Originally posted by: BD2003
Hmm, lets see...innovations in BF2142:
-Titan mode, which I suppose is interesting
-Walkers, which are basically glorified tanks
That about sums it up! There are things I do like - the apc spawn is a good idea. The sound is just about damn near perfect.
My personal 10 top annoyances, in no particular order:
1. The obvious - BUGS. Crashing, losing connection to servers etc...polish the damn game already, it's about time.
2. Terrible interface. The thing is unresponsive, the menu has to load, it has to constant optimize shaders, and some options even force you to restart. The server browser is horrendous. The map/spawn system really needs work. The squad system is a good idea, but is so unintuitive, that 75% of people dont join one.
3. Sloppy objectives - It's just too open ended. There is no cohesion in the battle. Just a set of flags dispersed around, and now especially with apc spawns flying around, its just a matter of flags constantly switching sides. There's no linking, no front to the battle, just a general free for all. Titan mode is even worse. Once a shield goes down, its spread into two or three separate battlefields. Once the shields go down, do you try and keep the missles, attack their titan, or defend yours? Does it really matter, because everyone is going to be doing their own thing anyway? UT2004 did it right - power nodes were linked. The battles were focused and intense, and there was a real team effort going on.
4. Lack of teamplay - Due to the incoherency of the battlefield, there is little incentive for teamplay. Squads should be forced. As should a commander. TKing is rampant. The game just degenerates into a vehicle camp, cause its fun to fly. It's not fun to cap flags, because they never stay that way.
5. Vehicle system is absurd - The free for all vehicle system was bad in bf 1942, and its still bad. You're fairly useless without a vehicle, and they are so hard to come by, and so randomly dropped, that half the time is usually camping the vehicles. It should show where each vehicle spawns and how long till it spawns. You should then be able to reserve a spot in the next vehicle, or get in line. If you're still around when you get there, its yours. TKing will remove you from the line. And you shouldnt be able to get into the other team's vehicles unless you own the flag. And perhaps even some vehicles should be locked by rank. Result = no tking, no camping, no wasting of vehicles, no vehicle jacking at the enemy's base, and overall goodness.
6. Crappy infantry combat - This is the probably my single biggest gripe. You are essetially useless on foot. If you're on foot, its cause you couldnt find a vehicle. Even engineers are fairly defenseless against them...which would all be alright, if foot soldiers were actually effective against each other. Everyone is too slow, and cant sprint more than 20 feet. Unless you are prone, and firing 1 shot per second, at a target less than 100 feet from you, you are woefully inaccurate. Even then, it takes about 6 shots from an assault rifle to down someone. And shooting someone produces absolutely no reaction from your enemy. Its so robotic. How many times do I have to be 5 feet from someone, spraying a machine gun in their face, only to not kill them because I was moving around and my gun is basically shooting perpendicular? Every infantry battle ends up in either of two ways - two people meet each other at a distance, hit prone, and start to fire single shots at each other, hoping they hit the other guy 6 times first. Little skill to that. Or an up close and personal encounter, which is basically flip a coin, because it doesnt matter how close you are, or how much you are shooting, it only matters whether the god of battlefield decides that your bullets will actually hit something. It feels so disjointed and absurd, when it really should be the focus of the entire game.
7. Laggy netcode - Get into a vehicle with someone with a slow connection, and watch it jerk around. I'm tired of falling off buildings cause the netcode is so jerky, even with a 25 ping.
8. Boring weapons - This should be BF2042, at best. Theres nothing special about the weapons. They are reskinned BF2 weapons.
9. Lack of distinction between teams - The EU and PAC might as well be the same. Same weapons on each side, different skins. Very little difference overall.
10. Overall lack of polish - It just feels rushed. It feels like everyone just threw some good ideas together, and never actually PLAYED it. Never actually said, here's a problem, lets think about how we can fix it. Nope, instead just add another half-assed feature (eg. squads), instead of polishing the core game mechanics.
Since its basically the same game as BF2, I would have hoped they'd have it least tweaked it some. But its just a mod. It's a game with so many good ideas, and such flawed execution, its a crying shame. It could be brilliant, but it ends up settling for merely good but flawed.