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For some inexplicable reason, my aim goes through the window when I start Hardline.
While I’ve set my sensitivity to the exact same value as what I have in Battlefield 4,
I find that aiming feels different. So you’ll have to forgive my inability to track targets
in today’s gameplay. Also, if you just want to know what the new best weapons are, click
the timecode in the description to skip to that.
Betrayal is a pretty good name for this latest Hardline DLC. I think it reflects what the
fans of this series felt as the Beta ended and the game was initially launched.
All of my buddies have fond memories of the Hardline beta. None of us can quite remember
what we liked so much about it, but we all say that it was one of the most fun games
we’ve ever played. So what happened? Many of those that so enjoyed the game then, since
haven’t touched it from August of 2015. I think the difference was the fact that it
was called a “beta”, initially. People recognized the problems the game had with
gameplay balance, but were willing to accept them, because, hey—it’s a beta! The developers
are trying to figure out what works, and what does not.
Now, if the issues we found in the beta actually were fixed, I think many of us would still
be playing it. But the difference between a beta and a final product is that we’re
now less willing to look past the game’s flaws. We appreciated the fact that, unlike
in Battlefield 4’s beta, we got all the weapons during the course of the beta, which
let us get a feel for how they played out in-game, as well as how they compared to one
another numerically. We all thought it was pretty clear what needed to be changed—many
weapons were pointless, and some were simply too good. But when the beta ended, and the
game launched a month later, almost nothing had been changed! So, this is why “Betrayal”
is the perfect name for a Hardline DLC. Because that’s what the fan feels when it comes
to Hardline.
Hardline still remains one of my favorite games. This is a statement that may surprise
some of my viewers, as you guys know how much I complain about the game. I find that its
aesthetic fills a niche that is otherwise unfulfilled, and the lighter tone, shown particularly
with weapons such as the dual Skorpions, is a welcome relief from the ultra-serious shooters
I see saturating the market. To be perfectly clear, I don’t complain about the game because
I don’t like it. The reason I complain so much is because I think that Hardline had
an incredible amount of potential, and I think much of that was lost over the course of the
awful weapon balance patches we received, and the lack of content we had at launch,
but there are still some things we can do to help address the issues. I hope to put
together a complete overhaul of the game’s gunplay done in a Battlefield-4 style manner
sometime soon, but for the moment, I just want to take a look at the DLC.
Gun Bench is, not exactly, part of the DLC, but it’s possibly the most interesting thing
I’ve seen added to a Battlefield title. As you will have seen in the video, I’m
using the Kobra optic on the M416 (which, I might add, is now one of the weaker weapons—more
on that later), but instead of the 3-prong reticle I so despise, I’ve got this lovely
counter-strike style crosshair, which I have found to be extremely useful. This is only
one of the many reticles available to you—if you like the housing and color of one kind
of optic, but you like the crosshair of another, you can switch them up into any sort of combination
you want. Aesthetically, this feature is fantastic. Functionally, it’s even better, as I previously
found the choice of optics to be pretty unfortunate—it was either the SRS-02, which had a green dot,
instead of a red one, the Reflex sight, which had an ugly triangle, the Comp M4, which had
bulky housing, or the Kobra, which had a reticle I didn’t enjoy at all. This feature lets
me use the housing of the Kobra with a crosshair that I prefer.
Reticle customization isn’t the only thing you can do with Gun Bench. Outfits and weapon
paints can also be customized, and while I did have a fun time making all my weapons
pink, I’ve always enjoyed the aesthetic of white weapons, so that’s what I ended
up with. My one gripe is that one cannot equip a custom paint alongside a metallic; I had
hoped to keep the gold accents of the SCAR alongside the white body. Unfortunately, I
ended up having to choose between one or the other. Outfits can also be customized, which
means that I’m now rolling with a purple jumpsuit. I found that there’s still no
Hello Kitty camo option, which I found disappointing, if expected—I imagine the licensing costs
would be exorbitant—so I ended up sticking with solid purple. With the color options
a tad bit more limited, I could see this feature being exceptional in one of the main Battlefield
titles. The solid purple is probably a significant tactical disadvantage, but it’s a bit more
fun when other players can see you really easily.
With all that good said, there’s a few things which I find a bit lacking about the range
itself. First, the drop-down targets need to flip up (or down, I don’t suppose it
matters much) once they’ve received 100 damage so as to allow the player to practice
his minimum-BTK burst patterns. There also needs to be a way to reset the targets, beyond
exiting the gun bench and re-entering it.
Matchmaking was a feature introduced before the release of Betrayal, but I’ll cover
it now in a few sentences, since I find it really interesting. As soon as I saw it, I
tried looking for a match. I gave up after a half-hour wait. Anyway, despite the fact
that it’s underpopulated at the moment, this is good news for the competitive community
of Battlefield 4. As I’ve stated in the video “How to make Battlefield a skill-based
game”, a competitive matchmaking system is desperately needed for the health of the
game as a whole—the top players are who get people interested in the game! While 5v5s
as the official mode is NOT the correct solution, the fact that it’s been implemented in Hardline
gives me hope for its implementation in a one of the non-offshoot Battlefield titles.
After all, we did bring in some of the things that made Hardline good, such as the improved
minimap, and various networking tweaks. While I’d say that it’s more or less failed
in Hardline, it gives me hope that something similar will be found in Battlefield 2016.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to actually play any of the new maps. I can’t honestly
say that it is because there aren’t any DLC servers—there actually is one server
playing Betrayal in my region. Unfortunately, it is Hardcore, and Hardcore is known to the
State of California to cause cancer. While I wasn’t able to get a good idea of how
the maps actually played for this reason, I can say that, as usual, the maps are fantastic
visually. If they’re anything like previous maps, they’ll also play extremely well—much
better, in my opinion than maps in Battlefield 4 do, generally speaking. My idle speculation
is that this is because the map designers are less focused on authenticity, and more
on providing good gameplay. As I’ve said, it’s a shame that such good work on the
part of the map artists goes almost completely unrecognized because of how little attention
the community gives to this game due to other developer decisions.
Speaking of “other developer decisions”, let’s just take another quick look at the
game’s balance. I’m not going to give you a bunch of stats here—all I will do
is parse them into something understandable. If you don’t understand how I draw a conclusion
or two, you’re welcome to ask me in the comments below.
We just got a whole bunch of changes across the board. Is it better? Maybe a little. It
certainly “feels” better, if you think that that is a good way to balance things.
From my tests, it seems that the game plays out much more consistently. While I certainly
feel less powerful as an individual, I also think that the number of “I don’t even”
events has gone down drastically. When you have weapons that can 3 hit kill at 750RPM,
things are going to perform strangely—when using a 30Hz tickrate, Battlefield 4’s SCAR-H
had, at launch, the same time to kill as the FAMAS. In Hardline, which had, up until recently,
weapons shooting even faster with a 3 bullet to kill minimum—the MDC and the FAL. These
weapons had an effective time to kill of something with around a 1300RPM rate of fire it had
25 max damage. In other words, with today’s networking (which is bad), they were extremely
inconsistent. I look forward to the day when fiber connections are universal, and those
living in South America can have a 35 millisecond ping to servers in the Northwest. But, until
then, we have to resign ourselves to lower weapon damage output.
This latest patch, rather than simply reducing weapon start damage, reduced damage overall,
and increased the time to kill at all ranges. There are still some discrepancies, which
we can see here:
For no apparent reason, the FAL’s damage dropoff starts 10 meters later than that of
all other Battle Rifles. It is already the best at close quarters; why does it need to
be slightly better at midrange, too?
The heavy-hitting assault rifles got really hit hard. They went from some of the best
options to completely pointless. They now do 28-18 damage instead of 36-24, while weapons
such as the ACW-R are completely unchanged. In fact, the ACW-R has more damage output
at almost all ranges compared to the AKM. While the AKM can 4 hit kill to the legs with
28 damage, the ACW-R’s 25 max damage will still 2 hit kill. Since the ACR’s damage
starts dropping at around 7 meters, from 7 to 35 meters, the AKM is better, but after
that, the ACWR comes out ahead once again, because it, for some strange reason, retains
its 18 minimum damage. The absurd amount of recoil and the 200RPM rate of fire loss is
not worth having a bit of extra damage per second from 7 to 35 meters. The same is true
for the MDC and RPK, and I can’t justify using any of them, even if the AKM is still
my favorite weapon in the game. The weapons that have this strange 25-18 damage model
are the AUG A3, but it has a somewhat lower rate of fire, the FAMAS, which has an unusable
spread increase value of .5, and the ACR, which I just discussed.
The Scout Elite loses its ability to one hit kill outside 20 meters. Yes. A Bolt Action
sniper rifle with a rate of fire of 60RPM cannot one hit kill outside 20 meters. Let
that sink in. The good news for the Recon class is that the M82 .416 was nerfed hard;
thank the good lord above. It no longer is a straight upgrade over the Scout Elite with
a 200RPM rate of fire and the ability to one hit headshot at any range. While I can’t
see it being particularly viable at all in its current form, it isn’t an insanely overpowered
oneshotting machine that made many maps unplayable anymore.
Right, so I promised. The best weapons of each class. Unlike Battlefield 4, which is
balanced such that it is impossible to find a best overall weapon, Hardline has a few
standouts.
Operator: Instead of our lovely, “M416 is the meta” game we had in the beta, the M416
is probably one of the weaker weapons, featuring an 8-shot kill at range, which is worse than
any of Battlefield 4’s PDWs, and a 5 shot kill up close. While it and the F2000 are
good at midrange, the best option for Assault overall is the ACW-R, which can 4 shot kill,
and transitions into a 6 shot kill at 55 meters. For all Hardline maps and engagement distances,
the ACW-R is going to be the best choice. The loadout for this one is pretty self evident:
Heavy Barrel, Stubby Grip, and AP Tracer. Heavy Barrel is needed to counteract the ACR’s
awful base spread, and the weapon is pointless without it. The Stubby Grip makes controlled
bursts a thing of the past, and AP Tracer has no drawbacks in this case, so you might
as well use it.
Engineer: The PDWs drop off in damage so quickly that I can’t justify using any of them.
I’d honestly avoid the class as a whole, and instead use one of the all-kit weapons.
The M110K5 is probably the best option for you. It can 3 hit kill, unlike any other weapon
in the game, and is a 6 hit kill at range, making it both better up close and at range
than any Engineer PDW is. The recoil is tough, but at least you’re doing significant damage
to things beyond 30 meters. Since it doesn’t have awful vertical recoil and FSM like it
used to, the Stubby grip is mandatory, as is the laser sight—we can’t equip AP Tracer
here.
Enforcer: The FAL, with its better damage dropoff compared to the other Battle Rifles
and higher rate of fire still doesn’t have enough horizontal recoil and Spread Increase
to balance it against the others in any way. Attachments are are going to be the Heavy
Barrel, Stock, and Stubby Grip. Since Stock and Stubby both halve spread increase and
max spread, our max spread becomes .5 degrees. Fun fact: this is still half of the MPX’s
minimum spread. Don’t burst here; there’s no need.
Professional: Why are you playing professional? Go play something useful. Honestly, all the
weapons are pretty lackluster, but if you REALLY want to snipe, I’d choose the AWM.
Honestly, all the bolt actions are pretty similar, so there’s no real choice to make.
I find that the DMRs, especially the SOCOM16, are going to be more applicable. If you chose
a bolt action, use the Straight Pull Bolt, as Magnum Rounds are now pointless. The DMRs
should use Heavy Barrel, AP Tracer, and Stubby Grip regardless.
As you guys have noticed, I am bad at conclusions. Just go watch the beginning of the video or
something if you want a wrap-up.