Battlefield: Hardline "Not Just a Re-Skin" Claims Dev

[tehroc]

Get desensitized to the ever encroaching police state. This game is just a ploy to familiarize you with our new militarized police force. Did your little town need a MRAP? We got one, like the Lee County Sherriff Office needs a IED proof vehicle.

 

[Therumancer]

Now only if they will make an expansion pack to this expansion pack "Battlefield: Dominion Tank Police".

Of course that might be too serious for this, I mean my first thought when I heard this was a game trying to seriously present a sandbox like "Prototype" where you can say go driving a tank down the sidewalk, mashing crowds of fleeing civilians, and still be considered the "good guy". Yahtzee even made a joke about that during his old review if I remember.

That, and I'd love to engage in "compassionate, liberal law enforcement" by say trying to shoot the gun out of people's hands, or simply disable a tire, with the main gun of a tank, or say shoot RPGs into meth labs... Of course the only difference between that and Saint's Row or Grand Theft Auto (old school) would be wearing a badge.

I can just envision preventing a mugging by lobbing a proximity mine at a dude with a knife (oops, sorry).

If my visions turn out to be accurate, perhaps they can cut a deal with Marvel to have "The Punisher" appear and become a high profile activist for compassion in law enforcement because "these criminal crackdowns are just going too far...".

 

[AdagioBoognish]

Given the backlash to Hardline, I might only consider picking it up because I didn't get BF4 to begin with.

... Or I could just pick up BF4 since it should be cheaper by now.

BF4 might be a good purchase now. I think you can pick it up for half price and there are still plenty of people online.

It a good thing I've long since stopped buying EA titles otherwise this might piss me off.

It's amazing what happens when you stop caring. I decided not to buy another Battlefield game about a month ago and all this has rolled right off my back.

BF2 added commander (and the support artillery, electronic warfare and supply systems that came with it), the squad system and massively upgraded the vehicle physics over BF1942 and Vietnam.

2142 overhauled the upgrade, unlock and spawn system and added the Titans in.

Bad Company 2 added in the destruction system that meant hiding behind a chest high wall was no longer useful for anything but concealment, but removed the aircraft and cut the scale back to 32 players. Bad Company 1/2 also introduced Rush to the Battlefield series. Bad Company 2 also introduced full projectile physics, so every round from every weapon had a speed and weight (previous games used a mix of projectiles for large weapons and hit scans for small arms).

BF3 Returned the 64 players and added back in the aircraft meta game, but toned back the destruction a little bit. It's also completely gorgeous and after previous BF games being fairly consistent in scale this one brought in smaller pure infantry maps as well medium and huge vehicle heavy maps.

BF4 (had it worked) brought in networked game physics (so every player saw the same thing at the same time) and large interactive events like the sky scraper falling down and maps flooding etc. It also promised a return of a number of maps from previous Battlefield games with the physics upgrades in them. In the event it's been completely half arsed, the game works in a very round about way and the expansions have been released in half the time they were in BF3, with quality in those taking a predictably massive hit.

The shortening of the development time and lack of care really shows in BF4. BF4 only has a couple of really good maps, versus 3 only having a couple of really bad maps (Tehran effing Highway!). Plus BF4 didn't seem to have been playtested at all. In the campaign it had a tendency to just stop, the NPCs would literally stop what they were doing and just stand around until you quit the game and reloaded, even now there are still a bunch of crashes on save glitches in the campaign. Multiplayer has been even worse, hard as that is to believe. BF4 is also getting steadily more and more micro transactions added in as time progresses, bearing in mind that this is a $135 game, and it's been adding in F2P obstacles.

BF3's launch wasn't exactly a work of art either, but it more or less worked, even then it took DICE a year and a bit to get the game 'right'. Now BF4 will be finished in about three months time whether it works or not. Now they're abandoning it without properly finishing it, whilst at the same time promising the next full price sequel will be somehow better.


Hardline is just compounding all the problems of 4, the beta was littered with bugs from previous version of Battlefield and at the same time it's a downgrade in scale, the fixed wing aircraft and naval warfare elements are all gone. It's also re-using assets from BF3 and 4 (despite what that guy says), the beta just felt like someone had slightly altered the objective from a BF4 game of Capture the flag or Obliteration and replace the nations with Cops/Robbers.

It's a shame, BF4 has some potentially amazing ideas in it, Obliteration, the interactivity, the sheer scale of some of the maps, but all of it is for nothing as EA DICE have just thrown it all out or the door whether it was finished or not.

I also have a problem with the way this effectively doubles the price of a Battlefield game. The game + Premium was ok for two years and a finished game, for half assed every twelve months it's not.

Very nice summary of the situation.

 

[Chinchama]

I feel very confidently that one of the maps used in the beta is a copy of a map from bf4, they may have just changed some colors and some trees and added a few more bits inside the buildings, but the layout of buildings, their size, and the layout of the streets was near identical to one segment of a previous map.

Oh also.....the in game cash system...I hate to be this guy, but COD did it first...well maybe not first but before BF

 

[shintakie10]

Given the backlash to Hardline, I might only consider picking it up because I didn't get BF4 to begin with.

... Or I could just pick up BF4 since it should be cheaper by now.

After having played a lot of BF3 lately since gettin it for free and tryin out BF4 when they had the 50% off thing, I think I still prefer BF3. It seems like theres a bigger playerbase on BF3 than BF4 at times too (on the pc obviously).

 

[svenjl]

Wow, they improved the vehicle physics! So, since they use the same engine, why can't you implement that into BF4?

because then people would realize it's just a reskin of Battlefield 4, which it isn't, and it will have the same bugs as the base game.

Also, god damn it, when will EA realize they need to shut the fuck up during interviews. "Only a small amount in the beta" GOOD JOB FUCKTARD, so when the game releases as there is bugs out the ass dont go calling your beta players objectively wrong because you refused to make it an actual Beta instead of a fucking DEMO.

CALL IT WHAT IT FUCKING IS.

YOU HAVE A MULTIPLAYER DEMO, IT ISN'T A FUCKING BETA.

Jesus Christ, anyone who buys into this game being it's own is a fucking moron that deserves to have their $60 taken from them.

Off topic, remember when expansion packs didn't cost $60 and were sold as their own games?

Remember when expansion packs were actually good?

Well, this is EA we are talking about here.

Dear fellow Escapist,

Great to see that angry pills are still on the menu. Don't mix with alcohol, steroids or the use of heavy machinery. Take care and fuck the king. Sincerely,

SJ

 

[xGrimReaperzZ]

Of course it isn't a reskin, it would've looked much better if it was just a reskin!

 

[rasputin0009]

Did they really point to the vehicles as something new? They are the definition of the re-skin. The helicopters are re-skins of BF4's scout helis, and the bikes are the same as the bikes from BF4. The police cruisers and sports cars are re-skins of the buggies. ALL THE VEHICLES HANDLE THE SAME AS THEIR BF4 COUNTERPARTS (given, they do have different, more arcade-y engine noises, so there's that}.

My biggest realization that it was a re-skin wasn't that most of the environment models and other assets were the same as BF4, but it was the fact that the Hardline beta had ALL the same glitches, bugs and shitty netcode as the BF4 beta did.

there are still plenty of people online.

I wish that was true... Been playing lots of BF4 since they released the new patch, but the servers are disappearing. If you want to play on a specific map on a specific mode at any time; near impossible. If you want to play on a specific map on any mode; you might get lucky. When the hardcore servers start outnumbering the normal servers, you start to worry for the game. Maybe in a month, it'll start picking up again when the BF3 surge dies down, but keep your fingers and possibly all of your appendages crossed till then.

 

[xGrimReaperzZ]

Yeah sure I'd accept that. Its a shooter what do people expect really? It to have a romance mechanic?
Its a shooting game, you shoot things. What is the difference between it and the other shooty games that makes it "lesser"?

Oh my God! He's logic is just fantastic! "Buy the game, either like it or hate it, doesn't fucking matter we got your sixty bucks." Depending on where you buy this, you could be paying sixty bucks for an expansion pack with no refund. Origin at least offers one, but console players are screwed.

The beta wasn't bad, the theme was nifty, the modes were fun, and I didn't have to run away from vehicles. But it is not worth a day one purchase of sixty bucks. Nope. I'll buy it eventually, just nowhere near launch.

Does this "expansion" as you put it offer around as much content as Battlefield 3/4? Honest question as I care little for shooters so don't honestly know.

OK, so you don't seem to be interested in FPS, i for one don't have any real preference when it comes to game genres, but you not liking shooters doesn't instantly mean that all shooters are stupid and are the same dull game with a different theme..

Take a look at Metro: Last Last, for example, does the shooting in that game look and "feel" like the shooting in CoD: Ghosts? not at all, since one has more sophisticated shooting mechanics and other profound and well-excuted mechanics that make up a better shooter.

And why are you here? i'm not trying to be rude, but seriously, this whole article is a waste of time for people uninterested in FPS games/Battlefield/EA..

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Now only if they will make an expansion pack to this expansion pack "Battlefield: Dominion Tank Police".

Of course that might be too serious for this, I mean my first thought when I heard this was a game trying to seriously present a sandbox like "Prototype" where you can say go driving a tank down the sidewalk, mashing crowds of fleeing civilians, and still be considered the "good guy". Yahtzee even made a joke about that during his old review if I remember.

That, and I'd love to engage in "compassionate, liberal law enforcement" by say trying to shoot the gun out of people's hands, or simply disable a tire, with the main gun of a tank, or say shoot RPGs into meth labs... Of course the only difference between that and Saint's Row or Grand Theft Auto (old school) would be wearing a badge.

I can just envision preventing a mugging by lobbing a proximity mine at a dude with a knife (oops, sorry).

If my visions turn out to be accurate, perhaps they can cut a deal with Marvel to have "The Punisher" appear and become a high profile activist for compassion in law enforcement because "these criminal crackdowns are just going too far...".

I'd prefer a Panzer Cop expansion. Goofy homicidal gun slinging trench coat-wearing mimes mandatory.


It doesn't happen often, but when you do manage to pull off a Terminator run complete with a high kill count while hip firing a LMG it is exhilarating.

Does this "expansion" as you put it offer around as much content as Battlefield 3/4? Honest question as I care little for shooters so don't honestly know.

BF2 added commander (and the support artillery, electronic warfare and supply systems that came with it), the squad system and massively upgraded the vehicle physics over BF1942 and Vietnam.

2142 overhauled the upgrade, unlock and spawn system and added the Titans in.

Bad Company 2 added in the destruction system that meant hiding behind a chest high wall was no longer useful for anything but concealment, but removed the aircraft and cut the scale back to 32 players. Bad Company 1/2 also introduced Rush to the Battlefield series. Bad Company 2 also introduced full projectile physics, so every round from every weapon had a speed and weight (previous games used a mix of projectiles for large weapons and hit scans for small arms).

BF3 Returned the 64 players and added back in the aircraft meta game, but toned back the destruction a little bit. It's also completely gorgeous and after previous BF games being fairly consistent in scale this one brought in smaller pure infantry maps as well medium and huge vehicle heavy maps.

BF4 (had it worked) brought in networked game physics (so every player saw the same thing at the same time) and large interactive events like the sky scraper falling down and maps flooding etc. It also promised a return of a number of maps from previous Battlefield games with the physics upgrades in them. In the event it's been completely half arsed, the game works in a very round about way and the expansions have been released in half the time they were in BF3, with quality in those taking a predictably massive hit.

The shortening of the development time and lack of care really shows in BF4. BF4 only has a couple of really good maps, versus 3 only having a couple of really bad maps (Tehran effing Highway!). Plus BF4 didn't seem to have been playtested at all. In the campaign it had a tendency to just stop, the NPCs would literally stop what they were doing and just stand around until you quit the game and reloaded, even now there are still a bunch of crashes on save glitches in the campaign. Multiplayer has been even worse, hard as that is to believe. BF4 is also getting steadily more and more micro transactions added in as time progresses, bearing in mind that this is a $135 game, and it's been adding in F2P obstacles.

BF3's launch wasn't exactly a work of art either, but it more or less worked, even then it took DICE a year and a bit to get the game 'right'. Now BF4 will be finished in about three months time whether it works or not. Now they're abandoning it without properly finishing it, whilst at the same time promising the next full price sequel will be somehow better.


Hardline is just compounding all the problems of 4, the beta was littered with bugs from previous version of Battlefield and at the same time it's a downgrade in scale, the fixed wing aircraft and naval warfare elements are all gone. It's also re-using assets from BF3 and 4 (despite what that guy says), the beta just felt like someone had slightly altered the objective from a BF4 game of Capture the flag or Obliteration and replace the nations with Cops/Robbers.

It's a shame, BF4 has some potentially amazing ideas in it, Obliteration, the interactivity, the sheer scale of some of the maps, but all of it is for nothing as EA DICE have just thrown it all out or the door whether it was finished or not.

I also have a problem with the way this effectively doubles the price of a Battlefield game. The game + Premium was ok for two years and a finished game, for half assed every twelve months it's not.

Gonna have to disagree with you about Tehran Highway. Had a great time there driving LAVs and tanks during Rush, and it was the source of some of my highest stealth kill streaks in DM after Caspian Border. Other than that, spot on

 

[fix-the-spade]

Gonna have to disagree with you about Tehran Highway. Had a great time there driving LAVs and tanks during Rush,

That's exactly why Tehran was so horrible, the options for flanking enemy armour are just about nil, the only solution was massively co-ordinated RPG fire, assuming the tank didn't just roll into cover.

On other Rush maps the level is either wide enough to flank around armour, so narrow the tank can advance or retreat, but not dodge, or a friendly A10/Choppy can be called in to ruin the tank's day. Tehran is just a perfect mix of no air support and just wide enough for the tank to dodge and cover, so you can't just rocket it to death Seine Crossing and Grand Bazaar style. A reasonably smart tanker on Tehran basically shuts the map down, which is why I hate it so.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Gonna have to disagree with you about Tehran Highway. Had a great time there driving LAVs and tanks during Rush,

That's exactly why Tehran was so horrible, the options for flanking enemy armour are just about nil, the only solution was massively co-ordinated RPG fire, assuming the tank didn't just roll into cover.

On other Rush maps the level is either wide enough to flank around armour, so narrow the tank can advance or retreat, but not dodge, or a friendly A10/Choppy can be called in to ruin the tank's day. Tehran is just a perfect mix of no air support and just wide enough for the tank to dodge and cover, so you can't just rocket it to death Seine Crossing and Grand Bazaar style. A reasonably smart tanker on Tehran basically shuts the map down, which is why I hate it so.

You can still close the distance yourself and plant C4, mine choke points, or drive a light infantry vehicle covered with explosives into them. Even if they make it a point to stay back a bit and snipe, they're still vulnerable to the first and last options. Flanking options aren't as nil as you'd like to believe. In fact, I find the low light visibility, numerous buildings with intersecting alleyways, hillsides, and traffic barriers very conducive for sneaking up on the enemy. I've used those tactics to sabotage and steal enemy vehicles several times during Rush and Conquest.

It's not like, say, Paracel storm where you can completely shut down the Attackers on Rush if you manage to steal their attack boat and hold onto it.

 

[Racecarlock]

It looks like EA wants a Payday but they don't want to commit Grand Theft Auto to get it.