary nerf to PDWs as well.

Awesome. Proof that children who cry because they're terrible always get what they want.

Keep catering to the lowest common denominator, DICE.
This goes both ways. Beta damage was ridiculous, and so were the PDWs. Reminded me of Homefront's hardcore mode.
 
I liked the damage model in the beta. No room for babies that cry about getting flanked every 2 minutes. If you get flanked, it's you that fucked up and you deserved to lose the fight. You don't deserve a second chance just because your twitch reflexes are better.

Battlefield is all about map control, and the damage model reflects that.

However, I wish they would make squad spawning a tad tougher this time around. I feel that with both squad spawning on any member, and the recon spawn beacon, it's too easy to overwhelm a position.
 
To people comparing it to CoD: that's simply not the case. The damage model is not what makes CoD feel how it feels. The main differentiating factor here is the fact that CoD has rotating spawns in TDM. As a result, enemies can essentially come from anywhere at any time. This is absolutely not the case with BF3. If you manage to get surprised by an enemy, you only have your team to blame, not a randomized spawning system.
 
OdysseusVA said:
Instant kill while running was a bug that has since been fixed...

assuming that is really the problem. there is too much smoke screen and damage control coming from DICE in the past to buy what they say automatically
 
Shai-Tan said:
assuming that is really the problem. there is too much smoke screen and damage control coming from DICE in the past to buy what they say automatically

What does this even mean? Why would they lie about an obvious bug?
 
Shai-Tan said:
assuming that is really the problem. there is too much smoke screen and damage control coming from DICE in the past to buy what they say automatically
Well it's one of the problems at least. Glad it's fixed.
 
Mr. Snrub said:
Base damage is basically unchanged from beta, they just fixed a damage bug. I doubt we'll be seeing BC2 low-level damage, but the damage bug fix should make shootouts feel a bit more fair.

Since the beta has ended I've started playing MP on BC2 for PC. I feel like I still need practice honing my KB/M skills. All of my time playing BC2 previously was for PS3. Anyway, I forgot what bullet sponges enemies were. I had to shoot dudes at least 12 times with the starter assault weapons.

That is way to high. After playing the BF3 beta and then moving directly over to BC2 I can say with confidence that I much prefer BF3 in nearly every way, minus the few bugs obviously. BF3 has cemented it's place as my most anticipated title of the year. I really hope they don't change too much.
 
TheExodu5 said:
To people comparing it to CoD: that's simply not the case. The damage model is not what makes CoD feel how it feels. The main differentiating factor here is the fact that CoD has rotating spawns in TDM. As a result, enemies can essentially come from anywhere at any time. This is absolutely not the case with BF3. If you manage to get surprised by an enemy, you only have your team to blame, not a randomized spawning system.


the movement in CoD is also much different. bc2 doesnt have the damage of CoD but its movement is closer (smooth, quick). bf3 has higher damage ranges but the movement is a lot slower and sluggish feeling than both CoD and bc2 and it changes how the game plays. CoD has a lot of campers because of the bullet damage but it also has a lot of people roaming because they can beat the campers. from what i see in bf3 high bullet damage and sluggish movement makes it into a game of hiding more than seeking which is what they were aiming for but irritates me as a player who likes to be always roaming to the different objectives.
 
Shai-Tan said:
the movement in CoD is also much different. bc2 doesnt have the damage of CoD but its movement is closer (smooth, quick). bf3 has higher damage ranges but the movement is a lot slower and sluggish feeling than both CoD and bc2 and it changes how the game plays. CoD has a lot of campers because of the bullet damage but it also has a lot of people roaming because they can beat the campers. from what i see in bf3 high bullet damage and sluggish movement makes it into a game of hiding more than seeking which is what they were aiming for but irritates me as a player who likes to be always roaming to the different objectives.

Movement with "weight" =/= sluggish movement. BF3 has pretty damned smooth movement.

And I would completely disagree on BF3 rewarding hiding vs. moving. Maybe in Metro, which is their smallest map.
 
Dabanton said:
Will the console version allow full team speak? Or is it confined to squads like BC2?

I believe they stated you will have that option when forming a squad, set it to team or squad speak...not sure how 'lone wolfs' will be handled, probably be able to hear other lone wolfs and those squads set to team speak.

I'd be surprised if most people do not use team speak, its an advantage as long as someone isn't listening to Kanye West blasting at 120db. (but those guys play COD ;) )
 
Mr. Snrub said:
What does this even mean? Why would they lie about an obvious bug?

There was more wrong with the damage model then just one bug and several balance issues with numerous weapons that had nothing to do with this bug.
 
Shai-Tan said:
but irritates me as a player who likes to be always roaming to the different objectives.

They usually provide many paths from area to area with various means to remain covered...don't 'roam' in the open when other people have guns...ever, real life or game :)
 
ii Stryker said:
There was more wrong with the damage model then just one bug and several balance issues with numerous weapons that had nothing to do with this bug.

How can you know that? Perhaps the 'movement bug' was just making it look like there were other bugs / less health / imbalanced weapons.

Honestly, the team that made BC2 an awesome game is not going to forget what they did to do so. I think most of the health issues were caused by that single bug which at times made the health system look wonky, and the guns appear over powered in certain cases.
 
ii Stryker said:
There was more wrong with the damage model then just one bug and several balance issues with numerous weapons that had nothing to do with this bug.

Yeah, but they've also already acknowledged and detailed the other damage bugs that they are fixing/have fixed, in addition to giving us specific damage values that we can expect to see. Where's the "smoke and mirrors"?

Just sounds like more needless hysteria.
 
GodofWine said:
How can you know that? Perhaps the 'movement bug' was just making it look like there were other bugs / less health / imbalanced weapons.

Honestly, the team that made BC2 an awesome game is not going to forget what they did to do so. I think most of the health issues were caused by that single bug which at times made the health system look wonky, and the guns appear over powered in certain cases.

I had issues with several sighted weapons versus using iron sights(weapons seemed much more accurate with ironsights).
And DICE is trying to tell us the UMP45 and PP2000 magic insta death @ 200 yards was the result of this solitary bug, umm, not likely.

Mr. Snrub said:
Yeah, but they've also already acknowledged and detailed the other damage bugs that they are fixing/have fixed, in addition to giving us specific damage values that we can expect to see.

You got a link? I'd like some details man!
 
TheExodu5 said:
To people comparing it to CoD: that's simply not the case. The damage model is not what makes CoD feel how it feels. The main differentiating factor here is the fact that CoD has rotating spawns in TDM. As a result, enemies can essentially come from anywhere at any time. This is absolutely not the case with BF3. If you manage to get surprised by an enemy, you only have your team to blame, not a randomized spawning system.
Uh, it is when we're talking about the action of shooting a dude.

Hopefully it's not as bad as BC2 as that article makes it sound, though. Not long to wait, at least.
 
Mr. Snrub said:
Movement with "weight" =/= sluggish movement. BF3 has pretty damned smooth movement.

And I would completely disagree on BF3 rewarding hiding vs. moving. Maybe in Metro, which is their smallest map.
I definitely agree with this, on consoles at least. The controls in BC2 felt a bit sluggish to me, had to play with sensitivity maxed. But BF3 I turned it up to the halfway mark on the sens slider and it felt great. You feel more nimble in BF3, at least to me.
 
Sigma Storm said:
Gotta agree here, I was a keen BF 2 player way back when and I can guarantee you that the beta resembled CoD in terms of gun play. You see, in BF 2 if someone tried to pump bullets into your chest, you could turn around and shoot them in the head and 1 shot kill them, if you were good enough. This wasn't always the case.

The beta was more of whoever spots/shoots first wins, me no likey, this is BF, not CoD.

[EDIT: Just read most of this page, surprised there aren't more BF 2 guys here. :\ Aim for the HEAD people, not centre of mass.]

Someone who played BF2 would aim for the feet in fire fights.
 
Rainy Dog said:
Man, I hope so much this is true. BC2 with Magnum Ammo/Vietnam's damage model is a perfect fit for mainly objective focused gameplay. BF3's beta damage model was higher than even Medal of Honor's, which is just that bit too high in my opinion. I feel 4 bullets to kill for an automatic weapon should be the baseline in BF3, not 3.

Were we playing the same game? After playing bf3 beta and bc2 and vietnam back to back the damage model is very similar (i always use magnum ammo), it's almost identical to Vietnam which I believe has a slightly higher base damage than bc2.

The only time the damage model in bf3 feels high is point blank range where you can take someone out very quickly, but that's the way it should be!

Mr. Snrub said:
Calm down. One Joystiq journalist's impressions vs the developer who designed the damage for all the weapons. Who to trust?

Voice of reason. I doubt they changed the damage model, he probably had a chance to play a bigger map where the longer range encounters reveal just how similar the damage model really is to bc2 levels.
 
purple cobra said:
I definitely agree with this, on consoles at least. The controls in BC2 felt a bit sluggish to me, had to play with sensitivity maxed. But BF3 I turned it up to the halfway mark on the sens slider and it felt great. You feel more nimble in BF3, at least to me.

BF3 feels like KZ2 at COD speed (thats my best way to put it.) It has weight, yet is leaning more towards 'twitchy' that either BC2 or KZ2 did (its not COD twitchy though)
 
Mr. Snrub said:
Movement with "weight" =/= sluggish movement. BF3 has pretty damned smooth movement.

And I would completely disagree on BF3 rewarding hiding vs. moving. Maybe in Metro, which is their smallest map.


Thanks god, hope we can safely assume that Operation Metro is the worst BF3 map then and forget about it. Makes their choice more baffling though.

And people should calm down about the damage. It's probably less lethal now that damage bugs and weapons inconsistent damage has been fixed, that's all. The game will feel a lot different. Anyway DICE will keep balancing weapons and overall damage/health after the game. I'm sure we'll see different kinds of damage level over a few months time.
 
I'll wait to try the final product rather than listen to a journalist give their opinion on how a game feels...

But if you and your teammates get out played by someone who out smarted you, and sneaked up behind you laying prone not knowing they were there, you should die. You shouldn't be able to "show off your skills and defend yourself", spinning around hoping for that lucky headshot (not skill, bullshit luck).

DICE's new damage model! Maybe NSFW?
http://gifarchive.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/robo1.gif

And if that guy had a gun, he might have been able to pull off a lucky headshot on the mech 2/3's of the way through that.
 
iam220 said:
Were we playing the same game? After playing bf3 beta and bc2 and vietnam back to back the damage model is very similar (i always use magnum ammo), it's almost identical to Vietnam which I believe has a slightly higher base damage than bc2.

The only time the damage model in bf3 feels high is point blank range where you can take someone out very quickly, but that's the way it should be!

It is similar to Vietnam's damage, but still higher enough to make a crucial difference.

If you look at the chart, the most powerful automatic gun in BC2 Vietnam is the PPSh. Close range damage is 25, 4 bullets to killl...even if you stick on Magnum ammo (+25%) as that goes up to 31.25, so 4 bullets are still needed on 100% health. I really feel this should be the absolute lowest number of bullets any automatic should kill in in BF3, but in the beta the UMP, PP2000, Scar and M60 were all 3 bullet kills at close range. We're well and truly in COD damage model territory there.

Vietnam without magnum ammo (or vanilla BC2 plus MA) is pretty much spot on in my opinion. We might only be talking about one bullet from the current baseline, but it'd make all the difference in how the game plays whilst allowing for a broader range of weapon characteristics without upsetting overall balance as easily (as the UMP showed).
 
Rainy Dog said:
It is similar to Vietnam's damage, but still higher enough to make a crucial difference.

If you look at the chart, the most powerful automatic gun in BC2 Vietnam is the PPSh. Close range damage is 25, 4 bullets to killl...even if you stick on Magnum ammo (+25%) as that goes up to 31.25, so 4 bullets are still needed on 100% health. I really feel this should be the absolute lowest number of bullets any automatic should kill in in BF3, but in the beta the UMP, PP2000, Scar and M60 were all 3 bullet kills at close range. We're well and truly in COD damage model territory there.

Vietnam without magnum ammo (or vanilla BC2 plus MA) is pretty much spot on in my opinion. We might only be talking about one bullet from the current baseline, but it'd make all the difference in how the game plays whilst allowing for a broader range of weapon characteristics without upsetting overall balance as easily (as the UMP showed).

Again those 3 bullets are at close range and I don't see a problem with that, if you get the jump on somebody at close range, barring a major fuck up, they should be dead. Yes, I agree that one bullet does make a difference, less so when the amount of bullets it takes to kill someone increases, but the greater recoil in bf3 has to be offset somehow.

People are complaining about how overpowered the UMP is but it's damage drop off with distance is pretty dramatic and the accuracy at long ranges is not great either. If you tried to pick off someone 100m in the distance with a UMP you'd know what I mean, it's somewhat frustrating, not only because it takes about 6 bullets to take them down but also because you have the recoil working against you. It's much harder at those ranges to get them with 2-3 consecutive bullets as it is with bc2's recoil model.
 
Damage over a distance should be a bit higher. It drops off too fast for AR's.

I also had a discussion on another forum about suppression and whether it was featured in the beta. Not once I noticed I was suppressed. Maybe I was just too concentrated for getting the visual clues. I would have thought that it would be more pronounced. Like being able to people at a distance with MG's more easily. Didn't see any of it. Except for getting suppression points.

Wasn't the instant death while running just a lag issue? The opponent gets to squeeze off a few rounds and you are dead before even noticing the first?
 
Really liked the damage model in BC2 and Vietnam, BF3 beta just felt terrible to me. I can't really explain why but deaths always just felt unfair and unexpected.

Weirdly I'm playing RO2 now which is way more harsh but it feels a lot better to me.
 
iam220 said:
Again those 3 bullets are at close range and I don't see a problem with that, if you get the jump on somebody at close range, barring a major fuck up, they should be dead. Yes, I agree that one bullet does make a difference, less so when the amount of bullets it takes to kill someone increases, but the greater recoil in bf3 has to be offset somehow.

People are complaining about how overpowered the UMP is but it's damage drop off with distance is pretty dramatic and the accuracy at long ranges is not great either. If you tried to pick off someone 100m in the distance with a UMP you'd know what I mean, it's somewhat frustrating, not only because it takes about 6 bullets to take them down but also because you have the recoil working against you. It's much harder at those ranges to get them with 2-3 consecutive bullets as it is with bc2's recoil model.

Yeah, some fair points there, iam. Number of bullets to kill only tell part of the story. I believe BF2's weapons were statistically even higher than what we've seen from BF3, but the crazy deviation made it feel more in line with BC2.

I think we just need to see how the retail build pans out. The damage multiplier bugs made it almost impossible to get a proper handle on it anyway. For the record, I agree with your take on the UMP. I didn't feel it was especially overpowered either, just overused. And again, I think alot of folks' judgement of it was skewed by the damage bugs.
 
aeolist said:
Really liked the damage model in BC2 and Vietnam, BF3 beta just felt terrible to me. I can't really explain why but deaths always just felt unfair and unexpected.

Weirdly I'm playing RO2 now which is way more harsh but it feels a lot better to me.

That sounds like beta netcode
 
PjotrStroganov said:
I also had a discussion on another forum about suppression and whether it was featured in the beta. Not once I noticed I was suppressed. Maybe I was just too concentrated for getting the visual clues. I would have thought that it would be more pronounced. Like being able to people at a distance with MG's more easily. Didn't see any of it. Except for getting suppression points.

Suppression is when your screen went blurry, usually when you're behind cover in a firefight. Actually took me a few hours of play to realise what it was. At first I thought that was the effect of me getting hit (instead of the now trendy red jelly screen) until I noticed that I still had 100% health after it'd happened... Then it triggered what it was.
 
Mr. Snrub said:
Movement with "weight" =/= sluggish movement. BF3 has pretty damned smooth movement.

And I would completely disagree on BF3 rewarding hiding vs. moving. Maybe in Metro, which is their smallest map.

I would completely disagree as well, especially on smaller maps. Metro makes it obvious, the people who keep moving, forcing engagements as often as possible while not giving a shit about how often they die? Those are the people you see leading the scoring.

The only time I made good score while "camping" is at a few select chokepoints as support while playing on defense. The rest of the time the big points were in assault.

Revive is +100, squad revive is +150, how many of those will you get camping? NOT VERY MANY. :)
 
Rainy Dog said:
For the record, I agree with your take on the UMP. I didn't feel it was especially overpowered either, just overused. And again, I think alot of folks' judgement of it was skewed by the damage bugs.

Yeah, when I finally unlocked the UMP and got to use it I couldn't help but wonder what all the fuss was about, I guess one could make the argument that it's too strong of a gun to be available to all kits but other than that I don't see it as overpowered at all.

The damage bugs and the fact that most people played in the close quarters of metro is probably a large part of the COD damage model comparisons, cries to nerf UMP, and general beta related bitterness.
 
Rainy Dog said:
Suppression is when your screen went blurry, usually when you're behind cover in a firefight. Actually took me a few hours of play to realise what it was. At first I thought that was the effect of me getting hit (instead of the now trendy red jelly screen) until I noticed that I still had 100% health after it'd happened... Then it triggered what it was.

There is also a perk that decrease the effect on you and one that increases suppression effects on those you are shooting at as well. Both singular and squad versions of the perks I might add. I didn't pick those up though, as I felt ammo, explosives, and sprint were of greater asset to your squad.
 
Did anyone else try the beta on all three platforms?

From my experience I had the least amount of problems on Playstation 3 and the most amount on Xbox 360. The landscape was shitting the bed on Xbox constantly. PC was glitchy but it could've just been my rig.

The players were more cooperative on PS3 too
 
Capture point spawning was pretty screwed up on Caspian. An enemy squad was going to secure Hilltop and I spawned right in the middle of them while they were prone and looking in other directions. I completely wiped them out.
 
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