Despite the heavy hype behind Battlefield 3, the emotions have been surprisingly mixed. It's not that Battlefield 3 is a bad game, but the choice of giving console users the Operation Metro map was rather dumb of EA/DICE. It leaves a bad impression on your fans when you tease the full beauty of Caspian Border and give us a very poor Rush map that focuses more on infantry/CQC
Regardless of this, I am not going to complain about the map, but rather look at how Battlefield 3 can learn a thing (or twenty-two) from Bad Company 2 and even Call of Duty. Sure, both games are considered vastly inferior to a true Battlefield product, but regardless, there are some things both games did better in my opinion. Let the blasphemy begin:
1. Where is that addictive little chirp when racking up points? As minor a thing it is, it was very fun and small incentive that filled me with a sense of joy, especially when you managed to amass a ton of points at once
2. Speaking of which, why don't my points accumulate when I get them in quick succession anymore? Minor again, but some of my favorite moments were simply seeing my combo score break out of triple digits
3. Why is the text so damn big? I thought that when the menu design leaked that it was something put together by some troll, but it apparently is official. While simple, it's incredibly large and looks rather amateur. Worse is when you see the huge text pop up in-game
4. It seems that the score feed doesn't keep up with the activity sometimes. If you are amassing points at a rapid speed the score feed will fall behind. Was never a problem in Bad Company 2
5. The minimap is just horrendous. The neon colours mesh everything together and makes it impossible to rely on the map to see enemies, friendlies, or anything else for that matter. Bad Company 2 had it perfect: a detailed map with friendly players clearly outlined without any of that neon glow or transparency
6. The ribbon and medal system should never have replaced the medal and insignia system. I know that this is Battlefield 3, but Bad Company 2 did it better. Where we once had distinguishable, well designed medals, Battlefield 3 has replaced them with generic, uninspired ribbons. Ribbons are indistinguishable by design and don't have that creativity medals did. I know what my avenger, combat excellence, and vehicle warfare pins all look like. Not so with ribbons.
7. The lobby system. Whoever's idea it was to mesh the squad, friends list, and Battlefield online list all into one screen wasn't very bright. The annoyance of having to scroll up and down between your squad and friends list is rather foolish when you consider how Bad Company 2 had a neat system that separated friends list from squad list.
8. The universal problem I have with the UI is how it looks like it's made for an SDTV. Everything is just so big and in your face. In the heat of a battle your lucky if your screen doesn't get spammed with abnormally giant text, ugly ribbons, neon flashes that pointlessly tell you an objective is defused or not (the voice comm, if it manages to keep up with the action, is more than enough) etc. It's a huge step back from the simple, small, and clean look of Bad Company 2 where bright lights and huge text were never there to overwhelm your eyes
9. Once again, a squad is capped to four players. This means that you can invite only three of your friends to your party. This was a huge hinderance in Bad Company 2 and just didn't make any sense. For the first time in a long time, a majority of my friend's list are all playing the one same game. Battlefield 3 clearly has garnered a ton of attention yet how off putting must it be to realize that you can only really invite 3 friends to a party? Why is it so hard to implement 4 squad parties? This is where Call of Duty shines. When you want to play with a large group of friends, it's as simple as getting an invite and joining a lobby. Capping it to one squad of 4 and combining this with point #7 makes what should be a seamless experience into an annoying hinderance
10. When I get revived by a teammate, please inform us on who that kind medic was. There is nothing I enjoy more than developing that in-game bond with a medic. When I get revived constantly by one player, I make it my mission to devote myself back to that player. Without a message telling me who I get revived by, the whole personal experience is lost and that feeling of being that reliable medic is diminished. All that appreciation means nothing to some medics if you don't get the notice. I in fact made some great friends on the Battlefield knowing my medic.
11. Why on earth would you switch the left and right d-pad items? Pointlessly confusing.
12. In general, the roles of the classes are seriously undermined compared to BC2. Regenerative health was something I could forgive considering that health regenerates slowly and you die pretty quick anyway. But regenerative vehicles and specializations that allow you to carry more ammo really take away from relying on the support and engineer. Personally, I feel that this is too much
13. Why can I no longer see the kit that I want to pick up? What is this "press square to pickup" nonsense? What am I picking up? Yes, this is important
14. Visibility in this game is odd. It's a bit difficult to see that friendly nametag on your teammate but it's also very hard to see the spot marker. While BC2's spotting was prone to getting spammed, BF3's spotting seems underwhelming. No longer is spotting something that I am noticing teammates do. The whole practice of spotting your enemies seems to be very undermined by the visibility in this game. I really feel that in general, Bad Company 2 had a much more identifiable environment. Maybe it's just the horribly clustered map.
15. Give us a game-ending screen that outlines the best players, best squad, etc. This is something that was missing from Bad Company 2, but it's something I really think should be added in a team-focused game
16. Bring back the game-ending cutscenes. A fade to black is rather anti-climatic. Killzone 3 did it best: they put the names of the top players into the cutscenes are made players feel so bad-ass. Props on the intense music that builds up when you are down to a few tickets though
17. Allow us to move around the in-game scoreboard and invite players to our squad that way. Better yet, allow us to create a squad instead of automatically doing it for us. We are not children.
18. When a squadmate dies, cut out the neon coloured light on his name
19. Stop auto-throwing grenades for us. I like to wind my hand back and release it when I damn well please
20. The health. This is a controversial one, but I thought Bad Company 2's health was perfect. The big problem I have in Battlefield 3, and I'm not sure if this is due to poor networking, is that I can't seem to tell when I'm getting shot. I drop instantly yet whenever I shoot somebody, there is enough time in between when I start shooting and when they die that the enemy should notice that they are getting shot. In Bad Company 2, I knew when I began getting shot. Sometimes I knew I couldn't escape, sometimes I was able to put up a fight, but it seems to me that in Battlefield 3, you drop instantly regardless of the weapon. Maybe I'm just not noticing
21. Bring back the ammo click sound when picking up ammo from ammo boxes. I'm noticing that players aren't even aware of when support drops ammo
22. Bring back the directional blips on the radar. A simple triangle has replaced BC2's arrow that precisely showed the direction of friendlies.
So there you go, 22 things that I feel Bad Company 2, and even Call of Duty, has that Battlefield 3 either dropped or lacks. Regardless of how insignificant some of this seems, I'm not entirely sure if DICE will care enough to implement some of these things that I felt helped make Bad Company so fun
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