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.
