- Intro -
Ok, I've read a lot of bitching about how EA has fucked up BF2 for us so I decided to take an overall picture of how the game has changed. Mainly, I want to see if EA has really screwed us like most of you proclaim, and see what the state of the game is right now. I'll try to be relativelly objective, but this is also about how I see the game so I'm sorry if I favor AA instead of J10's for example.
I took the time to re-read all of the EA news and change logs for these games to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass. So please take the time to read this if you're gonna comment since I put a lot of effort into it. Ok so here goes:
- Choppers -
Transport Choppers
Initial Status: MEC and PLA choppers have never been that special. Crappy guns, slow, not very maneuverable. However in the beginning, they could be used to flag cap like crazy. USMC blackhawk on the other hand was the ultimate rape mobile. Fast, ridiculous mini-guns, very good at flag cap whoring if I recall. Engineers repariing from the inside could keep the chopper afloat for quite a while.
Community Bitching: Incessant bitching about overpowered Blackhawk, complaints about the crappy guns on the other choppers. Complaints about the whole full chopper capping flags in seconds deal and the invincible choppers with engineers in them.
Fixes: Blackhawk mini-gun reduced to the other choppers' abilities. No more flag capping without people getting out. Reduced repair rate from inside chopper. General fine-tuning of armor as patches came along.
Opinion: Considering they are called transport choppers, they get the job done well with a competent pilot at the wheel. If you're discrete you can fly to flags unnoticed, but are also easy to take out once spotted.
Attack Choppers
Initial Status: They all had lots-o-rockets, heavy armor, very long TV missle range. PLA and USMC chopper are relativelly similar, always been nimble. MEC chopper was buggy with TV missle, and it's a sloth in the air. But god does that gun rape troops like none other.
Community Bitching: Complaints about TV missle range. No way to take them out with ineffective AA and less effective AT kit back then. General overpowered-ness against troops. No one liked the buggy TV on the MEC chopper.
Fixes: Reduced rocket count and tv missle range to make less effective. Reduced overall armor to point where vehicles can now take them out. Fixed MEC TV missle. Better AT kit rockets and AA missles make them more vulnerable now.
Opinion: The choppers have hit a good balance I think. A good pilot can rape pretty well, while a sneaky troop can knock it out with some AA and some .50 cal fire. A well placed AT rocket can prove deadly as well.
- Airplanes -
All jets
Initial Status: Crappy air-to-air missles made for general ineffectiveness against aircraft. Crappy surface-to-air missles made for unkillable jets. In other words, invincible.
Community Bitching: I remember the constant bitching about invincible jets and how they would ruin the game for everyone. The general bitching was more about AA though, than of the jets themselves.
Fixes: "Fixed" AA missles, fine tuned armor on jets.
Opinion: Jets are no longer invincible, and can be taken down by other jets in general, and by a smart ground AA troop. They are a bit overpowered still, but come on, they are jets. It's like if the Iraqui's complained about how effective the Air Force was.
J10
Initial Status: More maneuverable than the other jets. No big difference.
Community Bitching: General jet bitching more than anything.
Fixes: Fixed AA for all jets. Unintended consequence of making this jet a god in the battlefield.
Opinion: Overpowered piece of shit. Most unbalanced aspect of the whole game. Invincible with a capable pilot, as it is easy to dodge AA in that thing. Still needs fine-tuning.
- Vehicles -
Armor
Initial Status: Tanks and APC's have remained relativelly stable. They are what they are really. Meat Turret spin hack was possible then. Damage from terrain was big sometimes. APC's couldn't go up hills lol. TK's from touching a tank was a problem.
Community Bitching: General bitching about tank whores, rather than the tanks themselves so that doesn't count. When turret spin get into wall hack was discovered, bitching increased. Golden days of BF2. Complaints about damage from moving too fast over a bump, and APC's not being able to go over a 5% gradient.
Fixes: Fixed damage and maneuverability. Added some sound tweaks, and other stuff here and there. No more spinning turret BS. Reduced damage to troops at low speeds.
Opinion: Tanks and APC's seem fine now. Not too overpowered, not useless either. Not many people complain. Tank whores will always piss us off though.
Other cars
Initial Status: Relativelly balanced. Took a lot of damage from the terrain sometimes though. Random TK's were possible at low speeds as well.
Community Bitching: Haven't really heard much bitching about vehicles really. There's the usual complaints about C4 buggies but that's not really that unfair.
Fixes: Fixed the damage from terrain and TK's at low speed.
Opinion: Cars are what they are really. Well balanced in the end, and fit their purpose... get you somewhere.
- AA -
Surface-to-air
Initial Status: Piece of shit. Ineffective, inaccurate, incompetent, ineverything. Temporary bugs with missles getting stuck in flames and flying from Airfield to Carrier lol.
Community Bitching: Who can forget the pre 1.2 bitch fests about so and so plane raping like crazy cause AA couldn't take them down.
Fixes: Adjusted the missles and made them more effective after 1.2. It is possible to take down planes now if you are skilled. J10's are invincible though so that's not AA's fault.
Opinion: AA could be improved a little, but again, airplanes should have some superiority as that is where some of the game balance comes from. Crappy team with decent pilot can do stuff. Look at J10 entry for real problem.
Air-to-air
Initial Status: Crap as well, a bit more effective than SAM missles.
Community Bitching: Pilots didn't bitch much back then about missles since they couldn't kill but couldn't get killed either.
Fixes: Improvements with the changes in AA.
Opinion: Jets can take down other jets now with skill based maneuvers. The only problem is that the J10 is unbalanced, not the AA necessarily.
- Gameplay -
Commander Related
Initial Status: Tk's from artillery weren't very cool. Scoring mechanism was kind of weird back then as well. Didn't play much commander so I'm not sure.
Community Bitching: Many didn't like some aspects of the commander experience, but since there are such few commanders, not many complain. Or at least not as loud. There were people who didn't like that there was no reward for taking out assets.
Fixes: Eliminated artillery TK's. Tweaked commander related things. Added 3d map icons for supplies/car drops. Added vehicle drop. Added points for taking out assets.
Opinion: Commanders don't complain much so I'm guessing people are happy with it. The added feautres and fixes have been welcome as well.
Player movement
Initial Status: Bunny hopping, dolphin diving, prone spamming, jump-shooting, sprint exploiting free for all. Problems with players being 100% accurate after going prone mid air and shooting causing game unbalances.
Community Bitching: This has been the bulk of all the bitching that has gone on in the game. And for good reason since it changed the game play greatly.
Fixes: Removed shooting while jumping, dolphin diving, prone spamming, sprint exploiting. Added delays between certain motions. Added camera shake to certain motions.
Opinion: Back then, everyone was bitching about this crap. Now everyone is bitching about not having this crap. I personally don't see people being affected greatly by this so the changes are welcome. These techniques ARE unfair and they make the game less enjoyable for the community as a whole so they had to be changed. Enough has been said about this in many posts so I'll stop here.
- Kits -
Spec-Ops
Initial Status: C4 Chucking whorage was the main problem with this kit in the beginning. Problems with gun accuracy/damage
Community Bitching: People didn't like the C4 exploits that were being used. Lots of complaints about this. I personally was a C4 whore so I wasn't one to complain.
Fixes: Reduced C4 throwing ability. Tweaked weapons for balance issues.
Opinion: I miss the C4 throwing fests but it was a necessary change since it made the game unbalanced. People now bitch about not having it but lets be honest, it was unfair so don't kid yourselves.
Medic
Initial Status: Good kit, easy to get points with. Problems with putting paddles away before reloading. AK guns were ridiculous sometimes.
Community Bitching: Complaints about medic whores, but these are usually misplaced feelings of jealousy over higher scoring players. Real complaints about paddles not recharging though. Many hated the AK randomness which seemed to favor the player using it.
Fixes: Allowed for recharging while paddles are away. Joined Medic pack and paddles "ammo". Tweaks to weapons over the course of patches.
Opinion: Medic kit is awesome now. Not many complaints I believe. Well balanced weapons as well.
Engineer
Initial Status: This kit is what it is. Problems with effectiveness of weapons and lack of points from repairing.
Community Bitching: Lots of complaints about repair points and some MP7 issues I believe.
Fixes: Fixed MP7 bugs, tweaked the weapons.
Opinion: Kit hasn't changed much and it's useful for it's main purpose. When used correctly, it can keep a tank alive for a long time. Shotgun can be deadly at close range. Kit seems balanced to me.
Anti-tank
Initial Status: Disappearing rockets seemed to be the main problem here. Not very maneuverable either at first.
Community Bitching: General complaints about the kit I believe.
Fixes: Fixed the disappearing rockets. Fixed P90 ROF to more realistic levels. Easier to maneuver now.
Opinion: P90 was my main beef with this kit, but that has been fixed. It is now more effective against choppers because they maneuver better. Good damage from rockets, and effective close quarters weapons. Seems balanced overall.
Sniper
Initial Status: Problems with sniper rifles, particularly M95. No unlock at first when SF came out.
Community Bitching: General complaints about crappy hit detection with rifles, and other problems. Now we have claymore whores so bitching about that.
Fixes: Fixed rifle issues and gave us a new unlock. Tweaked claymores to the state they are in now.
Opinion: The kit is balanced now, except for those damn unremovable claymores. See explosives for info on that. Overall, not many can complain I think.
Assault
Initial Status: Noob-tubing whores. General overpoweredness of grenade launcher attachment, weapons, flashbangs.
Community Bitching: Who can forget the noob-tube wars. This was probably one of the main topics in the forums for a while.
Fixes: Reduced damage, increased range for grenade launcher. Tweaked weapons. Reduced flashbang range and ammo.
Opinion: Kit is balanced now. Takes more skill to use effectivelly, and no more of that lame close quarters noob-tube combat. People of course complain about this change because who doesn't like to have an overpowered gun to play with right?
Explosives
Initial Status: Claymores and mines were removable by explosives. Mines were destroyable with M95. C4 was throwable.
Community Bitching: Complaints were mostly about the C4 throwers since mines were removable.
Fixes: Made mines/claymores unremovable. Added FF option to servers. Curbed C4 throwing.
Opinion: These are a bit unbalanced now since claymore fests seem to be the norm now since snipers can place them with no risk at all. Effective at area denial since they can't be removed though so that is a plus. Could be tweaked some more.
- Other Issues -
Server Browser
Initial Status: Most embarassing, piece of shit server browser I have ever seen in my life.
Community Bitching: Who can forget all the stupid crap that would happen while using the server browser. Lots of complaints. Nothing worse than hitting that update button or the filters and having the server list disappear.
Fixes: Tweaks with every patch have fixed certain aspects of the server browser up to now. Added favorites and history at some point which was kind of cool.
Opinion: Server browser is fine now, and they seem to have finished their job there. However, I will never understand how they could have release the game with that joke of a browser.
Stat Padding
Initial Status: Exploits were found as time passed. Players found new ways to beat the system such as knife-reviving, boat flipping, etc.
Community Bitching: Lots of complaints about stat-padders of course. Big topic in forums.
Fixes: Aggressive campaign by EA with ROE and quick resets from reporting. Fixes in each patch for any discovered exploits.
Opinion: EA has done their job here in making stat padding as hard as possible and ensuring consequences for those that chose to do it.
Crashes
Initial Status: Memory leak with 1.01 was not well welcomed. Server crashes with 1.3 were unwelcome as well. General CTD's everyonce in a while are recorded by many people.
Community Bitching: Probably one of the main complaints as well. No one liked it when EA introduced bugs by adding patches.
Fixes: Subsequent patches have addressed the issues created by previous patches. Bug fixes have helped make the game less prone to crashes.
Opinion: For me, the game runs well 99% of the time. This seems to be the case for most people. Fixes have been made after their mistakes. CTD's are unfortunatelly a part of the computer world and can sometimes be unrelated to BF2. 1.4 got rid of those nasty server crashes and haven't heard too many complaints for it so it looks like they did a good job overall.
Others
Initial Status: N/A
Community Bitching: Complaints about not being able to change names and bugs related to the on-screen display.
Fixes: Added the clan-tag feature and fixed many visual bugs for us. Added features to the HUD and mini map. Added Wake Island 2007 and Road to Jala69bad maps. Added other sound effects, tweaks.
Opinion: Bug fixes were done and goodies were added as it should be.
- Conclusion -
Phew, well that took a while to finish, 2 hours to be exact. I checked out all the change logs once I found them and I was surprised to see how many changes have been made to the game so far. It's easy to forget how much the game has really changed since it first came out.
So what's my conclusion? With the release of patch 1.4, it seems to me that EA has done a pretty good job of listening to our complaints and suggestions and improving the game. It looks like most complaints have been dealt with by EA with a few hiccups still left to scare away. In particular, explosives like claymores, AA, the invincible J10, and other minor details could still be worked out. Every issue has been addressed in one way or another and I don't think anything has gone unheard by EA.
There are some things that I know will never change. People will never stop bitching about tank/c4/nade/medic/everything whores. People will never stop bitching about bunny hopping/dolphin diving, and if it should be allowed or not. There are many other topics like this. But the nature of these discussions doesn't necessarily lie in EA's patches, but rather in the nature of players and their preferences. It'd be nice to see people distinguish these things, but I guess asking for that in the internet world is setting myself up for disappointment.
To me, looking at all of this is enough to be able to say that EA has done a good job overall, and my $50 dollars have been well spent. Sure there have been problems here and there, but EA has definatelly tried to fix the game, and have stuck by it for a while now. I have enjoyed the game thus far, and will probably be saying goodbye to it as soon as 2142 comes out, so it's nice to see that it's not all that bad. I don't expect you all to agree with me of course, and I know everyone will still keep bitching but hopefully a few of you will recognize your unfounded complaints and change your minds a little. And if not, well I'll be able to refer to my handy little guide now and prove you wrong so watch out! Ok I am done, my hands hurt and I need some breakfast.
P.S. I am not affiliated with EA or DICE in anyway. I am just fucking tired of all the bitching/whining going on lately about how EA fucked up your life and I got fed up with it.
Ok, I've read a lot of bitching about how EA has fucked up BF2 for us so I decided to take an overall picture of how the game has changed. Mainly, I want to see if EA has really screwed us like most of you proclaim, and see what the state of the game is right now. I'll try to be relativelly objective, but this is also about how I see the game so I'm sorry if I favor AA instead of J10's for example.
I took the time to re-read all of the EA news and change logs for these games to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass. So please take the time to read this if you're gonna comment since I put a lot of effort into it. Ok so here goes:
- Choppers -
Transport Choppers
Initial Status: MEC and PLA choppers have never been that special. Crappy guns, slow, not very maneuverable. However in the beginning, they could be used to flag cap like crazy. USMC blackhawk on the other hand was the ultimate rape mobile. Fast, ridiculous mini-guns, very good at flag cap whoring if I recall. Engineers repariing from the inside could keep the chopper afloat for quite a while.
Community Bitching: Incessant bitching about overpowered Blackhawk, complaints about the crappy guns on the other choppers. Complaints about the whole full chopper capping flags in seconds deal and the invincible choppers with engineers in them.
Fixes: Blackhawk mini-gun reduced to the other choppers' abilities. No more flag capping without people getting out. Reduced repair rate from inside chopper. General fine-tuning of armor as patches came along.
Opinion: Considering they are called transport choppers, they get the job done well with a competent pilot at the wheel. If you're discrete you can fly to flags unnoticed, but are also easy to take out once spotted.
Attack Choppers
Initial Status: They all had lots-o-rockets, heavy armor, very long TV missle range. PLA and USMC chopper are relativelly similar, always been nimble. MEC chopper was buggy with TV missle, and it's a sloth in the air. But god does that gun rape troops like none other.
Community Bitching: Complaints about TV missle range. No way to take them out with ineffective AA and less effective AT kit back then. General overpowered-ness against troops. No one liked the buggy TV on the MEC chopper.
Fixes: Reduced rocket count and tv missle range to make less effective. Reduced overall armor to point where vehicles can now take them out. Fixed MEC TV missle. Better AT kit rockets and AA missles make them more vulnerable now.
Opinion: The choppers have hit a good balance I think. A good pilot can rape pretty well, while a sneaky troop can knock it out with some AA and some .50 cal fire. A well placed AT rocket can prove deadly as well.
- Airplanes -
All jets
Initial Status: Crappy air-to-air missles made for general ineffectiveness against aircraft. Crappy surface-to-air missles made for unkillable jets. In other words, invincible.
Community Bitching: I remember the constant bitching about invincible jets and how they would ruin the game for everyone. The general bitching was more about AA though, than of the jets themselves.
Fixes: "Fixed" AA missles, fine tuned armor on jets.
Opinion: Jets are no longer invincible, and can be taken down by other jets in general, and by a smart ground AA troop. They are a bit overpowered still, but come on, they are jets. It's like if the Iraqui's complained about how effective the Air Force was.
J10
Initial Status: More maneuverable than the other jets. No big difference.
Community Bitching: General jet bitching more than anything.
Fixes: Fixed AA for all jets. Unintended consequence of making this jet a god in the battlefield.
Opinion: Overpowered piece of shit. Most unbalanced aspect of the whole game. Invincible with a capable pilot, as it is easy to dodge AA in that thing. Still needs fine-tuning.
- Vehicles -
Armor
Initial Status: Tanks and APC's have remained relativelly stable. They are what they are really. Meat Turret spin hack was possible then. Damage from terrain was big sometimes. APC's couldn't go up hills lol. TK's from touching a tank was a problem.
Community Bitching: General bitching about tank whores, rather than the tanks themselves so that doesn't count. When turret spin get into wall hack was discovered, bitching increased. Golden days of BF2. Complaints about damage from moving too fast over a bump, and APC's not being able to go over a 5% gradient.
Fixes: Fixed damage and maneuverability. Added some sound tweaks, and other stuff here and there. No more spinning turret BS. Reduced damage to troops at low speeds.
Opinion: Tanks and APC's seem fine now. Not too overpowered, not useless either. Not many people complain. Tank whores will always piss us off though.
Other cars
Initial Status: Relativelly balanced. Took a lot of damage from the terrain sometimes though. Random TK's were possible at low speeds as well.
Community Bitching: Haven't really heard much bitching about vehicles really. There's the usual complaints about C4 buggies but that's not really that unfair.
Fixes: Fixed the damage from terrain and TK's at low speed.
Opinion: Cars are what they are really. Well balanced in the end, and fit their purpose... get you somewhere.
- AA -
Surface-to-air
Initial Status: Piece of shit. Ineffective, inaccurate, incompetent, ineverything. Temporary bugs with missles getting stuck in flames and flying from Airfield to Carrier lol.
Community Bitching: Who can forget the pre 1.2 bitch fests about so and so plane raping like crazy cause AA couldn't take them down.
Fixes: Adjusted the missles and made them more effective after 1.2. It is possible to take down planes now if you are skilled. J10's are invincible though so that's not AA's fault.
Opinion: AA could be improved a little, but again, airplanes should have some superiority as that is where some of the game balance comes from. Crappy team with decent pilot can do stuff. Look at J10 entry for real problem.
Air-to-air
Initial Status: Crap as well, a bit more effective than SAM missles.
Community Bitching: Pilots didn't bitch much back then about missles since they couldn't kill but couldn't get killed either.
Fixes: Improvements with the changes in AA.
Opinion: Jets can take down other jets now with skill based maneuvers. The only problem is that the J10 is unbalanced, not the AA necessarily.
- Gameplay -
Commander Related
Initial Status: Tk's from artillery weren't very cool. Scoring mechanism was kind of weird back then as well. Didn't play much commander so I'm not sure.
Community Bitching: Many didn't like some aspects of the commander experience, but since there are such few commanders, not many complain. Or at least not as loud. There were people who didn't like that there was no reward for taking out assets.
Fixes: Eliminated artillery TK's. Tweaked commander related things. Added 3d map icons for supplies/car drops. Added vehicle drop. Added points for taking out assets.
Opinion: Commanders don't complain much so I'm guessing people are happy with it. The added feautres and fixes have been welcome as well.
Player movement
Initial Status: Bunny hopping, dolphin diving, prone spamming, jump-shooting, sprint exploiting free for all. Problems with players being 100% accurate after going prone mid air and shooting causing game unbalances.
Community Bitching: This has been the bulk of all the bitching that has gone on in the game. And for good reason since it changed the game play greatly.
Fixes: Removed shooting while jumping, dolphin diving, prone spamming, sprint exploiting. Added delays between certain motions. Added camera shake to certain motions.
Opinion: Back then, everyone was bitching about this crap. Now everyone is bitching about not having this crap. I personally don't see people being affected greatly by this so the changes are welcome. These techniques ARE unfair and they make the game less enjoyable for the community as a whole so they had to be changed. Enough has been said about this in many posts so I'll stop here.
- Kits -
Spec-Ops
Initial Status: C4 Chucking whorage was the main problem with this kit in the beginning. Problems with gun accuracy/damage
Community Bitching: People didn't like the C4 exploits that were being used. Lots of complaints about this. I personally was a C4 whore so I wasn't one to complain.
Fixes: Reduced C4 throwing ability. Tweaked weapons for balance issues.
Opinion: I miss the C4 throwing fests but it was a necessary change since it made the game unbalanced. People now bitch about not having it but lets be honest, it was unfair so don't kid yourselves.
Medic
Initial Status: Good kit, easy to get points with. Problems with putting paddles away before reloading. AK guns were ridiculous sometimes.
Community Bitching: Complaints about medic whores, but these are usually misplaced feelings of jealousy over higher scoring players. Real complaints about paddles not recharging though. Many hated the AK randomness which seemed to favor the player using it.
Fixes: Allowed for recharging while paddles are away. Joined Medic pack and paddles "ammo". Tweaks to weapons over the course of patches.
Opinion: Medic kit is awesome now. Not many complaints I believe. Well balanced weapons as well.
Engineer
Initial Status: This kit is what it is. Problems with effectiveness of weapons and lack of points from repairing.
Community Bitching: Lots of complaints about repair points and some MP7 issues I believe.
Fixes: Fixed MP7 bugs, tweaked the weapons.
Opinion: Kit hasn't changed much and it's useful for it's main purpose. When used correctly, it can keep a tank alive for a long time. Shotgun can be deadly at close range. Kit seems balanced to me.
Anti-tank
Initial Status: Disappearing rockets seemed to be the main problem here. Not very maneuverable either at first.
Community Bitching: General complaints about the kit I believe.
Fixes: Fixed the disappearing rockets. Fixed P90 ROF to more realistic levels. Easier to maneuver now.
Opinion: P90 was my main beef with this kit, but that has been fixed. It is now more effective against choppers because they maneuver better. Good damage from rockets, and effective close quarters weapons. Seems balanced overall.
Sniper
Initial Status: Problems with sniper rifles, particularly M95. No unlock at first when SF came out.
Community Bitching: General complaints about crappy hit detection with rifles, and other problems. Now we have claymore whores so bitching about that.
Fixes: Fixed rifle issues and gave us a new unlock. Tweaked claymores to the state they are in now.
Opinion: The kit is balanced now, except for those damn unremovable claymores. See explosives for info on that. Overall, not many can complain I think.
Assault
Initial Status: Noob-tubing whores. General overpoweredness of grenade launcher attachment, weapons, flashbangs.
Community Bitching: Who can forget the noob-tube wars. This was probably one of the main topics in the forums for a while.
Fixes: Reduced damage, increased range for grenade launcher. Tweaked weapons. Reduced flashbang range and ammo.
Opinion: Kit is balanced now. Takes more skill to use effectivelly, and no more of that lame close quarters noob-tube combat. People of course complain about this change because who doesn't like to have an overpowered gun to play with right?
Explosives
Initial Status: Claymores and mines were removable by explosives. Mines were destroyable with M95. C4 was throwable.
Community Bitching: Complaints were mostly about the C4 throwers since mines were removable.
Fixes: Made mines/claymores unremovable. Added FF option to servers. Curbed C4 throwing.
Opinion: These are a bit unbalanced now since claymore fests seem to be the norm now since snipers can place them with no risk at all. Effective at area denial since they can't be removed though so that is a plus. Could be tweaked some more.
- Other Issues -
Server Browser
Initial Status: Most embarassing, piece of shit server browser I have ever seen in my life.
Community Bitching: Who can forget all the stupid crap that would happen while using the server browser. Lots of complaints. Nothing worse than hitting that update button or the filters and having the server list disappear.
Fixes: Tweaks with every patch have fixed certain aspects of the server browser up to now. Added favorites and history at some point which was kind of cool.
Opinion: Server browser is fine now, and they seem to have finished their job there. However, I will never understand how they could have release the game with that joke of a browser.
Stat Padding
Initial Status: Exploits were found as time passed. Players found new ways to beat the system such as knife-reviving, boat flipping, etc.
Community Bitching: Lots of complaints about stat-padders of course. Big topic in forums.
Fixes: Aggressive campaign by EA with ROE and quick resets from reporting. Fixes in each patch for any discovered exploits.
Opinion: EA has done their job here in making stat padding as hard as possible and ensuring consequences for those that chose to do it.
Crashes
Initial Status: Memory leak with 1.01 was not well welcomed. Server crashes with 1.3 were unwelcome as well. General CTD's everyonce in a while are recorded by many people.
Community Bitching: Probably one of the main complaints as well. No one liked it when EA introduced bugs by adding patches.
Fixes: Subsequent patches have addressed the issues created by previous patches. Bug fixes have helped make the game less prone to crashes.
Opinion: For me, the game runs well 99% of the time. This seems to be the case for most people. Fixes have been made after their mistakes. CTD's are unfortunatelly a part of the computer world and can sometimes be unrelated to BF2. 1.4 got rid of those nasty server crashes and haven't heard too many complaints for it so it looks like they did a good job overall.
Others
Initial Status: N/A
Community Bitching: Complaints about not being able to change names and bugs related to the on-screen display.
Fixes: Added the clan-tag feature and fixed many visual bugs for us. Added features to the HUD and mini map. Added Wake Island 2007 and Road to Jala69bad maps. Added other sound effects, tweaks.
Opinion: Bug fixes were done and goodies were added as it should be.
- Conclusion -
Phew, well that took a while to finish, 2 hours to be exact. I checked out all the change logs once I found them and I was surprised to see how many changes have been made to the game so far. It's easy to forget how much the game has really changed since it first came out.
So what's my conclusion? With the release of patch 1.4, it seems to me that EA has done a pretty good job of listening to our complaints and suggestions and improving the game. It looks like most complaints have been dealt with by EA with a few hiccups still left to scare away. In particular, explosives like claymores, AA, the invincible J10, and other minor details could still be worked out. Every issue has been addressed in one way or another and I don't think anything has gone unheard by EA.
There are some things that I know will never change. People will never stop bitching about tank/c4/nade/medic/everything whores. People will never stop bitching about bunny hopping/dolphin diving, and if it should be allowed or not. There are many other topics like this. But the nature of these discussions doesn't necessarily lie in EA's patches, but rather in the nature of players and their preferences. It'd be nice to see people distinguish these things, but I guess asking for that in the internet world is setting myself up for disappointment.
To me, looking at all of this is enough to be able to say that EA has done a good job overall, and my $50 dollars have been well spent. Sure there have been problems here and there, but EA has definatelly tried to fix the game, and have stuck by it for a while now. I have enjoyed the game thus far, and will probably be saying goodbye to it as soon as 2142 comes out, so it's nice to see that it's not all that bad. I don't expect you all to agree with me of course, and I know everyone will still keep bitching but hopefully a few of you will recognize your unfounded complaints and change your minds a little. And if not, well I'll be able to refer to my handy little guide now and prove you wrong so watch out! Ok I am done, my hands hurt and I need some breakfast.
P.S. I am not affiliated with EA or DICE in anyway. I am just fucking tired of all the bitching/whining going on lately about how EA fucked up your life and I got fed up with it.
Last edited by GotMex? (2006-09-16 08:47:11)