Don't Revive Me Bro
THE STATE OF BATTLEFIELD
19 DEC 2013
by Redd_Dragon

It is safe to say we’ve been here before. Back when DLC was a new acronym, map packs were free and BC2 had cemented itself as our favorite free-time-waster.

The game was broken then too. Slugs were OP, the SV98 was the bane of many and it was Heavy Metal or bust. Then came BF3, where you would fall through the map and get sucked into the pit of despair on Operation Metro, get killed by rookies running the latest IR scope on Damavand Peak and lose your shit as your teammate pointed his 16 billion candle-power tac-light at your retinas.

Has anything changed?

For almost three years I’ve been plugged in, helping create the “pulse” of the Battlefield community, watching validated, and sometimes overblown, anger slowly take over a once positive and inclusive community destined for greatness.

Painstakingly-crafted montages of amazing gameplay have been replaced by glitch and “troll” videos. Clans have disbanded and moved on to other games. Tips and Tricks have been replaced with overwhelming “sighs”. Community-driven Battlefield sites have closed up shop. And all of this is happening in what is arguably the second-biggest FPS on the planet.

So what are we to do? Do we “blackout” again, as folks begin to do that on their own? Can we rally the Community Managers, even though they aren’t given the tools to manage the community? Do we just go dark? Do we just give up?

2014 is on the immediate horizon. Isn’t it time we stop hoping for games to be finished at launch and start requiring it? When do we stop apologizing for others actions and start making waves with our wallets? Are we so afraid we’ll miss out on a day one DLC or the newest dog tag that we give EA access to our cash any time they ask for it?

I don’t know what the solution is yet, and I don’t know if I ever will but I do know I’m not having fun in a game that takes so much and gives so little. Until I can play a round without a bug causing me grief, I won’t be playing. I would rather spend that energy on something else during my free-time.

With that said, I want you to keep playing because I hope there are individuals in the community with the mental fortitude to tough it out. Hell, I want to keep playing, but I can’t right now for multiple reasons, and in the end it breaks my heart. I’ve given a lot to this community — helped others build it up from almost nothing — and I’m sick of seeing it rise up and slowly wither away time and time again.

If you’d like to join me on the battlefield you may just have to wait awhile.

"New Classic Mode is influenced by the play style of Battlefield 2 and is designed for players seeking stronger team play and tougher challenges in their multiplayer experience. Difficulty-wise, Classic Mode can be placed somewhere between Normal and Hardcore mode in Battlefield 4, with some of the assisting features removed or altered, and a heavy emphasis on working together as a team.

No 3D spotting: Spotting an enemy will not make a triangle-shaped icon appear above the enemy’s head in Classic Mode. Spotted enemies will however be visible on the mini-map as usual.

Health and no regeneration: In Classic Mode,the health level is the same as in the Normal preset. However, the health of a soldier or a vehicle will not regenerate automatically, making Medpacks and Repair Tools even more crucial. Make sure to have the Engineer and Assault players nearby!

Squad leader spawn: Your squad leader is now your lifeline to jumping into the heat of battle as you can’t spawn on your other squad members. Move as a squad and protect your squad leader in order to maintain the upper hand!

Reloading: As every goodBattlefield player knows: every bullet counts. In Classic Mode this is truer than ever, since a reload results in the loss of any remaining bullets in your mag. Grab a Support player with an Ammo box and hang tight to him if you want to keep pumping out bullets!

No third-person vehicle cam: Jumping into a thrilling Classic Mode dogfight or tank battle? Then prepare to rely on your skills piloting vehicles in first person – and first person only.

Other Classic Mode rules worth mentioning is that Friendly Fire is turned off by default.

Killcam is disabled. You’ll still see who killed you and with what weapon, but the orange silhouette of your foe and his position and direction from where you were killed won’t be there."

Another Blackout is schedule for 3 JAN 2015

http://wearebattlefield.com/en/

Problems:
• Admins are unhappy about changes.
• Admins use the CTE forums to communicate issues but are being ignored
• Dices politic regarding ranked servers

• Hidden patches and usually without warning
• Patchnotes arriving too late
• No consistency in running servers

• Too many restrictions in server presets (e.g. idle timeout, max. vehicle spawn delay, etc.)
• Not enough control about amounts of vehicles that spawn or classes/weapons to use
• Splitting up the community with premium

• Official preset not administered
• No admin-only spectator
• The fight against cheater (why does every client get all data?)


What do we hope to achieve with this strike:
• Better in-time communication from Dice to admins
• To stop deceiving admins with hidden patches
• That Dice establishes a communication pipeline with admins which is being listened to


Problems that result out of the named points:
• Players are unhappy because they die in-game because of rules
• Admins have to put too much work into servers
• Starting a server without big community behind it takes a lot of time because of preset restrictions (=>custom)

• Admins feel being forced to use official preset
• Cheaters/Cheatcoders can "destroy" servers
• many more... please discuss in forums

Do you really believe this will change anything?

Just turn the question around: what will change if nobody stands up ?

The answer is pretty diverse:
No, we don't believe this will make DICE change anything _soon_ but
on the other hand the attention already is there. Maybe Dice uses it
productively to show they are willing to work on the issues and listen
to this alliance of admins.