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.
