Other General Battlefield 3 discussion thread

From my experience in BC2 and BF3, this series isn't very nice to new players who start late or don't play very much. The jet is absolutely defenseless and useless until you get IR flairs and heat seekers. As a noob in a jet, all you can do is fly around and try to machine-gun something and get points so you can get closer to IR flairs before someone sends a heat seeker at you which you can't dodge b/c you don't have flairs yet. As a noob, it's also near impossible to shoot down anything with just the machine gun. Choppers take multiple passes to kill usually, and other jets will usually get away from you before you're done killing them.

On the ground, your starting weapons are near useless. I played CO-OP and unlocked all the weapons there thinking it'd be a bit easier to play if I had some other weapons, but most of the CO-OP guns don't help very much. You've got to play and earn a few levels the classes/vehicles before you can really be competitive in this game. Plus, knowing the map layout and the common hiding spots helps. If you're annoyed at spawn killing, play rush.

 

If the damage model isn't to your liking likgoth, try hardcore. Jump on the ZiiP server, squad up and play objectively.

Spawn kills can happen, but we also try to enforce slaps for sustained uncap spawn killing. Nature of the beast.

The AK is much better than you think

 

Indeed the series isn't exactly beginner friendly. To be fair, this isn't exactly the first Battlefield game and the majority of players will have years of experience with the general gameplay.

As for jets, it does take some luck and time to get the flares. Fly fast, break line of sight, and always be on the lookout for slower moving helicopters to get a good few hits in with your machine gun. If you're lucky it'll only take a single pass to disable/destroy a hovering copper. Taking only 400 points for flares if you can take out a chopper and the pilot you've already gotten 200.

For the most part all of the starting weapons are quite competitive, unlocks are designed to not be upgrades, just options. Remember that by the time you've unlocked other weapons you've also put in more playtime and likely gotten better at the game. There's also the aspect that you might just like the feel of a later weapon without it actually being "better" as a weapon. Going back after awhile you just might really like one of the starting weapons. In fact, sticking with an early weapon can actually be better because you'll spend more time getting kills on a single weapon and get more unlocks for it.

At the very beginning there is, however, some advantage to unlocking upgrades to fill the different slots. For example, unlocking at least the first optics for a gun typically make a huge difference. Vehicles even more so, obviously. The faster you can unlock the few basic vehicle upgrades (some of these really are upgrades) the better. Flares and heat seekers make air vehicles a lot more potent while the various reload/machine gun/ATGM upgrades on ground vehicles can make a big difference as well early on.

All in all, stick with things for a little bit in the beginning and it quickly turns around.

 

The big weakness with the separate unlocks for each weapon is that as soon as the Assault class unlocks the M416 there is no point using the M16/AK74M as the M416 is cross-class and therefore levels up whatever team you are on.

Add into that the fact that it is a beautiful, if slightly bland, weapon and I see no purpose in the army-specific weapons at all. As I love the AK74M this is a bit sad, I would like to be able to use that weapon whatever team I'm on. However I do understand that this has been the case since the earliest days of BF so I can't really complain too much

 

The only problem with any BF game is a TDM mindset.

I blame whoever stopped dice having ingame VOIP per squad. AFAIK that's what console ships with.

It'll be licencing ********.


This week CPCBIT will be conquest one round, metro removed.

Over the weekend we'll run all maps 1conquest, 2rush; find what's worth keeping in the cycle.

 

Some people, the people who collect trash and open every draw in RPGs are the people who will unlock every unlock/upgrade for every weapon in the game. Sometimes you just have the grind a weapon to show it's true potential. I hated shotguns, I grinded with the 870, now I love it again

 

I like metro.

 

anyone know is there a map list limit?

i've sorted 25 rounds 2 different conquest maps followed by 2 rounds on a rush map. (sorted carefully so no same map are played next to eachother) but only the first ~12 map gets played, the later ones get ignored by the game.



starting weapons are a pain, i found co-op weapons are fantastic. SG553 for engineers is similar to SCAR. G3A3 is great. together with PWP, you really don't have to use starting faction specific weapons at all. T88 LMG is a beast, SKS is the best team play sniper rifle, DAO-12 with flechette rounds does damage at great distance.

(unlocking DAO-12 Frag rounds very soon. should be great. MASS frag rounds are a bit low on damage, and doesn't fire fast enough)

 

In conquest? Its god awful!

 

Same here, nothing like letting off a bit of Steam on Metro, nice chance to give the shotguns their chance to shine.

It's only awful if you're on the wrong team.

 

I tried playing some non hardcore games yesterday and I absolutely hate it. Having to unload an entire clip to get a kill or get the jump on somebody and they turn around and kill you is so annoying. Yeah you get killed more easily in HC but you also kill more easily.

 

it's not the damage model in normal mode. it's the recoil.

switch to single shot mode, then see how many rounds you need to get a kill: very little, too little for automatic weapons i'd say.


normal is already so much unbalanced compared to BFBC2. sniper rifle doesn't 1 hit kill at point blank range, pistol takes so long to take out, pistols are also so ineffective compared to AR. in fact, AR and carbine are both way too good, LMG also have the age old problem of pin-point single shot accuracy. bolt action sniper rifles can no longer go toe to toe with any weapon at all, especially with the slow draw speed of pistols.

i tried, i really tried. but recon with a bolt action rifle now can only play as a long range sniper. MAV is great, but unfortunately it's what recon is only good for. they REALLY need C4 and a better motion sensor.

/rant

hopefully pistols get a much needed buff, along with a nerf with mobile AA projectiles.

 

Metro would be awesome if they opened up the whole map. What I mean is soldiers have a flag outside so we could not only fight our way through the tunnels and ticket rooms but then move outside to capture several flags.

For the first time yesterday on Metro the US won the match. It was a damn sight better than being nade spammed on the stairs!

 

+1.

I just can't stand it.


Might try the single shot suggestion wuy, although the vehicle damage is still stupid.

 

BF3 Mythbusters!

 

With BFBC2 and BF3 I didn't enjoy the first 10 hours until I had learnt the maps and got a few upgrades. It is very frustrating getting shot all the time, but you will get better.

As with the jets it is very unbalanced until you have flares. I found a server called "Flying practice, No AA or heat seekers" which really helped. It still took me 20 deaths in my jet to get the 300 points required for IR flares!

The next update is apparently going to sort the Jets out, I hope this is addressed.

 

nice! need more Javalin or heatseaker players. whenever i use SOFLAM, i have to either ask them via mumble, or see the target escape my field of view.

i bet whenever i use Javalin or guided shell, no one uses SOFLAM.


i tried many times and not been able to get a kill with MAV. looks like will need to keep trying



Added:

for the jets. i found the machine gun is more than enough and more effective to take out other jets. just get behind them and stay there long enough to be able to land a good burst or two will do the job. best to shoot when they are banking, presenting largest target.

basic fighter dogfight tricks apply here, although conservation of energy doesn't. but everything else does. the scissors manoeuvre is very effective to get dangerous overshoot so you can get behind your attacker.

could also do Split S, coming dangerously close the the ground, hopefully due to the angle they will try to attack you when you banking (you are presenting a large target), your attacker will either have to break off early, or smash into the ground, or loose lock on. decelerate throttle as you do that to make sure you don't smash into the ground.

 

I'd spin it as you need to be more consistently accurate in normal mode. Also, everyone is on equal footing so I don't know why there is the myth that other people can just turn around and kill you. I'd say your not hitting them with enough rounds, or not aiming for the head, because you are used to people dying from a single burst a la Hardcore.

 

My fave vehicle is the LAV with the Minigun on it. I think it is on Caspian only though. I drove round wasting infantry in it, hopping out to repair it and also was behind a tank and was finishing off the tanks he shot at with his gun with my minigun, which seems effective against tanks (not sure how good a real one would be). Before I got wasted by a mine, I think I got 2000 points without dying.

 

Also, let me just say this right now:

I love Battlelog!