Victory Village is comprised of four capture points: Guardpost, Church Square, Road Block, and Orchard. Three of these points provide respawn locations once captured; Church Square being the one that does NOT. However, Church Square lays smack dab in the middle of the first two capture points, making it a tempting target to strike.
Unfortunately, a lot of time is wasted and many lives are lost attempting to take and keep control at Church Square. All of this for little gain as there is no spawn point attached. The lack of respawn combined with a wide open area makes the Square nearly impossible to defend without over-committing players to the area. Not to mention the potential devastation that can be rained down from the Church bell tower and roof overhead.
Most Victory Village matches are won or lost based on whether a team pushes Church Square or Road Block first. Road Block is easily the most important point on the map. It is, distance wise, the farthest point from both starting points. Secondly, when captured it provides an invaluable respawn point. From Road Block, access to the "back alleys" can be controlled via the myriad of tiny bottle necks. Not to mention, Church Square can easily be seen and dominated by sniping Commando's on the hills at Road Block.
The best strategy for securing Road Block early on is to rush to it in a jeep. Unfortunately, access to the jeep is "first come, first serve" and rushing players often times take off solo or rush Church Square. However, in the case you secure a jeep, load up with three players and drive on over to Road Block (best combo being a Soldier and two Gunners). Ditch the jeep short of Road Block and use the crates and walls for cover from incoming enemies.
Once Road Block is secure, defense is fairly straight forward: control the back alley ways! This means Troop Traps at the "doorways" and Gunners and Soldiers behind the walls. Keep an eye on Church Square for Commandos. As players respawn at Road Block, they have far better options on which routes to take and often times a match is all but over after Road Block is controlled successfully.
To recap, Church Square is a nightmare to capture and defend, with little benefit. Road Block is far more important, can easily be reached by a jeep rush, and provides an invaluable respawn point that often determines who achieves victory in the village of victory.
Good advice.
ReplyDeleteI just downloaded the game recently, but I've had problems with Punkbuster and disconnections.
This will help once I start getting into some of the more serious battles. Kudos to you!
This is a very comprehensive and really impressive overview of the game. Seeing this post now I think I would surely download the game and check it out.
ReplyDeleteUgh. I've been playing games since I was a young kid. RPG's, Adventure, Puzzle, Casual, Action, Arcade and yes, even FPS. I've had countless hours of enjoyment in Quake 2, in the original Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament was also a blast. I'd played many lan parties where Battlefield 1942 was played for hours and hours. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a game I got great enjoyment out of for years.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said. In my opinon, Battlefield Heroes is just a horrible game.
It is SO limited in it's options. Only three 'classes' and each one can only purchase a tiny number of weapons.
The use of MMO-like "skills" that are purchasable is an interesting one, but hurts the game more than it helps in my opinion.
Victory Village was the map I HATED the most out of all the maps. I just saw it as complete and totall nonsense.
A big reason is what you said: "Most Victory Village matches are won or lost base on whether a team pushes Church Square or Road Block first."
That about sums up what is wrong with the game. Limited options.
The introduction of MMO-like 'quests' is a problem for the game too. Many times you'll end up with a whole bunch of un-satisified quests to destroy/use vehicles that you can never frakkin complete because 90% of the servers are running Victory Village which only has as you point out 2 jeeps.
And the lack of a server browser or search filters doesn't allow you to choose which map you play on.
Even if you check the 'I prefer vehicle maps' Victory Village still comes up 90% of the time.
Maybe this game will be better some day, when there are more maps, more game play options, more features in regards to choosing a server, more weapon options, etc.
For now though it's a steaming pile... in my opinion :)
BTW, Love your blog, I subscribe and read it every day :)
@Robert
ReplyDeleteI understand exactly what you are saying, but personally, I love the simplification that Battlefield Heroes lays down. Actually, it is refreshing to see a game that CAN simplify some things and still come out with a decent game.
BF:Heroes is not perfect and is not for a lot of shooter fans. Its not Team Fortress 2 either, easily bringing in non-shooter fans and exposing them to the genre.
To me, its a game for Battlefield fans with the benefit that anyone can give it a whirl for free.
More technically speaking, what do you have set for favorite map type? If you don't specifically set it to Infantry or Vehicle, then you will see a lot of Victory Village. I'll change it back and forth to get the map-type I want and then set my missions accordingly. You should NOT get a Victory Village match with your map choice set to Vehicle maps. This can be set under your Options.
@Heartless:
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoy it, because I can see the charm that it could hold for people. You can see a certain level of polish/care went into certain aspects, and that's bound to appeal to a set of people. I'm just not in that set :)
I had it set to Vehicle because all I had at the time was vehicle 'missions'. Yet still got Victory Village, over and over again.
My hunch is that since I'm automatically matched with people of a similar skill level, that there just wasn't any available servers running a vehicle map that had players of my skill level.
I think if I were a newbie, or if I was much higher skill then there probably would have been more servers available.
It's also possible that it was just bugged for a while when I was playing and it's since been fixed.
I've never been put to Victory Village with Vehicle maps checked.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the lack of a server browser is frustrating at times, but they do let you bookmark favorite servers and go back to them if you want. Also, there is comfort in knowing you can hit Play Now and a match is going to load for you with minimal effort.
My solution would be to have more settings, or a way to select at least the specific map you want to play on.
Hope you don't mind, Heartless_, but I put up a link from my blog to this article of yours.
ReplyDelete