[Multi] EA/DICE Battlefield V

[Infinite Zenith]

This trailer is a sight better than the first reveal trailer.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Infinite Zenith

The lack of a sweet spot in sniping and random bullet deviation means it's all skill based now...

Which makes me wonder why on Terra random bullet deviation was ever added in the first place. Yes, weapons have recoil, but - and anyone with relevant hands-on experience is welcome to interject - recoil/deviation is supposedly fairly predictable for a given make/model of weapon, and part of proficiency is learning what that pattern is, and accounting for it.

As for the new trailer itself... I do have to wonder if a battle royale mode is even necessary. It can be argued that it's a fad whose pursuit absorbs development resources that could be better utilized. There's a post elsewhere on the matter I will quote in its entirety here:

Spoiler for Mike MacGibbon quote:

But that is EXACTLY the problem. They are taking away other modes and weapons and maps to focus on this new battle royale mode in order to win over a few casual players from other games.At the very least this new mode is taking up like 40% of development time and all thay they might get from it is a few players from Fortnite and PUBG for a few weeks before those players go back where they came from. If they didn't waste so much time developing a game mode that isn't even really for their own fans, they could spend that time making new game modes, fixing bugs, or making the game smoother and a better experience overall. But they chose not to do that just so they're might win over a few Fortnite players that will probably just ignore objectives and troll the real Battlefield players for a few months before they go back where they came from and the battle royale lobbies are deserted.

So... imagine if DICE had opted to avoid this trend entirely... and make going all-in and improving on their core concepts - what makes Battlefield, Battlefield - a selling point in and of itself? The ads in that vein practically write themselves; snark directed at certain other games optional.

On another note, it recently occured to me that the 1920+ (as represented by Scythe and Iron Harvest), Tannhauser, and Dust settings would both be wonderful fodder for a Battlefield-type game.

[Infinite Zenith]

Because apparently, randomness, like Kantai Collection, is the in-thing right now, which nullifies skill. It gives casuals a fighting chance against skilled players who know their weapons in and out, or at least, that's what I speculate their reasoning to be.

I wanted to be optimistic about this game and buy it for being Girls und Panzer Dream Tank Match done right, but DICE looks to be dropping the ball. Until I see more footage, reviews and try the beta, I'm leaning towards a NO DICE decision.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Infinite Zenith

Because apparently, randomness, like Kantai Collection, is the in-thing right now, which nullifies skill. It gives casuals a fighting chance against skilled players who know their weapons in and out, or at least, that's what I speculate their reasoning to be.

If that is the logic at play, it is in my opinion suspect; I highly doubt it would withstand proper examination. Indeed, one could say it would drive these 'casual players' away (the use of that term in some circles as a derogatory term is a topic for some other time), because they would reasonably ask why on Terra they should put any effort into 'getting better' at a game apparently designed to preclude that. And, I think, it also makes the game less interesting to skilled players, and unappetizing for tournament play.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Infinite Zenith

Because apparently, randomness, like Kantai Collection, is the in-thing right now, which nullifies skill. It gives casuals a fighting chance against skilled players who know their weapons in and out, or at least, that's what I speculate their reasoning to be.

Randomness in gaming isn't a new thing - games of chance have been around since antiquity.

In this case though, I imagine that they really just wanted to make the shooting "feel" more "realistic"..... in a contradictory videogame kinda manner.

[Infinite Zenith]

Originally Posted by Firefly00

And, I think, it also makes the game less interesting to skilled players, and unappetizing for tournament play.

That's why Battlefield 1 suffered. It's frustrating sending three rounds down range, and watching two of them miss when other times, they would've hit.

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Randomness in gaming isn't a new thing - games of chance have been around since antiquity.

Not to the point where it determines who gets to play the game itself! I suppose that if there's one thing Battlefield can't ever screw up, it's that as long as one pays for it, they can play. No lottery system where they take your money and then you have a random probability of successfully opening the client itself. Jokes aside, as long as they bring back short TTKs and guns that have patterns to be mastered, I would be swayed.

[zibi88]

I will wait with judging till I play the open beta in September, after that I will have a clear image if I like it or not. Watching others playing gives different vibes. Many people compare this to Bf1 but there are many that skipped BF1, so with BFV it will be their first contact with that similar gunplay and play style.

The thing that bugs people is how EA/Dice commented on the matter of "we will add woman to game and deal with it or dont buy it" kind of backlash on customers like you either buy the stuff you dont like or f... off.

But all they had to do is add a server mod where you could block female characters and make all male ones so players had a chance of choice of how they want to play the game.

Next battlefield will mostly return to modern combat...and they should remain in that one for longer time, adding new dlc and such.

[barcode120x]

Originally Posted by zibi88

I will wait with judging till I play the open beta in September, after that I will have a clear image if I like it or not. Watching others playing gives different vibes. Many people compare this to Bf1 but there are many that skipped BF1, so with BFV it will be their first contact with that similar gunplay and play style.

The thing that bugs people is how EA/Dice commented on the matter of "we will add woman to game and deal with it or dont buy it" kind of backlash on customers like you either buy the stuff you dont like or f... off.

But all they had to do is add a server mod where you could block female characters and make all male ones so players had a chance of choice of how they want to play the game.

Next battlefield will mostly return to modern combat...and they should remain in that one for longer time, adding new dlc and such.

I am waiting for the beta as well, but will most likely buy the game. I honestly think the problem with the "complainers" of BF customers/gamers is that they are always comparing it old games. It's actually problem in general with games that have a series. The predecessor will generally always be better than the newer one to some extent. BF1 had it's share of problems, but people need to play the game to have FUN. Not play it and then compare it to the previous. I enjoyed BF1 and played several hundreds of hours of it. So did I with BF Hardline, so did I BF4, and so did I BF3. I dropped in to kill which I did. That was my enjoyment. If you drop into ANY game to look for the bugs, to find the historical inaccuracies, and to look for details that made the game not the way you wanted it or imagined it, you will not have fun. Why waste your money on a game if you are looking to do that?

Drop in the game, kill sh!t, and have fun. Simple. As. That.

On a side note, for those of you that are not buying the game because there will be female characters, I shake my head at you. It's 2018 bruh.

[Renegade334]

Of course we compare it to past games. What every gamer wants is for the developer to keep the "rock solid" (or thereabouts) foundation of the previous franchise installments and build on top of it. If they break something and it diminishes our enjoyment of the new game, why aren't we entitled to voice our frustration and regret that things weren't done differently? Sure, sometimes you have to get rid of big loads of code and replace them with a brand new one, in order to keep pace with the electronic ecosystem we live in (OS architecture, drivers, graphical APIs) and create engines that are more versatile, scalable and capable, but any loss in fluidity, stability and ease of use will inevitably be regretted.


Case in point, I still play BF3 and occasionally BF4 and I love the former's extremely fluid gameplay (especially the gun aspect, which I find to have been nailed perfectly). True, sometimes I do get corner-killed (i.e. I turn around a corner and out of an enemy's line of sight, but I get still killed because of low tick rate and bad sync with the central server), but aside from that, it's brilliant and still holds up today despite the lower number of servers (and some maps like Alborz and Operation 925 are seldom seen nowadays). BF4 took a long time to be as fluid as BF3, but it eventually got there. Sure, mobility was nerfed and the game has an unnecessary number of gimmicks (portable APS? anti-helicopter mine launcher???), but it was still palatable. And now it's stable. But I prefer BF3 because I believe I have a much better time there (I also feel the guns have more distinct personalities there) and I enjoy its maps more than BF4's.

OTOH, we have the BFV alpha that, understandably, is unstable but has features that promise the formation of ulcers and haemorrhoids, such as the frustratingly small player markers and effects that make your screen a horribly busy one (like the flying snow on Narvik, which is horribly distracting when looking around for snipers and other enemy runners). Almost half of the matches I played on the alpha ended in pure aggravation due to respawn bugs (infinite bleedout, "no respawn points available" bug) and some other weirdnesses that I can't explain (I jumped into a German tank, moved forward ten meters then crashed to desktop with no error message). And then I have gunplay issues such as shooting at a guy thirty meters away from me with a Sturmgewehr, dealing something like 75%, 80% damage...only for him to OHK me with a frickin' pistol. Sure, git gud m8, thassa only answa. In another instance, I see a guy not even fifteen meters ahead, bring my Stgw to bear on center mass...only for every bullet to miss (unless I had some sort of server desync, meaning I was actually shooting at a recently-vacated space and my game client wasn't refreshing my screen in time) as if I were firing a blunderbuss loaded with salt at a midget lying prone 300 paces away from me. Say what...?

Sorry for desiring a little reliability in how my guns work. I'm not asking for cheat codes here.

And yes, I know it's an alpha and that's why we were invited - TO LOOK FOR THE BUGS and hopefully eliminate them from the final product. But so far I don't like what I've played. Maybe if I had a rig a little beefier (a more recent CPU and more RAM) my experience would've been better (who knows) but I don't feel like paying >50 Euros for it anymore.


As for authenticity and immersion in games, either you go all the way or you walk the pastiche/caricature/fantasy/alternate universe path. Anything in between is wont to generate variable measures of criticism (you want whining about historical accuracy? Try the forums for World of Tanks or World of Warships and see how the vehicle models and their performance don't always match how they fared in real life).


And by the way, the current uproar with BFV has less to do with women in the game (if DICE had used the Russian Night Witches, which was an all-female bomber squadron [AKA the 588th Night Bomber Regiment], there wouldn't have been any outcry) than DICE's high-and-mighty response to the initial criticism. Calling your customers "uneducated", claiming that the devs will be the ones on the "right side of history" and then telling everyone "buy the game or f*** off" is no way to make yourself friends or generate interest in the game, especially not when your parent company is EA and customer sympathy for it is already at a lower level than the water pipes running under the basement.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

What every gamer wants is for the developer to keep the "rock solid" (or thereabouts) foundation of the previous franchise installments and build on top of it. If they break something and it diminishes our enjoyment of the new game, why aren't we entitled to voice our frustration and regret that things weren't done differently?

Quite so; such a pity some people have gotten it into their heads otherwise, as you note later. Sort of related are the cases of interesting features which for some reason didn't catch on (Perfect Dark's 'counter-operative' mode and the signature adversarial mode of Frontlines: Fuel of War come to mind).

OTOH, we have the BFV alpha that, understandably, is unstable but has features that promises the formation of ulcers and haemorrhoids...

Which makes me wonder if the people dismissing those issues have actually played through it themselves...

And yes, I know it's an alpha and that's why we were invited - TO LOOK FOR THE BUGS and hopefully eliminate them from the final product...

Which brings us to the unfortunate habit many companies have gotten into of seeming to consider alphas and betas less debugging tools than promotions. It is my understanding that in most trials, the testers are paid for their time and effort; that the opposite is the case here is something which should never have been allowed to take root, and is long overdue to be shown the airlock.

As for authenticity and immersion in games, either you go all the way or you walk the pastiche/caricature/fantasy/alternate universe path. Anything in between is wont to generate variable measures of criticism...

True. Not that there aren't, as I noted earlier, AU settings which could also scratch the apparent itch in the player base for a 'grounded' experience.

And by the way, the current uproar with BFV has less to do with women in the game (if DICE had used the Russian Night Witches, which was an all-female bomber squadron [AKA the 588th Night Bomber Regiment], there wouldn't have been any outrcry) than DICE's high-and-mighty response to the initial criticism.

Thank you - I'd all but lost track of that unit; this reminder will be useful in another thread...

Calling your customers "uneducated", claiming that they'll be on the "right side of history" and then telling them "buy the game or f*** off" is no way to make yourself friends or generate interest in the game, especially not when your parent company is EA and customer sympathy is already low in that sector.

Another old saying is that one catches more flies with honey than vinegar. That said, perhaps they're banking on the existence of a diehard base who won't take option two.

[Renegade334]

Originally Posted by Firefly00

Which brings us to the unfortunate habit many companies have gotten into of seeming to consider alphas and betas less debugging tools than promotions. It is my understanding that in most trials, the testers are paid for their time and effort; that the opposite is the case here is something which should never have been allowed to take root, and is long overdue to be shown the airlock.

Yes, unfortunately alphas and betas have turned into wallet baits and that there is a vast difference between the deluge of "OMG UR G8M SUXXX!!!1" messages posted on the official forums and the stack of constructive criticism penned down by a professional tester who most likely has access to other monitoring tools and can outline an actually helpful report on playability and stability. However, releasing a game "in the wild" into a pool of gaming platforms with an exponentially greater number of hardware and software configurations, could still allow the discovery of bugs uncaught or unsuspected by the devs and tester teams. The problem, however, is getting feedback, sorting it and getting a bottom line out of it.

Sad thing is, I must confess that the game was so unstable for me that I have been unable to fully test and experiment some of the features in BFV such as the ability to tow cannons, build fortifications (I actually built a couple of those but never had a chance to test their mettle against a full-blown onslaught). Heck, I can count on barely two hands the amount of times I was able to jump into a vehicle (aircrafts and tanks were practically spawn-camped). And by the time I got to a place such as, say, an emplaced weapon, I usually got killed in very lolwut circumstances (e.g. the gunfight examples I mentioned before).

One thing I determined for sure is that unless DICE optimizes the graphical engine and resources consumption, Ultra graphics settings will cause the game to crash for me and High is actually the best preset for my hardware configuration. I noticed an almost total absence of soft crashes (hard crashes would cause BSODs in my book) after I started fiddling with those settings (got rid of the grain filter and motion blur, too). Beyond that point, my miseries were chiefly caused by a bevy of other bugs such as infinite bleedouts, etc.

True. Not that there aren't, as I noted earlier, AU settings which could also scratch the apparent itch in the player base for a 'grounded' experience.

Castle Wolfenstein is a good example of pure WW2 AU.

DICE did, at one point, try a more cartoonish approach to WW2 in the form of Battlefield Heroes, but that didn't last long.

Thank you - I'd all but lost track of that unit; this reminder will be useful in another thread...

Russia is a rare exception in WW2: the initial German advance into USSR caused so many losses that the Soviets were eventually forced to accept women into the armed forces because they couldn't get enough manpower quickly enough. Most of the volunteers went into the medical field, but not only were there two or three bomber squadrons, there was also a sniper group of roughly 2,500 women (only 20% of it saw the end of the war, BTW) who fought in WW2 to great effect (an estimated tally of 11K kills IIRC). There were even women who drove tanks.

In the rest of the Allied countries, women usually were nurses, worked in weapons or ammo factories or piloted finished planes from the factory to the military bases they were destined to. There were women in the resistance groups but few could fit the description of the prosthetic woman seen in the first trailer...though there is the rather well-known case of Simone Ségouin who did fight during the liberation of France. But implementing her would still generate a lot of criticism...especially because of the attire she wore and we just can't have something that's obviously objectifying yet historically accurate.

Another old saying is that one catches more flies with honey than vinegar. That said, perhaps they're banking on the existence of a diehard base who won't take option two.

Probably, but when gamers start to retaliate with their wallets, the investors get nervous and changes happen...which is reportedly what happened with BF4 at launch: the game was so riddled with bugs the investors forced EA to replace many of the devs and fix the product to prevent a dip in future DLC sales.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Yes, unfortunately alphas and betas have turned into wallet baits and that there is a vast difference between the deluge of "OMG UR G8M SUXXX!!!1" messages posted on the official forums and the stack of constructive criticism penned down by a professional tester who most likely has access to other monitoring tools and can outline an actually helpful report on playability and stability. However, releasing a game "in the wild" into a pool of gaming platforms with an exponentially greater number of hardware and software configurations, could still allow the discovery of bugs uncaught or unsuspected by the devs and tester teams. The problem, however, is getting feedback, sorting it and getting a bottom line out of it.

All of this is true. I still think the idea of having people pay you to do your bug-hunting is... suspect. Moving on, however...

Heck, I can count on barely two hands the amount of times I was able to jump into a vehicle (aircrafts and tanks were practically spawn-camped).

Which is actually sensible behavior on the part of the other team. Map design can only do so much to address this; most of the heavy lifting here is on players to be cognizant of a little thing called 'perimiter security'... an admittedly difficult thing, given the prevalence of folks who forget that (unless you speak French) there is no 'I' in 'team'.

Castle Wolfenstein is a good example of pure WW2 AU.

Indeed it is. Which now has me imagining what a full-on 'Battlefield: Wolfenstein' would be like...

DICE did, at one point, try a more cartoonish approach to WW2 in the form of Battlefield Heroes, but that didn't last long.

Which is a shame, really, because it looked like good fun. I also recall thinking that this treatment would have been perfect for a hypothetical 'Battlefield Gallia' - the Valkyria Chronicles games have all the assets a Battlefield game would need, and the engine used (especially for the first, and upcoming fourth, entries) pretty much looks like a third-person shooter when 'in motion'.

Russia is a rare exception in WW2: the initial German advance into USSR caused so many losses that the Soviets were eventually forced to accept women into the armed forces because they couldn't get enough manpower quickly enough. Most of the volunteers went into the medical field, but not only were there two or three bomber squadrons, there was also a sniper group of roughly 2,500 women (only 20% of it saw the end of the war, BTW) who fought in WW2 to great effect (an estimated tally of 11K kills IIRC).

Well, they do say necessity is the mother of invention (or, in this case, a form of progress). These snipers may have been part of the inspiration for a certain Fox-Hound operator.

There were women in the resistance groups but few could fit the description of the prosthetic woman seen in the first trailer...though there is the rather well-known case of Simone Ségouin who did fight during the liberation of France. But implementing her would still generate a lot of criticism...especially because of the attire she wore and we just can't have something that's obviously objectifying yet historically accurate. :heh:

Of course, the best answer to such hypothetical criticism would be to show the critics those actual photos. Too bad that many of these critics seem to be, as a certain judge might put it, strangers to rational argument.

Probably, but when gamers start to retaliate with their wallets, the investors get nervous and changes happen...which is reportedly what happened with BF4 at launch: the game was so riddled with bugs the investors forced EA to replace many of the devs and fix the product to prevent a dip in future DLC sales.

Exactly. You can't pass off vinegar as fine wine and expect to do well.

[Renegade334]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/aaMM4nxplHc

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[Keila]

One thing I'd like more of from a battlefield type game (but it never seems to be able to deliver) is maps with a more transport vehicle type focus (number of transport vehicles spawned at any given spawn point, like jeeps and not tanks) and more objective focused gameplay (capturing objectives bleed out tickets significantly faster, relative to attrition via kills).

+ Destructible environment
+ Infantry (marksman) focus
+ Plentiful vehicles to facilitate movement (but not necessarily camp with).


Think drop-pod/medivac style insertions (Starcraft for Marines) so you could get back into the action without having to worry about some nigh-invulnerable tank sitting way back and sniping infantry.

+ Take over an objective
+ Bunker down as best you can (without it being quite trench warfare)

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Keila

One thing I'd like more of from a battlefield type game (but it never seems to be able to deliver) is maps with a more transport vehicle type focus (number of transport vehicles spawned at any given spawn point, like jeeps and not tanks) and more objective focused gameplay (capturing objectives bleed out tickets significantly faster, relative to attrition via kills).

You'd think the latter would be a no-brainer for a game which emphasizes teamwork; as for the former... I do believe that's one thing the Planetside games actually got right. By way of reference, consider the vehicle roster for their second at-bat.

[blakstealth]

That V-1 Rocket sure does have an impact.

[barcode120x]

Sure most of you all know that have been following this thread and the BFV news, but if not, release is delayed until November 20th. I think it's a good deal. Gives them more time to tweak and fix things.

[Renegade334]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/bsHOsvONQl0

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[zibi88]

Well on Orgin the open beta is ready for pre-load before the actual beta starts

It weights 12,44Gb, so anyone interested to test the game themselfs is good to go.

[Infinite Zenith]

Finished preloading mine, only took half an hour. Working like madman all week, so I won't get to go until Saturday, though.