Battlefield Unlikely To Go Multiplayer Only

[Vrach]

Single player acts as a good introduction to the game. Jumping into a multiplayer with never having seen how the game works? Good luck with that. It's one of the reasons I never got into TF2, jumping amidst pros who've been playing for years, not knowing a damn thing myself, was never much fun.

Also, the reviewers are merely complaining that the campaign is short (granted, not a good thing, but as this is primarily a multiplayer title, it's not like all you paid for was the singleplayer) and that it is not spectacular - not that it's not good. I'm finding the story enjoyable to a point so far and it's certainly had it's shining moments.

QTE parts are a bit annoying, but not too much so as they're never long and they just serve to give a little interactiveness to jumping around a train rather than turning it into a cutscene. Again, not a fan, but whatever, they didn't lessen my enjoyment of the game, which is good enough for someone who hates QTEs as much as I do.

I loved the bit with jet flying. Granted, aiming the aimed rockets at the last plane was infuriatingly difficult (heads up DICE, just because I'm looking from the seat of a jet doesn't mean the metallic part of the cabin window (the rim) should interrupt my missile lock on, I ain't aiming with my helmet for fucks sake. Especially not when you let an AI control the plane and spin around like he's on a fucking air show despite him being the pursuer, not getting pursued himself. But I guess it might've just been my fault, I missed the fact you could just gun him down with the main guns when the pilot aligns the plane.

Also like that they made the pilot a female, even if we wouldn't have known any difference unless they told us so. They also admitted not putting in female avatars (talking multiplayer) was a legit issue, so kinda hoping to see some female options too (wouldn't be too hard considering they already have the switch system in cause of the pre-order bonus items and different camo outfits)

 

[Jzcaesar]

There are a lot of good/decent arguments for the single player in this thread (people enjoying it, people using it to train for multiplayer, etc) but I wonder if they had decided to just cut the singleplayer portion, then price the game at $40. Wouldn't that sell better? Especially if all the retailers were still offering preorder bonuses, the game would cost like $30. Yeah, some of the xbox 360 owners without xbox live wouldn't get it, but still.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

I've never accepted that single player in shooters or any game get's you ready for multiplayer. I've played plenty of shooters single player and it's never stopped me from sucking ass in multiplayer.

 

[Spoon E11]

Nice BFBC:2 alpha screen shot. anyway i think co-op is much better than the Single player.

 

[BlueMage]

Wait ... when did EA become the GOOD GUYS?!

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

I'm a little worried about developers viewing SP as "training for multiplayer" instead of what it used to be... The game. Multiplayer was a little distraction you played for a day or 2 when you had nothing else to do, I'm a little worried about where this is going...

That is a really good point, this has happened in a lot of games in recent years. Although it's not just that they are viewing sinlgeplayer as "just training", it's also bothers me that a lot of developers are starting to focus only on making the multiplayer good and leaving the singleplayer in the dust.

You could look at Gears of War 3 for something like this, but I think a better example that has stuck with me is Halo: Reach. The point of having both a singleplayer and multiplayer is having two different experiences in a game so that if someone doesn't like one part they can go to the other part and hopefully getting more enjoyment. With Reach, I wasn't a fan of the multiplayer so I focused more on the singleplayer which, to me, sucked. So, to me, the entire game sucked. If they had spent more time on improving the sinlgeplayer, people like me would have had a better opinion of the game.

I hope this trend starts to fade away from the shooter genre

Well, from an economic standpoint, the multiplayer is something you can play with your friends for literally thousands of hours which is worth a lot more than $60 in entertainment value. I rent games for their story, unless it's a game like Skyrim or Oblivion that promises over 100 hrs of game time.

Yes, Reach's single player was absolutely terrible because there was no character development, the Spartans were all faceless entities and you didn't really care when they died. Battlefield 3 fell into the same trap, with the additional burden of being completely schizophrenic. The jet and tank levels had nothing to do with the main story line, they were just thrown in there because you needed to pilot tanks and jets. The constant flashback narrative seemed unnecessary and contributed to the confusion by hopping back and forth in time.

But I disagree that ALL games are leaving behind single player. Modern Warfare has had a great cinematic single player campaign, with somewhat developed characters. They are clearly putting an effort into it, it's just that they realize that people rent games for a 10 hr single player campaign, and buy games for their multiplayer. I'm afraid the blame rests on the consumer. You can blame me if it makes you feel better, but I'm not shelling out $60 for a ten hour game when I can rent it and beat it for a fraction of the cost. Sorry.

 

[Frost27]

let alone one as capable as the XBox 360

Ah ha ha ha oh ho ho...wait, what? You're serious?

Oh dear.

The root of this problem is the DVD, and Microsoft's stranglehold on the hard drives you can and can't use for the 360. While the PC uses DVD's, it is generally understood a PC user is going to have a ton of hard drive space. You can get a 1TB hard drive for around $60. Meanwhile for the 360 you're having to shell out $100 or something ridiculous for 120 gigs.

Battlefield was a large install on the PC, sure. But after you install it, you can use your two discs as frisbees for all it cares. As per my understanding of the 360 and PS3, you still need the disc in the disc drive to play. Installs are necessary due to hardware limitations, which is why when even games that don't require installs but have them optional, when you do install them, you get shorter load times and other positive effects.

Battlefield 3 was developed first and foremost for the PC, as it damn well should've been. The secondary development was the PS3, and tertiary was the 360. Due to the 360's hardware constraints. Out of the 3 listed, it's easily the weakest. And-wait, why am I even typing this? One of your biggest problems is they tried to make it easier on the 360's hardware, but at the cost of some convenience, and it's not even the system you'd get it on.

Well, if that's the case then, due to your moral standing you can't ever get the following games: Halo 2 (bad PC port), Rage (hardly even functioning on the PC out of the box), Fallout 3 (DLC timed exclusive for one console), New Vegas (same as Fallout 3 but with the addition of being crazy buggy), Black Ops (A 10ish year old engine and computers that could run Cyrsis could hardly run it, apparently Treyarch had never heard the word 'optimization'), Dead Rising 2 (straight up exclusive DLC for one system, not even timed) and many, many more!

Edit: And where did you get the information that the HD textures weren't on the disc? They most certainly are. 3 seconds of googling led me to this information. But who has time for that when there are disingenuous assertions to be made?

Precisely.

It's an issue of PC's leaving consoles behind. It is going to happen no matter what due to consoles lacking the ability to be upgraded whereas you can keep a frankenPC top of the line buying one part at a time for a decade or more.

The 360 is a 6 year old hardware package. In PC years, that is decades old and it's trying to run the same software. If Microsoft expects people to believe the 360 (or for that matter, Sony with the Ps3) is going to still be competitively relevant in 3 more years, they are deluding themselves, misleading consumers, and holding back the entire industry by trying to mold game capabilities to the hardware rather than start work on consoles that either can be upgraded down the road to incorporate emerging tech, or release something more current more frequently.

EDIT: Also, I have never regretted putting a 500 gig drive in my PS3 and I am elated that I am able to do so.

 

[EvilPicnic]

I think this is an issue devs need to give up on because they just can't win; a primarily multiplayer game will never be able to put in the resources to craft a satisfying singleplayer experience. The priorities just aren't in the right order.

A solution (in my view) would be to release the game as multiplayer-only, and then release the paltry single-player campaign months later as DLC, thereby deflecting criticism from the meat of the game, and allowing them to price the different aspects of the game in a range more reflective of their value.

 

[Burntpopcarn]

Go ahead and remove the damn thing, i don't give a shit. my friend might though. he thought that bad company 2's campaign was a heartfelt masterpiece (lol). seriously! he talks about it like it's a gift from god! but hey, he doesn't have PSN, so he can't go online. poor sap.

 

[5t3v0]

Well, Look at it this way, Battlefield encourages learning to play a certain difficult but effective if picked up right skill, through going through the hard yards and the misguided criticisms of others, so only the strong survive.

You're obviously more then welcome to defend a game you clearly enjoy, but you can say that about anything. Boxing sure is hard, but if you can take the intense training and getting punched in the face over and over again, you'll wind up being super good at boxing. Of course you will get good at BF3 if you play it alot.

Padding the game difficulty by not supporting you as a player in order to make you 'more hardcore' isn't good game design and its a double edged blade. On the one hand it's a barrier for entry, on the other it builds a compulsion in it's playerbase because they feel like they've 'conquered' a difficult game, and because they're one of 'the few' they're more likely to stick with it and stay with the brand because we all like playing things we're good at.

Whereas "another nameless game" basically does the learning curve for you and puts a "Win all" button as a little cherry on top of the 25 kills that you essentially just legally Hax'd to get.

The nuke was a horrible idea, and I'm ambivilent when it comes to cod as a whole, but I have never come across a single occasion or even story of an a noob getting 25 kills in a row without dying. Thats a lot.

Besides, BF3 has tanks, I've not played it but surely being in a tank is an ENOURMOUS advantage?

Well what I was reffering to was the killstreaks that were press "5" (can't remember what it is on Console) to kill everything automatically (Though I know that Black ops got rid of them adding to your kill streak), and then adding that Nuke at the end.

And with the tanks in BF3, They are not "Kill all" machines. They are only viable at medium-long ranges, and infantry are not helpless to kill them. They made RPGs for that.

But I dunno, BF3 and CoD are different games, apart from the fact that they both are modern and have guns (Could go into detail on how said guns differ, mind you) and despite people not being able to tell the obvious differences otherwise.

There has always been a bit of sophistication regarding the air vehicles in Battlefield, and I do partially see your point about alienation regarding newer players (Unless I read that wrong) with the Aircraft unlocks, but that was the same in Battlefield 2 where newer players would not be able to match up with more experienced players, even with equal footing Aircraft wise. Also, there are a lot more counters to aircraft that actually work in BF3. Good luck shooting down jets with the stationary Stingers in BF2... Wait, Good luck wont even improve that.

I bring up BF2 a lot because this is the true sequel to Battlefield 2, and not a part of the spin off games. A lot of BF vets tend to say its not a true sequel, but tons changed from BF1942-BF2 but a lot stayed the same, as with here. Basically, I'm saying that from time to time, we need a good learning curve. And there are other ways to play if you can't master one. Hell, if there were no jets or Helis (It wouldn't be a true Battlefield game if there were no aircraft, mind you) It would still be worth the $90 I paid (or $60 if you're a yank)

 

[SharpRus]

When I saw that single player added QTEs, was I the only one who thought that DICE added them in just to spite Yahtzee for not reviewing multiplayer of BFBC2?

Also, for those complaining that piloting is hard. I remember trying to fly a helicopter in the Desert Combat mod in BF1942. Now that was a brutal learning curve, after that I never had issues flying helicopters in any game. And you can always join an (almost) empty server to practice your flying.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

The rat fight made me laugh properly. The single player so far has been pretty sweet, not really liking the Black Ops style storytelling though, but it is at least pulled off better than Black Ops so far. The multiplayer is excellent as well, but that's to be expected.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

It's a strange evolution for BF. It really didn't have any single player before, not till Bad Company 2. Prior to that it had skirmishes and what not, but meh. I would never play BF for the SP, and that is one of the few games I will ever say that for.

Bad Company 1 has a singleplayer, but that was console only. Something I'm still bitter about.
Also, I haven't been able to find a cheap second hand copy, which I'm also bitter about.

 

[Jegsimmons]

im actually impressed! Yes the single payer may be lack luster (dont know havent played yet), but at least they have seen an importance for it. and thats why i hold EA and DICE higher than other companies that produce similar games.

but i hope you'll learn from this and try and improve on the plot and characters and use paceing to your advantage. Basically cop out and make your equivalent to "The Thin Red Line".

I think our only gripe here is that there isn't training for the helicopters and jets, I was fine with jets the first time but the helicopter is still an ungainly beast.

Yeah, I've bought and played BF1942, BF, BF2142, BFBC2 and now waiting for BF3 to arrive in the mail. Yet my total playtime in helicopter is probably less than a minute, due to me crashing it every time after 5 seconds. Trying to learn how to maneuver a helicopter when it's full of online team-mates that are highly dependent on getting to the front-line, and not dying in a big explosion is one hell of a test that perhaps could have been taken offline before you screw someone elses day. I also can't remember if I ever flew a jet or not in BF2, since trying to get into one would most likely get me teamkilled by a line of others desperately in need of the jet.

start a LAN game and practice that way, sure no one to fight against, but you get the basics down solid enough.

 

[JET1971]

It's a great way to get fans into the experience, have them train up and get ready for multiplayer.

So have a 'training' mission, a few drills for infantry (pushing, capturing, sniping), vehicles, aircraft. It costs less and would probably do a hell of a lot better at teaching the playerbase than the scripted mess of a single player campaign that we saw.

And a lot of fans just enjoy having that single player experience. So I think you have to have both.

Yet, most every post I've seen on these forums have been either people calling the single player terrible or laughing saying that no one buys Battlefield for the single player. I'd like to see his source for a 'lot of fans'.

fan here and I will buy it for the SP only. I may poke about in empty servers to see what the maps look like but thats it for multiplayer for me. players ruin a good game quickly.

 

[Zer_]

let alone one as capable as the XBox 360

Ah ha ha ha oh ho ho...wait, what? You're serious?

Oh dear.

The root of this problem is the DVD, and Microsoft's stranglehold on the hard drives you can and can't use for the 360. While the PC uses DVD's, it is generally understood a PC user is going to have a ton of hard drive space. You can get a 1TB hard drive for around $60. Meanwhile for the 360 you're having to shell out $100 or something ridiculous for 120 gigs.

Battlefield was a large install on the PC, sure. But after you install it, you can use your two discs as frisbees for all it cares. As per my understanding of the 360 and PS3, you still need the disc in the disc drive to play. Installs are necessary due to hardware limitations, which is why when even games that don't require installs but have them optional, when you do install them, you get shorter load times and other positive effects.

Battlefield 3 was developed first and foremost for the PC, as it damn well should've been. The secondary development was the PS3, and tertiary was the 360. Due to the 360's hardware constraints. Out of the 3 listed, it's easily the weakest. And-wait, why am I even typing this? One of your biggest problems is they tried to make it easier on the 360's hardware, but at the cost of some convenience, and it's not even the system you'd get it on.

Well, if that's the case then, due to your moral standing you can't ever get the following games: Halo 2 (bad PC port), Rage (hardly even functioning on the PC out of the box), Fallout 3 (DLC timed exclusive for one console), New Vegas (same as Fallout 3 but with the addition of being crazy buggy), Black Ops (A 10ish year old engine and computers that could run Cyrsis could hardly run it, apparently Treyarch had never heard the word 'optimization'), Dead Rising 2 (straight up exclusive DLC for one system, not even timed) and many, many more!

Edit: And where did you get the information that the HD textures weren't on the disc? They most certainly are. 3 seconds of googling led me to this information. But who has time for that when there are disingenuous assertions to be made?

Holy shit this post is filled with utter trash. No, really. Where do you get your information? Let's be blunt here. The PS3 and 360 are about on par in terms of overall hardware capabilities. The 360 has a much stronger GPU than the PS3, not to mention more memory available to VRAM if need be.

The only reason there is an HD texture pack on 360 is because the DVD doesn't have enough space.

The pack is most likely due to disc space limitations. The single player disc, when installed to the hard drive, is a gargantuan 7 gigabytes, which, even with the new disc format, is not enough to store the high-rez textures.

That's right. Even with Dual Layered DVDs, they don't have enough space to store the HD textures onto the SP disk.

 

[Frostbite3789]

The only reason there is an HD texture pack on 360 is because the DVD doesn't have enough space.

...which is a hardware limitation is it not?

Also, the 360 was the tertiary system for development for Battlefield 3. The PC came first and they're putting things out on the PS3 first for it.

Nothing about my post was trash. You just got a bit of fanboy rage going.

Edit: http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/08/26/xbox-360-vs-playstation-3-the-hardware-throwdown

Also that's a pretty good source, and you're right, the 360 has a better GPU. But that's all it has that's better. And even then it's the slightest of edges.

 

[mornal]

Dice needs to take a page from Battlefield Heros' book. They had a training level where you could practice flying, driving, shooting etc at any time. One of the best ideas I've seen.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I hear that campaign isn't actually bad. I'm seeing people liking it everywhere. Reviewers probably hate it because Activision payed them to give MW3 a higher score than BF3. And if BF3 scores perfect on every point, MW3 wouldn't be able to beat it. But if reviewers hate the SP, they can simply not hate MW3 SP and give it an instant 10/10. Yes, I'm that cynical.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Personally I think they should replace the single player campaign with a series of knife battles against rodents of increasing size, until eventually you have to fight Ratatoskr [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatoskr] the Godrodent - who is technically a squirrel, but he can pass for a rat in the evenings - atop the great tree Yggdrasil. In case you can't tell, I really liked the part with the rat. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gpPM4Pj_bo]

This.

Now.