Ade wrote:
nice find, thank God I don't play that game. remind me why it's popular
BFBC2 is a
genuinely good game. The problem lies in the fact that most of the people playing are
genuinely retarded. Imagine TF2, now take out the game faggotry, add in a beautiful, destructible environment filled with with tanks, UAVs, choppers, ATVs, real world weapons, and large, well designed maps. Now put all of the same type of idiots that play TF2 back into it, and there you go - BFBC2.
I've been playing this for about a month now. This was my first foray into Battlefield games, and I do love the game, but I hate the people playing it. I mean I
HATE them. There are times if I could just reach through a computer and strangle teammates until they're lifeless bodies fell limp in their desk chairs, I would. There's no communication whatsoever, people are afraid to die, and when you end up on a shitty team, you are going to rage. I can't tell you how many times I'm in a game, as an engineer, with a team half full of engineers (these guys have rockets and shit to destroy vehicles easily), and I'm the only one trying to take out the tank that's taking our base or destroying our MCOM station.
The squad concept is brilliant. You have a squad of up to 4 players, and you can respawn on any of those players during the game. As long as one person in your squad can survive an attack, the rest can respawn at his position and they can continue on from that point. One good squad that can work together can do a lot of damage. This is when the game is a beautiful thing to behold. Two squads of decent players that can come together in a full 32 person server can make all the difference in the world as far as how much enjoyment you can get out of the game and how much rape your team can dish out. The problem is when you get stuck with the Trisomy 21 Squad. One might be trying learn to pilot choppers and spend most of his time diving the damn thing straight into the ground right in a barrage of enemy fire; the other 2 sniping or just off somewhere scratching their nutsacks, or your whole squad may enjoy spending time in your base TK'ing anyone who spawns and destroying all of your vehicles. EA made a great game here, but there's no way to idiot proof a team based game.
Newer games are brilliantly marketed. Making weapons and gadgets unlock as upgrades when players get points may be annoying as hell, but it is a great way to keep gamers. Gamers that keep playing invite friends to buy the game. I think the problem lies in the point system. If EA had made the main goals of the game mode you're playing worth a fuckton of points instead of just slightly more than frags, people would hopefully be more inclined to try to complete the missions. I've never been a big fan of KD in a stats system because it supposedly tells how good a gamer is, but KD can be easily manipulated. A shit sniper can have a decent KD, but have done nothing during the course of a game except hide a mile away and pick off a random enemy here and there. If things get tough, he bails, his KD stays intact, and herp diddily derp, "look how good I am at this game!" I used to see this all the time in the old days of HL2DM on the old EE server once stats were introduced. Players would jump in a server if it was full of noobs, flash the old "rank", and stick around if the fish in that barrel were fresh that day. On a day when some clan members were playing, they might jump in to say "hi", die a few times, and run out before they lost any more precious points. In the stats they look great, but they are actually about as useful as a sack of dead rats. Then again, I can think of a few uses for dead rats.
The point system breakdown is like this (there are tons of other bonuses that I won't list):
In Conquest, where the goal is to try to hold capture points:
Kills - 50
Capture Assist - 75
Capture - 150
Kill defending a capture point - +30 bonus
Winning a round - 200
Now, there are plenty of other ways to get points (destroying vehicles, avenging teammate deaths, etc.), but why bother going to the trouble of fighting, sneaking, or rushing your way into a camp to possible earn 150 points, when you could just hide in a bush and shoot 3 people. KD stays in good shape, and you just earned as many points as the guy who worked his ass off for your team to cap that point.
In Rush, where the goal is to advance from point to point by destroying MCOM stations:
Kills - 50
Arming a charge on an MCOM station - 100
Destroying an MCOM station - 250
Causing damage to an MCOM (rocket, tank, UAV) - 50
Kill defending an MCOM station - +30 bonus
Winning a round - 200
I think there's a bonus for defending the MCOM after it's armed, but I'm sure how many points that's worth - +30 maybe
But here again, why bust your ass and die several times trying to destroy the MCOM (which is hard as hell to do on some maps against a decent team), when you can take a chopper the team could have used, fly it up to a spot completely out of reach, sit comfortably on a hill under a nice palm, sipping a mojito and picking off members of the afore mentioned Trisomy 21 Squad? There are other game modes (Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch) which would fit these people better, but they seem to end up in the goal based games anyway.
I've bashed snipers quite a bit, but in reality, a good sniper is a very valuable asset to the team. One good sniper, who's willing to stand in a somewhat dangerous location, can hold off an attack for quite a while by himself before being overtaken. The problem is that there are very few good snipers.
If the points were considerably more for accomplishing goals, and rewarded squad members and team members for being well performing squad and team, I think it would change the game dynamic quite a bit. Either that, or the game would just turn into hoards of lemmings rushing towards MCOM stations repeatedly being mowed down by heavy gun fire until one manages to push through and blow it up.
But either way, in the annals of history, Trisomy 21 Squad will be remembered for there contribution to goal oriented, team based gaming, and for their motto: "If we don't win this time, then potato."
tl;dr - game is good, people are retarded