Sign in to follow this  
youmeyou

Battlethumbs 4

Recommended Posts

So I got an urge to play some BF3 and ended up shopping for BF4. During my browsing, I discovered that I can play for a full week without paying for the game so I'm on day 1.

My initial impressions are that this game has a much cleaner look than BF3. I like how the shapes seem to be sharper and there is so much more color. Also the water-effects, lighting, ans reflections in the campaign look really impressive. I was also astounded by the weather becoming stormy on one of the levels, it brought back the actual experience of a fast coming storm on a tropical island. They did a great job with that.

The gun-feel seems pretty much exactly the same. I prefer the COD style of movement, aiming, and firing (maybe because I play with a controller?); I was hoping that BF4 movement and shooting would have gone more into that direction.

I've only played a few of the maps, but I already prefer them to the maps in BF3. They seem to have much more visual and physical cover density. They feel like more interesting spaces in general to me. I'm constantly surprised by how much of the buildings I can explore. I haven't experimented with destruction much.

I'm playing on PC and I hate the process of finding a server in browser. I suspect that the fact that I am on "game-time" (the demo) and the fact that I have no DLC are compounding to make finding a variety of servers more difficult. Even with BF3 though, it seems difficult to just find a server that rotates through all the maps with no special rules. When I do find one, there tends to be complaints of hackers. Last night in BF4 someone was killing a person every 2 seconds or so with a grenade. It was weird. Anyway, if I do decide to get BF4, I'll be getting whatever version gives you all the maps (I think it's called "premium"?).

It's neat to see a game that just feels like a much etter version of Battlefield 3 since I enjoy BF3 so much. It's like BF3...2.

I dunno man, I've been trying to find a shooter to get addicted to ever since BLOPS2 and it still hasn't happened yet. Don't really know if Hardline is going to do it for me if 4 didn't.

I recommend looking into Rainbow Six: Siege. R6:Siege is bringing something significantly different to the multiplayer-shooter genre. I was really into COD 4 through Blackops2 (skipping a few) and I was really into Battlefield 1943 and BF3. Think of how different those two series are from each other. COD is constant sprinting with the ultimate goal of lining up a kill-streak to bolster snowballing map-control. Battlefield is more of a walking-simulator where there is always the threat of a vehicle or sniper pinning you down. R6:Siege has more of a COD gun-feel and the scope of the maps has been condensed for one main dynamic, one team barricades a room and the other must breach it in a few minutes. R6:Siege differs not only beause of smaller scope, but also the much higher sense of lethality. If you get killed early in a round, you can't do much for your team but call out positions with cameras and spectation. Anyway, it feels really fresh especially once you internalize the maps and how gadgets and character-abilities interact.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What does the server list look like on PC for people who actually own the game? I have about 4 servers available to me. I'm now playing on the Doritos Official server?

 

Also how do y'all feel about the field-upgrade system? Do people tend to play as squads?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I play a lot of BF4. Like to the point that I had to force myself to not play for a while so I'd make progress on my queue of shiny new games. People had issues with the game at launch, but as things stand today it's a pretty well polished experience.

 

As far as servers go... I just pulled up battlelog and see 37 servers that match the filter requirements I've set (not empty and not hardcore, basically). Some of these are like 5 players each, but a large number of them are full or nearly full. And that's mid-day. Basically, there's no shortage of servers to play on, and you can probably find one customized to the play experience you want. A good number of these include non-vanilla maps, which is why they aren't showing up for you. Rather than kicking you off if the server switches to a map you don't have, you just don't get to log into that server at all.

 

Origin puts BF4 Premium on sale pretty regularly, but even at full price I think it's worth it if you plan to spend a lot of time playing. Premium included a lot of free gear chests (random weapon attachments and XP boosts) which might be granted retroactively if you buy it, but it also gives you all the DLC maps (20 in total). Also, hit the "i" button in Origin to get to the DLC menu and download Graveyard Shift, Dragon Valley, and anything else they list there. DICE released a bunch of free maps that are packaged as DLC and you have to explicitly download them.

 

The only thing with BF4 at this point is because the game has been out for so long, a large percentage of players are the hardcore ones who have been playing for years, so competition on some servers can be pretty stiff. There are a bunch of "noob friendly" servers which can be more friendly to casual play, though if they aren't actively administered you can still end up with experienced teams showing up and rolling randos. It's generally really clear when a team or squad is communicating via TeamSpeak.

 

As I'm sure you know, squads are formed automatically, and there's a strategic advantage to being in a full squad because you can spawn on squaddies. Among good squads, it's not uncommon to see a single soldier roll into a cap point and suddenly 4 other people appear next to him. Squads formed from randos often don't use voice comms very much or coordinate very well. If you want to be in a coordinated squad, look for one with a free slot whose players are on top of the scoreboard and join them, or join a squad of people who all have the same clan tag and just start talking. Just because you landed in a squad of people who'd rather snipe from the edge of the map all round doesn't mean you have to stay there. The squad system is one of the big reasons why I think BF4 is orders of magnitude better than Battlefront. BF4 squads provides the experience of actually playing with other people while Battlefront feels more like a solo game with really good AI.

 

It's worth selecting the field upgrade you want to get, and if you're in a decent squad you'll get them, but I don't feel like they're a game changer. For the most part I just have offensive or defensive selected and Ignore it beyond that.

 

One thing I'm not terribly fond of is commanders. One of the few abilities they can always use is a drone that reveals enemies on the minimap. This can serve to skew the likelihood that a competent team will win too far in their favor. In general I'll look for servers that don't have (or allow) commanders.

 

If you've played BF3 then I'm sure you know this, but for anyone else... one thing that sets Battlefield games apart from other shooters is that they model realistic bullet physics. Like in CoD or R6:Siege when you fire your weapon, a hit is marked based on where your crosshairs are at the time. In BF4 bullets have velocity and so take time to travel to their target, there's velocity based bullet drop, etc. So a sniper firing at a running person far away may have to aim both above and ahead of his target. Or with some of the guns with low-velocity bullets (like the MPX), you have to lead a running target even if they're fairly close. I really like this, but it can be a difficult adjustment for people who expect BF4 gunplay to work like other shooters.

 

Beyond that, for me, BF4 is all about the spectacle. For example... one time I was flying a Little Bird and fighting with an enemy also in a Little Bird (basically a lightly armored helicopter with a minigun). He shot my helo to the point where it was on fire so I jumped out and parachuted to the ground, pulled out my gun and shot him through the front window with my assault rifle as he circled around to get me, and when it fell to the ground I hopped in and took off to go after more people in my stolen helo. BF4 is also the only game where you can be running along and see a plane get shot out of the sky and crash, on fire, into a tank rolling along right in front of you. The game is filled with these moments, and I haven't played any other shooter that does this. Here's a short video of where I strand some poor soul on an island instead of shooting him. Because why not? It also shows a TV missile of mine dust on nothing, so... yeah. Things happen sometimes.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiUguredXwU

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This game is so much fun. I spent the morning spotting tanks with laser-targets and repairing friendly tanks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this