September 28, 2014
Metallicat here, with some thoughts on the Fall BF4 patch and the future of BF4 and the Battlefield series.
A New, Improved Battlefield 4
The big Fall Patch makes a huge number of changes in the game, enough to make it truly a new experience. If the game came out last year looking like this, it would have been totally acceptable, respectable, and a stellar megahit of a game. For people who’ve put off getting the game until now, pretend the last year’s experience never happened. For people like me, who got in at the start, I’d give the same advice — play the game as it is now, not as the broken thing it once was.
I’m not going to review all the changes, but here are a few important ones. First, and probably the biggest change, is the weapon balance and performance changes. Visual recoil — the animation of the weapon when firing — didn’t (and still doesn’t) match the actual game mechanics for recoil on the bullet path. The laser sight (and barrel center) always showed the real aiming point of the weapon. The patch makes the optics (the crosshairs/reticle of the sight) also show the true aiming point. This, combined with the network hit registration improvements, makes hitting targets much easier. Moving fire, especially for bullpup weapons, is also more accurate.
The weapon damage model is also changed, increasing the time to kill in very close combat, but the effect is much less against the Defensive Armor upgrade. For many weapons other than shotguns and snipers, it makes the time to kill against the Armor upgrade the same as without it, and that makes the other upgrade paths more competitive.
The explosives reload change — especially for hand grenades — totally eliminates the sit and spam grenades tactic in the game. It comes at a high cost, as reloading now can take far too long to actually do at all, making the explosives a one per life weapon. I do think this is still an improvement, but hope that continued testing in CTE will allow for a faster reload outside of combat. As the current game mechanics don’t have an “outside of combat” status, this will require additional tracking info to add this feature.
The game movement physics improvements are quite nice. They are subtle enough that you cease noticing them quickly, but being able to get moving more quickly can save your life in combat. The map object physics is still a work in progress, but there are far fewer glitchy spots and odd collisions, and CTE is continuing to work to improve that.
A small subtle change is the addition of the “ready to play” check before starting a new game round. While this reduces the advantage of having an SSD in getting into a game faster, having a round start with both MCOMs already armed by the “faster” players or all flags taken before the enemy team joins was clearly unfair. SSDs are still good, but no longer are a game breaker.
The Final? DLC
Playing Final Stand is simply cool. The entire point of the DLC maps is the rule of cool. It is Battlefield 2142 content, but presented as background in the environment for the most part, viewed from the perspective of BF4’s near future (2020) soldiers. There are some advanced technology items, but they aren’t overwhelming in power, and not quite as futuristic as 2142 itself. They don’t radically the overall game play. I don’t think they fit with the main storyline (and time frame) of the BF4 campaign, but the scifi coolness factor makes up for that.
http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Battlefield_4:_Final_Stand
The HT-95 hovertank is still, in the end, just another tank. The pod launchers are just a different sort of paradrop.
The Rorsch MK-1 railgun is a powerful pick up weapon, probably the most spectacular one of the DLC. But it isn’t necessarily more lethal than other battle pickup weapons, especially the HVM-II.
The XD-1 Accipiter is based on a real world experimental weapon, and it is tricky to use effectively.
The Schipunov SC-42 is a stationary weapon emplacement, based on the Metal Storm grenade launcher.
The DS-3 Decoy is an all kit gadget, which emits sounds and signals which make the enemy see a “soldier” present on their minimap. It can be detected and spotted, neutralizing the deception.
The TDD Target Detector is the only other item — a weapon attachment usable on the all-kit carbines and DMRs — which is usable on maps other than the Final Stand DLC. It has features of both the Motion Balls and the T-UGS sensors, with a more limited arc and range of sensing, but is available (so far at least) to all kits. It falls into the class of something occasionally useful, but costs the accessory attachment slot, which on many weapons has more combat effective alternatives.
The maps are set around the development locations of the equipment of BF 2142, with prototypes available for limited use. The Titans, the Walkers, lots of future — dare I say, advanced — warfare developments. What does this all mean? I have no clue.
OK, just kidding. I can’t see this as anything but teaser content for an upcoming Battlefield 2142 sequel. The basic art, models and weapons are prototyped here for a game that many of us have been wishing for. There has been no official (or unofficial) announcement, so this is just speculation for now. So, what do we know for sure?
The Near Future
First, Battlefield 5: Armageddon is not going to be out for quite some time. The name is from the IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3355554/). The IMDB reference for anything not yet in production is just another sort of rumor, but there are good reasons to think that BF5 isn’t coming soon.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/battlefield-hardline-can-live-alongside-battlefiel/1100-6422591/
The first big reason? All mainline Battlefield games have used a new engine for each new release. Frostbite 3 is still DICE’s main engine, and it will take time to make improvements. More game system performance — better drivers and hardware, especially on PC — will be desirable as well, in order to make new features possible and playable. A rough guess would be three years to develop a new, improved engine. Especially if the goal is improved network performance, as well as audio and visual.
The second big reason is that BF4 is just finishing, and there are two games in the pipeline for next year (2015), with possible DLCs for another year beyond that. Between keeping BF4 alive and active — so players can enjoy all the DLCs and new players can pick up the game (and Premium) to make them more money — and developing the new games, it would be hard to also develop a new, major engine and game.
What We Know For Sure
So what is coming next? First, what we know for sure: 2015 will see the release of Battlefield Hardline early in the year, and Star Wars Battlefront before the end of the year. Like BF 2142, these are not in the main modern/historical military based battlefield line, but they have the game structure — teams made of squads with kits/classes on a battleground — and a similar interface, including the basics of gun handling.
Hardline isn’t a genre I expected to see in Battlefield. But it is the first larger scale, multiplayer, well armed cops vs robbers game with an action movie/TV show feel. Games with vigilantes and criminals have done well, and smaller scale cop/SWAT games have been good too. The game play in the beta was fun, and expanded with more maps, game modes, and features, plus giving it a solidly well-armed civilian (vs military) feel in weapons and vehicles, it should be even better. A good single player mode, plus possible additional single player or cooperative content, could attract player uninterested in full-on military firefights. With fast paced action and lots of close quarters combat, I think it will be popular.
A New Force In The Battlefield
Star Wars Battlefront is the long awaited sequel/remake of 2006’s Star Wars Battlefront II. Reenvisioned in Frostbite 3, and including material from all six movies plus some expanded content, and possibly expansions using the new movies in time, this should be a blockbuster game. Fans of Star Wars who have little interest in military FPS will flock to this game. The core game, however, is based strongly on the Battlefield model, with control flags to conquer, specialized kits and alien classes, a variety of weapons, and vehicle game play. Add in the RPG elements of the hero characters playable in multiplayer, as well as a very solid single player game, and this is a new chance for a new generation of Star Wars fans to embrace multiplayer FPS action.
I expect both to do very well, and for Battlefront to be a truly epic game. DLC for both should be expected through 2016, and like many multiplayer games in unique genres, I also expect that they will remain popular for years to come. But neither one is a modern military FPS like Battlefield 4, and they won’t replace BF4 for fans of the game.
Games Have DLC (Downloadable Content) Now?
So what’s the deal with DLC for all new games? It is not a new thing, and even before the DLC craze there were paid game expansions with additional content. What is new with Battlefield — as of BF3, and BF4 continues this — is that servers with any DLC content in rotation require the players to have the DLC, even if they have the current map (the server flags the DLC required on the server browser). The Premium membership gives all DLC at a reduced cost, with additional benefits, but almost doubles the price of the game. In practice, for BF3 and BF4, serious players must have Premium.
Both games — and BF2 — have the bulk of their maps in DLC, not in the main game. BF4 has 10 maps in vanilla, plus 20 in DLC. For both BF3 and BF4, I chose to buy the Premium package rather than purchase the DLC separately. I feel that for Battlefield, separate DLC pricing is mostly a marketing ploy, to make the Premium purchase more attractive.
The best way to think of this is that games have two versions — Basic and Deluxe. The Basic version is really there just to try it out, offering the minimal features to play the game. The Deluxe (Premium) version is the real game. If you don’t like the high price tag, wait until it goes on sale. I preordered BF4 with Premium, and if it played like it does now, I’d feel entirely satisfied. I still think that the game was worth the money, but it was a painful struggle for too long.
More Future Soon?
So what else is next for the Battlefield series? For now, and the near future, Battlefield 4 is the only true (modern warfare) Battlefield game there is. BF3 is fine and fun. I, like some others, still have it installed. But BF4 is now truly superior to it, and is always going to be my go-to game for modern combat action.
Stay tuned for what else could be coming next…
