Gameplay Balance Feedback

[Sentience]

Given the recent balance changes in 1.25 we were wondering what you guys think would best be done to further improve the Battlefield 2142 gameplay in a potential future patch.

Is there a vehicle pairing that is unbalanced? A gun that is underused because it's underpowered? Or any other gameplay element that you think is unbalanced or in need of alteration. Post it here and we'll make sure to pass it on to DICE for consideration.

As ever, please stay on topic and keep things civil and constructive. Note that this thread is for gameplay alone rather than reporting bugs or exploits, we are continuing to monitor and feed back on those things separately too.

[Homer J Sniper]

This one is more of a balance issue. The front titan guns on the PAC Titan can swing in an arc of about 280 degrees whilst the front titan guns on the EU Titan only swing 180 degrees. Would be nice to see them balanced by either matching the EU to the PAC, or vice versa.

[Sentience]

Originally Posted by Homer J Sniper

This one is more of a balance issue. The front titan guns on the PAC Titan can swing in an arc of about 280 degrees whilst the front titan guns on the EU Titan only swing 180 degrees. Would be nice to see them balanced by either matching the EU to the PAC, or vice versa.

Balance comments are exactly the kind of thing we're after, thanks for that suggestion Homer.

[Swoold]

I'd like to see an option to remove walkers on the server side. It becomes a real pain when you're trying to start up a server with only 3 on each side and someone jumps into a walker.

IO mode might be good, not sure it would really work in Titan mode without some major re-work.

I'd also like to see the Engineer have a better sidearm to defend himself with as the SMG is next to useless (although that could just be me...).

[jmperoo]

The northern strike unlocks are pretty much useless, how about making them a little more useful.
rdx gun could do with a tad more power at present it only takes a fraction off of the other persons health.
Turn down the damage on rpk 74 rocket grenades or make it so that they delay each round a little more they are a bit to powerful and can be used to hold an enemy inside an enclosed area quite easily.

Titan corridors, they need adjusting so that 3 people can't hold of a whole side of 24 players.
I have seen this happen and been on the side doing it quite a few times, one supplies another chucks grenades and another heals, in this way it can be quite easy to defend corridors 1+2 due to the length of them.

[viciousraptor]

I've got a few ideas:

1. Bring the Jet rockets back to Pre 1.25. They are far too deadly now, especially against transport ships. Their range has been doubled and they tend to make bizarre circles in the air and even when fired way off the target they still manage to hit after 2 seconds or so

2. The RDX shotgun (NS Unlock) is quite useless . It doesn't stick to people, it's explosive range is too small and there's no timer on it.

3. Smoke grenades with a sensor? I would never trade that in for Rocket launcher/defibrillator? The smoke itself isn't very obscuring either. It's a small puff and it's gone far too fast to be of any cover.
Battlefield 2: Special Forces, now that had a smoke grenade! Ok, it was a tear-gas grenade but it was still a lot more useful than what we have now.

4. Why do buggies not have mine sensors and why can someone get killed when he drives a buggy over an APM mine? The whole idea behind the buggy is that you can get somewhere fast, this kind of thing just grinds it death in its tracks.

5. Introduce different types of armour. Light/heavy? I never use light armour because when I combine all my unlocks and some stamina-saving tactics I never seem to really run low.

How about anti-EMP armour that reduces the visual disturbance EMP causes? Or Armour that takes less damage from explosives but is even heavier than heavy-armour, for example. Now that'd bring some flavour into the whole armour-thing!

6. Shooting the titan AA guns at the other titan AA guns causes lag when they hit the shield just below it. I have no suggestions as how to fix that, but I do think the titan AA guns are wholly irrelevant and transport ships would have a much easier time without them. It's already hard enough landing a transport ship without:

A) Someone Jumping out prematurely and getting squished
B) Crashing into something
C) Getting shot down by the jet

Titan corridors, they need adjusting so that 3 people can't hold of a whole side of 24 players.
I have seen this happen and been on the side doing it quite a few times, one supplies another chucks grenades and another heals, in this way it can be quite easy to defend corridors 1+2 due to the length of them.

I agree

I was thinking that the disabling of any explosives inside the Titan would be good thing. Just bullets and Pilums only would make for some awesome titan fights without someone spamming APM/C7 or grenades to leech all the kills away.

Thanks for allowing us to vent our ideas, Sentience.

[Homer J Sniper]

Originally Posted by viciousraptor

I agree

I was thinking that the disabling of any explosives inside the Titan would be good thing. Just bullets and Pilums only would make for some awesome titan fights without someone spamming APM/C7 or grenades to leech all the kills away.

Thanks for allowing us to vent our ideas, Sentience.

Yup there is nothing more irritating being a support guy, setting out your sentry getting into a decent shooting position, only to have some C7/APM spammer place all his explosives at the entrance to the corridor therefore rendering you useless.

[Church1018]

How about explosives damage the titan's hull ever so slightly?

[Swoold]

Originally Posted by Homer J Sniper

[Yup there is nothing more irritating being a support guy, setting out your sentry getting into a decent shooting position, only to have some C7/APM spammer place all his explosives at the entrance to the corridor therefore rendering you useless.

What's as irrating though is placing a sentry gun down and it starts to fire at walls when it detects someone coming. You can clearly see the round splash on the other side of the wall (not to mention that it's not hte quietest of weapons) so you can avoid going down that corridor until you're ready.

Would be much better if the gun only fired when it 'saw' someone.

[Church1018]

Originally Posted by Swoold

IO mode might be good, not sure it would really work in Titan mode without some major re-work.

I'd also like to see the Engineer have a better sidearm to defend himself with as the SMG is next to useless (although that could just be me...).

IO in conquest is great. I sometimes play on a conquest server in which the use of vehicles is frowned upon, and to tell the truth, it's the best way to play. Titan, maybe not so much.

The engineer sidearm is great for personal defence...I actually prefer it to two of the assault rifles for close-quarters fighting. Just don't try and pick anyone off long range.

[warlord2000ad]

In my opinion there does need to be more balance in assaulting the titan. Currently defending is too easy. Sentry guns, claymores, RDX, Grenades and then you have the people with guns also.

I think it would be good, that as the titan is taking damage from missiles, addtional parts are opened up, at say 80% health, a wall at the side of corridor 1 is weak enough to be blown open by RDX allowing attackers a 2nd way in. At 60%, 40%, 20% the same could be done for corridors 2, 3, 4. Then finally at either 10% or 5% the rear shields go down, the one protecting the spawn stays but the 4 at the back near the consoles are turned off. These would allow the final couples of attempts to take out the core.

As it requires missiles to do hull damage it would also give a point in the continued capture of missile silos.


As to what Homer mentioned, i fully agree. I have seen people willing to do team damage / kills to get into that position.

I also do feel a change needs to be made for the titan air drop badge. It was changed due to a exploit which gave points to quickly, and now i struggle to get even 1 per round from it. I think it could be improved if it went back to the old system, but limit it to that a player can only give 1 air drop point to the pilot per life. This means once leaving the aircraft and giving the point, if they reenter and leave they will not give another one.

[viciousraptor]

I think it would be good, that as the titan is taking damage from missiles, addtional parts are opened up, at say 80% health, a wall at the side of corridor 1 is weak enough to be blown open by RDX allowing attackers a 2nd way in. At 60%, 40%, 20% the same could be done for corridors 2, 3, 4. Then finally at either 10% or 5% the rear shields go down, the one protecting the spawn stays but the 4 at the back near the consoles are turned off. These would allow the final couples of attempts to take out the core.

That's a great idea!

Did you get that from Fallout? Weak force fields?

also do feel a change needs to be made for the titan air drop badge. It was changed due to a exploit which gave points to quickly, and now i struggle to get even 1 per round from it. I think it could be improved if it went back to the old system, but limit it to that a player can only give 1 air drop point to the pilot per life. This means once leaving the aircraft and giving the point, if they reenter and leave they will not give another one.

I'd only get the pin because I want to have all the pins, I think it's kind of suicidal hovering your transport ship ABOVE the titan. Just being able to get it only once by parking your transport ship on the deck of the enemy titan should be enough.. That's dare devil enough with that infernal machine!

[SpideryYoda0]

I think..

Something really needs to be done about the titan corridor grenade spamming. I agree with everyone, defending is was too easy and not only that but you get the titan defender pin every 5 minutes or so if you're defending well. I think maybe a titan attack pin with slightly more points than the defense pin would be an incentive to attack the titan rather than defend it.

I think the apm's are now next to useless. You need to run into them pretty much to set them off. I saw no problem with the pre 1.25 ones. They were there to catch people off guard when they ran round corners or up stairs, but were easy to avoid by crouching. Now they're no use.

Also on Fall of Berlin, the PAC rarely get out of their uncap base. Maybe adding an extra PAC apc would fix this.

They're in my opinion the only things that need balancing, everything else is fine.

Edit// Oh yeah, the titan drop pin or whatever its called. Its now next to impossible to get this pin. So it either needs to be changed so its possible to get or Remove it altogether and replace it with, say, a titan attack pin, or something new like a defreib attack pin

[Church1018]

Heh, I don't know, now the APMs actually have to be placed with a certain measure of skill. They can still be used to defend places, but not whole parts of the map anymore.

I hardly ever play Fall of Berlin for that exact reason, though. PAC need an edge.

[WolfusMaximas]

I think a super titan in one of the port bavaria docks would be great, no force fields activated on it but it could have like 8 corridors and a few connecting passages, it would be an awesome battleground maybe a benefit of the west dock as well as nobody bothers defending there.

Also I really like the Different entrances to the titan, by damagig it's hull that would give a real edge to the attackers

[jmperoo]

Originally Posted by WolfusMaximas

I think a super titan in one of the port bavaria docks would be great, no force fields activated on it but it could have like 8 corridors and a few connecting passages, it would be an awesome battleground maybe a benefit of the west dock as well as nobody bothers defending there.

Also I really like the Different entrances to the titan, by damagig it's hull that would give a real edge to the attackers

What a good idea, physically having to take out a titan with no silos imagine the fire fight that would ensue, oh and the lag
It is a good idea not to sure how much lag would result though, seeing as though it only takes a couple of aa guns spamming the aircraft hanger shields to pretty much cripple a server at the moment, but something like this would make for one hell of a game

[chuckMFDANGERous]

It would be cool if transports could slowly fly through titan shields (main and command shields) but if they went to fast they would still blow up.

Titans could have gun emplacements with high rate of fire to help defend inside.

Bomb Suit style body armor option. When equiped has its own health bar. And would have to make your stamina considerably low. An engineer could patch the armor. It should withstand a couple RDX hits to get past those pesky titan rdx spammers. Call it Titan Armor.

On that note how about a SHIELD that you can carry. This would also have a health bar. Call it Titan Shield.

Recon scope upgrade should also upgrade the LAMBERT CARBINE to allow it to have more zoom capability.( All recons should be able to zoom this was my first unlock let-down)

Walkers main gun should be able to zoom.

Clark 12-RDX needs to be more potent! Im talkin one hit kills! Anyone dumb enough to hang out with its massive delay deserves to die!!

The SD-8 ACCIPITER should be more "Johnny on the spot" and should have two fire modes adjustable by its controller:
A) TEAM FIRE- Normal mode (This needs improvement; the turret should swivel, lock onto spotted targets, and fire faster.
B) SQUAD LEADER FIRE- Accipiter will look and fire when and were the the squad leader fires with no delay. (This should be possible because the accipiter is linked directly to the squad leaders helmet.)

Smoke grenades should put out better smoke currently its pretty thin. I think this would make for more interesting titan assaults!

CM3-N RADAR GRENADES should also put out more smoke and radar radius. This should remain active longer.

The Best Buy pre-order exclusive gun should be able to be used if playing as PAC but would have PAC colors. Also you should be able to choose the original SCAR 11 AR if you wanted to.

When you are killed and you are choosing weopons; just because the 15 seconds is up, the kit and weopons console should not automatically switch you to the support kit.

Thank You for considering my suggestions and I acknowledge that couple of these could potentially cause more lag.

[Church1018]

Originally Posted by chuckMFDANGERous

It would be cool if transports could slowly fly through titan shields (main and command shields) but if they went to fast they would still blow up.

That would be horrible...imagine the spawnrape....

Bomb Suit style body armor option. When equiped has its own health bar. And would have to make your stamina considerably low. An engineer could patch the armor. It should withstand a couple RDX hits to get past those pesky titan rdx spammers. Call it Titan Armor.

Hmm...make it too weak, it's useless. Too strong, it's waaay overpowered. The balance would have to be extremely fine.

On that note how about a SHIELD that you can carry. This would also have a health bar. Call it Titan Shield.

Halo-style?

Recon scope upgrade should also upgrade the LAMBERT CARBINE to allow it to have more zoom capability.( All recons should be able to zoom this was my first unlock let-down)

Walkers main gun should be able to zoom.

Clark 12-RDX needs to be more potent! Im talkin one hit kills! Anyone dumb enough to hang out with its massive delay deserves to die!!

Hmm...all ideas down to personal preference, and I have none here.

The SD-8 ACCIPITER should be more "Johnny on the spot" and should have two fire modes adjustable by its controller:
A) TEAM FIRE- Normal mode (This needs improvement; the turret should swivel, lock onto spotted targets, and fire faster.
B) SQUAD LEADER FIRE- Accipiter will look and fire when and were the the squad leader fires with no delay. (This should be possible because the accipiter is linked directly to the squad leaders helmet.)

Sounds good.

Smoke grenades should put out better smoke currently its pretty thin. I think this would make for more interesting titan assaults!

CM3-N RADAR GRENADES should also put out more smoke and radar radius. This should remain active longer.

The smoke could use a little tweaking, true, but I think the radar ability is fine as it is.

When you are killed and you are choosing weopons; just because the 15 seconds is up, the kit and weopons console should not automatically switch you to the support kit.

Yeah, that bug is annoying...

[SpideryYoda0]

Originally Posted by chuckMFDANGERous

It would be cool if transports could slowly fly through titan shields (main and command shields) but if they went to fast they would still blow up.

Titans could have gun emplacements with high rate of fire to help defend inside.

Bomb Suit style body armor option. When equiped has its own health bar. And would have to make your stamina considerably low. An engineer could patch the armor. It should withstand a couple RDX hits to get past those pesky titan rdx spammers. Call it Titan Armor.

On that note how about a SHIELD that you can carry. This would also have a health bar. Call it Titan Shield.

Recon scope upgrade should also upgrade the LAMBERT CARBINE to allow it to have more zoom capability.( All recons should be able to zoom this was my first unlock let-down)

Walkers main gun should be able to zoom.

Clark 12-RDX needs to be more potent! Im talkin one hit kills! Anyone dumb enough to hang out with its massive delay deserves to die!!

Not sure about them, but i agree the Clark-12 RDX is bordering on 'completely useless' just now.

Originally Posted by chuckMFDANGERous

The SD-8 ACCIPITER should be more "Johnny on the spot" and should have two fire modes adjustable by its controller:
A) TEAM FIRE- Normal mode (This needs improvement; the turret should swivel, lock onto spotted targets, and fire faster.
B) SQUAD LEADER FIRE- Accipiter will look and fire when and were the the squad leader fires with no delay. (This should be possible because the accipiter is linked directly to the squad leaders helmet.)

Smoke grenades should put out better smoke currently its pretty thin. I think this would make for more interesting titan assaults!

CM3-N RADAR GRENADES should also put out more smoke and radar radius. This should remain active longer.

The Best Buy pre-order exclusive gun should be able to be used if playing as PAC but would have PAC colors. Also you should be able to choose the original SCAR 11 AR if you wanted to.

When you are killed and you are choosing weopons; just because the 15 seconds is up, the kit and weopons console should not automatically switch you to the support kit.

Thank You for considering my suggestions and I acknowledge that couple of these could potentially cause more lag.

Good points/ideas. The SD-8 ACCIPITER is also pretty useless just now. It takes far too long to see enemies and fire at them and by that time you're usually dead, if they did sneak up on you. So much for it being good at 'watching your back'.

The 'switching to support' bug is very annoying, yeah.

Smoke grenades are useless just now, but if more smoke was added, it may lag the game (well i know it would lag mine anyway).

And i haven't got the Best Buy Scar-11 but all i hear about it is 'its too big, i wish i could use the standard one'. So yeah, letting them switch would be good.

[chuckMFDANGERous]

A few more ideas to mention:

Titan mini map needs tweaking. While onboard a titan medium range is to close to be effective; and close range... well, you might just as well try looking through a microscope. Long range is ok its good for checking on silos.

APC pods should always be able to fly at titan altitude! This would be a good way to counter roof-top spawn becons.

I like to play in servers with no rules they are more fun. Spawn raping is fun to do somtimes its a good way to mix it up a litte. To the point, Assault Lines style gameplay should be able to go either way; there shouldn't be un-caps! Lets use the whole map people!

Uncaps (if they have to be) should be all the flags behind your front line flag, Now that would be one serious choke point! Could you imagine the flanking maneuvers it would take to secure that front line with all its "supply flags" behind it!! Attacking commander assets is just to create a diversion anyway its fun! You could get Frontline Capture points for +2 per kill and Defend points for +1 per kill to keep it motivated.

Auto-Balance should be more name than rank friendly so its easyier to stick with your Tag Team. Matched names would have to come first on the calculation checklist for this to work properly.

Pods should not destroy vehicles in one hit especially transport ships rather pod damage should be the equivelent of a APC grenade burst or lower. Still should stay one hit kill on infantry units.

[gbrricci]

with the three person vehicle/buggy when someone is in the gunner seat i can have a clear line of site of their head with my sniper but i can't kill them

[SpideryYoda0]

I just wanted to say. I was trying to play Infantry maps like Cerbere Landing and Camp Gibraltar, and i just find the gameplay annoying and no fun since that patch. I ended up quitting after a round because all the pointless changes to the game were really getting on my nerves. And then PnkBstr B crashed when i tried to go on a Titan Server (like always), and so i had to restart the machine.

I'm just going to play Bf2 now. Not playing 2142 anymore. It used to be fun. But aint now.

[minister68uk]

Weapons are fine, Don't bow down to those who say weapons are not fine. EA did this with BF2 and now unfortunately BF2 is not as popular as when it first came out. I belong to a Battlefield competition clan that has been around sine 1999 www.eight-elite.com it move exclusively to BF1942 when it came out and then incorporated, Vietnam, BF2 and now BF2142 with all in vanilla mode.

Soon we are expanding in to other FPS team and objective based games. However BF2142 is the best so far of the BF range, the bunny jumping is virtually non existent compared to BF2, so full marks there to EA as is the weapon balancing.

Some of the NS unlocks are a little useless but is not detrimental to gameplay. If you start altering one thing other things break or start to act incorrectly.

The only thing that is missing from the game is an option that was great in BF2 that would do just as well in BF2142 is an Infantry Only option for Conquest. There are arguments that having vehicles make you think more and be more cunning, but infantry only makes the game more intense and requires skill, not someone jumping into a walker and just sitting there when you only have 10 people in a server. Now that is Stat Padding! IO gave new life to BF2. BF2142 does not need new life, just needs an option there to give players of all abilities, new and old alike, a bit of intense gaming.

I will be looking forward to the IO option as will a large percentage of BF2142 gamers.

[harderthanfire]

I agree with the infantry only idea, that will improve conquest a lot.

I also think some of the kits need looking at in terms of balence, I mean look at the assault kit, it is the best at long, short and medium range and the fact it can heal and resus people just makes it silly. Its main problem is the fact it can use assault rifle rockets, they just kill everything very easily at medium to long range. Then if someone gets close to you just pull out your voss fire a couple of shots and they go down. 90% of the kills on our conquest server are done by either a Voss or a Voss firing assault rifle rockets. With the odd Baur and none unlock assault gun thrown in.

The way I would even it out is make the Lambert Carbine (recoil and fire rate are fine) slightly more powerful, increase the power of the LMGs (recoil and fire rate are perfect) and decrease the power of the assault rifle rockets. I would also increase the power of the pistols because at the moment it is easier to just run up and knife someone, no point trying to pistol.

If people think I just don't like the assault kit, you are wrong I use it the most

I also agree on the titan coridors being nade,rdx and apm spammed, it is quite hard to break through but it is usually managed eventually. A way to even if out slightly would be decrease the resupply rate for grenades, rdx and apms in titan mode.

Well that is mine and most of my clan's opinion anyway.

[harderthanfire]

edit: double post sorry.