My apologies for the size of this post butI hope it will help people undestand why the changes were made to our beloved BF2
1. The ranks
This had to happen for a number of reasons but the main reason being that at the rate people were climbing the ranks prior to the patch being released there would soon have been nowhere for them to go (which would've sucked). So what has happened now is that EA/DICE have added in officer ranks which I would assume will be on the same level of difficulty as the standard ranks were to achieve pre-patch. What this then allows them to do is to give the casual BF2 player (i.e. those who don't play 6.5+ hours per day like I do for example) a sense of achievement by being able to go up ranks relatively quickly without having to devote massive amounts of time like they would've had to pre-patch. So the current flood of promotions being experienced by everyone is just the system re-aligning itself and once everyone has logged in and made a kill on a ranked server and their new rank added to the database it will all be quiet again. (Prior to the patch I was a staff sergeant with gunnery my next promotion. After the patch I am now a Sergeant major with second-leiutenant my next promotion)
2. The ribbons/badges/medals
All that's happened here is the requirements for the higher-level awards (i.e. expert badges and medals) have been significantly reduced to make them actually achievable, because some of those requirements pre-patch were just way too far out of most peoples reach which kind of made them pointless being there.
3. The unlocks
Again all that's happened is that they have been made achievable by the casual player. My guess is that with the officer ranks will again come more weapons to be unlocked. Anyone who has used the BF2 editor and played with the weapons section will know that the game already has the M81a1 anti-material rifle (a VERY powerful sniper rifle) included but so far un-accesible so who knows what else has been added since the patch has been installed. Personally I wish that EA/DICE would've removed the grenade launcher (or noob tube) totally from the game.
4. Everything else
Overall I think the patch is a massive improvement and I think that like anything new people will complain about it because they are not used to it but given time all you complainers will be wondering how you ever survived without it
I'll add a bit more later on but for now I wanna go play WAKE 2007. I've only played about 5 rounds so far but already this map owns.
Word!
1. The ranks
This had to happen for a number of reasons but the main reason being that at the rate people were climbing the ranks prior to the patch being released there would soon have been nowhere for them to go (which would've sucked). So what has happened now is that EA/DICE have added in officer ranks which I would assume will be on the same level of difficulty as the standard ranks were to achieve pre-patch. What this then allows them to do is to give the casual BF2 player (i.e. those who don't play 6.5+ hours per day like I do for example) a sense of achievement by being able to go up ranks relatively quickly without having to devote massive amounts of time like they would've had to pre-patch. So the current flood of promotions being experienced by everyone is just the system re-aligning itself and once everyone has logged in and made a kill on a ranked server and their new rank added to the database it will all be quiet again. (Prior to the patch I was a staff sergeant with gunnery my next promotion. After the patch I am now a Sergeant major with second-leiutenant my next promotion)
2. The ribbons/badges/medals
All that's happened here is the requirements for the higher-level awards (i.e. expert badges and medals) have been significantly reduced to make them actually achievable, because some of those requirements pre-patch were just way too far out of most peoples reach which kind of made them pointless being there.
3. The unlocks
Again all that's happened is that they have been made achievable by the casual player. My guess is that with the officer ranks will again come more weapons to be unlocked. Anyone who has used the BF2 editor and played with the weapons section will know that the game already has the M81a1 anti-material rifle (a VERY powerful sniper rifle) included but so far un-accesible so who knows what else has been added since the patch has been installed. Personally I wish that EA/DICE would've removed the grenade launcher (or noob tube) totally from the game.
4. Everything else
Overall I think the patch is a massive improvement and I think that like anything new people will complain about it because they are not used to it but given time all you complainers will be wondering how you ever survived without it
I'll add a bit more later on but for now I wanna go play WAKE 2007. I've only played about 5 rounds so far but already this map owns.
Word!