Battlefield 4 Beta - Why it marks the game as a failure already

[Elite]

Completely atrocious. The beta was almost as buggy as GTA V Online (which is pretty bad)!

Lets get right to it.

 

Ballistics

This was just disappointing; I can't remember any game letting me down as much as this did. First of all, lets talk about the the actual mechanic itself. This was the core of disappointment. Battlefield 4 is a modern-day shooter. Modern military rifles have their own ballistics control, they have adjustable zeroing to decide how the the bullet is intended to go, so its arc finally lands on its target in longer distances. If my rifle is zeroed to 100m, and I fire at an enemy at 1,000m, on a flat surface, the bullet will hit there ground at 150-250m. If I changed the zeroing to 1,000m and fired again at the target. It'd most likely hit, or be very close. Battlefield 4 takes that away, this pretty much removes the whole concept of ballistics from the game already. All guns are zeroed to a value, their arcs do not represent real-life ballistics in any way at all, they are barely arc. Bullets barely drop at all.

Now lets talk about bullet distance and how the distance travelled impacts if it is actually capable of severely hurting or killing someone. If I fired a bullet over 10,000m and it hit a person, it'd hurt. A damn lot. Lets say it was a game, you had 100 health. The bullet over 10,000m would take off 68 health, lets say. Now if we move ourselves to a 100m distance. Now we can consider the bullet to take 70 health.  How about 10m? 70.00[random numbers] health. The point is, Battlefield 4 doesn't portray realistic loss of kinetic energy on a bullet. I would wager that it doesn't actually do that at all. A bullet has an extreme velocity, that velocity doesn't simply drop so fast. Examples above count for zeroed weapons.

 

Large rifles

Or to the gamer, 'Sniper Rifles'.

Battlefield 4 is a modern-day military shooter. Now I'm no expert, but aren't guns made for killing? Of course, any modern day sniper rifle impact would incapacitate someone; perhaps it may even knock people unconscious on the brink of death. Forgive me, but I must just say this.

​How the hell does a defibrillator pop someone up to a working-stance and say "'Aight, you're good!" ?

It bloody well doesn't, if you were hit by a modern-day military sniper rifle, you would be bleeding a lot, you'll need bandages to reduce amount of blood lost till blood clots, you'll need a considerable amount of morphine so you're not cringing in horrific pain and after the battle, you'll go for your surgery. 'Course really you could just step into the world of Battlefield 4 and walk over a medical kit, or get some energy through your heart as opposed to bandages and morphine.

Lets say that our modern-day military rifles are being fired at someone wearing less protective clothing, perhaps just a small bullet-proof vest and paddings, as opposed to the previous proper military protection. Yeah you're screwed. Dead. In real life it'd take around 10-15 minutes, but in the gaming world, instantly would be fine too, waiting to die a pain-filled death isn't fun.

 

Helicopters

I'm pretty sure a helicopter doesn't say "One, two, three! Engine is now on, lets vault ourselves up in less than a second and fly around with the failing Battlefield 4 physics!".

In the real world, it takes around 20 seconds to get the rotors spinning fast enough to allow the suction effect that gives a helicopter lift. It takes off slowly, no helicopter launches into the air like it does on Battlefield.

You know the fastest way to take out any variant of the popular 'Little Bird' without explosives?

Get an anti-material rifle, fire at the spinning shaft of the rotors, fire at the engine, or fire at the cockpit from the front (which will also kill the pilot). Hit any of these spots and it'll  come down. Hit the shaft and jam it? Auto-rotation will not occur if the blades are stuck. That'll turn into a free-falling inferno-to-be.

 

Battlefield 4 decides to, instead of having these realistic weak spots, give the helicopter a 'HP bar' and leave at that. Sorry, but wasn't Battlefield 4 supposed to be the 'console's only realistic military shooter'? 

 

 

These are alone the main three points that, for me, brand Battlefield 4 as a failure from the beta. I could go on about vehicles, the ******* insanely poor prop placement, prop make-up and prop textures are high up there but that's just Battlefield 4 being an excessively lazy game, not atrociously designed one.

[Is not JL]

Battlefield 4 is a shooter but it is also a game. Nobody would play GTA V if you had to charge your phone, and fill the tank in all your cars. Nobody would play Assassin's Creed if the Assassin actually landed in a realistic manner. Nobody would play Skyrim if you got attacked by one dragon, hit once, and could only use 1 handed for the rest of the game. 

 

To your first problem of bullet drop ballistics control....well, Large Rifles. :shrugs:. Otherwise, nobody is gonna wanna play a game where they have to press a bunch of buttons first before firing an Assault Rifle. Or aim high up. Because realistic bullet arcs are gonna be an annoyance to the gamer.

 

To your second problem of bullet damage, well, the fact that there's a health bar should already tell you that things like this is gonna be wacky. Add on the fact that in normal game modes most automatic rifles do around 20-30 damage depending on range, you should be able to see that the game is also made for firefights. Nobody likes playing a game where, like in real life, people actually die in one shot, because all that's gonna result in is a bunch of campers gone prone aiming down sights waiting for a guy to round a corner.

 

To your third problem about reviving, and healing, again. There's a health bar. Players are simply going to be annoyed if they can't "heal", purely because it'll result in the camping that I mentioned above. That, and how fun will it be that there needs to be a guy hauling a bunch of medical supplies into the battlefield and playing a game of surgery simulator and morphine injector? 

 

To your third problem of helicopters, again. Nobody is gonna have fun if they get in a vehicle that breaks because a guy shot a single bullet. It simply isn't fun.

 

 

 

This game is a game. It is made to be fun. If it was made to be realistic, then there would need be an infinite number of factors. What is the wind on this map? The sand? Dust? Weapon jams? Temperature? Weight? And nobody wants to play a game where an infinite number of things can differ and happen, because that'll make it unfair, random, and simply needing people to do a bunch of stuff that they don't want to do, which isn't fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, about your prop placement, prop makeup and texture/graphics complaints, quite simply, play the game on PC.

[Elite]

Now, about your prop placement, prop makeup and texture/graphics complaints, quite simply, play the game on PC.

 

Prop placement.

What?

 

So you're saying there's whole new maps on PC, that the same maps are made much better?

I'm talking about the Beta; I'm not talking about the final game, I also played it on PC. The textures were again, lazy.

 

 

To your third problem of helicopters, again. Nobody is gonna have fun if they get in a vehicle that breaks because a guy shot a single bullet. It simply isn't fun.

 

First of all, I wish you some very damn good luck if you want to hit the rotor or a helicopter and destroy it, whilst moving and turning, in one bullet. It'll take one well-placed shot from an anti-material rifle, which I don't even think there is any in Battlefield 4, or it'd take 8-10 bullets from an average-sized NATO cartridge. I'm talking about weak points, not instant-kill points. It is kind of weird when you nail the cockpit and it nothing actually happens, not like you wrecked all of the controls or anything.

If you play a game like ArmA II, you'd be surprised how fun it actually is when someone breaks your anti-torque rotor, and now the game isn't a tedious fly-by, it is now a new instant challenge of trying to land. Much more dynamic if, very well-placed shots (talking about quite a lot of well-placed shots) could hit your fuel tank, much more dynamic when you have to now consider find an appropriate landing spot before your leaky tank becomes empty and you fall, crash, burn and die.

 

To your third problem about reviving, and healing, again. There's a health bar. Players are simply going to be annoyed if they can't "heal", purely because it'll result in the camping that I mentioned above. That, and how fun will it be that there needs to be a guy hauling a bunch of medical supplies into the battlefield and playing a game of surgery simulator and morphine injector? 

 

You'd be surprised how small a pack of bandages and a bottle of morphine is. You aren't "hauling a bunch of medical supplies", you're simply taking standard-issue equipment that's the size of a 500ml bottle of Pepsi and 2 cartridges. I never said anything about surgery in the game, injecting morphine takes about two seconds, it'll just be in an animation alongside applying bandages. If you play more than a few games, you'll realise quite a few do have bandage animations. Without morphine, simple impairments would make the game more fun. Your weapon is less accurate and you cannot hold it as steady if you're in a lot of pain, it'll still be very easy to get kills as usual, but it'll be a bit harder.

 

To your first problem of bullet drop ballistics control....well, Large Rifles. :shrugs:. Otherwise, nobody is gonna wanna play a game where they have to press a bunch of buttons first before firing an Assault Rifle. Or aim high up. Because realistic bullet arcs are gonna be an annoyance to the gamer.

 

How big are the Battlefield 4 maps?

The only instance where you'd have to actually consider changing it in multiplayer is when you're sniping. Realistic bullet arcs are in more games than you think; I've played games where there's bullet arcs in... muskets..? The bottom line is, the ballistics is just broken, I'm pretty sure people still want to play Halo: Reach when you have to consider an arc with the grenade launcher! It won't be an annoyance because you're doing small changes, not taking apart your gun and fitting a new "a1m high3r11" grip so you feel comfortable with holding your weapon a little higher.

[Caboose The Ace]

I could not agree more I played the Beta for about 2 hours and I hated almost all of it ( so you cannot say I didn't give it a fair shot )

[ShockGazm]

The Beta for Xbox 360 was terrible, clearly EA have stopped caring about the quality and would rather rush out a god awful product... again. I would love to get back into battlefield but I'm not paying for rubbish. Especially when they want you to spend another £50 on DLC. They don't do a lot when it comes to changing things up, just the same thing over and over. Can't say I know a lot about battlefield but there doesn't seem like there's much to it, just rinse and repeat, except with some new guns, building that fall and bigger/newish maps. Just a little rant, of course this is just what I think of Battlefield, in this case BF4.

[GryffinGuy007]

Almost all of your points are simply invalid.

 

First of all, Battlefield is a first-person action shooter, not a simulator. This is a game, where it's primary purpose is to entertain. In what universe is a game where you die in 1 shot to the heart or head, fun? You literally could have people just spinning around in circles, firing an LMG, insta-killing anyone who so happens to be hit by a single bullet. Like the first poster said, it simply isn't fun with too much realism.

 

As for your defibrillator complaint, like I said before, this isn't a simulator. Of course you won't spring to life after being slaightered by bullets, but this is a game, where players want other players to quickly bring them back to battle - which is another thing: Having to bandage every wound you receive would slow the pace of the game incredibly. Seriously, would you find any entertainment value out of having your player break an arm, be carried to a helicopter, taken to a hospital, have surgery, then come back to the war? No. You would be waiting hours, just to play another match.

 

If you want realism, or as close as you can get, just go play ArmA. There's no point in Battlefield becoming exactly like ArmA. ArmA is a much slower-paced game and is closer to the genre of a simulator. Honestly, I came into this thread, thinking it would be about bugs and glitches - but no, about how Battlefield isn't 'real enough'.

 

Also, Battlefield has stunning graphics. If you think you can do better, then make a texture pack, find a modder and see how that works out for you. Battlefield 4 has amazing textures and effects; not everything can be Crysis 3 standard. Honestly, how can you play Halo, of all games, but complain about Battlefield's realism? Sheesh.

[Is not JL]

 

 

So you're saying there's whole new maps on PC, that the same maps are made much better?

I'm talking about the Beta; I'm not talking about the final game, I also played it on PC. The textures were again, lazy.

No, you are talking about how the beta marks the game as a failure already. It's a beta; it's bound to be bad in ways. Again, play PC. It will render beautifully.

 

 

First of all, I wish you some very damn good luck if you want to hit the rotor or a helicopter and destroy it, whilst moving and turning, in one bullet. It'll take one well-placed shot from an anti-material rifle, which I don't even think there is any in Battlefield 4, or it'd take 8-10 bullets from an average-sized NATO cartridge. I'm talking about weak points, not instant-kill points. It is kind of weird when you nail the cockpit and it nothing actually happens, not like you wrecked all of the controls or anything.

 

If you play a game like ArmA II, you'd be surprised how fun it actually is when someone breaks your anti-torque rotor, and now the game isn't a tedious fly-by, it is now a new instant challenge of trying to land. Much more dynamic if, very well-placed shots (talking about quite a lot of well-placed shots) could hit your fuel tank, much more dynamic when you have to now consider find an appropriate landing spot before your leaky tank becomes empty and you fall, crash, burn and die.

I know it's fun to do something like that - but it is also fun to not do something like that, and let the random guy with a blowtorch magically heal your helicopter. Both things benefit the game; one of them offers realism, the other one trades realism for a faster paced action game. If you're lookin for ArmA II in Battlefield, you've already answered the problem in your question - ArmA II is not Battlefield, and Battlefield is not ArmA II.

 

 

You'd be surprised how small a pack of bandages and a bottle of morphine is. You aren't "hauling a bunch of medical supplies", you're simply taking standard-issue equipment that's the size of a 500ml bottle of Pepsi and 2 cartridges. I never said anything about surgery in the game, injecting morphine takes about two seconds, it'll just be in an animation alongside applying bandages. If you play more than a few games, you'll realise quite a few do have bandage animations. Without morphine, simple impairments would make the game more fun. Your weapon is less accurate and you cannot hold it as steady if you're in a lot of pain, it'll still be very easy to get kills as usual, but it'll be a bit harder.

....Okay, so let me get this straight. A magic defibrillator that brings back people from the dead is not realistic enough for you, but injecting morphine and slapping on bandages to the dead guy to bring him back is a bit more realistic? Again, what Gryffin said. This is a game. To your points about impairments, BF4 has that, as do many other shooters.

 

 

How big are the Battlefield 4 maps?

The only instance where you'd have to actually consider changing it in multiplayer is when you're sniping. Realistic bullet arcs are in more games than you think; I've played games where there's bullet arcs in... muskets..? The bottom line is, the ballistics is just broken, I'm pretty sure people still want to play Halo: Reach when you have to consider an arc with the grenade launcher! It won't be an annoyance because you're doing small changes, not taking apart your gun and fitting a new "a1m high3r11" grip so you feel comfortable with holding your weapon a little higher.

Realistic bullet arcs are in many games, but it is not in Battlefield. Battlefield isn't trying to emulate the real world; it is trying to be a fun shooter game. To your argument about grenade launchers, keep in mind that almost every other weapon in that game fires ballistics straight and true. Same with Battlefield. Rockets and grenade launchers have arcs! People still enjoy it, and for a change that drastic there everybody has to manually flick buttons depending on range is gonna hamper the enjoyment. If the player wants to play a game with that, then they can go and play a game with that.

 

 

 

Honestly, I came into this thread, thinking it would be about bugs and glitches - but no, about how Battlefield isn't 'real enough'.

 

Pretty much exactly what I thought.