Battlefield 3 Review

[Frozencry]

Battlefield 3 Review by Denny

PALGN Review: Blasting foes and Battlelog woes.

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[mikezilla2]

There is a rather enormous amount of hype surrounding DICE's official sequel to 2005's Multiplayer Shooter Battlefield 3
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[Frozencry]

SCUMBAG NUMBER.

Changed it, thanks!
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[sobriquet835]

So in some ways, even though it's primarily a PC game, the console version is superior because you don't have to go through both Origin and the Battlelog? Or if you do, at least they're all just in one place on the disk? Sounds like EA messed up pretty bad there.

[Frozencry]

[mrpookles]

The campaign was decent enough. It was pure Call of Duty rip-off, though not as entertaining.

The multiplayer is excellent, but I do think some of the maps suffer on console due to the player limit.

[Benza]

First can I just say what a joy it is to read a review for an online shooter written by someone with enough understanding to know the difference between client side and server side hit detection?

The tech knowledge you bring to your reviews Denny is one of my favorite things about them, and one that you just don't see enough of.

Also I'm kind of curious to see how this works on my pc with all the talk of it running well at lower settings on low end pc's. I've been playing on PS3 and having a blast (Although fuck the campaign) but I'd love to get into some 64 player.
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[fatpizza]

In regards to the hit detection, wouldn't using server side detection just create a different set of issues? Like you're shooting at someone on your screen but not actually hitting them?
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[Frozencry]

No, because server side isn't based on predictions like client side is.

Server side will always know what the exact state the server is in and will always have a more stable and overall efficient system in place with hit registration, because every time someone fires a round, it'll send it over to the server, track its projection and outcome and hit it exactly where it should but just apply the ping levels onto it. Other problems can arise particularly if the server suffers from packet loss and has general issues, but most of the time it'd be a lot more stable.

Client side brings in far too many issues and simply isn't as efficient as server hit detection is as it's predicting where shots will land. Low ping player sees dude, fires shots at him. Server takes the data, predicts what it'll hit, then sends to dude being fired at. Dude is already behind cover on his screen, but server kills him anyway because it's predicting the shot based on the client.

It gets complicated really, but tl;dr server side is simply the best way to go, and DICE are absolutely insane to go client side AND still have poor hit box registration. Seriously these guys need to learn to network better, or look at games such as UT, Quake and hell even CoD4 (which funnily enough, is a heavily modified IdTech 3 engine).

Here's a vid showing off what I mean by hit rego problems. Vehicles get it a lot less but infantry is absolute bs.

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[fatpizza]

I am aware of what issues arise from using client side detection(shot around corners, inconsistent splash damage from explosions etc.), as it's what a P2P game like Uncharted uses.
But of course with dedicated servers they do have the choice to implement either method.
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[Cyph]

I still don't understand why these type of games even bother with a single player portion. Just make it multiplayer only and have a more polished (and hopefully cheaper) title!

[myzz]

The MP in this game is nothing short of amazing.
I have been playing MP games for many years and have not had as much fun as I have in this game.
(when you are able to get in and not have it crash on startup etc)
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[mezz]

Battlelog is annoying.

[dslyderink]

Rage SP is much much more amusing (like Borderlands for comparison, just less gun combinations). If you're going to spend your dollars on one or the other, for SP I'd head to the ID title. Then again, COD due out in a week. Nov is a headache for AAA games.

[Phreakuency]

Great review :)

The PC version looks amazing but seriously, having to open up Origin, then load Battlelog and actually choose your games from the webpage is a freakin' joke.

And I don't really care what type of hit detection is used as long as it works, but I don't remember a game being this bad.

They've obviously rushed the crap out of it to beat COD to the shelves but they've just hurt their reputation. (And the DICE employees on the official forums replying like absolute pricks just adds to it)
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[ZNMS]

[BigBoss]

The hit detection is definitely a problem that will be improved over time. Origin and battlelog was horrendous day 1 but at current i find it acceptable even if i don't like it, but seriously I separately have to add origin and bf3 friends even though everyone can only have 1 account WTF. Patches will improve everything in time, hopefully, unless another EA game is released and all their monies will be directed to promoting (not developing) another bomb game.

[fireflybck]

I definitely fell victim to the getting hit behind cover on one occasion. I haven't had much time to play it though , the install took long enough, what with Origin attempting to download the game to install instead of using the disc (found the solution on a forum), then having to update graphic driver to stop BF3 from crashing. I'm finding it frustrating to simply find a game and jump it. It takes several goes to get in. I was also disconnected a couple of times.

[Ken_Gooner]

I was going to get this, but it seems that you have to have top class internet. Mine is piss poor.
I guess I'll go with COD again. It's accessible, easy to get into a game and simple to play.
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[mikezilla2]

[Cro]

[timmay33]

Why, why do they feel the need to go the way of other FPS titles and add a single player.

1942 was a winner because it had great MP with vehicles and 64 players. BF2 followed that with MP only again and sold incredibly well and earned a 9 in a review from PALGN.

Such a shame to see that a poor SP, as well as this out of game sever browser bs, coupled with technical issues, has hurt the score it could of got if they had just gone MP only again. And thus probably turned many away to move on to MW3 or others.

I guess DICE and EA dont care, they've already got the sale...

Another main gripe for me is squads. There is only 8 squads allowed in BF3 compared to BF2's 9, also only 4 are allowed in each squad as opposed to 6. Now this adds up to exactly 32. Whats happens though when the server is full on a 64, and one squad is turned private with only 2 in it and all other squads are full. Well it means you cant squad up. Not once in my 2000+ hrs of playing BF2 did I ever think to myself, 6 players is too much in one squad.

Also joining with friends is annoyingly fustrating. Join on opposing sides, or even if you are on the same side, not in the same squad.

DICE have lost their original vision. The other added gameplay mechanics are fun and fresh, but have wrecked things that they already had done well. Time was wasted on the SP development
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[Kikujir0]

I don't get all the hate with battlelog. I myself have been victim to some niggling problems, this has happened twice already but for a while I would just stay on Joining Server..., othertimes I couldn't start co-op with a friend, however the fix was this to simply disable my anti-virus temporarily.

At first I found it a very awkward and strange tool, I mean why wouldn't there be a traditional server browser IN game as there always has been? The fact is, I've noticed that the battlelog allows alot more sociable interactivity between other players, especially random players who you meet in game, than oppossed to previous BF titles. I've already added a few players who I have squadded up with in some games that we have done really well together, thanks to battlelog they have made such a process really easy and stream lined. The stats is a great epeen archive, you may not care about it, but many do, and its also a great indicator as to how a player usually plays and how well they do it, a useful tool for those who are trying to put together a competitive team.

Battlelog seems to be quite stable nowadays say compared to when the game was in beta. I'll be honest after the jet mission I pretty much put the singleplayer down and have invested 40 hours into the multiplayer since release, haha! (Cursed battlefield, will probably fail my subject ) The singleplayer was indeed tacked on and I consider it as a freebie, afterall who buys battlefield for the singleplayer, hell BF2 didn't have a campaign heh.

I've been victim of the client-side registration bug myself a few times, but it hasn't been has prevalent for me ever since I started playing the game since release. It seems like it was more prevalent in the beta than it was in release, possibly due to the fact that metro is a tight infantry map (and yes I agree the 64player conquest version is a right joke). While it was frustrating in the beta, for some reason I've not found it as much of a problem in the release, I don't know what else to say about that, it just hasn't been a problem for me and my only issues with gameplay is rubberbanding, which seems to have mostly been fixed now.

You say Operation Firestorm Rush map on 64 players would be silly and imba, I believe this without a doubt, but as far as I am aware the rush maps weren't intended to be played with 64 players. Even when I search the filter now for 64 player rush servers there are very few and for good reason, they were made for 32 players max in mind, 64 would definitely make it one huge cluster fuck. Those kind of servers to me are akin to 32 player matches on 16p maps, tight, spammy and silly.
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[Ken_Gooner]

@Mike, cba quoting sorry
nah i can play all the cods pretty easily on my internet with a fair amount of frustration but at least i can play it
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[mikezilla2]