PlaneWhore's list of essential BF2 gameplay changes for the 1.4 patch
Pay attention DICE.
Let's face it.. with BF2142 on the horizon the 1.4 patch is in all likelihood the last patch BF2 will ever receive, so it should be a damn good one. So I decided to compile my own personal list of tweaks I'd do to the game if I was one of the designers. I'm excluding bugs from this list.. because they're pretty much a given and all too obvious. Gameplay balance tweaks only.
Time to cut to the chase, I'm going to make these suggestions as simple as possible (For the "lite" version just read the bolded text):
1) NERF THE J-10 WITHOUT JUST BOOSTING AA MISSILES LAZY BASTAGES - I'm listing this one first because it really is a very big problem that causes 4 different maps to become unbalanced rape fests and knowing the attention span the people at DICE have it's the first thing I want to them to see. However if you're still reading this far in I have a far better solution:
2) Completely rework all airplanes and the AA missiles. These elements of the game have been flawed since the BF2 demo. Two things need to happen to complete this change:
2a) Rework handling on the planes to be different, but more or less equal, then give planes unique characteristics which define them. These are minor changes that aren't game breaking like the J-10. I'm talking about more afterburner for the J-10, faster flare reload for the MiG and slightly more powerful bombs for the F-35B. You get the idea.. make it your own
2b) Scrap AA missiles current system all together. The current system isn't working. Make AA missiles based off skill and not off of luck. This is simple to do.. increase the range on all AA and create a small lock zone (slightly smaller than AT crosshair). Decrease the initial lock time.. but force the person firing the AA missile to keep the targeted centered in the "sweet spot" till the missile hits. Missiles fired in this manner and perfectly tracked will be perfectly accurate. If the target leaves the extended range the missile loses lock, if the user of the missile lets the target leave the sweet spot the missile loses track and goes lame. Pilots would have this exact same system in their cockpit. The only difference would be a larget lock zone to compensate for the less than instant nature of aiming an aircraft towards something. This would promote cannon use and would put the skill back in dogfighting.
3) Make the assault class useful again - How you want to go about this is up to you.. my suggestions of potential fixes: Increase the armor of the assault class by about double, slightly increase the explosive range of the GL, give the assault class an accuracy bonus when standing or moving (this would fit in great with the whole purpose of an "assault class) - or a combination of the above.
4) Add a vehicle TK discouragement/vehicle fair sharing system - As a pilot who has experienced my fair share of this I'm especially motivated to curb this type of behavior. The solutions would be as follows: If a player teamkills another player they cannot enter helicopters, airplanes, tanks, or APCs for a period of about a minute. This will completely stop the TK for a vehicle mindset as it will no longer be a valid option. Secondly to prevent vehicle "hogging" add a short 1 second delay on entering a vehicle that you have just died in. An example of this would be a pilot dies.. back at the airstrip if another player was waiting for the vehicle he'd be able to enter it before the previous pilot. Finally... get rid of teamkills created by running people over with aircraft.. it's lame and unnecessary. In all my time playing BF2 I have yet to witness an aircraft intentionally running players over (as if it was even possible). These simple changes would eliminate the vast majority of griefing and TKing that occurs around and for vehicles.
5) Restore the blackhawk gun to its former glory. Every time I see that useless BH I get sad. You've already made a great change by increasing the armor on transports... now restore some offensive power to them. The minigun doesn't have to be as godly as it used to be.. but somewhere in between where it was and where it is now. Splash damage with a smaller than before radius and slightly less damage should do the trick nicely.
6) Add new game modes FFS. No I'm not talking about IO crap. I'm talking about instead of Conquest think about adding a new mode.. what do you call it again? That mode where you have to capture the flags in a predefined order. Yeah people want that. Adding an option for an unranked "deathmatch" mode would probably be greatly appreciated and fun twist to the game too. All spawn points spawnable by any player.. all runways rearm ect.. and then you can have an all out war.
7) Give AT players 1 point for hitting a vehicle that has an enemy inside. Perfectly fair way to balance AT players scores out and give them the points they've been deserving for a long time
8) As mentioned in 6.. don't add an IO mode. Nothing wrong with an UNRANKED vehicle "lite" mode.. but only the Knife and Pistol jerks want a ranked IO mode.. so please don't do it.
9) Whatever you did to BF2 performance between the demo version and the current version.. undo it please. My performance has gone down.. and many other players report the same exact thing. As I recall though my performance was great during the 1.12 patch I believe.
10) Decrease the damage the 50 cal machine guns do to helicopters (about 20%-25%). Considering these things litter most maps I don't think it'd be too radical of a change. I often times find myself going head on Vodnik vs. a AH and somehow I destroy them before they destroy me. This change coupled with new improved AA would create what I can only describe as perfectly balanced helicopters.
11) Add a maximum range to TOW missiles. Pixel shooting is lame.
12) Add a first person mode to the spectator cams. I can think of no better way to help catch the aimbotters and wallhackers in the act and plus it works for Counterstrike so why can't it work for you?
13) Finally but certainly not last... revert the changes you made to squad hopping. It was a perfectly valid tactic that increased the usefulness of squads. The current squads system makes simple tasks such as changing squads when you're dead or want to switch kits a real royal pain in the arse.
14) Up the speed that engineers gain repair points by 200%-300%. Also the way repair points should be calcuated is different. Say an engineer gets 2 or 3 points for a full repair on a tank. So the engineer finds a badly damaged tank and begins to repair. The engineer gets 2 points but is just 2 or 3 armor bars shy of a third point. Those bars the engineer got repaired on the tank but never got a point for are "saved" so the next friendly vehicle the engineer repairs he would get another repair point within the first 1 or 2 bars of the repair. Simple and fair.
15) Claymores should be able to be detonated by high-end explosives. Grenades, tank shells, airplane bombs, TV missiles, artillery and C4 should all be able to destroy claymores. However lesser explosives such as helicopter guns, airplane cannons and the APC gun would be unable to destroy them. The fact that people have to suicide and revive to remove claymores now is just plain sad.
That's my list... feel free to add your own.
Let's face it.. with BF2142 on the horizon the 1.4 patch is in all likelihood the last patch BF2 will ever receive, so it should be a damn good one. So I decided to compile my own personal list of tweaks I'd do to the game if I was one of the designers. I'm excluding bugs from this list.. because they're pretty much a given and all too obvious. Gameplay balance tweaks only.
Time to cut to the chase, I'm going to make these suggestions as simple as possible (For the "lite" version just read the bolded text):
1) NERF THE J-10 WITHOUT JUST BOOSTING AA MISSILES LAZY BASTAGES - I'm listing this one first because it really is a very big problem that causes 4 different maps to become unbalanced rape fests and knowing the attention span the people at DICE have it's the first thing I want to them to see. However if you're still reading this far in I have a far better solution:
2) Completely rework all airplanes and the AA missiles. These elements of the game have been flawed since the BF2 demo. Two things need to happen to complete this change:
2a) Rework handling on the planes to be different, but more or less equal, then give planes unique characteristics which define them. These are minor changes that aren't game breaking like the J-10. I'm talking about more afterburner for the J-10, faster flare reload for the MiG and slightly more powerful bombs for the F-35B. You get the idea.. make it your own
2b) Scrap AA missiles current system all together. The current system isn't working. Make AA missiles based off skill and not off of luck. This is simple to do.. increase the range on all AA and create a small lock zone (slightly smaller than AT crosshair). Decrease the initial lock time.. but force the person firing the AA missile to keep the targeted centered in the "sweet spot" till the missile hits. Missiles fired in this manner and perfectly tracked will be perfectly accurate. If the target leaves the extended range the missile loses lock, if the user of the missile lets the target leave the sweet spot the missile loses track and goes lame. Pilots would have this exact same system in their cockpit. The only difference would be a larget lock zone to compensate for the less than instant nature of aiming an aircraft towards something. This would promote cannon use and would put the skill back in dogfighting.
3) Make the assault class useful again - How you want to go about this is up to you.. my suggestions of potential fixes: Increase the armor of the assault class by about double, slightly increase the explosive range of the GL, give the assault class an accuracy bonus when standing or moving (this would fit in great with the whole purpose of an "assault class) - or a combination of the above.
4) Add a vehicle TK discouragement/vehicle fair sharing system - As a pilot who has experienced my fair share of this I'm especially motivated to curb this type of behavior. The solutions would be as follows: If a player teamkills another player they cannot enter helicopters, airplanes, tanks, or APCs for a period of about a minute. This will completely stop the TK for a vehicle mindset as it will no longer be a valid option. Secondly to prevent vehicle "hogging" add a short 1 second delay on entering a vehicle that you have just died in. An example of this would be a pilot dies.. back at the airstrip if another player was waiting for the vehicle he'd be able to enter it before the previous pilot. Finally... get rid of teamkills created by running people over with aircraft.. it's lame and unnecessary. In all my time playing BF2 I have yet to witness an aircraft intentionally running players over (as if it was even possible). These simple changes would eliminate the vast majority of griefing and TKing that occurs around and for vehicles.
5) Restore the blackhawk gun to its former glory. Every time I see that useless BH I get sad. You've already made a great change by increasing the armor on transports... now restore some offensive power to them. The minigun doesn't have to be as godly as it used to be.. but somewhere in between where it was and where it is now. Splash damage with a smaller than before radius and slightly less damage should do the trick nicely.
6) Add new game modes FFS. No I'm not talking about IO crap. I'm talking about instead of Conquest think about adding a new mode.. what do you call it again? That mode where you have to capture the flags in a predefined order. Yeah people want that. Adding an option for an unranked "deathmatch" mode would probably be greatly appreciated and fun twist to the game too. All spawn points spawnable by any player.. all runways rearm ect.. and then you can have an all out war.
7) Give AT players 1 point for hitting a vehicle that has an enemy inside. Perfectly fair way to balance AT players scores out and give them the points they've been deserving for a long time
8) As mentioned in 6.. don't add an IO mode. Nothing wrong with an UNRANKED vehicle "lite" mode.. but only the Knife and Pistol jerks want a ranked IO mode.. so please don't do it.
9) Whatever you did to BF2 performance between the demo version and the current version.. undo it please. My performance has gone down.. and many other players report the same exact thing. As I recall though my performance was great during the 1.12 patch I believe.
10) Decrease the damage the 50 cal machine guns do to helicopters (about 20%-25%). Considering these things litter most maps I don't think it'd be too radical of a change. I often times find myself going head on Vodnik vs. a AH and somehow I destroy them before they destroy me. This change coupled with new improved AA would create what I can only describe as perfectly balanced helicopters.
11) Add a maximum range to TOW missiles. Pixel shooting is lame.
12) Add a first person mode to the spectator cams. I can think of no better way to help catch the aimbotters and wallhackers in the act and plus it works for Counterstrike so why can't it work for you?
13) Finally but certainly not last... revert the changes you made to squad hopping. It was a perfectly valid tactic that increased the usefulness of squads. The current squads system makes simple tasks such as changing squads when you're dead or want to switch kits a real royal pain in the arse.
14) Up the speed that engineers gain repair points by 200%-300%. Also the way repair points should be calcuated is different. Say an engineer gets 2 or 3 points for a full repair on a tank. So the engineer finds a badly damaged tank and begins to repair. The engineer gets 2 points but is just 2 or 3 armor bars shy of a third point. Those bars the engineer got repaired on the tank but never got a point for are "saved" so the next friendly vehicle the engineer repairs he would get another repair point within the first 1 or 2 bars of the repair. Simple and fair.
15) Claymores should be able to be detonated by high-end explosives. Grenades, tank shells, airplane bombs, TV missiles, artillery and C4 should all be able to destroy claymores. However lesser explosives such as helicopter guns, airplane cannons and the APC gun would be unable to destroy them. The fact that people have to suicide and revive to remove claymores now is just plain sad.
That's my list... feel free to add your own.
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