Battlefield 3 questions

[swilczak]

I play BF3 on my PC with an xbox 360 controller and I'm trying to figure out how I can type text chat on the screen with the keyboard. I also don't understand the whole leveling up system of the game. I'm familiar with COD black ops levels and prestiges. Is BF3 similar to COD or does it work different?

 

[HEXiT]

first off put the controller down. you will get punished by even the most unskilled pc gamer who's using a mouse. dont get rid of it because it works well for flying.
learn to use wasd and the mouse. it will have a 6 weeks or sop break in period but after that you should manage ok.

leveling up relies on support actions for the most part. you get more for capping objective that your squad leader puts up, giving out ammo and medi packs. than killing enemy soldiers and tanks. basically you get rewarded for team play.

text i think is 3 separate keys, team, squad and all. jkl keys. i have them bound to but check your keybinds in the controller config menu...

as for leveling up there are no presteges, you just go from private to general over 100 ranks.

 

[Optimus_Toaster]

Agreed with the controller. Get used to the keyboard and mouse over time. Trust us, you'll be thanking us later.

There are lots of parallel levelling up systems. Firstly you have your overall rank which goes from 1 to 145, but after reaching level 45 you stop unlocking anything more than dogtags. Rank levelling awards you with specialisations (sprint, frag, cover, suppress) and then squad specialisations (where the whole squad benefits from it). It also unlocks shotguns and PDWs that can be used on any class. All points when playing rank this up.


Then there is class levelling up with unlocks guns for that class, as well as equipment (like the m26 mass for medic, mines for engineer, claymores for support, and mav for recon). Only points earnt whilst playing the game (like for kills, ammo resupply, spotting etc.) go into ranking the class you are playing as up. When in vehicles the points go into ranking up the vehicle class you are in, much in the same way.

Finally gun attachments are unlocked purely by getting kills.

Typing in the chat is by default the following keys:
J: say to everyone
K: say to your team only
L: say to your squad only

There are no prestiges in BF3 or anything similar. But getting to rank 145 (or colonel 100) takes a long time.

Is your T's hardware name the same as your battlelog?

 

[swilczak]

People claim that the keyboard and mouse on COD is best too, but I'm just not buying it because I'm the highest scoring player almost everytime I play. I'm new to Battlefield but I've had some good games where I had 97 kills and 51 deaths with the controller. I'm 30 years old and I've been a console gamer for over 25 years and just switched to the PC last year so it's really hard for me to switch to keyboard and mouse. Anyways, thanks for the pointers I understand the game better now.

 

[HEXiT]

controlers run at 125 ms response. thats 1/4 of a second befor what you put in turns up on screen. on console its not as noticable as the fps is so low a typical fps will respond every 4 fps. while the pc the responce of a gaming mouse is 1000 ms or 1000th of a second it may not seem a lot but in a lot of cases its the difference between killing and being killed.

91-51 isnt great. i would often more than double your kills on cod 4 with a similar amount of deaths and im not that good a player. http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh314/jaymack71/cod4%20screens/shot0002.jpg proof! this was back in 2009 i had been playing pc games for about 2 years after giving up on consoles so i also had to make the transition from controller to mouse and keyboard. as soon as i did and i got the hang of it i started a murder spree.

 

[swilczak]

I was talking about 97 and 51 being as a noob playing battlefield 3 not COD. I play black ops anyway, mostly the first one. Earlier today I went 35 and 1 on nuketown without camping. I rarely see anyone do that good, but on occasion I see people do better. 1000 milliseconds is much slower than 125 milliseconds. I think you got it backwards. Anyway my response time has been great ever since I added the AMD fx 8320 and the Radeon 7850 to my PC. I have the 7950 coming in the mail soon and can't wait.

 

[ubercake]

Also, the 'H' key will toggle the chat box between visible (for a few seconds when new messages appear), always visible, invisible.

 

[HEXiT]

no mate 1000ms response is 1 1000th of a millisecond, 125ms response is 1 8th of a second. so im not getting it backward. but hey if you dont want the info thats fine. i posted the screeny so you can see even an old timer like me would comit murder on you by at least 2-1 because i use a mouse and you dont.
your turn rate just cant compare to a mouse even when you max the sensitivity. it will take you about 1/2 a second to do a 360 while with a mouse you can so it in less than 4 fps on a game running @60 fps. which generally means i will be on target about 1 10th of a second before you. which in pc gaming is enough to kill you. if i have a ping advantage as well then it would be very 1 sided.

so although the transition may be a bit painful i would still recommend you buy a gaming mouse with at least 3200 dpi & 1000ms response (set it somewhere to 1600/900 or as close to the screen size as you can get) and after a few weeks you will see how much the pad is holding you back. you may well be very good with a pad now but with a mouse you will be better.

but hey take it or leave it , its up to you... id much rather have an easy target anyway...

 

[ubercake]

1000 ms (milliseconds) is equal to one second.

 

[trogdor796]

1ms = 1000th of a second
100ms = 10th of a second
etc...

But keyboard and mouse are really much more responsive. I guarantee no one using a controller can aim as fast as I can using my 5600dpi mouse on acrylic glass pad. It's simply not possible. But it's your machine, up to you.

 

[ubercake]

I still think keyboard and mouse controls are high on my list of reasons I still prefer gaming on a PC.

Most people I know dial down the dpi for shooters because it allows for precision aiming.

360 controls are a little 'jerky' by default but can be adjusted. They still don't offer the control of a keyboard and mouse.

 

[nadim615]

Eh, I have a 5600DPI mouse and I only run it at around 2200, better precision. Otherwise it's kind of hard to keep on target (imo).

But yea, I've played a bit on my brothers Xbox and it's impossible with a controller, everything really is quite "jerky". And at least with mouse + keyboard, the faster you move your mouse, the faster you aim. Unlike controller where its a preset, and it doesn't matter how hard you push down that analog stick, it'll keep going at the same rate.

 

[swilczak]

I like to aim with a mouse, it's the keyboard that I don't like. Is there a specific keyboard that's good for gaming and at a reasonable price?

 

[nadim615]

That depends on your budget, but you might wanna take a look at Corsair and Razer, pretty much the two best companies I know for keyboards/mice.

http://www.razerzone.com/
http://www.corsair.com/us/

 

[HEXiT]

nope... razer is pretty much the worst. they were good about 3 years back but quality control has slipped and there mice have a serious design flaw in that the mmb breaks on all the models that use the switch and chips used in the lachesis.
there keyboards have at best 10 key anti ghost and at worst 3 key roll over. so certain key combos on the keyboard wont register until you let go of 1 of the other keys. they had a bad design for a good idea that they have tried unsuccessfully to put rite.

for better keyboards look at
ducky
das
Q-pad
thermaltake
corsair
logitech
filco for mechanical.
microsoft side winder x4 for membrane.

 

[ubercake]

I like to aim with a mouse, it's the keyboard that I don't like. Is there a specific keyboard that's good for gaming and at a reasonable price?

A logitech G110 is decent and can be had for around $50. It hasn't failed me so far.

 

[swilczak]

Agreed with the controller. Get used to the keyboard and mouse over time. Trust us, you'll be thanking us later.

There are lots of parallel levelling up systems. Firstly you have your overall rank which goes from 1 to 145, but after reaching level 45 you stop unlocking anything more than dogtags. Rank levelling awards you with specialisations (sprint, frag, cover, suppress) and then squad specialisations (where the whole squad benefits from it). It also unlocks shotguns and PDWs that can be used on any class. All points when playing rank this up.


Then there is class levelling up with unlocks guns for that class, as well as equipment (like the m26 mass for medic, mines for engineer, claymores for support, and mav for recon). Only points earnt whilst playing the game (like for kills, ammo resupply, spotting etc.) go into ranking the class you are playing as up. When in vehicles the points go into ranking up the vehicle class you are in, much in the same way.

Finally gun attachments are unlocked purely by getting kills.

Typing in the chat is by default the following keys:
J: say to everyone
K: say to your team only
L: say to your squad only

There are no prestiges in BF3 or anything similar. But getting to rank 145 (or colonel 100) takes a long time.

Is your T's hardware name the same as your battlelog?

Yes my Toms hardware name is the same as my battlelog

 

[swilczak]

Best answer selected by swilczak.