Thread: Things you'd like to see fixed in BF4

After reading numerous threads on EA's BF4 forum, I now know why these games are going to shit. The sane ones are outnumbered 10 to 1. It is astonishing the number of people crying about different things that were a staple(Being able to enter the enemy base, steal enemy assets, no spawn protection, jets and choppers feared, etc.) in BF2 that could be in BF4. Hell, some of them don't even seem old enough to know what BF2 was by the amount of tears flowing. We are all fucked. Society is going to hell and we all need carebears and tissues. This is war, if you wanted a bitch game, go play Hello Kitty and leave BF alone.

Originally Posted by Partyball

After reading numerous threads on EA's BF4 forum, I now know why these games are going to shit. The sane ones are outnumbered 10 to 1. It is astonishing the number of people crying about different things that were a staple(Being able to enter the enemy base, steal enemy assets, no spawn protection, jets and choppers feared, etc.) in BF2 that could be in BF4. Hell, some of them don't even seem old enough to know what BF2 was by the amount of tears flowing. We are all fucked. Society is going to hell and we all need carebears and tissues. This is war, if you wanted a bitch game, go play Hello Kitty and leave BF alone.

This is my greatest fear. The goal of any company, not just game developers, is to sell the most units at the highest possible price while putting in the least amount of time and money. If EA can sell X copies of BF4 without working in game VoIP(just an example), or sell X+10,000 copies with fully functioning in game VoIP, but they have to spend tons of man hours and dollars to get VoIP to work then it is easy to justify leaving it out. Since only a small percentage of the players will refuse to buy the game if it doesn't have ______________(insert features we all love from BF2 and 2142 here) then it makes it easy on EA to cut the corners we, the 1%ers of gaming, want.

Originally Posted by CivilWars

This is my greatest fear. The goal of any company, not just game developers, is to sell the most units at the highest possible price while putting in the least amount of time and money. If EA can sell X copies of BF4 without working in game VoIP(just an example), or sell X+10,000 copies with fully functioning in game VoIP, but they have to spend tons of man hours and dollars to get VoIP to work then it is easy to justify leaving it out. Since only a small percentage of the players will refuse to buy the game if it doesn't have ______________(insert features we all love from BF2 and 2142 here) then it makes it easy on EA to cut the corners we, the 1%ers of gaming, want.

Its just not in games and online anymore. When I played sports, there were tryouts. You either made the team or you didn't. If you did, great! If not, you were disappointed but you worked your ass off to make it next year. Now, everyone makes the team and everyone HAS to play. We are catering to the lazy and the "everyone owes me something" crowd. I hate it. No one is about morals and working hard to accomplish something you want. Everyone is about having stuff given to them and "poor, poor, pitiful me" syndrome. I am glad I still live in a small town where a lot of those morals are still in everyday life. Farmers and people that actually help and care for each other. Today, people would rather pull out their cell phones to record someone getting there head beat against the curb because they "Looked at them wrong" instead of helping and showing punks that they are just that, punks.

Indeed.

I think you guys are reading way to much into the whole business side of the gaming industry in my opinion. I have no doubt that voip among many many different things were discussed by EA and DICE and the price tag that come a long with them but I don't know that just sounds normal for any company to do and you have to know that every other company from the mega corps like EA to the small indie guys on kickstarter do the exact same thing. I am no fan of cutting out key elements in games like voip that have been a staple of it and many other games like it for years and to be honest in my opinion it should never be up for discussion but the fact is if it weren't how could form a budget and conduct your business.

Originally Posted by SourceSkills

I think you guys are reading way to much into the whole business side of the gaming industry in my opinion. I have no doubt that voip among many many different things were discussed by EA and DICE and the price tag that come a long with them but I don't know that just sounds normal for any company to do and you have to know that every other company from the mega corps like EA to the small indie guys on kickstarter do the exact same thing. I am no fan of cutting out key elements in games like voip that have been a staple of it and many other games like it for years and to be honest in my opinion it should never be up for discussion but the fact is if it weren't how could form a budget and conduct your business.

Isn't that exactly what I said? There is a cost/benefit analysis for every aspect of the game. I am sure they have estimates for how much sales will increase/decrease based on the inclusion/exclusion of many features. Then someone with a big title says something along the lines of, "I am ok with losing 10k units sold to not have to integrate VoIP, but I am not ok with losing 50k units sold if we don't have C4. Put in C4, and don't worry about VoIP."

All hypothetical of course, but you get the point.

I don't know to me (and I am probably just getting this impression because of previous conversations here with people about this) it was just the way you explained the point was like it was some how EA being some kind of nefarious or something by doing what is just the norm in all business.

Originally Posted by CivilWars

This is my greatest fear. The goal of any company, not just game developers, is to sell the most units at the highest possible price while putting in the least amount of time and money. If EA can sell X copies of BF4 without working in game VoIP(just an example), or sell X+10,000 copies with fully functioning in game VoIP, but they have to spend tons of man hours and dollars to get VoIP to work then it is easy to justify leaving it out. Since only a small percentage of the players will refuse to buy the game if it doesn't have ______________(insert features we all love from BF2 and 2142 here) then it makes it easy on EA to cut the corners we, the 1%ers of gaming, want.

Originally Posted by SourceSkills

I don't know to me (and I am probably just getting this impression because of previous conversations here with people about this) it was just the way you explained the point was like it was some how EA being some kind of nefarious or something by doing what is just the norm in all business.

Bold, italics, AND underline added to the part you must have missed the first time around.

I just reinstalled BF3. The experience of getting the game up and running underlined for me the reality that mostly EA, but to a degree DICE are much more focused on keeping the money rolling in than actually putting out a product.

Download and install origin
update origin
download game
launch game
update game
launch game
update battlelog

I mean how hard is it to have even just add an updated origin download? Why do I have to launch the game for it to realize it needs gigabytes more to dl?

this represents the core of the issue to me. If valve realized it took that many steps to launch one of their flagship titles, they would be embarrassed. The great eye of EA is focused elsewhere.


I'd like to see the game slow down. Just a bit. There's just no reason to think in Bf3. It has way too much focus on going balls out 24/7. Bf2 was a nice sort of "in between" game in my mind. It wasn't Arma but it wasn't call of duty either. A game of strategy without getting bogged down with too much realism. Bf3 feels a lot like call of duty to me.

Originally Posted by CivilWars

Bold, italics, AND underline added to the part you must have missed the first time around.

I think my point is it is a given that the situation we describe would happen and I really see no need in pointing out. That is all i am really saying. People like to get caught up in the business side of things sometimes blaming it for what we don't get out of a game and sometimes it is true but most of the time it has nothing to do with money. Most of the time it has to do with the developers inability to deliver said functionality in a game on time. It doesn't reflect on their talent or capabilities it just takes a long time no matter how talented you are to make something happen the right way and that can be a problem when you have a release date to keep and commitments to fill. That's why I think this said situation we have discussed with planning out the cost/benefit is simply not as important as we might think it is.