General guide on how-to-battlefield for the unadvised Battlefield 3 player

Draft #2 - Incomplete

Table of crap
0. Intro
1. Getting Started
2. General Basics on how to suck less
3. Tickets
4. Spawning
5. Spotting (never stop)
6. Kits
7. Squads (Where is yours, soldier?)
8. Unlocks
9. Suppression


0. Intro
This guide aims to advise you on the basics of Battlefield 3 and its gorillian features.
This is not going to be a in-depth weapons guide, vehicle guide nor explain every single loadout possible in full detail. However, it will include a a broad overview of all guns, attachments, gadgets, vehicles and all other stuff in this game. Jesus fuck, that's a lot.
Next to no numerical values will be included as those are subject to change with pretty much every patch. If you want to fap over statistics hit up symthic.com. That site sports the most up to date information on all weapons available at any moment, including recoil patterns and bullet spread charts.

A general word of advice: if you aren't keen on developing a heart condition you want to play this game with bros. Especially objective game modes will have you snapping your desk and/or controller in half when your team does absolutely nothing to advance or defend. The delayed hit-detection doesn't help. BF3 will tell you that you got shot a solid second after you dove behind cover and frequently disagree with you on how many bullets you did put into a baddy. The results are unfair deaths that will have you punch the next solid object. The moronic playerbase does the rest.
In short, BF3 is one of the most rage inducing experiences known to mankind. Remember that every other player is dealing with the same crap before you loose your shit, though.

For this and a number of other failings as well as asinine design decisions BF3 is generally considered one of the weaker titles in the series. It can still deliver those battlefeel moments, but they come by less frequently.


1. Getting Started
BF3 is a class-based, team-oriented multiplayer shooter with heavy focus on objective-gameplay and vehicles.
It's neither a realistic military simulator like ArmA nor a pure arena-style shooter like Call of Duty. BF3 sits in middle between those and borrows things from both and tries to create a decent mix from it. It does lean a bit more towards CoD.
Never tell anybody that CoD is for kids and BF3 is for grown ups unless you want to get laughed out of the room.

Most game modes except for deathmatch varients feature some sort of objective besides "kill everybody". Which ever team employs better tactics, more teamwork and goes for the objective more will not only win but usually curb stomp the other side.
What this means is that no matter how good you are at this game by yourself you will loose every single match if the opposite team is working together and your own is not.
Frankly, you are screwed about 90% of the time when you end up alone in a match with random players. BF3 features one of the worst playerbases ever on any platform. An average BF3 player is all kinds of terribad, only uses one class, one gun and is convinced that his kill-death-ratio is the most important thing ever.

They won't spot.
They won't heal you.
They won't revive you.
They won't give you ammo.
They won't play the fucking objective.
They will use vehicles as personal taxis.
They will sit an entire match on a mountain top with a bolt action rifle.
They will steal that tank you just repaired and drive it straight into a cluster of mines.

Don't be one of those guys.

Stick together with some buddies, help one another, play the role needed on the battlefield and you will already do better than the great majority of BF3 players you will encounter in the wild.
Microphones are not a must-have as decent players can work together even without direct communication, but using one is a good idea if you want to coordinate your efforts.



2. General Basics on how to suck less
If you have never played a single BF game before or are coming back after a long break you may want to start with watching "How not to be a noob at Battlefield: Bad Company 2" www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p4fkH9qC4M.
Classes, weapons and vehicles are a lot different in BC2 but a lot of general advice given applies to both games.
The gist of it is that going for the objective and helping your team mates should always be a priority. Getting kills on your own is nice but that alone won't let you win a match.

You want some quick general tips on how you can become better at BF3? Well here you go:

- Use common sense
- Use cover
- Avoid open areas and stick close to walls
- Assess a situation before you act
- Don't rush in head first, be more careful
- Avoid head on gun fights
- Flank enemies whenever possible
- Enter fights from unexpected angles (nobody looks up)
- Spot, spot, spot, SPOT MOTHERFUCKER
- Work together with your team mates not against them
- Find a competent squad on your team and stick together them (all-recon are to be avoided)
- Take a look at the minimap every so often, it shows both friendlies and enemies
- Firing any gun will have a soldier, yourself included, show up on the minimap
- Suppressors well let you avoid showing up on the minimap when firing a gun
- Vehicles that fire their cannons/guns/whatever will also show up on the mini-map
- Scope glint means sniper scum. Run in zig-zag line and use cover even more
- Find a gun you like (raifu), learn how to use it and it will pay off (receive love from raifu)
- Variety is the spice of life (that one gun will not be perfect in every situation)
- Choose your gun & gadgets according to what engagements you will be facing on a map BEFORE you spawn
- Guns with high rate of fire win at close distances but lack accuracy for mid or long range engagements
- Choose your sidearm to make up for your main gun's weakness
- Switch to your sidearm if you run out of gun juice for your main weapon or it is not fit for engagements in your current situation
- Abuse suppression and don't try to fight it when you are suppressed
- Activate Colorblind Mode for better ingame UI colors
- Use your choosen class and its special abilities to its full potential
- Play BF3 all tacticool and with bros, you will not only do better, you will have more buzzword

Situational awareness is key in BF3.
You can tell what is going on around you by keeping a sharp eye on the mini-map and listening to sounds. Soldiers call out to each other in their team's language, vehicles make noise, equipment makes noise, knifing makes noise, even freaking reloading makes noise.
Footsteps are also audible but sound messed up and are hard to locate. The faster somebody runs the louder their steps are, duh.
match because you will get the drop on them with frightening consistency.
Just remember that your own soldier also constantly comments on everything that is happening, often without the lines even being played for you. These call-outs include getting shot at, being suppressed, requesting stuff, killing and spotting an enemy.
A good example for this are grenades. Soldiers in BF3 always yell a line or two when they have a grenade land near them, even if it came from a team mate. So if you are unsure whether there's a soldier in a building throw a freaking grenade in there and wait for him to start screaming about it.

Suppressors have a special function in BF3 that you should know right away from the start.
Whenever you or anybody else fires a unsurppressed gun they will show up on the minimap for everybody to see. Using a suppressor not only muffles the sound of your gun going off but negates this effect all together. So if you want to go all Solid Snake behind enemy lines it is a good idea to carry at least one gun with a sound suppressor. not that suppressed guns are not completely silent.


3. Tickets
All game modes in BF3 are ticket-based.
Every time somebody spawns in a match a ticket is used for that.
In most game modes at least one team starts a round with a full ticket count, which decreases by 1 with every respawn. If their ticket count hits zero that team has lost.
The exception to this rule are Team Deathmatch and Squad-Team Deathmatch. In these tickets used by the enemy count towards your team score.
Remember that simply killing somebody does not equal a lost ticket. Only when a dead soldier respawns will this decrease his team's ticket count. If a player gets revived with a defibrilator (see Classes - Assault) that player will be back in action with no ticket being used.
A team with a bunch of smart medics can keep their ticket count well above where it should be according to the sum of kills the other team has.


4. Spawning
When in the spawn menu you have a number of options where to spawn.
If you are playing a game mode where your team gets a home base with vehicles and everything you can spawn here at any time. This place will always be available but usually happens to be the farthest away from the action.
In Conquest and Conquest Assault you may also spawn at whatever flags your team is holding.
On normal server settings you will also be able to spawn on any squad mate that is currently alive. Server admins may disable this so spawning is only allowed on squad leaders.

In either case take a look at the situation a flag or squad mate is in before spawning there. By selecting an entry in the spawn the game view in the background will show what's happening around the selected location/soldier. Worst case is you spawn right in a hail of bullets (http://i.imgur.com/uMG0C.jpg), in front of an enemy tank or next to a sniper ten miles away from anything of interest. Pay attention and this will happen less often.
If a recon in your squad deployed a radio beacon you can also spawn on it at any time (for more info see Gadgets - Radio Beacon).
If air vehicles such as jets or helicopters are available in your base you can spawn directly in those. No need towalk to them.
If your team has a transport vehicle like certain choppers or the AMTRAK you can also spawn directly inside these no matter where they are. These vehicles act as mobile spawn points.
Exception to this are Team Deathmatch, Squad-Team Deathmatch, Close Quarters and Gun Master all of which  feature spawning at random locations on the map only.

There is a Spawn Protection in BF3 now. While you are spawn protected you cannot be killed. By anything.
Spawn protection ends once you move, fire your weapon or two seconds after you spawned. Looking around does NOT break spawn protection. It is a good idea to spawn and just take in your surroundings before you run of.


5. Spotting (never stop)
Spotting is a core feature of BF3 that allows you to rely enemy positions to your team without need for any direct communication.
You should make good use of it. All. The. Fucking. Time. No, seriously, if you aren't spotting EVERY SINGLE THING that isn't a friendly in this game you are not being advised at all.
It doesnt matter whether it is a single soldier, a group, vehicle or a far away sniper. Spot it no matter what. Just. Fucking. SPOT. EVERYTHING.
You're about to open fire? Well spot him at the same time! Only exception is if the guy is right in your face and you're about kill him/get killed. He's running along 20m away from you? That's a spot, no fucking argument.
What's that up ahead? An enemy tank? Well bloody spot it already!
Scope glint on top of a hill? Spot that bloody rock sniper.

Why should you do this?
Jet and heli pilots will quickly see where enemy vehicles are and open up on them.
People two streets over will know about that tank rolling in long before it's in their line of sight.
That guy that just killed you will be taken out within seconds because half your team knew where he was.
Wouldn't you want to know about this stuff?

Spotting is done by bringing your crosshair over an enemy soldier/vehicle/whatever with direct line of sight of it and pressing the Q-key (PC) / Back-button (Xbox) / Select-button (PS3) a single time. It doesn't work through bushes anymore. Dice managed to patch that. You may also need to zoom in/aim down sights for spotting at longer distances. In order to spot an entire group they just need to be close enough to each other.

This results in three different things to happen at once:
1) Your own soldier calls out what he has spotted.
2) An orange icon for what you just spotted appears on the minimap for all players on your team. This icon tracks the player/object you spotted and moves with it.
3) An orange icon appears directly above what you spotted in your and all your team mates field of view as long as direct line of sight is maintained. This icon tracks the player/object you spotted and moves with it. This is called 3D-spotting.

Icons differ according to what got spotted. Infantry gets a dorito, everything else has a special icon for it. Note that icons on the mini-map actually show the direction soldiers are looking at.

This icon vanishes after a few seconds. If a team mate kills/destroys the soldier/vehicle shortly after you spotted it you will get a spot assist for that. Spotting can be done on foot, in any vehicle and even when viewing through the camera of a piece of equipment like the MAV.
Remember that if you press the spot-button too often within a short time it will need to cool down first.
Server admins may choose to disable 3D-spotting.

You can also spot any and all explosives including mines, C4 and claymores. All equipment like mortars, EOD-bots, radio beacons, SOFLAMs, TUGs and MAVs can be spotted, too. Always spot mines as gunner in vehicles so your driver can avoid them.
Every enemy sniper needs to be spotted. A giant red dorito is a million times easier to see than a tiny grey spot. You will experience a whole new feeling from spotting some retard on a mountain only for him to be taken out seconds later.

Did you ever wonder why the sniper class is called "Recon"? That's right, their main job is to SPOT EVERYTHING AND ADVISE THEIR TEAM MATES. SO DO THAT WHEN YOU PLAY SNIPER.


6. Kits
A kit is literally everything a soldier carries at any given time. This includes all weapons, attachments, ammo and gadgets. Each time a soldier is killed his kit is dropped on the ground in the form of his main weapon. It will disappear within about 10-15 seconds.
You can pick up any kit you find lying around by pressing and holding the reload key while standing on top of it. An appropriate message saying "Press X to pick up Support" should pop up on your screen when you are standing on a kit. http://i.imgur.com/roEwG.jpg
Doing so will have you drop your own kit and equip the one from the ground. Outwards you will still look like the class you spawned as. If you see a support tearing tanks apart with a bloody rocket launcher this is not because that guy is hacking, but because he knows shit about BF3.
By switching kits you can and should use special class gadgets of foreign kits. You can even switch back to your own kit if it is to your advantage and it hasn't vanished yet.
Reviving a buddy, planting a radio beacon or throwing down ammo is never wrong. Yes, you can totally switch to a recon kit, set up a SOFLAM, change back to your engi kit with javelin and take out vehicles your own SOFLAM is painting.
The timer for the kit to disappear gets reset when you drop it again, so you can even switch back and forth between them.

If you get killed and somebody picked up your kit before you were revived you will end up equipping whatever kit was lying around close by.


7. Squads (Where is yours, soldier?)
Squads are units with room for up to four people that allow players of the same team to work together and coordinate their efforts to a degree. There's no reason why you shouldn't be in a squad all the time. If your current squad is made from retards join a different one or make a new one altogether.
As explained under Spawning squad members may spawn on each other but squads go far beyond that. In BF3 your squad are your best buddies on the battlefield. If you stick together, help each other out and combine the strengths of different classes your squad will overcome challenges impossible to take down on your own.
A well organized squad that knows what it's doing is a force to be reckoned with.
And you know what is even better? The game fucking rewards you for working together by giving you more points for shit like healing, revives, repairs and giving ammo than when you do these to regular team mates.
Remember to complement the abilities of other squad members. If your squad already has two assaults they could use a support or close-quarter recon between them. On vehicle-heavy maps engis are always welcome but they tend to run out of rockets. Go support them more so they can continue spearing tanks to death.
Same goes for squad specializations. These DO NOT stack. If all members of a squad have ammo specialization selected they won't carry any more rounds than if only one had that spec. Variety is the spice of life so see to it that you have a squad spec that your squad is missing but they also benefit from.

Examples for squads work wll together?
A single medic sticking to his squad can heal and revive his buddies after a fire fight and they'll be up and running at full strength with no time nor tickets lost.
A recon with a TUGS or a MAV working together with his squad is a freaking force multiplier. That squad will act as if they had wall hacks.
A dedicated javelin squad with a SOFLAM recon, two javelin engineers and a support for ammo & cover fire can essential shut down the other team's vehicle advances and leave them trapped in their spawn base.

God help them if two squads decide to work together.

Squads are managed from the squad screen of the spawn menu.
In order to create a squad you must be without a squad yourself first, so leave the one your in before hand. The player who creates a new squad joins it automatically and becomes its squad leader by default. If the squad leader leaves his squad the first player who joined after the old squad leader will become its new leader.
If a squad becomes empty it will be removed from the squad list.

A squad leader has access to a few options regarding how to run a squad.
For one he can declare his squad public or private and kick players from it in the squad screen of the spawn menu. A privat squad cannot be joined by any other players.
On the battlefield itself a squad leader can give attack/defend orders by aligning his crosshair with a objective icon, open the commo-rose by pressing and holding the spot button and selecting the bottom option.
This will net both squad mates and squad leader extra points for every kill they make near an objective they were ordered to. It can also be used to communicate which objective a squad should concentrate it efforts on. Who would have guessed?


8. Unlocks
There are a number of different ways to unlock new guns, gadgets, weapon attachments and everything else that BF3 has in that department.
Class-specific guns and gadgets are unlocked by earning points/XP while playing that class.
All-class guns (PDWs, shotguns, sidearms), most camos and soldier specialisations are unlocked by advancing you overall level.
Attachments for guns are unlocked by gettings kills with said guns. Attachments are gun specific with the exception of the M16A3-M16A4 and M4A1-M4, which share their unlocks because they are nearly the same gun.
Vehicle specialisations are unlocked by earning points/XP while sitting in a vehicle. What position does not matter, nor whether the points were earned through kills, assists, captures or even from medkits/ammo boxes/spawns while sitting in said vehicle.

A bunch of guns are linked to the Co-op and can only be unlocked by earning points/XP by playing any co-op mission. Points will be added to your overall co-op score even if the mission fails. This is definitely worth it because you can unlock the MP7, M39 EMR, G3A3, M412 REX, M93R, KH2002 and SG553 very early in and they are all good guns, if not some of the best in BF3.
No real grinding either, finishing every mission once should you earn at least 5 out of 7 of these.

The M1911 pistol can be unlocked by being a Battlefield Veteran. Usually this is done by linking several Battlefield games to your Origin account. Alternatively you can contact Origin support and tell them you Veteran status is not showing up correctly. They will unlock it for you.

The DLCs introduced Assignments, which work exactly like achievments do. These assignments are linked to guns, vehicle unlocks or camos, which you will unlock once you completed the assignment for it. You need to own the DLC that includes an Assignment before things you do count towards it.
If an assignment is depending on completing another one kills/points/whatever will only start counting towards it once the basic assignment is completed. Don't waste your time.


9. Suppression
Suppression is what happens when bullets whiz past a soldier's head and chip away at their cover.
In real life this will have even hardened soldiers shitting their pants. In BF3 this makes soldiers cry like babbis (blurry screen) and have their guns turn into jelly (recoil increase, spread to the point where bullets go sideways).
Trying to take out an enemy soldier when accuracy is needed is a lost cause when fully suppressed. Don't even bother unless you can fire in single shot and/or have a bipod deployed. Instead take cover and wait for suppression to receed. If on the other hand you are playing as rambo support and have a belt-feed LMG you can and should totally abuse suppression. See this for an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxsbTjPe2fs (supression was about 200% at that point).
Suppression as a gameplay mechanic does not really work in BF3. People hardly ever take cover because of it and often guns seemingly ignore suppression effects. As of post-Armored Kill the M1563 has been proven to not suffer any increase in bullet spread even when fully suppressed. This may get patched.