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Apr 17

GTA: Grand Theft Auto, A Personal Perspective

Categories:

GTA V

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The GTA series is a long runner, hitting the streets first back in 1997.  I’ve played on the PC versions of the series, and the game has evolved a lot over the years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_%28series%29

Many will have had no chance to play the earlier installments, but even from the start the game had the all the key elements which made it a genre-creating game series.  The first GTA was created by DMA Design (now Rockstar North), who also created the classic survival puzzle game Lemmings.  I played GTA on the PC, and it was exciting.  It had a big downside, in its unique save system.  Or pretty much, lack of one — you could only save the game when you completed the missions to advance to the next city.  I would leave notes on the PC saying “Don’t turn off,” even though that prevented anyone from using the system while I was away.  Or even me, for anything else.

It was worth it, though, because the game was very good.  It was top down, in 2D but using 3D prerendered artwork, it still looked pretty nice.  It was an open world city game, you could drive anywhere and you could – as the game name suggests – steal or hijack any cars you saw, and just drive around for fun.  This was and is a key factor in the appeal of the game series.  You can just cruise around, explore, do whatever you feel like.

The game started in Liberty City, and also let you progress to Vice City and San Andreas.  The cities were fairly large, far more open — a classic element of the open world concept — than many games of the period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_(video_game)

Of course, there were missions and you couldn’t advance in the game without doing them.  The gratuitous violence was there too — you weren’t punished for running over pedestrians, and were even offered missions — both the side mission “Rampages” and as part of the main story line — which involved killing random people off the streets.  The story elements and graphics were well into the realm of cartoonish violence and thus were funny, not something to take seriously.  Though both in tone and content, it was clearly aimed at mature players, not young children, something that is also a factor in the success of the series.

The sound was also a fun part of the game.  The cars had radios which played radio stations, with talk and music.  While the mission briefings were all text, there were lots of voice comments and sound effects during the game which really added a lot to the feel of the game play.

GTA had two expansions in 1999, London 1969, and London 1961.  Besides switching the side of the road for the cars to drive on, the two offered a very different sort of story line.  1969 used a jazzy Austin Powers inspired theme, complete with Union Jack painted Jaguar type cars, and a spy based story to go with it. 1961 had a James Bond inspired feel, with Aston Martin with oil slicks and stuff like that.  1961 was a free PC only mission pack.

The next generation of the game series also arrived in 1999:  GTA 2.  Set in a new city, with three zones to advance through, it now ran on a true 3D engine, but still used the top down view for playing.  The story lines were expanded somewhat by having three rival gangs competing in each zone, with a mission series to perform for each — generally involving doing something bad to one of their rivals.  The addition of a true save game capability made playing more flexible, but you still had to get to a save location in order to do it.

This save element is retained throughout the series, and it requires you to complete missions and get to a safe place in order to save and continue your progress.  This was a decent compromise, to avoid players using the save and reload methods to get past difficult missions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_2

The size of the city and the quality of the sound and graphics made this game even more appealing to just cruise around in with fancy cars, rather than feeling a need to actually play to advance the story and do missions.  This one also introduced a limited multiplayer game, which added to the fun possible.

Both GTA 1 and GTA 2 are potentially available online for download.  Rockstar had its Classics site http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/, but at this time it isn’t active.

In 2001, GTA III came out, and it was the biggest game changer yet.  It was available first on the then-new PS2 console, and a year later on the PC, and after that on XBOX.  With full 3D graphics and a third person view, it was much more immersive than the top down 2D look of the earlier games, though it retained an option to use that view — the last game in the series which would do so.  It had a strong story line with voice acting and cut scenes, based on an organized crime gang member who moves upward through the criminal society in a series of missions.  Its contemporary setting game with radio stations with licensed music, an upgrade from the previous games and a nice addition for all the time you’d spend cruising around in cars.

This game was a good enough reason to get a PS2 console, and I was one who did that.  Sure, there were other advantages, but this game was a key selling point for me and a lot of other people.

GTA Vice City (2002) and San Andreas (2004) used the same basic PS2 engine design but added new features and expanded environments to the game.  Both also came out first for the PS2 console, later for PC.  These are all set in the same game universe and continuity, with Vice City based on gangster and crime movies and TV of the 1980s and San Andreas on the west coast urban movies of the 1990s.  Both also had glorious licensed soundtracks with loads of great songs from those eras.  I actually got both soundtracks and had fun playing them while driving my own car, especially with passengers unaware of the game listening.   The DJs, talk show hosts, and commercials were also a great source of entertainment, very funny and interesting.  The Love Fist band created for Vice City had two very funny and actually decent heavy metal songs, which are otherwise obviously not available.  The Flock Of Seagulls “I Ran” song used in the ads and trailers for Vice City did a great job of instantly providing the nostalgic feel that the game actually had.

The use of well known actors and celebrities for voice roles added much to the humor and appeal of the game, but even the relative unknowns did great work for all the voice acting in the game.  It made you feel like you were playing your part in the movie world recreated in the game.  While GTA III had no voice for your own character, all the later games added a nice bit of steady commentary from you (and big bits for the cut scenes and missions).  It was always cool when you first recognized a new voice in the game.

There is just so much to do in these three games, you can play them again now and still have fun.  I still have all three installed, just because it can be relaxing to just fire it up and explore those worlds again.  On the PC, mind you — I got the games for the PS2 first, and then all three for the PC later as well.

The PC versions did (and still do) offer much higher resolution than the PS2, but no new features.  The game play and graphic design are pretty much the game in all versions.  This could be considered disappointing, but the game play more than made up for any shortcomings.  Even though I’d finished all three games on the PS2, not only did so again on the PC, but I replayed the story yet again more than once (taking advantage of the “Game Plus” start where you get some advantages if you start a new game after loading a completed save).  Timewise, I’ve spent more on these three than all of the others combined.

We had to wait until 2008 for the next generation of the game, GTA IV.  This rebooted the series, with a new very much expanded version of Liberty City.  It also gave a very different sort of protagonist — Nico Bellic, a generically Eastern European, maybe slavic, immigrant looking for new opportunity in the America of Liiberty City.  The new generation of consoles (XBOX 360 and PS3) also offered improved, more realistic graphics.  The game gained a newer, grittier, darker sort of look, losing forever the brash, bright colors of the earlier installments.   The story and situations were also based on a more realistic, darker and edgier feel.  It lost some of its arcade-game elements, a key one being the the change from picking up “evasion stars” from the map to escape a police chase to actually evading the chasing units and getting to a safe, isolated location.

I only played the PC version of GTA IV, and while it is absolutely an amazing game, the implementation on PC was not as well optimized or upgraded (compared to the consoles) as it could have been.  I fired it up recently (after just getting GTA V), just to compare.  The game looks OK, but the overall appearance of the city just feels a bit dirtier, and even five years later hits spots where the game performance isn’t what it could be.  That said, the story and the world is simply so good, that just like its predecessors this doesn’t stop it from being awesome.

Well, this week — April 14, 2015 — we finally got the long awaited PC version of GTA V.  I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on it, but on the technical side it is perfect.  Running good settings it easily does 1080 at 60fps, and there are loads of options to allow exploitation of hardware upgrades in the 4K video era.  I’ve seen the game on the XBOX 360, but it is much nicer to actually play it on the PC.  Definitely worth getting if you are truly into this game series.

I got a copy off Amazon.com, a bit cheaper than Steam for me, but then decided to also get a Steam copy as that has advantages for playing with friends.  I think that for me, I would have been better off getting both our copies off Steam, even though it would have been slightly more expensive.

I’ve used the Amazon digital download service before, without problems.  But the 56 GB download of GTA V turned out to be a big hassle.  First, the downloader defaults to the C: drive on PC, and on that machine I hadn’t cleared the space on that drive, and wanted to use a different one to download and install it to in any case.   That could have worked OK, but the downloader ran into network problems from time to time, and couldn’t automatically restart it.  I had to manually reselect the download location each time.  Now, network issues can happen, but I had no problems at all with the Steam download and install.  Overall, I think it would have been just as well to order the physical copy and do it that way.

 

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Apr 12

Battlefield: Who Is Your Commander, And What Does He Do?

Categories:

Battlefield 4, Battlefield Newbie

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Are you hyped to have Commander Mode back in BF4? Do you even know what Commander Mode is?

 

The Commander is a completely separate role from that of the soldiers in Battlefield 4.  You become Commander either by selecting the Commander button when joining a server, or switching to Commander from the team menu if you are a soldier in a game, with a team which has no Commander.  Once  you take command, you will see a map display similar to the deploy map in the game.   You use this map to give orders and take actions as Commander.

Tutorials like those above can help you learn how to perform the actions of a Commander.   There is a lot to do, and often not enough time to do everything  you want.   In some ways, the Commander’s role is like that of the Squad Leader, providing orders to help coordinate the team.  But the Commander also has many other assets to help the team perform better, and it can take a little time to learn how to best use them.

Commander can be played from a supported tablet, but I am going to address primarily for those using a game platform.  The map details and controls offer a few more options that way, and you also have the nice option to take command as a player, while the tablet commanders have no control over which team they command.  The voice and text communications possible on the game platforms also offer an added benefit for advising the team.

History Of Commanders

First, a bit of perspective.  Commander was introduced to the game in Battlefield 2, and was also present in Battlefield 2142.  It did not appear in subsequent games, until Battlefield 4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4w5fZuxLBI {Oddbox701}

Excellent explanation of BF2 commander mode vs BF4. Good for anyone who hasn’t played BF2. But since people still play BF2 and it isn’t that expensive, you could check the game out yourself.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKj1OkPDlpQ {TurtleShell83}

Another good look at BF2 and what commander mode is.

 Updating For Battlefield 4

There are three big differences between BF4 and the role in BF2 and BF2142.

1) Off map commander. Given that an in map commander who does anything other than command wastes much of the power of that position, and hiding in a corner all game is almost the same thing, this is an improvement.

2) Some abilities tied to flags, not on map base assets. This means that taking objectives enhances your team’s power as it reduces the enemies.

The base assets could be destroyed, and a dominating team could thus also deprive an enemy commander of much of his powerful abilities. The net effect is similar to taking abilities by capturing flags.

Others are tied to team performance, squad and command point scoring. This also rewards successful teamwork in BF4.

3) Commander enters the game from the server menu as commander. This makes the position open for access from platforms which cannot run the game itself. This offers enhanced flexibility to a role which should focus primarily on coordinating the action, not performing it.

The commander’s position is something of a team spectator. The ability to see in game video action wouldn’t be present on a platform which doesn’t run the game, but you still help coordinate the team.

 Commander Powers

The commander abilities are divided into two categories.

First, the universal capabilities. These are always available, and make up the bulk of a commander’s duties.

Second, the on map special abilities.

These last are themselves divided into two types. First are operational resources — tomahawk missile and AC130 Gunship.. Second are intelligence resources — the vehicle and infantry scans.  High Value Target is information of a sort, marking a specific soldier for tracking and elimination..

The operational resources are the most visually spectactular, and are the only ones which allow the commander to directly take action within the game.

Operational Abilities

Tomahawk Cruise Missile is comparable to the BF2 artillery. It bombards a location on the map. Note that there seems to be ample warning of the missile in game — it shows up on the commanders’ maps. There is a delay of several seconds before it hits, time for an enemy to move away if they see it.  Because of this, selecting a target which is not going to move is critical in order for it to actually damage the enemy.  You can pick an area around a location you want your team to control and see enemy presence, or an enemy unit which is remaining relatively stationary.

AC130 Gunship is essentially similar to the one from BF3 Armored Kill. The difference is that the commander now chooses when to deploy it. It otherwise has the same role, is not operated by the commander but by his team, and has no power unless team members deploy on it.

The flags associated with these are likely to be highly contested. They are also likely to be near the map center, and thus prime targets in any case.

Intelligence:  The Universal UAV and EMP, Plus Infantry And Vehicle Scans

The Scan UAV spots units within a circle on the map, and lasts about 15 seconds, with a cooldown time of about 3 seconds.  This means you can put up a new one right after the old one goes away, and you should be doing that all the time.

The EMP UAV also lasts about 15 seconds, but has a longer cooldown.  This means you need to take a bit more care in how to apply it, as there will be times when you cannot use it for a while. It will negate enemy detection (the minimap) in the area of effect, and also will negate an enemy Scan UAV in the same area.

It has a special effect on enemy Cruise Missiles and the AC130, able to damage them.  This makes the EMP UAV a key defensive tool if the enemy Commander has those assets available.

The intelligence Infantry and Vehicle Scans are like a UAV, but they get the entire map as a one time event. They are tied to specific flags as team assets.  In BF4 they automatically spot everything. This avoids the need to spam the spot key, and the more intelligent “enemy spotted” system in BF4 makes it more useful.  These have a moderate cooldown, but are worth using whenever available for the obvious reason that knowing the enemy locations makes your team more effective.

All scans give you bonus points if your team eliminates enemies spotted, or in the area of effect of the UAVs.

Evac Order sends a message to your troops in the targeted location, indicating that danger is present from the enemy.  Its primary purpose is to warn that a Cruise Missile is targeted at that location — either from the enemy or your own.  But it can also be used to warn troops of powerful enemy forces in the area, and advise them to retreat rather than engage and die.

High Value Target (HVT):  Applied to a qualifying enemy unit (which must have scored 6 kills), it marks that enemy for your team so they can go after it and eliminate it.  Gives both you and the team bonus points for success.

Squad Commander Tools

All of these require you to select a squad leader in order to use them.   All except for the Squad Order require points in the Command Bar before you can use them, and some require more than others.  In order of points needed:

Squad Promotion:  Boosts the squad up one level in the Field Upgrades bar.  Very useful for good squads performing well, as it makes them work even better.

Supply Drop:  Drops a crate which will supply ammo, heal soldiers and repair vehicles near it.

Reinforce Squad:  Decreases the delay before respawning for the selected squad.

Vehicle Drop:  Drops a transport vehicle for your team to use.  On most maps (maybe all), this is a Quad Bike, a fast but unarmed vehicle, useful to get an isolated team member to a more useful location faster.

Squad Orders

This is a core part of the role of Commander, but it is very dependent on the Squad Leaders under your command.  You can give an order for any game objective, in a manner similar to that of the squad leaders themselves.  They can accept the order, and then both you and the squad will get bonus points.  You can see the orders you have given as dotted lines on the map, and the orders accepted or given by the squad leaders as solid lines.

You can also give an order to go to a specific map location, rather than an objective point.  This is sometimes useful when you want a squad to engage forces away from a flag, or go after specific enemy units.

Special Orders

The Proxy Attack is a special Commander tool.  It has a very long cooldown, so it should be used sparingly.  It disables the enemy commander for about 15 seconds, negating enemy Cruise Missiles in flight, disabling UAV and EMP, etc.  It is very useful to use when you are going to use a Cruise Missile to hit a target and you don’t want the enemy commander to interfere.

When the enemy uses it on you, your screen becomes fuzzy and all of your abilities are totally disabled, including the ability to give orders.

What Does A Commander Really Do?

What will a Battlefield 4 commander be doing in the game?

The first task will always be to set up your squads. The commander isn’t a boss. Instead, you are a coach, a coordinator. Find out what your squad leaders want to do, offer them orders to support their goals. Both benefit from giving and following orders. Your primary job is providing information for your team. Warn them of enemy actions. Offer suggestions.

At the start of the game,  there will usually be neither time nor quick cooperation for either verbal or text chatting to get things organized.  You should see where your squads are headed and order them to go where they are already going, more or less.  A good squad leader will accept the orders you give, or even ask for orders or other assets.  You should try to support them as much as possible.

A fundamental element is using your vehicle teams. Their mobility means they are your best choice for immediate action. You want to either give them orders, or let them request orders, and coordinate strongly with their actions. If your squad leaders are vehicle crew, keep in touch with them frequently (a good idea for all squad leaders). If not, this requires teamwork between their squad leader and you.

Orders show up on the map and minimap, as well as in game on the flags themselves. You should be able to see what orders your squad leaders are giving, and where all your team members are at. Action orders show up as a line or arrow, always clearly visible to the squad and commander.

Next, you want to use your abilities effectively.  Most will only work every 30-120 seconds. You cannot “spam” actions. You and the enemy commander will be placing UAVs to support the areas of most intense action. It will always be a duel between your choices, which locations will get the best intel.

Your operational actions will play a small but significant part. Supply and vehicle drops are sufficiently persistent that they can have a larger effect than the big blast of a tomahawk (or artillery). The AC130 adds firepower over a point and may help you take or keep control of a flag. Your team needs to take advantage of these things, which means you have to communicate with them to make that happen.

Scans and UAV will give you information. Your ability to see the big picture will let you tell your team where the enemy force is massing, point out any hiding and camping enemies, and be essential for making effective orders for you and your squad leaders.

Eye In The Sky

You also have (on PC and console at least) the additional advantage of having an eye on everyone. You can watch a video feed from everyone in the team, every flag you own, your UAV and AC130, etc.  This can help you get a better picture of what is going on in the battle.

You can zoom in and out on the main map to get a better view of the battle, and if you zoom in all the way, you will get a “satellite view” of the battle, where you can see the actual terrain and units moving on it.  While you cannot directly spot units for your team on the map, you can see units and communicate the situation to them via text or voice chat.  It also can help you understand the situation in an intense battle area, as the wider view doesn’t let you see every individual unit as easily.

It can be a lot of fun to player as Commander, especially with a team which strongly plays the objectives. It is a very different kind of game play, and works well when I need a break from constant lethal action. For me, it is also a viable way to play the game on my laptop, which while able to run BF4 doesn’t do so nearly as well as my gaming PC.

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Apr 10

Hardline Competition

Categories:

Battlefield Hardline

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http://play.eslgaming.com/battlefield/pc/bf-hardline/open/5on5-rescue-testcup-1-europe/rules

ESL has set up test rules for competitive Hardline play.  As is usual for competition play, there are restrictions placed on what weapons and equipment can be used.

http://xfire.com/tournament/3799#rules

Xfire is also running test competitions, and has similar but not identical rules.  The differences do matter if you want to play and practice for both, but the general points are pretty much the same.

The idea is to have a game where gun play dominates and explosive weaponry is limited.  So let’s go over the basics.

First, the disallowed weapons:

K10.  Yeah, we know it will be balanced better but it sure isn’t yet.

Battle Pickups.  Just pretend they aren’t there.

No DLC weapons or gadgets.  This includes the Pre-Order And Deluxe weapon battlepacks.

Note:  Syndicate Assignment weapons may be permitted but current unlocked server settings don’t permit them to be equipped.  We will have to see if they will be allowed or not.

For Xfire only:  no Shotguns.    Grenades limited to Frag, Smoke, Flash.

M320/M79 GLs.  One of the most powerful offensive gadgets.

Next, Gadgets.  It is easier to address those which can be used than list what isn’t allowed.  So, by class:

Operator:  First Aid Kit, Revive/Defib, and if you want it, Survivalist.

Mechanic:  Repair

Enforcer: Ammo

Professional:  Stealth Training

 

The all kit gadgets aren’t restricted by ESL rules, but the use of them can be limited because of the map rules and other elements.

Stunt Driver: Not useful with no vehicles on maps.

Grappling Hook/Zipline:  Access to roofs is limited, which makes using these without risking a violation difficult.

Gas Mask:  In Xfire no gas grenades, so they aren’t so useful, but you can equip it anyway in case one of the on-map environmental hazards trips a gas-type release.

In practice, the Operator will have two useful gadgets and the other kits only one, with no useful options.  I can’t see Survivalist being especially effective since most kills will be gun kills.  I would equip Loadout One (the first default one) with your preferred set for this sort of play, and use whichever second gadget you wish but simply don’t use it during competition games.  Or just go with the Gas Mask, or Stunt Driver if you want a wheelman loadout handy.

 

 

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Apr 07

Hardline: Going For The Gold

Categories:

Battlefield Hardline

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Well, we are finishing our third week of playing Battlefield Hardline.  Many players have all of the basic weapons and gadgets unlocked.  We can play the game for fun, not just to reach achievements.  But the Syndicate assignments are much harder, and can’t be done simply by earning money (XP).  There are a lot of those, but the four weapon assignments are what most people are trying for.

Getting The Syndicate Unlocks:  First, Get The Gold Star

Actually, you must complete the two Class assignments, which will unlock a sidearm weapon for each class.  Once you have that achieved, then you must reach the Gold Star XP level with that class.  At that point, the Syndicate Class assignment will unlock, and you will be able to begin working on that.  To state simply, this can be a long process.

The Hotwire game mode gives excellent money (XP score) for the time spent, but only a small part of that will count for your class XP.  All that nice Hotwire cruising score is, essentially, wasted for this purpose.  It is still good, as money lets you purchase more things and helps you advance faster by obtaining more Battlepacks.  It has some potential for getting your Mechanic score up, but other game modes are better for the other classes.

Blood Money and Team Death Match offer the most class XP for the time spent.  In both you are likely to spend most of your time on foot playing your class, and  you will have constant actions which can give you points.  It will advance your weapons as well as your classes, and that is always good.  These modes are also pretty good for the class assignments themselves.

How many XP do  you need?  You have 10 Bronze Stars at 10000 each, 10 Silver Stars at 15000 each, for a total of 250000 points to start on your Gold Star.  That will be another 25000 XP, for a total of 275000.  You can see your progress for this on both the progression for classes (under stats), for the class outfits, and in game for the class outfit unlock.

The Syndicate Unlock Requirements

All four have similar requirements, differing only in the class items required.

200 Class  Primary Weapon Kills:  For these, it doesn’t matter which weapon in the class you use.

Unlock Tier Four Reputation in 10 Different Matches:  This is the hardest one to do right now.

The reputation upgrade system is based on squad & teamwork points scored.  Once you earn enough for the next level for a class, you won’t lose that level.  But when you die, you lose all points earned toward the next level.  It seems to take roughly double the points for each new level, and the last is simply extremely hard to reach in a game by normal play.  I’ve done it riding in a car in Hotwire if the car survives long enough, but that isn’t common.  A Hacker can provide a reputation upgrade, which is for now the only likely way that you will see Tier Four Reputation.

The Coins:  You must get two sets of Coins for each of these assignments:

Operator:

  • 15 First Aid Pack Coins
  • 15 Revive Coins

Mechanic:

  • 15 Repair Tool Coins
  • 15 Anti-Vehicle Coins

Enforcer:

  • 15 Ammo Resupply Coins
  • 15 Ballistic Shield Coin

Professional:

  • 15 Camera Coins
  • 15 Marksman Coins

Of these, the Ballistic Shield and Camera Coins will take the most work.  Both will just take time, just like the others, but unlike them you will need put effort into these specifically.  Use the shield and get enemies to shoot you (without killing you) all game long.  Use the cameras in clever locations and hope to get Intel Assists (you need 8 per coin).

It’s All About The Money:  Ranking Up Faster In Hardline

Hotwire is the best paying game mode, because you score points for both riding in the Hot cars and for destroying them.  It is hard to beat this if your goal is to “Make Money Fast”.  Playing as Mechanic is probably your best bet at the start of the game.

Blood Money and Heist are pretty decent as well for score for time played.  They have solid objectives and the action plays fast.  It won’t match Hotwire, but you will get more score for each class in those, which is another benefit.

Team Death Match and Conquest are OK for score, but may not match what the other modes can give you for time played.  Both are very good for advancing class stars.  Conquest and Blood Money tend to have the most heavy (armed) vehicles, if you want the unlocks for them too.

Last in money, but fun to play and a solid challenge, are the two mission game modes:  Rescue and Crosshair.  You won’t get as many kills or points, but it will help your tactical combat skills.

But there is one other way to get a lot of money fast:  play Hacker.  This is especially good on game modes like Blood Money and Heist, where there are limited objectives so the teams will tend to be within the area of your influence much of the time.  But it will score pretty well in any game mode.  Note that the Boosts apply to your score per minute, but Hacker gets no boosts and still can score very well.  You will need to play Hacker enough to unlock the upgraded abilities in order to get the most of this.   I estimate the maxed Hacker as about three times as productive as the starting level, but you earn it by being constantly busy doing things in the game.

Balance?  What Balance?

As should be apparent from the above, the money (XP) earned in the game — your Cash Per Minute stat — is far more in some game modes than others.  So if you are playing to gain rank (and money for unlocks), you are strongly discouraged from playing the poorer paying game modes.  They could have the scoring adjusted to make all game modes roughly comparable in Cash Per Minute.  Or at least, bring them closer.

Weapon Choices, And The Need For Patching

Battlefield has always tried to make all weapons offered for a class balanced choices.  Some are better than others in certain situations, but they make up for it by being worse in others.  This extends to the balance between weapon types offered for each class, so each class has a fair chance against any other if played properly.

As of Hardline’s release, this is not the case for many weapons.  While there was some concern that the Pre-Order and Deluxe Edition bonus weapons would be superior to all others, that turned out not to be the problem.  The very difficult to unlock Syndicate assignment weapons are, more or less, roughly balanced against the others in their class.  No, it is some of the commonly available weapons.

Worse for many is that the decision to make many weapons available only to one faction or the other, without the Weapon License (which takes a lot to reach at 1250 kills), are among the superior weapons in the game.  One weapon stands out in this category:  the Mechanic’s K10.  The MP5K (both teams), and the P90, are decent and play well, but will still lose, every time, in a close engagement with an enemy with the K10.  It is simply that much more powerful than any other automatic weapon in the game.  I will note that its stats in game reflect its real world characteristics.  But in Battlefield, real world stats are not held above balance for game play.

A patch is in the works which will help with balance.  But from a game design standpoint, I would consider weapon balance to be part of the core of the design.  There are many competitive, serious players who pointed out potential problems in weapon balance in the Beta, and some things were changed, but not enough, it seems.

Once We Unlock Everything, Is The Game Over?

It shouldn’t be, if the game is really good.  In a lot of ways, the fact that many people will have all the key unlocks of the game within a month (barring new things in DLC) is actually a good thing for game play.  Everyone will have roughly the same tools and weapons to work with, making balance a matter of personal choice and good game design.  The overall progression for most things is faster than Battlefield 4.  The armed vehicles are harder, simply because Hardline has fewer of them and therefore fewer opportunities to play using them.   But they are peripheral to the game play in most game modes, and you can do just fine without the upgrades.

 

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Mar 31

Hardline Additions: New Game Mode Ideas And Improvements

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Battlefield Hardline

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Hardline shipped with an adequate number of game modes to play and enjoy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want or deserve more.  The variety of choices helps keep the game interesting, and offers new challenges for players.

The majority of my proposals are adaptations of existing game modes from other Battlefield games.  There is no reason to invent the wheel (or wheels) when there are good ideas to use.  But we don’t have to simply copy and paste.  We can try to fit them into the game concept and make changes to help the feel of the game.

 

The proposal list:

Domination

Rush (The Cover Up)

Capture The Flag (Grab The Loot)

One Flag Random Placement CTF (Lost Stash)

Six Flags CTF (Shut Down)

Need More Speed (Hot Race):  Hotwire with Rally locations for bonus points.  The faster you hit the rally spots, the more you make.

Gun Game

The no respawn modes could use a couple companions:

Bomb Defuse (Bomb Squad)

Evidence (CTF with no respawns and only need to get “briefcase” to base to win).  Inspired by Video Game High School, and its Field Of Fire live action FPS.

And just because of the date: http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/04/video-game-high-school-creators-developing-field-of-fire-modern-warfare-game/

I think there is always room for new game mode ideas, but let’s go over these.  Many are classics of the genre and would fit in perfectly with Hardline’s game play.

Domination

Team Death Match type maps with three control locations, spawn on squad but not on those locations.  A smaller ticket count and faster action than conquest, but with objectives unlike TDM.  It offers a good alternative for players who want death match action but want more strategy.

Rush (The Cover Up)

Criminals must hit and totally destroy crime scene locations to eliminate the evidence and thus get away.  Police must stop them.

Capture The Flag (Grab The Loot)

Classic two flag CTF game.  Each side has a package of evidence/loot, and must try to get it to their base and then let it escape, similar to heist.  The side which gets three packages first (or the count set by the server rules) wins.

The Lost Stash – One Flag Random Placement CTF

Each team will have a base.  At a random location somewhere in the middle zone of the map, a hidden package will spawn.  The teams must first search to find it, and when spotted (or perhaps simply just close enough to it), its tracer will activate and both teams will know its location.  Get it back to your base and away to score.  Again, first to three wins.

Six Flags CTF (Shut Down)

This is a big map version of Capture The Flag.  Each side has three packages, in three separate safe locations on their side of the map.  The objective is to capture all three enemy packages and get them to the safe locations on your side, while retaining your own packages.  First team to get all six in their side’s location wins.  The packages remain in play and capturable until this is achieved.  Points are scored by holding enemy packages in the safe locations.  If the time runs out, the higher score wins.

Need More Speed (Hot Race)

Hotwire with Rally locations for bonus points.  The faster you hit the rally spots, the more you make.  There will be five to seven scoring locations plus the usual cars to capture.  This scores more like domination than Hotwire’s conquest, as the score is earned by driving from spot to spot (you can’t get points for hitting the same spot twice).  A variant of the Hotwire concept, using same maps but different rules.

 

Gun Game

A classic Team Death Match variant.  Each player starts with a basic weapon, and has the weapon upgraded by scoring kills.  The objective is to reach the final weapon upgrade and score a kill.  That is usually a knife.   Various weapon chains can be supported as game variations.

 

The no respawn modes, to add to Crosshair and Rescue.  Good for competition and tactical challenge.

Bomb Defuse (Bomb Squad)

Battlefield 4 has a Bomb Defuse mode, but it would fit in better with the criminals vs cops scheme in Hardline.  The criminals must try to plant a bomb on one of two critical objective locations.  The police win if they can defuse the bomb once planted, or prevents them from placing it.  As with the other no respawn modes, eliminating the entire enemy team also counts as a win.

Evidence (CTF)

A two flag CTF game, but with no respawns and only one capture needed to win.  Each team has a key package containing evidence.  The police risk leaving it in the field in order to lure the criminals in, and secure the other package.  If either team gets the enemy package back to its base and holds until the pickup (escape), they win.  If they also have their own package, they get a bonus.   The package locations are not revealed to the enemy — this is a stealth style of capture and recovery game.

This is directly inspired by the game play used in Video Game High School.

Better Rewards

Objective scoring needs to be higher for certain game modes in order to make them worth playing from a money earned standpoint.   I think this needs to be applied to the Heist and Blood Money modes, but are even more necessary for the no-respawn mission modes.

First, elimination of an enemy team member should count as an objective and give extra points.  Eliminating the last enemy or any kills scored while being the last of your team should give bonus points.   The number of kills scored in these modes are quite small, and this will help make them more valuable.

Second, the objectives should pay extremely well.  Like 500-1000 points, maybe more.  Hitting or protecting the VIP should give a big score, escaping and helping the escape (as in a close escort) should give even more.   The rescued hostages should give a big bonus just for releasing them, and a very high bonus for a successful rescue.  With a really cool bonus for a double rescue.,

My proposed modes would need the same sort of thing, very high payoffs for actually achieving the objectives, not just scoring kills.

 

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Mar 30

Two Weeks Of Hardline: How Are We Doing?

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Battlefield Hardline

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We just finished up a Battlefest Double XP weekend, and that gave many players a chance to rank up and purchase unlocks for the game.  This gives us a fair measure of just how long it will take to unlock the key items in the game, and also how well the game will play when players aren’t going for new achievements nearly as much.

If I Had A Million Dollars…

Actually, I made more than that over the weekend of March 26-28, but I spent enough that I didn’t quite hit the Cash Hoarder amount in the bank.  I will get there soon enough.  In part, that is because with all weapons and gadgets purchased, and the most useful vehicle upgrades as yet unlocked, I don’t have much that I need to spend on.  I can wait to pay for more colorful customization options, though I have obtained some good vouchers.

The 10 Million level will just take more time, but if a weekend was enough to make one million (even with double XP on), I don’t think it will take a terribly long time to reach that either.  The challenge isn’t getting the money, it is getting it fast and perhaps, doing so while playing game modes which don’t pay as well as others.

Hacker Is Golden

The Hotwire mode is a solid winner for money earned for time spent.  Just get in an objective “hot” car and keep it alive.  You won’t do bad taking them out, but it is being in the cars which gives the biggest payoff.  But to my surprise, I made as much playing the Hacker once I got my Hacker level into the gold stars.  Once you unlock everything, the Hacker is about three times as effective as at the start, and will be constantly putting out actions which earn points (and help the team).

And by constant, I mean that.  There is something always coming off cooldown for you to use, along with giving new “Point of Interest” orders to the team.  It can get hectic keeping up with all you can do.  I ended up doing some actions almost by reflex, simply because I’d be wasting time deciding where to hit next, when I could just hit one spot and soon enough be able to do it again.

Money Balance

The game modes don’t pay evenly for the time spent.  That could be fixed up, making the bonuses for game modes which pay poorly higher.  But as money isn’t enough to unlock everything, it isn’t the only goal of play.  Still, it would make the game a bit more interesting if each mode was worth about the same in terms of XP gains.

A Level Playing Field

Weapons will be patched and tweaked, and that will be nice, as it is hard to feel comfortable being “handicapped” by an inferior weapon when you don’t have another option.  But because most weapons will be quickly unlocked for all players, that isn’t going to ruin the effective game balance.  Everyone can choose their favorite “best” weapon, and be roughly even with everyone else.

The Syndicate Assignment weapons are a special case.  They are not unlocked with mere money, and take some work to get.  Overall, other than the .300 Knockout, they don’t seem to be rated highly above the other weapons in the game.

Team Death Match has an issue with spawn locations leading to quick death.  But on the flip side, you can get easy kills on players that spawn, so it evens out.  I’m sure the spawn locations can and will be made better, but you can’t say that the current system is unfair.  It reminds me a bit of playing game modes with too many players for the map — which may be the case here, the maps are small for 64 players — where even with smart spawn locations, there is no real safe point.  A squad can use a Satellite Radio to gain some control.

Farming And Grinding

For a while, we can expect that some players will be working hard to gain money to unlock items, and trying to score kills and other actions needed for assignments.  The money comes pretty fast, and based on my limited play time I don’t think even very casual players will have a hard time getting enough to unlock all the basic items.

Team Death Match is great for ranking up weapons and getting the Coins needed for many assignments.  It can actually be fun to play if you don’t mind the chaos that so many players and not enough safe spawn locations create.

Hotwire is likely to remain the best cash maker, and also a good way to rank up the classes because you get to use your class while in or operating a vehicle.  I find the Stunt Driver gadget most useful to get points quickly, but being a passenger also pays well.

Having Fun

Do the unlocks and achievements really matter?  I mean, compared to the actual game play?

The chase to rank up and unlock items can be entertaining, and there is a certain satisfaction in achieving awards in a game.  Especially those assignments which are hard to pull off.  But if the game play isn’t fun in itself, the actions needed to accomplish that can seem like work.  As in, boring, only worth doing because of the payoff.

Getting past the early unlocks makes the game play much more of a factor in my enjoyment of all game modes.  I like trying them all, and so far have yet to be bored with the game play itself.  Too much of one map and game mode can be a bit much to take, but as long as there are other good options in the game, I’m fine with switching to those.

The game has some hard achievements to do, but you can play normally while getting them, rather than sticking only with the one best method to get them.  That is a good thing, and gives hope that this game will have longevity.

The DLC sets adding more maps tailored to specific game modes, and perhaps more fun things to use, should enhance that.  As the game is now, there is enough stuff to do to keep us busy and have fun doing it.

 

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Mar 23

Hardline: A Battlefield Without A War

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Battlefield 4, Battlefield Hardline

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After our first weekend of Hardline, how is everyone enjoying the game?

We had a bit more time to play the game, and my quick big revelation is that none of the Hardline game modes, not even the classic conquest, really are games about war.  There is a lot of shooting and fighting, but the “War On Crime” simply doesn’t count as a real war, despite its use of some light military weaponry.  None of the kits quite pack the firepower of those from Battlefield 4.  The vehicles are also far weaker.   But the biggest aspect is that most of the game modes are about a confrontation seeking limited goals, and not the utter defeat of the enemy.

Eh?  You still get to kill the enemy, so this isn’t a peaceful civilian interaction game.  There is some of that in the single player, though, which is a new thing as well for the Battlefield series.  The campaign is long enough to match a short-season TV series, and there is potential to play it again.  We’ll have to see how that goes, and whether there is to be more story as well as more multiplayer action in the game’s future.

Rank Up Really Fast

I’ve hit rank 30 over the weekend, this first week playing the game.  I wasn’t playing non-stop, and did other things besides playing Hardline,  Including taking some time to play Battlefield 4, and BF4 CTE.  The stuff in development in BF4 is pretty exciting.  But I have pretty much all the gadgets and additional guns unlocked for each kit, and the cool armory upgrades for vehicles.  There are people out there who’ve managed to reach rank 150, which is almost unbelievable.  In BF4, some players hit rank 100 before the first month was up, but this is the first week.  So what makes that work in Hardline?

First, Hotwire gives a huge amount of points (money) for the time spent playing.  The imbalance in score (money) per minute between the game modes is pretty huge, and could even be considered game breaking.  But only if the money part of the advancement was the only thing you needed to do in order to get new stuff.  That isn’t the case — you need to acquire achievements which can’t be scored simply by fighting over the cars on Hotwire, and you need kills with weapons and vehicles in order to unlock things for them.

Second, the XP Boosts come pretty fast and tend to last long enough to let you get more.  There are a lot of ways to get more Battlepacks, and the XP boosts let you get them faster.  While this was true in BF4 as well, it seems even better in Hardline.  And we haven’t even seen a double XP event yet.

Third, maybe the overall scoring and advancement requirements are just faster in Hardline?  But is that a bad thing?

Can We Bring Balance To The Force?

In a very short time, everyone will have whatever weapons and gadgets they want to use.  Sure, there are some with hard assignment requirements which can’t be unlocked with mere cash.  And the Deluxe/Preorder weapons remain locked to those purchases so far (but aren’t amazing or better than the ones you get otherwise, just nice alternatives and, at the start, the equivalent of saving a lot of early cash because the Operator has weapon choices for free).  But mostly, everyone will be free to use whatever they wish.

On the one side, balance is inherent and easy.   Everyone has the same stuff as everyone else, so no need to cry about something being overpowered, since you can use it too.

But if the weapons available for each kit have one or two clearly superior choices, that makes the other ones useless junk once you get everything unlocked.  That reduces variety.  OK, maybe you want a challenge or handicap, but that only goes a little ways, and no one is going to deliberately pick a much weaker weapon if they are playing to win.

The money cost of the weapons, gadgets, and other unlocks are trivial when you can earn enough in a week to get any item you want – and more likely, many items.  And once paid for, there is no further cost or in game penalty for using a weapon more expensive than your opposition.

Gadgets and vehicle upgrades are hit especially hard by the value of the game benefit for using them.  You will normally only have one loadout in use in a given game mode, and will pick whichever items you feel work best to support your game play.  The less expensive ones take up the same slot space as the most expensive items, and you aren’t going to choose the “cheaper” one to save money once you’ve unlocked them all.

As in Battlefield 4 and previous games, the ideal will be to make the various items roughly comparable in play effectiveness, by making them more useful in certain situations and game modes.  For weapons, this kind of balancing can be tricky, but it isn’t impossible.

A Competitive Edge

Serious competitive play is a part of many multiplayer games.  There are only a few mega-successful eSports games out there, but there have been and still are Battlefield competitions.  Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 both had special restrictive rule sets imposed by ESL and MLG.  So far, Hardline seems to work with its normal weapons and gadgets in a balanced competition.  There is something to be said for simplicity, especially when every player can choose from the same list of gear as everyone else.

Multiplayer Mission Game Modes

Rescue and Crosshair work very well for quick, challenging, tactical game play.  You get several rounds of play, no respawns, and simple objectives which require finesse in order to obtain them.  The action is also easy for observers to follow, not just the players in the game. While designed for a default squad vs squad (5 vs 5) game, it holds up just fine doubled to 10 vs 10, and doesn’t seem to drag out or play poorly with the increased player count.

There are other “only one life” games out there, and some  have game modes similar to these.  Battlefield 4 has Defuse, which was a brave attempt but so different from the other BF4 game modes it had a hard time getting a following (plus it was badly broken at the start, and you can’t enjoy a game you can’t finish).  Hardline is not only not broken, but the choice of equipment and weapons available work very well in these game modes.

Unlike some other games out there, the Battlefield series has usually kept open maps with many routes, making the range of choices to approach a mission quite large.  The Grapping Hook and Zipline expand these choices, giving you the option to go over and above things which would otherwise be impassable obstacles.

You can play these game modes over and over, and never have exactly the same pattern of play twice.  In fact, trying to do the same thing every time is likely to make you lose.  If you don’t make it to the end of a round, you can enjoy watching your team mates and cheering them on (quietly, so as not to disturb their concentration).  The combination of the time limit and the threat of decisive enemy action keeps tension high, and avoids any feeling of complacent waiting for a round to end.

 Hot Crime Action

Three game modes are clearly derived from crime action stories:  Heist, Blood Money, and Hotwire.  All three have constant action focused on the objectives, and are very fast paced.  The game modes fit the theme of the game perfectly.

Heist has elements similar to the Rush game mode — hit the objective and destroy it.  But then you must pick up money and run it back to the escape point, which changes the game from a fixed point defense to a rapid, highly mobile chase.  The criminal team has a limit of lives and time, just as in Rush, and must try to reach its target and get away successfully without taking too high of losses.   There are many paths for both attack, transport, and defense, making it tricky to guard all of them.

Blood Money is sort of like a capture the flags game, except that there is a lot of bags of money to grab and both teams will be fighting over both the big pile, and the collection stacked up in their bases.  The team which can juggle grabbing the money, getting to safely to base, and protecting the base will tend to win.  But it can be almost as effective to be the team which steals all the loot from the enemy base and runs home at end for the win.  The lead can flow back and forth as both teams both take new money and steal back what was taken.

Hotwire could be considered a conquest or domination game mode, except that the objectives are five “hot” cars which must be driven at speed in order to collect points.  Both teams can try to destroy the cars captured by the enemy, and those who aren’t in any of the “hot” cars can move freely around the map trying to take them out.  This is a pure, intense, high speed action game mode.  It is also the one which currently generates the highest score for the time spent playing.  All players riding in a “hot” car collect the “cruising” points for possessing it.

Classic Battles

Conquest may seem much like a typical Battlefield take all the bases over game mode.  But the lack of heavy vehicles, the fast cars and bikes on the map, and the map layouts change it into something different.  It is something like how a Battlefield 4 Infantry-Only conquest game would play, but the cops vs. criminals weaponry make it much more focused on simple gun play.

Team Deathmatch is straight up killing, and remains a classic of all multiplayer games.  The lack of full military gear here also changes the flow of the game play, making it a great way to practice using your guns (and to rank them up).  Note;  Visceral is aware of the spawn issues in TDM at this time, and never intended it to be balanced with 64 player games.  Imagine it with better spawning (as in BF4 or BF3).  Also, the Mechanic’s Sat Radio might be very effective in this game mode for keeping your squad together.

Like It, Love It, Skip It?

By now you either have the game, are waiting to get it, or have decided it isn’t worth your money.  At least, not at its full price.  If you do play it and like it, I know you will get your money’s worth from it even at full price.  But it is much different from Battlefield 4, and that game is not only still around, but the CTE developments are working to add new maps and make it an even better game.  No reason to give up on it just because Hardline is here.

Hardline has an actual, interesting, fun single player campaign.  OK, I’d like it better if the stealth and take down approach was a bit harder in normal game play, but you can go all out Rambo-killing if you want.

The multiplayer has game modes which aren’t matched in Battlefield 4, nor available in previous Battlefield games, or in some cases, any other game out there.  The maps are optimized for specific game modes, and some modes aren’t available on all maps.  I think that was a good but hard choice,  because it means there is less map choices in the base game — but they are all pretty good for the right game modes, and a few good maps beat out many average ones.

Check out some game play videos, maybe give the game a chance.  I think it has potential to stick around for a while.

 

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Mar 20

Battlefield News For The Start Of Spring 2015

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Battlefield 4, Battlefield Hardline, General Gaming

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Star Wars Battlefront – 2015

http://starwars.ea.com/news/battlefront-to-debut-at-celebration

We get a first real look at Star Wars Battlefront next month.  This is an extremely anticipated game, especially for all of us fans of the original Star Wars Battlefront series.  For those not familiar with it, it was a 64 player take over the map’s control points (flags) game very much like Battlefield, with different types of soldiers (kits/classes).  But it also had the hero characters from the movie series, and a nice space battle game.  For those who haven’t seen it, Star Wars Battlefront II is still available on Steam and through GOG.  The single player mode works just fine, multiplayer requires Gameranger and more work to enable now.

Battlefield 4 Improvements

Battlefield 4 CTE got a very large new patch (#35, 20 Mar 2015).  Lots of new stuff for night maps and many other improvements, plus this huge surprise:

NETCODE UPDATE
In todays update (brought to you in collaboration with the Hardline netcode team) we are enabling framerate based updates on bullets. This means that depending on your client framerate, you will update at that rate – to the server.
An example: Your game is running at 60fps, you will be updating the server on your bullets at 60hz (compared to 30hz now).

These changes _should_ improve significantly on the out of region burst issue, and we will be monitoring this specifically.

Detail oriented players notice that we have not changed the server to client update frequency (the high frequency update) – this is the next step once we know we can trust this new system works as intended.

 

 

For those of us with 60Hz frame rates — most PC and NextGen console users — that means at least a 60Hz weapon fire tick rate, doubling the current 30Hz.  The current rate is well within the range of human reaction times, and older consoles can’t show video any faster, but this is an unexpected development.  I had thought that increasing this would require a substantial change to the engine, but if they are able to pull this off and it works as expected, we should see some serious and noticeable improvements in firefight hit registrations, especially in close quarters engagements.  I definitely will need to spend some time in CTE trying the new improved game out.

For those who haven’t tried out CTE, it has always been ahead of the retail game in terms of features and playability.  The new night maps are a lot of fun to play, and challenging.  And by playing, you get a chance to provide input to the developers and help make the game better.  You even can actually play live with the game developers!

For Hardline fans, this is also good news, because any successful improvements will be applied to it as well.  Hardline has some excellent tactical infantry game play, especially close quarters combat, and this would help it as well.

It also offers a new hope for Star Wars Battlefront.  I had no doubt that the game graphics and audio would be amazing, and that a perfectly playable upgrade of the older Battlefront II game play would be made.  But if CTE and the Hardline team can produce actual improvements to the engine, then DICE can use that to make the new Battlefront a game which stands out not just as a good Star Wars game, but as an excellent FPS for anyone.

Hardline News

The Battlefield Hardline team is looking at feedback and game play now that the game is out, and is likely to make some balancing changes and improvements soon.

EA, DICE, DICE LA, and Visceral are not standing still.  Hardline plays very well for most people but can be made better, and it is clear that Visceral is working to accomplish that.

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Mar 18

Your Battlefield 4 Assignments, If You Choose To Accept Them

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Battlefield 4, Battlefield Newbie

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Or how to get 100% completion in Battlefield 4.

 

One of the challenges players give themselves is 100% completion of all unlocks and achievements in a game. Battlefield 4 has some assignments which offer weapons and equipment of use in the game, but most awards, assignments, and achievements give only cosmetic items, or fill a place on your wall of achievements.

Most of the useful unlock items are obtained from the DLC assignments. There are four regular assignments which give weapons — the Gold (Kit) Expert assignments.

The Awards are Ribbons (gained by doing something a number of times in a round), and Medals (awarded for every 50 Ribbons of a given type). Ribbons and Medals give you bonus XP when you earn them, and some are requirements for Assignments.

While Weapon, Kit, and Vehicle unlocks are their own reward, you also get Service Stars, and for either 5 medals or 500 kills with a weapon, you get a Mastery Dog Tag.

I won’t go over the Achievements. There are 42 basic achievements, plus 5 from each DLC. A large amount come from the campaign, some of which require you to play it more than once.  These don’t show up within the game itself, but are available to view outside the game.  It can be fun to figure out how to do them, but there is no reward within the game for doing that.

Your Assignments, If You Choose To Accept Them

http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Battlefield_4_Multiplayer_Assignments

The basic assignments are easy to do. You just have to carry out normal game activities and you will get them. I’m not going to list all of those.

Almost all assignments require a minimum rank of 10. Some require rank 20 or higher, but the rank limit alone isn’t too much of a problem since you will have to get the requirements unlocked first.

A few are harder due to game mode requirements.

Rusher: Rank 20, 10 Rush ribbons, 10 M-Com Attacker Ribbons. It is the second part which can be hard to do without working specifically for it. You must destroy (not just arm) 2 of the 8 M-Coms in a round. Even when you are good at that, being the player who sets two which then blow up can be hard. Especially since many of your team mates will be trying to do the same job. Still, this is just a matter of liking Rush and playing.

Blade Runner: Rank 20, 5 Knife Kills, 10 Melee Ribbons. Again, it is the ribbon requirement, not the kill requirement, which makes it tough. You have to go for knife kills deliberately and succeed, though counterknife kills also count, and get at least 4 in a round. Longer game modes with close combat situations make this easier.

The Silver (Stealth Assassin) and Gold (Melee Expert) just require more Melee Ribbons to reach, but are otherwise the same.

The Silver Veteran assignments are just harder versions of the basic ones, and don’t require any special effort. The four rank 50 assignments (Tin Foil Hat, We’ll Meet Again, Leave No Man Behind, Wrecking Ball) are similar, just takes a bit more time.

The Gold Expert assignments are all mostly a matter of continuing effort with the kit weapons and tools. The engineer is required to use Carbines, not PDWs, but otherwise that assignment is straightforward. The Recon Expert requires Marksman ribbons. Those require marksman headshots at 50+ meters, either one headshot kill of 250 meters or more or several in the same round which add up to at least 250. For example. two 60 meter shots and two 70 would do.

Each of these unlocks a weapon, which makes them extra special.

Assault Expert (Ace 23):  50 Medkit Ribbons, 200 Assault Rifle Kills, 10 Assault Rifle Ribbons

Engineer Expert (UMP-9):  10 Carbine Ribbons, 50 Repair Tool Ribbons, 200 Carbine Kills

Support Expert (RPK-12):  50 Ammo Ribbons, 200 LMG Kills, 10 LMG Ribbons

Recon Expert (FY-JS):  50 Marksman Ribbons, 200 Sniper Rifle kills, 10 Sniper Rifle Ribbons

The Offensive Commander is another one which requires sustained play in that role.

There are nine rank 100 Gold assignments. All only require sustained effort, with only Hitman requiring a little special attention to go after the High Value Targets when you see them. The Land Warrior And Air Warrior require two MEDALS (that is 50 ribbons) in two vehicles each, which will take some time.

Premium Accomplishments

Premium players have two special assignment sets. The Ultimate assignments — complete the Gold expert assignments and then do a whole lot more — are not meant to be accomplished quickly and easily. The Phantom Assignments are part of the “secret” Phantom Program. These also require a fair amount of time spent playing to accomplish. The tasks aren’t, for the most part, especially hard, but you have to do a lot of them.  I’ll cover the special Phantom Program later in this article.

The Premium Ultimate assignments all require rank 20, and the previous Gold Expert assignment.

Ultimate Assault: 200 kills with Assault Rifles, 50 kills with gadget Grenade Launchers (any M320 type), perform 100 heals, revive 50 allies, kill 10 enemies with the Defibrillator. Only the last can be difficult, as you have to catch enemies by surprise to pull them off.

Ultimate Engineer: 200 Kills with PDWs, 75 kills with Rocket Launchers, Destroy 50 vehicles with Rocket Launchers, destroy 25 vehicles with Mines, perform 100 repairs.

Ultimate Support: 200 Kills with LMGs, 50 kills with XM25 (any type), 50 kills with C4 or Claymores (can do this playing Recon or Support), 50 kills with Mortar or UCAV, perform 100 resupplies.

Ultimate Recon: 200 kills with Sniper Rifles, 50 kills with C4 Or Claymores, spot 100 targets with the MAV or SUAV, paint (laser) 25 vehicles, get 25 motion sensor assists (either Motion Balls or T-UGS).

Ultimate Commander: 100 Scan Assists, 100 EMP assists, Promote 75 Squads, Get 50 Ammo Drops Used, Get 25 Vehicle Drops Used.

Expansion Missions

http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Battlefield_4_DLC_Assignments

The DLC assignments all require you to have, obviously, that DLC installed. Most require rank 10, some rank 20, but you are likely to have either rank fairly quickly.

City Slicker, Frostbite, Air Mail, Scorched, Remastered, all require rank 20. But none of those unlock weapons.

The DLC weapon and gadget assignments are what I consider the high value ones to go after. These can be divided into two classes:

Normal: Actions taken for each requirement are carried over from game to game until you complete them all.

“In A Round”: All the actions indicated must be completed within one game (round). Any actions performed which do not complete the assignment are cleared, requiring you to start over the next game. Of these, some have parts which do persist, but it can be confusing to figure out which are which. I’ll try to spell them all out here.

The “In A Round” Assignments

Second Assault:

Dead Stop (Unlocks the DAO-12): Get one shotgun ribbon, and in the same round operate the Caspian Border Gate (by the wall at either road). Only Caspian Border map works, obviously.

Express Train (F2000): One Assault Rifle Ribbon, 2 Kill Assist Ribbons, and 10 kills inside the Metro (underground). Pretty much any match where you can get a lot of shots off will allow you to do this one. Operation Metro only.

Dust Devil (M60-E4): Get an Anti Vehicle Ribbon in a round. Destroy 5 vehicles in Gulf Of Oman. While this one doesn’t seem to require you to get the ribbon on the same map, you will get the ribbon (2 vehicles destroyed) while completing the map requirement.

Eagle’s Nest (GOL Magnum): Get a Sniper Ribbon (6 kills) in a round. Also, in a round, kill 5 players from the Caspian Border or Firestorm tallest towers. As you must complete both assignments in the same round, you may as well go in with a sniper and try to get your kills while standing on the tower. This is easier to do on Firestorm, both because the Caspian Border tower can be destroyed, and because the Firestorm tower offers more cover and more constant action around it. Note that you don’t need to use a sniper rifle to get the 5 kills — any kill done while on the tower counts, with any weapon.

Gold:
Perfect Landing (Jump Master Dog Tag): Play 10 hours of Second Assault maps. Note that you must complete this before the next step can be recorded as successful, even though it will show you completing those elements.

Land On The Top Of The Tallest Tower in Caspian or Firestorm, in a round. Also, get a kill-streak of 10, in a round. You actually must do both in the same round. The easiest way to get a shot at this is to make your landing at the start of the round, then play on and hope to get the killstreak. The top means the highest point you can stand on, which is above the highest spot you can reach by climbing. You must jump from an aircraft, or if careful, land the aircraft (helis can do this) on the top of the tower, or just get out of the craft while it is hovering right above it. It is also possible to use a Spawn Beacon and jump and make the landing, but it is far, far easier to do from an aircraft.

China Rising:

Open Fire (L85A2): 3 Assault Rifle Ribbons — these don’t have to be in the same round. Then, once you have those, get a kill with a pistol, a 40mm Grenade (M320 HE), and the defibrillator, all in the same round. The first two kills are straightforward. The Defib will kill if you hit an enemy with it at full charge, or with a lesser charge if they are already wounded. If you can knife someone, you can use the Defib to kill.

Need Only One (L96A1): 3 Sniper Rifle Ribbons — as with the above, they don’t have to be in the same round. When you have those, get a kill with a shotgun, a DMR, and C4, all in the same round. The Shorty 12G sidearm counts as a shotgun, so you can do this all with a Recon using a DMR and C4, along with that. Or you can just change weapons between lives, as long as you score the needed kills before the round ends.

Silver:

Multi Talent (MTAR-21): In a round, get a kill with a Sniper Rifle, an Assault Rifle, an LMG, and a hand grenade. This will require you to change kits to get all the weapons, but otherwise isn’t too hard.

The Normal DLC assignments:

Second Assault:

Firestarter (paint): start 5 fires in Second Assault. There are patches of dry grass on Caspian Border and the park area of Operation Metro (available in Rush or Obliteration). Firestorm has lots of pools of flammable material to set off.

Co-Pilot (unlock AS VAL): Spend 10 minutes (600 seconds) in helicopters. Do 10 Squad Repairs. Just pick a passenger seat with the repair torch equipped, and go to work.

Silver:
Air Mail (paint): Transport a flag carrier in a helicopter which results in a capture. Play CTF and be a heli pilot, and help get a score. Note that though the assignment says helicopter, any vehicle which can get off the ground will count.

Scorched: Get a kill using the Firestorm Tower burnoff. There is a switch at the bottom of the tower. Hit it when enemies are at the top of the tower, and if you are at all lucky, they’re toast.

Remastered: Get 25 kills each with M60-E4, F2000, DAO-12, AS VAL, and Gol Magnum.

China Rising:
Safe Raiding (SUAV): Get a kill with the bombing raid. Just go in the bomber truck and work it.

Eyes In The Sky (UCAV): Air Superiority Ribbon, plus 3 Jet Fighter Ribbons. The first is easy, just play a winning game of Air Superiority. The second depends on your skill in jets. For many, scoring the 5 kills in a round can be hard. One way to pull it off is to use the Attack Jet in conquest maps, and engage ground targets. High ticket Air Superiority also offers you a way to do this.

Make A Dent (MP7): Destroy an air vehicle with portable AA. That is, use a Stinger or Igla to get a vehicle destroyed when you fire it. Plus, 3 anti-vehicle ribbons, which you can earn using any weapon.

Powder Keg (RPK-74M): 1 Mortar kill, plus 3 LMG ribbons.

Silver:
Mother Of All Bombs (Cruise Missle for Bomber): Get 15 kills with the bombing raid (bomber), destroy an enemy bomber.

I’m Dynamite (Air Bust for UCAV): Bomber Delivery Ribbon x3 (3 kills with a bomber in a round), score a multikill (with any weapon, explosives are easiest), and get 20 UCAV kills.

Gold:
Middle King: Play 10 hours on China Rising Maps. Get A Kill Streak Of 5. Get a kill with SUAV. The SUAV will kill an enemy if it hits directly (it will be destroyed doing it).

Naval Strike:

Titans Of Steel: Destroy an Objective in Carrier Assault.

Spare Time Sniper (AR160): 3 Assault Rifle Ribbons, 20 headshots with assault rifles.

Packing A Punch (SR-2): Destroy 20 boats. Any naval map will make this easy to do, as you can use any vehicle or weapon to get the kills.

Swiss Cheese (AWS): 3 LMG ribbons, destroy 3 vehicles as Support.

Always Deadly (SR338): 3 Sniper Rifle ribbons, 5 kills with C4 on Naval Strike maps.

Silver:
Curve Ball (SW40): 10 kills with RGO Impact Grenade

Multi-Tool (M320 3GL): 10 Kills with M320 DART, 10 Kills with M320 LVG.

Death From Below (AA Mine): 3 PDW Ribbons, Destroy 10 Air Vehicles with Rocket Launchers (MBT LAW, Javelin, SRAW, RPG, SMAW).

Gold:
Scourge Of The Sea: Get One Kill With AA Mine. The AA Mines don’t do enough damage to kill by themselves, but if you get enough targets in range which are damaged, it will work. Because the AA Mines\ use the Rocket slot, you can’t use your own AA missiles to help it — but you can used fixed or vehicle weapons to help out.

Giant Slayer: Win 20 rounds of Carrier Assault

Dragon’s Teeth:

Big Splash (Unica 6): Activate the floodgates on the Sunken Dragon map. Located in a control room by the dam, operate the control inside. Get 5 kills while swimming. This is most easily done using pistols, especially inside the flooded B Flag in Sunken Dragon where other players will be in the water, but can be done anywhere the water is deep enough to swim.

Lions And Tigers… (Bulldog): While on foot as Assault, kill enemies who are also on foot: 10 Support, 10 Engineer, 10 Recon. Pretty much, go around on foot as assault and kill people until you get enough.

Not The Weakest Link (MPX):  2 PDW ribbons, get “Squad Order Followed” 10 times, and Link 10 Points in Chainlink. Most easily done by playing Chainlink as squad leader, using a PDW.

The ‘I’ In Team (CS5): 2 Sniper Rifle Ribbons, 10 Radio Beacon spawns, 20 Spot assists. In essence, play a sniper and use the Spawn Beacon.

Vanguard (Ballistic Shield): 5 Savior Kills, 20 Suppression Assists, Destroy 3 explosives. Just help your team mates out.

Road Warrior: 10 Capture Point Attacker Kills & Defender Kills, 25 kills with shotguns.

Silver:
Remote Operator: Destroy A Vehicle WIth the EOD BOT, get 5 Kills with the RAWR, get 10 Kills with Mortar, Spot 20 targets with the MAV.

Recoil Kinetics (Deagle 44): Get 20 Headshots with the Unica 6. Use your newly unlocked Unica 6 and aim well.

Killjoy: Get 10 kills while under 30 health, Break 30 enemy links in Chainlink, Win a round of Chainlick with 50 tickets or less left. This is doable by playing Chainlink enough, with balanced teams, or a strong team willing to let the tickets run down. The low health kills will happen just from not being able to heal during fights.

Gold:
City Slicker: Play 10 hours on Dragon’s Teeth maps. Get 100 Kills on Dragon’s Teeth Maps
Final Stand:

Disinformation (DS-3 Decoy): Affect 10 enemies with M84 Flashbangs, get 3 Melee kills. Run around with flashbangs and stab people.

Eye Spy (Target Detector): Get 2 spotting ribbons, 20 DMR or Carbine kills. Spot and shoot, baby!

Silver: Note — all five use vehicles or equipment only found on Final Stand maps. You just have to play them and use these items a lot.  XD-1 Deathbringer (Accipiter), Snowmobile Slayer, Hovertank Harbinger, Railgun Rampage, Mechanized Mayhem (SC-42 and Launcher Pod).

Gold:
Frostbite (Paint): Play 10 hours on Final Stand maps. Win 10 rounds on each of the Final Stand maps.

–==–

The Phantom Program:

http://mp1st.com/2014/11/25/mp1st-reader-blog-ultimate-guide-completing-battlefield-4s-phantom-program/#.VQnG8_nF_JY

For people who played since the game came out, doing these came naturally as you played. But for all of you who are just getting into BF4, this may seem daunting. On the good side, though, is the fact that you can do all three assignments at the same time, because the unlock passwords are all known.

Phantom Prospect (Dog Tag): 200 kills with Assault Rifles, 200 with Main Battle Tanks, get a total of 300 meter headshots
Phantom Trainee (paint): 200 pistol kills, 20 kills in a jet, 2 shotgun ribbons in a round.
Phantom Initiate (camo): 200 LMG kills, 50 explosive kills, 25 roadkills.

In order to gain access to the last assignment, you must do all of the above assignments in order to get the items required to complete the access to the secret Phantom room on Hanger 21. You must also have one of the hidden dogtags found on the Final Stand maps.

Phantom Operative (Dog Tag 2): 200 Kills with Phantom Bow, with 50 headshots with the bow.

The Phantom bow is a tricky weapon to use effectively.  Battlefield 3 had a crossbow, which was a little more lethal but more importantly, was able to be carried ready to fire.  You must load and aim the Phantom bow every time you fire it, or walk around aiming down the sights (ADS).  Its damage is similar to a scout sniper rifle, and can be countered by the Defense upgrade Armor.  Kills are most easily achieved with headshots.  As a result of the last, getting the required headshots will come naturally while getting the kills required.

 

Do You Need Rewards To Enjoy The Game?

The general class of arena shooters — Quake, Halo, Unreal Tournament, etc. — give all players the same weapons, or access to them from pick up locations on the map.  Once you have all the weapons and gadgets you need unlocked in Battlefield, you can just play the game for fun, with no goals other than playing well.  You aren’t required by the game to do any of the assignments, nor will it drastically affect your options as a player.   The DLC equipment unlocks aren’t that hard to do.

It can be fun to go for the assignments.  It provides an incentive to try out things you might not otherwise do in the game.  As I get closer to finishing every assignment, I’m not too worried about becoming bored, but it will change a part of how I play the game.  Fortunately, for me and most other players, Battlefield 4 has loads of assignments and achievements to go for, and you can “work” on them while playing the game and having fun doing it.

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Mar 18

First Day Of Battlefield Hardline: Quick Response And Advice

Categories:

Battlefield 4, Battlefield Hardline, Battlefield Newbie

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Hardline is here for all of us now, and it is a solid game.  It has run well for me, and a day one NVidia driver update works fine and fixes issues for many people.  There are some reports of problems, but most people are playing a game which is running just fine.

The Beta played well too, so I’m not surprised by this, but it is encouraging that we had a launch of a new Battlefield game without many day one problems for people trying to play.  I had an issue with EVGA’s PrecisionX utility and my GTX670 — the OSD has compatibility problems with Battlefield — but was able to quickly solving by disabling the on screen display in its menu.  So the game works, on the technical side.  But how about game play?

Again, most of the things from the Beta hold true in the retail as well.  We have more maps, which is very nice, but the basic game mechanics are unchanged.  A quick thing:  the weapons and gadgets from the Beta are the same as in the retail, with the exception of the three pre-order exclusive weapons.  There were some tweaks to weapon parameters for balance, but no major changes.

Bonus Battlepacks

People have had many questions about the preorder and premium Battlepacks available on day one in the game.  Same for the pre-order bonuses.  I used Gamestop for this preorder, and they sent me an email with codes for the bonus items.  EA has this:  http://help.ea.com/uk/article/battlefield-hardline-players-receive-battlepacks/.   The advertising didn’t always make it easy to figure out, but some of the Gold Battlepacks awarded as bonuses will be released over time, rather than available at the start of play.

I played some on 64 player Heist and Conquest and the action was extremely intense.  The battles gave a feel reminiscent of Battlefield 3’s Close Quarters DLC at times.  The time to kill is fairly fast, still very much like that from the Beta, and it makes quick reflexes and accuracy important.  Hotwire so far works on every map just fine, a very fast playing action game.  It was great to play Blood Money again, and it also seems like a very solid action game mode on all maps.  I had fun with this game so far, and expect that to hold up well.

Starting Play Purchases

What should you spend your hard earned game money on first?  I believe that Hardline is very flexible, and you really can’t make bad choices as long as you pick things you will actually use.  But there are some things which you really should get sooner than later.

First, you really want to have a 2nd class gadget for every class you play.  This greatly improves the capabilities of each class, and will help you get more money faster.  It also helps that many of them are among the cheaper purchases, thus easy to make early on.

Operator:  the classic Revive/Defibrillator.

Mechanic:  the Repair Tool.  Especially useful to keep Hotwire vehicles running.

Enforcer:  the Breaching Charge (aka Jeep Stuff).  This is a bit more expensive, but it is just so useful it is hard to resist.

Professional:  the Camera.

Next up on useful gadgets are the four universal gadgets.  Any class can use them, so buying them once gives you it for any role you take.  While they are map and game mode situational in usefulness, having them when you do need them will make your game play much more effective.

Gas Mask, Grappling Hook, Zipline, Stunt Driver.

For vehicles, it can be worth picking up one of the cheapest upgrades simply to give you a slight edge when you use them, but the big game changer upgrades are the three Armory packages.  All are expensive, all only work on Sedan and  Coupe, and they give you the ability to pull a battle pick up weapon out of these common vehicles when you need them, rather than looking for them.  The Anti-Air Armory is especially good to counter a good enemy helicopter team.  Get a different one for each vehicle first, so you can have both available in every game.

The two special sidearms, which are for all classes, are also good picks for early unlocks.  The T62 CEW stun gun and the Tracking Dart are both fun to use and add capabilities above simply killing your opponents.

Last up are new weapon attachments and new weapons.  Both of these are best put off until you need them, as long as you find the starting weaponry adequate.  It doesn’t cost much for some of the Optics and other attachments, but the weapons are fairly pricey.  It is worth considering getting an Assault Rifle for the Operator (if you don’t have the Precision bonus battlepack), and a Battle Rifle for the Enforcer, to open up more options for engagement range and the awards for using them.

Last quick advice is to use your boosts.  We don’t know yet when any double XP events might come along, but it seems as though we will get plenty of new boosts from battlepacks as we advance in rank.  Have one on for each class you play.

Oops, one more thing:  Hotwire as Mechanic with Repair Tool is the current fastest way to earn money in the game.  Grab one of the target cars and keep it going, and you’ll get lots of points.

 

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