BF3...

[xInVicTuSx]

Has some of the most poorly designed maps I've played in over a decade. 

I mean seriously, Peak, Metro, and Seine Crossing are retarded meat grinders with absolutely no tactical gameplay what so ever.

Grand Bazaar isn't far behind either, but its not quite as bad as the others.

That is 4 out of the 9 maps that are nearly unplayable at 64 men (actual BF size).

It feels like they just made a bunch of 16-32 player (console) maps and stuffed 64 men into them.

I am disappoint son. 

Otherwise the game mechanics have been pretty excellent besides a few problems.

Too much ammo for engineer.... Grenades are a bit of a joke... Jets and heli's haven't been very scary...

So far the game is fun but holy damn these maps are so bad its both confounding and depressing. 

[Mitchpate]

That's what happens when the beta testing is only done on one map.  They should have had 2 months of testing with a week or so dedicated to each map.

[sgnl05]

Spot on. As somebody who played way too much BF2 and thought it was one of the most amazing games ever, it's a little hard not to be disappointed by BF3. It's certainly still good but in a few noticable ways its actually gone backwards from its predecessor. The minimap and UI is worse, there's no commander and the map that you could bring up to place orders on is gone completely. Also there's no more ingame VOIP.

None of which are dealbreakers for me, but the maps are sort of insulting given how much DICE crapped on about how much they love PCs, how PC is the lead platform (turned out to not be true), and so on. The largest maps have only 5 cap points are are roughly the size of a small to medium sized BF2 map. And there's only 4 or 5 of those. The rest are obviously not designed for 64 players in the slightest. Metro is an embarrassment. There's only 3 points in a straight line, and in 90% of games the one in the middle is the only one that gets seriously contested. "Contesting" it involves standing at either end of one of the 3 incredibly tiny chokepoints that let you in/ out of it and hurling endless grenades or rockets in the hope that you kill someone. And one team spawns slightly closer to that middle cap than the other, so most games they'll grab it right from the start and hold it almost the entire time.

It's blatantly obvious that 64 player was for the most part tacked on at the last minute so that they could list it as a feature on the boxart.

It's frustrating because parts of the game are really, really good. The gunplay feels incredibly solid for the most part, the graphics are great, destruction is a good addition to the series and its nice that aircraft aren't horribly overpowered like in BF2. I also like the rejigged classes and how squad spawning in hardcore mode is just a little bit more forgiving than in BF2, but not "everybody spawns on everybody else in the squad" like in regular mode.

I think whether it becomes a new PC classic or not depends entirely on what DICE/ EA does with after-release support. It absolutely needs a bunch of maps that are designed from the ground up for 64 player gameplay on the PC. The vast majority of the current ones will be a total joke 6 months from now when every Tom, Dick and Harry has figured out how to exploit them to maximum effect. I don't think the Back to Karkand pack will fix much because it's being released on consoles as well, and  the maps are being "updated" for the BF3 experience. Right now I'm not too optimistic.

[xInVicTuSx]

I don't mind the spawn on anyone in squad thing... but please god increase the spawn time overall, trying to take a flag or exterminate a squad is a retardedly difficult thing to do.

That's what happens when the beta testing is only done on one map.  They should have had 2 months of testing with a week or so dedicated to each map.

The bitch of that is they beta tested at 32man rush mode on metro... and that played pretty good considering... but 64 conquest is a LMFAO joke.

[sleepysheep]

There are a few too many shoke points and grenade and rpg spam gets rediculously old really quickly. Motars arent much better. Really does remind me of mw2.

However the game still rocks.

Oh and choppers don't suck, there are plenty of vids showing them rape face. Just goto have a steady and good aim. Jets are pretty good but need some serious skill to stay alive and hit targets.

[Taemien]

BF players like grind matches period. I don't even know why they have vehicles, most often times players play the maps that don't have them. Unfortunate to see BF3 go the route of its predecessors, but it was expected.

Gibraltar 2.0

[xInVicTuSx]

Yeah, I think its just most chopper pilots are baddies still... I am a ground pounder and am used to being afraid of them from BF2... here is to hoping they are scary again soon.

I'm sad but also hopeful, because these are very fixable problems. When I booted up BC2 and played around with the basic mechanics and saw the style of the game, I played for about 2 weeks and stopped because I thought it was shit.

I don't get that feeling with this game, I like most of the basic mechanics. DICE just needs to do some SERIOUS mapping work.

BF players like grind matches period. I don't even know why they have vehicles, most often times players play the maps that don't have them. Unfortunate to see BF3 go the route of its predecessors, but it was expected.

Gibraltar 2.0

If you were any good you could get past the choke points at Gibraltar though... there is literally no way to get past these choke points, the routes are too few and too small.

[sleepysheep]

Like everything in bf3, if the player is shit you have nothing to fear. But a good player in bf3 can be scary as hell, e ven more so in vehicals.

Normally I find vehicals to be the tipping point in a game. Whoever uses them the best will almost always win. On the few maps without them they tend to end up a bit more camp and rpg spam, since they can get away with it.

They are never going to ever change the maps now. Just isn't gonna happen. Most you can expect is a few tweaks and bugs fixes to the maps. And new maps ofc.

While i agree most maps are just too small for the amount of players I think this is more based on the fact they wanted to keep people in the fight and not spend 15min getting to the battle which would be boring. So your always going to get slightly too small a maps just to keep the game interesting and flowing and i think that's fine.

[CHHš Aethon]

BF players like grind matches period. I don't even know why they have vehicles, most often times players play the maps that don't have them. Unfortunate to see BF3 go the route of its predecessors, but it was expected.

Gibraltar 2.0

The only part about that map I disliked was the first checkpoint by the bay...properly defended, that was a royal PITA to break.  That said, once that one broke, it was all over for the other team.

[Taemien]

You guys missed my point.

Gibraltar was the ONLY fapping map in 2142 that was played towards the end. I'm not surprised EA cut the support, the players got mindless. Probably thought the servers were all bots. But the sad thing was, they weren't. They were worse. Asked one in voip why they keep playing the same map, "I dunno, these are the only servers populated."

Watch it will happen in BF3. Like I said, there's no point to developing vehicles for BF. The players don't want them. They might 'say' they want them. But they'll play the NV versions of the maps.


Shit it happens in MWLL, not to bring ASF into it, but look at all the community made maps. They're mostly mech/tank only. I used to think the average gamer was pretty smart. No the average gamer is actually pretty dumb. I think we're going to see the market go back to 2d before long. Right now gamers can only think in 2.5d (two dimensions with 3d graphics). Make them look up or down in a FPS and they panic/rage.

[Mitchpate]

They are never going to ever change the maps now. Just isn't gonna happen. Most you can expect is a few tweaks and bugs fixes to the maps. And new maps ofc.

And they'll charge you a pretty penny for the new maps, too.  I bet you money "Built specifically for 64 man" will be a tagline that gets used to milk the playerbase.  Of course it'll be a complete lie but that won't stop the playerbase from blindly buying it.

[sleepysheep]

They are never going to ever change the maps now. Just isn't gonna happen. Most you can expect is a few tweaks and bugs fixes to the maps. And new maps ofc.

And they'll charge you a pretty penny for the new maps, too.  I bet you money "Built specifically for 64 man" will be a tagline that gets used to milk the playerbase.  Of course it'll be a complete lie but that won't stop the playerbase from blindly buying it.

I got the limited edition. So free maps for me Ha!

Milk everyone else who didn't buy limited edition...sure why not.

While I do agree the vehical free maps are pretty popular, so are the ones with them. Generally there is only one reason why people hate the vehical maps and thats because they don't want to ever play engineer. Since all the vehicals I have found to be pretty balanced, I don't see any other reason.

And the game is balanced around vehicals, on the maps that have them anyway.

[lessergod]

Squad cohesion is a MUST on the 64 man maps, with the last patch the rubber-banding issues have been minimized.

As far as my take on the maps, I think that the choke points are great, the mortar is to push the people back from the choke camp. Look at your strats, just because the strategy you implement doesn't work, does not mean the map sucks. The only thing I dislike, is Mortar spam from their deployment area, cheap tactic that should be punished.

As for the beta map comments, Open beta had 2 maps, Metro for the bulk, and then 3 days before the end, they re-opened Caspian Border.  The invite portion of the beta had both. So, just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[sleepysheep]

Squad cohesion is a MUST on the 64 man maps, with the last patch the rubber-banding issues have been minimized.

As far as my take on the maps, I think that the choke points are great, the mortar is to push the people back from the choke camp. Look at your strats, just because the strategy you implement doesn't work, does not mean the map sucks. The only thing I dislike, is Mortar spam from their deployment area, cheap tactic that should be punished.

As for the beta map comments, Open beta had 2 maps, Metro for the bulk, and then 3 days before the end, they re-opened Caspian Border.  The invite portion of the beta had both. So, just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I've started using motar on choke points yesterday. Wow it really does make the other team rage Works though!

And yes, no more lag, and with the ping showing on the server list, no more lag or rubberbanding hurrah!

[Ghiest]

Smaller team size servers are really so much more fun than 64's imo, it makes the chokepoints less of a spam fest (hi2u asshole mortar spammers) and squad work make so much more of a dent in the proceedings.  I quite like the game, as a massive fan of bf2 (500+ hours plus on it) there are a few things I'd like to see make a return or change but that's the nature of the beast I suppose, things move on and change.