The BF Diaries: Communal Animus

While my experience inside the game of Battlefield 3 has been mostly pleasant on the 360, if one were to judge the game by the caliber of person on any of the BF3 forums one could easily surmise that one would probably have more fun playing CoD at 12 in the afternoon on a snow day.

I read a lot of griping from the BF3 community and it’s all pretty ASININE. PC gamers hate the console gamers because developers don’t give the PC gamers enough attention. Snipers whining about not getting head shots every time they pull the trigger. Pilots whinging about Javelins taking them down before they’ve had a chance to decimate the enemy team for the third time. And everyone bitching about CoD players joining their ranks. Even well-respected commentators like DCRUColin have noticed it it.

What is it about people and this puerile need to feel superior to everyone, even those they have much in common with?

I wouldn’t be bothered by it so much if it were only children doing it. Most of these cats are adults. It’s kind of sad when you’re nearing 30 years old and the biggest qualm you have in life is the gaming industry pays the consoles more attention than PCs.

The community I had first thought to be wonderful turned out in the end to be just as abysmal and dreadful as the CoD crowd, possibly worse. Maybe it’s an FPS thing.

This will be my last BF Diaries entry. I had made this long rant about the community but I scrapped it. I talked extensively about how I laid forth a rational consumer grievance with the developers. I never bemoaned the gameplay just the the Slim Shady business tactics of Electronic Arts. In fact, I praised the gameplay. For this, I was met with a misery loves company attitude from PC players on BATTLEFIELDO who apparently have been “dealing with server issues for years,” and a complete lack of concern for the situation because they all have rented servers in order to advertise their shitty BF3 montage YouTube channels. To infantile comments about my BF3 skills and how they somehow correlate to how much I hate the game from Battlelog forum members.

Once again, I never once said I hated the game. I guess the words I used were too big for these people. I should have used more LULZ and OMZG. Stuff simple minded folk can understand. All their comments did was prove my point about rental servers on consoles. Who in their right mind would want to play on a servers administered by these egotesticle (misspelling intentional) Jackasses?

I would like to take a moment to call out one particular nimrod from the Battlelog forums. awatkins1998, a 38 year old US citizen and obvious Fox Newz fan and full time Tea Bagger. He offered this “pearl of wisdom” in a poorly composed sentence…

“If you are a working man, have you ever heard, “There is another mule in trace.” Even if you quit or sell your game, there is another player that will take your place probably with better stats. Meaning, BF3 will be fun without you making the game easy for me.“

No, I’ve never heard, “there is another mule in trace.” No one has. And let’s look at our stats shall we, Mr. I Make The Game Easy For U?

MINE: 154h 36m played. 227 score/min. Accuracy 10.2%. W/L Ratio .096

YOURS: 617h 40m played. 321 score/min. Accuracy 13.5%. W/L Ration 1.38
300 mortar kills and 300 claymore kills (camp much? Probably not, campers have better stats)

Considering I only have 150 hours played compared to your 617, you’re not much better than me. If at all. And after 617 hours of playing BF3, you’re not even an average player, you’re barely mediocre.

Here’s the thing Johhny Dumbass, if you’re going to smack talk, you should probably start with having the stats to back it up.

I’ve only gotten better as I’ve played and I don’t tend to walk around bragging about my gaming “accomplishments” because, in the grand scheme of things, THEY MEAN FUCK ALL. They’re not even accomplishments. They are virtual nothings developed by marketing dickwads to fill the trivial needs of pathetic little losers like you. Find me one gravestone that says “Beloved Husband and Father with a great K/D ratio.”

You? You started as a shite player and 617 hours later you’re not even mediocre. And seriously dude, 38 years old, 617 hours on BF3 and time to troll forums with inane, poorly written comments? Do you have a life? You’re one of those baggers crying about government spending while collecting a disability check, aren’t you?

Now that I’ve filled my puerile need to feel superior to someone daily quota, lets move on.

I had thought the BF3 crowd capable of rational thought. Objective thinking. I thought stats didn’t matter to the BF3 crowd, that it was all about PTFO! I had done nothing but praise the BF3 community since I started playing. I see now this was mostly because I couldn’t hear any of them thanks to the game’s abysmal VOIP (NOW I bitched about the game’s mechanics, and even that wasn’t much of one.)

These aren’t children, these are young adults (and thirty-something losers.) Young adults with a complete lack of respect for one another and anyone else. Internet anonymity is a wonderful thing. My generation has raised its kids well, you should all be very proud. Do me a favor, in the next life, wear a fucking condom.

The kids that catch the most slack on Xbox Live, the tweens, I’ve found to be far more respectful and polite than the adults that should know better. That’s kind of sad.

And with that said, you have my very last entry for the Battlefield Diaries. Thank you for reading (and allowing me to vent.)

The BF Diaries: Are DART rounds the new USAS?

The intrepid Triggywiggy over at BATTLEFIELDO is reporting that the M26 Dart is the new USAS Frag Round post patch. According to Triggy there is a glitch in the code. When you attach the M26 with an underslung rail and add a heavy barrel while using dart rounds, the damage of the darts increases by a huge margin and is quite effective at long distances. DICE has confirmed they are aware of the issue and it will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

I’ve been using the G3A3 with dart rounds since well before the patch and while I believe my fellow gamers when they say there is a problem, I’m not convinced that it’s the new USAS.

I will admit that my first game post patch was with the G3A3 and underslung M26 with dart rounds and I went 21 and 6. 16 of those kills were attributed to the dart. But this had to do with the fact that the other team was entirely preoccupied with shooting down our air support with the newly adjusted Stingers thus allowing me to flank and come up behind them far too easily during the match. Because of the 20 round capacity of the G3 and my tendency to go through the clip quickly I’ve always liked using the underslung M26 on the G3A3 and I started using the dart rounds when it was suggested by 1WINDSHEAR, long before the patch. I like to use the G3A3 on large maps that feature quite a bit of close quarter combat as well. It’s not instinctual for me to use the M26 at range so I have no knowledge as to its effectiveness over long distances and I honestly can’t recall a time when I’ve been killed by one over a long distance. Unless I get a head shot it takes me two shots of dart to put most people down and the M26 has a painfully slow rate of fire.  So I have to respectfully disagree with Triggerwigger, while the dart round glitch is an issue that needs to be fixed it is simply not as gamebreaking as the USAS with frag rounds combo was.

This hasn’t stopped the forum trolls from blaming BATTLEFIELDO and various game commentators for this glitch’s proliferation throughout the community. Blaming BATTLEFIELDO for promoting this glitch is ludicrous. It’s like Romney blaming Obama for an Ohio drywall factory closing down under the Bush presidency. Knowledge of these type of glitches spread much like the common cold throughout the community. Once you get nailed by a dart for the sixteenth time you try the loadout yourself and Bob’s your Uncle. I remember getting killed relentlessly for about a week by the USAS frag round combo before I saw mention of it on the internet.

Regardless of this current meme in the BF3 community I will continue to use my G3A3 with underslung M26. Though I have recently traded in the heavy barrel for a flash suppressor and will probably switch back to buckshot in anticipation of the over-nerf the dart round will probably get. I find the flash suppressor makes the G3A3 much more effective in my hands and an underslung M26 always comes to my aid in a pinch, along with my trusty sidearm (currently the .44 Magnum.)

The BF Diaries: The Case for Boosting

There was a time when I eschewed boosters and the act of boosting entirely. The booster was a cheater in my eyes, cretins of gaming with no legitimate claim to their falsified stats that they undoubtedly brag about every chance they get. This was mostly when I played Call of Duty. My attitude towards boosting in BF3 has changed significantly.

In my humble opinion, by offering the option to purchase unlockables in BF3 Electronic Arts and DICE have legitimized boosting. It’s not so much that people can purchase equipment unlocks for their classes that bothers me as these unlock with time regardless of player ability. But vehicle unlocks have a major affect on gameplay. A jet running with just flares is going to get trounced by a jet running with radar and heat seekers every time irreverent of player skill.

Sitting on an empty server arming and disarming MCOMs with the help of your friends is not going to make you a better player. You’ll still be the same shitty player you were before you started boosting, you’ll just be a shitty player with access to a USAS and a SOFLAM. But an unexceptional gamer hopping onto an empty server with some of his friends and boosting his vehicle unlocks a bit will give him a fighting chance against the unexceptional player with too little time to play to get good and far too much disposable income to throw away on virtual items.

When you’ve paid $60 for a multiplayer game you should not have to pay more in order to be competitive. I never played NHL 10 multiplayer for this very reason. Thanks to Electronic Arts and their propensity for greed, these days I don’t fault people for boosting when I stumble across them in BF3 empty servers. I may even join them (if they are working on jets.)

The BF Diaries: Rented Servers; the good, the bad and the ugly.

Overall the addition of BF3 rented servers to consoles is a good thing. For one, it’s now easy for anyone to learn how to fly a chopper or plane and boost your unlocks with a couple of friends (because EA is charging people to unlock items that have an affect on gameplay, I no longer find boosting objectionable, nor do I consider it cheating.) And having the ability to set the rules for you and your pals is worth its weight in gold. But the implementation has come with some undesirable and pesky side effects.

The most annoying side effect is the shear amount of time it can take to find an appropriate game. If you’re not careful you can get stuck on a 5000 ticket Metro Conquest server. Who the hell wants to be spawn trapped on Metro for six hours? Who the fuck has the time to play Metro for six hours? You can no longer jump safely into a server. You have to take a look at the server info page to be sure. So much for a quick game every now and then.

Would it be so hard for DICE to implement a little code to restrict rented servers being named [DICE] or anything official looking?

At first I thought I could easily solve this dilemma by hopping only into official DICE servers… Yeah, good luck finding one of those these days. From this perspective it seems as though DICE and EA have figured out a way to con the community into paying for something they should be providing as part of the $60 package you purchased. Not only are these official servers rare these days but when you do find one you’ll soon discover that it’s probably NOT an official DICE server.

You see, in an effort to get more people onto their servers, many unscrupulous gamers have taken to the practice of naming their rented servers in a similar “official” fashion. Just because the server description says something like ‘[DICE]- BF3 Classic Only‘ or ‘P2135468‘ doesn’t mean it is. The only way for you to be sure is to go to the server info page and hit the Y button to see if someone’s gamercard shows up. To be fair, if you do a search for ‘dice‘ all those “lost in limbo” servers will show up, now all you have to do is figure out which ones are legit and which ones are rented. Once you suss this out I advise you add these servers to your favorites. Would it be so hard for DICE to implement a little code to restrict rented servers being named [DICE] or anything official looking?

“Everywhere I go, there’s always an asshole.” ~ McCoy, Streets of Fire (1984)

While the ability to customize a server may be worth its weight in gold, it to has its shortcomings. My two buds, CHAD and erock, and myself hopped onto a server for some squad rush action. After about ten minutes, erock ended up on the other team. At first we thought he had done it by mistake and so he switched back over and we continued to play. The same thing happened again a short while later. Long story short, it turned out the server’s owner (who was on the other team) was switching erock over to his team. When CHAD asked him why he was doing this he replied ‘to balance the teams.’ CHAD went on to explain to him that the three of us were good friends and only play together and he could take anyone else but please do not separate us. He replied with something along the lines of  ‘how about you let me administrate my server my way.’ We replied by quitting the server.

None of this is game breaking, just mosquito buzzing around your ear in the summer heat annoying. A final bit of advice before you go renting your own server, go have a gander at the empty ones first before wasting your own money. Maybe even get to know the guys who own those servers and become friends. Maybe they’ll make you admins.

The BF Diaries: Learning To Fly

Turns out my biggest hurdle in learning to fly choppers in BF3 was the stick layout. Having both pitch and roll on the same stick caused me to overcompensate roll too much while trying to get the chopper to move forward. This ended up with me crashing into the ground shortly after take-off.

Thanks to advice from SpartanZypher over at the PGL forums I switched my control stick layout to LEGACY and now have roll all on its own on the right stick.

Talk about a drastic improvement in my flying skills. My first flight after doing this I managed to stay in the air for about 10 minutes. Yes, I was that support guy from Battlefield Friends yelling I’M FLYING! I’M FLYING!

Thanks to the recent addition of rented servers and a gaming community with far too much disposable income, there are currently boat-loads of empty conquest servers that you can hop into and grab a chopper to practice with. So find yourself an empty server and spread your wings!

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air,
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

There’s no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss

Can’t keep my mind from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I
PINK FLOYD, Learning to Fly

On the other hand, learning to fly jets in combat is not as easy. I can fly one easy enough and dodge an attack or two but taking down another jet with only my guns and without the situational awareness of radar is proving to be quite a daunting task.

The BF Diaries: Are they really Lone Wolves?

In WW1 the generals had this tactic called trench warfare they liked to use. It was a wonderful tactic that had worked very well in near every war. Then some git invented the Gatling gun. The Sit-Rep of the battlefield had changed but those stubborn old bastards in command of the world’s armies were far too dense to see the forest for the trees or–in this case–the Gatling gun for the bullets. And so they continued to send wave after wave of able bodied men over the walls of the trenches and into a hail of bullets to their deaths. And for all that sacrifice WW1 was pretty much a stalemate from day one till its end. 10 million soldiers died in WW1. 10 million.

Battlefield can be the same way sometimes.

I’ve been in Conquest games and stuck to my squad, attacking the flags to no avail. I’ve sat back and watched my team continue to do this even after I pointed out that it wasn’t working. At that point I just slip around back and head to another flag while the team keeps them occupied. And you know what ends up happening? As people on my team die they respawn on me, we cap the flag I infiltrated by myself and then together as a team we rush to the next flag behind the enemy lines and usually end up capping that as well.

The best leaders don’t announce themselves, they don’t bark orders. The best leaders lead through action, not words.

If I’m in a squad that’s communicating, even if it’s just me and one other guy, I’m a team player. I’ll do what you ask within reason. Leadership requires respect. Respect is earned and not given. Even so, I’ve never been one for following orders, especially when they are being issued by a bunch of dumbasses. The next time you go accusing people of being lone wolves, remember that being a lone wolf  does not necessarily equate to not playing the objectives. Ask yourself, what’s the point of taking a flag if 2-3 snipers are overlooking it from 50 yards out?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Sometimes these lone wolves are really leaders, you’re just too stubborn to follow them. After 40 years on this planet the one thing I know for sure is the best leaders are the ones who don’t want the job. The best leaders don’t announce themselves, they don’t bark orders. The best leaders lead through action, not words.

Part of the lone wolf myth in BF3 is a product of the severe lack of communication in the game at times. This is a scapegoat. I’ve been in games where people are communicating and nothing comes together. Some people just don’t mesh as a team, no amount of gibber-jabber would rectify this fact. I’ve been in plenty of games where no one is talking and everyone falls into a silent symbiosis and everything comes together. Still, even in these games, sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.

And yes, I believe the lone wolf analogy BF veterans throw out there in their BF3 rants is a myth (at least for console players.) At the end of every game the one thing I’ve noticed is that, win or loose, the scores for all team members are evenly spread out. The Ace chopper pilot with 40 kills and 10 deaths has a similar score to the infantry grunt who was capping flags but ended up with 10 kills and 40 deaths. I rarely see the egregious killstreak scores you see at the top of the score sheet in every CoD game.

The BF Diaries: My thoughts on the Metro & Tehran maps.

According to MP1st Senior Gameplay Designer, Alan Kertz, revealed that Operation Metro is the most played map so far and Tehran Highway is the least popular.

OPERATION METRO
Metro is the current mating ground for griefers trying to pad their stats with the USuckAtShooting-12 before the distant patch nerfs them.

Too many chokes points is something that comes to mind. But this isn’t the case, in fact, the opposite is true here. The map suffers from far too few choke points. The map’s linear design is the problem. A few more side tunnels in the subway would have easily alleviated the rampant spawn trapping that takes place on this map. For example, a tunnel leading all the way from the C flag in Conquest to the A flag would force the opposing team to spread its troops a little thinner and give a better than decent chance of breaking the inevitable trap. That tunnel added to a fourth flag in the park area would really open this map up for Conquest.

I played a lot of metro when I was leveling my recon guy to get my MAV. Place a TUGS in the tunnel under the B flag and you’ll rack up points like crazy. Alas, I’m not a fan of spawn trapping and that’s all the strategy you’ll get out of this map. I find myself hanging back when I’m on the winning side of this tragic example of poor sportsmanship. I’ll finish the game when I’m on the receiving end of the spawn trap, I figure if I’m willing to take the win when my team does it I should show some respect to the opposing team and not begrudge them their victory. I tend not to push forward. Once you’re pushed all the way back on Metro it’s pretty much over. On the US side there’s only 2 ways forward, it only takes 2 squads to hold this down. Once the enemy controls the 2 buildings overlooking the RU spawn they have the high ground and it’s all just one big snipe fest after that.

Despite all this Metro is a rather fun map to play albeit a frustrating one. The battle for the B flag in Conquest is most exhilarating at times, but once that battle is won or lost it’s all downhill from there. It’s not my favorite map, not sure if I have a favorite. Been playing Kharg Island a bit lately.

TEHRAN HIGHWAY
I’ve quit this map A LOT. It’s not the map I dislike, it’s the way Recon plays this map that I dislike. The birthplace of MAV riding. Within the first 2 minutes of a game you will see Recon griefers setting up camp on the elevated highway. Everyone on your team playing the objectives are sniper fodder for these guys. If I’m with a good team that I don’t want to quit and this map comes up I take out the old MAV for a spin and harass anyone that ends up on the elevated highway and spot the ones that sneak up to the often overlooked balconies of the taller buildings. I’m no expert roadkiller but it’s much better to keep these guys preoccupied with my MAV rather than letting them get a bunch of easy kills on my team. The more reasonable ones quit trying to get to the elevated highway about half way through the game and start playing the objectives. The more moronic ones will spend the entire game trying to shoot my MAV out of the sky.

Another terrible aspect of this map is the sheer amount of snipers on your team that will hunker down in the US base to take pot shots at the enemy. If 1 or 2 do it and spend more time spotting the enemy than trying to get footage for the epic killstreak montage they think will make them YouBoob stars it could help the team but in conquest games it adds up to 4-6 less guys trying to cap the flags.

Yeah, Tehran Highway isn’t the problem, snipers are.

The BF Diaries: Supporting the team, cool story bro!

The one thing I really enjoy about Battlefield is how you don’t have to be at the top of the leader-board to feel like like you vivaciously contributed to the team. The following is a true story…

I hopped onto a game of Conquest on Metro. The team I ended up on wasn’t losing by much but the tickets had started dwindling and capping that B flag was looking more and more ominous. We certainly had enough troops in the area, but the cap clock was stuck on steady. I laid down my TUGS in that corridor that runs on the left side of B when you’re facing C. Immediately two enemy blips showed up right around the corner from where I had placed the tugs. These guys were entrenched and doing a good job of making Swiss cheese out of my teammates. Anyone who ventured out the door to round the corner only met their doom. These guys had talent, they knew when to reload and were backing each other up quite well. Two of my teammates prepared to go and I saw my chance.

I figured with two comrades going around that corner at the same time I had a good chance the enemy might panic a little, waste a bunch of ammo and force both of them to have to reload at the same time. I saw my comrades go down and jumped around the corner just as both enemy soldiers had started their reload sequence. One went down immediately and then I got a little too excited myself. I downed the other one after panic spraying (thank God for the 50 bullet capacity of the PP-19!) but he got me too. I respawned at the cafe, cursing my jumpiness. Then I saw we had capped the B flag and I started to feel really good about what I had done. In seconds we had the C flag and it was all spawn trapping after that (not really proud that my team resorted to that but I was too high on recent events to quit the game.)

I’m sure other things I wasn’t aware of happened on the battlefield that contributed to my team’s success but my tiny little intuitive action was part of it. And that’s truly why I enjoy this game so much. It’s always a team effort. Everyone’s actions adds to the greatness of the whole. Like a Band of Brothers, we support one another.

The BF Diaries: You ever had one of those nights?

I need to vent. Keep in mind that I play late at night when server population is quirky at best and I do realize this contributes to my problem. I did have some fun but did you ever have one of those nights when nothing goes your way?

I didn’t win a single game of Battlefield last night and it wasn’t for lack of trying. I came to grips with the fact that I’m just not a lucky person ages ago (you can cram that crap about making your own luck) but I’ve learned to play the odds through the years. I’ve learned to carefully pick my battles. Last night though, I could not catch a break.

If I wasn’t spawning into the last 60 seconds of a losing match I was spawning into games were the enemy was all Eagles (level 45+.) Some games I didn’t even get to spawn in, I just went right to the ‘your team lost‘ screen.

And when my team was doing exceptionally well, half of my teammates would quit half way into the game and we’d end up loosing. That happened 3 times last night. THREE BLOODY TIMES! And during the start of two of those games we had more players than the other team. We lost the last game after being ahead for most of it. In the end there was 6 or 7 of us versus a full team. Each of us had a score greater than 5000 and we still lost.

I remember praising the game’s matchmaking system and, when there are plenty of people on line, it may still deserve that praise. But when the server population is dwindling it’s frustrating.

One major game mechanic that contributes to this unbalance is the game not letting people quit at the end of a round. You have to wait for the next round to begin before given the option or you can dashboard. What happens is the game will autobalance in between rounds and people quit the game after the autobalance which consequently causes unbalance.

Someone didn’t think that one all the way through.

And what’s with you jackasses out there locking your squads? I had to play literal lone wolf last night in two games because three guys were circle jerking by themselves in one squad. I wouldn’t have minded but they weren’t that good to begin with. They didn’t even come close to getting Ace Squad. Why would you lock your squad up when you suck and could use all the help you can get?

This is only going to get worse when they fix the whole getting separated from your friends thing. You’re going to end up with entire teams of squads of friends versus either an entire team of either randoms or just two squads of friends. While I admit it is frustrating to get separated from your friends while playing, at this point,  I’m pretty sure this is necessary to balance the teams. I don’t know, I’m kind of frustrated and paranoid about it right now, my judgement is impaired.

AND THE ICING ON THE CAKE…
Nothing went my way last night. Nothing. I came up on an enemy mortar. I was behind him and decided to knife him. You know what happened? THAT WHOLE F—ING KNIFING ANIMATION UTTERLY FAILED ON ME. Guy clues in, it takes me half an hour to switch back to my weapon and the guy kills me. Well b33m3R, you say condescendingly, why didn’t you just shoot him? Well, normally I would have jackass, but DICE wants me to knife 5 f—ing people so I can unlock a bloody weapon!

Definitely one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had so far in this game last night. Thanks for letting me vent.