Battlefield 3 is DICE's third numerical installment in the Battlefield franchise. It features a single player and co-operative campaign, as well as an extensive multiplayer component.
So I have spent many hours in multi-player and have yet to find jets to be anything besides targets. They have no use in capturing things. They can barely hurt ANYthing on the ground since they move to fast to shoot anything for more then a second.. The minigun is practically useless in doing damage to anything so leveling up in jets is near impossible. Anyone else find the jets to be crap and that they need to either fix how shitty they are to start with so you do more then just fly around and shoot at targets you most likely will never hit or just get rid of them?
Typically jets are meant for fighting other jets. That's why they're not bombers, though that'd be a fun addition. Or those 101st Airborne planes from 1942 that were mobile spawnpoints. I got really really good with those.
The thing is with Jets i feel. either you started (and ONLY) used the Jets the second BF3 came out, or consider your self late to the party. have fun unlocking flares....
Yeah, I think they should have had some better way to attack ground units. It might not have been fun, but there really isn't a reason to hop into a jet if you're trying to help out your team.
Jets rock, have someone tag tanks or other high value targets and work on your approach, I usually take out tanks in one run with the machine guns (same goes for jets, learn to aim with the machine gun and it beats the seekers, since everyone has flares).
My only gripe is that if someone is decently good in a jet and behind you, you're probably not gonna shake him and end up flying around for minutes until either the one being chased gets hit, or luck is on your side and someone stingers your enemy.
Also the thing using W and S for maneuvering is stupid. I use a joystick and throttle, so while banking when someone is on your ass of course you're naturally going to be pressing as hard as you can on your W key thinking this will aid you in turning faster, or even hitting afterburners. I am normally able to get behind most people who try to make a run on me from behind fairly easily unless they get a killshot on me immediately. try going into a loop, halfway through roll 180 degrees and either bank left or right while tapping W and S gradually, this will provide the same effect as stepping on your brakes to turn a car then accelerating out of the turn. Thus your turning axis will be a LOT faster especially since the person behind you is probably hitting their afterburners like a dumb ass and is unable to turn as fast as you.
Same goes for when you're behind someone, if they bank on you and you notice them about to escape your hud, don't hit the afterburners unless you're trying to close a gap of them chasing something else and getting you close enough to take them out w/o wasting bullets. Just try the wswswswswsws thing I mentioned to get them back in your sights. I've had great success with this as of late, but again I fly with a joystick.
This was taken prior to my figuring out my joystick throttle is not working properly for jets but it works just fine for helicopters, so I actually have to use my thumb slider on my joystick to set a top speed or to hit the air brakes.
Jet's are very useful. Jet keep other jets off your choppers, Jet's shoot down the enemy choppers, then your choppers are free to murder every target on the ground, being mobile spawn points, so jet's keep the air free for one of your strongest ground weapon. Jet's is a very important part in a real battle in BF3. If you understand the concept of tactics.
Also you get guided missiles, which is VERY useful vs tanks. You don't know what your talking about with jets. They keep choppers away, and jets. So they are indeed very useful, and when you get far, you get a lot of stash that you'll love. But it takes work. It's a good way to keep idiots away from the jets.
I just went MVP a few games ago using only a jet, had 7500 score, about 1500 more than second place.
If you wanna take out enemy jets and heli's go ahead and do that, but you can be a huge threat to ground vehicles if you use rocket pods. I simply fly out, turn around, spot a tank (or its hopefully spotted for me), line up my sights directly on the tank, fire off the 14 rockets which will disable the vehicle, then switch to my minigun and finish it off before pulling up and flying away. In practice this strategy disables and destroys tanks before the enemy can get out, so I get all the kills as well. Obviously humvee's and jeeps go down almost instantly to the rocket pods too.
It's actually very easy to destroy ground targets using nothing but the default machine gun. I've already played a game of rush on Caspian where a single guy in a jet won the game for the defenders. Without air to ground missiles.
from the videos I've seen and from the BETA I've played, jets in BF3 have had their role reduced.
Before BF3's release people were making posts concerned if there would be a proper anti-aircraft mechanism in-place to deal with aircraft. These comments were made, correct me if I'm logically wrong here, with respect to BF2's aircraft strengths and weaknesses.
EA, before BF3's release, leaks that there would be AA (stringers, SA7) for players. The community seems happy that "They've listened to their concerns". But when the BETA came out with Caspian Border, it was finally seen and verified that aircraft would not drop bombs like in all previous Battlefield games.
In BF3 jets are always under threat and they do not have the teeth anymore. In past Battlefield games, the sound of jets made you seek cover... now in BF3 they are just a sound-effect part of the environment that can be engaged at will without fear.
It appears that EA want everyone to die often in the game. They do not want an environment where someone can go on a 'long streak' easily. So EA introduces many gimping features to everything; from vehicles disabling; appearing on the map when firing; spawn on any squad member... etc. But one etc, that seems interesting to highlight is that EA want you to be in constant fire-fights. If jets could drop dumb bombs like in all past BF games, that may ruin that 'constant fire-fights' formula that they want to mimic from COD.
Anyway, I'm glad I didn't buy BF3. I like visiting the forums, sitting back and watching all the [people-who-were-suckered] whine about problems to be fixed, when they were known from before. The canary-in-the-coal-mine was how EA were talking about wanting beat COD. The logical response to this would be "focus on the gameplay that made Battlefield be Battlefield". Rather, they introduced features more in line with Call of Duty. Translation..... they used 'Battlefield' assets to mimic COD gameplay. This is similar to what EA did with C&C4, where they used C&C assets in conjunction with gameplay that was popular in South Korea; this resulted in C&C4 not playing anything like the original C&C games made by Westwood.
Though where EA failed with C&C4, the same technique seems to have succeeded with Battlefield. They used many marketing tricks to perform a subtle but firm misinterpretation of what BF3 was going to be.
"PC lead". What you read that what do you think? Let me guess "EA are going to make a game that is closer to BF2" ? or something of this nature. EA on the other hand considers "PC lead" to EA mean 'making a game that is optimized for the PC hardware'. That is all; it is not about making custom gameplay elements for the PC.
Large maps So large maps.... yeah... large draw distances with maps that have a faction of the playable area.... very crafty wording. They are vague terms where you misinterpret the meaning. You think massive playable areas, expanding upon BF2 maps; but when you get down to it, the areas are in fact miniscule compared to the past.
30 years So does the final retail version look like 30 years has gone into it? People are crying about it non-stop. Maybe they need another 60 years, then they'll say buy our new product.
Free social-networking announced by EA; claiming that they have a leg-up against COD who is charging for such a service. What they didn't come forth with was that EA's service would not be an add-on accessory function, rather it is the ONLY way to play the game. You cannot voip chat with strangers without making them friends... The realization that Battlog would run the game came very close to release. People who claimed Battlelog runs the game and sucks, from the time of the Alpha, were just ignored with the reasoning that it was an 'Alpha'... They forgot to add "but it's an..." ALPHA... They get you in the cycle shown above because they know you'll "muddle through it" , that you're psychologically weakened to their marketing tactics. You'll fall victim all the time; it becomes textbook.
All I know is, I've been killed by a jet once so far. As fun as they are, those dudes in the jets would often be put to better use doing something else.
@Evilmetal: It's too bad you feel that way. You're missing out on a great Battlefield-ass Battlefield game.
I think they're helpful. I am terrible a getting the right angles in them, so I just hope someone on the team is good with them because good air support is pretty damn great.
@Akrid: I don't look at BF3 at being a good value. I liked the "old" gameplay found in BF2. In BC2, I overlooked the lack of BF2-ness because I saw it as a console port and I thought it would 'hold me over' until the true sequel arrived (BF3). But BF3 turned out to be just an extension of BC2. I think the only thing left is ARMA3 (as a game that stays, for the most part, true to itself). If BF3 goes on a discount---bargain-bin, or they offer a good combo-deal... I may go for it at a future time; but I won't enter at $59.99 because I do not support their path. Though I also want to see what will happen with Germany and the Origin thing too. EA's EULA for Origin is vague. Being vague can provide cover for them to do more sinister things.
It's a multifaceted situation, in my view. I think there are a large amount of people who do things without an understanding of the ramifications of accepting vague EULAs and lower quality products; they just "go with the flow" , they go with the horde mentality. Business people like customers who "go with the flow" if it's in the business people's interest.
On PC, jets are a great part of the game to have some fun with, as well as suppress vehicles and murder people with fly-bys.
On consoles, they are kind of pointless since the people that are in jets are really gimping their team pretty hard. There are only 12 people per team, and having 2 people in planes on something like Caspian for both sides hurts the capability of capturing bases or advancing on Rush.
Maybe jets just aren't your strength. When I play with my friends we have a designated air support person. So us infantrymen and ground vehicles spot large target for him and then he swoops in and drops his bombs...how is that useless?
I don't know about you people, but a thunderbolt or frogfoot with missile pods and a little buzz from the main cannon can take out a full health tank in approximately five seconds.
@137: You seem to know your shit. I always keep getting weird stalls, even when I'm just flying straight or doing a regular level turn (no incline). What am I doing wrong? I fly with mouse n' keyboard so that's wrong of course, but do you know what could be causing it?
they could add F-35's or harriers as DLC, so you can use to VTOL to gain a steady firing position over a target, could be useful to defend capture points. of course the downside is you'll be a target for flack, but thats what countermeasures are for.
They really should have put the anti-ground jets into conquest mode.
I wish they'd patch the jets so they had bombs because without a good weapon vs ground there is almost no reason to take them out when you can get the attack helo. That thing is a beast once you get AA missiles. I've shot down a lot more air targets with the helo's than I have with Jets. Plus you can land and repair a helo pretty easily.
I really hope they patch bombs into the jet arsenal, they probably won't ever be good at taking out air targets unless they give them radar guided missiles that ignore flares.
I was discouraged from flying because I felt like I had bearly any impact on the overall war effort, even if I had air superiority. Today I unlocked rocketpods and I am A-OK with it now.
I'm glad when all this unlocking shit is over and I can start playing in earnest.
jets should be pretty good at taking out helicopters and other jets which would help out your ground allies. thats just speculation though from what ive seen from the game. havent had the opportunity to play it yet :(
I feel kind of bad in a jet. I usually control the skies once I get in one, but I feel like I'm contributing nothing. A vehicle disabled gets you points, but once you get ranked high enough, you can repair that. I don't get kills because people will bail from vehicles. I circle around and around engaging enemy craft when I can. That is, if they're not trying to suicide lawn dart into other things. The maps are so small that my window of usable approach is tiny in comparison to the amount of time it takes to refind my target, sight it, lead it, and open up on it.
It feels like it was meant to be a hard counter to the attack choppers, but I've downed more jets in a chopper than I have choppers in a jet.
That, and people always ask me why I'm playing Kenny Loggin's on loop whenever I open my channel in vent.
i find aircraft generally useless in this game since Dice has overpowered ground AA so much. It's almost impossible to do anything what with the LAV's, dudes with Stingers, other jets, and choppers with heat seekers. you take off and immediately BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I used to be a pretty dedicated helicopter pilot during Vietname and BF2 but here I never touch em.
I have 170+ points per minute with jets, its all about steady movements and vehicle targets. There is nothing better then dive-bombing a tank and ripping him to shreds with the main cannon. As for the guided missiles I rarely use them, I stick with the cannon for everything and it does a great job. Practice makes perfect buddy, I was TERRIBLE when I started
Anyway, I'm glad I didn't buy BF3. I like visiting the forums, sitting back and watching all the [people-who-were-suckered] whine about problems to be fixed, when they were known from before.
Nobody was trying to sell you the game in the first place; you made up your mind about the game without having to play it.
So I have spent many hours in multi-player and have yet to find jets to be anything besides targets. They have no use in capturing things. They can barely hurt ANYthing on the ground since they move to fast to shoot anything for more then a second.. The minigun is practically useless in doing damage to anything so leveling up in jets is near impossible. Anyone else find the jets to be crap and that they need to either fix how shitty they are to start with so you do more then just fly around and shoot at targets you most likely will never hit or just get rid of them?
They're better on Rush. The planes on rush are fighter-bombers and their miniguns can kill a tank much easier (one burst) than the fighters on conquest. I'm playing on console by the way and I already have every unlock for them. I feel that helicopter are useless in this game.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along
with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely
increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.
Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other
Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll
send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment