BF4C3 Feedback

[FisherMan9999]

#BF3PLS like ICall and Bock said. In my opinion, BF4 tried to be more realistic, but totally destroyed the gameplay. Yesterday,when I played BF3 public I could feel such a difference.Everything was so smooth.I could play for hours and hours.The only problem with any BF game is the hitdetection.Well,BF3 hitreg is definitely better than BF4, but it's still not perfect. I think going back to any BF game won't be a mistake and we won't regret.

Speaking about the campaign though, if I don't like the game and is boring for me, I can't enjoy the campaign at all.

[Nix]

BF4 tried to be more realistic

wat

I agree #BF3PLS

[CrookedBarrel]

I'd like to preface this by stating this was my first campaign, and I only experienced 3 battledays over the span of one month(as one was dropped for labor day) and all EUBO and NABO sessions during that period.

-Weapon bans
Possibly an unpopular opinion, but I would like to see the use of rocket launchers and explosive ordnance discouraged in gamemodes with a single objective focus. I.E. Obliteration, and to a lesser extent CTF.

I also question the use of armed and armoured vehicles in infantry-only modes. The MRAP and transport helicopter, and even the Jeeps are a massive disruption of normal infantry play. They immediately demand the attention of everyone around, and don't really have a counter unless you have engineers with RPGs, which otherwise don't have a purpose in this mode of play. (The same could be argued for C4, but that's not nearly as easy to use or overused)
I would propose using only quad- and dirtbikes, which serve a purpose for flanking, but do not present a big threat in the way other vehicles do.

Lastly, the RGO Impact grenade. A weapon with very little to no ability to counter, detect or dodge. The usual response to encountering these is annoyance, followed by profanity aimed at the user and /or the designers of the game.
These go squarely against the "rock-paper-scissors" approach that should govern the design of battlefield, just like the commander cruise missile, and in my opinion don't belong in this franchise.

-BO battles
From my perspective these seemed much less organised than the battledays; Obviously the alternative modes featured aren't as easy to coordinate as conquest, but there appeared to be very little strategy to them.
It also seemed officers and TAs were much less inclined to show up and play. I don't know if this is because of the modes, weekday, specific times or a combination of them.

A number of American players also felt the NABO was both too long and at an inconvenient time, remarking it took up their entire evening.

-Server settings
Recently, full mag reloads were enabled. This isn't mentioned on the wiki.
Personally, I'm not a fan. I'd argue it forces you to either throw away ammunition and run out very fast, or to keep however many rounds in your magazine and risk stopping just short of a kill shot.

Aside from that, I love the settings, and I hope the Classic mode from CTE mirrors these.

-Campaign System
I like the concept of the risk system, but it is fairly complex.
Personally I don't have the time of the energy to learn the entire ruleset, which makes it harder to get invested in the outcome of the battle.
I realise I'm still new to the system, but I found myself wondering what exactly we were gaining in a particular battle.
During BO, but even in battledays, not knowing the importance of what you're fighting for makes it feel less important to win.

Hearing announcements on TS like "if we win this we cut off their reinforcements to this area" helps with this, but if the system were simple enough to understand the strategic value of certain moves without significant investment, it would help with both player involvement and command workload.

-Maps used for battledays
Liking maps or not is a matter of preference, but I believe everyone can agree playing the same maps too often will lead to fatigue and disinterest fairly quickly.
I don't mind playing one map 3 times on the same battleday. In fact I think it's necessary to get a proper feel for it, both for players and strategists, to see what works or doesn't. Though I would draw the line at 3, no more.
What I do propose is a limit on one map over multiple battledays. Even with different modes, deja-vu settles in.

A more difficult to implement suggestion is a veto system, where players can vote to not play a particular map, but instead randomly select another from the pool. This should also make it clear which maps are the least popular.

-Timing and general running of the campaign
Trainings were not really announced clearly, nor did they show up on the front page. A timer replacing or additional to the battle timer would help with awareness and coordination, hopefully leading to more people showing up and learning something useful.

Information in general seemed too spread out. A guide detailing general/game related rules and things to know from the perspective of a completely new GC member with links to things like signing up for battledays, banned weapons, setting up Teamspeak, and any other useful information without having to piece it together from the forums and the wiki would make it much easier for newbies to become useful members of the community.


I hope all of this doesn't seem too negative. I greatly enjoy my time playing with GC, and I appreciate the time and effort that goes into organising this community.

[matsif]

now that there's some posts, my thoughts to add:

-weapon bans
I think these are fine. Personally there are more I'd like to add to the list because I hate any beeping noises when driving a tank, but otherwise the game is a hell of a lot more balanced when you don't have soflams and javelins doing double damage everywhere like how BF4C1 was in the few weeks we played.

-BO battles
I can't play these due to my work schedule and how they fall time wise, but honestly I've never been a huge fan of them. I would much rather see tuesdays worked as an inter-army practice, where the teams play against each other but it is for practice, and if they don't want to play against each other then they can use opposite servers for specific things. But it's more of a mandatory practice day than a "this counts against the campaign" day, that gets its own countdown on the front page and the like.

-server settings
From what I gather from the CTE changes I think we're going to have to look at player health again after it goes live, it's taking 3 headshots to get a kill with an AEK up close with that change in the damage model. Otherwise I think we got these pretty spot on in C2 (most settings of which carried over to C3). Probably requires a scrim day for testing.

-campaign system
The risk system is GC's baby. However it doesn't function properly without an HC/officer/army group of people completely dedicated to risk strategy on both teams. If we don't have the overall interest in it, then we should go back to the best of 3 style from C2 or go to a different system like C1.

-campaign map
I don't remember why I put this selection in here.

-maps used for battledays
The major complaint here is we play the same map too often, which is a byproduct of the risk system. Seemingly balanced maps will always be on the front lines, while more interesting and less played maps will be farther back. The only way to fix this is to rotate out maps that no one wants to play for new DLC maps or change the campaign system.

-punishment of rule infractions
While I agree that GG and such in all chat isn't a huge deal (and I treated it as such when I TA'd) people in the community have shown time and time again over my years here that not putting a leash on it will mean it will run wild.
Otherwise I think depending on who's in charge some people are more lenient than others and there needs to be more consistency.

-timing and general running of the campaign
This is why the TAs in C2 added a week of delay on to the campaign, to make sure everyone had what they needed and everything was written down. This obviously didn't happen this campaign. We also had some attendance issues which is no one's fault - part of GC has always been RL comes first - but it hurts when combined with the first point.

-other
Most people here that have played with me before probably understand my cynicism towards BF4 and general disdain of it's bad mechanics and how awful the frostborked engine is for play. Bock's hit the nail on the head there - there's just a lack of interest in BF4 from the BF community (and no they haven't all gone to BF3 either, they've stopped playing the series). We as a community have to compete against 21CW and Level for the saturday time slot and with a gaming population in the game dropping constantly it's harder and harder to find people to really get a great campaign rolling again. If the general community doesn't enjoy it, then it's going to be harder to lure them here.

I'm personally of the opinion that we try 1 more BF4 campaign then if it doesn't work out we look into changing games or the general structure of the community. I don't know what that game is, honestly the only FPS I truly have fun with right now is Planetside 2 (and team fortress 2 from time to time) because it's the closest thing to BF2 on the market and has a good population. But I don't think BF is a sustainable series after BF4.

[Gwynzer]

-weapon bans
Fine as far as I can see. our MLG playeers should maybe be forced to go pistol only tho Seriously, the weapons we've got banned are banned for pretty fair reasons. If I see a valid argument for people adding or removing to the list then I'll support it. "The devs put it in the game!" is not a valid argument.

-BO battles
I'm with Matsif on this. I've never really "enjoyed" them, and I find that any way that they seem to be integrated with the campaign seems a bit poor. The money, points and capital cities systems are all a bit meh tbh, and given the fact that BOs are USUALLY domianted by one side at at least one of either the NA/EU BO makes them feel unwinnable by one side. Having them go to some kind of "joint training" or something would be good. Or just fights purely for fun.


-server settings
Can't talk for how things need adjusted due to pending CTE change, but I want to see overall health lowered. Tickets up too maybde, or bleed rate reduced like C2. The bleed rate is WAY too fast, as soon as you lose the bleed sub 30 ticket, it seems that's the round over. That used to be salvageable.


-campaign system
Was good. I liked this campaigns variant, where newly placed divisions could immediately move.

-campaign map
No problems, this map works. The one we used last time had WAY to many connections. I think there needs to be clearer divides on some of the island territiroes though. It can be hard to see what is linked and where the boundries are on most of the island tiles.

-maps used for battledays
Not much we can do tbh, we're already filtering the crappest maps out of the rotation. If we could have custom maps we wouldn't have the problems we're having, stupid lack of modability.

-punishment of rule infractions
All chat? Yeah people want that but there's reasons we don't allow it, I'm happy to keep without but at the end of the day I don't see people being punished for a "GG" or whatever beyond a "no all chat!" unless they are repeat offenders or it was obviously not a GG for the other side. This isn't SC2, a GG isn't the normal thing to do in BF. BF makes people angry, GG to an agry person looks like a "lol u lost looooser!"

-timing and general running of the campaign

[Wi1D_K4rD]

-weapon bans
I believe weapon bans are alright as is.

-BO battles
I think they should be given a bit more importance. My personal suggestion is link them to theatres. Make it where you can't claim the theatre bonus unless you also hold the capitols. I feel that would make them worthwhile. As well as get more people willing to show up if they think its worth it. Otherwise most people just think "1 WCP, whatevs..."

As far as modes, I feel that Rush should be either played from both sides, or played to the end not to first 5 MCOMs. Also we should make sure BO lists are finalized before start of campaign so we aren't changing everything mid campaign. I understand why it was done this campaign we just need to not do that again now that we've learned what works and what doesn't.

-server settings
Were fine when they were properly set up. TAs need to take just 2 seconds to go through and make sure the settings are right before calling a round live. Lost track of the number of times particularly in BOs where the round was started without a time limit. Many times multiple times in a row resulting in me starting Procon and fixing the time limit myself.

-campaign system
I think it's alright. Maybe reduce attackable/defendable divisions to 2 while still leaving the possibility open for more divisions to "participate" in that they exist solely for blitzing after the attack is over.

-campaign map
Maps fine.

-maps used for battledays
hopefully with the addition of all the dlc and if we go with the 2 attackable/defendable divisions. the fatigue wont be as bad.

-punishment of rule infractions
We just need more available TAs to keep watch which also means we need more players in general. Many times rules were broken and not immediately rectified solely because TAs were focusing both on playing and being TAs because of numbers.

-timing and general running of the campaign
NABO should be sooner in the day IMO. Its too late for EU and too late for some NA. While EU seems to be fine for pretty much anyone NA or EU resulting in higher turnout. Other than that and needing more reliable TAs its fine. For the record I understand the personal circumstances that arose with a few of our TAs. That's fine but we should have found some willing replacements from the armies possibly. Though again I think a problem with that might have arisen from the already declining population toward the end there.

[Gonzo]

-weapon bans
Fine how they are now. I'm not missing anything.

-BO battles
Not sure about this one. The only game mode where I consistently had fun was CQ, but I fear that might become stale after a while. Still better than running around headlessly like we did in all the other game modes. I would be OK with a "fight for fun" day, but we allready had low numbers when BOs made an impact on the campaign and I fear it might get worse if it doesn't.

-server settings
Were bleedrate or total amount of tickets ever a topic for discussion in BF3? I honestly can't remember. If not, we should try to get the experience as close to what we had then. Maybe run a few tests too see exactly what is was like then and fiddle with procon until we're happy.

-campaign system
The idea i like most so far is to reduce overall division count. Make it so only the most important of territories can be defended with more than one division. That way we don't have to play the same map over and over and we don't have to completely revamp the campaign system (wich otherwise worked well IMO)

-campaign map
I love what Ghoul's done with it this campaign. No complaints.

-maps used for battledays
See campaign system. Other than not playing the same maps all the time, I think we did about all that we can do with the pool of maps that we have to work with. My only point of contention is that, IMO, 32 CQ maps should only be played in BOs. That way we get more maps to play on Tuesdays while avoiding clusterfucks on Saturdays.

-punishment of rule infractions
Worked well this campaign, but we didn't have any problems anyway. We just need to be consistant with these things. More active TAs would be nice.

-timing and general running of the campaign

Trainings were not really announced clearly, nor did they show up on the front page. A timer replacing or additional to the battle timer would help with awareness and coordination, hopefully leading to more people showing up and learning something useful.

Since this is my department (at least it was in TCF), I'm gonna answer this one.
First of all, I can't put stuff on the frontpage. We only have our army forums to work with and I tried to make training announcements fairly regularly to remind people. I've done it every week last campaign and didn't have any better results with it than this campaign, so I left it at a reminder every now and then on the forums.
Secondly, I don't think there was a single BO or BD where I did not remind everyone to show up for training.
We had about 30% to 40% of the army turn up regularly (usually 8-12 players) and seeing how this is a volountary activity on a workday, I think that's about as good as it gets.
I think it has been proven time and time again that training is the key to success in GC, so I'm always open to input on how to make it even more visible, but since the frontpage is neutral, there's only so much one can do (even all-army-PMs don't really help with this in my experience).

-other
Since we're close to a patch, I'm quite certain the next campaign is gonna be played in BF4, so I'm not gonna write a whole diatribe on why we should play BF3 (or RO2 or Arma). But yeah, I agree with Bock. If Dice makes one step forward and two steps back with BF4, why don't we do the same and just play the better game? I had loads of fun this campaign but that was in spite of the game, not because of it. I would describe the mood in my squad this campaign as morbid at best. If we didn't have so much fun with each other, frustration would have gotten the better of us.
I really think that many players are at the breaking point. If this patch doesn't fix the majority of the game's issues, I don't see a future for it.

[Tea-Assault]

I'm pretty sure I said somewhere that I have a strange relationship with BF4, anyway I thought the campaign was off to a good start then obviously my attendance, that of some of the other TA's and also some of the Armies attendance dipped for many different reasons which may have had negative impact on the running of the campaign and could have led to the imbalance we witnessed at the end.

My personal thoughts is that I miss BF3 but I have been told that we are never ever going back so I'll put up with another bout of BF4 hoping that this coming patch fixes the ENTIRE game. I'll happily TA again if I get NFO access from Ghoul, just have to drop him another PM..

Other feedback? I miss the smoke launcher rush tactic used in Karklands, didn't see one army utilise the power of smoke nades "en masse" to rush a a flag..

[ZebraPeps]

-weapon bans
The list of banned weapons used in BF4C3, viewtopic.php?f=472&t=24847, worked fine and is ok.

-BO battles
Personally, I like BlackOps, mainly because it's a GC event between main battledays and you get yet another chance to play with your fellow "army friends". Regarding maps & modes I think infantry only (with transport vehicles) worked well for maps/modes like Conquest Small, CTF, Chainlink and Obliteration. Some of the rounds on CTF and Obliteration were the most hilarious and fun rounds I've ever played on GC.
Rush cannot be played as inf only with transport vehicles, we saw that on Naval Strike rush maps. I do not believe rush "infantry only" is gonna play out well, so rush should be played with vehicles. However... as Bock pointed out, some of the rush maps are bad by design - favouring either attacker or defender and as such, the use of rush maps should be kept to a minimum unless CTE rush redesign will provide fantastic rush maps...
Playing absolute infantry only (no transport vehicles) would only work on a certain set of maps and modes. For instance, I would not like to play any NS map in this mode... CTF & Obliteration would be terrible.

-server settings
Ok settings. See no problems in keeping as is. Regarding bleed rate, could be tuned a bit towards slower rate. Health should stay on 100% (for now, but may need be investigated after September patch finally makes it).

-campaign system
...was/is great! One big part of what makes GC so special, but it has it drawbacks... especially the general battle fatigue syndrome that usually shows on (some, not all) people when the majority of a battleday is spent playing 1 or 2 maps (i.e. 3 div attacking 2-3 div defence territories). Being up to date with the RISK strategy helps understanding why the fight is done and either you are up to date because you are interested in the overall strategy and find the information yourself or because you have an HC/leadership that makes sure to keep as many as possible in the army informed and involved. I do believe it all works better when there are greater numbers in the armies rosters, so that there are people in the waiting rooms during battledays and people get switched between rounds. The format of the campaign system have a tendency to break down when there aren't enough "blood" in the armies and when the battle fatigue syndrome kicks in it creates even further attendance issues...
If there aren't enough numbers in armies before campaign start, then we should probably go for another campaign system.

-campaign map
Very good.

-maps used for battledays
Generally ok. As Rellik points out - Guilin Peaks only need 32v and 64v version. Same would be true for some DT maps as well, i.e. Lumphini Garden and Pearl Market.

-punishment of rule infractions
Ok.

-timing and general running of the campaign
Ok, but at least one TA really need to be in place on BlackOps events. Also... TA's must (and should be enabled to) do server restart/reboot of each server at least every main battleday.

-[insert other stuff we may have forgotten]
Streamers and commentators for our battledays!!!

[Wi1D_K4rD]

Since it was mentioned twice. Guilin peaks already had the infantry versions excised from the list. Problem was they were both frontline territories with lots of divisions and at one point the 32i version was also on our BO list that's why it seemed to be played a lot.

[StarfisherEcho]

It's worth mentioning that every Risk campaign has had "that map" that feels like you've played it endlessly. It's just the nature of the beast. You should see what happens in a campaign that lasts forever - the same territory might change hands multiple times if it's in a strategic location.

My broad feedback is that the campaign system is about as good as it gets. I've never enjoyed Black Ops, but I have a busy job and now a kid so I'm not really the target demographic. If you can play on Tuesdays, Tuesday battles are fun. If playing on Tuesday requires sacrifice on your part, you're not gonna have a good time regardless of how we set up the campaign mode.

Otherwise, we need people who are excited. Bock wins with insight. BF4 might just be a bad platform for the sort of crazy competitive play we saw in BF3 and which we hear stories around the fire about from BF2. Let's give this new patch a whirl with a campaign and see if we can recruit some new blood.

[o1oo1]

maps:
if you want maps to play fast: remove all maps with even numbers of flags
if you dont want some maps to feel like a clusterfuck: remove all maps with less than 4 flags

[ZebraPeps]

Since it was mentioned twice. Guilin peaks already had the infantry versions excised from the list. Problem was they were both frontline territories with lots of divisions and at one point the 32i version was also on our BO list that's why it seemed to be played a lot.

Aha, that's true.

On another note, I'm all up for a BF3 campaign as many suggests, however... if the gamebreaking gun glitch turns up, such a campaign will get broken pretty quickly...

[elchino7]

First of all, we need moar people.

Rules/Weapon bans:
1-Can we have, if they are gonna still be implemented, the "rare" rules like: "No seat switch on air/land vehicles" or "Vehicle assets should be use on playable territory (see Zavod/Hainan Arty)" written somewhere. Either on the wiki or in the campaigns rules thread?
Also be less ambiguos and more direct on what you are trying to implement with the rules.

Maps:
Anyknow knows when they are gonna release the last DLC so we can have moar maps?

BO:
What happened with Assault Carrier ? Did it ever had being played without the parachute spawn?

Suggestion:
Anyone have the data on which maps have we play the most and which the less ?

What about implementing an "extra" combat system during BD:
-2 rounds. Teams alternate sides.
-Attackers chooses map
-Attackers must choose from map pool, a map which hasn't being played during the campaign yet. If all maps have being played, the map to be choose must be the one less played.
This also takes into account if a map has being played both 32,64 or infantry version.
-Attack must start after SBT+2.
If an attack to a territory is being done, after finishing it must be followed up by this.
-What are we fighting for? Well...that depends on the campaign system, BOs and how creative you want to be.
**Activating/deactivating a theatre bonus
**Paradrop: allowing it, letting a longer distance or more divisions to do so, etc
**Ressuply disconnected territories
**Assasinating or forcing a division to relocate momentarialy to another territory.

Goal of all this: play more different maps, slow down the campaign.

BF3:
Gunglitch....shivers. Who i'm lying to? I was in a tank ...(Rear bug hit detection, lolpods jets, 50% disable...shivers.)
PD: it is still more fun in general i guess but old =/= gold

[dan1mall]

#BF3