Welcome back to Part II of the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Strategy Guide! I’ve got plenty of additional tips, tactics and advice to dispense that will hopefully improve your playing ability and make you a role-model for society, or at least a deadly teammate. If you somehow managed to bypass Part I, then you can find it right here.

I have also written an article titled When Bad Players Ruin Great Games, which is all about the dumb things players do in Bad Company 2 that ruin the experience for everyone else. You will hopefully find some useful information there and if not, you’ll at least know you’re not alone in feeling very frustrated with players who don’t quite grasp the Battlefield concept.

Okay, enough intro, let’s get down to business.

Playing the Medic

The Medic can make all the difference between you team losing or winning, assuming the person playing a medic knows what he or she is doing.

Your Role: You are a support class so you should play as one, which means not leading a charge into an enemy base, as your death will be of no benefit to anyone except the other team. Instead, stay behind you squad or teammates, dropping medkits in locations where your squaddies or teammates are currently staging a battle. You’ll accrue a ton of points for healing injured players if you’re placing your medkits in a useful, accessible location. Always drop a medit in a defensive location, like within a building that houses an objective, because you know fighting will be taking place sooner or later.

The Effective Medic: By trailing your squaddies or teammates, you can easily spot who needs healing and drop a medkit to alleviate their pain and suffering. More importantly, when a fellow player goes down for the count, the medic can fly into action and revive the fallen soldier with the Defibrillator. If you’re dead, you’re of no help or use…so don’t die by being overly aggressive.

Help Bring Down Helicopters: The Medic is typically outfitted with a machine-gun, capable of firing a ton of sustained rounds for extended periods of time. This makes the Medic an especially effective class at bringing down helicopters. You’ll need to master the art of leading your target, which means you should be firing your gun slightly ahead of the target’s flight-direction. You’ll know you’re hitting the copter when your crosshair briefly flashes with an X symbol.

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Part II is Now Available Here

I write this guide not for your benefit but my own. You see, I am tired of playing with teammates who treat a round of Bad Company 2 (BC2) like it’s Halo or Modern Warfare 2. An overwhelming amount of players just don’t seem to grasp the fundamentals; how to score, how to win, how not to suck, how not to play like a lone wolf who doesn’t contribute anything except a few useless sniper-rifle kills.

Not to brag, but I consistently rule at Battlefield games and have since the genre originally debuted back on the PC with Battlefield 1942. I play like a man on a mission with clear goals and objectives, a style that usually finds my score high enough to lead the team. It’s not because I wield l33t weapon skills, it’s because I play the game as it is intended. Hopefully, by the end of this guide, you’ll be playing in a similar style and I won’t have to curse my team for being top-heavy with noobs.

1. Objective Based, Not Kill-Based

Contrary to how a lot of people play Battlefield, killing members of the other team is NOT your objective. Killing other players is a fringe-benefit of completing objectives.

Your overall objective is to destroy targets dotted across the map, usually two crates in each zone. These crates represent your holy crusade. If you’re on the attacking team, every thing you do as a player should be geared towards taking down a crate. Any activity not related to taking down a crate is a waste of time. If you’re on defense, saving those crates is your prime directive.

Why This is Effective: The entire game is based around destroying or saving crates. Destroy all the crates as the attacking team and you win. Prevent the attacking team from destroying your crates and you win. It’s as simple as that. Winning has nothing to do with how many players you kill, unless you are on defense, where every kill will slowly bring you towards victory, but not at the expense of losing crates.

2. Hey Rambo, Join a Squad!

I was hoping that DICE, the designers of BC2, would make joining a squad mandatory in their latest version of the game, but my hopes and dreams didn’t pan out. It’s too bad, as compulsory squad enlistment would go a long way in forcing players to play properly. As it stands, you have the option to either join a squad or go it alone when loading up a new map.

There is zero reason not to join a squad, nor is there a single benefit to playing solo.

Why This is Effective: Joining a squad allows you to spawn with any living squad-mate currently playing on the map. If you have squadie who has already penetrated enemy lines then you can select him and spawn right next to his location, giving him a much-needed hand. This saves you a ton of time by not forcing you to run or drive from the initial base all the way to the objective. With a full squad of four guys, you’ll usually have three good spawning options, allowing you to appear closer to the action. This ensures you keep the pressure on the opposing team. If you elect to not join a squad, then you will always spawn at a base, costing you valuable time.

Additionally, joining a squad opens up a ton of extra scoring modifiers that will greatly increase your point total.

3. Proper Spawning

A lot of people just button-mash the spawn button until they return to action, giving little thought about where they are appearing or why. If you’re in a squad then you have a lot of options. You can either spawn with a teammate or at your base, depending upon your current needs.

When you die and the time to spawn arrives, analyze the map and see what assets you have available in the form of vehicles or aircraft.  If there is an unused tank at your main base then you should spawn there and use the asset. If the base is empty of assets, then spawn with a member of your squad.

Why This is Effective: One sure way for a team to lose a round of BC2 is by not using all available assets. If your team is not using available tanks, helicopters or UAV, then your team is going to lose. Nothing is more depressing than watching your entire team just go running by all the heavy equipment as they make their long journey towards an enemy position.

If you have a squad-mate in a tank or copter then you can spawn within his vehicle, assuming a position is free. You’ll wrack up extra points working as a unit, plus you’ll be using available assets at their maximum efficiency.

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Back when Modern Warfare 2 was released for the PC, all hell broke loose because Infinity Ward had abandoned a long-standing tradition of dedicated server support for PC-based games. In short, PC games of old allowed anyone to setup and host a multiplayer server, a great convenience that allowed for custom maps and mods.

Infinity Ward suffered a PR nightmare from which they refused to budge. In turn, sales of Modern Warfare 2 were not in line with expectations. Seeing an opening, DICE, developers of Battlefield and the forthcoming Bad Company 2, issued forth press-releases in the hopes of taking advantage of the ill-will.

An example:

A lot of buzz has been floating around the internet lately about dedicated servers and we wanted to make sure our all our players have the best understanding of how Battlefield will be played on the PC.  Since Battlefield 1942 DICE has used dedicated servers for all platforms.  This formula has worked well, and still works well, for us and for the gaming community.   We have stayed true to this practice and will continue this tradition into the upcoming title Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Other games use player-hosted or ‘peer to peer’ solutions, often resulting in a “host with the most” situation; where the player hosting the match has an advantage over other players connected to their game. Everyone else is dependent on the host’s internet connection and if they don’t have a great connection neither will you regardless how great of an internet you have.  Also, unless server migration is implemented the game ends when that hosting player quits the game forcing you to find another player-host or start your own.  With dedicated servers everyone gets non-stop action with no connection penalties based on some other player and their internet.  This makes dedicated servers the best solution for online PC gaming hands down! So rest assured PC players, Battlefield will stay true to its roots offering dedicated servers to all its players and continue the tradition of the ultimate FPS gaming experience!

Now many believed this meant that anyone could host a dedicated server, but the reality isn’t so cut-and-dry. Yes, Bad Comapny 2 will support dedicated servers, but you will pay a small fee to rent this server from DICE-approved partners. Not quite the open-environment I was hoping for.

According to Eurogamer:

DICE has told Eurogamer there is “no profit” made from forcing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 players to rent dedicated servers instead of building their own.

Producer Gordon Van Dyke said files the community needs to build dedicated servers are being withheld in order to “protect the game’s integrity on PC”.

“This does not earn DICE a profit,” BFBC2 Van Dyke told us. “But we will see where the game goes and support it post launch.”

Right now the only way to host a private dedicated server is by renting from one of DICE’s authorised hosts. These, Van Dyke added, have already been picked in “all major regions of the world”.

This is a first for the Battlefield series, as Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 both supported community members building and hosting their own dedicated servers.

With Modern Warfare 2 selling a bazillion copies around the world, it may seem like a strange time to promote Battlefield Bad Company 2, but Electronic Arts is hell-bent on getting the word out on the CoD killer. As a huge fan of the original Bad Company, which I thought had superior gameplay when compared to Modern Warfare or World at War, Bad Company 2 is at the top of my must-have list for 2010. I’ll take completely destructible environments over the stale environments of Modern Warfare 2 any day. Plus, dedicated servers makes for a superior multiplayer environment, not the inconsistent peer-to-peer illusion that Modern Warfare 2 offers.

Below is 13 minutes of footage from the forthcoming multiplayer beta that will be hitting the PS3 next week.