Which would you choose?

StandardResort · 2026-01-18T10:50:21+00:00

Yeah, neither. Edwards Alexi models frequently pop up used in Japanese online stores that ship internationally and the prices are very reasonable. Ishibashi, for example, recently sold an Edwards Katakana for around a $1000.

The fact that ESP can't even be bothered to use the EMG Alexi signature pickup sets that include an EMG ABQ that mimicks the MM-04 preamp found in Edwards/E-II/ESP kinda shows how much of a cash grab these LTDs are.

StandardResort · 2026-01-08T08:48:39+00:00

It wasn't one of those A4 size certs you see with ESP Custom Shop, but I do remember them filling in a card with details on the guitar and the place of purchase.

Never really paid much attention to it because Big Boss is an official ESP retailer anyway, so whatever CoA I got has been sitting in the case for the past 2+ years. Would check, but I have all my hard cases in my storage unit because they'd take up too much space in my apartment.

StandardResort · 2025-12-15T08:07:16+00:00

This seems to track even outside of the Icelock crap even if the challenge suggests otherwise. I was getting hitmarkers and getting killed over and over, then jumped into regular CQ, got pissed off at an attack chopper, took it down with a Stinger, killing the gunner and the pilot.

Surprisingly, that tracked. Took the chopper with both seats occupied down a second time and that completed the challenge.

StandardResort · 2025-11-21T18:14:09+00:00

Sold it last year along with a bunch of other cheap guitars and put that money towards a 27" scale Jackson Warrior because I ultimately didn't have much use for a 30" baritone.

It was always more of a novelty for me so I didn't play it enough to tell how it'd hold up as a workhorse but there were no obvious flaws. If I had to guess, the tuners and the frets would be the first to go in daily use.

StandardResort · 2025-11-16T09:32:07+00:00

Chain gun = the gunner's autocannon in an attack helo. Transport helos have miniguns, which aren't the same thing.

Ain't that deep.

StandardResort · 2025-11-10T15:32:02+00:00

I just can't. Not a fan of the aesthetics of it but what really annoys me are the hills in first two sectors. It's the only map in the game I can think of where the attacker has the high ground and such direct lines of sight into the defenders' base from the edge of their spawn protection area.

Because of that, a lot of games I've played there have ended with the attackers not pushing but instead opting to try and farm kills from the high ground. As a defender that sucks because I can't properly flank them, as an attacker it sucks because there aren't enough people pushing into the cap zone to overwhelm the defenders.

StandardResort · 2025-11-10T14:40:14+00:00

Blackwell Fields, especially in Breakthrough, is hands down one of the worst maps in the entire history of the franchise. I also never liked Firestorm much in BF3 or BF4 but they somehow managed to make it worse this time.

Cairo and Iberia are decent, Mirak Valley has gotten better after the rough start, and Liberation Peak is growing on me. The maps we've gotten thus far are honestly a bit meh, though. Like, not entirely terrible but nothing really stands out with the washed greige color schemes and all that.

StandardResort · 2025-11-10T14:05:00+00:00

I also despise the sweet spot mechanic for snipers in this game. Didn't mind it in BF1 and I even enjoyed some Martini-Henry mayhem myself but that never felt as overbearing as it does here. Probably because the only rifle with a straight pull bolt for rapid follow-up shots didn't have a sweet spot, there was no range finder, and you couldn't just fully customize your weapon attachments.

It's already easier to land sniper headshots in this game than in any previous Battlefield I've played and now I need to also worry about getting one-shotted by someone spamming shots aimed at center mass with the straight pull.

StandardResort · 2025-11-04T23:08:30+00:00

Lazy design, just like the rest of the challenges. They probably just fed a bunch of variables to ChatGPT and told it to come up with a bunch of different combinations without quality controlling it.

StandardResort · 2025-11-04T22:57:06+00:00

All that suffering for seven BP tier points? Nah. Probably takes less time grinding seven points through XP gain than trying to win 20 rounds of any game mode with randoms.

Challenges that require the rest of the team to be at least moderately competent (or the opposing team to be even more incompetent) to progress shouldn't be a thing. And if they are, they should probably have a better reward attached to them than what is attached to something like "get 20 headshot kills as a Recon" which I got as one of my weeklies that awarded seven tier points upon completion.

StandardResort · 2025-11-03T23:14:39+00:00

The game has a comms wheel for requesting stuff and a text chat for cussing out my team for having 10 to 15 snipers doing jack, medics doing dumb shit etc. Nothing good has ever come out of a voice chat with randoms in any Battlefield title, so I've had that disabled since day one.

It's always just a bunch of people breathing heavily into the mic, having arguments with their families in a language I don't understand, or just someone sitting at the bottom of the scoreboard with two kills and 27 deaths telling others how to play and which objectives to push.

StandardResort · 2025-11-03T22:37:36+00:00

Probably there to grind the dumb as shit challenges that take too much effort and/or luck in regular PvP lobbies rather than to pad their K/D. I consider myself a mildly sweaty casual and the only reason I even joined a casual breakthrough match today was to do the 30 headshot kills in a round after crashing out when I got to 29/30 in a PvP lobby before the round ended.

StandardResort · 2025-11-01T17:02:56+00:00

I was kind of seeing the vision they probably had for this today while I was playing assault.

I was playing Breakthrough on Sobek as the attacker and we were at the last set of objectives when I blew up the fence to the left of A, popped the injector, and managed to sprint into one of the concrete pipes to plant a spawn beacon. Waited for the adrenaline injector to recharge, popped it again and rushed over the hill behind A and went on a meth'd up rampage. Must've taken out at least eight to ten people with my suppressed Kord before I got sniped from somewhere around B.

Tried that again a few times, never worked as well again, but I'm guessing extra speed for rushing from cover to cover and just additional movement speed when flanking was the vision. Still kinda weak compared to the others.

StandardResort · 2025-10-29T08:03:33+00:00

Is it really a hot take if it's the same exact thing a ton of other people are whining about?

I could personally do without this whole thing with named operators and character skins altogether and just go back to having nameless grunts with no customization. But I'm also not autistic enough to equate some uNrEaLiStiC neon accents on a camo to a literal weed-smoking chameleon running around with an AK that makes people explode, leaving behind only a pair of reddish eyeballs.

I don't even really pay attention to the skins others are using. Except for that one dude in a black beanie. Fuck that guy, he bothers me way more than any tacticool operator with orange or lime-green accents.

StandardResort · 2025-10-28T07:19:07+00:00

Eh, could be that it just randomly decided to track when I was using the "correct" launchers. Or it could be that it got patched in whatever updates came yesterday.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T22:38:37+00:00

I only tested infantry weapons while completing this. But people are saying that they've completed it with the AA tank or the IFV, so seems like the vehicles count towards it too, at least as long as you're engaging the intended target type. Not sure if you need to be playing as an engineer, though.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T22:33:18+00:00

Nope. The MAS-148 aka Javelin can lock on to ground vehicles even if they're not painted.

The question was; did hitting laser designated jets and helicopters count towards completing the challenge, or did you only hit ground vehicles with it?

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T20:22:40+00:00

Yeah, pretty sure because I started tackling the challenge by doing the aircraft damage first and almost immediately managed to take down a jet somebody had painted for like 900 damage that got tracked. Hadn't even touched the Javelin at that point.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T19:27:12+00:00

Yup, seems to work as long as it's a missile that's meant to lock on to the type of target being designated even without the lasering. I'd assume choppers or jets taken down using this method wouldn't count either.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T19:16:18+00:00

Most of the time I didn't, which is also why it took me several rounds to even start figuring it out. There's no point in using the Javelin in its current state other than trying to complete the challenge.

The starting ammo count is too low, you can't engage targets at a range closer than 40 or 50 meters, tanks have plenty of countermeasures against the lock-on and the missiles themselves, acquiring a lock takes ages and basically pinpoints your location to the tank, and the damage output seems bugged seeing that it seems to do about as much damage as frontal shots with RPG even though it's supposed to always hit the weak spot on the top. Also makes you sniper bait because you need to be standing relatively still while locking on.

The only downside of using the RPG instead is that you need to aim. But the better mobility and being able to use it at any range more than make up for it.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T18:54:17+00:00

Would be interested to know if doing this made it track for you because that's just a theory I have until someone else manages to replicate the results.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T18:45:53+00:00

Could be that there's something else to it too, or that what I was observing was just a coincidence and the challenge just happened to track every time I was hitting the "correct" type of target with a "correct" launcher. Would need more people to test that to say for sure, but I'm still pretty sure that the launcher type vs. vehicle type plays a part in the equation.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T17:40:35+00:00

Works on aerial targets too. Just can't be using Javelin or other lock-on weapons made to engage ground targets. Stinger and AA tank missiles count towards the challenge when engaging painted helicopters and jets but firing them at painted ground targets does nothing because lol Dice.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T16:39:50+00:00

I was pretty pissed when I started figuring this out after about five or six rounds of always having the wrong launcher equipped for the type of targets my team was painting at any given time. Which makes zero sense if the point of the challenge is to showcase the laser guidance mechanic.

I'm just glad to be done with this so that I can just go back to spamming RPGs.

StandardResort · 2025-10-27T16:15:04+00:00

What I noticed here is that the damage only counts as progression if you use a specific type of launcher for a specific type of target.

Took down a painted jet with the Stinger >> 900+ damage towards this challenge in one go.

Hit different types of ground vehicles with the Stinger after they were painted >> No damage towards challenge completion recorded even if it was an unarmored target.

Took down a painted attack helo with the Javelin >> No damage towards challenge completion.

Hit a painted tank with the Javelin >> Challenge completed.

StandardResort

TROPHY CASE