Has BF3 changed the perception that gameplay trumps graphics?

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Bumrush

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 23, 2004
Messages
307
As a long time FPS player from back when GL Quake and Glide changed everything, I've been completely mesmerized and in awe of this game engine. I can't help but admire the job that Dice has done with the BF3 engine and the unbelievable graphics of BF3.

So, has the tide turned? It's hard for me to enjoy decade old technology like the Source engine after playing a few rounds of BF3.

I also think that the epic nature of BF3 and jaw dropping graphics combine to make this a strong candidate for the greatest PC FPS game of all time, especially once the bugs get ironed out. This game has the potential to challenge the original Half Life. Thoughts?
 
I agree. Visually the game is as good as it gets, combined with gameplay thats as good or better then anything out there.
Aside from stability issues, BF3 is the most complete FPS game I have played.

As for Half-Life....Ill be in the minority, but I was never a fan. Even HL2 didnt impress me, felt like a big tech demo.
 
Gameplay has never and will never be second fiddle to graphics.
 
Droc said:
I agree. Visually the game is as good as it gets, combined with gameplay thats as good or better then anything out there.
Aside from stability issues, BF3 is the most complete FPS game I have played.

As for Half-Life....Ill be in the minority, but I was never a fan. Even HL2 didnt impress me, felt like a big tech demo.
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I agree about HL2.. HL1 on the other hand, was epic.. The single player had some of the greatest maps and gameplay ever, specifically around Surface Tension and the enemy AI, which to this day is still better than the mindless enemies that walk in to walls...

HL1 will be nearly impossible to topple, when you also factor in the user mod community..

In terms of HL2, it was cakewalk compared to HL1. I think I died 4 or 5 times the entire game... HL2 was nowhere near as good as HL1.
 
Gooch3008 said:
Gameplay has never and will never be second fiddle to graphics.
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Never said second fiddle..Of course gameplay is important.. But in the case where you have incredible graphics, coupled with solid gameplay, can it be enough to overtake some of the older classics? That is my question.
 
Hmm perhaps, the single player in HL is better than the SP in Bf3 imo.
 
The problem I see is that gameplay is more qualitative than quantitative, whereas graphics can be more quantitative than qualitative.

Sure, art style can make worse technical graphics appear better than higher technical graphics, but there comes a point where technology just trumps it to such a degree that it becomes impossible to deny that Game A looks better than Game B.

Gameplay on the other hand is a personal opinion. You like Half Life, I don't. Neither of us is right. I like the original Super Mario Bros, but can't stand Mario 64 or onward. Significantly different gameplay, but, to get to my point...

To me, graphics always will trump gameplay. This is where it becomes qualitative. Just like gameplay, it's different for each person. People have a limit at what they're willing to accept technologically. Once you pass that limit, gameplay will have a higher importance, but it's about reaching that limit. All things considered, however, graphics are more important.
 
Bumrush said:
HL1 will be nearly impossible to topple, when you also factor in the user mod community..
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As a vanilla game on its own though, I think it could. Mods make new games IMHO. CS is/was the king of multiplayer. TF aswell....
But on its own, a single game.
 
For me, Half-Life 2 at it's time of release was the only game that had ever reached a near perfect 50/50 balance between gameplay and graphics. I just hate it when games are just too biased on one side.
 
Crysis 2 has to be somewhere in the mix. The gameplay is great and the scenery is breathtaking.
 
Lith1um said:
Crysis 2 has to be somewhere in the mix. The gameplay is great and the scenery is breathtaking.
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I sincerely hope you meant the first game. If not, you have my condolences for the flak you'll be receiving shortly. :D
 
If we are talking about gameplay and graphics, I would like to chime in with a throw back to the Desert Combat mod for the original Battlefield game. Graphics were great for the time (and really don't look that bad today) and the gameplay was (imo) awesome.

Cheers.
 
Cdn_Hammer said:
If we are talking about gameplay and graphics, I would like to chime in with a throw back to the Desert Combat mod for the original Battlefield game. Graphics were great for the time (and really don't look that bad today) and the gameplay was (imo) awesome.

Cheers.
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desert combat is the mod that made BF1942 so popular, and the game that made me a pc gamer.

damn it was good ! i started playing near 0.3!
 
arr4ws said:
desert combat is the mod that made BF1942 so popular, and the game that made me a pc gamer.

damn it was good ! i started playing near 0.3!
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I don't remember what version it was that I started at, but I do remember the pain of trying to download newly released versions from overloaded servers. The first 24 hours it was nearly impossible to download in the days before bittorrent and distributing the load around hundreds of connections.
 
Bumrush said:
I agree about HL2.. HL1 on the other hand, was epic.. The single player had some of the greatest maps and gameplay ever, specifically around Surface Tension and the enemy AI, which to this day is still better than the mindless enemies that walk in to walls...
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That was a good scene, possibly the first of its kind with the AI? I think NOLF beat this one, although 3 years later. Enemies would grow suspicious if they saw you or a dead body, actively search for you (with appropriate dialog and music changes), give up and go back to their patrol. They hid and shot from behind cover during firefights. You had the option of stealth to bypass people or security cameras (fuzzy slippers, camera disabler) or just shooting everything. There were quite a few gadgets, it wasn't just a run-and-gun. Vehicles? motorcycles and snowmobiles. Different ammunition types and perks to counteract when you got shot with them. Semi-ragdoll physics when you killed people (bodies rolling down inclines or falling over railings).

NOLF is still fun to play because of the dialog and gameplay, even though the graphics are old.
 
BF3 definitely has taken PC gaming to another level with graphics, gameplay mechanics (destructible environments), and bugs. However, that is typical with DICE releases, the game doesn't get epic until 6 months and 6 patches in...then its awesome for several years.

Its evolutionary, not revolutionary. It's taken the core mechanics of their previous games and combined them all into this one. The destructible environments made their debut with the Battlefield Bad Company series, large player counts with BF2, and the vehicle gameplay introduced with BF1942.
 
Lith1um said:
Crysis 2 has to be somewhere in the mix. The gameplay is great and the scenery is breathtaking.
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Umm not even... shit game , shit story , smoke + lens flares do not equal great graphics. Crysis 2 is probably one of the worst games of 2011.
 
I downloaded the beta of BF3 and the graphics were indeed extremely impressive. However, the gameplay was merely okay to me and I'm very tired of "realistic" shooters, so I haven't played it since. Gameplay is always the determining factor for me. Great graphics can elevate a good game to a great one, such as with the original Crysis, but it can't make me play something I don't enjoy.
 
Godmachine said:
Umm not even... shit game , shit story , smoke + lens flares do not equal great graphics. Crysis 2 is probably one of the worst games of 2011.
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Hyperbole much? Crysis 2 was a decent game, its biggest fault was in its name, people expected it to be like Crysis 1 and it wasn't. It didn't have the best graphics, but it had some of the best performing graphics. There weren't too many games this year that looked better, and even less that looked as good while being as efficient and maintaining such good performance on mid ranged hardware.

Anyway, graphics are always secondary to gameplay, though I think they are a close 2nd and not the distant 2nd some people act like they are. Good graphics can make an average game more interesting and a good game great. Exploration is one of the more entertaining things in games of many genres and it is severely hampered if graphics are sub-par.

There are certain game types where graphics are irrelevant, like many indie type platformers. There are others where I personally think its integral to immersion and as such is a part of "gameplay". Racing games/simulators, RPGs, FPS, TPS, probably a bunch of others that I'm forgetting.
 
BF3 is an excellent game with great graphics and gameplay. What more can you ask for?
 
Graphics and gameplay are both important. When a game looks like total lazy ass, it's hard to get into or take seriously. When a game is pretty but lacking gameplay or fun then it's just as sucky. A good game can have one side lacking, but a great game has them both. It doesn't have to be "dx13 photorealism graphics", it needs to have well designed memorable graphics that have an effect on you, like some good work of art. This could be 2d.

Gabriel said:
BF3 is an excellent game with great graphics and gameplay. What more can you ask for?
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You set him off again! :p Lets pretend it was about half life 2, or some random game demo.

Fail said:
For it to not require you to install malware/spyware known as Steam.
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I know, godamned valve! :mad::p
 
Bumrush said:
As a long time FPS player from back when GL Quake and Glide changed everything, I've been completely mesmerized and in awe of this game engine. I can't help but admire the job that Dice has done with the BF3 engine and the unbelievable graphics of BF3.

So, has the tide turned? It's hard for me to enjoy decade old technology like the Source engine after playing a few rounds of BF3.

I also think that the epic nature of BF3 and jaw dropping graphics combine to make this a strong candidate for the greatest PC FPS game of all time, especially once the bugs get ironed out. This game has the potential to challenge the original Half Life. Thoughts?
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Are you high? BF3 has a snowballs chance in hell of challenging Half Life. Half Life changed PC gaming (and effected console gaming even) in a way that few games of any generation has or could. PC FPS games do not get better than Half Life .. saying that BF3 is somehow the successor is just an insult. BF3 is a really fun MP game but Half Life introduced so many great elements both in story telling and in MP .. hell without Half Life you wouldn't have some of the best/most popular MP games of all time.

Gameplay to any rational and logical person , will always trump graphics pound for pound. If you got into PC gaming to look at pretty things instead of actually enjoying the game for its content then you might as well run 3D Mark for 24/7/365 instead.
 
BF3 level graphics are pretty significant to an FPS. The lighting and environment actually has a large impact on the gameplay now rather than just eyecandy.

In previous games, you wouldn't dare stand behind a window. The straight, 90 degree lines would do nothing but turn you into a nice pictureframe for someones crosshairs. You can tell someone's crouched behind a window a hundred meters away.

If BF3, you can look straight at a window and you'd be dead before you can decide if that grain was a head or a dust cloud.

In fact, you can stand behind a floor to ceiling window and someone running along the sidewalk across the street wouldn't know you were there because the games HDR makes you merge with the shadows more if the guy was standing in sunlight.

Also, repeatedly, i'd be standing under some shade in Kharkand, i'd be standing perfectly still while a tank rolls by, looks right at me and then moves on. That would never have worked in BF2.

This was probably why they made the IRNV the way it originally was.
 
BF3 campaign is a little boring but the graphics are the bomb. That said I want it all !!! Great gameplay, story & graphics !!! Get to work Devs !!!!!!!!!!
 
As important game play really is, I find it impossible to enjoy playing old FPS titles, such as HL or Quake. Much the same way, that I can no longer put on a cassette tape and enjoy the music. The lack of fidelity is just too distracting, no matter how great the content [game play] is.

That said, I am the type of person who can not fathom how people can get involved in say WoW or SWTOR, when everything has the look of running off an old sad console.

The best thing about BF3 is the game play and mechanics. The depth and variety is just staggering. On top of that it looks okay and can run on "ultra" settings on old hardware.
 
I think you can have both and that gameplay should not be used as an excuse for graphics that look like ass. It's 2011, and I'm sick of the Source engine.
 
The most fun I've ever had in an FPS was original Half-Life multi-player back in the day. Especially when I got selected for trials for DSL, while the majority of everybody else had dial up. It gave me quite the advantage.

That being said, times and technology have changed, so I don't think I'd find Half-Life multi-player that much fun anymore, whereas I do find BF3 quite fun.
 
WorldExclusive said:
Graphics sells games, gameplay keeps people playing.
I think BF3 did a good job at both, most studios come up short on one or the other.
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BF3 single player was garbage , some of the worst in recent memory. The MP is the only thing people were actually excited for , graphics do help sell games but to imply that they trump game play is both inaccurate and dismissive.
 
Gabriel said:
BF3 is an excellent game with great graphics and gameplay. What more can you ask for?
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For it to be faithful to the BF franchise? There are many times in a round I feel like I'm playing COD. You can butter me up with graphics and sound but it doesn't fix a shallow game experience.

BF3 IS a shallow game experience. If you don't agree, you're comparing it to other recent games (Ahem, COD). The BF franchise has slowly turned into a "Oh, you've got a 50 IQ? This game is perfect for you" series.

If I gave a shit about graphics I'd be looking out my window for nice visuals, not playing something like BF3 or Crysis. I play games for the fun factor, not the "Man that looks good" factor.
 
Dethred said:
For it to be faithful to the BF franchise? There are many times in a round I feel like I'm playing COD. You can butter me up with graphics and sound but it doesn't fix a shallow game experience.

BF3 IS a shallow game experience. If you don't agree, you're comparing it to other recent games (Ahem, COD). The BF franchise has slowly turned into a "Oh, you've got a 50 IQ? This game is perfect for you" series.

If I gave a shit about graphics I'd be looking out my window for nice visuals, not playing something like BF3 or Crysis. I play games for the fun factor, not the "Man that looks good" factor.
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The problem is that developers do make games for the fun factor, but for most people these days, COD-style bullshit is fun. If DICE wanted to cater to this then that's fine, but with BF3 it came at the expense of the classic Conquest-style Battlefield gameplay, since DICE just made a bunch of shitty Rush maps and made them Conquest-compatible instead of making plenty of Conquest-exclusive maps. Rush maps for CODpieces, proper Conquest maps for the rest. DICE doesn't have enough smarts in the game design department for that though, at least not anymore.

It's not just a problem with game design though - I recently got back into BF2, and I saw all kinds of COD-inspired behaviour from the playerbase now and very little objective-orientated gameplay. In one game, nobody even used rifles - it was just grenade spam, and no it was not the SaK map :).
 
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