Battlefield 3

[Stark]

Metro is the only map I hate and have removed from my filter. The others are fine, even if Caspian and Firestorm are a bit crap and Bazaar is a map from Blops.

Most maps have awful point balance too; one point might be amazingly easy to attack, but another might be amazingly easy to defend. You can generally tell as soon as you join and find out what side you're on and what point you're at if you're going to win or lose.

Nosehair has 'interesting combat' if you think 'Tunguska kills everything all day for massive points' is 'interesting'. At least you can't spawn more than one if you keep it after a point is push back, though - a pair of them would just be ragequit city. If only anyone knew how to use tha AAV except me and Zak? Kill a T90 in an AAV = angry messages.

[weemadando]

Which is a shame since Capsian is kind of a garbage map. The action is to spread out to be exciting and even on 64 players it's very much a thing of attacking wherever the tanks are not. The best maps to date are Operation Metro (On Conquest if only because of how insane the fights get at the Ticket booth) Grand Bazaar which is just good Tehran Highway (same) and Noshahr Canals which offers interesting vehicle combat unlike Capsian and Kharg.

Grand Bazaar and Tehran Highway are great.

I've been digging Darmavand Peak on Rush too (whenever it's actually come up in rotations) because it has such great fights from point to point.

Rush on Noshahr Canals and Kharg Island are also good. The amphibious assault first phase is great. But is the rumoured playable LCAC in any of the maps or are they always just static spawns?

[Stark]

Who the fuck would want to drive an LCAC?

[weemadando]

The initial rumour I'd heard was that it was effectively the mobile spawn unit, but that's the AAV.

[Mr Bean]

Who the fuck would want to drive an LCAC?

If they slaved the 40mm grenade launchers or .50cals to the driver I'd love to drive one for the twenty seconds it takes to hit the shore and you drop your LAV.

Also the AAV well manned is a beast since it has more heath than an Abrams and the 40mm grenade launcher on top with proximity running. Your grenades reload while using your coxial so a dedicated driver/gunner combo can wreck havoc.

[Stark]

OIC. Maybe if they fixed the AAV so it could handle 10 degree inclines people would use it more? The best use I've seen for it so far is to block the enemies access to a point when it's ticking; works good on Tehran.

Or, y'know, be a champ like me and kill dozens of people with it's super-powerful weapons. Until show shitwit climbs in and starts driving it around, of course.

Does proximity even work? I tried it on a tung run and I didn't see anyone appear on my map when they tried to sneak up on me. Is it super short range? It doesn't seem worth losing quick belts to me.

[weemadando]

Allegedly there's a vehicle that can deploy 40mm smoke grenades, I'd thought this would be the AAV but haven't had a chance to try and no one seems to use it. But being able to drop a smokescreen on that beachhead would be fucking handy.

[Mr Bean]

Does proximity even work? I tried it on a tung run and I didn't see anyone appear on my map when they tried to sneak up on me. Is it super short range? It doesn't seem worth losing quick belts to me.

It's movement based, someone stationary does not set it off, but someone walking within fifty meters sets it off. Real game example, Firestorm, parked by the Office building flagzone I could see people on the other side of the three story constructions and on the other side of the destroyable building there. I could not however see someone spawning on off of someone who I could see.

[Stark]

The thermal is a bit wierd on vehicles too; I've seen three guys running across an open area, with two of them highlighted with the high-contrast and the third visible but dark like the background. I can't see any 'thermal stealth' shit in the unlocks so is it just broken?

[Pint0 Xtreme]

The thermal is a bit wierd on vehicles too; I've seen three guys running across an open area, with two of them highlighted with the high-contrast and the third visible but dark like the background. I can't see any 'thermal stealth' shit in the unlocks so is it just broken?

Yeah, it's a tad broken. It's annoying that they don't show up as well when they're looking out of the windows of the buildings in Firestorm. I have to rely on my proximity sensor for that.

Noshahr Canals which offers interesting vehicle combat unlike Capsian and Kharg.

Ugh, I cannot get myself to like Canals. Even the planes aren't fun to fly considering that absurdly low (300 feet) flight ceiling.

[Stark]

Some smoke and environmental stuff interferes with thermal, which is nice, but I only use it as a zoom-replacement for spotting guys at long range. Then I put my pixel on their pixel and laugh.

The guys who get dropped on inaccessible buildings are the best, because they keep going back there no matter how many times you swat them down.

What determines what happens to vehicle wrecks? Sometimes they sit there burning for ages, but sometimes (espeically with the AAV) it almost immediately disappears.

[Lancer]

Allegedly there's a vehicle that can deploy 40mm smoke grenades, I'd thought this would be the AAV but haven't had a chance to try and no one seems to use it. But being able to drop a smokescreen on that beachhead would be fucking handy.

It's the first unlockable perk for MBT's, IFV's, and AAV's.

[weemadando]

No, what people were talking about was a turret type weapon that had smoke rounds as an option. Seemed to me to be an excellent idea.

[weemadando]

Ugh. Fuck leveling jets.

[Stark]

Look just accept they made a game where most people will never use half the vehicles and move on.

To MW3.

[Edward Yee]

Grand Bazaar and Tehran Highway are great.

I don't play Tehran Highway enough to really "know the map," but I recognize that Grand Bazaar has a nice mix of "insane Metro Conquest-style brawling" (one word: Alleyway) while spreading out and varying the fight at the other points, i.e. Market, Highway, Square, and the fifth one whose name I don't immediately recall.

[weemadando]

I finally played some Seine Crossing on both Conquest and Rush.

FUCK YES that map.

Again, it's a great mix of zones, but fuck it, why can't things be more destructible?

[Nephtys]

Well. I seem to crash every 5 minutes so I can't REALLY play the game. But one thing did WOW me a lot. I was running through a cluster of Trees, when an A10 buzzes through it, gun blazing to strafe a car on the road. The shells and passing plane cause the trees to sway, one gets cut down and lands on me and pins me. And I get killed.

[weemadando]

Yeah, I got killed by a tree falling on Seine Crossing.

I love the War Tapes audio setting whenever someone decides to fire a shell past your head from a tank or a jet does a show of force. No one does audio like DICE.

[Edward Yee]

Best Battlefield 3 moment so far in 64-player Metro Conquest? My team RU is pushing the stairwell after having capped all three flags (and I'd repelled a lone US Recon's attempt to take the Cafe), so I (Assault) come down the stairwell... to find probably two squads' worth of US players there. Somehow I manage to unload my AK-74M magazine, my MP443 Tactical magazine and probably a grenade into them, ALL while making it back up the stairwell without dying and nailing at least two kills in the process (got the M416 in that round).

[CaptHawkeye]

Look just accept they made a game where most people will never use half the vehicles and move on.

To MW3.

I'd rather they didn't anyway. Not much has changed since BF2 when most people trying to fly the chopper were colossally inept. It doesn't even matter to me if you can just avoid crashing, the power of attack choppers is in the gunner seat and if you don't present him with a stable platform to fire from occasionally he can't do shit.

Even with the new damage model people still don't grasp that the Jeeps, Cars, and APCs are not just suicide sleds.

Tanks? Let me take this big, armored gun that can fire from across the map and make sure to push right up to the capture point so I totally negate any and all of my own advantages and ensure anyone with C4 can basically walk up to me and kill me.

Let's not even talk about jets.

[Mr Bean]

Jets are deadly when flown by someone who has spent lots of time in flight sims and decided to ignore all of that. The proper deadly planes are the A-10/Su 39 with the one pass=kill 30mm gun. But even a decent pilot in the F/A-18 or Su-35 with rocket pods unlocked can kill tanks in a single pass. And once you have lock on ground attack missiles unlocked you can start harvesting anything that moves (Unless they have IR smoke equipped) But the true murder of enemy ground targets remains the Attack Helo's properly flown and double manned.

[CaptHawkeye]

The game is sort of weird about what it considers punishable for jet pilots. Crashing into a tiny light fixture = death but shoving your jet into the ground and rubbing its underside against the gravel for a mile = nothing.

[Artemas]

i've found that that with the greater survivability of the humvees and vodniks, they're actually being used as gun platforms now. in bc2 you would die at the drop of a hat in one, now it sometimes takes a couple of hits. people often position them a bit back of the fight, and use the gun. also small arms dont do shit.

man, i dont even know how to level the scout chopper. what category do the utility choppers fall under?

[CaptHawkeye]

I'm actually in favor of the new damage model, which means vehicles aren't explodey death traps anymore. Combat vehicles usually get disabled more than explode catastrophically every time. But this kind of skillful use of game mechanics to replicate a real scenario will be forgotten sooner than later i'm sure.