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BF2's Persistent Scoring More Harm Than Good?
jasoncart writes "Persistent scoring (where your score is counted from one gaming session to another) is the norm in MMORPGs, but using it in arguably less mature genres such as FPSs makes for interesting gameplay. " From the article: "The most prized asset for the competitive, ranking-sensitive Battlefield 2 player are the helicopters. These fearsome death machines are almost ludicrously overpowered, in the right hands. They feature a gunnery position with a nasty cannon (best for troop takedown), and TV-guided missiles (best for vehicles). The pilot, whose job is to grapple with the newbie unfriendly control system, and powerful engine also has access to a bank of effective-in-quantity missiles. Newbies inevitably do get hold of them sometimes, to disastrous effect - they are pretty difficult to fly until you get your head around the control system. I'm reminded of a driving school car around my way that says 'Everyone had to learn once!' on the back."
People gathering around the planes/helos is nothing new. The persistant scoring allows for long term strategies as well as "best in the round" type goals.
As for the disarray, I couldn't agree more. I'd be surprised if it took more than 6 organized people on a map of 40+ players to win a game of BF2.
...as the most sought-after vehicle. This is true. And the article describes a couple different ways players fight over them. My buddy is quite skilled at flying the attack helicopters; he gets them to do things that cause experienced players to bail out. Flying in vertical loops, regularly coming within inches of obstacles...it's like riding a roller coaster without safeties.
But I like flying gunner on the Black Hawk (or Chinese or MEC equiv.) better; and my buddy likes to pilot. Starting from scratch, we got our first promotions within a few hours of playing.
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Everyone just sits around and waits for the helepicopters. There's no teamwork. There's no cooperation. Just helicopters.
The Helis are way overpowered, no doubt about it. It also keeps people from playing - you finally spawn (after the 10minute wait to finally join a game) and in 5 seconds a whoop-whoop-whoop helicopter sound is heard, and the screen goes red, and you die. That happens 30 seconds later when you spawn again. Then again. When you finally get into a tank, cool - now you're safe! Uh, no, actually you aren't...
A newbie can typically last longer than 30 secs in other multiplayer FPS games like Counterstrike, so I think the spawn campers are an especially vicious problem in Battlefield.
There needs to be a anti-air infantry unit to compensate for the Helis. The AntiAir platforms are too scarce to be useful.
But then again, this is my opinion after giving up on Battlefield 2 after a few attempts. It is a pretty cool game, but it's not easy to enjoy.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
If spawn camping is "interesting gameplay" I really don't want to see dull gameplay. I'd be interested to hear someone defend this as anything other than weak game design.
Welcome to warfare. Air superiority matters.
Wait... what? This made it to slashdot's main page? I read the article, looking for anything that might be new, thought provoking or mildly interesting. What I found, however, was a rant about helicopters in BF2. It's the same type of rant you see all the time on gaming forums. It was fairly well-written, but the article really didn't even have much to do with persistent scoring. Mod me as a troll or whatever, but this really isn't slashdot material. It would find a better home on digg.com, a site without a traditional editorial system like /.
-William Brendel
Keeping persistent score records results in score-whoring? Who woula thunk it?
Ah, yeah, brings back to mind the good old days of Air Warrior and Warbirds, before I even played them, where there was a "bomber" ranking for the most damage. Someone figured which hangars got the highest score, and would fly around the map bombing those. Or heck, before that, on that PLATO MP flight sim, I recall...
Basic law folks: when you make recognition A depend on artificial measure B, you generate experts in achieving B. "No child left behind" or "Battlefield 2" -- it's the same thing: you make everything depend on a test, and you generate good test-takers.
Of course, in a game where there are other metrics than the personal one, you won't get all score-whores, but you will get your share. Welcome to teh intardnet.
In what way, exactly? Couldn't be referring to the classic definition of "mature;" you see a lot more blood and "adult" stuff in FPSes than in MMORPGs. And FPSes have been around longer than MMORPGs, so it couldn't be talking about age, either. The only other thing I can think of is that the maturity levels of the types of players that play the two genres are significantly different, and, well, that would be inaccurate (NSFW).
Rob
I think this article is somewhat one sided. It appears the author (who admits to being addicted, I feel his pain *grin*) only has bad experiences playing.
Yea, I see people standing in lines 3 or 4 deep to get a plane or some such, and it is foolish. However, I also think many players eventually realize that fundamentally this is a team game. Yea, 6 organized players can easily win if everyone else is just running around. Heck, I've been places with one other buddy, and we can quite easily orchestrate a victory just by knowing the map and playing off the fact that people don't know how to team play (think support and engineer at a good ambush point, or spec ops and support, or medic and sniper, etc).
But I also have played on servers where admins *are* around all the time, where people get booted immediatly for TKing intentionally, or not playing for the team, but padding. You just have to go find a good server. As far as that goes, also playing in a clan is wonderful. I'm a member of COT (Covert Operations and tactics) and everynight I play with two or three guys from it. We have our own TeamSpeak server, that allows for effective communication, and we use XFire to track each other and allies in other servers.
Basically, if you play by yourself, and ignore that nice new "favorites" button on servers, yea, its gonna suck a lot of the time. But if you play with people you know and can train with, and on servers where you know admins are real close, I think that most of the points made in TFA aren't valid.
In a well trained group, or even just a group good at team play, you'll have two good guys in the chopper, that's their job. No one else waits for it, as they're filling another role. This all comes down to the maturity of the player, and how much they'll play for the team and listen to the commander, versus playing for themselves and their stats.
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Everything Electronic Arts Does Is More Harm Than Good.
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
Black Hawk Down.
Read it or watch it. Air superiority is important, but in the real world, helicopters make easy targets.
"Persistent scoring (where your score is counted from one gaming session to another) is the norm in MMORPGs, but using it in arguably less mature genres such as FPSs makes for interesting gameplay. " From the article: "The most prized asset for the competitive, ranking-sensitive Battlefield 2 player are the helicopters. These fearsome death machines are almost ludicrously overpowered, in the right hands. They feature a gunnery position with a nasty cannon (best for troop takedown), and TV-guided missiles (best for vehicles).
Bull. They're not all that easy to fly and a lot of times you'll get two helicopter pilots in the same level who are skilled and therefore see each other as the threat. So, while they're busy trying to take each other out, I'm busy manning the anti-aircraft or the anti-tank. (Yes, I've actually taken down helicopters with a combination of two anti-tank rounds and the shotgun upgrade.) Having played just short of 100 hours, the times that I've had to deal with helicopter pilots that do nothing but massacre are very rare. And if you find a server with that kind of pilot and no one to counter-act, there are hundreds (sometimes thousands) of other servers that you're more than welcome to connect to. And - believe it or not - vehicle-mounted machines gun can be devastating to helicopters!
Additionally, being a gunner means shit if the pilot (A) is more focused on his own points and (B) can't get it through his head that the pilot is supposed to line up the shot for the gunner.
Personally, I find the jets in the hands of a good pilot to be far more devastating than a helicopter.
The pilot, whose job is to grapple with the newbie unfriendly control system, and powerful engine also has access to a bank of effective-in-quantity missiles. Newbies inevitably do get hold of them sometimes, to disastrous effect - they are pretty difficult to fly until you get your head around the control system. I'm reminded of a driving school car around my way that says 'Everyone had to learn once!' on the back."
That's why you do one of two things:
This article sounds more to me like sour grapes. "Oh, wah. That helicopter guy is just SO good! How can we ever compete against him!" Well, he was once a helicopter newbie, too. He was once clueless about how to fly it, too. Just because you're not very good now doesn't mean that you can't get to his skill level if you stop whining and do one of the things that I mention above. And once you get your first helicopter-based kill, you'll just be more eager to get even better. So, stop whining and just do it. The other guy did. That's why he's good!!
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
2 jeeps can easily take down a chopper if they are well hidden. 2 jeeps vs chopper unless chopper knows exactly where the jeeps are = jeeps win every time. :P
planes are the only overpowered viechles because aa guns dont work. fix AA guns everything falls into place. And fix constant prone jumping bug
This reminds me of a story back with quake 1.. the best link I could find was in the shugashack archives.
The basic idea is that you needed 250 kills on monitored servers in order to qualify for a tournament. Thresh was so well known, that whenever he joined a server, everyone else would leave, assuming that it would no longer be useful to stick around. In the end, he just got a bye.
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Yeah except he probably did it for eight hours a day for two months. I'm a decent copter pilot, but some of the people that play that game really are cheap.
Oh yeah, and the missiles are still a joke. If it were that easy to evade them in real life, nobody would ever get shot down, even the Iraqis during Desert Storm.
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
You took out a chopper with 2 AT rockets and a shotgun? Must've been some pretty darned noob opponents. Contrary to popular belief, just because you can hover and hose a spawn point with machine gun fire doesn't mean you should. Hovering means you're vulnerable.
There are approximately three ways to take out a helicopter with a decent pilot. The first and least likely is with AT rockets. Don't get me wrong, I love playing anti-tank, but you'll never hit a moving helicopter unless you get the perfect shot lined up. And because helicopters are infinitely more mobile than you are on foot, you'll never be able to outmaneuver a chopper pilot. You just have to hope they place themselves in your sights, essentially. Rockets are slow compared to helicopters.
Secondly, there are anti-aircraft emplacements. I know people who claim they're awesome with them, but I've never seen them used effectively. Maybe I'm just too unskilled to use them and play with a bunch of rookies, but it seems to me there are two many flaws with them to justify using them. They make you defenseless against ground targets, they give the pilot a warning, and they're just stupidly inaccurate. I've had 12+ miss streaks against pilots too dumb to hit the countermeasures button. That brings me to the next flaw, you get two missiles and then about a half hour of reloading.
The final, and in my opinion most likely method of taking down a helicopter is with a vehicle-mounted machine gun or anti-air platform. With a properly concealed Vodnik, it's not too hard to take down a helicopter using only the machine gun. Step into a linebacker or something similar, and suddenly you can down a helicopter almost as easily as they can snuff you out. Helicopters still have the advantage due to their superior speed and ability to move in three dimensions, as well as their ability to fire more missiles before reloading.
The above was written keeping attack helicopters in mind. The blackhawk is a different bird all together. My main beef with BF2 balance is that there are no efficiant counters to aircraft besides other aircraft? Tanks crush infantry. Choppers maul tanks. Jets destroy choppers. What takes down jets? Other jets. But only if they feel like antagonizing each other. It's more practical to ignore the other jets and just fly around eating vehicles. Anti-air vehicles have great difficulty hitting with missiles, while aircraft can bomb them with impunity.
Yes, I do play a lot of Strike at Karkand.
Maybe he's playing on the wrong servers or something. I'm a crappy chopper pilot, but nobody ever flies them so I usually hop in them from time to time just so they don't sit there, alone, waiting, unused.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
You took out a chopper with 2 AT rockets and a shotgun? Must've been some pretty darned noob opponents. Contrary to popular belief, just because you can hover and hose a spawn point with machine gun fire doesn't mean you should. Hovering means you're vulnerable. Don't get me wrong, I love playing anti-tank, but you'll never hit a moving helicopter unless you get the perfect shot lined up.
:)
Actually, when you learn how to lead properly, it's not that difficult to hit a moving chopper with AT unless he's moving at full speed perpendicular to your position. The shotgun blasts were from the upgraded shotgun with magazine in rapid succession at very close range (probably only about 15 meters above) so they were able to ding it just enough to make it go away after the two AT hits. In fact, this just happened last night.
Secondly, there are anti-aircraft emplacements. I know people who claim they're awesome with them, but I've never seen them used effectively. Maybe I'm just too unskilled to use them and play with a bunch of rookies, but it seems to me there are two many flaws with them to justify using them. They make you defenseless against ground targets, they give the pilot a warning, and they're just stupidly inaccurate. I've had 12+ miss streaks against pilots too dumb to hit the countermeasures button. That brings me to the next flaw, you get two missiles and then about a half hour of reloading.
There are some fundamental design flaws with the AA as far as I'm concerned. I particularly dislike how the rockets seem to go every which way except to the target, even if the target is heading directly away from you in a straight line and there are no other heat sources to lock onto! The idea that even after you fire if you lose the lock then the missiles that you've already launched also lose their lock is also not very believable. Let's not forget the the enemy is clearly in visual sight but the missiles still won't lock. Uh huh. That certainly is not the fault of the pilot of the enemy vehicle, but it does help to bolster the statement about aircraft being tougher than they should be, not so much because of the strength of the chopper but because of the ineffectiveness of anti-aircraft weaponry.
The final, and in my opinion most likely method of taking down a helicopter is with a vehicle-mounted machine gun or anti-air platform. With a properly concealed Vodnik, it's not too hard to take down a helicopter using only the machine gun. Step into a linebacker or something similar, and suddenly you can down a helicopter almost as easily as they can snuff you out.
Agreed. I even had one guy complain about downing his chopper with my mounted MG -- as though this was somehow unbelievable for him. I guess he assumes that air combat is only for air vehicles.
Yes, I do play a lot of Strike at Karkand.
Same here.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The almighty .50 cal sniper rifle. It's tough as nails to get a good shot lined up on a heli pilot, but when you get one it's like heaven shined down on you for a moment. I always love watching a fairly noob pilot (I say fairly because they have to learn how to hover first) hover over a spawn point. They always act surprised when suddenly they're slumping over the controls and the heli drops like a rock into the awaiting defense force.
As for the controls....well, it makes hovering a bit easier, but I like a lot of other pre-bf2 desert combat chopper whores much preferred flying the old choppers. Sure, it wasn't exactly realistic, but made for MUCH better gameplay. And rockets actually did something.
I WILL admit the TV is a very cool weapon, but usually only when you're on teamspeak as it usually requires communication to line up correctly.
In regard to the stat system.....yeah, people are stat whores, but I don't think everybody is so completely obsessed with them. They get several badges, unlock a couple of weapons, and suddenly they focus on the gameplay again because it takes forever to get the next rank.
That being said, I find it unfortunate that because of the stat system, it seems people only want to play on ranked servers, which is making EA a BUTTLOAD of cash since those cost more to operate since they're "official". And since they'll ban your unranked server if you unlock all weapons, nobody plays on unranked servers. This is a real shame, but I'm sure EA will stick with this model in the future because not only does it lock players into their servers, but it adds an element of Skinner to the whole thing with the drive to unlock more things, thus addictive gameplay. My hats off to whatever marketing person thought that one up.
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Most if not all of the article are things that do need to be looked at, but really most of them are avoidable now. If you don't care about stats play on unranked servers... there is a variety out there with all kinds of settings; including NO helicopters.
Stat padders and spawn campers are owned regularly by good admins. If you play on a ranked server visit the website/forums that support them! Get into the communities so you know what to expect. Works wonders!
So far they have been relatively good at banning and removing the points of people caught stat padding. They had controls in place from day one to catch any instances of padding. If someone simply vehicle whores on a map... well then thats what they do.
Honestly they should of made a Pilot and Driver kit. Weak infantry weapons, but they would allow you to fly or drive. Then limit the # allowed to the # of vehicles/aircraft available on a map.
Sad thing is if the other side has a good pilot (helo or plane) and your side does not... you are doomed to fail on infantry missions. Planes and helos just get accross the map way to fast.
And anyone that has played BF2 for a good bit know damn well planes > helos > tanks > infantry. Also if you did a search on the most played maps... Strike at Karkand would come up #1 with the other urban maps right behind it. Lots of spawn camping vehicles and some helo action, but by far much more bearable.
Great squad baed gameplay, but lost in the solo mentality of how the vehicles dominate the maps.
As in all online games, it depends on the server. I have had fantastic games of BF2, working as a squad, with medics, support and assault all working together. Of course there are servers with camping snipers, no teamwork and a commander who doesn't know which buttons to click, but there are alternatives.
Another issue is the maps - I always play the more urban maps like Sharqi, where helicopters and tanks have much less advantage. I don't know why they bothered putting in the AntiAir missiles as they are so under-powered, but I have taken out many helicopters with the AntiTank kit on those maps.
It's no different from BF1942 - if you played on the lame maps (El Alamein, original Market Garden), you get lamers.
check this out: http://acssr.slowchop.com/
from the FAQ:
How are statistics collected?
Your data is collected by doing a server query to every server once every two minutes. The server returns a list of players, their current score and how long they've been in the server for.
How is the score measured?
I've tried to calculate your score fairly. If you have a high P/M (points per minute) value but only have played for an hour, your score will be lower then someone with the same P/M over a longer time. On the other hand, if someone has played for 10 hours and has a higher P/M then someone who's played for 20 hours, the scores will be similar. The more you play the harder it is to raise your score unless you raise your P/M.
To calculate the score, the system works out a 'multiplier' depending on how long you've played. The multiplier is a number between 0 and 1. When you first start playing it will be very close to 0. If you've played for 10 hours or more it will be 0.9 or higher. You will never be able to hit 1.0.
Your score is worked out by multiplying the multiplier with your P/M. Here are the formulas:
multiplier = 1 - 3600 / ( seconds + 3600 )
score = multiplier * points / seconds * 100000
Why don't you track users by their steam id?
Because you can't get that information just by polling a server. You only get 3 things per person - Name, Points and Time on server.
Why are ranks out of order?
The actual score is updated continuously, but your ranking is only updated 4 times a day. The reason for this is that it takes a lot of CPU power to process everyone's rank.
Why don't you use frags/death instead of frags/minute?
Half Life 2 servers only give us 3 bits of information per player: their name, their points(frags) and their connected time. No death data is accessable! Check it out for yourself, do a query on a server and see if you can find their points to death ratio!
I've taken out Helis by myself as an Anti Tank infantry... Then again, I haven't played since August because I got back into WoW, so I have no idea what the latest patch is like.
It isn't like this same problem comes up and keeps coming up in other games. Warcraft has the same problem in the battlegrounds. Some people are tools and just want to frag the enemy "to gain rank." (which is minor compared to the gain for winning the match but hey what do I know? I'm only rank 3 at level 29.)
Thankfully those idiots apparently have moved out of the 20-29 bracket on my server, because there's now competition to run the flag. So now I and my friends (coordinated on teamspeak as well) sit midfiled and deny the alliance access to anything but their base. Meanwhile our flag runner has a field day as the alliance flail against the offensive defense that is us four.
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I don't think the weapons on the choppers are overpowered, I expect their weapons to be devastating. I think the choppers are just too well armored. It should never take three anti-tank rockets to take down a helicopter. Flying the choppers should be as much about limiting your exposure to enemy fire as launching rockets. When in a vehicle you can use the surroundings to your advantage to limit aircrafts' avenues of attack. Don't expect to park an M1A1 in the middle of an open field and not attract some destructive attention. I do agree the game needed better AA defenses overall though. One of the support classes definitely needed shoulder fired AA rockets. As far as point-whoring, it's to be expected in any scored system. Find a server where team based play is important to everyone.