Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

[Chris_Redfield]

Firstly, I dont want this to turn into a stupid flamefest between pub players who think competitive players are 1337 and competitive players who think pub players are "noobs".

I just got a bomb dropped on me when I was told that BC2 does not have spectator view, which means that my hopes of watching some great casts of good teams duking it out in leagues are effectively dead. Furthermore, theres no recording of demos, no start-timer for Conquest and a ton of other issues which seriously restrict this games competitive side.

I was shocked and stunned, to be honest. Apparently people are already making threads on EA forums, but knowing DICE-s track record...

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

Yeah, none of those are there nor were in the beta. There is the standard "We are thinking about it." but I dont see BC2 being competitive friendly now for sure.

Crunch

[FPS[VT_NERD]]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

TWL is already starting up a tournament to do some trial and error and see whether it's feasible or not.

I hope some of the more basic competitive stuff like start timer, seeing the remaining tickets at round end and demo recording makes a comeback, but I wouldn't want to see competitive mods (the "pro" mods are anything but) or the barring of certain unlocks become possible.

It's always a shame when the competitive community turns a game into something completely different via mods and ridiculous rules. It would be infinitely superior if they were actually forced to play the same game as everyone else in the competitions due to lack of game-supported options and I think you'd also find a lot more public players willing to give competitive gaming a shot if the mods and rules didn't warp the normal game so much.

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

TWL is already starting up a tournament to do some trial and error and see whether it's feasible or not.

I hope some of the more basic competitive stuff like start timer, seeing the remaining tickets at round end and demo recording makes a comeback, but I wouldn't want to see competitive mods (the "pro" mods are anything but) or the barring of certain unlocks become possible.

It's always a shame when the competitive community turns a game into something completely different via mods and ridiculous rules. It would be infinitely superior if they were actually forced to play the same game as everyone else in the competitions due to lack of game-supported options.

Competitive community is not destroying games. Infact, in BF2, it tried to balance it in many ways. Some of the tweaks for balances sake are necessary because competitive community finds the games weaknesses much faster and exploits them way harder. Besides, its not like the public community is playing on those competitive mods all that much. And if they did, its just additional flavour, more options. But what BC2 needs are all really basic things like demo/spectator/timer/ticket count on round end. Most of the stuff is something FPS gamers took for granted for many years.

Dont look down on competitive community and especially the mods just because you dont like them.

[FPS[VT_NERD]]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

Competitive community is not destroying games. Infact, in BF2, it tried to balance it in many ways. Some of the tweaks for balances sake are necessary because competitive community finds the games weaknesses much faster and exploits them way harder. Besides, its not like the public community is playing on those competitive mods all that much. And if they did, its just additional flavour, more options. But what BC2 needs are all really basic things like demo/spectator/timer/ticket count on round end. Most of the stuff is something FPS gamers took for granted for many years.

Dont look down on competitive community and especially the mods just because you dont like them.

1) The mods are not necessary. The competitive players are not any better or more skilled at finding exploits than the general public.

2) You said "It's not like the public community is playing on those mods all that often" and that is exactly what is wrong with the mods.

The existence of the mods (and their inclusion in leagues/ladders) requires you to play one or the other all the time to master either side of the game. It makes it much harder to enjoy playing with your friends in ranked servers and then buckle down and get down to business to compete in matches.

As an example, there is no reason to ban unlocks from competitive play, in any game, but I guarantee that the competitive players will want it done. This puts anyone who plays in ranked servers at a severe disadvantage b/c they will be accustomed to using those weapons and they won't be available in a match while this puts the competitive players, who never set foot in ranked servers, at a big advantage b/c they never even use those weapons.

That is just one example and it has been the largest problem with competitive play in the BF series games since unlocks were introduced. Competitive players feel that unlocks imbalance the playing field, but the simple fact of the matter is that unlocks are available to anyone who puts in the time to earn them. If you want the unlocks, play ranked and earn them so they're available for your matches, or don't. But don't take them away entirely.

So I will be very happy since BC2 does not support mods (no "pro" mod, thank god) and hopefully won't allow the disabling of unlocks either. Although I admittedly have not looked at the BC2 admin control panel and it may very well be an option right now.

[Lordsethonan]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

It's a new engine on PC, it's a console port, consoles don't have spectator mode, EA/DICE didn't think it would be such a big success. Let them patch up the connectivity, then we worry about supposed imbalance; then we ask for competitive stuff.

Not a flame, but any way you look at it Chris; competitive whatever in gaming is a very small community, yes, dedicated and focused and whatnot; but it's not your core demographic; I thin kit's safe to assume DICE is not in any hurry to cather to those people right now. Not saying they won't pay attention to the "scene" ever, but they have more pressing matters than pleasing a very reduced, bitchy and hard to please sector of their audience. Kind of like the extra 300% players that got the game new and it's their first time.

In my opinion, modtools and everything else can wait a couple of months. Let's allow them to try to fix the connectivity issues first, then add some more optimization, get around to poke ati on the ribs about crossfire support. Again, in my opinion; spectator mode, mod tools and all the other things being asked for are unimportant in the face of very obvious server issues.

Oh, and please; get the bloom in russian armor fixed along with DX9 for the stationary machine gun emplacements.

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

1) The mods are not necessary. The competitive players are not any better or more skilled at finding exploits than the general public.

Actually the mods are extremely necessary if the vanilla gameplay proves itsself to be unfit for competitive gameplay.

2) You said "It's not like the public community is playing on those mods all that often" and that is exactly what is wrong with the mods.

Which mods? From the top of my head, BF2 competitive mods adjusted damage values for chopper and their missile count/reload speeds, aswell as missile firing distances. Some of these changes were in the vBF2 aswell. And then theres the abundance of non-competitive mods.

The existence of the mods (and their inclusion in leagues/ladders) requires you to play one or the other all the time to master either side of the game. It makes it much harder to enjoy playing with your friends in ranked servers and then buckle down and get down to business to compete in matches.

You can ask Kodak if ProMod inhibits his fun from vCOD4, Im 100% sure that hell tell you that his greatest annoyance are public server admins. You have no idea how bad a competitive game which is only fit for pub play can get. Pixelshot grenade launchers which wipe out entire teams in the first 10 seconds (COD4), Claymores, 3x stun or 3xfrag grenades. Just like in BF2 competitive days, it was all about using the best method to get the best results, and very often your assault rifle was the last measure. COD4 is one of the greatest games of our time, but it required significant changes, and those changes made for one hell of a competitive game. More than that, it made for a kick-*** spectator-sport aswell.

Now, if competitive requirements met pub requirements somewhere down the middle, and added a massive ammount of options for a proper competitive match setup, this would be great. Unfortunately DICE doesnt have the know-how nor the resources to do that, as evident with this release.

As an example, there is no reason to ban unlocks from competitive play, in any game

Seriously man. One of the first BF2 competitive frag videos which gained a lot of public attention was "The Final Stand", I think it was made by Snoken. Just have a look what one guy could do with C4 packs. Then have a round in BF2 Demo server on a peak US day and see how the game is played if its open to abuse.

This is not a matter of elitism. I despise competitive elitism. But I also want to watch a couple of good games every weekend, and I dont want the competitive community to stay outside in the cold just because of "were working on it, if the public wants it" line. In the end, this will not harm you, at all.

---------- Post added at 11:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 AM ----------

Not a flame, but any way you look at it Chris; competitive whatever in gaming is a very small community, yes, dedicated and focused and whatnot

The solving of the problem is beneficial for everyone. A strong competitive community keeps the game alive by keeping clans alive and active, who in turn keep those servers up and active. And were not talking about clans who play for cash in leagues, "competitive" community also includes clans having scrims with other clans/squads, theres a massive activity in this field if all requirements are met. Counter Strike can easily be used as an example here. A whole shipload of COD4 players are playing scrims on a regular basis, and those scrims need certain requirements to be met.

I can wholeheartedly agree that all bugs need to be fixed, unfortunately this is DICE were talking about.

[FPS[VT_NERD]]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

Actually the mods are extremely necessary if the vanilla gameplay proves itsself to be unfit for competitive gameplay.

Citation and examples needed. There is nothing in any BF2 or 2142 that makes them unfit for competitive play in their vanilla state, but there is a pro mod for both of them.

Which mods? From the top of my head, BF2 competitive mods adjusted damage values for chopper and their missile count/reload speeds, aswell as missile firing distances. Some of these changes were in the vBF2 aswell. And then theres the abundance of non-competitive mods.

We're obviously talking about the "pro" mods. Have you ever seen any competitive play using anything other than one of these mods?

You can ask Kodak if ProMod inhibits his fun from vCOD4, Im 100% sure that hell tell you that his greatest annoyance are public server admins. You have no idea how bad a competitive game which is only fit for pub play can get. Pixelshot grenade launchers which wipe out entire teams in the first 10 seconds (COD4), Claymores, 3x stun or 3xfrag grenades. Just like in BF2 competitive days, it was all about using the best method to get the best results, and very often your assault rifle was the last measure. COD4 is one of the greatest games of our time, but it required significant changes, and those changes made for one hell of a competitive game. More than that, it made for a kick-*** spectator-sport aswell.

We're not talking about COD. At least, I'm not. I'm talking about the BF games and how they've been played competitively in leagues/ladders like TWL and TGN.

Now, if competitive requirements met pub requirements somewhere down the middle, and added a massive ammount of options for a proper competitive match setup, this would be great. Unfortunately DICE doesnt have the know-how nor the resources to do that, as evident with this release.

There are no competitive requirements outside of demo recording, scoreboard display, spectating and a delay start timer. Just like you, I would like to see these things added. What I don't want to see is leagues/ladders mutilating the core game and disabling unlocks or creating "pro" mods.

Seriously man. One of the first BF2 competitive frag videos which gained a lot of public attention was "The Final Stand", I think it was made by Snoken. Just have a look what one guy could do with C4 packs. Then have a round in BF2 Demo server on a peak US day and see how the game is played if its open to abuse.

The C4 packs in BF2 are not an unlock so I'm not sure why you brought them up when I mentioned that I dislike unlocks being prohibited. The guy in that video does every dirty trick imaginable and they're all allowed via the ladder/league rules so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. A ranked server is likely to have rules restricting jihad jeeps and the BF2 engine itself was changed to disallow actions (like detonating C4) while still in the air from a jump.

This is not a matter of elitism. I despise competitive elitism. But I also want to watch a couple of good games every weekend, and I dont want the competitive community to stay outside in the cold just because of "were working on it, if the public wants it" line. In the end, this will not harm you, at all.

I'm not talking about elitism, per se. I just want the competitive community to play the same game as everyone else so that people like me, who enjoy both ranked and competitive play, can actually be successful in both cases without having to master 2 different ways of playing the same game (vanilla and pro w/o unlocks). It's a simple, reasonable request.

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

Citation and examples needed. There is nothing in any BF2 or 2142 that makes them unfit for competitive play in their vanilla state, but there is a pro mod for both of them.

[EDIT] Vehicular inbalances, weapon inbalances, map inbalances (overcome with sideswitching, though)

Chopper TV missile damage against a chopper which meant that if a team loses their chopper, it was not going to get airbourne again, thats one of the most crucial aspects. Everything else was well adjustable with the dedicated server options. But all of the changes in Promod for BF2 combined did not change the game experience, and would have greatly (immensely) benefitted BF2 pub play. Some of these changes have been asked for ever since BF2 came out, some came out in subsequent patches.

Infantry
- first shot accuracy for assault rifles, carbines, submachineguns, light machineguns and
sniper rifles improved
- standing and crouching accuracy modifiers for assault rifles, carbines, submachineguns,
sniper rifles and pistols improved (prone modifiers are unchanged)
- light machineguns tweaked to allow more accurate fire in short bursts
- assault rifle, carbine and light machinegun damage now decreases at ranges beyond 100m
- submachinegun and pistol damage now decreases at ranges beyond 25m
- crosshair added to unzoomed sniper HUD to fix hit detection not showing when unzoomed
- dynamic crosshair on HUD now reflects current accuracy more consistently
- accuracy penalty for jumping with most guns increased slightly
- C4 throwing distance decreased slightly
- C4 can now be defused by engineers (same as landmines and claymores)
- landmines and claymores are now indestructible again (like in 1.02)

Vehicles
- TV guided missile lifespan reduced (effectively a range reduction)
- blackhawk minigun splash damage reduced
- tank shell damage to helicopters increased slightly
- airplane afterburners deplete significantly faster
- tunguska radar dish no longer blocks crosshair in first person HUD
- flak shell velocity increased, range reduced, splash damage vs infantry reduced
- tracking delay of antiair missiles reduced
- airplane HUDs now have a hit detection crosshair

Maps
- changed the ticket bleeding behavior of the following 32 player maps
Dragon Valley, Gulf of Oman, Operation Clean Sweep, Sharqi Peninsula, Strike at Karkand
- removed excess vehicles from a few 32 player maps
- all plane spawns are now inside hangars, mobile AA vehicles added to some airfields
- Dragon Valley 32 is now a head-on map instead of attackdefend
- Gulf of Oman 32 now only has 4 capturable flags and the sides should be much more even
- Zatar Wetlands 16 is now a ground-only king of the hill style map
- Operation Clean Sweep 16 vehicle amounts tweaked to make the sides more even

As you can see, some of these changes are fantastic and I would have loved them to be in pub play, as would most pub players. Furthermore, these would not break the game at all, nor change it around completely.

We're obviously talking about the "pro" mods. Have you ever seen any competitive play using anything other than one of these mods?

Yup, POE2 was used competitively for some time.

We're not talking about COD. At least, I'm not. I'm talking about the BF games and how they've been played competitively in leagues/ladders like TWL and TGN.

Sorry, you just came off saying that "all games" are perfect for competitive play. I was telling you that competitive community will play the game for certain not the way the developer intended it to be played (not necessarily a bad thing, except in some games, it creates a severe inbalance problem)

The C4 packs in BF2 are not an unlock so I'm not sure why you brought them up when I mentioned that I dislike unlocks being prohibited.

Whether or not they were unlocks doesnt change the fact that this aspect of the game was used in a way noone could have ever imagined. In early BF2 days, the grenade launcher and C4 made every other class obselete, including the medic class. Perhaps we should just let the competitive community adapt to the game, or perhaps its best to let them to decide which is fit and which isnt, because frankly, their decisions will not affect you the slightest. So wheres the harm?

I'm not talking about elitism, per se. I just want the competitive community to play the same game as everyone else so that people like me, who enjoy both, can actually be successful in both cases without having to master 2 different ways of playing the game (vanilla and pro w/o unlocks).

Honestly, the claim that somehow you have to adapt to two different games is odd, none of the changes listed above would make you be better/worse in vBF2.

Sorry if I come off a little pushy, but I just got this bomb dropped on me, and I didnt expect to have to justify the decisions made by the competitive community to everyone else. Thats not what I want to do here.

[iQue]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

As sethonan pointed out it's something that DICE are considering. It's a new game on a new (for PC) engine and DICE simply don't have the time to put all the features in. They've said, although not in their exact words: "we're focusing on getting the game out first and fixing urgent issues, additions will have to wait".

I think it would be a shame to not see BFBC2 pick up competitively, I don't plan on playing it so but I do in other games and it would be a shame for such a good game to not be enjoyed in the competitive aspect.

I might add though that the vanilla game is pretty well balanced and there's no real imba weapons or vehicles. Just adding a ready-up function will get the game off to a very good start.

EDIT: So calling the game competitively unfriendly can be a bit mis-leading, the core game is very teamwork based and fits competitive gaming like a glove, it's just lacking some features.

[Minmaster]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

you really don't get it do you? they are catering in no way to hardcore "PC" gamers in this BF game.
if you didn't notice, we didn't even get a proper commo-rose, prone, and hosts of stuff that PC battlefield gamers are used to let alone the things you are asking for.

just skip this game and wait for BF3 man!

[Tampa]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

This title makes me sad. I hope they can work things out.

[Rugerdog]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

Hopefully PC sales are high enough to justify additions.

[Lordsethonan]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

This title makes me sad. I hope they can work things out.

The game is almost ten days old, if it picks up and lasts as long as 2142 it will be a small miracle. My take on it is that EA/DICE didn't plan for this game to be taken seriously, and strangely enough, it's not mediocre in any way/shape or form. I don't have quotes to back thi sup, it's my personal take on the matter.
I think DICE wanted BC2 to be a testbed of sorts for the PC audience; console players they pretty much have them by the balls since there is no game on consoles like BC2, or BFvanilla for that matter. For many console players, this is the first time they experience the BF experience. Many of my fellow console friends were genuinely awed by the game and all of its options in gameplay. They find the ability to jump in a vehicle at any time entertaining and fresh; the fact that you can pick up other people's kits was earth shattering for most of them, as the concept is alien to BF strangers. "wait, what do you mean revive him? He was the medic!" and the complete newbie "huh? you can revive people?" but I digress.

I think DICE meant BC2 as a guinea pig, that wouldn't hurt them too much if it flopped. Cue the surprise when they report server usage and user numbers are up to 400% the time of any BF peak, ever. People that might as well be complete newbies to BF are interested in the game; people that don't know what a gaming league is, and couldn't care less. When BF10 rolls out, they'll be the ones looking back to BC2 as "the only true Battlefield" and will remember it fondly, I don't think DICE anticipated this.

Chris this is why I told you the other day, even tough I'm not naive, I want to have a little hope that DICE will put in the effort to get the game fixed, as in reliable for online play. After they get that done; let's hope it sells millions, so we can get a new load of fresh blood for BF3. It wouldn't be so far fetched to think that maybe DICE won't release modtools and competitive support for BC2, but save it for BF3 so the new players can focus on learning to game first, then introduce them to the modding scene, and competitive gaming.

DICE hs the perfect chance right now to expand the player base to limits unknown yet; I say if we manage to keep 200k new players, we are set to have a very active, thriving community for the next 5 years. Hell, even 100k or 50k new players would be awesome.

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Bad Company 2 competitively unfriendly?

DICE hs the perfect chance right now to expand the player base to limits unknown yet; I say if we manage to keep 200k new players, we are set to have a very active, thriving community for the next 5 years. Hell, even 100k or 50k new players would be awesome.

The problem in this topic is that people believe that somehow competitive support takes something away from the common player. It doesnt. The features the competitive community requires/wants arent impossible to provide, you dont even have to provide mod tools, because those are usually only necessary when the gameplay is broken/inbalanced. What they need is a functionality for a fair start (currently teamleaders have to type 3;2;1; into chat, for a "go"), a good and clear scoring system (ticket count at end of the round) and a method of making sure that people arent cheating (first person recording). These are by far not unreasonable requirements and would benefit both the competitive, aswell as casual community. Remember that good developers have these options included in the package.

Minmaster, stop wasting my time.