Battlefield: Hardline
admin
Happy to finally talk about what myself and a few other Polycounters here at Visceral and DICE have been working on. 
I know it's different from the traditional Battlefield title, but I think fans will be happy. Check it out!
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex1GlZS-t7c"]Battlefield Hardline: 6 Minutes of Multiplayer Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]
We also have a closed beta running, first come, first serve!
http://www.battlefield.com/hardline/beta
I know it's different from the traditional Battlefield title, but I think fans will be happy. Check it out!
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex1GlZS-t7c"]Battlefield Hardline: 6 Minutes of Multiplayer Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]We also have a closed beta running, first come, first serve!
http://www.battlefield.com/hardline/beta
Replies
What is the point of this comment?
He was too late to say "FIRST POST!"
Pretty self explanatory ? The game is Battlefield and using the mechanics of the game Payday ? Want to make sure i understood the game premise correctly
it sounds pretty dismissive to sum up an entire game with a clever two-word comparison tbh... there's a pretty-much-open beta going on right now, so you can try it out if you really want to understand the game correctly
I signed up about an hour ago, no email and nothing in my library.
oh well, guess this is fine as well
I just wish they would get rid of the browser based launcher, I hate it soo much.
This. Browser based launching is an abomination.
It's exciting being a part of the Visceral team and working with DICE.
I've been a battlefield player since 1942. Played mostly in DC final, BFBC2, Battlefield 3 and 4. I gotta say, Hardline is just as wonderful as the rest. The gameplay is just as sweet and I still can't believe how good the game looks.
Just look at those shots!
I hope whoever plays it, enjoys it. I know I sure as hell do.
I was expecting another Dead Space... T.T something more "visceral", you know.
One thing that really took me out of the experience was the sheer amount of carnage... It's meant to be cops vs robbers, but it plays exactly the same as Battlefield... Imagine if this happened in a real city, it would be absolute carnage. I wish it was a bit slower paced.
That aside though, the game just feels clumsy to me. Some things can be tweaked, before the release, but it's just too much to overcome, to sell me on it.
And, in reference to my first paragraph, this was my experiences, on the PS4:
[ame="
i'd wager there's no stealth phase in this one, where you try to commit the heist without raising an alarm.
"why is the screen shaking?"
there's a building collapsing.
"why is it taking them one shot to kill me, while i empty a whole magazine with nothing happending?"
because you're shooting at their feet you numbskull.
And shots hit him in the mid section, and yes feet, because he was jumping. Admittedly, I was getting pretty irritated at the game, at that point. That was my 4th match in. I mean, are you going to suggest I was wrong in the rest of the video?
The thing is, the hit detection/network sync is SO broken in this engine, that it makes me want nothing to do with anything DICE releases on it. Which is what concerns me about Battlefront. That goes beyond myself. There are many guys in my clan, that are very discouraged after playing this beta, and the current state of BF4.
There have been some times where movement has felt "sluggish" due to me somehow getting stuck inside of a floor or something of the sort, and it is really annoying when you have teammates standing in stupid spots that block your movement. I kind of wish you could clip through people on your team like in certain servers on Counter-Strike as that would prevent dying due to somebody not realizing they are blocking you.
I love the gunplay in the game, for the most part. Sniping seems a bit strange, I only played with a sniper rifle for a single round but there was a guy driving an armored truck that stopped and I stood there shooting his head through the window several times but he wasn't getting hurt indicating that you can't headshot people through vehicles (at least that particular truck.)
Again, I haven't played BF4 so I'm not sure if that is intentional or not, but I know in BF3 it was quite enjoyable and it was basically the only way for non-engineers to fight back against vehicles.
Something feels very wrong with the weapons - I'm using a semi-auto sniper rifle that supposedly does 60 damage, but I need to land about six shots in order to take someone down, whereas I'm getting one-hit killed by SMGs from reasonably large distances. I don't know if this is something to do with the netcode or something, because I'm not missing my targets that I'm aware of, and I'm generally hitting them square in the chest.
The real issue is the size of the game and the number of vehicles (as well as how the vehicles are implemented). In both games modes it only takes three organised players on a team to ensure a round only lasts a few minutes. I played one round of Heist that lasted about a minute and a half - I didn't even get to fire a shot before the match was over - the criminals rushed the objectives immediately, loaded them into a helicopter and that was game over. Similar issues occur in Blood Money, where if you get some organised people raiding the opponent loot drop, the game can be over almost instantly since it takes no time at all to traverse the map and all the risk is fairly low since there's no ticketing system like other the predecessors. The armoured car is also ridiculously OP, since the driver can operate both a mounted machine gun and a rapid firing grenade launcher, but is impervious to damage (can't shoot through the windscreen with the sniper rifle, as an example).
The game is very much a BF4 re-skinned with lesser quality character art and again like the fans mentioned. Less user-destructibility. Which is a major blow. Stating this game will be $60-80.00 is a rip off to be quite frank. It should be no higher than $30.00. The brightest approach I would rather see DICE negotiate with EA... Is to sell people the multiplayer at an affordable price as a separate package and SP as another. As I personally have no interest in playing the single-player portion of this game.
Only gripe or disappointment ATM in mp design. Is the grappling hook. To know you cannot shoot the grappling hook at any fair high height and risk the climb. It's all per-determined. That just downright sucks. This is a major step backwards from BF2 special forces expansion. The zip-line I suppose does well in comparison.
Games looks ace though congrats to the polycounters that are working on it
[ame="
For that money i can get the whole BF4 package with all DLC...if they ever fix the game which i think i would enjoy more to be quite frank.
*Sigh*. "THE DAYS OF FREE CONTENT ARE LONG GONE"
People don't seem to realize how much time and effort goes into making news maps/additional content for games these days. Why would it all be given away for free?
Well, mods WAS free back in the days, when they didn't cockblock modding.
I think many people understand that there is work/effort/cost behind it. There always has been. The problem is how Patrick Bach ran his mouth, and stated that they would never charge for maps. When you make a statement like that, the community expects you to stick to your word. This has been an ongoing complaint since BF3, and honestly, I'm surprised people still even bother referencing it. That statement was a mistake... time for people to move on.
That being said, how much does it cost to make weapons unlockable? Charging people $15 to unlock weapons, that they can get for free, once they've put in enough time, is criminal IMO. I know that's an EA decision, and not DICE. I'm just pointing out that no labor goes into that, but there seems to be as much passion over how the consumer is nickle and dimed.
Honestly, I called it earlier, that BF4 may have been such a clusterfuck, that it may be the tipping point, where consumers have enough. I don't mean any ill will toward anyone on the project, but I honestly hope Hardline doesn't do well, so that maybe it will send a message to EA. On the flip side, I don't want it to lead to layoffs, for the artists involved, because honestly, that's the only thing that made BF4 tolerable. It's amazing to look at, but the code, and source control, is horrendous.
you couldn't sell mods due to licensing issues that came with building on top of someone else's game - that doesn't mean it was a good thing though, or the way it's supposed to be, like in the good ol' days
Well said, I completely agree with everything. Watching that truth about bf hardline really does put a nail in the forehead about it all. To know Frostbite may be difficult to Mod and to use. Well... That never stopped anyone from using BF1942 and BF2 mod tools that were janky as all hell. Good stuff came from them. Like Project Reality and gangwars(?) if that's the name and obviously Desert Combat.
I'm a Battlefield fan myself, as are a lot of the developers working on Hardline, and I can say that we have a lot of good stuff to show in the near future.
They are asking 70€ for a fucking PC game that should be free to play (remember: ninjas play for free, Warframe!). The price is a RIP OFF in all the senses, and they are threating their customers like idiots. And the worse, they add battle packs... to unlock weapons and more ingame content?
This should have been a free mod/DLC for the ultra buggy BF4 (that they still need to fix... pathetic).
Hardline is different though, rather than trying to provide a traditional BF experience, the devs have decided to try and make something new, and I think they did a great job in that regard. I can see why people would think the game is DLC but the game is fun and I haven't experienced anything that has prevented me from playing as opposed to the BF4 beta which crashed before I could ever finish a single match.
It's just a matter of assessing the value you'd get from the game, like any other game. While I love this game and have had nothing but fun in the beta, I'm probably going to have to pass it up since it comes out the same day as The Evil Within which has been one of the top games on my list for over a year now. I'll definitely pick it up some time after launch, though.
Also, I'd have to disagree a lot with that Bluedrake video. Purchasing every DLC for a game isn't required, purchasing a new game to "play with your friends" is stupid, and Hardline is a lot more than a few new textures and models. People seem to look at the art of a game and think that's all there is to it but I guarantee if you ask any of the talented programmers on the development team they'll tell you otherwise. It'd be great if there were no consequences to delaying a game to fix problems but unfortunately that's not the reality we live in.
To your last point made about the bluedrake video. Purchasing DLC is required, and to not be an owner of a recent BF franchise where this has now begun to happen for cash grabs from EA. Is where we existing customers can see that there really is now a pink elephant in the room. And it needs to get out.
Overall, the premise of BF Hardline isn't horrible. But yes, the effort to make this game from a mod team's stance by converting a BF game. Isn't that difficult. Just referring to the content and basic reprogramming of the games rules and functions. It's not very different by a long shot. The only hard thing to reconsider going on that gives the game a new look, is the UI (gameplay = zip-line and grappling hook). So at the end of the day, it's a BF game with modded game rules, new character models. Possibly rehashed weapon assets with some new pieces added and stripped from. As new maps are common as with any "new" game.
But I've been a PC gamer long enough to know when you go public with a BETA. It's really what you are going to get overall. So I am reluctant to fork over $60-80.00 of my money for a product that really could have been a BF4 expansion that steers a new theme for $30.00. I can't give remarks to the SP campaign, but as a long time BF player. It's the multiplayer that counts. If Bad Company 2 destruction was back in + the whole gimmicky "levelution" they've got going. I would happily pay $60.00 because that's a good amount of work and it would make hardline extremely different than BF3, & 4.
The weapon packs for example, while nice (since new weapons can always be enjoyable) are not at all necessary, especially considering the starter rifle for the Assault kit is completely overpowered and probably the best weapon in the game for most engagements. I've spent probably no longer than 3-4 hours across ALL of the DLC maps because many of them fail to deliver an experience that Battlefield is known for (CQC DLC for example, was not necessary. Most of the remakes did not play well with the new mechanics of the game too.) It's nice to have the option to have more content to play with but it's basically like buying map packs for CoD games, you can still enjoy the game perfectly fine without the extra stuff.
I'd love for every PC game to have full map and mod tools, but unfortunately as DLC becomes more popular we'll end up seeing less and less of that. There's not much that can be done about it, and Battlefield is hardly the only game to lose content creation tools in recent years. Betas seem to vary a lot in modern times, I suppose as beta testing becomes more open to users, it would make sense to turn a "beta" into a less polished demo to prevent users from associating negative thoughts with a studio's unfinished project.
Admittedly, I was quite disappointed when I played the BF3 Alpha since it looked like shit, ran like shit, and the map(Operation Metro) was awful, but a ton of changes occurred when the game transitioned into beta and it actually became a lot more enjoyable. I'd imagine Hardline will improve a lot when it gets released but it seems like many people want a complete overhaul which probably won't happen.
too much truth in under 2 minutes
NegevPro was correct, that you are not REQUIRED to buy Premium, but if you don't, then you end up feeling like an ass, when your friends have to stop playing new maps, just to join you. I've seen it, with friends that couldn't afford Premium. We go back to the vanilla maps, so they don't have to play alone, and then that person feels bad.
NegevPro, I'm curious what you felt was 'off' about BF3's mechanics. I thought that BF3 was pretty spot on. It's the first Battlefield game I've owned, and I was sucked it. I was disappointed in the netcode, which eventually got ironed out (for the most part). I would also get upset at DICE tweaking all the weapons, essentially changing the game's feel, after every update.
But overall, I was looking for a team based game, to replace my beloved Tribes series, and it filled that game. There was a lot of focus on teamwork, and attempts at balance (something else DICE is not very good at).
And for the record, everyone who skipped BF4, it actually was a lot different than BF3. The only similarities were visual, and some of the game modes. DICE went out of their way to make sure it felt different (not in a good way). But I will say, it was a good choice to skip it, because of the horrendous issues, but it is very different from BF3.