Category: Battlefield 3

@39181245 WerTicus writes…
[“Less of that please i like to be able to win because of my skills not because i picked the wrong class or vehicle.”]

This will always be a problem in this type of game*. Short of giving everyone a counter to everything.

*class based with vehicles that can only be destroyed by some weapons/vehicles. Hell even just class based games that are rock > paper > scissors style.

Things being OP are fun, they can make games that turn one way or the other quickly. Red armour, quad damage and rocket launcher in quakeworld? Check. UT weapons all being able to instagib players, even with high health? The UT big armour being worth more than three times the next armour down? check. and so on. These things made the games good, along with good gameplay.

However even with the best gear in older FPS you could die, easily. Got red and quad? Maybe the other team will flood you down with spawners. Sure you got six kills but you died away from the red armour room and now the enemy has a rocket launcher in there denying it for the next minute. Got hold of the big armour spawn? Well they have the weapon spawns now and will beat your ass to a pulp shortly.

Of course using these things takes skill, and team coordination, but anything can kill anything. At similar skill levels you get good games. At uneven skill levels you get scorelines of 300-50.

The problem with BF is that everything is just handed out. Realistically with 64 players and the load outs available jets should be gibbed as soon as they come near enemy players. 32 potential stingers (even if they are not good) will take down your jets and choppers, or at the very least deny your area completely.

Everything should be countered as soon as it comes to bear. Tank? 5 RPGs will take care of it.

The only thing this does not apply to is infantry gameplay. You can’t just spawn as a tank to kill three infantry guys.

The above not happening simply highlights the mentality of pub gaming.

@38583936 Code1026 writes…
[“Waypoints, map markers & other (well built) in-built Squad management tools can do nothing but help the game.”]

In reality players do not listen to “Attack this objective”, way points will be of no use to get them to comply with your wishes.

[“You don’t wanna use them, don’t”]

I would – unlike the general consensus in this thread, I thought the squad leader tools in BF3 were actually useful if used. Again they were simply not used.

[“ – but there is no reason not to include them in such a team-work orientated game to make those who would use them happy.”]

Catering to every little want does not usually happy – dev time is spent on other things. Enough reason to not include them. Why should they waste time growing a tool that got no use in BF3?

[“The best games had are with a squad who works together.”]

This is still the case, however I stand by my statements (in this thread and the BF3 one) pointing out how players do not play as a team, even in the most simple ways (Spawn -> assist), why is this going to improve it? Because over the life of BF3 the vast majority of lamenting VOIP/commander flat out state that it will, without a doubt, improve teamplay significantly.

If players don’t grasp the simple idea of spawn -> assist then I don’t really think any amount of tools will help.

[“ In BF2 it was a much lower ratio of people who used them than those who didn’t, but having the ability to name your squad to something like “Active Orders” always attracted like minded players who did use the tools.”]

I think VOIP over a waypoint system would help more. I don’t think VOIP would help all that much getting players to actually play together.

[“Pressing a button to highlight one point on the map that every player is either going for, or camping out anyway is not adequate.”]

To be fair even that is not required. You spawn on your squad member and look at what they are doing. Lets say you spawn on a guy near market on bazaar, near rubble road corner. Your team does not have alley currently. There are two squad members there approaching market (point C).

(referernce: http://symthic.com/aenonar/Maps/Bazaar.jpg)

Players will do all sorts of things at this point. Run off backwards to alley. Go to garage rather than advancing into market. Prone where they spawned even though it has no LOS into market really. Back up to point D. Assist taking market.

All these choices have different permutations, the guy going back to alley might stop in the tunnels near cafe and ADS camp towards alley door for some reason? He might rush and die. He might.. you get the idea.

This is to illustrate two points/problems.

First – Players do not play as a team. The team thing to do would be spawn and then assist whatever the guys you are spawning on are doing. Some of the actions mentioned previously would be obviously teamplay centric. Assist taking market? Check. Possibly going garages.. No tools will fix players making the other calls – I would be surprised if changing the obvious metrics from K/D to flag caps/assists/etc would help with decision making, a plot of the players that make the wrong call are simply not getting good KDR anyway. Commander, VOIP and now better “squad tools” are trotted out to fix this problem but the issue goes deeper than flashy arrows.

Is the player the other squad members are spawning on making the right call taking market?

Overall player mentality is broken. Or rather it is if you are trying to play the game as serious business. A big part of that is because it is a game and people play games to have fun.

Secondly BF3 had a relatively large* player base at its peak, relatively speaking. I played 300 hours logged and over 50 on scrims, not a huge amount considering how much some people play. I would say my in game choices were often overly aggressive – I don’t want to sit around and wait for stuff, especially when I have just spawned. In the time I played I did not actively seek out players to pub with, I have a small friends list that mostly consists of captians from other 4v4 teams as well as my team mates – who I rarely pubbed with. To this end I can count on one hand the number of times I squadded with the same players.

Where is this going? I would not be able to tell you if the guy I am playing with right now is good or not, chances are I have never squadded with him and will likely not do so in the future again. This means that I have no idea if he is going to make good decisions as a player and for his team mates. Ergo why would I want to follow his – rather specific – instructions if there was some sort of waypoint system implemented? Thanks but no thanks.

So who is this for? Do the serious crowd want a feature like this? Obviously unable to speak for all of them, but in my experience the team I played with would not use it. We had names for everything on the maps we played regularly and were able to assign and coordinate strategy quickly using voice. The mini-map by itself is a huge benefit for corridiating, without saying or doing anything. Check team mate locations, fill gap/assist vs spotted incoming. Done.

The crowd of semi – serious gamers that want to play Battlefield 4 together and pub but do not want to play competitively? This seems to be the group that is posting on whirlpool about the topic heavily, and these tools could possibly help them. Surprisingly they seem content with VOIP in BF3 but “it could be better with waypoints”. Why these guys? Because they play together regularly and they know each other and in game choices they would make. This means they can trust the decision of their squad leader, unlike my example where listening is likely to get me killed.

*Please concentrate on one game mode and stop fragmenting the community this time around DICE. Don’t have normal and hardcore, don’t have instant vehicles as an option on ranked servers. Don’t allow something like metro as the only “small” three point option for 64 players – either allow all on small+64 or allow none. Balance your game and then release it, the piddling changes that occurred after release pale in comparison to the balance of instant vehicle vs normal vehicles. Its funny that you bothered tweaking rifles so hard but then allow that sort of thing.

Waypoints, player allocation tools and other micro management tools are a waste of time for Battlefield 4. Players will not listen to them and they have no reason to, with the bulk of pub players not playing with friends regularly and basically not trusting the people they play with.

Are you looking for a strategy for Operation Metro map in Battlefield 3? Lucky for you I am an expert in.. well, not metro but disparaging horrible map/game design choices.

First up lets define what is refered to by metro. Specifically conquest, +200% ticket, 64player spam fests. Not one to be hung up on arguments of skill, but the stratless tube that is metro surely has little.. of anything. Even action is lacking. Rush, TDM, Squad rush and other game modes are not metro when most players discuss metro.

Look guys, you really need to get out more if you are still enjoying metro after all this time. The lack of strategy or tactics (or anything really) required is borderline retarded. With that said, lets get down to business!

Why is Metro so popular

There are a number of reasons – it manages to cram a large number of players into a small area better than most other vanilla maps. With all the other vanilla and Back to Karkand maps you cannot run (without manually admin changing the level) 64 players on conquest small maps*. This meant that out of the box the only three flag map available to 64p admins was metro. You could of course play 64 player TDM, but generally did not end up with the “front” that forms on metro (more on this later).

*These are a lot more fun than metro.

The original theory was that metro players wanted unlocks. I played some operation metro while getting BF3 unlocks and it did speed up the process marginally. However not being OCD this was only required for 2-3 weapons. Maybe for below average players who wanted every unlock under the sun this could have been a reason for the first.. six months? Can’t imagine it taking much longer than that. Spam dem hallways boys.

The next theory was players wanted rank 100, specific dog tags or simply to inflate their stats. With the advent of double XP we see even more reason to push for crazy high SPM.

This is a decent theory, at least it took a while to be debunked. Now metro is full of players at rank 100, who only play metro. Was their taste tainted by playing so much to get there.

I think in truth they like it. This does not bode well for future releases of the game or other developers watching Battlefields progression, but that is the topic for another article.

So metro strategies? Please!

There is no strategy as such for metro (see metro definition above, this does not apply to squad rush or even conquest with reasonable player numbers. However this is not metro.). Teams line up at various choke points* and try to kill each other. Generally no players push, the ones that do will occasionally get past the front and maybe their squad mates will spawn on them. I don’t think this is really a strategy, it is just how they choose to play. There are no flanking options, no brain options when doing this. You can identify the least guarded route, but with 32 players and three avenues of attack you are going to run into a problem of facing off at least 5:1. Probably worse odds.

*Popular ones are Side/front/back stairs, tickets vs outside, US first flag and both team spawns.

There is no strategy, get over it 😀

So you want strategies and tactics for squad rush in battlefield 3? Offering up my clans defence positions and offence strategy is not really an option, the other guys would not appreciate it. Lucky for you, the reader, I believe a much better way to learn 4v4 is to think about a number of factors that influence how the offence and defence game plays.

Also never fear, defence setups and offensive plans will be shared, if only to highlight some ideas. Feel free to use them, but keep in mind if you limit yourself by only using them they will hamper your game.

I played a lot of TDM and CTF around 2000 and skipped counterstrike, call of duty and the like. For me this is the first game that involved round/blowing up bombs/offence defence games. Battlefield 3 squad rush is enjoyable and the BF3 dynamics of spawning on team mates makes its smaller scale game modes interesting and different to the others. As such I have had to learn the basics that may come naturally to old hand CS/COD/etc players. The other members of my team that play regularly are in a similar boat, either playing older FPS or having never gamed in a competitive manner before. Competing with newer players is fun and they bring a freshness and enthusiasm that gave a spring back to my gaming.

One thing that many newer players get hung up on is aim and killing efficiency, this is not bf3, squad rush specific and applies to FPS in general. There are lots of guides, forum threads, blog posts and more about how to improve your aim, game settings and mice to achieve better results. It is possible to play and rely on this, however knowing you and your teams limits and playing accordingly is important. Playing with more brain than aim is not always considered by new teams, or any teams. This is not to say that you can get by with no killing power, I would suggest running 13-15% on your weapon of choice factoring out suppression. Check individual games on similar maps for weapon accuracy, using overall is not really a great idea.

This series of articles is intended to assist teams getting some wins, without relying on awesome aim. If you have aim, then good, but if you don’t you can quite often eek out a win, if only because many players lean on that particular crutch and forget about everything else.

So with that out of the way lets look at a few ideas that apply to 4v4 squad rush. Teamplay, stacking in your favor, time before engagement and coordination are the general topics of this post. Map specifics will follow later.

Teamplay Strategy in BF3 Squad Rush

Battlefield 3 is obviously a team game. If you are planning on being remotely copmetitive you need to play together. This may sound obvious but players often decide to run off and do their own thing – it may even be a good call – but when they do it alone they will quite often fail. On defence this leaves holes in your line and ramboing is simply a waste of tickets when attacking. Keep in mind that even if you achieve your goal by yourself there may be problems going forward. Imagine going top corner -> out of bounds in order to backdoor C building on Seine. You get in and kill the two guys. This is a good outcome but depending on how the round is playing you may have problems being alone or team mates getting to you. In addition there are two enemy player spawning in the not too distant future. Depending on how the round is playing and where your team is located these players spawning in could make it 3v4 for your squad.

Playing in pairs would be the minimum. Running as two pairs in close proximity would be even better. Being close is important for a number of reasons:

• On offence reviving allows you to draw out your tickets as long as possible. On defence it stops gaps forming.
• It allows stacking of firepower and brute forcing your enemies by creating 4v2, this is especially true when attacking.
• Covering of all possible approaches creating a “safe” environment, lowering the chance of being flanked.

These points lead us into the next concept..

More Tactics: Stacking in your favour in 4v4

At all times your team should be aiming to stack players, Firepower, coverage, revives, ticket savings and so on.

An analogy is required to demonstrate.

You have a room with four doors on defence. With four players you can cover one door with four players or each door with one player. As offence you can attack that room the same way. One on each door to four on one door.

In this scenario as offence you should always push one door together or split and push two doors as pair. You have the element of surprise, if one player is covering each door you flood him then play 4v3 in your favor. If they are covering one door you have a 25% chance to die – but who would split like that? Noone, thats who.

A simplistic example to be sure, however it applies well to many situations in squad rush.

Time before no turning back – Squad rush engagement tactics

This is an important concept for 4v4 in battlefield 3 as it is the cornerstone of every attacking round. Ideally your team wants to play to limit ticket loss at all times. There are places and methods on most maps that reduce ticket loss significantly.

Playing close to each other is a good start. The goal is to setup in pairs at specific points on the map and dig in, almost like playing defence. If you are looking for BF3 squad rush tips you are probably not top tier, like my team. By playing defensive, especially at lower skill levels where rushing/uncoordinated attacks are common you can turn many games into wins, just by being less aggressive.

The goal is to play in this way until you can progress forward. Metro mcom 1 is very linear in this way. Firstly as attackers your team should take lockers and the area near lifts. Your team can hang here for quite a while with two players in lockers and two at lifts – you are quite safe even from enemy going downstairs and attacking from behind, both pairs can support each other in the case of this.. Generally pushing from lifts is not overly successful, but going to lifts to get an overview of the enemy setup around backstairs/tickets/couches is a good idea as well as killing anyone hiding at couches. Once couches is dead you can play however you want. Sometimes pushing side door via phones is good. Sometimes the lift pair going downstairs and coming up backstairs closer to tickets is good.

Play safe until you feel confident to commit. Committing in the previous example would be advancing down lockers and possibly pushing side door or tickets.

Coordination in Squad Rush

Use coordination to make stacking work in your favor when playing squad rush. This is a very on the fly thing and requires communication. Using the previous metro example – if you are pushing mcom 1 and one pair is going lockers side door and the other pair is going lockers hallway, there should be talk leading up to the push along the lines of “ready? ok we are going now”. Once the lead pair have indicated they are going the other pair can watch the map, negating the need for the lead pair to communicate that they are now at the top of stairs, now at side door, etc.

Another example would be the pair at lockers on offence. One player can go across the hallway and stay behind the locker in the corner. This pair can peek at the same time, multiplying the firepower on the defender at end of lockers. Again communication is required to line both up at the same time.

Overall squad rush is about team work and communication. This post will have follow ups for more map specific ideas and teamwork examples.

• Operation Metro
• Grand Bazaar
• Noshahr Canals
• Kharg Island
• Seine Crossing
• Damavand Peak
• Caspian Border
• Tehran Highway

This question seems to pop up on whirlpool semi frequently so it is probably worth looking at. The answer is very dependent on your play style, how you want to play, what gametypes you play and how you aim.

A quick recap of heavy barrel and suppressor mechanics.

Heavy barrel
Reduces ADS spread by a lot
Increases damage drop off start and extends end
Increases vertical recoil
Increases hip fire spread by a lot

Overall this means a weapon with heavy barrel is more accurate and capable dealing damage to a longer range than a weapon with another attachment. The main trade off is vertical recoil which is easily controlled in battlefield 3. There is a reason this is probably the most popular attachment for assault and carbines – its negatives are not very impactful and its pros are excellent. Apparently the original release of bf3 had the HB adding more additional spread to each bullet that left the barrel when bursting. Thus after around 7-8 bullets there was so much spread the player had to stop firing. This was removed but not mentioned in patch notes at the time.

Suppressor
Hides fire actions on the mini map
Slightly reduces vertical recoil
Increases AD spread
Reduces muzzle velocity
Reduces maximum fall off distance
Increases hip fire spread

I whored the suppressor before the first big patch and have hardly touched it since.

Overall the suppressor modifiers are killer. Damage, accuracy reduction through spread and via not using the heavy barrel, shorter effective range. Feels like shooting spit balls. 1-2 additional bullets to kill and you have to lead significantly more due to the massively reduced muzzle velocity and drop.

The largest benefit is hiding you on the mini map.

The problem with heavy barrel

There is no problem, the attachment is too good and leaves little opportunity for variation because of this. DICE stated at one point that the naked weapon should be the benchmark and perform in the middle of attachments, however this is not the case. Because of vertical recoil mechanics the heavy barrels main negative is easily controllable. You can really feel the weapon downgrade when not using the heavy barrel, accuracy is out the window.

So… heavy barrel is the best?

If you had asked me a week ago I would have said yes, however the past 3-4 squad rush games along with some pubbing has made me appreciate the suppressor a little more. For reference I run AEK + foregrip. I have not always been a heavy barrel lover as I used and abused the suppressor until it was nerfed (and heavy barrel buffed) in the first patch.

The main point to note in relation to the ADS spread reduction is that it simply does not matter all that much unless the enemy player is quite a distance away. The spread patterns on symthic for various guns look terrible, however that is at a distance. Up close to around 50m I think the suppressor is most excellent. In squad rush this is compounded by the fact that most teams my clan has played run heavy barrels or flash suppressors. This means it is a little different and throws something else into the mix that they need to deal with and at my teams play level they may not be able to do this in the three sets of a game. For squad rush in a competitive environment I don’t know if it would be viable for a whole team to run suppressors, but one or two people would probably be decent.

You do need to keep a few things in mind – it suits a roaming role better than a stationary role, or if the role is stationary on defence you have a few different peek position options.

There are some situations where I would take always a heavy barrel. For instance on metro. If my job is peeking lockers while attacking I would take heavy barrel. The distance is enough and the encounters very brief – every bullet counts. Hiding your location does not benefit you because that particular encounter is extremely linear and a player is almost always there.

Final word on the suppressor

I have enjoyed it lately, even in competition games that I would usually not use it. It makes it slightly different at at my teams level (not awesome but not crap) I feel one player running it gives us an advantage, if only because the other teams are not used to it.

I would not run one on 64p crowded maps due to so many players in a small area – you are likely to get spotted anyway. I would not run one on the armored kill maps that frequently have long range encounters. I would not run suppressor if you play at a low level for fun – players at this level are not likely to use the mini map as heavily, removing the main reason for running a suppressor.

Finally if you are very accurate you may notice the decrease from the heavy barrel, even at close range.

There are two main gun mechanics in BF3. Recoil and Spread.

Every bullet that leaves your weapon has a small amount of randomness added to it, this is referred to as spread.

Some attachments add spread, some remove it. Spread is uncontrollable randomness and the reason why I initially advised against using foregrip.

Spread appears to be the mechanic that DICE use to make hip fire inaccurate, however it still exists when aiming down sights.

The only way to counter it is using a heavy barrel.

The AEK is one of the most popular assault weapons in BF3. It has always been among the more popular assault rifles and has suffered nerfs, attachment buffs and nerfs to other weapons that made it more appealing.

Since the release of Battlefield 3 the AEK971 has been worth using. At no point was it bad enough to relegate to the pile of average guns, provided a player learnt when to full auto + correct fire and when to burst. And also it did not really matter what setup you ran on it. Originally the suppressor or heavy barrel with foregrip was decent, then the suppressor went out of vogue and the heavy barrel was the goto for all assault weapons. Finally the flash suppressor became a useful alternative. The laser sight has always been an option but most players go for a P90 or other PDW rather than using an assault rifle in the hip firing role. This does not mean that the AEK cannot sit in this niche comfortably.

Enough prattle, what attachments should I use now with the AEK

The AEK is the only assault rifle worth putting a foregrip on. Foregrip removes horizontal recoil and adds spread on a weapon by weapon by weapon basis. On all the other ARs the extra spread it adds is not offset by the recoil reduction. However with the AEK the positives are larger than the negatives. You should use it at all times if you want to use the AEK971, which means you cannot use a bipod or underslung weapon. If either of those are important pick any other AR.

The heavy barrel is the next go to for the AEK. It really brings spread under control and makes weapons much more aimable. The HB is the most popular attachment.

The flash suppressor is an ok choice if you are aiming to fire long bursts as it cuts down recoil.

Finally the laser sight. Many people prefer the PDW weapons because they have less recoil and spread so are more controllable from the hip. I find the higher damage and higher rate of fire sutis my play style better, not to mention the weapon can be used at range whereas a PDW is quite useless.

See my older article if you want a break down on sight choices

In conclusion, the best attachments are the heavy barrel and foregrip, along with the Kobra.