Despite its shortcomings, I've had a lot of fun on BF2. You guys have too, or you wouldn't be here in the first place. But man what a clusterfuck of a game it has been. The lack of testing, balance, and polish was really horrendous by just about any standard, yet we kept coming back. Why? Because the underlying idea of a game with a vast, open battlefield with a slew of vehicles and weapons to choose from, plus a persistent statistics system is incredibly inviting.
Why no developer has figured this out I don't understand. The core gameplay elements of BF2 are as solid as they get, but the execution was really terrible. Someone could go at a game with the exact same angle, and if they could actually pull it off the game would be a smash hit. Sure some games have seemingly gone after this kind of idea, of recent note OFP2, but they don't see that there is a difference between a modern battlefield and a realistic battlefield. Yes some people want to play Project Reality but some (an awful big chunk of the market) don't. People want a large gameplay experience that they can hop right in to and then back out of when they need to go somewhere in half an hour. While playing with modern day weapons and vehicles is obviously really cool, we understand that this is a video game and generally the need for straightforward and fast-paced gameplay trump the desire for absolute realism.
That's what BF2 did right. That's where the game shines, and that's what kept people coming back. It's big, it's easy enough to get into, and there's nothing quite like that drum roll we all know so well. What kept it from being a truly great game?
1. Utter lack of sufficient development game testing and gameplay decisions.
It is not hard at all to both a) find out that people can dolphin dive in your game and b) decide whether you want this to be a valid tactic in your game. People that complain about them removing things like this wouldn't have had a problem with it if it was never in the game in the first place. It's not like anyone went out and bought the game because they could go prone while five feet in the air. The issue people have is you go out and buy the game, you play the game, you get good at the game, then the idiot devs go and completely change the stupid thing. It's not minor changes or bug fixes, they have completely changed the way the game is played (on all fronts except for maybe armor) multiple times. Not just dolphin diving, but choppers (black hawk and attack), jets, AA, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, even C4. Every game is going to have cheap tactics, but if you want to eliminate most of them you're going to have to put some work in before you release it. Nobody likes having to learn how to ride a bike again and again and again and again.
2. Map design
I have to preface this by saying as a whole BF2 doesn't have a bad set of maps per se. It's certainly nothing like CoD4. After playing DoD:S for a while though I must say it feels good to play truly good maps again. Valve seems to get maps right. Balanced, fairly complex and how spawns work is always solid. You just can't say the same thing for BF2. The asymmetrical maps are usually violently slanted towards one side...64 Kark with vehicles anyone? Who had the brilliant idea of putting ALL of MEC's armor at one point in the back? Any US team with an IQ over 60 demolishes MEC. Who had the brilliant idea of spawning all of USMC on top of a fairly small and open carrier with poor air defenses, usually without a single ground flag? Ohhhh 30 extra tickets, awesome. Yes I know there are tactics around all of this stuff, but why do those tactics have to exist at all? Was DICE really expecting these maps to play out as they have? Did they ever play their own maps?
3. Net code
You have to shoot behind someone to kill them. you have to shoot choppers 1-2 lengths behind them to kill them. It's a shooting game where you have to miss to hit. Need I say more?
4. Patches
'Cause not only did they keep drastically changing how to play the game, they screwed up the game too. Patch 1.3, what the HELL. How could they have put that patch through any sort of rigor and come out the other side saying this is even a patch that will allow you to load the game? Patch 1.5, how long did it take them to moderate the J-10/F-35b match up?
5. Broken Promises
It's not just Valve. We were promised more gameplay modes for BF2, specifically where you had to take the control points in order. I was really, really looking forward to that, a mode where you have to actually flank a single point instead of flanking by going halfway across the map to take a flag over there. You don't put Blackhawks with rocket pods on the back of the box and not give them to us.
6. Stats glitches/vulnerabilities
Made stats worthless after what, 18 months? Yeah I know, lol dumfuk, stats r lif, but it was fun working for medals and watching my improvement. It was fun working my K/D up from a .8, hundredth by hundredth. I would say that maybe this had more to do with the number of people trying to mess up the system than the lack of security/debugging on the system in the first place, but looking at the rest of the game how can you say that? They put all their effort into securing the stats system and abandoned the game itself? Either way, do they know what a backup is?
They got the idea right, and they made it as difficult as possible to experience that idea at every turn. Please, please EA, keep the idea of BF2 alive in BF3. Please, please EA, look at how hard you tried to kill BF2 and don't make the same mistakes again. For your sake and for mine, make the game of the decade and not the pain in the ass of the decade.
Why no developer has figured this out I don't understand. The core gameplay elements of BF2 are as solid as they get, but the execution was really terrible. Someone could go at a game with the exact same angle, and if they could actually pull it off the game would be a smash hit. Sure some games have seemingly gone after this kind of idea, of recent note OFP2, but they don't see that there is a difference between a modern battlefield and a realistic battlefield. Yes some people want to play Project Reality but some (an awful big chunk of the market) don't. People want a large gameplay experience that they can hop right in to and then back out of when they need to go somewhere in half an hour. While playing with modern day weapons and vehicles is obviously really cool, we understand that this is a video game and generally the need for straightforward and fast-paced gameplay trump the desire for absolute realism.
That's what BF2 did right. That's where the game shines, and that's what kept people coming back. It's big, it's easy enough to get into, and there's nothing quite like that drum roll we all know so well. What kept it from being a truly great game?
1. Utter lack of sufficient development game testing and gameplay decisions.
It is not hard at all to both a) find out that people can dolphin dive in your game and b) decide whether you want this to be a valid tactic in your game. People that complain about them removing things like this wouldn't have had a problem with it if it was never in the game in the first place. It's not like anyone went out and bought the game because they could go prone while five feet in the air. The issue people have is you go out and buy the game, you play the game, you get good at the game, then the idiot devs go and completely change the stupid thing. It's not minor changes or bug fixes, they have completely changed the way the game is played (on all fronts except for maybe armor) multiple times. Not just dolphin diving, but choppers (black hawk and attack), jets, AA, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, even C4. Every game is going to have cheap tactics, but if you want to eliminate most of them you're going to have to put some work in before you release it. Nobody likes having to learn how to ride a bike again and again and again and again.
2. Map design
I have to preface this by saying as a whole BF2 doesn't have a bad set of maps per se. It's certainly nothing like CoD4. After playing DoD:S for a while though I must say it feels good to play truly good maps again. Valve seems to get maps right. Balanced, fairly complex and how spawns work is always solid. You just can't say the same thing for BF2. The asymmetrical maps are usually violently slanted towards one side...64 Kark with vehicles anyone? Who had the brilliant idea of putting ALL of MEC's armor at one point in the back? Any US team with an IQ over 60 demolishes MEC. Who had the brilliant idea of spawning all of USMC on top of a fairly small and open carrier with poor air defenses, usually without a single ground flag? Ohhhh 30 extra tickets, awesome. Yes I know there are tactics around all of this stuff, but why do those tactics have to exist at all? Was DICE really expecting these maps to play out as they have? Did they ever play their own maps?
3. Net code
You have to shoot behind someone to kill them. you have to shoot choppers 1-2 lengths behind them to kill them. It's a shooting game where you have to miss to hit. Need I say more?
4. Patches
'Cause not only did they keep drastically changing how to play the game, they screwed up the game too. Patch 1.3, what the HELL. How could they have put that patch through any sort of rigor and come out the other side saying this is even a patch that will allow you to load the game? Patch 1.5, how long did it take them to moderate the J-10/F-35b match up?
5. Broken Promises
It's not just Valve. We were promised more gameplay modes for BF2, specifically where you had to take the control points in order. I was really, really looking forward to that, a mode where you have to actually flank a single point instead of flanking by going halfway across the map to take a flag over there. You don't put Blackhawks with rocket pods on the back of the box and not give them to us.
6. Stats glitches/vulnerabilities
Made stats worthless after what, 18 months? Yeah I know, lol dumfuk, stats r lif, but it was fun working for medals and watching my improvement. It was fun working my K/D up from a .8, hundredth by hundredth. I would say that maybe this had more to do with the number of people trying to mess up the system than the lack of security/debugging on the system in the first place, but looking at the rest of the game how can you say that? They put all their effort into securing the stats system and abandoned the game itself? Either way, do they know what a backup is?
They got the idea right, and they made it as difficult as possible to experience that idea at every turn. Please, please EA, keep the idea of BF2 alive in BF3. Please, please EA, look at how hard you tried to kill BF2 and don't make the same mistakes again. For your sake and for mine, make the game of the decade and not the pain in the ass of the decade.
