Category: Battlefield 3

A breif run down of the best guns since the weapon changes in the Close Quarters June DLC/patch. These are the most rounded and useful weapons. Just a short post for those wanting a recap.

Best Assault Gun

The best class specific weapon is still the M16A3. The second best weapon is the AEK-971. It has been this way with since release really, with the AEK being slightly best post CQ due to a foregrip buff. Some players think the M16A3 is overpowered; my thoughts on the matter here.

I prefer the AEK but the M16 is more reliable and easier to use. The M16 is the best because you can spray at medium range for kills. Recoil is primarily vertical and easily controlled by counteracting using your mouse. Spread is not over the top and still decent when emptying a clip in a single burst from close to medium. At longer ranges it maintains its accuracy and has a decent rate of fire that allows it to hold its own against the big close range guns; AEK-971, F2000 and FAMAS. Reload is nice and fast, especially when not empty. The M16 is generally run with a heavy barrel and red dot scope. For attachment reasoning see this post. For sight reasoning see this post. If you wanted to run something different the M416 is the an almost exact replica, with slightly lower rate of fire.

The AEK-971 is a close second and slightly harder to use. You need to burst with it at medium range (full auto is fine in close) due to its somewhat stronger recoil and spread. It will easily eat M16 users at close range but take care at medium as requires a little discipline to not go full auto here. If you choose the AEK as your best gun you should run heavy barrel and foregrip. It is the only assault rifle worth using with a foregrip currenty.

Best Engineer Gun

The best engineer weapon is the M4A1. For similar reasons as the M16A3.

Best Recon Gun

Probably the M417. Beasty.

Best Support Gun

From the LMGs you don’t have much to pick from. Take a PDR or shotgun.

Best PDW

The P90 with laser is epic for hip firing. The AS VAL is good if you want to play recon or support with an assault rifle style weapon.

Best Shotgun

The best shotgun is the SPAS-12 with slugs. The second best is the MCS-870. The SPAS is better because it has a slightly higher rate of fire. Since the CQ patch you have been able to one hit kill to around 40m with both weapons using slug ammo. Pretty sweet.

This is a common question I see popping up on various forums and there is a very easy explanation when it comes to attachment selection.

A weapons primary attribute is the most important factor when selecting the best attachment.

The primary attribute is the strongest point of a weapon. Listed below are the general attributes for each weapon family. These are guidelines only and some weapon classes have multiple niches. For instance the PDWs like the P90, PDW-R, MP7 etc are excellent when hip fired. The shotguns are good at close range and the assault rifles are better when aiming down the sights. Some of the more popular weapons are listed below with their specific benefits alongside. Keep the strong points in mind when selecting your attachments in order to further accentuate the strengths for a better weapon, rather than creating a more rounded weapon.

This article assumes the reader has mastered, or at the very least is aware of concepts such as recoil control and when/when not to aim down sights. Also basic gun mechanics are handy to know.

Basic gun mechanics

There are two main gun mechanics at play in BF3.

Recoil – the kick when a weapon is fired that causes the users aim to ride up. Can be controlled by gently aiming down to counteract recoil

Spread – Random deviation applied to every bullet that leaves the gun. This is applied to the first bullet and what causes the first bullet to not perfectly hit where it is aimed.

Both these values are increased by firing while moving and suppression. Standing gives the highest amount of each from the three stances (stand/crouch/prone) but crouch is not a large enough improvement over standing to bother using it. Prone is a decent step up and worth using if the situation seems appropriate. What is not appropriate is dolphin diving, the time between going prone and being able to fire effectively is too long.

Sorry about the weapon mechanics 101.

Battlefield 3 Attachments

This is the point where we go over the attachments and their specific mechanics.

Heavy Barrel reduces spread when aiming down sights, increases vertical recoil and decreases bullet falloff. It also has a small amount of extra recoil when hip firing. These weapon changes basically mean that your weapons are much more on target when ADS firing.

A heavy barrel gives greater accuracy for aimed fire, but increases the toal vertical muzzle climb due to the use of heavy match ammunition. Match rounds do not increase the overall damage of the weapon.

Laser Sight removes spread when hip firing. Has no benefits beyond that. The main drawback is the laser can be seen. It can be turned on and off.

The laser sight adds a visible laser aiming dot to the weapon which increases accuracy from the hip. The laser sight can dazzle enemies when turned on, but also reveals your position.

Flash Suppressor reduces vertical recoil when aiming. Adds extra recoil or spread or something when hip firing. The amount of recoil it reduces is quite large – however it does nothing for your spread. This means that your first shot still has the weapons default amount of spread, which is really unacceptable and inaccurate.

The flash suppressor hides muzzle flash but will not hide the player on the minimap. It also acts as a compensator, decreasing vertical recoil but reducing accuracy from the hip due to their additional weight.

Suppressor removes your arrow from the mini map when shooting. It also lowers spread. However it increases bullet drop off, causing your weapon to deal less damage. While this attachment was quite popular in the original release of Battlefield 3 it is outclassed by heavy barrel in its current iteration.

A sound suppressor will prevent the player from showing on the minimap when shooting by reducing sound and flash. The cold loaded ammo used by suppressed weapons travels slower and has a shorter range.

Flashlight is used to blind players. Is not overly useful and does not affect weapons beyond not being able to utilise a more useful attachment in its slot.

A tactical light lights up the dark environments with white light. In close quarters the tactical light can also disorient and temporarily blind others, but can also reveal your position.

Foregrip adds some spread and reduces recoil when hip firing. The foregrip has a small amount of extra recoil when ADS shooting.

A foregrip decreases the amount of horizontal muzzle drift when firing a weapon, giving better control overlong bursts. Vertical muzzle climb is unchanged and long range fire is less accurate.

Bi-Pod reduces spread and recoil to laserbeam proportions when deployed. Downsides? You have to deploy it and is rather clunky to use a result. For weapons where the foregrip is not useful players may like to take a bi-pod in its slot for the occasional utility it may provide. I would suggest rebinding your bi-pod deploy key if you opt to do this as having it on fire can slow down ADS when prone and get you killed.

The bipod can be attached to light machine guns (LMG), sniper rifles, assault rifles and carbines. It cannot be attached to the AKS-74u, G53, QBZ-95B or A-91.

Bipods allow the shooter to support their gun on flat horizontal surfaces, or when prone, to gain an increased accuracy and reduced recoil.

Optic attachments are covered in another article here.

Assault Rifle Attachments; Assault Attachments

Assault rifles in Battlefield 3 are primarily used ADS. They are effective to medium range by default and with the correct attachments effective to mid-long, even useful at long range in a pinch. Some assault rifles excel at close range and some are more effective at longer distance. Effective range really comes down to rate of fire – the higher rate of fire weapons such as the AEK-971, FAMAS and F2000 are more effective at close range due to the larger number of bullets possibly hitting the target on full automatic. These weapons are not overly effective at long range because their recoil and spread are too high. Of the three the AEK is the more rounded weapon and is at least usable at longer range, whereas the F2000 and FAMAS becomes rather useless and spreadtastic at around +30m.

The top 5 assault rifles based on popularity in BF3 are: M16 (M16A3), AEK-971, M416, F2000 and AK-74M.

All the assault rifles hip fire passably well, but like carbines players are probably better off aiming down sights at ranges over 5m. Even in closer ADS is advised if you are in control of the situation. This means if you are dictating the fight (or camping) and you are aiming the corners, you should be aiming rather than hip firing.

Since ADS is the primary attribute, the usage which the assault rifles excel at, the first attachment to pick is the heavy barrel. HB turns the assault rifles into almost pinpoint accurate killing machines. Most players will run the heavy barrel almost exclusively. This is because it removes a large amount of spread and the first bullet hit area is very close to the crosshair when aiming. Drawbacks from the heavy barrel; recoil is generally able to be compensated through aim while bursting and players generally live with the hipfire penalty because hipfire is not the prevalent use of the weapons.

The best attachment for assault rifles is the heavy barrel. As of the Close Quarters patch there is no discussion really. The suppressor is useful for its ability to hide players on the mini map, but the CQ patch totally killed damage at any sort of range. Apparently this may be fixed in future patches.

Laser sight for assault rifles is generally not useful as players do not hip fire them often. One exception may be the FAMAS which is apparently almost as useful as the PDWs when hip firing with a laser. However the weapon is pretty useless with a normal load out of assault rifle attachments.

Flash supressor is an interesting guy. At first glance he seems as useful as the heavy barrel. He removes quite a substantial chunk of recoil, making assault rifles more controllable. This is good. However once you realise that it does nothing to the first shot you understand how useless it is. The “hit area” is still large and spread is still a major pain in the ass.

Should I use a foregrip on my assault rifle. The short answer is; no, you should not. Unless you are running an AEK-971. Even with heavy barrel the weapon negatives do not outweight the positives on any gun except the AEK. More detail can be found here. The short version is that the foregrip changes each weapon differently and the only one that is enough to not be totally detrimental is the AEK.

The last attachment for assault rifles is the bi-pod. The Bi-pod is not really intended for use on ARs in Battlefield 3, however since you probably do not want a foregrip the bipod may add some utility now and then, unless of course you use underslung.

I like bipod when defending a very specific area; for instance tiles on bazaar. Besides this sort of scenario its not very useful, and can have a negative impact to your game if you leave the deploy bind on your ADS key. Rebind that asap!

Carbine Attachments; Engineer Attachments

Carbines in Battlefield 3 behave similarly to assault rifles. They are slightly faster when aiming down sights and their dropoff is shorter due to being lower powered. Per bullet damage is slightly less across the board, however at close to medium range this would at most be one extra bullet on target compared to an AR.

The top 5 carbines based on popularity in BF3 are: M4A1, G36C, A91, SCAR-H and AKS-74U.

Attachment wise carbines are the same as the assault rifles, however to my knowledge you do not want to ever run a foregrip on these guns. For carbines you should pick heavy barrel and rail/bipod. Again the heavy barrel provides superior spread reduction when ADS.

Light Machinegun LMG Attachments; Support attachments

I don’t know what to say about support players, I am personally not a huge fan as assault and engineer seem more useful, but many players opt for support with their hulking LMG and explosives.

The top 5 LMGs based on popularity in Battlefield 3 are: M249, PKP, M27, MG36 and RPK.

First and foremost I think the LMGs are generally fairly unreliable. First up there is no option for a heavy barrel so you get to play with the massively inaccurate default spread. Next up they all kick like rabid bulls and controlling the recoil is a total joke. If you are incapable of aiming you might be able to get by spraying and praying, sometimes.

For barrel attachments you can select from the flash suppressor or the suppressor. The suppressor suffers from the same drawbacks when used with the assault rifles and carbines; major bullet drop and damage reduction. The flash suppressor helps control recoil somewhat and is probably most players best option. If hipfire is important then taking no attachment would be the best route.

DICE intend the LMGs to be a setup weapon using bipods. In reality it does not work very well and you are easily killed by any semi competent players. I have had awesome rounds playing with the bipod, but I have had equally shocking rounds where I am picked off because of my stationary nature. Perhaps it is just how I play but I would say go for a shotgun or PDW (if you want an assault rifle the AS VAL is the closest available) over an LMG.

Sniper rifle attachments; Recon attachments

Lastly we will look at sniper rifle attachments. Choice is here limited similarly to the light machine guys. Sniper rifles can take the laser sight, flash suppressor(semi auto only), suppressor, bipod, straight pull bolt(bolt action only) and foregrip (semi auto only). Rifles are decent straight up and you could slap a sight, and straight pull if using bolt action on one and go from there. The other attachments are not overly useful. If you are playing aggressive recon with the SKS a laser sight might be useful for hip firing at close range, but you will probably get outclassed by most other guns.

Going the long distance sniper route means you cannot take the suppressor as the drop off is such a killer. The bipod does nothing for bolt actions because there is no kick between shots like with all the other weapons.

Foregrip is not overly useful for the semi auto rifles because the horizontal kick is fairly non-existent.

Take a scope and a straight pull. Add a taclight for annoyance.

Whaat. So what is the best attachement?

The start of the article mentioned that the weapons primary benefit should be focused on when selecting attachments. Keep you weapon of choices key good points in mind when selecting your attachments and you won’t go wrong.

Engineer; Vehicle Gameplay in Battlefield 3

Designed to support and destroy vehicees, the engineer class in Battlefield 3 multiplayer has the unique ability of repairing vehicles. The engineer class in BF3 has two tools to do this, a handheld repair torch and the remote control EOD Bot. As general rule players use the repair tool as it is much more reliable and always with the player. The EOD Bot is difficlt to control, can be desroyed and if not picked up when the engineer moves leaves the player missing a possible ability.

Along with repair ability the engineer class has vehicle destruction weapons. Perfect for shooting tanks, LAVs and aircraft. The RPG/SMAW is the staple explosive anti-vehicle weapon. Vehicle damage is directional, at least LAV and tank damage; getting behind your target and hitting rear armor yields much better results than shooting it in the face. RPGs can also be used for destroying buildings, either to drop masonry on enemy infantry or to take the front off buildings to allow easier access, and for killing infantry. Splash damage has been toned downsince the original Batlefield 3 release making it less effective but still decent.

The other two weapons that compete for the RPG weapon are the stinger; an anti aircraft launcher with aneffective range of 350m, and the Javelin; a lock on type weapon dealing more damage than the RPG with lower manueverabiity due to the requirement of lock for firing. The JAV can team up with recon and SOFLAM to target air vehicles and superior ground anti armor lock on.

Finally as engineer you can replace your repair torch/EOD Bot with land mines. Landmines persist through death but will probably only destroy inexperienced vehicle drivers as they are easily spotted. Either best left in a chokepoint or used agressively on trapped vehicles, mines can be handy for fast take downs but only if repairs are never needed. Mines are also handy on infantry only maps, traps can be set and detonated with grenades of RPG fire. Mines deal a great deal of damage to infantry with large blast radius.

Finally players who select engineer receive access to the engineers main weapon type, the carbine. Carbines in BF3 multiplayer are similar to assault rifles, execpt their operating range is slightly shorter and damage slightly less that their assault class counterpart. The one main difference is the rate of fire. While assault rifles offer options from slow shooting, hard hitting (G3A3) to the middle of the road, do everything M16A3 and finally the high ROF, excellent for close range AEK-971 and F2000. In comparison carbines offer selection of slow firing SCAR-H to the middle of the road M4A1. Carbines lack high rate of fire, close range weapon. The M4A1 is comparable to the M16A3, and Dice apparently balance all other weapons around the M4A1.

Engineer Perks

On vehicle maps most engineers would opt for the explosive perk unless another member of the squad has it select already. The explosive perk doubles the amount of RPG/stinger/JAV ammo as well as additional mines.

Popular engineer load outs.

Recon; Sniping Gameplay in BF3

Recon is intended as the sniping class in BF3 multiplayer. Arguments about how well recon fill this particular role rage back and forth since the beta. Most agree that the main problems for players using higher zoom scopes is scopeglint. This signals where the player is and allows non-scoped small arms fire to be returned. Snipers can be killed by asault, engineer or support players out to around 200m wih non-zoom attachments. Scope glint was posibly implemented in order to prevent close range quick scoping. At any rate I personally dislike dislike higer zoom scope and long range sniping as it puts you too far away from your squad.

Besides the obvious rifles, recon have access to a range of rather different gadgets. First up is the spawn beacon. The spawn beacon replaces the player in the deploy screen as a permenant spawn point and allows squad mates to spawn in. If placed inside buildings players spawn to it directly; if placed outside on non-infantry maps players spawn in with parachutes.

At first glance this may seem useless as you can spawn on any player in the squad anyway. However consider this; attacking an enemy posistion would require holding a player back to spawn on in case of wipes. This player can still offer ranged support but cannot assist in close quarters combat, building clearing and most importantly, reviving. With a spawn beacon in place just outside the attack area the full squad can approach. If the squad wipes they have a handy point close byto try from again. The spawn beacon is destroyed when the owner spawns on it. Remember to redrop when required

TUGS/MAV for Recon

These two gadgets are sensors that make players appear on the mini map when moving nearby. TUGs is dropped and has a sensing range of around 25m. When the recon moves on he must manually pick the TUGS unit up in order to use it later. TUGS is small and emits a beeping noise. Enemy players can hear it and may try to tack it down but thanks to its small size it can be difficult to locate.

MAV operates in a similar way and can also be flown via remote control. The MAV has IR vision and can be used for reconnisance and spotting. If used in the same way as TUGs the MAV is not as eggective due to its larger size and obviousness, an easy target.

SOFLAM is another gadget for recon in Battlefield 3

Manual and automatic JAV desinator. SOFLAM can be taken in place of MAV or TUGs. It can automatically assign targets for engineers using Javelins. Automatic assign is limited to land units and manual assign can designate air units in addition to ground. It can be effective for clearing the skies.

Continue Reading:

• Part 2Battlefield 3 Classes

Battlefield 3 is primarily a multiplayer game. Like its predecessors* Battlefield 3 revolves around multiplayer matches played online with human team mates and opponents. This aspect of gaming has appealed to me since playing Doom 2 via serial cable way back in 1994. Multiplayer has come a long way (and probably gone backwards) since Doom 2 but the premise is still the same. Kill the bad guys.

Mutliplayer in BF3 is as competitive and cut throat as other games. One can opt to play on public servers with any range of player skill, or participate in ladder/competiton play with organised teams. Team sizes can range all the way up to 32v32 (64 player), however many of the maps are ill suited to this player count. Sticking to 32-48 max, once you are used to the basics will generally provide a superiors BF multiplayer experience.

*Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Battlefiled 2, Battlefield 2142, Battlefield Bad Company 2,

Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Game Modes

Variety is the spice of life and game modes in Battlefiled 3 leave nothing out. At least nothing the modern gamer wants.

Battlefield 3 Out of the box

Maps: Grand Bazaar, Seine Crossing, Operation Metro, Kharg Island, Operation Firestorm, Caspian Border, Noshahr Canals, Damavand Peak, Tehran Highway

Conquest – Conquest Large

Conquest is the original multiplayer Battlefield game type. Present in every release of the franchise with the exepction of Bad Company 2 – conquest has stood the test of time and plays reasonably well.

Each map has pre-defined points (or flags). To capture points players must stand near the flag until it decaps to neutral and recaptures; a countdown appears for all players within range to indicate cap time.. Having additional players helping makes this process faster. On the flip side the defenders having the same number of players as the attackers stop capping. If attackers have three players and defenders have two the flag progresses at the speed of one attacker.

It may sound unusual having multiple players “at the flag”, but the flag area is rather large. Firefights can occur across the flag area as the defenders tend to spawn away from the attackers until the flag is decapped. Even then players spawning in on their squad mates at the flag can create drawn out battles over points.

Teams start with no flags in their “uncap”, their base spawn point where their starting vehicles live. From the outset of a round each team must advance across the map, capturing points as they go, typically meeting around the middle points for a good ol’ multiplayer mash up. The middle points on the Battlefiled 3 try to force conflict, by either having two points close to each other, so attackers/defenders can push against each other without long travel time (think hilltop/forest on caspian border and offices/construction on kharg island) or a single point that funnels each team into one place; think the middle point on firestorm.

Each team starts with a predefined number of points and the loser is the team to reach zero first. Points are called tickets in Battlefield 3 multiplayer. Tickets are lost when a player respawns, but not when they are revived by a medic. Tickets also “bleed” when one team controls more points than the other. Public multiplayer battlefield 3 games are quite often decided by ticket bleed. One team may have all the good KDR players but still loose due to never having enough points in their control.

Conquest large maps have more points than the regular conquest maps and typically have larger “in bounds” area as well.

Of the maps available Kharg/Caspian/Firestorm seem to be liked by the “old guard” Battfield players and most servers run a cycle of these three maps. The other three, Metro/Bazaar/Seine are infantry based with minimal vehicles. Servers often run these three maps in a cycle to appeal to that particular player segment.

Metro is the one stand out that gets played 100% on some servers (and fills up every night). This is because the conquest large map version has three points, when the conquest large on all other maps have 5-7 points. In addition the entire map takes place in a cramped subway station, leading to massive amounts of spam and high points. I feel this one aspect detracted and split the community too much on release.

While most vehicles are available from the teams uncap and must be driven from here back to the action after being destroyed, some flags also spawn vehicles. Examples of this would be the closest flags to the US/Russian uncaps on Caspian border – these points spawn additional tanks M1 Abrams for US and T-90A for RU. Taking the offensive to these flags early could yield an additional tank for your team!

Rush – Squad Rush

When compared to conquest, rush is a linear and focused gametype. Instead of free flowing map in conquest teams are pitted against each other over one or two objectives at once. The MCOMs. The defending team must protect their MCOMs and the attackers must destroy them by “planting” explosives on them. Unlike other games where engineers are required for planting, any class can plant in rush for Battlefield 3 multiplayer.

Attackers have a set number of tickets to use which are reset each time a new set of MCOMs are opened up.

Once a set of MCOMs is destroyed there is a breif preiod for the attackers and defenders to regroup for the next assault. During this time any deaths inflicted on the attackers come off their new set of tickets.

Squad rush is a smaller variation on this idea. Teams typically play 20 ticket rounds 4v4. In squad run there is only ever one MCOM to arm/defend at one time. Popular 4v4 squad rush maps are Operation Metro, Seine Crossing and Grand Bazaar.

Metro (Map MP_Subway)takes place inside the station and near the russian cafe. The initial MCOM is at the Russian end of “lockers” and the second MCOM is in the corner of the left hand building near the cafe flag. A tip for the first MCOM – taking and holding the ticket booth is very handy for both the attackers and defenders when playing organised squad rush.

Seine (Map MP_011) crossing takes place on the Russian spawn side. This map plays quite openly, with many avenues of attack. Defenders need to be on their toes to respond to pushes that may not come from their assigned defence location. Taking any of the buildings around the first MCOM is important and allows your team mates to spawn in, rather than run from your start spawn. The second MCOM is located in the bank behind the normal conquest uncap.

Bazaar (Map MP_001) takes place around the market area, with the first MCOM residing in the market building closest to the B alley exit. Attackers spawn in the back section of the alley and can attack down alley + curved/banana/golden alley or via main road that leads to the corner building and russian spawn in conquest. This MCOM tends to split teams quite heavily, allowing sneaky spawning + pushes to take the defenders unaware. The second MCOM on bazaar is located in the alleyway close to the russian spawn/burning bus.

Squad rush plays surprisingly slowly if you come from a larger pub gametype. Teams tend to face off with little action for long periods of time. Game time comes for the attackers when a kill (or pick) is made. The game becomes 4v3 (unless the pick is revived) for the next 15 seconds until the player spawns back in. During this time the attackers should try to capitalise on their advantage and either push for more ground; probably on the side the death occured, or even better push for more kills. If the attackers can down two players within a short time period they may be able to completely wipe the defenders and plant. When the defenders are players down they should ensure they play passively enough to have someone alive close to the action for spawning.

Communication is key in squad rush multiplayer. The next most important attribute is teamwork, or rather using the information that is being communicated effectively. Lastly is individual skill.

TDM – Squad TDM

Team Death Match is similar to COD versions and not really indicative of what TDM is all about – see Quakes or Unreals for an introductino to TDM. Both teams spawn opposite sides of the map and attempt to push into each others area. Once enough kills/distance has occured the “defender” or less aggressive teams spawn is moved, and the cycle repeats. TDM is not played competitively because (besides being crap) there are no objectives and it would turn into a massive camp fest.

TDM is excellent for practicing your infantry weapons. Pick a server running Noshahr or Kharg as they are the better close quarters maps.

Back to Karkand Expansion/DLC

Maps: Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Wake Island, Sharqui Peninsula.

Conquest Assault – Conquest Assault Large

Back to Karkand ships with new maps and a “new” gametype; Conquest Assault. Conquest assault plays similarly to normal conquest except there is now a defender and attacker. The defender starts with all the points and the attacker must take them from them. The defender has no uncap (execption being Gulf of Oman) and once the attacker has all the points and the defenders are all dead the round is over. This is good for public servers and generally prevents excessive spawn rape.

Close Quarters Expansion/DLC

Maps: Operation 925, Ziba Tower, Scrapmetal, Donya Fortress

Conquest Domination

Conquest domination takes place on small indoor maps. Flags cap very quickly compared to normal conquest. There are no uncaps and players can either spawn on their squads or at random spawn points.

Gun Master

Gun master is the equivalent of gun game from counter strike. Players gain a new weapon after every two kills. The first to reach the last gun and kill with it wins.

This is a gimmicky gametype and I wonder why Dice included it.

Continue Reading:

• Part 2Battlefield 3 Classes

The point Rynn is making is entirely valid. BF3 is NOTHING like BF1942.

Powerslave118 writes here

I agree 1942 is nothing like BF3, or BF2 or BFv or 2142. 1942 was populated by casuals from the other hardercore FPS that were popular at the time. I don’t know anyone remotely good that left the games I was playing to join 1942. And besides trying it breifly I do not blame them! 😛

This was good in a number of ways.

Firstly the type of gamers that left their previous games to play 1942 were the type that would sit down and have warm fuzzies about things such as not base raping, not camping on the crane/roof in TDM, not repeatedly spawn killing people.. and so on. Many of these players were not hardcore in their previous FPS and 1942 could probably be considered their “cherry popper” for high play time. I find people talking about their original game tend to overlook its problems.

Secondly it created an atmosphere of not super competitiveness. The players that left were not the reet (to use a phrase from the period) crowd and did not bring massive egos and dickheadishness that went along with it. They may have been competitive and had awesome close games, but they would not have been the total dicks that inhabited the upper mid to lower upper player tiers in other FPS. Sidenote: Most of the best players I knew from back then were good guys, the almost there crowd were the worst.

I remember a conversation with a guy from ozf. He was asking me my opinon (from me playing UT) about tanks, or something. This guy was really casual in UT, yet he was asking what I thought (as a decent player.. in another game) about how tanks should engage each other. Competitve spirit. Check. Decent, not stupid playerbase, check.

Thirdly it was new, fresh and different to the other FPS of the time. This allowed players to overlook glaringly obvious flaws that would otherwise detract from the game.

So yes, this has been a tradition, nay a prerequsite of BF games since the original. However the developers have never implemeted things like spawn protection or any of the other no brainer mechanics that would cut back on some of the glaring problems the series has suffered from. At least in some players eyes.

Also BF1942 was an unballanced terribad game.

I don’t think map size or vehicle loadout is the culprit here. The biggest problem is the community today. The gametype has never really worked, at least not the way people seem to think. It was babied in by non-hardcore players and cultivated by the skill and strategy of these players that did not involve spawn rape. The problem is the game is massively casual and this is really the first implementation where more hardcore people are playing.

More Battlefield 3 posts

The DAO-12 is the current baby of the TDM/metro/shotgun crowd. Since the drastic nerf of the USAS in the last patch the DAO-12 has

been the goto for those wanting close in stopping power with higher ROF than the 870MCS shotgun.

Higher rate of fire is desirable due to the current problems of hit registration on shotguns at close range. Prior to the patch I was liking the 870, but now its slow ROF makes it unreliable because hits may not register in close. While the DAO and other semi auto shotguns are also effected by the bug, their higher rate of fire allows them to still be useful – spam it, if the first shot does nothing the second one should – fingers crossed. In addition suppresion causes all sorts of randomness with shotguns that rate of fire goes a long way to making up for.

Thanks for the shotgun history lesson, but what attachments should I use on the DAO

This should be easy – without extended magazine the DAO12 runs 8 cartridges. 8 is not terribly bad compared to other shotguns, for instance the M1014 which starts with 4 rounds and is also semi-auto. However combined with a hellishly slow reload it means most players will opt for extended mags. This seems to be typical route for attachment progression with shotguns.

1. Obtain extended magazine.
2. Equip extended magazine.
3. Never change attachment.

Note: Reloading cannot be interrupted by aiming down sights, I have died several times waiting ADS to break the reload animation. Firing will break it so do that instead.

At the intended use range, 0-20m (or less) eight rounds are sufficent for dropping 2-3 enemy players. Even for players with bad aim this is plenty of leeway, if you are incapable of dropping two players with eight shots an extra four are not going to help out overly much.

So the first attachment you will probably take is extended magazine, we will come back and discuss this later.

What ammo type should I pick for the DAO-12 Shotguns?

The second selection you receive is the ammo type. The default 12G buckshot rounds are good and individually deal the most damage, you could roll with these for you entire career if you wanted to as they are great. If you have the physical warfare pack (what is this, I have it, no idea where I got it) you also start with the 12 Gauge Flechette rounds. Not sure if you can unlock these without the physical warfare pack. These rounds are packed with what equate to nails. They deal slightly less damage than 12G buck but have the benefit of additional penetration. Originally I was trying to shoot players through walls with zero luck. In Battlefirsld 3 penetration refers to penetrating other players, sounds dirty hey.

flé·chette: a small, dartlike metal projectile used as shrapnel in antipersonnel bombs and shells.

With 12G flechette rounds you will hit both players if they line up behind each other. The intended use of the shotguns is generally up close and personal and it may seem that players do not line up often, but once you roll with shotguns in nosehair TDM shipping containers you will see just now often it does occur! The other benefit of penetration, even if you do not damage the second player much, is suppression.

12G Frag rounds are unlocked at 50 kills and are really nothing to write home about. They perform ok and are sort of fun to splash players around corners – hit markers, theres a guy there! But beyond this they do not have the stopping power of buck or flechette rounds.

The last choice is slugs, which I don’t rate for semi-auto shotguns because of the recoil, spread and the fact that the other rounds work so much better.

The choice between buck and flechette is up to the user.

Will you be using it where players may double up from time to time?
Will you be seeing individual players frequently and no multiples?
Will you even care that you don’t hit the second player, preferring to drop the first player faster?

All these questions can only be answered by you, and the gametype + map + player size are all factors here.

On Noshahr Canals TDM I would pick flechette as players often line up between the shipping containers in mid. 24-32player TDM on Noshahr is probably the best way to grind unlocks, especially as reson. Run into the containers, setup TUGS, watch the minimap and profit. Pre aim the edges of containers after using the minimap.

On Caspain 64p I would pick buck when spawning to attack hilltop.

On firestorm I would not take a shotgun in many situations as there is not a great deal of close range fighting. The only time may be if I am trying to act as the spawn point for my squad and want to make sure I don’t die. In this situation hiding and staying alive is important. Single players will probably find me and so taking 12G buck makes sense.

And so on. These choices apply to all the semi-auto shotguns, Saiga 12K, M1014, Jackhammer and the USAS-12. The MCS870 is slightly different because of its high damage per shot and lower rate of fire. Apparently the MCS870 with slugs is single shot kills to upper chest/head since the big patch.

Ok back up a bit, you seemed to imply that an attachment different to extended magazine might be ok?

The DAO-12 defaults to 8 shells. This is enough to drop many players at the intended range. If you are managing to kill more than 2-3 players in an encounter you are some sort of BF3 god and should probably stick to the not-nub assault rifles and carbines.

The laser sight, unlocked at 70 kills seems like an odd choice for a shotgun. However it offers a little-known benefit; it reduces the size of the fire cone for each shell.

Sidebar: ADS also reduces the fire cone and shotguns do not gain spread when aiming down sights and moving, unlike assault rifles.

Why would you take a laser sight on a shotgun? Because pellets from each shot are grouped tighter giving you a longer effective range. If this stacks with the ADS cone reduction then you are sitting on top of a virtual.. something. Shotgun for sniping? To 30m?

Laser sight gives your one shot kill range an increase and overall effective range an increase.

So thats it? Laser sight is the only other attachment option? Kind of disapointed.

No way! Given the intended close in use of shotguns and the somewhat large basic magazine of the DAO-12, a flashlight is a worthwhile investment. Blind those suckers, cause rage and basically own some suckers.

What about DAO-12 sights

Because this is a close in weapon the only options are iron sights – RDS – Holo.

More about sights explains why I would take irons or RDS every time over holo, even more so for shotguns.

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