Battlefield 3

Finally...thank you Indian tech support

 

Yesterday the PS3 version of Battlefield 3 was patched (close to 1 GB download) and there were A LOT OF CHANGES.

In fact, there were a lot more changes to the game than was stated on any list we had seen by launch time.

At the end of this post, I'll include a few links that details a lot of the changes, but I will say it is a very interesting patch and the game feels different and even looks a bit different. In fact, it even sounds a bit different too.

The PC patch launches tomorrow (Thursday morning) and the 360 patch is supposed to be ready very soon (I bet next week).

Exciting times, and we will see how the vocal community eventually reacts to the changes.

I was not able to play much of the game last night, however because for some reason I had 1-2 bar connection to all of the servers--it was like I was in Australia or something (for the record, the Oceania servers and Australia/New Zealand's access to servers has been bad on PS3 Battlefield 3 for a long time now).

But here are some quick notes of things I found that I had no idea were coming:

* The feel seems different, and each gun actually feels quite a bit different. I am curious how EmX will react to this because it seemed like one of his big criticisms was a lack of personality and differentiation with the weapons--he felt so many of them felt so similar that there was never a reason to use anything but the very best gun on a very narrow measure.

* Hoping this isn't the lag but... the battles I had reminded me of Battlefield 3 back in November and a bit of Bad Company 2 (not that far extreme, but like halfway between BF3 and BC2). I got into longer firefights with opponents as we both missed each other more than we were last week. The margin between standing full-auto sustained and crouching with feathered bursts got a whole lot wider it seems. I only played a couple of games though and my connection was laggy so maybe that's it. But I did like the feel and I felt there was more "fighting" going on.

* To the player, it feels like waiting to respawn is longer. However, I think what's really happening is the kill cam is on for a shorter time or the black screen is that much quicker than before. However, you're supposedly given a longer time to be revived, and that would counter the former speculation.

* No more super worm (I love my wave dashes!) but getting out of prone and into sprint was noticeably faster for me. Before it was the feeling of lag. Now it feels like you're getting up almost right away. It's not broken at all, it's still a penalty for being prone, but it's much faster than before. Hip-Hip-Hoooah --> Hip-H-Hooah!

* PS3 version can now turn off anti-aliasing. Apparently, for the PS3 owners who were suffering input lag (I am pretty sure I was not one of them), turning off anti-aliasing fixes this issue.

* The minimap has been updated and certain things pop out more on it.

* Because I had a laggy connection, I actually got a lag indicator in the upper right corner of the screen (looks like a disconnected cable).

* The netcode might have been tweaked, lag was being handled differently for me last night. Instead of rubber banding and getting stuck, sometimes things teleported more and when I drove an IFV it was warping in many many different positions. Truly awkward position. Also, when the connection was at its worst, my screen would be firing like crazy with loud noise and no control. I think the old netcode really masked bad connection so that you hardly noticed there was lag.

* They changed the squad screen. I can't explain it yet, but it was confusing at first and I still need a bit more time with it. With the bit of play time I had, I could not do the normal thing and just tell everyone to get into Foxtrot. We kind of had to find each other. It was awkward for the way I usually play (with friends and platoon mates) but I'm sure that it'll be fine after 10 or so matches.

* I don't go blind anymore when tweaking loadouts because they got rid of that stupid distortion effect whenever you cycle through your options.

There are tons of interesting changes to maps whether it's expanding a couple TDM maps or putting a Little Bird on Sharqi Peninsula. They also separated Conquest Assault from Conquest on the Quick Join option. Speaking of which, the multiplayer menu is totally different and console players can now schedule matches via Battlelog. While there is no battle recorder yet, it's pretty awesome that this game finally has match-scheduling capability. Long overdue, but I'll take it!

Community Generated List (reddit + mp1st) of PS3 Changes that were not in the official patch notes

The Official List

PC Patch Details (Battlefieldo)

 

Worthy of a separate post! (But don't forget to read my last post!)

This news is especially of interest to classic Battlefield fans! Enjoy!

"Armored Kill" (the giant vehicle expansion coming in the Fall) News via MP1st!

EVEN MORE ARMORED KILL NEWS by MP1st

 

It looks like DICE wants to target the esports/clan community a bit more so they will have to think about their game more critically if they want to reach that fickle audience, especially if mod support has been ruled out altogether. The current patch looks like a tentative step in the right direction if only gameplay-wise. (They're also going to need people with better English skills to talk to the community in posts like this.)

I'm not a super-serious FPS player, but there are a lot of things that are quite obviously bad about most of the maps in the game in 64p conquest* -- especially the infantry-oriented ones. It's hard to shake the impression I had of Rush, a chaotic, frustrating meatgrinder mode on BC2 (I've yet to experience a round of BF3 rush that was any different), so I stick to conquest most of the time. In BF3 the spawn system is still awful, the clunky/unresponsive/un-customizable UI (revealed to have been outsourced just today), the netcode tailored to p2p connections, and so forth don't build any confidence in me that they can pull it off. None of this bothers console players since that's all they're aware of, unfortunately, so I doubt positive steps will be made on that front.

Regarding that new large-map-oriented DLC I have a few random thoughts:

I think the MAV should interact with the artillery to mark targets for it to hit. I don't think they should let the arty fire manually because it will make it far too easy to be overpowered for area denial on ff-off servers, and result in a knee-jerk nerf later - DICE have mastered that time after time. It might be a bad idea to put artillery in altogether because of this too. I base this on the following: Mortar strikes were braindead in BC2, just like the support mortar is now. The main difference is that the support's mortar isn't effective on any map with abundant vehicles and isn't really a huge problem on shitfest maps like Tehran or Seine if people just move or use cover.

*Let's have a look at Caspian Border, since Halling mentioned it. It isn't a good template for a 64 player conquest map at all. I don't know what data they're looking at that makes them think this. C(forest) and E(gas station) change hands way too many times. They're far too hard to defend, and with E being so close to the RU spawn AND having a Russian-only MBT spawn it's just ridiculous to have it be so easy to get to. C is impossible to defend without having people spawn on the point while capturing. D (hilltop) is the main focus of the map because it's slightly easier to defend from the horrible spawn system and it's the highest point of the map but the structures on it are almost immediately cleared by the attack chopper, which can basically focus its attention on this point for the duration of the map if no one puts a SOFLAM down. A and B are further removed from all the chaos and can give the US a distinct advantage if they just have people in their general vicinity. I've seen the RU team pushed into their spawn multiple times, and it isn't even the worst example of this problem.

 

A few things about the PC patch (a lot of it was stealth-patched in, I'm afraid):

The strengthening of the suppression mechanic appeared to upset quite a few people because of how suppression drastically affects accuracy now. It makes face-to-face firefights too random. Competitive players were upset with the change. I can see how the game would become more about positioning, watching lines of sight and all that, while toning down reliance on pure aim, but people were already outraged in a matter of hours after it was released. What a great thing eSports is, right?

It's amazing, after a drastic redesign, the stinger/IGLA is even worse. All an attack chopper pilot has to do is fly lower or get out of its range to break the lock. Having a minimum range to lock on (I didn't actually see this change mentioned in the patch notes) doesn't work at all. I don't think there's a good way to balance a self-guided missile to make it skillful AND useful. I think they just need to pick the latter.

Tanks now often disable after taking one RPG/SMAW to the hull. It's just an absurd amount of damage, and makes MBTs a lot less useful. Again, no mention of this change in the patch notes.

The P90 and AS Val PDWs have had increases in horizontal recoil. The AS VAL in particular was useful before, now it's pretty questionable. The P90 was pretty solid, but it jumps around when aiming down the sights and there's very little to control that. Again, no mention in the notes about this, except mention of an increase in vertical recoil on the AS Val.

I'm still having trouble seeing why an assault player would pick any other assault rifle than the M16A3. Maybe the A4 or KH2002 lol. I'm a big fan of the AN94 and it did get improved a bit. Woo hoo, I'll still use the AN94, but the A3 is plenty accurate, it reloads fast and has a respectable rate of fire. The AN94 also takes quite a bit longer to reload and has very little to offer inside a certain range now that suppression is so strong. The foregrip apparently increases spread down the sights for all weapons now, so there's no reason to use it on any weapon as far as I can tell. Throw a flash suppressor on your weapon, since it now reduces recoil yay.

Support benefited the most from the changes to the game. I think the tweaks to certain LMGs and bipod deploy times/efficacy were much needed, although the clear winner in all of this is the RPK-74, which got a stealth-patched-in 200rnd extended mag, but reloads as fast as normal. It also got a reduction in recoil, which it needed. I haven't gotten my hands on the MG36 or M249, both got a slight nerf in the notes, but who knooooooowwws.

BEEP BEEP!

 

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654624957884261/1/

For those interested, I've made a thread on Battlelog with the intent of discussing productive changes to the suppression system instead of kneejerk demands to remove it altogether. It's working out for now, surprisingly enough.

 

Wow suppression reduces your accuracy? That's bullshit.

I think I'm gunna be pissed when the patch hits the 360.

One thing I liked about BF was that if you shot at someone in CQC you would kill them. In CoD it's pretty much whoever has the better connection. But with this patch adding randomness to the situation, it just sounds incredibly frustrating.

 

Well, it's the spread-based accuracy penalty which makes it random. A lot of people want an increase in recoil instead, or just leaving the visual indicator. I like having people slowed on hit slightly and applying the suppression effect to them as well ala Red Orchestra. Maybe a damage or speed penalty of some sort could be added to suppression instead of the accuracy thing too. They could make it so you can still sprint away but it takes longer to get up and/or reach full speed.

The initial kneejerk reaction was "this is horrible roll back the patch fuck DICE forever". The counter-arguments were more measured but didn't account for the fact that suppression only applied to indirect fire.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?yy9r1n07ttfd55a

suddendeath and anyone else on PC, this is a color correction mod without that stupid FXAA full-screen blur thing. I finally found it on the EA UK forums!

 

For the Battlefield 3 players with iPhones, the EA Battlelog App is now live on the iTunes store ^_^

 

hmmm this might be the same that im using, could you link me where u found this? is this the same one where you could press the pause key to turn on / off the effect?

 

It might be. I can't find the thread. Basically a guy edited the anti-aliasing setting in the danoc1 injector and changed the gamma slightly. Looks better and no discernible performance hit from what I can tell.

 

Consider my jaw-dropped... o.0

So you guys remember that article on Reddit that I really liked about Situational Awareness...

Found out my friend since middle school wrote it ^_^

What are the odds?!

 

That is absolutely nuts.

 

Small world, eh? Also yeah, the AMTRAC is underrated (seems like half the players don't know it has an HMG built in) and I wish more maps had APCs in general .

The map design in this game is really terrible. I'm sure having a team you can actually communicate with via voice has to mitigate that a great deal.

sidenote: DICE signed an exclusivity deal with ESN Sonar on PC so we're screwed unless they figure out how to sync it to the game (not holding my breath, even if teamspeak already did it for their software). Fuck DICE, seriously.

Lovin' the G3A3 and abusing the DART Hbarrel glitch. I finally bothered to unlock the L85 too, kinda fun to use as well. I'm sure DICE will nerf the M26 back to near-uselessness in the next patch like they always do with things like this, even if it's just a glitch that makes it problematic now. 870's Slugs are great fun btw, until you're suppressed :\

 

What is the dart glitch? I keep getting killed by darts when I'm playing as infantry and I'm not even sure which class it's on.

 

The M26 DART's individual pellets do the same amount of damage as a single shot from the rifle itself when the heavy barrel is equipped. The M26 was improved overall, but this makes the DART an easier one hit kill and gives it a lot more power at longer ranges.

 

Hands up, who is jet service star 25? *Hand goes up*

 

Grats! HOOAH!

 

25!!?!? jesus man do you EVER walk anymore? lol

and i thought i had a decent amount, good lord... 0_0