Since its debut 11 years ago with Battlefield 1942, DICE’s Battlefield series has always been about large scale vehicular warfare, and each installment has sought to perfect this scenario.
For the first time on consoles, gamers will be able to partake in 64 player bliss with Battlefield 4, something that PC players have been experiencing since Battlefield 1942. Personally though, I couldn’t care less about 64 players; I prefer smaller teams on smaller maps. There's far less chaos.
I used to watch my friend play Battlefield 1942, but my real first hands-on experience with Battlefield was Vietnam, and it was at a LAN gaming center with 15 on 15 Conquest action. I remember one guy stood up in the room and yelled, “This half of the room is on the US, the other half of the room, choose the Vietcong, GO!”
It was an incredible experience. The guys in my row were all communicating where we were on the map. I yelled out, “Get in my APC!” Six guys pile into my APC as I drive toward a flag that was on the other side of a hill. Once we there, I yelled, “Go go go!” Everyone poured out of the APC and went guns blazing toward the flag. It was a classic ambush. Meanwhile, I used my APC mounted MG to lay down suppressing fire--it was awesome!
Fast forward to Battlefield 2, I got my first eSports league experience in the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL), an online esports league: 16 players, 8 versus 8, on Conquest Assault maps.
Matches were usually 20 minutes in length, yet sometimes they ended in five minutes; we liked calling that a perfect game. In a perfect game, your strategy would work out flawlessly, and you would literally take every flag in the round within the first two minutes. Players on the opposing team who were still alive would frantically try to survive by trying to gain a flag before their tickets bled out, but to no avail. It awesome to see such a display of teamwork and coordination.
With eight player teams, it was easy to communicate and be broken into two and three man squads. Usually each map had one tank per side, one jeep per side, one APC per side, and one helicopter as a neutral vehicle. Jets were never used in league play for Battlefield 2. So, even if there were three players, one in each available vehicle, there were still five men on the ground fighting, so essentially, it was 5v5 with the remaining three per side supporting their team with armor.
Conquest Assault maps typically had a max of four flags total, and this really created a chess-like experience. Team tactics always trumped lone-wolfing.
With Battlefield 4, 64 players sounds like a lot of fun, and it certainly can be, but sometimes it can become very chaotic and lonesome. With so many players doing their own thing, at times it can feel like you’re not part of a team, but instead playing in some giant deathmatch game where the objective is an afterthought.
Personally, I am looking forward to seeing if BF4 is going to have the Conquest Assault mode across all the maps; this will allow for smaller scale games that demand the utmost teamwork and coordination.
There’s nothing sweeter than playing a round of Battlefield with a team that’s communicating toward one goal: win the game. 64 players just doesn’t give that same feeling.
Written by: Vapor
For the first time on consoles, gamers will be able to partake in 64 player bliss with Battlefield 4, something that PC players have been experiencing since Battlefield 1942. Personally though, I couldn’t care less about 64 players; I prefer smaller teams on smaller maps. There's far less chaos.
I used to watch my friend play Battlefield 1942, but my real first hands-on experience with Battlefield was Vietnam, and it was at a LAN gaming center with 15 on 15 Conquest action. I remember one guy stood up in the room and yelled, “This half of the room is on the US, the other half of the room, choose the Vietcong, GO!”
It was an incredible experience. The guys in my row were all communicating where we were on the map. I yelled out, “Get in my APC!” Six guys pile into my APC as I drive toward a flag that was on the other side of a hill. Once we there, I yelled, “Go go go!” Everyone poured out of the APC and went guns blazing toward the flag. It was a classic ambush. Meanwhile, I used my APC mounted MG to lay down suppressing fire--it was awesome!
Fast forward to Battlefield 2, I got my first eSports league experience in the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL), an online esports league: 16 players, 8 versus 8, on Conquest Assault maps.
Matches were usually 20 minutes in length, yet sometimes they ended in five minutes; we liked calling that a perfect game. In a perfect game, your strategy would work out flawlessly, and you would literally take every flag in the round within the first two minutes. Players on the opposing team who were still alive would frantically try to survive by trying to gain a flag before their tickets bled out, but to no avail. It awesome to see such a display of teamwork and coordination.
With eight player teams, it was easy to communicate and be broken into two and three man squads. Usually each map had one tank per side, one jeep per side, one APC per side, and one helicopter as a neutral vehicle. Jets were never used in league play for Battlefield 2. So, even if there were three players, one in each available vehicle, there were still five men on the ground fighting, so essentially, it was 5v5 with the remaining three per side supporting their team with armor.
Conquest Assault maps typically had a max of four flags total, and this really created a chess-like experience. Team tactics always trumped lone-wolfing.
With Battlefield 4, 64 players sounds like a lot of fun, and it certainly can be, but sometimes it can become very chaotic and lonesome. With so many players doing their own thing, at times it can feel like you’re not part of a team, but instead playing in some giant deathmatch game where the objective is an afterthought.
Personally, I am looking forward to seeing if BF4 is going to have the Conquest Assault mode across all the maps; this will allow for smaller scale games that demand the utmost teamwork and coordination.
There’s nothing sweeter than playing a round of Battlefield with a team that’s communicating toward one goal: win the game. 64 players just doesn’t give that same feeling.
Written by: Vapor
