I'm beginning to develop a love-hate relationship with Battlefield 3.
My first problem with the game is the fact that when you start out, you've got nothing. Inaccurate weapons with tons of muzzle climb, no extra equipment, and zero useful perks. At game launch, this an even playing field. Not so a few months after the game's release, when everyone and their mother has weapons that are flat out more accurate, longer range, deal more damage, and can blind/stun you. Their vehicles are better equipped, deflect away damage better, and are simply that much harder to kill. It's a wonder anyone sticks around, and a wonder I have for even a few days. You can only get your ass kicked in so many times by players who have all the goodies before feeling that 'enough is enough'. Every time I log into a server, I've got the feeling I've brought a can opener to a guided missile fight.
My other large problem is in a way tied into the first. Team balancing. Not only does this particular title seem to have issues with team balancing in terms of numbers, it has severe problems balancing them in terms of player skill (as measured by what rank they are). You can be in a game that's perfectly fair, numbers-wise, but be getting steamrolled by a group of 7 Colonels and 5 other relatively high-ranking players. The other team will, quite simply, be better, have better weapons and better....everything, really. That's zero fun, and results in rounds that are nowhere near close.
On a more general note:
I'm beginning to lament overall, in most games, the increasing inaccessibility of online multiplayer gaming. While a lot of people (on this board, even), whine and quite frankly, rudely b!tch about games being more 'noob friendly', I feel like it's quite the opposite. I've been playing video games for about as long as I can remember, and it seems to me games are just getting harder and harder to enjoy, especially if you don't have enormous amounts of free time to dedicate to them. The learning curve is steeper, the rewards are fewer, and overall, the attitude has gotten worse. This attitude of "Well, you suck, so you deserve ____/whatever you have coming to you" is just flat-out immature. I'll be the first to admit, I'm terrible at video games. I've never been good at any of the games I've played. I don't know what it is. Maybe my reaction times are slower. Maybe I'm just stupid. Whichever. But guess what? A lot of us are this way, and will never be 't3h elite'. We're cool with that. We don't want to be. What we do want is to be able to enjoy playing games again, and I speak for a lot of people I know when I say that I no longer feel like video games today are accessible to the person of average skill.
It's a shame, really, since people my age were the people who fueled the gaming revolution in the 1990s and helped make the big 'Blockbuster game' what it is today.
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