Part 7: Obliteration: an Explanation

Obliteration: an Explanation

This video probably contains the first really cool "Battlefield Moment" of the recordings thus far, however, I did go and make that more easily available:

Too long; didn't watch

Obliteration is a new game mode in Battlefield 4 that combines the "Plant bombs" objectives of Rush with the large scale vehicle heavy combat of Conquest. Unlike either of those modes there is no ticket count for either team and capping points won't change where you can spawn. The bomb needed to destroy the objectives is neutral, meaning both teams have to fight for control of the bomb. Instead you get a maximum of 20 minutes to plant objectives and a paradrop at the center of the map. Once your team has the bomb you need to escort the bomb carrier to one of the enemy objectives where they can plant the bomb and start a timer. The nice thing here is that the carrier is constantly tagged with the bomb indicator on the minimap and HUD, so there is no excuse for them sneaking past you. The enemy team can come in and start defusing planted objectives, but the fuse is fairly short so it takes a major effort to pull that off, but it does happen. There's no option to drop the bomb once you have it, so pay attention to the screen. There's nothing worse than someone accidentally picking up the bomb and then taking the nearest elevator to a roof and sniping for the rest of the round. Worth noting is the fact that this mode is made with 32 total players in mind, not the 64 of Conquest. I've played on 64 player Obliteration servers and it is absolutely insane not not recommended unless you want to be come paranoid someone is constantly behind you.



1: Game Status
This is where you can get a full accounting of who has what. Like in Conquest the blue squares indicate friendly objectives held (in this case, bomb sites not exploded) while the orange diamonds indicate the enemy held objectives. You can see here that an orange diamond is grayed out. This indicates that site has been exploded by my team already. Underneath the team status you see a white circle with four lines sticking out of it. This indicates the bomb and who owns it. White means it is neutral, orange if the enemy has it and blue if we own it. Under that is the remaining time. Obliteration rounds are limited to 20 minutes on ranked and official servers, so a number of games end in ties now as 20 minutes is not a lot of time when you often need to cut a swath through the enemy team to get to an objective.

2: Bomb Site Indicators
As mentioned: Orange is bad, blue is good. Once you explode a point or the enemy team explodes a point the lost objective simply disappears from the map and from the HUD, so you can't see the A location that my team already blew up when I joined. A on this map is in the same village as my team's A objective. Often how Obliteration works is that the first objectives for each team are pretty close together, the second a good distance into each team's territory and the third nearly abutting their spawn. Once all three objectives are exploded the game ends. If you have an equal amount of points at the end of the round it automatically ties, there is no sudden death or overtime here. If one team has more objectives planted than the other team they win when time runs out. This is actually the most popular way to win.

3: Paradrop
Spawning on this icon will drop you from the sky (when appropriate) as if you used an outdoor based Spawn Beacon. Often it will give you a good route to one of the objectives if not the forward most two for your team. Smart players avoid the enemy paradrop area like the plague as not only are you prone to getting shot with rockets from heaven, but enemies who recently landed could get the drop on you easily and screw up your run, or maybe even kill chances to plant the objective.



1: Bomb Site Indicators
Just like on the minimap, the blue and orange shapes indicate valid targets. You'll notice there is a bit of scaling with the objective sizes and me being pretty far away. That is a new and welcome feature from a couple patches back. The shape can morph into an arrow if someone is giving orders to the squad telling them to target a specific objective. Often times players will target the most difficult objective first so the other two points will be a bit easier due to the potentially lighter enemy presence. Not always a winning move, but it often works.

2: Bomb
It's the Bomb on the HUD, same as it shows up on the minimap, but you know, bigger here.