(also posted in the Game Feedback forum)
I'm not going to roll in here threatening DICE with promises of 2142 boycott if these things aren't addressed, but I will say that there are some issues that really do matter to me. Issues that, if left wholly unchecked, might very well dissuade me from purchasing another game in the franchise - especially with incoming competition from other games in the same genre.
There are a lot of things about BF2 that are good, but some things just make me want to Alt-F4.
DICE. Are you going to fix:
I'm not going to roll in here threatening DICE with promises of 2142 boycott if these things aren't addressed, but I will say that there are some issues that really do matter to me. Issues that, if left wholly unchecked, might very well dissuade me from purchasing another game in the franchise - especially with incoming competition from other games in the same genre.
There are a lot of things about BF2 that are good, but some things just make me want to Alt-F4.
DICE. Are you going to fix:
- Parked vehicles sliding down even the slightest grade. This is particularly annoying when you're defending using a transport vehicle, since you have to keep re-aiming as your car slides. By the way, this is been around since BF1942, so I think you've had time to figure out a solution. Here's hoping that tires have tread on them in 2142.
- - Poor (inconsistent) hit detection. I'll say it again because it's a big friggin deal. Hit detection. How... many... times... do... I... have...to... knife... this... guy... in... the... face...before... he... dies. This goes for guns, too.
We need a more accurate connection between what we think we're doing, and what the server thinks we're doing. We tolerated it with BF2. Please don't punish us more.
- - Excessive vehicular damage from terrain. If the real DPVs had such lame suspensions, our real military would never get anywhere because they'd all die in fiery explosions just outside the bases. It's an off-road vehicle for military use. Give it some suspension travel. Please. Goes for all ground vehicles.
We shouldn't be able to drive off of a cliff and survive, but it's a game - we want to drive fast, jump little hills, and do crazy drifts without crippling our vehicles in the process.
- - Maps that exclude entire classes or playstyles. Support + Daqing Oilfields = boredom or nightmare, depending on the determination of the player. How about an infantryman trying to take/defend flags on Gulf of Oman, where every CP is directly and intimately armor-accessible? (Remember that there are very few protected places to hide, and most of the vehicles have blast radii on their weapons anyway)
Please make your maps more consistently well-rounded. Every playstyle/kit should be able to contribute on every map, in some way.
- - Control points that really don't matter. "Good job team, we took a flag and gained - a jeep!" Yes, taking enough points causes ticket bleed, but that's weak. I want objectives to affect the gameplay, not just the score.
I'm not sure if any of your team has played Planetside (though from the 2142 planning, I'm guessing that you have) but the bases in that game mattered. Taking one meant gaining a wealth of resources and capabilities. It was a way of holding large parts of the map because the defenses had reach. The bases had presence.
Some control points in BF2 (actually most, for that matter) can be entirely ignored, and that's lame.
- - Flora (aka the environment) interferes with (aka doesn't help) the game experience. Grass and trees suck. Bad. We can't walk through the bundles of trees (leaving us to feel our way around and through them, like blind rats in a maze) and the grass? Ugh, grass.
Grass is only visible from very close. Thus, players "hiding" in grass feel hidden and have their view obscured by dense foliage, but opposing players don't see the grass at all and can see the "hidden" player quite clearly - making hiding in vegetation more of a self-imposed handicap than an immersive gameplay element.
- - Feet stick through walls. You knew this was coming. It's as old as the BF franchise, and it stands as the most ridiculous, pervasive faux pas in the game. Nothing cheapens a game experience quite like being able to knife a guy's toes which happen to be, magically, sticking out of a solid concrete wall.
I read a DICE response once about why this happens, but I don't really care why it happens. I'm a designer, not a developer. But most people are neither. Most of us just want it fixed.
- - Voting. I didn't even have to state this one in the form of a problem, because the entire voting system is broken - I need only utter the name. I think that the BF2 voting system represents one of the most well-intentioned and horribly-broken elements in the game. I don't have a clear vision of how to fix it, but it needs fixing.
- - Jumping in the narrow space between a vehicle and a building will result in death. Ah yes. I love the death pinch. If I recall, this has also been around since BF1942. The wall isn't moving. The vehicle isn't moving. So how did I manage to get into the space between two objects, but then somehow die from being smashed between the same two static objects? I'd also include the bail-out-of-car-which-immediately-slides-into-me-and-I-die maneuver, which is equally as annoying.
I don't get it. All I know is that it cheeses me off when I'm trying to make a heroic entrance and I bail out, jump over the hood, and my own car kills me - wee, 15 seconds of waiting for the opportunity to drive back to the same location.
- - <*> This is the wildcard. We all have some top-of-mind issues that we consider most important, and although I could write a #10 for myself (and #11-50 probably), I'd rather hear about your own critical issues - you might have something that I forgot, or that I don't know a lot about. But it might really matter. So, go nuts.
And DICE - what say you? :)
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