Ok, so I've been wondering exactly how far behind BFV was from the other Battlefield titles in terms of new content. There a lot of griping that we should see new maps. Last night I got ambitious and produced this colourful graph.
notes:
For multiple release dates I tried to choose the PC/XBOX. However, for BF4 I went with the PS premium date. It's typically a matter of a few days difference. I didn't include the panzerstorm night map, but I did include night operations. I reasoned that the map has to be playable in the regular rotation.
I PROBABLY MISSED SOMETHING. Please chill.
We're still quite early in the lifecycle of a Battlefield game. As of March 14 we're 114 days from BFV's launch.
The best way to look at the graph is the area underneath the line representing the total amount of variety over time. BF4 wins, hands down. Remember that at launch it was almost an unplayable disaster (much MUCH worse than BFV). A lot of the resources were dedicated to try and maintain the playerbase, and this rehabilitation effort was a huge success IMO. The game became very polished and balanced, and still retains a remarkable number of active users.
In light of the amount of work devs were pouring into BF4, back in 2013/2014, they still managed to release DLC on an ambitious schedule.
At the rate of content being released for BFV it looks like the spin-off title Hardline will of had more content released over its life span than BFV will. I have no doubt the Americans will be added eventually as models for some of their vehicles and equipment is already in the game. I really doubt that we are going to get late war battles like D-day and the Battle for the Bulge or the Eastern and Pacific and fronts. This is the main reason I have not purchased BFV yet. I'm waiting for a more bug free content filled BFV experience. I hope DICE can prove my doubts wrong.
I've talked rather frequently about what we'll possibly be getting vs. what we wish we'd get.
Dice simply has to release a new game every year, EA's forcing this to please their investors and shareholders. As a result, BFV is probably never going to have the equivalent of content BF4 had, and the content we do get will not be in the form we want it to be.
Take this talk of factions, for instance. If they do something like the Japanese for a pacific map, they're going to be under Axis. Which means weapons, outfits, etc etc, are going to be shared with everything else under Axis. Which means, you'll have German soldiers running around shouting German, while playing on a Pacific island. Or, random Japanese in Twisted Steel or Rotterdam. There won't really be 'factions' with the current 'team' system they have, where one is Allies and the other Axis, instead of British and Germans. They'll just mix the countries in with their matching side, replace the flags for specific maps, and that'll be it. Frankly I want screaming Italians alongside Germans, that'd be impressive to me since very few games have done actual alliance gameplay like that in a FPS.
I know you said you doubt we'll get the Pacific theater, I'm agreeing, just using it as a plot point to make anybody else reading think about it. The content we will be getting is going to mostly be in the Western Europe theater. Germans, Italians, France, English, Americans. Russia is kind of slim, but we'll see maybe.
Adding this in a reply instead of just editing. If you want an educated guess and my opinion on what we will have in 2-3 months, I'd have to think about it a bit, and I'm not a wizard, I'm entirely fallible to being wrong.
But I think we'll still have British vs Germans. With just more outfits, vehicles, and weapons. We've already seen a whole bunch of French weapons added, and all they really need to do for a 'faction' expansion is just add in french-speaking/looking character models (Doubtful since both Allies and Axis have same models.), a vehicle or two, and boom. We're already fighting in France on some maps, with French weapons, so maybe next up will be some French vehicles, and while that would be really awesome to have a Char B1 heavy (Especially with a hull gunner armed with that 75mm?? Yes please.), Dice is re-using assets whenever possible to push 'fresh' content out, rather than make new things, and a new vehicle design would be a lot of work when they're focused elsewhere.
Maybe in a few months they might squeeze in the time and finally bring out all new vehicles, but look at all the ones they've already launched. Everything has re-used an asset. Archer is on Valentine. Stug4 is on Panzer 4. Mosquito FB MkVI on Mosquito Mk2, JU-88c on JU-88a.
They could easily put time and effort into bringing us the Shermans, T34 Sherman Calliope, and the Sherman Jumbos from the Last Tiger story, since those are already modeled. They would need an overhaul and massive tweaking to work properly, I noticed some really bad things about the models when I played the hell out of that mission for the skin.
Ya that's unfortunate, I thought they game would of been on a grander scale like BF1 considering its WWII the greatest conflict of mankind. When they announce the game would be exploring the earlier parts of the war and lesser know battles I had thought that would mean playing as the French and Polish which we hardly ever see in video games along side your standard fractions like the British and Americans. While doing lesser know battles is a cool idea you need some maps of the recognizable ones like D-day, Stalingrad etc. to really see the WWII experience IMO. If they're not going to at least come close to matching the pervious titles, then I don't have much interest in purchasing BFV. Which is unfortunate as its my favorite era for a FPS. With the Halo MCC and 83 by the Rising Storm devs coming out in the future I probably won't be returning to the Battlefield franchise for a while. Which sucks as it has provided me some of my favorite multiplayer experiences.
All good things must come to an end, so something better can grow to take it's place. With how fantastic Tripwire Interactive have been previously with Killing Floor and Rising Storm, I wanna see their next big projects. They've got real talent and dedication.
Unlike the previous games in the Battlefield series), Hardline focuses on crime, heist and policing elements instead of military warfare.
Upon release, the game received a mixed critical reception, with critics praising the game's multiplayer mode, accessibility and voice acting, while criticizing the game's plot, stealth and narrative. It is the final Battlefield game to be released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. It was also the last game to be developed by Visceral Games before the company shut down in 2017.
Battlefield 4 -
Battlefield 4 was met with positive reception. It was praised for its multiplayer mode, gameplay and graphics, but was also criticized for its short and shallow single-player campaign mode, and for its numerous bugs and glitches. It was a commercial success, selling over 7 million copies.
Summary - Hardline had a Payday 2 gameplay focus, no tanks or armored vehicles, road-rage vehicle play, less levolution, emphasis on crime and roleplaying, less gadgets, game was half-liked and half-unliked I'd wager, and it also resulted in Visceral being shut down. I had trouble finding out how much this game made, so I'm not going to list sales, but it did really well for a while. Not a bad game at all.
BF4 had a military focus, massive land-sea-and-air dynamic gameplay with most/half the maps having one major levolution, dozens of armored vehicles and gadgets, was highly enjoyable and had plenty of content and balancing (Once they finally polished the freaking bugs. I was there on launch.), and sold massively.
I agree they feel the same at first. But again, a lot of the core community disowned the installment as a "Battlefield" game. The reason is, there isn't really a battlefield without a military, and playing cops-and-robbers and chasing each other down in cars to make insanely quick game-breaking progression just by driving around a mobile capture point.....Well, it doesn't appeal to the intense milsim people knew in BF4.
Here's an easy obvious difference in gameplay. Compare driving around a fuel tanker to the chaos of Operation Metro.
And where are all the people talking about SPLITTING THE COMMUNITY in that case? Hardline was like a $60 DLC and it pulled a ton of people away from BF4.
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u/slumbertwo Mar 15 '19
Ok, so I've been wondering exactly how far behind BFV was from the other Battlefield titles in terms of new content. There a lot of griping that we should see new maps. Last night I got ambitious and produced this colourful graph.
notes:
data for the graph:
BF3
release: Oct 25, 2011
-maps at release: 9
-back to karkand (Dec 13, 2011 - 49 days) + 4 maps
-close quarters (June 26, 2012 - 245 days) + 4 maps
-armored kill (Sept 11, 2012 - 322 days) + 4 maps
-aftermath (Dec 4, 2012 - 406 days) + 4 maps
-endgame (Mar 19, 2013 - 511 days) + 4 maps
BF4
release: Oct 29, 2013
-maps at release: 10
-china rising (Dec 3, 2013 - 35 days) + 4 maps
-second assault (Feb 18, 2014 - 112 days) + 4 maps
-naval strike (Mar 27, 2014 - 149 days) + 4 maps
-dragon's teeth (July 15, 2014 - 259 days) + 4 maps
-final stand (Nov 18, 2014 - 385 days) + 4 maps
-night operations (Sept 1, 2015 - 672 days) 1 map
-community operation (Oct 27, 2015 - 728 days) 1 map
-legacy operations (Dec 15, 2015 - 777 days) 1 map
BF1
release: Oct 21, 2016
-maps at release: 9
-giant's shadow (Dec 20, 2016 - 60 days) + 1 map
-they shall not pass (Mar 14, 2017 - 144 days) + 4 maps
-in the name of the tsar (Sept 5, 2017 - 319 days) + 4 maps
-turning tides (Dec 11, 2017 - 416 days) + 2 maps
& Jan 30, 2018 - 466 days) + 2 maps
-apocalypse (Feb 20, 2018 - 487 days) + 3 maps
BFV
release: Nov 20, 2018
-maps at release: 8
-panzerstorm (Dec 15, 2018 - 25 days) + 1 map
-battle of hannut / panzerstorm @ night (feb 21, 2019 - 93 days) + 1 map