Ballistic Shields coming to BF 4

[Hgx]

A two-handed ballistic shield is coming to Battlefield 4 as part of the upcoming Dragon's Teeth expansion pack, according to a GDC talk given by an EA DICE animator.

SOURCE and full story.


Any thoughts?


Best reddit comment so far:
"Inb4 shields blocking tank rounds"

[Gwynzer]

They'll either be OP or total crap. Probably OP first, then they'll be nerfed to crap

Until the nerf tho, Tetsudo Time!

[Bock]

It's official. The Battlefield franchise is dead. The introduction of ballistic/riot shields always signals the death of a fps franchise.

[Necromancer]

its a known fact that ballistic shields are the first item to be issued to soldiers when alert level rises. whats the problem?
/s

[FisherMan9999]

It is going to be an umbrella or Captain America's shield? This is no longer Battlefield .So I'm expecting COD lowbobs sprinting around the map with this b*llshit and melee skilled players.Can you see the irony?

[Tea-Assault]

After reading it, It sounds like it could actually be useful for very specific maps. For instance breaking the grenade/bullet spam in lockers/metro. They just have to make it utterly unusable in every other map.

[elchino7]

AU, AU, AU!!

[Hgx]

[Nix]

^ lol

[matsif]

It's official. The Battlefield franchise is dead. The introduction of ballistic/riot shields always signals the death of a fps franchise.

I'll have to disagree here, citing counter strike source as evidence. CS1.6 had a riot shield, yet CS:S was still extremely successful. Doesn't make it any better of an idea for BF though.

I'd also argue BF died with BC2, when EA decided it needed to enter the console market full time and be a competitor to COD instead of being its own thing. But that discussion is for another thread.


After reading the article, I can already see the "24/7 LOCKER METRO SWORD N BOARD ONLY" servers popping up. And given the track record of new stuff being released, this will probably be wildly OP for between a week to a month, and then nerfed to all hell and never seen again. I fully expect it to shelter you from a direct tank sabot shell on release.

Then there's this:

...but also because it turns out it was a better fit for the squad-based type of gameplay seen in Battlefield games.

clearly he hasn't played his game publically in a long time, every public game I've played without GC people is just a ton of idiots running around like chickens with their head cut off moaning about their SPM and KDR

[Nix]

This game is going to be hilarious when this is released.
Using the RPG against infantry will be a norm now. Would probably be kind of fun.

[Róka]

This is depressing I don't even want to know anymore

[DrunkenMc]

It's probably just another Filter that will help your more gun based play have more of an affect over the course

While Little Jimmy is running around not actually having much physical presence because both his hands are tied,
and he's just looking at you through his pane of Plastic wondering if it's a bird, a plane, or a Motherflucking Beast of an Impact grenade delivered to him like a hail mary pass..

i'll be wandering around capping flags and generally making my Win/loss ratio less of a complete misery and upping my kill/death with my trusty spray and pray of choice

I'm not overly concerned by this change
for every action there's an equal reaction
so while an equal amount of Dongleberries from each team walk around trying to out Sparta each other, it'll just be one less thing i have to worry about on the way to inflating my already oversized EGO and scoring big points For England

for the first week, 64 man maps will actually become 32 man maps due to a lack of weapons and all of a sudden you and your 5 man squad can actually win the game alone

The best thing will be, when they inevitably mess up their ideas again
You'll watch a chopper get downed in 1/4 a second from the AA
meanwhile there will be some infantry dude just walking towards said AA, shield up not giving a flashing fudge and blocking 300 bullets a second like some form of dragonball Z wannabe Goku frak

Exciting times imo

(unless you can wear the shield on your back, that, would be upsetting)

[Róka]

(unless you can wear the shield on your back, that, would be upsetting)

What's even more upsetting is the fact that they might actually be "realistic" enough not to have the shield just disappear when you switch weapons.

[Jokerle]

Love that picture HGX!

I only worry about the anti-air capabilities of the shield...maybe you can throw it with a laser-lock towards choppers?