Battlefield 3 "Beta" Impressions

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Battlefield 3 "Beta" Impressions

(38 posts)

Started 1 year ago by deathgaze
Latest reply from Machinetti

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deathgaze
Member

I was thoroughly disappointed with this beta. This game is not ready for release. Which is odd, because DICE claims that it is.

Yep, kiddies, this “beta” isn’t really a beta. It’s “kids get to play at daddy’s table early”. The “beta” part clearly refers to the distribution channels used to get the game to the customer and operate the game. QED Origin and BattleLog.

How do I know this? The beta feedback forums are an unmitigated disaster. There are no moderators. There is no organized feedback system, no bug reporting mechanism and no ability to search. That’s right, forum search is disabled in the beta. Not only that, Facebook, XBL and PSN friend support is not in the beta either.

So what exactly are we testing? Origin, primarily, but also to make sure that BattleLog works as it’s supposed to – which it appears to, but without the ability to test social networking, it’s an incomplete test, to be sure. BattleLog is different, but great. The interface works well, for the most part, and the installation was painless. However, it introduces other problems.

There’s also no ability to adjust video settings without entering the game. So, us common folk without a password for the press server are forced to duke it out with tens of thousands of players competing for roughly one thousand server slots. Then, when we finally get into a server, we hit the universal prone button in some nearby bushes and sit there and fiddle with video settings in a vain attempt to achieve a playable framerate.

I have two Radeon HD 4850s CrossFired together and this rig has performed admirably in all current games. I can’t use anti-aliasing in most games (I’m a smidgen short of the necessary memory), but as long as I don’t, I get around 60 frames per second at 1080p most of the time. Not in Battlefield 3. Battlefield 3 doesn’t seem to know that I have CrossFire and also seems reluctant to turn down it’s visual effects. After turning everything down to the “Low” settings, it became clear the the game was still adding some kind of post processing filter that dragged the game down to a crawl.

Even if you do manage to get a playable framerate, you'll be plagued by server instabilities, disappearing/reappearing character models, lag and other general glitchiness. The game is a buggy, alpha quality mess. This in and of itself is no surprise as this is par for the course for new Battlefield games. I’ve participated in a LOT of various betas (around 20) and in every single one, not a single game changed significantly for the better before release. And so, we the players are placed on yet another treadmill – we paid a premium to get the game when it comes out and we’ll be forced to wait roughly 6 months to a year for DICE to fix technical issues and bugs that should have been fixed before the game even entered beta. By then, I’d have been able to pick it up for 30 bucks and be no worse for the wear.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go carve out one of my kidneys so that I can get a video card that might actually run the game at a playable framerate.

Posted 1 year ago #
Gekidami
Member

In the PS3 version the framerate is pretty much the only solid thing about it. Its glitchy as hell, you cant go two steps in the park without sinking into the floor, the texture draw-in is poor, theres some (to be fair very minor) screen tearing, loads of clipping problems, and the destruction... What destruction? The number of walls you can destroy are very limited, you can knock down some trees and lamp posts but thats about it.

The game is fun to play, but this beta is a mess. We'll have to see how the final game looks but i cant imagine it being much different. The game is out in about a month, unless this is actually the alpha build i'm sure it'll be just about the same (minus any day one patches).

And having seen the beta with its canned destruction and just above average visuals, sorry but i really dont see why the console versions are limited to 24 players, going off this beta and what other games can do, nothing justifies it.

Oh and the beta doesnt allow me to set my button layout, i mean serious, wtf?

Posted 1 year ago #
themadjock
Member

I hear that Gekidami... very worried about the final product on PS3 now. Only my faith in DICE and the fun I had with BC2 stops me from cancelling the pre-order

Posted 1 year ago #
LOLshock94
Member

it just shows that EA would rather be a cunt and release an unfinished game just to beat cod

Posted 1 year ago #
Gekidami
Member

On another note, anyone else find semi-auto sniper rifles to be unbalanced? Not so much at long range, but more the fact that you can take off the scope or use the 2x ACOG (or equivalent) once you've unlocked it, and have a short to mid-range two hit kill weapon with the same rate of fire as a pistol (i.e: very fast). Seems unfair seeing as other weapons like that (AR's, subs and such) need about a quarter or more of their clip to kill (unless its a headshot). Reminds me of MGO.

Posted 1 year ago #
themadjock
Member

MAke sure you set the screen size for your TV, the difference is huge

Posted 1 year ago #
roni1175
Member

For the PS3 version I doubt it that the beta represents the final product and I believe it represent the product 5-3 months ago. Also I believe EA has deliberately made some of the graphics look unpolished.

Releasing a beta one month before launch for a game that big with an upgraded engine makes no sense. maybe it is a marketing decision, maybe EA is testing the weapon balance, maybe EA is stress testing its servers, who knows... maybe EA can tell us...

I am certainly no expert in game development but releasing a beta a month before launch doesn't make any sense what so ever...

Posted 1 year ago #
G1GAHURTZ
Member

[Note: If you don't know already, I'm a pretty big CoD player. So these impressions are from a CoD players perspective. I'm trying to be as open minded and impartial as possible, and the following are my genuine impressions.]

Right.

I've played the PS3 version now. I starting downloading yesterday, but for some reason it was going at a snails pace, so it didn't finish until this morning. Memories of reask commenting on the slowness of downloading on PS3 over wifi ran through my mind.

So this morning, I installed the game and, guess what? As soon as it'd finished, I found tea online! Had a quick chat with him, then loaded up the game.

First impressions:

They were mixed. First of all, and I'd need to load up BC2 to check, the visuals seemed slightly worse than BC2 on 360. It might just be that I remember BC2 looking better than it actually did, but the main point is that the PS3 version has standard PS3 visuals. I know that I probably could have come to that conclusion just by watching videos, but I wanted to play the game first hand before finalising my opinion.

Not having 60 fps is also a pretty big minus point.

Does that mean that the game looks bad? Nope, not at all. What it does mean is that the console versions have 0% of the PC version's biggest selling point. So essentially, after coming to this conclusion, it was easy for me to focus on how I felt about the quality of the gameplay.

It's easy to consider an average game better than it actually is because it's visuals might be pure eye candy that keeps you feeling good when you're playing, but that's not the case here.

As a full on run and gun CoD player, I'm used to playing my console FPS's on maximum sensitivity. I play CoD on the maximum setting, and until now, I've not come across a console FPS that is anywhere near as twitch friendly. BC2 wasn't as sensitive, so when I immediately put the sensitivity up to full, I wasn't expecting this beta to be any different. Needless to say, it was a pleasant surprise to find that DICE has gone for a CoD like setting that just made the game much smoother and easier to play than any of the Bad Company's has so far.

So I spent 10 or so minutes just feeling my way around the game and to be honest, it all seemed quite playable. It was the standard Rush gameplay, so nothing has changed there, but the fact that I felt much more comfortable in movement and aiming made me feel like I wanted to come back for another longer session. I'm the kind of person that will play a beta or a demo for less than 2 minutes and never touch the game again based on those first impressions, so I knew that this was still a potential buy for me.

Second Thoughts:

So about an hour or so ago, I had another go. It started off in a similar way to how the previous 10 minutes ended. I had a pretty useless team, so I pretty much gave up trying to go for the objective, and just focussed on getting kills.

I'm not sure what to make of the map (Metro). I've seen a lot of negative comments about it on here, but to me it seemed ok. I think that there's more of an issue with the spawn system and how it conflicts with the map layout than anything being wrong with the map itself.

Towards the end of my second play session is when things started to go downhill, rapidly. Suddenly, the game started to go all glitchy, and I would spawn, teleport to another place on the map, get killed, then be shown a player who was also dead as being the one who'd just killed me.

These weren't the first major glitches, either. During my first 10 minute session, I was taken out by a sniper who was actually under the map.

From a CoD players perspective:

This looks like a game that needs another 3 months of hardcore crunching to iron out all of the bugs rather than one that is due out in less than a month. You've got people commenting above, saying that they genuinely believe that DICE has intentionally made the game look worse than it should. So that should pretty much sum up just how far they need to go in terms of polishing up the visuals.

The gameplay for the beta is the same tried and tested Rush gameplay that you either like or don't, so I won't bother to comment on that. There were some pretty intense gun fights in the subway in one game that I had, which were really fun. So gameplay wise, I can see how BF fans will enjoy this version in the same way that they enjoyed previous ones. The spawn system in Rush just isn't for me. They might (almost certainly will) have something different for other modes, so I'm not going to consider that too much in forming an opinion of what I've seen so far.

I first got into CoD because of the CoD4 beta on 360. I'd bought CoD3 on the recommendation of someone who played CoD2 regularly, and I just didn't like it. I genuinely wasn't expecting to like CoD4 as much as I did, but ever since that beta, I still have the 'just one more go' feeling after almost every game.

I don't have that feeling with this version of BF. I still feel like playing it again a few times before the beta ends, but just for a casual play, rather than a CoD-like stat building session that keeps you coming back for more.

Conclusion:

People have called MW3 out for being more of the same. But what that really means is that they're releasing a solid game, which has been refined and improved over a number of years. From the beta, BF3 gives the impression of being such a fresh start, that it'll have to go through all of the teething problems that MW3 doesn't have to. If BF3 is released as a solid, 99% bug free game, then I'd probably buy it and spend a few hours in the MP. But that's a pretty big if.

At the moment, I'm not going to buy BF3. I'm still waiting for the reviews, but unless they all declare a huge difference between the final product and this beta, I'll be giving this a miss.

Posted 1 year ago #
DrDamn
Member

Fair comments G1GA. One point though, the kill cam is what you killer is doing now, so perfectly possible that they are now dead.

I agree the movement and aiming has become more CoD like, and that's a good thing. I hope this beta is a fairly old build, I found it fairly buggy - though not unplayably so. Map wise I really enjoyed it because I see it as offering something different to the more open maps - of which there will be many. So this is variety and therefore a good thing. One of the things MW does well is a variety of maps which encourage different approaches.

Posted 1 year ago #
viralshag
Member

Nice write up G1GA, I'm not really a diehard fan of either franchise but I would say in terms of game time, MW/CoD probably just edges in front due to some seriously long addicting sessions, especially if I find myself on a roll.

I enjoy Metro too, I like the level design, as I said in another comment I think you have the options to play it as either a run and gun map or more strategically. I find if the defenders really dig in, position well and in my case when I'm talking with friends on Vent, you can really make it an impossible task for the attackers.

As everyone keeps saying, it is a beta and bugs should be expected. I personally think that some of the bugs should really have been sorted for an open beta, things like the shooting-while-in-the-ground and falling into the map, but maybe as others say it is an older build.

I'm most likely going to pick up both shooters because I really feel they offer two different styles of gameplay, I can sit down for a quick 20 minutes and get a lot more enjoyment out of a few games of CoD over one map of BF.

Posted 1 year ago #
Lounds
Member

@deathgaze

I have 4850
and I am experiencing similar problems, I also found that spawning on a squad member seemed to be dead laggy and almost seemed the game was going to crash any second. Also I think the Radeon drivers are to blame as well, I'm going to fully uninstall and reinstall the display driver and see if that helps. BC2 I could run on medium to high @1080, but I started playing BF3 at medium settings it ran ok, but then it got worse so set it to low and it still seemed to stutter, I will say this much the game looks prettier than bc2 even on low settings.

Posted 1 year ago #
OlderGamer
Moderator

In a nut shell, and without my ussual long winded post - I didn't like it.

I played both the PS3 and the xb360 versions. Both full of bugs. The PS3 version doesn't look as nice as the xb360 version, particulary when it comes to textures and horizon flicker.

I had this game on preorder, and now toying with the idea of canciling.

Posted 1 year ago #
GrimRita
Member

I dont know why you are waiting for reviews Gig. Because looking at the amount of advertising cash EA are splashing, they have secured at least a 9/10.

Looking back at history, BC2 never had a single mention in reviews about its glaring bugs and I expect more of the same when reviews go live for this. I have 2 ATi cards and didnt experience any lag but spawning in squads is a huge issue because its crap.

You can be behind a small wall and if a team mate spawns on you, it pushes you out into the line of fire. There's alot of issues still in the game as Ive posted about before and for me, BF3 is NOT a day 1 purchase.

Posted 1 year ago #
G1GAHURTZ
Member

Hmmm... Good point, GrimRita.

I've been thinking for a while now that reviewers will be under huge pressure to score this game highly.

I suppose I'm just hoping to find at least one honest review that mentions the problems shown in the beta and if they've been addressed or not.

Interestingly enough, there was a negative-ish article on IGN about the way that BF3 was shaping up just a few days ago...

Posted 1 year ago #
OrbitMonkey
Member

I really liked the beta, its a wonderful lens of truth. I was very tempred by all the promises of *innovation*, but really its frostbite with a lick of paint, the ability to go prone & the gameplay I experienced with MoH.

Great if you like that i guess. Plus as I think Its been mentioned elsewhere, graphically its no real stunner on either console...

Posted 1 year ago #
PenTaFH
Member

I'm a little horrified of what DICE has developed here, and I'm probably not buying it.

First off, I've played the game on all platforms. I quit both console versions quite fast, and though that pretty much is because controllers, FPS'es and me just don't mix well, I also was utterly impressed by how not impressing the graphics were.

On PC I had a rough start, as first Origin was (quite foreseeable, and thus preventable) overwhelmingly swamped with downloads of the beta, and the EA download servers were just unreachable. Second, the game was installed, but wouldn't boot. Probably because of localization, but someone had been so smart to name the game folder Bèta instead of Beta, while all programmers know that Windows doesn't like special characters in file/foldernames. After having to change that manually, as DICE and EA were unwilling/unable to fix this huge issue, I was able to play.
The game itself looks fantastic. The fact that snipers are quite easily visible because of the lens flare from the scope is an awesome touch that gives you a fighting chance against those prone bastards.
But technically, the game is so flawed. Dropping through maps, major lagspikes, grenades bouncing against air, my knife never hitting any targets... but worst of all, far from all of my progress is being saved. One moment I unlock an ACOG for my gun, next match, gone.

Battlelog. Oh, EA, you screwed the pooch there. The entire process of booting the game is just tiresome. Open up Origin, open up Battlelog, look for a decent server, which takes about 5 minutes, and then the game doesn't even boot in Full Screen mode. In the forums, the search function is not even working, so for every problem I had, I would need to either find the appropriate topic by hand, or start my own (like a LOT of people have done already). The whole thing just feels way too forced.

I'm terribly disappointed in DICE and EA at the moment. I thought, like a lot of people, that this would be a serious contender for the title of FPS King. But no, I'm afraid BF3's beta is scaring more players away than swaying them to join the ranks.

So, probably no FPS's for me this winter.

Posted 1 year ago #
mojo
Member

this beta so far is the fail of the year.
How can one sole product make so many many things so profoundly wrong?

http://i.imgur.com/Ru8PR.jpg
with this unbearable UX im surprised its only 34k.

Posted 1 year ago #
LOLshock94
Member

game plays like shit its just battlefield bad company 2 with an addition of more recoil and prone thats it plus map does help the game in anyway

Posted 1 year ago #
GwynbleiddiuM
Member

Well, you might know me as a Battlefield fanatic, but I have to agree with a large portion of what worries everyone. In addition, it feels like an alpha or even pre-alpha build. There's just so many things wrong with the game, and balance issues are my greatest concerns.

I don't get it why UMP45 is such an imba weapon in most shooter games (read CoD) yet it was never preferred as a primary weapon of choice by any special force. Weapon balance is even worse than MW2.

Scope-less sniper rifles are OP, Machine guns work better than sniper rifles in most cases, long-range, mid-range, close quarter. and these are just balance issues, the entire game engine feels like it's falling apart, so many glitches and bugs.

Last night I was playing as recon was covering behind a rock, crawled over to the side and everything I shot hit an invisible wall around the corner of the same rock I was behind yet someone took me from way long range with a goddamn UMP45.

Flashlight in bright daylight is just killing me. I can't stand how blinding that light is. no matter the range no matter the amount of light in the environment it will blind you.

Run n Gun is just wrong for a Battlefield game, for attracting CoD crowd and luring them into battlefield DICE have sank itself so low that I can't hope for a comeback whatsoever.

Posted 1 year ago #
manamana
Member

^Everything you said +1

But what worries me the most, despite spawning issues is the weapon balance. Its no good sign having huge unbalanced weapons in the Beta. The 870 is so overpowered, its ridiculous. Its still a Beta, though. Nonetheless day1 for me, because Rush on operation métro is not the real BF deal.

Posted 1 year ago #
John117
Member

@manamana Unbalanced weapons are a must in every game, CoD weapons go through a evolusion from bad, ok, insanely overpowered until finnaly just good. Just like hand grenades where small atom bombs in Halo: Reach beta, people made Bungie aware of it and it was fixed in the final game. I cant say I'm very afraid of DICE failing this game on release, they have tons of experience and enough games behind their backs to have earned our trust. And if anyone are confusing a beta with demo, read this,
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/devblog/view/2826551895466424877/

Posted 1 year ago #
sg1974
Member

Deciding you won't buy a game based on a poorly-executed beta is plain stupid. If you are unsure about it, just hold off for a few days after launch and look at al the reviews and user feedback from the retail build.

And asking reviewers to review the game based partly on the beta is abso-fucking-lutely moronic.

Posted 1 year ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

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Posted 1 year ago #
Crab of Thunder
Member

Finally got round to playing this and after all the hype I've seen this was almost laughable. It was all right I guess but I found it very dull and uninteresting, and also it looked quite bad visually.

It wasn't long till I went back on Gears 3.

Posted 1 year ago #
manamana
Member

^had no fun? Check this out then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6VBG22ZBz4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Posted 1 year ago #
polygem
Member

@crab...agree. gears 3 is just so awesome. it´s hard anyway to play anything else multiplayer wise for me atm. everything else seems to be the wrong choice- i never even was a big gears fan, i played and enjoyed 1 and 2 but never was a fan of the mp... gears 3 changes that. this game is amazingly polished and fun. can´t stop playing it. it really is almost flawless imo....but back to topic. BF3: it´s only a beta and i wont cancel my preorder because i still believe and / or hope dice will deliver - but i was really dissappointed with the beta. i agree with the balancing issues, the addition of these bs lights, the changes more to a cod gameplay and the overall look of the game on the 360 left me realy unimpressed. imo bfbc2 is the better looking game right now. BUT...i still believe it will become a great game, maybe not just the überbattlefield game i was hoping for and which they kinda promised us...

Posted 1 year ago #
sg1974
Member

manamana,

That's the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I actually have tears rolling down my cheeks.

"Let's inspect his asshole!"

Hilarious.

Posted 1 year ago #
sg1974
Member

Fucking awesome. "Scopes are for pussies".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0r-7iYf9qI&NR=1

Posted 1 year ago #
Dralen
Member

Funny how people are complaining about the bugs in a beta. Did anyone try the Bad Company 2 beta? That was just as bad if not worse, and that turned out ok.

Posted 1 year ago #
DSB
Member

I'd strongly disagree with that Dralen. Pretty much all of the bugs that annoyed me in the beta were right there in the release build.

They did fix the worst bugs within a month, but they still launched the game with gamebreaking bugs. Fuck knows how long it took to get the "Play Now" function to work.

Posted 1 year ago #

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