Head Back to the Free Prima Games Dragon’s Teeth Guide
If recent memory serves us right, new modes very rarely stick in first-person shooter titles. You have the standard Team Deathmatch, then a Conquest or Domination interpretation, and lastly the underrated Capture the Flag. With Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth, however, it seems that DICE might have actually stumbled across something worth giving a closer look.
The Chain Link game mode, which was released to premium members just a few days ago, seems to have a nice balance of objective based play, and straight-up infantry combat. While you still can’t count on your teammates to do their job, the map designs of Lumphini Garden, Pearl Market, Propaganda, and Sunken Dragon seem to fit perfectly with game type. Whether this is a sentiment that will be shared by the majority players, or even carry over to the rest of the game’s maps remains to be seen.
Today, we wanted to share with you some of our tips to help you rattle off a few wins while playing Chain Link. While even we have a lot left to learn, we felt that our grasp on some of the basic concepts was enough to at least start up a conversation. With that in mind, be sure to visit the comment section below and share your best tips with us, then your PlayStation Network ID so we can ride your coattails to a few more victories.
Build a Solid Foundation
The basic concept of Chain Link is to connect as many objectives together as you can. If you connect two, that will give you one link. If you connect three, that will give you two, and so on and so forth. The more links you can connect to your chain, the faster your opponent will bleed tickets.
When the game begins, head out to the first two or three objectives closest to your spawn and link them together. If several members of your team have the first one under control, sprint past them to the second one. This will help you to quickly build up a foundation, and prevent the enemy from bleeding you dry by linking the objectives closest to your spawn. Once the game is well underway and your links are established, it’s time to move on to sabotaging the enemy.
Breaking the Enemy Chain
Although this seems like a fairly simple concept, choosing which objective to steal from your opponent, and where to break the chain, is actually more complicated than at first glance. Have a look at our masterful rendition of the objectives and links below.
A —– B —– C —– D
Studying that slick looking diagram above, you can see that the opposing team has four objectives, but only three links. Let’s assume that A is the objective closest to their spawn, and D is the one closest to the center of the map. Since links are what really matter, which objective would you try to capture if you wanted to effectively break the chain and do the most damage?
While in a straight up Conquest Large or Conquest game mode, you might want to go for A, forcing your opponent turn around, then run all the way to their spawn to reclaim it. In Chain Link, taking A would still leave the enemy with two links, the link between B and C, and the link between C and D. What you really want to do is capture B. This would break the link between A and B, as well as the link between B and C, leaving your adversaries with only one, that being the link between C and D. Of course, once the chain is broken, feel free to branch out and try to steal another one to start build in your own chain.
It’s a Dirty, Dirty Trick
How many Battlefield 3 veterans recall the Close Quarters DLC that introduced the Conquest Domination game mode? First of all, that was a really fun DLC, and the intense infantry combat reminds us of Dragon’s Teeth. More importantly, though, is how close to the objectives you had to be in order to capture them. Although we haven’t exactly measured to find out how similar the flags in Chain Link behave, you do have to get decently close. That’s where fun little death traps like C4 or Claymores come into play.
We warned you above… it’s a dirty trick. Still, if you can get over the fact it’s considered a low blow, setting up booby-traps at objectives is a really great way to defend them. You know that your opponent has to be close to the flag, so why not hide a few sticks of C4 in the area, then detonate it when you begin losing that point? Aside from the possible multi-kill, this is actually a way to PTFO, even if it is a bit of a rabbit punch.
Take the Scenic Route
If you give a team of 32 Battlefield 4 players three different ways to get to an objective, 30 of them (including one of your Christmas noob friends) will be standing in the middle choke point, tossing grenades and spamming LMG fire at 30 players on the opposing team who are doing exactly the same thing. Don’t believe us? Go to YouTube and search for some Operation Locker gameplay, or just go play Operation Locker yourself.
While not all maps are created equal, the ones in Dragon’s Teeth do have alternate routes beyond running straight up the middle. Sure, Propaganda might not have the same options as Pearl Market, but there are alternative paths, and you owe it to your team to at least try and use them. Of course, with this DLC pack being so new, you might not know the ins and outs as well as you’d like, but avoiding the center and exploring a little bit has a decent chance of paying off. At the very least, you’ll be avoiding 25 deaths in five minutes of Chain Link, which now looks an awful lot like Team Deathmatch. The moral of the story… use flank routes.
There you have it, just a few basic ideas and strategies to get you rolling with Chain Link. We’ll be sure to share more advanced techniques as we discover them, but in the mean time these ones should serve you well. Of course, we’re always ready to expand our skills as well, so if there’s something you think we’ve overlooked, please share it with us in the comments section below.
Head Back to the Free Prima Games Dragon’s Teeth Guide
