The Classes, the squads & more...

The text below is taken from the Battleblog in the Battlefield Official page (link)



As mentioned, the four classes available in Battlefield 3 are Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon. All classes include familiar elements, but this time around, we’re tweaking things a bit, bringing something new to our online multiplayer. Our Assault class is still the frontline run and gun class, and considering the havoc and fallen team members someone will see while on the frontlines, the Assault soldier now has medic abilities. That’s right, all the abilities such as medkits and defibrillators typically found on the Medic class are now incorporated into Assault. It makes sense that the class on the frontline will be able to revive fallen team mates, right? Right! Remember, you can play it your way, so if you want to customize your Assault soldier more towards medic abilities or towards serious gunplay, it’s totally up to you.



Engineers are returning in Battlefield 3, bringing back the class in charge of making repairs to the various vehicles on the battlefield. On the other hand, the Engineer is very adept at taking down vehicles as well – this class includes RPGs that can take down armored targets that can’t be destroyed by bullets alone, or even building facades that enemy combatants may be using to take cover. Add the fact that an Engineer’s arsenal includes Carbine weapons, you get an extremely versatile multiplayer class that can truly move like a butterfly and sting like a bee.



The Support class makes its return in Battlefield 3, incorporating the ability to use light machine guns and can lay down heavy fire, allowing him to become a serious mobile weapons platform. “Support has always been about heavy infantry firepower from his LMG,” says Alan Kertz, Senior Multiplayer Designer at DICE. “It’s a role that we’ve wanted to feel different than Assault’s running and gunning.”



This brings us to two new features in Battlefield 3: Bipods and Suppressive Fire. Bipods have a very practical use, especially for LMGs, as they provide a substantial increase in stability while laying down a base of fire. Bipods can be deployed anywhere by zooming in with your LMG when prone, or when standing/kneeling in front of suitable supports, such as a window sill. The stability created by deploying a Bipod gives players a massive boost in accuracy and recoil reduction. You’ll be able to unload an entire clip of 200 bullets from your LMG with great accuracy without even letting go of the trigger, all thanks to the Bipod.



Suppressive Fire is a new in-game mechanic that changes how you can play the game. When you lay down fire in close vicinity to an enemy, the incoming barrage will show up as a graphical blur effect on his screen to stress him and let him know it’s not safe to pop out from behind cover. Just as importantly, this mechanic also affects his character’s in-game firing accuracy, making him less of a threat by using real world tactics. Better yet? You get team play experience points for doing so!



“Supported shooting with Bipods and Suppressive Fire finally allows us to achieve an obvious difference between Assault and Support, since the heavy LMGs are not terribly mobile,” explains Kertz. “When deployed with a Bipod, they become an incredibly powerful force. Suppressive Fire forces the enemy to keep their head down and lets the Support gunner pin his enemies in place so teammates can flank.”



Love him or hate him, Recon is the long range sniper class for Battlefield 3 who excels at gathering intel while on the battlefield. His sniper scope gives this class a distinct view of the battlefield, making Recon particularly suited for spotting enemies as seen in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, ensuring your entire team can see the locations of spotted members of the opposing team. “Recon traditionally has been seen as just a sniper,” Kertz said. “We wanted to change that perception, so we’ve built several completely new teamplay oriented gadgets specifically for the Recon class so he can be a team player, even if he’s sitting on the top of Wookie Mountain.” We’ll talk more about these toys and how they work in a blog post a bit further down the road.



Even though each soldier has a default loadout, they’re there for you to completely customize, making sure you’re able to cater to your own unique style so you can play it your way. We’ll be able to talk more about unlocks, persistence and customization later in the Battleblog series, so stay tuned for more on Battlefield 3 soon!





Confirmed BF3 squad details

Squads are limited to 4 members
Squad leader can spawn on any member, while members can only spawn on squad leader
The creator of the squad is the squad leader, and will be indicated by a star.
Players will receive squad bonus points for helping the squad, much like in Bad Company 2.
Players will receive bonus points for killing the opponent squad leader

Overall, the squad mechanics in BF3 appear to be refined and developed from the ones found in Bad Company 2, which overall worked pretty well. The new spawning structure will limit the amount of spawns and will give the squad leader a greater role to play.

Source (link)

Player Animations




In the recent interview with Edge Magazine, Battlefield 3 multiplayer designer Lars Gustavsson revealed that the player animations are not the same in multiplayer as they are in singleplayer. Here’s what Gustavsson had to say regarding player/character animations
in Battlefield 3:

“In multiplayer, we do an additional pass for animation. In singleplayer, you don’t mind if a guard up on a balcony does a Hollywood death – stumbling around a bit before falling over. In multiplayer it needs to be a one-to-one correlation between action and result”.

Which means that animations will be more realistic in multiplayer, as we’ve come to know with Battlefield games. Gustavsson said that DICE was “more than willing to make differences to deliver the best experience” in multiplayer and singleplayer.

Battlefield 3 uses EA’s ANT animation technology, which renders ultra realistic player animations. The ANT engine has been previously used in several EA Sports titles, and the recent Crysis 2 as well. The ANT engine was also used in 2010′s Medal Of Honor, which DICE has some experience with, as they did the multiplayer part of that game.

Source (link)



Battlefield 3 multiplayer HUD analysis(link)


How many weapon customizations can be expected?

A: Thousands! Probably tens or hundreds of thousands. This is the biggest battlefield we’ve ever made so the customization is huge and open. There’s three slots on every weapon so you can clip things on like a flashlight or flash suppressor, tons and tons of things. Optics… I can’t even believe how many optics they’ve gotten into the game.

Q: Will there be day and night cycles in multiplayer and if so how will they work?

A: Not so much cycles, instead we have day and night maps.

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Alan Kertz, Senior Gameplay Designer on Battlefield 3 has been busy answering fans questions on twitter.

One fan asked about how the recoil will be in Battlefield 3 to which he replied;

"The recoil is very much in line with 2142's style" (link)

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New Battlefield 3 information has emerged from an unusual source; Tomas Danko voice-over producer for DICE is a keen tweeter and is certainly excited to be working on Battlefield 3. Tomas is making daily tweets in regards to his voice-over work and has given away some interesting facts of which some are compiled below:

35+ Voice actors for Multiplayer. (The most ever for a multiplayer experience).
No Chinese voice-over (can we assume no involvement from the Chinese in game?).
158 hours of overtime has been spent working on voice-over so far by Tomas.
Battlefield 3 will feature an increased level of swearing over Bad Company 2.
Single player has dedicated voice-overs for foreign factions.
Multiplayer foreign factions will have broken English voice overs not dedicated.
There are over 300 voice-over variations when killing someone. Some broken english examples are given; "Hostile/Enemy down", "I took that fucker out" and "That mother fucker is dead" are a few of the listed take down phrases.

Source (link)

To have some laughs:

- Laugh #1 link

- Laugh #2 link

- Laugh #3 link

Thanks Can't wait till it's release.

Me too. I'm gonna buy the novel when it hits the shelves too. Should make an interesting read.

I am getting the book too!!!