**OFFICIAL** AT Battlefield 3 FAQ and News Thread

[sigurros81]

The new maps are quite well designed, I'm digging them imensely, my least favorite probably has to be Epicenter as of right now. I love how there are open battles as well interior fighting the size of the Close Quarters maps.

My second game after downloading the maps
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/battlereport/show/50019589/1/246942166/

 

[GullyFoyle]

Battlelog - December Soldier Upgrade available for all Premium members

By: trydling Posted: 4 hours ago

We recently made the December Soldier Upgrade available for all of our Battlefield 3 Premium members. You should see them now in the game and here on Battlelog. The upgrade includes five weapon camos and five Assignments tied to one dog tag each. More details below. Happy hunting!

New weapon camos (instantly available):
M416 Airman Camo
ACW-R Tactical Camo
M240B Desert Stripe Camo
JNG-90 Berkut Camo
PP-19 Digital Woodland Camo

New Assignments/dog tags
You also get access to five new Premium exclusive Assignments, each one unlocking one new dog tag. These new Assignments are all listed under “Premium” on Battlelog. They are:

Battlescars

Get 25 knife kills
Get 50 kills with the SCAR-H
Get 50 kills with the SCAR-L
Unlocks: Battlescars dog tag

Fire in the hole!

Destroy 20 pieces of enemy equipment with the M67 grenade
Get 50 kills with the AT launchers
Unlocks: Fire in the hole! dog tag

Combat Medic

Revive 100 team mates
Revive 100 squad mates
Get 200 team heals
Get 200 squad heals
Unlocks: Combat Medic dog tag

Rambo

Get 20 kills in one round
Get 10 kills without dying
Get 5 multi-kills
Unlocks: Rambo dog tag

Silent Hunter

Get 50 kills with silenced MP443
Get 100 kills with the AS-VAL
Unlocks: Silent Hunter dog tag

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Love the new maps so much.

 

[realjetavenger]

UGH. Show of hands. Who else has had their Origin account hacked? (Remember seeing something about this a few pages ago.)
Checked on an email account that is used for Origin and had an email telling me that I changed my email address. And of course to sign in my "old" email address will no longer be valid. Awesome. And I can't do anything about it until I get home from work.
For those who have had this problem, are you a premium member? I got in on that Amazon deal which included premium (otherwise I wasn't going to buy premium and just stick with vanilla). I downloaded the updates this past weekend and played a coupe rounds. And now this. Maybe a coincidence but I thought there was a connection from things I've read.
Really annoying.

 

[destrekor]

UGH. Show of hands. Who else has had their Origin account hacked? (Remember seeing something about this a few pages ago.)
Checked on an email account that is used for Origin and had an email telling me that I changed my email address. And of course to sign in my "old" email address will no longer be valid. Awesome. And I can't do anything about it until I get home from work.
For those who have had this problem, are you a premium member? I got in on that Amazon deal which included premium (otherwise I wasn't going to buy premium and just stick with vanilla). I downloaded the updates this past weekend and played a coupe rounds. And now this. Maybe a coincidence but I thought there was a connection from things I've read.
Really annoying.

Password strength?

Same password also used for anything else? Compromised password by being delivered in the clear anywhere?

It is theoretically possible they get passwords from the main EA/Origin databases. If the corporation is doing anything remotely right, they aren't storing passwords in the clear. If they are somewhat competent, they should be hashed passwords. If they actually understand these things, they are salted hashes.
And if they feel at all like playing nice and sticking around, they will alert all users of any system intrusions on there end that showed possible access to such stored data, regardless of the actual security of the data.
Lastpass uses salted hashes for password storage, which basically means it's on the border of impossible to crack without digging really deep and also grabbing data from a specific user. Even then, they alerted everyone and basically enforced a blanket password change for all users iirc, just to be sure.

That said, there's also the possibility of your personal desktop being compromised in some way. Key loggers, or something reading caches. If you have Origin remember your password, it's likely that password is easily readable by any malevolent code looking for such things.

Run some good malware detection suites (double or triple up, as some will miss a few things, hell usually all will miss something at some point in time, but each one, if updated, will pick up something the other misses if that's the case).

The strongest, most likely reason is a weaker password that some malevolent individual with a capable program was able to "crack."

 

[destrekor]

Scavenger I'm still on the fence about, I kind of like it but at the same time I think it might have been cooler if weapons were more difficult to find (both in number and appearance [they're marked by icons]).

Played Conquest last night on... hell I don't know the map names lol. It's the one with the big palatial building that has a cap point on one of the upper levels labeled "Senate". Was an 1100 ticket round or something that took about an hour and a half but it was a blast. For feeling like a pretty big map I never felt like I was too far away from the next point/the action. Cover is a little lacking on some of the points but a lot of them seem to have multiple 'levels' to them as well which is an interesting change.

One thing I noticed was that while playing both scavenger and conquest on hardcore last night is that everyone started with only 60% health. Is that some sort of aftermath specific change or is that something universal representing the hardcore health "nerf" compared to normal?

60% health is basically the universal approach to Hardcore mode in BF3. I don't think I've ever seen it done differently.

Which basically just means it takes less hits from various weaponry to hit that number. I think the only other approach would be increased weapon damage per hit, which before seeing this in BF3 I thought that's how most Hardcore modes did things. Perhaps it's always just been reduced starting health points/percentage.

 

[HendrixFan]

These maps are the best Rush maps in the game by far. Conquest is kind of a mixed bag, but on Rush they are the best in the game.

They are quite fun on rush, but Alborz Mountain is the best BF3 rush map to me. Nothing like scaling that mountain to take objectives.

Harvest Day was my favorite rush map from BFBC2.

 

[darkewaffle]

60% health is basically the universal approach to Hardcore mode in BF3. I don't think I've ever seen it done differently.

Which basically just means it takes less hits from various weaponry to hit that number. I think the only other approach would be increased weapon damage per hit, which before seeing this in BF3 I thought that's how most Hardcore modes did things. Perhaps it's always just been reduced starting health points/percentage.

I know it's normal for hardcore, it just never displayed that way before. On the aftermath maps at least players spawn with 60% health (as though they have 6/10) instead of 100% health (as though they have 6/6) and it shows that way on the killscreen now, which had never happened before.

 

[destrekor]

I know it's normal for hardcore, it just never displayed that way before. On the aftermath maps at least players spawn with 60% health (as though they have 6/10) instead of 100% health (as though they have 6/6) and it shows that way on the killscreen now, which had never happened before.

I haven't paid attention, only played briefly last night.

I know if you looked in the server details on battlelog, they have always stated "60%" health on HC servers.

I'll have to look closer tonight, and try and leave an AM server and hop onto, say, a CQ server and compare it.

 

[DeadFred]

UGH. Show of hands. Who else has had their Origin account hacked? (Remember seeing something about this a few pages ago.)
Checked on an email account that is used for Origin and had an email telling me that I changed my email address. And of course to sign in my "old" email address will no longer be valid. Awesome. And I can't do anything about it until I get home from work.
For those who have had this problem, are you a premium member? I got in on that Amazon deal which included premium (otherwise I wasn't going to buy premium and just stick with vanilla). I downloaded the updates this past weekend and played a coupe rounds. And now this. Maybe a coincidence but I thought there was a connection from things I've read.
Really annoying.

Mine was hacked a month or so ago, and yes I am premium member. Call Origin support, I have to give them kudos for quickly getting my account back to me in just a few minutes after verifying my account info and providing them my BF3 key.

Origin phone support:
(855) 674-4461
This is a number in the United States.
Typical hours are 8 AM to 11 PM Eastern Time.

After regaining my account from some Russian hacker he evidently had my email addy and tried to reset my password again two days later. I caught this one because he had tried to force a password and it locked my account. After calling Origin a second time to unlock my account I reset both my password and email and have not had any problems since.

I would do as destrekor suggested and run several anti virus and malware scans to also rule out any trojans or keyloggers.

 

[satsau]

Is premium worth it? I haven't played for like 8 months or so. Getting tired of Halo 4 and looking to get back into BF3.

 

[darkewaffle]

Playing on non-aftermath maps I noticed all hardcore servers seem to show characters at 60% health now and I'm pretty sure you don't heal up to 100%, but still just 60%. I'm guessing it's just some change to the way HC displays health.

 

[sigurros81]

Is premium worth it? I haven't played for like 8 months or so. Getting tired of Halo 4 and looking to get back into BF3.

Personally, I know that Back to Karkand, Armored Kill, and Aftermath are amazing mappacks. I did not care a single lick for Close Quarters.

A lot of people complained on this forum about EA trying to cheat the consumer with the premium purchase, but I have put 450hours into this game and I am enjoying the new maps imensely.

 

[felang]

UGH. Show of hands. Who else has had their Origin account hacked? (Remember seeing something about this a few pages ago.)
Checked on an email account that is used for Origin and had an email telling me that I changed my email address. And of course to sign in my "old" email address will no longer be valid. Awesome. And I can't do anything about it until I get home from work.
For those who have had this problem, are you a premium member? I got in on that Amazon deal which included premium (otherwise I wasn't going to buy premium and just stick with vanilla). I downloaded the updates this past weekend and played a coupe rounds. And now this. Maybe a coincidence but I thought there was a connection from things I've read.
Really annoying.

Yeah the same thing happened to me, called up EA support and they gave me back my account. I actually sent the "hacker" an e-mail stating that I liked his avatar and was going to keep it, and he replied saying he would hack my account again. Quite funny actually. I immediately changed my e-mail account in origin and haven´t had any problems since.

 

[realjetavenger]

<snip>

Mine was hacked a month or so ago, and yes I am premium member. Call Origin support, I have to give them kudos for quickly getting my account back to me in just a few minutes after verifying my account info and providing them my BF3 key.

After regaining my account from some Russian hacker he evidently had my email addy and tried to reset my password again two days later. I caught this one because he had tried to force a password and it locked my account. After calling Origin a second time to unlock my account I reset both my password and email and have not had any problems since.

I would do as destrekor suggested and run several anti virus and malware scans to also rule out any trojans or keyloggers.

Not really sure how it happened. I though the password was pretty strong. I'm running pretty aggressive anti-virus, malware, etc programs (all are still running real time while playing).

However, it was hacked by a Russian (looked at my signon name and found the email account he used as well as he changed my friends lists - stupidly he friended his own Origin account - it all came back to a Russian hacker.
At any rate, Origin support was great about resolving the issue and even sent me a discount coupon for anything sold on Origin. I kept the email address (for now) but have a much stronger (I hope) pass word.

 

[satsau]

Personally, I know that Back to Karkand, Armored Kill, and Aftermath are amazing mappacks. I did not care a single lick for Close Quarters.

A lot of people complained on this forum about EA trying to cheat the consumer with the premium purchase, but I have put 450hours into this game and I am enjoying the new maps imensely.

I have BTK already. Came with the Limited Edition.
I like what I hear regarding Aftermath. I'll pick it up. See you guys on the Battlefield!

 

[GullyFoyle]

MP1st - Battlefield 3 Goes Double XP This Weekend For Premium Members Only

David Veselka - December 07, 2012

To celebrate the release of Battlefield 3: Aftermath, DICE will be hitting that double XP switch for all Battlefield 3 Premium members across all platforms for the duration of this weekend.

DICE writes on their Facebook page:

Stay warm and cozy on the Battlefield while you hit the all-new Battlefield 3: Aftermath expansion.

All Battlefield 3 Premium members will get double XP across all ranked maps and modes!

Go Premium now.

The event will last from Saturday, December 8 at 6am PST until Monday, December 10 at 6am PST.

Keep your sights on MP1st for our full Battlefield 3: Aftermath DLC review shortly!

 

[sigurros81]

I have BTK already. Came with the Limited Edition.
I like what I hear regarding Aftermath. I'll pick it up. See you guys on the Battlefield!

Yeah, I got B2K as well already but I still think with the quality of maps in Armored Kill and Aftermath are worth the price of premium as well. I'm looking forward to see what goes on in End Game.

 

[Termie]

I have to say that Aftermath adds a whole new dimension to the game. Armored Kill is fine, but it doesn't play all that differently from the original maps.

Aftermath is way, way different. Lots of staircases, broken buildings, etc. When I saw a truck drive into a ballroom and start firing at people, I knew Aftermath was something totally different.

And the zombie-like faces on the characters are kind of funny...

 

[DeadFred]

Im really liking AM so far.

 

[Hellcat1992]

My rig is I3-2100 3.1Ghz, HD7770 vapor-x, 4GB RAM and running on 1366x768 res monitor
When I set MESH quality to HIGH, fps drop heavily when changing view in all DLC map (B2K, CQ,AK and also AM )
The vanilla map pack is OK.
I have some budget to upgrade. I wonder I should spend it on the new GPU 7850 + PSU 500W or new CPU i5 2500k
All I need is running the game @high mesh quality for long range and air spotting

 

[moonbogg]

Yep, aftermath is pretty fun and feels fresh and different. Me like.

 

[Redinit]

Not sure if this has been passed, but you can buy BF3 Premium Edition for 35.99 this weekend at Origin

 

[sigurros81]

Wooo, just got done rocking face, pretty proud of this battle report

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/battlereport/show/50321926/1/

 

[Arkaign]

Aftermath is fantastic. I was really looking forward to Armored Kill, but I ended up hating it (design, balance, pacing, I hated every aspect of it). Back to Karkand I disliked, Close Quarters I loathed, but vanilla (Caspian, Firestorm, Kharg) and Aftermath = superb.