chess

Thanks for the insights. I'm a little bummed about the recoil, but the truth is that the maps were my #1 reason for not liking BF3. If I hadn't hated the maps, I probably would have taken the time to adjust to the guns.

I thought tanks were a little bit overpowered in BF3, so I've got no beef with them being nerfed a bit. They should have splash damage though, and they should damn sure one shot a chopper. Some of my favorite BF moments are impossibly long range chopper kills from a tank.

From the videos I've seen, it looks like there are a lot more options for anti-air, which is another welcome change if true.

Nausicaa

I really enjoy it so far - I'm glad I bought it. I think you and I had similar complaints about BF3 chess, and I think you'll like this one a lot more. I've enjoyed all of the maps so far. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted because of power issues today, but they all feel much more open and well balanced for infantry and vehicles. There are also a lot more indoor areas so the combat is mixed up a lot. I found the level of destruction passable as well.

RocShemp

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chess

That is really really good to hear. Thanks!

RichC2

Pretty but yeah, this shows graphics still have a ways to go.

Barth

It almost seems like with these type of games I don't even need the maxed graphics. Everything is moving so fast and I worry about surviving to the next checkpoint I don't even pause long enough to take in the scenery.

However, games like the latest Tomb Raider, Far Cry, and especially Bioshock I tend to notice all the graphical detail.

DVDChris

There is something really satisfying about countering an opponent's knife attack.

fumanstan

PC disconnect issues are annoying me. Lost a small amount of progress because of it. Blah.

Nausicaa

Indeed they do. If there is a cap to graphical performance, I would say the best looking games of today are 5% there, if that.

Still, BF4 is an incredible looking game. The textures and lighting are first rate, and there's tons of detail. And it has excellent performance as well. After Rome II, I can really appreciate that last one.

DaveyJoe

Do all of the lens flares annoy anybody else? It actually takes me out of the game. It started with BF3, in BC2 I felt like I was looking through the eyes of a soldier. Even if the graphics in BF3 were more realistic I was less immersed because the lens flares made me feel like I was looking through a camera instead.

slop101

It's not as bad as a JJ Abrams movie, but it is a bit much. Trying make something appear in a 1st person perspective and also be cinematic and compositionally interesting can be a tricky balance to strike.

slop101

After playing a decent amount of both (CoD:G, and BF4), I have to say that the winner this year is BF.

It has a better campaign (not a great one mind you, just better), better AI, better graphics, better multi-player, better maps (in both multi and solo play), etc. It's just the all around better military shooter this year.

DaveyJoe

I don't understand why they would go for both. It's okay for in-game cinematics or games with a third person perspective; but a 1st person shooter is supposed to be immersive. Especially games like Battlefield which are supposed to be realistic, why add all of the lens flares to make it feel more like a movie, it takes me out of the experience. BF3 could get annoying with this and after watching some of the videos for BF4 it seems even more pervasive.

chess

Battlefield has been for superior every time they've gone head to head since Bad Company 2 in my opinion, or at least the multiplayer has been. And if I wanted a smaller scale twitch shooter this year, I'd be looking at Killzone instead of CoD.

As for blinding lights and lens flare, they shouldn't be an element of any competitive first person shooter. That stuff is fine in the single-player, but I hate it in multiplayer, and flashlights are high on the list of reasons I hated BF3.

19K

The blinding lights are still here (although the flashlight doesn't seem to be as nearly as bad as it was in BF3). I don't know what it is about the setting sun glare effect, but it always seems to be directly in my line of sight, no matter what direction I'm facing. That gets irritating. And they implemented it into the thermal imager in vehicles this time, so if you have thermal on and turn into the sun, the screen gets washed out with white. Not good times. The thermal actually kinda sucks in this game compared to BF3. That was my secret weapon to vehicle dominance. I wonder if the nerfing is on purpose or just the PS3 not being up to par with the next-gen for which the game was designed. It'll be interesting to see how it looks on PS4.

19K

Holy crap this game has a lot of customization options. I've only had it for a week, but this is easily my favorite Battlefield game. You almost NEED the Battlelog app to customize your soldier when you're offline. There are so many options and perks that you miss half the battle trying to customize him while the round is going on. I'd consider myself a Battlefield veteran, and I'm still overwhelmed by all the new stuff they added.

chess

I'm actually not a huge fan of this.

I guess it would be nice if you could make 5-10 custom pre-builds to choose from before you spawn. I'd like to have a straight up assault guy, another with C4, a recon with spawn beacon, an engineer for anti-vehicle, an engineer for anti-air, an engineer with mines and explosives upgrade, etc and then be able to quick select from my prebuilt guys depending on what's going on in the map. When I have to customize on the fly, I inevitably forget that I've changed my engineer before I spawn, and I end up with rockets when I want mines or vice versa.

Customizable vehicle controls would be nice too.

I change my mind every day between this and Killzone.

jdpatri

Welp. It looks like I'll make BF4 my launch game. I really hope I'm not filled with rage like I was after BF3. You guys are just making me pine for the good ol' days of BFBC2.

chess

If you're buying it and are fairly committed to playing every now and then, I'm right there with you.

Why don't I remember you playing a ton of BC2?

19K

I guess you'd have to play to see what I'm talking about. You've never been able to have an engineer that could be both anti-air AND anti-vehicle(land). You always have had to select a particular rocket launcher (i.e. stinger vs javelin) for whatever you felt was the bigger threat on that map. That's been the same for all the battlefield games. But there's this NEW feature called "field upgrades" where you get boosts for whatever type of engineer you want to be. For example: there's a "Anti-vehicle" field upgrade which, when activated, let's you carry more rockets (7 as opposed to 4), lay down more mines (6 as opposed to 3), etc, etc... OR you can pick the "mechanic" field upgrade which makes your repair tool repair/sabotage faster, if you occupy a vehicle it automatically repairs vehicles in close proximity, etc.

Every class of soldier has it's own unique set of field upgrades. You pick whatever field upgrade you want on the soldier customization screen. I'm not positive on what activates it, but it seems to be based on how well you're playing during the round. If I get killed 3 or 4 times in a row it'll suddenly say "field upgrade deactivated" on the screen.

Another thing they allow now is that you set which gadget goes in which hand. I remember playing BF3 with you and you were complaining how the defib was on the wrong side. We'll now you can pick whatever side (left or right) you want it be. That rule pretty much applies to every gadget in every class.

cruzness

I think Flip used to join digi and I in BFBC2 before you were even a twinge in the medic's left testicle. IIRC there was a couple of others that would join us on occasion when digi and I would rave about BFBC2.

19K

Why do I feel like I'm defending this like I was BF3?

You haven't even played it and you sound like you hate it already.

19K

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more satisfying than having a guy sneaking up on you to snatch your tags and you spin around just in time for the new counter move, and you end up snatching his instead. I don't even really care that much about dog tags, but that felt SOOO good.

chess

I feel bad for not taking Digi's word for it back then. BC2 is so so good.

chess

I'm just afraid I'm going to hate it, and I was kind of devastated that I disliked BF3 as much as I did. If you look back, you'll see that I started the thread for BF3 on the first hint of a teaser, and I was super hyped for it.

And then it sucked.

I think I understand the upgrade thing, and FWIW, it wasn't that the defib was in the wrong hand but rather that it was a couple beats slower to equip and use than it was in BC2. One of the themes in BF3 was that they put in a bunch of animations for jumping over things, for defibs and for a bunch of other stuff that slowed you down unneccesarily and in my case threw off my timing quite a bit. I know how petty that sounds, but the tiniest little things can be frustrating when you're in the heat of battle.

As for BF4, you had me at "The maps are better".