Maps
Alborz Mountain
Really awesome looking map, the snow and ice look amazing w/ Frostbite 2 and whenever i'm flying a jet i'm amazed at how awesome this map looks.
This map is different from the other 3 ones because it has a lot of physical barriers. The other 3 maps are very open fields for the most parts with a few mountains, hills or buildings. This map has the lake you saw in the trailers, tight mountain passes, cliff roads etc. This means that you actually have to think about how to approach an objective. Both sides get a bunch of armor, jeeps and quad bikes + 1 scout and attack chopper, the Venom and the obligatory 2 jets.
Armored Shield
This is a very open, grassy map with a river leading all the way around it. It looks just as good as Alborz, partly because DICE turned down the blue filter quite a bit. There are no jets on this map, so the air is a nuisance at best. One of the most interesting features are tons of craters, that can be used as foxholes by both infantry and armor.
Death Valley
Haven't played this one that much yet, but i still like it. It is pretty long, leading to a nice frontline situation every once in a while. There is the usual air-vehicle setup, 2 jets, viper... Not really much to say.
Bandar Desert
This one is amazing. It has a bunch of flags located around a pretty large desert area. There are no attack choppers, instead both sides gets 2 Little Birds. There is a city area containing 3 grouped flags and a few outposts to the SW.
Vehicles
Tank DESTROYA!!!
I like this thing. It's fast, light armored and it packs a huge punch. I don't think you should even be talking about balance already, because noone has unlocks yet. If you take these on with a fully equipped MBT, obviously you're going to come out on top for now. Just wait until everyone has their reactive...
Rocket Arty
One of my new favorite vehicles. I love this thing. It is very effective at area denial and the airburst rockets are basically made to kill repmonkeys. It is very vulnerable, but that is totally justified. Once you have it figured out, it's really easy to hit certain points very reliably. It is really effective against stationary armor and it looks totally BADASS. On GC, the friendly fire might pose an issue, but it certainly won't make this thing less awesome
Quad Bikes
AC-130
The pilot seems to be AFK... This thing does pack quite a punch (Even though the howitzer is superior to the 25mm in every way), but it is TOO easy to take down. Not only is it very easy to hit, the pilot apparently is also too stupid to get that he is flying straight into enemy AA fire.
On GC, this thing might make it for 1/4 of a circle. The paradrop thing is pretty much useless, since it either drops you in the middle of nowhere, in the ocean, or even out of bounds.
DICE should change it to only fly around over your half of the battlefield, because ATM, it's basically an AA magnet. Maybe slightly randomizing the path would get rid of predictability.
Balance
Balance is not that much of an issue for the ground in my opinion. The tank destroyer vs. MBT has to be figured out later, once people got all the unlocks, but in terms of air vs. ground, things are actually looking awesome for the ground. Choppers are pretty much useless ATM, since Stingers are OP and countermeasures are broken. The jets still hit hard, but have to run from the AA.
The AA vehicle is not supposed to hit the entire map. It's not supposed to camp next to your deployment. If you want your tanks protected from air attacks, have the AA with your tanks. That's how the whole rock-paper-scissors thing is supposed to work.Coloneluber wrote:Air vehicles are overpowered again. I hate to kick off this debate, but the sheer sizes of the maps make it incredibly difficult to kill enemy air assets. Using stingers to keep it off one side of the map? No problem, it can go kill all the armor on the other side. There is just no way to establish a safe zone for most, or even a large portion of, friendly armor without skilled pilots of your own. The AA vehicle certainly has a presence, but it is greatly diminished with how massive these maps are
General thoughts
I really like the idea of flags being more spread out. Instead of just capping them one after another, like for example on Caspian or Golf of Oman, you actually have to think about if a certain objective is actually in your range. This DLC is called Armored Kill for a reason. If you're running through Bandar, you're doing it wrong. Armor is supposed to play a major role, and pure infantry combat will be rare. If you like infantry action, there's CQ, and there are the vanilla inf maps.
1. The rocket buff was against infantry. If you get killed in one strafe, you either had explosives on your vehicle, or you were already damaged.Snow1Wolf wrote:1. I see you AA rocket buff and raise you rocket buff, I got killed in a tank multiple times in just one strife.
3. Like fields said, 90% time are spend running to objectives.
4. Yes not game breaking, but they are wasting so much space to do so much more, and DICE promise (oh DICE, promised why did I ever believe them again?) everyone get a tank.
7,8. Yes, practice makes perfect, but the problem is I feel like I am using buck shot trying to out snipe a sniper 1500 meters away.
11. I understand that, but the problem is that transport heli is on every map, and from the fact that I can kill 5 in 10 seconds means AC-130 as I previously pointed out is a piece of paper.
3. You shouldn't run. There are tons of transport options.
4. They didn't promise everyone would get a tank...
7,8. I can hit my target fairly reliably by now.
11. The Venom is only on Alborz IIRC.
