My life has been hectic, and as result I haven’t played any of the Battlefield games nearly as often as I would like. As a second result, it has been hard for me to keep up with all the new stuff going on in the Battlefield universe. DICE, Visceral, and EA have not been standing still since the Hardline patch came out. We have continuing development with BF4, news about Star Wars Battlefront, and some exciting new stuff for Hardline.
No, Hardline hasn’t got its next patch yet, but we’ve seen teaser information about the first DLC next month (in June 2015), and a stream of hints that a pretty good patch should come along before that. While a lot of things weren’t addressed in the first patch, the stuff that was did a good job of keeping the game fun and playable. It remains a solid alternative world for Battlefield players, with its own play style distinct from BF4.
EA has been supporting ESL and competitive play for both Hardline and Battlefield 4. I’d love to see them pull off a broader range of serious play for the game, especially for us North American players. They’ve talked about doing a Battlelog based, platoon organized matchmaking system, which sounds cool but isn’t available yet. That would open up more organized play for players who don’t have the time — or perhaps skills — to get involved in the serious competitive scene. There is something special about being part of a persistent team, where you know everyone on your side and can keep track of your stats as a team, not just as an individual player.
CTE is coming for Hardline — allowing players to test new maps, patches, weapons, and features, and give feedback directly to the developers. This has worked wonderfully for BF4, and should be just as good for Hardline.
And for fun:
Battlefield 4 has a new patch in the works, likely to release sometime in May or early June. It adds new weapons and new improvements to the game play, including the potential for increased tick rates for more responsive multiplayer games. And with that development finishing up, DICE LA and the CTE team continue to work on new improvements and content for Battlefield 4. They seem determined to keep the game alive, and try to make it live up to the fans’ expectations.
There has been a bunch of news about Star Wars Battlefront. As a fan of both the original Battlefront and its sequel Battlefront II, I see this game as a true reboot of that series. It may carry some elements from the never completed Battlefront III, but everything points to a game which updates the epic planetary battlegrounds inspired directly by the original Star Wars Trilogy.
I’ll address two of the big announcements together, as they are somewhat related. First, 40 human players per side (rather than the 64 that Battlefield always supported, and that Battlefront II could do). Second, no space battles — all engagements will be over planets, with fighters and bombers providing ground support as well as dogfighting each other. Now, in Battlefront II, the game would automatically assign AI players to fill roles in order to make the teams full — something which Battlefield 2 could do as well. But in Battlefront, a lot of those soldiers would be manning weapon or tech stations — important jobs but not really exciting combat positions — and providing escorts (AKA cannon fodder) for the star players in the more combat effective fighters and assault craft.
So if the new Battlefront either provides automation (like droids) for these support roles, or even if it provided NPC characters to fill them, the number of human players would be fairly similar to that of the original games. And it should be sufficient for a lot of combat situations where all of the warriors present are actual players. Note that the original provided NPC aliens to fill supporting roles as well, which added much to the feel of being in the universe, without having to make a player be, say, an Ewok or Sand Person, up against Storm Troopers.
I liked the space combats in Battlefront II, but they really only worked well with a small number of human players. And despite the idea that the game was about space dogfights between fighter pilots — which you could do — winning tended to come to the side which most intensely and effectively got its bombers and assault ships in position to disable the single big capital ship. The points scored off space kills couldn’t compete with the big score of taking down a Star Destroyer, and disabling it also made life much easier for your own space fighters.
Mostly, though, space never had any terrain, and the players tended to act as individuals, only a handful ever being in close proximity. The idea of having a tight unit working together — as in the movies — would require a very different sort of space battle in order to achieve that.
Planetary combat, with aerial space fighter support, makes that sort of team operation easy to achieve. Or at least, a lot easier. And it should also be easier to make spectacular planetary battlegrounds than to try to make empty space seem exciting just to travel around.
Everything also points to keeping the special units and hero characters available on the battlefield as special awards, who can’t be simply chosen from the start as regular soldiers (who would obviously be much better than the rank and file sorts — who can stand up to a Jedi, after all, one on one other than another Jedi, or perhaps a good Bounty Hunter).
The look and feel of the game should bring to life the action of the movies, and by keeping the core game design from the original Battlefront — rather than co-opting the Battlefield 4 mechanics — we should have a game which is a winner both for game play, and for being true to its sources.
