Battlefield 3 announced

[DeF]

You'd still have campers. The only thing that would happen is that those (crouched) snipers far-far away would be collecting headshots left and right if the attacking team couldn't go prone.

If I get to the obj and die because there's a semi-hidden camper (prone or not) right next to the obj just inform your squad/team then flush with grenades, etc.

Oh, can't wait to test caspian border, even last night I was watching some youtube videos of it. Platoon! Form up and join the fray!

On the prone camping front i am with homerdog. The problem is people are always sensitive about their stats in game. Being able to prone camp introduces additional risk for advancing players (its always harder to kill someone in prone position than crouching) and also encourages players to gather kills rather than objective points (because you are harder to kill and have better accuracy laying down on the floor). If you combine this with indestructible bushes (see the deadliest bush vid) and higher bullet damage, sooner or later you will get WW I style trench warfare.
Dont get me wrong, i like the game very much (i even preordered it after few hours of beta play - my first preorder ever!). Its just i think that it would be better w/o prone camping.

 

[Dresden]

They'll earn those back and then some once the game launches. If people are willing to cancel a pre-order on account of a beta, they probably weren't that committed in the first place.

 

[tabs]

If that means 34,000 less whiners clogging up my chat box then good riddance.

/troll

I do wonder if some people are cancelling pre-orders then making new ones that give them extra bonuses. The initial pre-orders were Karkand only, a few subsequent ones have had better offers.

 

[Dresden]

If that means 34,000 less whiners clogging up my chat box then good riddance.

/troll

I do wonder if some people are cancelling pre-orders then making new ones that give them extra bonuses. The initial pre-orders were Karkand only, a few subsequent ones have had better offers.

Depends on where you pre-ordered from. I ran out and pre-ordered BF3 like the day it was announced. Recently, after hearing about the LE, I called Gamestop and asked if I could upgrade my pre-order to the LE. It turns out, Gamestop automatically upgraded from what was the initial version to the LE.

A lot of those pre-order cancellations are probably the result of people who were already on the fence about BF3, in the first place, and when they discovered how demanding it was, or apparently never took part of a beta before, if they weren't expecting to encounter any issues, decided to cancel.

 

[tabs]

Same here, first day I heard... I just don't know if I'd ever pre-order a game I was on the fence about in the first place.

UT3, GR:AW 2, Crysis, BF3... dead certs... only dissapointed by UT3 (which I had on pre-order for 2 years!).

I wonder what this means for future betas? Will we see less open betas for the big games in future? I truly hope not. I do think that EA/DICE could have marketed this a bit better though, like having an actual splash screen that stated a few truths about the nature of the game that's about to be played and the quality of the code. Relying on tweets and small text newsfeeds on Battlelog are not the way to do it.


/edit

Found this post on my clan forum... gives a nice perspective on the difference between BF and BF-Bad Company, which seems relevant as the discussion has moved to the prone/no prone issue:

Back in BF2 the Recon kit used to be my absolute joint. BC2 necessitated my moving over to the more close-up classes but I've allways held a place in my heart for the the craft of the shot.

Playing Caspian Border today, it all came flooding back to me. I was camped up in the antenna tower, waiting and spotting. In BC2 I'd be chiding myself for hamstringing my team by idling up there out of the fight, but with 31 other guys fighting I figured covering my one flag by myself was a justified use of my time.

Some time later, a fully loaded jeep thing crests the hills in the distance and guns it towards the flag; I put my coffee down. After a couple of dropped shots I zap the driver, the jeep careens into rocks, another guy switches into the driver seat and tries to back it up, but I've allready got the reticule on him. Squad panics and bails out in the valley, the cover is terrible, they hide behind the jeep while one guy tries to Private Ryan up the hill towards the flag, he gets about ten steps.
Friendly infantry turn up at the flag and start hurling grenades over at the jeep, squad shi*ts bricks and runs back for the trees.

Battlefield has returned. Feels good man.

 

[Aeoniss]

Caspian Border is a seriously ugly map in the beta.

 

[NRP]

I'm not surprised, TBH. That Operation Metro map is garbage, and I can see how the resulting gameplay turned people off.

 

[homerdog]

A poor beta release overall, but I won't be put off so easily. Bring on the 25th.

Repi, have you given Andrew's idea about proper tonemapping for MSAA any thought? IDK how hard it would be to patch something like that in but if you could I would love you even more than I already do. :smile: that's right your dedication to the PC version has given me a massive broner (unintentionally inspired man boner)

 

[chambers]

Anyone know how many of the maps are bigger vehicle maps vs. infantry like metro?

 

[fellix]

Top 10 Battlefield 3 Open Beta issues and how we are addressing them:

1. Squad issues: Cannot play with friends within same squad, squads get split up onto opposite teams, etc.
There will be improved squad functionality in the retail game (including but not limited to): the ability to create squads prior to launching into a game, sticking with your squad when joining a game and continuing together through future games (If team balance on the server allows it), inviting friends to a squad and changing squads once in game.

2. Regarding additional Open Beta content and fixes/patches for consoles, including PlayStation 3 issues with chat and party systems
While we would like to patch the Open Beta, DICE is currently focusing its available resources on polishing the retail game.

3. Will DICE have enough time to iron out everything by release?
Please see General Manager Karl Magnus Troedsson's blog post regarding this question.

4. Can we have ability to change settings/options before deployment into match on PC?
The ability to modify your settings via the deploy screen has been added into the retail game.

5. Issues with terrain stability and “falling into the map” on Operation Métro
This has been fixed for the beta via a server side update.

6. Kill cam sometimes zooms out too far or outside the map
This has been fixed for the launch of the retail game.

7. A bug that sometimes keeps some players from being able to sprint
This has been fixed for the launch of the retail game.

8. Screen flickering/stuttering. Blue screen remains after respawn. Game locks up after deploying C4 (360)
This has been fixed for the launch of the retail game.

9. Downed bodies appear to be dead, but are not
The DICE team has been looking into this issue – which is caused by a combination of incidents in a confined area - and are working hard to address the issue for the launch of the retail game.

10. Why is the hit detection seemingly different from Battlefield: Bad Company 2?
The netcode is one of the many things that we are testing as part of the Open Beta and is not necessarily reflective of the final retail game. The DICE team appreciates and has heard the feedback you’ve provided and is further optimizing online play.

 

[orangpelupa]

btw any info whether radeon HD 4xxx series will get performance boost?

seems AMD/ATI already forgotten 4xxx family and the performance is horrible.... (the BF3 special driver also only for 5xxx and 6xxx)

or the DX 10.1 rendering in Frostbite2 is just not optimal enough?


@NRP
yeah the metro map is very dissapointing in the beta.

but atleast at morning i still can play... now with Caspian map unlocked, all the caspian server is full all the time, even in 7AM... wth....

too many people loving playing Caspian it seems

 

[RobertR1]

The performance on Caspain is much better than I expected.

I did some FRAPS benchmarking on Metro and Caspian. I mainly compared the first set of M-Com's on Metro vs multiple places on Caspian. Metro's first set of M-Com's is the most taxing part of the level thus I focused on that.

Settings:
All Ultra except
Shadows: Medium
MSAA/Post-ProAA/HBAO/SSAO/MotionBlur = OFF

Specs:
GTX 580 @ 950/1900/2225
8GB CL9 DDR3 RAM
2600k @ 4.6ghz. Hyper Threading on
2560x1600

Metro OUTSIDE. FIRST SET OF M-COM's:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
8104, 120000, 51, 93, 67.533

Caspian. Start of level and large fight at "CheckPoint"

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
7057, 120000, 47, 83, 58.808


As you can see performance does drop but it's certainly more than playable. My personal experience is that BF3 can run fine in the mid to higers 40's. When you start getting 30's or low 40's you start really noticing the issues and can make gameplay a challenge. The game and drivers will hopefully mature and provider evern more perforrmance.

After exhastive testing, HBAO is a major performance killer and can get you a lot of performance. Here is Metro with the same settings as above but with HBAO enabled:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
6540, 120000, 43, 70, 54.500

 

[RobertR1]

Regarding prone, I have no problems with it. I find myself killing prone players much more often than them killing me. Also, most of my headshots are on prone players and it's the easiest spot to aim for. Please, go prone....

 

[neliz]

. The game and drivers will hopefully mature and provider evern more perforrmance.

RobertR1 is rearry roving him some Rs

Regarding prone, I have no problems with it. I find myself killing prone players much more often than them killing me. Also, most of my headshots are on prone players and it's the easiest spot to aim for. Please, go prone....

Exactly, Pr0ne is cruise-control for headshots 1-hit kills on proned players is easy (1 : 4,5 headshot ratio)

 

[RobertR1]

I shall not waste my life on Spell Check!

 

[neliz]

I shall not waste my life on Spell Check!

Life is too fast paced to waste on spell check!

you can save yourself plenty of time by not typing those R's in the first place!

btw, Since yesterday I have plenty of problems with me getting blinded by teammate flashlights :/ anyone notice this?

 

[RobertR1]

Yeah, it's an issue. It'll be an even bigger issue on maps with FF enabled. The effect in the daytime needs to be toned down a bit.

 

[Svensk Viking]

Oh yeah, after 12 tries as an engineer, the shot finally registered and gave me 100 points for the tank!

 

[neliz]

Oh yeah, after 12 tries as an engineer, the shot finally registered and gave me 100 points for the tank!

I noticed I need one more pack of C4 to destroy a MBT versus BC2.

it's still a blast though!

 

[trinibwoy]

Is cheat prevention any better in bf3? just came from a bc2 server with a guy blatantly aimbotting. Is it that hard to detect cheating by analyzing behavior? Or better yet prevent it from happening in the first place by limiting the data available to the client?