Battlefield 3: DICE discusses multiplayer differences between console and PC

Comments complaining about PC being superior to console incoming in…3…2…1…

Well its hard to market this type of thing.Its better obviously on PC but again its just as good on console in term of gameplay and graphic for consoles!

Yeah, I’m completely satisfied with 24 players. Imagine, 64 wookies camping in the hills.

@1 there is no arguement. Bottom line, the PC IS far superior to a console. Moving on topic, ‘they had huge maps for BC2′ well, maybe I missed something here because they simply were not ‘huge’. If you take into account the invisible walls and the areas of forest that were bullet proof, then sure.

Agree with you GrimRita.Console are very old tehnology compared to the power of the PC we have today.

Oh my giddy aunte, I just realised what DICE is doing and they are bloody geniuses.

Most of the PC players have been wanting BF2 sequel for years and know exactly what they want, big maps, tons of players, etc…
Now the console players have only had COD to compare to, so what they’re getting is a BattlefieldOD as they will most likely enjoy the more close quarter, fast pace maps which are bigger but more similar size to COD. However even though they will be getting that, DICE is throwing in some extras with the larger maps. Kinda makes sense, even if I did wake up from an afternoon sleep. XD

@6 from what I have ‘heard’, BF3 plays very much like BC2. On the map in Alpha testing, I simply cant see how it can fit 64 players on it. My friend showed me.

I remember in BF2142, Camp Gib was an excellent 64 player map and I used to play on it 247! Unless certain maps restrict the number of players on it, DICE are talking out of their arse – AGAIN

@6 They’ve been playing catch-up for a while now. It’s taken like four games to introduce proper weapon mods

There’s no doubt that the whole “back to BF2″ angle is pretty gratuitous at best, but I think marketing wise, it’s a lot more effective to just keep baiting the fanboys, as in the above post.

Just talk about PC and console in the same statement, and you’ll have a million platform fanboys just wanking themselves to death.

Console gaming >>> PC gaming, any day of the week, and I am not talking about hardware power.

Interesting, considering the dominance of the console market I am glad that DICE have made the effort to design the maps differently for PC. It’s good that DICE are still supporting their long term PC audience however I hope they make sure that some of console version maps are not sub-par simply due to their heritage as larger 64 player maps. Console needs to have priority if they are to succeed against CoD. I realise this is not what PC elitists want however this is reality, DICE is a business and must serve the largest audience the best.

@10
Battlefield wouldn’t be the franchise it is today if it weren’t for PC, go back to your box that you have that plays games below HD resolution, which PC has been able to do for about 8 years now.

@Grimrita. Totally right. Been playing the Alpha on Metro and it’s currently set as a 32 player map. Can’t see it working at all well with 64 players. The whole level is pretty much a choke point.There would just to be too much going on.

Still not sure what they mean the maps are smaller. Metro isn’t the type of map that can be scaled from 24 player to 64. Maybe when they say “scaled” they are talking about levels where there are plenty of vehicles or where the combat zone ends. It’s still rather confusing. Metro from the looks of it infantry only level. With a token tank at the beginning of the level. But as you go underground you can’t take the tank with you :/

From BF3 being announced with that first glimpse of the single player up to now all EA and DICE have really done is remove things that everyone would take forgranted and do their gosh draned best to quash any sense of excitement and hype.

@11 Yes thanks for that, do you have any opinion on the article or are you just here to tell us what we already know?

@14

Yes I am on topic, BF was designed for PC, DICE, are making PC lead platform for BF3 because consoles don’t have enough grunt anymore and Dice as a developer can’t do this on current gen boxes, PC is ahead and for you to say the masses play on consoles is a bit meh, as I’m pretty sure theres more people playing WoW and other mmo’s on PC that has a bigger install base than COD on consoles. That is all.

@15

Nobody cares.

@16 All im saying is Peetry came out with a sweeping statement
“I realise this is not what PC elitists want however this is reality, DICE is a business and must serve the largest audience the best.”

Well he’s implying there isn’t a large number of people that play on a PC which isn’t true. So but facts are facts, and you can be a dumb twat.

@17 Did I say that? I’m pritty sure all I said was that console is the largest audience, anyone?

I hope the graphics look so much better now compared to the last bf3 vid I saw of console gameplay (ps3). It was just utter shit and I can’t even get a high class PC at the moment .

As a PC user, I’ll say honestly that the PC is only better than consoles in some areas. There are many places where the console beats the PC hands down, just ask developers.

Im so glad I have invested in a highend gaming pc so I can experience BF3 in all its glory.

@19

You are talking about the Jimmy Fallon footage? Cause i really don’t see what’s so utter shit about that….

METRO level is not going to be with 64 players. It’s impossible for that map to have 64. 32 at best. It’s a standard BF2, Bad Company 2 match.

They are going to introduce other maps at Gamescom or in the near future that will support all vehicles.

Judging by BATLEFIELD 3 Alpha Version it’s absolutely brilliant and no other shooter comes close this year. The sound is the best thing ever and i could give a shit about that lightning (except for maybe when you shoot from the rocket launcher he he).
Battlefield feeling is there, but i hope we can finally see jets, tanks and some giant maps to blow shit.
Destruction is awesome, my only complain that DICE tried to balance destruction in most cases. It’s impossible to blow everything, but it’s cool to know that you can destroy buildings and rocks that can kill someone.

In other words… Battlefield 3 and RAGE are probably the best FPS games of this year for a PC. Really awesome.

@DarkElfa,

“just ask developers.”

Paid ones? Pfff Gee LOL. I can’t say anything positive about console.
No mods, can’t connect any device to it, no decent services, you can’t configure it, pretty much slow DVD|Blu Ray drivers, horrible last generation hardware, last generation Wi-Fi, most of the games are 25-28 fps at best and etc, too much price for the hardware that must cost 100$-150$ at best.

The only positive thing about console are “some” console games. but i don’t play games until it’s going to be comfortable in every aspect there is. Thats just me.

@20
There is absolutely no way a console beats a proper PC. You can connect pretty much any peripheral to the PC, where the consoles are very limited, the PC has superior hardware, an uncountable larger variety of games, and of course games that are developed for the PC looks superior to the console version. And from a developers point of view, the only advantage of the consoles are, the users are so limited in what they can do, you are almost guaranteed a sale if you make a console version of your game, it isn’t easier to develop for than the PC (at least not for the programmers). I still have a high end PC, a 360 and PS3, i like all my systems, why shouldn’t i? I’m a gamer. But the PC is, and will always be superior to the consoles. The only downside of the PC is how much it costs compared to the price of the consoles, but i guess the price difference of the PC and console games make up for that.

@Peetry, PC is by large the largest gaming platform and audience hands down.

Just from the sheer spectrum of gaming it covers and game library which in most part still runs on present day Operating Systems.

and by broad spectrum, I mean from farmville to world of warcraft.

pissing contest aside. Just because its popular doesn’t mean its necessarily good. Much like, Fox news…

@22, Jimmy Fallon demo? horrible shadows, crappy textures, low lightning, not enough details and etc.
Demo was like a typical demo. Nothing to brag about.

Lets not turn ANOTHER BF thread into a PC v console war! Pat, please create a story so we can all debate in it instead. Although it wont be a competition as we all know that XXXXXX is better than XXXXX

Dice, you don’t respect us, we don’t respect you so go fuck youself

@loki, go buy some COD map packs for your console, you’ll feel better.

@runbmp I don’t think you’ve understood what I’ve said. I hope you enjoy BF3 when it comes out on whatever platform you chose. One thing I will say is that I thought I’d hate finding matches using a web browser however it is growing on me

@30 I don’t think they get the diff between largest amount of hardware (pc > consoles) versus largest audience/ppl who will buy the game (consoles > pc). Shame really as you made a perfectly valid observation.

PC all the way for me personally…v excited, if only I could get on the alpha/beta somehow…

I don’t think the PC has stood stronger against the consoles than it does right now, within the last decade.

EA are obviously going to push hard on micro-transactions, they’re way ahead on proprietary delivery systems, they’re launching an MMO aimed at the WoW subscribers, and either they’re confident enough in the PC crowd to market BF3 towards it, or they want to make it a question of prestige in showing off their technology on the platform.

If that starts to pays off for them, then everybody else is going to be stumbling over eachother to court the PC audience. And I think it will.

Perhaps if you were more concerned with the truth Erthazus, then being a blind fanboy, you could admit that PC’s have drawbacks.

No don’t get me wrong, PC’s have freedom, power and connectivity, but they also have call issues, expense, require a greater base of knowledge to make the most out of and have tons of fragmentation due to OS, drivers and hardware.

I used to use consoles when I was younger but I haven’t owned a console since the last xbox. I honestly couldn’t go back to that kind of thing. I prefer a PC, but to say they’re utterly superior is both foolish and naive.

Fanboyism is the upper echelon of internet faggotry and needs to die. We need truth, not rose colored, balls in mouth idol worship.

Who’d have thunk it!? Jeez, I’m really starting to hate PC fanboys…

I’ve just got a PC together that will run this and Skyrim nicely but I’ll still be buying them on Xbox as well. PC for single player graphics and multiplayer for the Xbox friends list. Bad company 2 was / is fantastic on 360 in multiplayer and 100000′s people enjoy playing it everyday. The stupidity of some people on this site complaining about consoles being under powered is insane.

I’d love a new generation of consoles but still have loads of fun playing online or coop in loads of Xbox games. If the PC version DIDN’T look better, that would be a lot more shocking.

Also where are games like ICO, Uncharted, Mario, Zelda, Motorstorm, et all on PC? Oh yeah I forgot, you have to wait about 3 years before a good game comes out then torrent it at the same time complaining it’s been dumbed down because of consoles…

@34
You really don’t wanna talk exclusive games on consoles vs pc. Do you? xD That is just asking for trouble x)

As far as FPS games go, the PC offers:

. Better controls (no need for aim assist)

. MUCH better online experience whether you’re playing casually or competitively (why? dedicated servers = regular communities = much more social atmosphere. dedicated servers also mean clans can own their own servers, host matches, run their own server rules, etc.)

Anyone who seriously believes the console FPS experience is equal to the PC FPS experience is ignorant, and clearly hasn’t fully experienced what a good PC FPS game can offer (a good one will keep you playing for at least 5 years)

—-

As I said in a previous thread though, i’m in no way a PC elitist. Consoles are much better for other games, like racing games, fighting games, sports games, action-adventure games, platform games, etc. For those kind of genres, the console beats the PC easily.

For FPS games, strategy games, sims, and RPGs though, the PC is FAR superior for a number of reasons.

@36
Why are the consoles better than the PC for racing games, fighting games, sports games, action-adventure games, platform games?
You can hook up any peripheral to the PC. I’ve played with my 360 and ps3 controller on my PC.

(i have both the 360 and ps3, so say about me what you want xD).

@36

Having just got my new PC up and running I can’t say I’m enjoying looking for new drivers every time I want to play the most upto date games.

Plug in a new controller, install a driver

Get a new graphics pack, install a mod

New direct x11 mode, download a patch

These are the things that only appeal to people who enjoy tinkering…

It’s like the difference between some buying a factory built sportscar and somebody who buys a sportscar and keeps modding it. Yes you’ll get better performance but for a quick blat a console can’t be beaten.

I used to play on PCs alot more and half the time I was docking around with configs, I can tell you now, after getting crysis and crysis 2 running nicely the enjoyment seeing these games maxed out compared to the amount of hassle getting them running and quality of gameplay they offer really don’t add up.

@ 38 If you have Steam installed, it does all that for you. And if you want to ‘install something new’ on a console, you cant – you have to buy/wait for the next gen to catch up and pay over the odds for it.

And I plugged in my xbox controller and it installed within seconds. I didnt have to lift a finger.

Regarding BC2 looking good on consoles, it will do, because its a console game. Although DICE claim it wasnt ported to the PC, it sure hell feels like a shoddy port.

DICE need to recapture the spirit of the original Battlefield series and move away from the afterbirth that is BC2. Although its hard to say with Alpha right now, as hitboxes are still way off, invisible walls are in places you’d least expect to see them.

However, having prone back is superb! So did the army actually start using ‘prone’ recently DICE, since you claimed during the development of BC2, that they didnt?

@36 Sounds like a lot of wishful thinking. I’ve only ever played FPS’s on PC, but I’ve never seen any of what you’re suggesting with regards to dedicated servers.

I’ve seen servers with rules that enforced racism, and in terms of matchmakers that localize your games, there’s little chance of Americans or Asians dropping in on your server, to completely screw up the latency for everyone else. A matchmaker also keeps the game active 24/7, whereas a server might get flushed after one team suffers a loss, leaving everyone to wait for someone to volountarily drop in. With matchmakers servers are never full, servers are never empty, the games are there at the behest of the players.

By sacrificing the customization, you might piss off a few anal retentives who want “ZOMG KNIFEFIGHT ONLY” servers, but really, that’s not much of a loss for anyone.

I don’t see any reason why someone playing an FPS on a console might not have as much fun as I do on the PC, even if I don’t like the control scheme.

@40 – You don’t seem to understand dedicated servers at all.

Why would a server get flushed after one team suffers a loss? They’re DEDICATED servers – that means they stay running even when there’s noone on the server.

As I said before, the great thing about dedicated servers is the community. I can go on my favourite server every day and see the same group of regulars. Everyone gets to know each other, it’s far more social.

On a console you have two options – play with a small group of friends, or play a bunch of randomers.

The other great thing about dedicated servers is a clan can own their own server and host matches. They can run the server as a public server during the day, and in the evening when they have a clanmatch, all they need to do is make it private and give the clan they’re playing against the password to join. Some clans I played in even had separate match servers specific for clanmatches.

What’s the alternative on consoles? How do clans play each other through match-making? There’s no way in hell you can even begin to argue that dedicated servers don’t make FPS games a thousand times better for competitive clan gameplay.

Seriously… don’t even try and argue that match-making is just as good or better. It’s SO much worse. MW2 tried to replace dedicated servers with match-making in PC FPS games and it was fucking awful! Completely and utterly ruined the game.

Who cares? Play what you want on whatever platform you want, and have fun. After all that’svehst it’s about right? P.S. going on a fanboy/elitist/idiot rant and then saying “I’m not a fanboy/elitist/idiot ” is pretty stupid. Your words have already shown what you are.

@41 All I know is from playing on them for the better part of two decades. It’s always been a flawed, impractical system.

Flushing – It’s a collective ragequit. Most of one side leaves, and you’re left with an imbalanced mess until fate draws in enough people to restock the server. Or leaves it to die, wasting everybody’s time.

I’ve yet to come across any sort of community on servers I’ve played on regularly. Literally the only time I’ve seen any interaction is when people talk smack, which you might as well do with random people. You may have been lucky and I may have been unlucky, but an FPS dedicated server is hardly a vibrant social hub. That’s just a desperate argument.

It’s not hard to see the advantages for a clan audience, but clans have no problem playing eachother in Modern Warfare 2 for example, they simply don’t have the same control over the lobby.

And in spite of the loud internet whining, it doesn’t seem like people feel it “ruined the game” given that it’s still the most played on PC, by all accounts beating both CoD4 and Black Ops, which feature the antiquated system.

I’m not saying that everybody should subscribe to one or the other, or that there aren’t a million better ways of doing either, but it’s simply not as rosy pink as you’d like it to be.

Collective ragequit? …are you talking about competitive clan matches here, or public gameplay?

I played in competitive clan matches for a good 5 years, and only encountered one collective ragequit (the clan we were playing against lost the match by default and we got points for the win)

As for public gameplay, people come and go all the time – it’s really not an issue. If several people leave, then players will generally rebalance the teams themselves… but you can also set the server to do that automatically.

And really? You’ve never encountered any community servers…? That sounds really strange to me. I’ve met people in FPS games that I now consider to be some of my best friends. In MOHAAS during it’s peak, pretty much everyone in the community knew each other very well. People would talk to each other in game, as well as through voice clients like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo. Clans all knew the other clans very well, etc.

This kind of thing isn’t unique to MOHAAS. In a lot of PC fps games, I could find a regular server I enjoy, and over time i’d get to know all of the other regulars really well.

Maybe you’ve just had bad experiences?

@44

Have you ever been on a server with Autobalance? It’s very difficult for me to find one that doesn’t have it. Choosing your server allows you to decide the map, the number of players, and other features. My personal favorite part is that in Battlefield the choppers are tough to learn at first. Everyone hates the guy who gets in and crashes into a building first thing. I can join an empty server and fly around to play target practice. Can’t do that on matchmaking!

@44 A decades worth of random flukes? Somehow I doubt that

And it’s not all bad. When it works it’s fine, it just has some fundamental flaws that are easily remedied by a matchmaker, as described.

It’s a pretty common occurence that a public server empties out if someone gets well and truly pummelled. I’m sure it doesn’t happen amongst clans, but then clan play is vastly different from the majority in any case. Even if the people remaining divide themselves between the teams, you’re left with an crippled version of the game in which two half teams play eachother. It’s just not worth anyones time.

And people don’t always come and ago, especially in awkward hours of the day, in which matchmakers have little trouble keeping the lobbies full, because instead of having 20 idiots distributed on 5 different servers, with none enough to make a proper game, you get them all pooled together. It’s infinitely more efficient.

And then you have those problems becoming increasingly amplified the older a game gets, since there are fewer players to go around.

I don’t recall running into any “community” servers where everybody sat around and chatted. I mostly play on regional servers close to home, so you’d think there’d be some kind of banter going on, but it practically never happens. What are you going to do, start asking people what their favourite colour is while you’re sniping? People hardly come to chat.

@45 There’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to do that, really. It’s just a question of adding that functionality to a game. There’s no reason why a game using a matchmaker wouldn’t have LAN play for serious tournaments either.

Crippled version of the game? Hardly. Let’s say i’m playing on a 30 player server – worst case scenario, 4-5 people leave at once. It doesn’t affect the gameplay at all, and soon enough, 4-5 more people come along.

Using MOHAAS as an example again, that game is perfectly enjoyable with as few as 4 people… so even if 26 people suddenly decided to ragequit simultaneously (which I find ridiculous, and have NEVER seen it happen) the game is still fun. And anyway, worst comes to worst, you just leave and join a new server, which takes like 5 seconds (no waiting in lobbies like with match-making – something I fucking hated about MW2)

Honestly, the only times where I actually experienced the scenario you’re describing (whole servers emptying) is really late at night when people start to go to bed. During the day, there’s absolutely no problem whatsoever playing in a busy server all day long.

MOHAAS is about 9 years old, and even now I could play on a server during the day and it would stay busy all day long. I can’t help but wonder what MW2′s online community will be like after 9 years :p I bet if you wanted a game, you’d be stuck in the match-making lobby for eternity.

As for the community, these things develop over time. When you play on the same servers daily for a long period of time, everyone gets to know each other. You have to remember as well, that certain gamemodes (particularly the ones I play) are objective based, and have no respawn… so once you die, you’re dead until the round ends. That leaves some time for casual banter and socializing.

Anyway, this discussion really isn’t going anywhere. Clearly i’ve either been extremely fortunate to have some amazing experiences in online FPS games, or you’ve been unfortunate to have poor experiences. Maybe it just comes down to different games.

UuBuU is right.
Thats my biggest gripe i have with console gaming.
Why in all hell cant u find one single game that does mp how its supposed to be?
devs must think something along those lines: “its the console version. We need to fuck the mp part up at least a bit. Were not allowed to deliver a great mp..”
i dunno why this is..

The worst part is, most consoleplayers dont even realize how much more fun MP can be when they never played MP on pc.
I mean, a server where u know the guys playing there is by default approx. 9527 times better then any matchmaking could ever be.

Tbh, for once I can actually agree on the dedicated servers thing, while the controls might be implemented and tweaked differently, p2p is p2p..

@47 You may like playing 2 v 2, but personally I prefer a game with people in it. And if I can have a full match 10 times out of 10, then that’s what I prefer.

Quite obviously there’s no general number on people who ragequit, that’s completely up to the individual, but when they do, you’re up shit creek. You’re right though, when it’s rush hour and everybody’s cramming in, there’s no problem. It’s just that matchmakers never have to rely on what time of day it is to fill up the games.

The whole “community” argument is sounding more and more far fetched to me

And for the second time, I never said it was a tortuous system that “utterly destroys the games, for everyone”. It’s just an inefficient system that wastes a lot of peoples time, and should have been fixed years ago.