BF2S Forums "It's in the game..."

On the other extreme, if they didn't want to bother they would have made a game called "Online Infantry with only a 9mm pistol".  Then it would be 100% balanced.  Except your teammates might still show Red, and you might still get booted by an admin for 'hacking' the pistol

I want portable miracle hit stingers, that'll teach those plane campers, as does going and sniping plane campers

Maybe an anti air class?

Last edited by kR4MR (2005-12-01 17:23:02)

irenicus999 wrote:

I would like to complain about the use of this phrase.  It (or one of its variations) is quite commonly used when justifying the use of weapons/vehicles that are arguably overpowered.  The purpose of this thread isn't to complain about which specific items are overpowered, as there are a near infinite number of threads about that already.

Battlefield 2 is a multiplayer game and is therefore a competition between the human players on opposing sides.  The presence of unbalanced items in this game degrades this competition just the same as the presence of unfair advantages in real world sports degrades those competitions.  For example, if I am a weight lifter then I expect both my competitors and myself to compete based upon our genetic gifts and hard work.  When my opponents begin using steroids they have an unfair advantage over me, and I am forced to make the following decision:  use steroids myself or face artificially increased odds.  If I consult a weighlifting official about this will he tell me, "Its in the game, deal with it?"  No, he would investigate the matter and punish those offenders.  I'm certainly not advocating that anyone be "punished," except by the balancing of the item in question.

Just because something is in the game doesn't mean it is balanced.  To use an extreme example, pretend that the antitank missile contained a huge bug that gave it a 30 yard splash damage radius.  You all know that over half (probably a lot more than half) of the people playing this game would use only that weapon.  Would that be okay since it is "in the game?"  The people that used it would probably argue for it to be left that way.

Unfortunately the weightlifting example you made is not an accurate reflection of the point you are attempting to make. Using steroids is (I'm fairly sure, but then again I'm no weightlifting fanatic...) against the rules in professional weightlifting. This is about equivelant to using an outside hack of some sort in BF2, but is not the same as using a specific gun in the game simply because it is a better gun.

On almost every map both teams start out with comparable vehicular power, be it choppers or planes or whatever. On top of that your team is allowed to capture bases which then spawn MORE vehicles. Some weapons/vehicles are stronger than others, but both teams have them which makes it balanced.

I understand that you don't want to spout out specific items that you feel are imbalanced, however without specifics your point is very hollow. Simply saying, "BF2 is incredibly imbalanced!" gets us nowhere without specifics as to what it is that you think is imbalanced. BF2 as a game is very balanced since everyone is playing the same game and has to abide by the same rules.

Im not sure its simply a question of balance, since as ThomasMorgan rightly said, everyone has access to the same as you. But instead I think its more a question of mutual enjoyment for all. For instance if a player using nothing but a grenade launcher does his thing on a server, killing left right & centre with no other weapon, then while he may be having a good time, nobody else will. Its a game & game denotes fun & enjoyment for all win or lose, but some things can remove that enjoyment of the game.

I would disagree.  I hate the grenade launcher, I do think its unbalanced.  You may turn the corner, see an enemy and before you get off a couple shots, BOOM, you're dead.  You like sniping, so you probably dont encounter anyone wielding a noob tube very often, and havent realized how annoying it is to be killed by one so easily.

@ThomasMorgan:  I agree that everyone has access to the same types of weapons and the game isn't unbalanced in that sense.  However I wouldn't call the game perfectly balanced for the reasons I mention below.

@Pyscho:  I agree with you that each class should have weapons that are superior for their intended purpose.  There are only a few things in this game that I consider imbalanced, one of which you mentioned yourself.  My antitank example was intended to show that one class can have an undue advantage over all the others (i.e. grenade launchers as you said, but of course not to the extent that my antitank rocket is).  Classes should have advantages over one another in the classic rock, paper, scissors theme.  The lack of restrictions on the grenade launcher violates this, in my opinion.  It should be extremely powerful at longer ranges, but not allow you to kill someone point blank while remaining unscathed.  Just to preempt (hopefully) some flamers, I don't get killed by the GL all the time, and I don't use it myself.

@tf-voodoochild:  I never said that I think "BF2 is incredibly unbalanced."  I realize my analogy is imperfect.(by the way, I don't know anything about weightlifting either).  Yes steriods are against the rules, but my intention was to illustrate how an unfair advantage can cause other people to feel compelled (or just tempted to get easy points) to do the same thing.    In most cases both teams have access to equally powerful vehicles, the exception being the blackhawk.  I have now named two items that I, personally, feel are unbalanced, and I hope a flamefest does not ensue.  The purpose of my thread was to discuss the justifications that people use for the few unbalanced items in the game.  I was hoping to show that just because programmers put something in the game that it isn't necessarily perfect.  Surely you would agree that my antitank rocket is unbalanced even though all sides would have the ability to use it.

@shady6:  Thank you for your intelligent post.  No further comments from you will be required.  Your post can be reduced to the following statement, "It's in the game, deal with it."  This kind of post was the purpose of this thread.  Please read the posts above yours in order to get a feel for what a good post is.

i agree completely with this thread.  People who use the argument "It's in the game" are those who exploit glitches.  Yeah, we shouldn't complain about hackers, because the programming that's in the game, is so easily hackable.  Yup, that programming is in the game.

as Sirlin explains in his great essay "playing to win", there are two kinds of people:

- those that have a made-up set of rules they follow when playing video games. Those rules are nowhere connected to those that the game specifies. they will complain whenever someone else doesn't bother to follow their made-up rules and will call such behaviour "unfair" Sirlin calls these people "scrubs".

- those who "play to win". always. they will play the game to its full extent everytime. I am not talking about bug using, exploiting or cheating, of course. If you need to blast away at your enemy with the GL to dominate him, do that. If the AT rocket is your best chance against an enemy sniper, use it. Base-rape, spawn-rape.
These people have realized that the game has only one simple rule. Either you win, or you loose. It's that simple.

I really urge everyone to read Sirlin's comments on this. http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_ … nPart0.htm

btw, as far as base-raping is concerned, I am also a "scrub" by Sirlin's definition. But hen again, he will say that during tournament competition, additional rules may apply, and that those should be followed.

At the end of the day, it is every man's personal decision how far he will go to win.
If you decide to be a "scrub", you will have to live with people using the noob toob to blast you away from 3 yards away.
If you chose to "play to win", you will have to live with people complaining..

I happen to think the game is well balanced, as both sides have access to the same weapons.