Battlefield 2: Special Forces

[Azazel]

Sorry, but I want new maps way before I want Co-op or CTF.
Scratch that, I don't want Co-op or CTF. At all. BF2 is two teams fighting for control over bases - what game were you playing?
balanced vehicles sure. But new maps and new content is a great addition, but they better be good fat that price for three maps.

CTF and Co-Op should have been included at launch, but weren't because EA/Dice pushed out an unfunished, unbalanced game and then immediately advertised the expansion pack to. What game was I playing? I played a hell of a lot of Desert Combat, which is what BF2 is essentially the retail version of (but with less vehicles, less options, etc). DC also being BF1942's Counter-Strike.

I also recall that BF1942 (which was also a morass of bugs and interface fuckups for a long long time) gave us several new maps for free over the course of it's long life.

As for the M203, from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/grenade-launcher.htm (beware, scripts)

The grenadier is equipped with an M203 weapon system consisting of an M16 rifle and an attached 40-mm grenade launcher. The M203 allows him to fire high explosive rounds to suppress and destroy enemy infantry and lightly armored vehicles. He also can employ smoke to screen and cover his squad's movement, fire, and maneuver. During night and adverse weather conditions, the grenadier also may employ illumination rounds to increase his squad's visibility and mark enemy or friendly positions. The grenadier provides the fire team with an indirect fire capability out to 350 meters.

The main consideration affecting the employment of 40-mm grenades within urban areas is the typically short engagement range. The 40-mm grenade has a minimum arming range of 14 to 28 meters. If the round strikes an object before it is armed, it will not detonate. Both the HE and HEDP rounds have 5-meter burst radii against exposed troops, which means the minimum safe firing range for combat is 31 meters. The 40-mm grenades can be used to suppress the enemy in a building, or inflict casualties by firing through apertures or windows. The MK 19 can use its high rate of fire to concentrate rounds against light structures. This concentrated fire can create extensive damage. The 40-mm HEDP round can penetrate the armor on the flank, rear, and top of Soviet-made BMPs and BTRs. Troops can use the M203 from upper stories to deliver accurate fire against the top decks of armored vehicles. Multiple hits are normally required to achieve a kill.

The 40-mm HEDP grenade has a small shaped charge that penetrates better than the HE round. It also has a thin wire wrapping that bursts into a dense fragmentation pattern, creating casualties out to 5 meters. Because they explode on contact, 40-mm rounds achieve the same penetration regardless of range.

The M203 dual-purpose weapon has the inherent accuracy to place grenades into windows at 125 meters and bunker apertures at 50 meters. These ranges are significantly reduced as the angle of obliquity increases. Combat experience shows that M203 gunners cannot consistently hit windows at 50 meters when forced to aim and fire quickly.

Point being that it's not designed as an anti-armour weapon as such. It's designed to destroy infantry and light vehicles. If the game is supposedly based on real life, then I realise that some concessions need ot be made to gameplay (ie the Tiger in 1942) but deciding that the M203 isn't for killing infantry, or that a Blackhawk has more efficient armour than an AFV is just stupid (and I'm not sure how the Bradley lost it's troop carrying capacity all of a sudden). Remove the detonation of the 203 at short range, like the real one to eliminate the bunny-hopping tube noobs, but don't totally fuck up the weapon that allowed skilled players to drop a blast through a window or indirect at long ranges.

I mean, this isn't supposed to be a MMOG where the live team decides that Pyroblast is suddenly doing too much damage to normal mobs and now will only work with full capacity on elites.

As for the booster packs, I'd love to see new maps and vehicles and forces as well. But at $10 for three maps they seem overpriced, and like they'll split the userbase the same way that Road to Rome and Secret Weapons did, just before all the servers stopped supporting them. With their track record, I'd expect them to be buggy and severely unfinished as well unfortunately.

[Jimbo]

Well...I'm sure me and Big Gulp will point out a few things on your '203, we had a close range round that was basically a big ass shot gun shell for the '203.  Of course this was back in '87 to '90 when I was a Combat Engineer.  Would have been nice to have had it available and the diffrent ammo for it, along with a few other weapons.  Stinger missles is my favorite flavor they should add :)

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah, a shoulder mounted AA missile would be nice. Make it an alternate loadout for the anti-tank kit or something.

[Azazel]

Well...I'm sure me and Big Gulp will point out a few things on your '203, we had a close range round that was basically a big ass shot gun shell for the '203.  Of course this was back in '87 to '90 when I was a Combat Engineer.  Would have been nice to have had it available and the diffrent ammo for it, along with a few other weapons.  Stinger missles is my favorite flavor they should add :)

Sure, but it's a solid slug at close range, and therefore as you point out, a big bullet - add in some drift, like all the other guns in the game, not make it completely unable to shoot. I'm just talking about removing the explosive element of the weapon at PB like the real one, rather than nerfing it's explosive Anti-infantry use to oblivion. And I agree, there are a lot of different rounds it can use, and lack of stingers/grails are just another example of how BF2 is like DC with a newer engine, but with less stuff...

[MrHat]

Anyone else notice BF2:SF running a bit unusually?

Like random framerate lagging?

[WayAbvPar]

Haven't played for a couple of weeks- I am all Eve all the time, to the detriment of my poker game (and probably my marriage!).

[Hanzii]

OK, BF2 isn't Desert Combat... thank God.
That was an unbalanced mess made by geeks who love guns. It's not like Desert Combat has gone or anything, so if you miss being owned by the Apache, then go back.
There's a lot of stuff still wrong with BF2, but it not being Desert Combat definately isn't it. And COOP and CTF missing - I couldn't care less. Did DICE promise those two gametypes? If they did, you have a point. But BF2 has from the get go been about two armies fighting for control of flags - everything is designed around that. BF2 lacks map variety - I'd rather they spent time on that and the balancing issue, than to try and make it a fun COOP, CTF or singleplayer game.
Sure, I'd want more maps for free, but that's not EAs style and I can spare the 10 bucks. So I'll buy it.

And for all that m203 nonsense. Come on! I'm sure any US tank driver (and probably any ex soldier on this board) can spend hours telling you about the important difference between the T72 and the M1A1 Abrams, but in the game it's just a question of skinning and I'm sure the new Leopard will be just the same. BF2 isn't about realism but about fun and hopefully balance for the infantry as well.
Infantry needs anti-vehicle capability and a grenade launcher fits the bill. Now we  just need the kit with Stingers.

[Merusk]

I'm of the opinion that if you're going for gameplay balance over realism, you build something like Unreal. You don't take a modern-combat game and do things like say, "It sucks to get shot with a grenade launcher.. Let's make it do half damage vs infantry."  But that's me and that's why I reinstalled AA instead of BF2 the last time I got an FPS itch.  Using the 203 at close range in that game is a good way of fragging yourself as well as the op. for.  As it should be.

[Jimbo]

Well, you sort of got the idea, but it is a close range anti-personnel round.  It was a big ass shot gun shell, that sprayed out a ton of balls at close range...imagine the shotgun but amplified.  It was the M576 Buckshot and I hear there is a new version that 40mm canister round (it has fletches that are shot out and instead of balls).

Wow, after doing some digging, I found out there are a ton of diffrent ammo's available, and that you can set the range that they arm.  I remember one of my Sergeants telling me a story about Vietnam and how someone had forgot to unload the M79 and he had it pointed up at the ceiling inside the Huey.  It went off, the round shot out and went threw the top, missed the rotors, and landed without going off not far from them.  Good idea for the arm when far out, otherwise you could have to many accidents.

But then again, I don't want this game to turn into a realism fest like WWIIOnline was supposed to be, I'll keep fun and balance.  I just can't wait for my support guns to be made even more accurate  :-D

[Sky]

Well, shit. The grenade launcher is all I ever used. Indirect fire ftw. It's nice having the rifle, too, but I was almost exclusively about the nade launcher, and not just because it kerpwned. I use one in just about every game, the flak cannon in Unreal, the Thumper in Planetside, etc.

[Azazel]

OK, BF2 isn't Desert Combat... thank God.
That was an unbalanced mess made by geeks who love guns. It's not like Desert Combat has gone or anything, so if you miss being owned by the Apache, then go back.
There's a lot of stuff still wrong with BF2, but it not being Desert Combat definately isn't it. And COOP and CTF missing - I couldn't care less. Did DICE promise those two gametypes? If they did, you have a point. But BF2 has from the get go been about two armies fighting for control of flags - everything is designed around that. BF2 lacks map variety - I'd rather they spent time on that and the balancing issue, than to try and make it a fun COOP, CTF or singleplayer game.
Sure, I'd want more maps for free, but that's not EAs style and I can spare the 10 bucks. So I'll buy it.

And for all that m203 nonsense. Come on! I'm sure any US tank driver (and probably any ex soldier on this board) can spend hours telling you about the important difference between the T72 and the M1A1 Abrams, but in the game it's just a question of skinning and I'm sure the new Leopard will be just the same. BF2 isn't about realism but about fun and hopefully balance for the infantry as well.
Infantry needs anti-vehicle capability and a grenade launcher fits the bill. Now we  just need the kit with Stingers.

Uh.. DC was made by some of the guys who had key roles in producing BF2. You know, Trauma Studios. Before they got flushed out the end of Dice after BF2 shipped. Not to mention that BF2 is closer to DC2 then BF2 "spiritually". As for Co-op and CTF, I read somewhere that they were planned before the game was released, it was simply EA doing the shovelware thing and pushing another buggy, unfinished game outt he door ASAP. BF2 was great fun, but it was glaringly unfinished in many areas. It's not the 10 bucks for me, it's whether they do a good job (ie, finished, polished releases or more shovelware) and whether I get to use my 10 bucks. Because, you know, there were virtually no servers that supported RtR or SWWWII about a month after their releases.

I think you mean T-90, not 72. :p and it's the A2. 40mm grenades might well provide anti-armour capability, but those same rounds are also designed to hurt infantry. I think the nerf to them silly, especially as the Assault guy is supposed to be the standard grunt with no superpowers. You make concessions to both gameplay and realism in these games, but in a game based off of RL gear, making a weapon do something that it totally doesn't or taking away something's real functionality is retarded.

I agree with both Merusk and Sky as well. My top kits were the AT and SpecOps, but I always liked playing grenadier as well, across all the FPS genres.

Jimbo - ah I didn't realise you meant a different round entirely, I've heard of those shotgun rounds, but I thought you meant that you could fire a HE round and that even under arming range it'll still kill you if it hits you from it's giant-bulletness, just with no explosiveness.

[Tale]

Well, shit. The grenade launcher is all I ever used. Indirect fire ftw. It's nice having the rifle, too, but I was almost exclusively about the nade launcher, and not just because it kerpwned. I use one in just about every game, the flak cannon in Unreal, the Thumper in Planetside, etc.

I've played a lot of BF2 in Assault kit this week and the grenade launcher seems fine. I've still been able to use it to kill nearby enemy troops, just not as close as before. It's still great for taking out vehicles, boats, choppers, etc. Seems like a fairly minor tweak.

But before the patch I had already switched to using gunfire more than grenades. The gun in the Assault kit is very versatile and deadly. Burst mode for short-range scraps, single-shot mode for fast medium/long range sniping. If you slow yourself down, use prone position often, and become a more cautious Assault player, single-shot mode can get you a lot of kills.

[Sky]

If you slow yourself down, use prone position often, and become a more cautious Assault player, single-shot mode can get you a lot of kills.

The problem is this kind of gameplay wasn't really rewarded very well in early BF2. I haven't played in a while, though.

In BF1942 it was crucial to play like that. That's why I loved the game, it rewarded the players who took their time and used tactics, BF2 was more like DC, which I despised.

[Furiously]

They released the patch? That damn EA updater didnt say anything - that piece of shit.

[MrHat]

They released the patch? That damn EA updater didnt say anything - that piece of shit.

What?

[WayAbvPar]

They released the patch? That damn EA updater didnt say anything - that piece of shit.

Yeah, what good is that piece of spyware if it doesn't patch?


Of course, it could have patched without me knowing about it I guess... :-D

[Tale]

If you slow yourself down, use prone position often, and become a more cautious Assault player, single-shot mode can get you a lot of kills.

The problem is this kind of gameplay wasn't really rewarded very well in early BF2. I haven't played in a while, though.

In BF1942 it was crucial to play like that. That's why I loved the game, it rewarded the players who took their time and used tactics, BF2 was more like DC, which I despised.

I've mostly been playing the BF2 Wake Island map, which is reworked from BF1942 (it was added to BF2 in a patch last year). Maybe that's why I'm finding success from slower, stealthier Assault play. I never played BF1942 - was too addicted to MMOGs. BF2 Wake Island on a 64-player server is great - bad teammates drive you nuts, but good teamwork can really sway the balance.

[Sky]

Wake Island was probably my favoritist map in BF1942, lots of fun ways to play it out. Having the split force between the carrier and capping bases, it was a great plane map, a great map for just about every vehicle on the map.

Teamwork will probably always bother me, because once you've played at the clan level, public servers are like the loonie bin. Look, it's Custer and Elvis!

[Furiously]

No it's the guy on your own team who throws the C4 on the tank and then runs it into stuff blowing himself and one other person up that get me.

Or the guy who is camping a spawn point with a missile launcher.

[Sky]

That garbage ~never~ happens in clan play. Unless it's intentionally a goof-off round. But really, I'm very gratified I got to play BF1942 as intended, it was a transcendent experience. But playing on pubs afterwards solidified my belief that online gaming will always be hamstringed by the LCD fucktards.

[Hanzii]

I've played BF2 one some servers where teamplay (joining squads and taking orders) was mandated. The tools in that game for teamplay is just so great... and so so underused. Being commander on a public server is a lesson in frustration.

The Wake just doesn't feel right without some assmuncher driving the carrier on ground within the first five minutes of every round...

[WayAbvPar]

Was there some sort of patch or update? I logged in to play this week and was given 2 additional unlocks, even though I haven't played for about a month (blame EVE).

[Azazel]

But before the patch I had already switched to using gunfire more than grenades. The gun in the Assault kit is very versatile and deadly. Burst mode for short-range scraps, single-shot mode for fast medium/long range sniping. If you slow yourself down, use prone position often, and become a more cautious Assault player, single-shot mode can get you a lot of kills.

They haven't patched it yet. The game doesn't auto-patch, it's not EQ or WoW. Thats why GLs still work. I logged on for the first time in ages as well and got the unlocks, but that's on their (BFHQ/EA) end.

[Furiously]

Looks like they are still tweaking the 1.2 patch. 1.12 is still the most current. We can all stay sleeping. But it should be released any day now.

[WayAbvPar]

BTW Fur, I unlocked the other medic gun. I likey, other than the no automatic fire. That thing is accurate as hell.

[Furiously]

I told you...best gun in game. My kill/death ratio went up about 3x after I unlocked it. Of course I quit playing 2 days later.

[Shockeye]

======================================================================== Patch v1.2 ========================================================================

 *  Dolphin Diving is no longer possible
 *  Players can no longer jump and shoot at the same time
 *  "Prone Spamming" is now fixed
 *  "Sprint exploit" is now fixed
 *  Helicopter now carry 8 missiles rather than 14
 *  TV-Guided missile now have a shorter range
 *  Damage decreased from M134
 *  Hit points on all air vehicles has been reduced
 *  AA missile lock has been improved
 *  All support kit weapons have been adjusted
 *  All Sniper rifles have been adjusted
 *  Sa80 has been adjusted
 *  G3A3 has been adjusted
 *  Reload while sprinting has been enabled
 *  Medic defibrillator paddles have been adjusted.  They now reload while not in use.
 *  SCAR-L reload sound has been fixed
 *  Server setting to allow friendly fire to be off on mines without affecting other weapons.
 *  Server search filters now work properly
 *  Mines can no longer be destroyed with other explosives
 *  Bug in MP7 fire rate fixed.  Ammo count increased and mag count and damage decreased
 *  Flash bang effect radius decreased
 *  Added unlocks for Sniper and AT kits
 *  Fixed a bug in terrain rendering with night vision, whereby terrain was still dark in dark areas.
 *  Fixed a bug whereby mods that are not bf2 or not xpack permutate shaders every time a level is loaded.
 *  Fixed a bug whereby non-xpack mods cannot use xpack shaders.
 *  Fixed bug in TV guided missiles of Havoc helicopter
 *  The LAV25 now no longer shoots through penetrable materials.
 *  Vehicles no longer disappear when viewed from some vehicles with a HUD (e.g. Tanks).
 *  Performance gain found in static mesh rendering.
 *  Detonation radius from grenade launcher explosions has been reduced.
 *  Grenade launcher projectiles now have a minimum distance.
 *  Fixed bug with capturing a flag from outside of the flag radius.
 *  Fixed map selection screen issue on Wetlands
 *  Being able to pass through walls using a spinning tank turret has been fixed. 
It has also been address on all rotating vehicle positions just to be safe.
 *  Tanks taking damage from the terrain has been reduced
 *  The Red/Blue nametag bug has been addressed
 *  The disappearance of tank projectiles and grenade launcher projectiles during online play has been improved
and should occur less frequently
 *  The distance for throwing hand grenade, ammo packs, and health packs has been increased

[MrHat]

Live?

[Tale]

Yes 1.2 is live. 357.6Mb download.

http://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/patches/bf2_patch_1.2.exe

[WayAbvPar]

WOOOHOOO! I can't wait to see some guy try to jump and shoot me now while I stay still and shoot him in the liver. I will definitely be checking this out tonight.

[Jimbo]

Woot!  Time to put down the creampies from Toontown, and lock and load my PKM!  Dang updater is down   

Hopefully it won't take a godawful amount of ammo to shoot down a heli now.

[Furiously]

Hopefully I can man an AA position and shoot a jet down occasionally. Hmm - to spend some time with the wife or to shoot people....

I think I'll Dick Cheney.

[MrHat]

Shock, can you host it?

[Tale]

[EDIT] Server was restarted, I logged on again, and played a relatively normal round. Seems fine, disregard what I said. I think they may have done something to the smoke that will need a driver upgrade for me though.

--

Don't get too excited. I just had a quick blast and it seemed quite buggy.

Someone launched a grenade at where I was standing five seconds earlier (I had moved well away) and it killed me. I guess that could have been simple lag. Then I launched a grenade at a nearby target and got enormous graphical lag from the smoke (previously smoke has never affected performance for me). I couldn't hit much with the assault rifle in single shot mode, looked like it was weakened. Someone else said they fired an anti-tank missile and it disappeared after about 10m. Then the server died.

All these could be freak co-incidences and happened in just a few minutes of play. But it was the only populated server in a list of many normally full servers, and the people on it were far from happy (then again, that's the default mode for gamers after a patch).

[Furiously]

Could the download be any slower!