History YMMV / Battlefield3

** [[TierInducedScrappy The USAS-12 with Frag rounds.]] It's basically a [[GameBreaker handheld IFV cannon]]. It's super accurate, has no "bullet" drop, kills in 2-3 direct hits, creates splash damage if it misses, and (since the USAS-12 is an automatic shotgun) extremely spammable. Anyone using it will be met with much gnashing of teeth, and it's so bad that it was severely {{nerf}}ed.

* TierInducedScrappy: Sorted by update period.
** Launch Day / Back to Karkand
*** The FAMAS, pre-patch, was hands down the best rifle for the Assault class in the game. Amazing fire rate, no recoil, and incredibly accurate to boot. This was exacerbated back when Foregrip widely overshadowed Bipod, but the FAMAS has since been nerfed into near uselessness. It now only serves as a hipfire weapon for the smallest maps through the use of Foregrip and Laser Sight.
*** The USAS-12 with Frag rounds has definitely become this before the most recent patch. It basically turns your automatic shotgun into a handheld IFV cannon, with all the power and accuracy of one. If you use this weapon, you are guaranteed to piss a lot of people off. Hell, there are Metro 24/7 servers that ban the RPG, M320, MAV ram kills and the USAS because of overuse for being very easy to spam for kills as opposed to using guns. The Frag rounds have since been nerfed in terms of fire rate and splash damage, but while the point is moot, the scars have been etched into many players' minds, and they will still hate anyone that uses this combination of attachments.
*** The MAV. Normally used for reconnaissance, the days of pre-patch were a time when these little buggers were the ultimate troll weapon. Through careful piloting, it was possible for someone to ram the MAV into a player, killing them on impact, and then continuing to do so until the end of the game. It served as an amazing distraction, frustrating players enough that they would end up going after the MAV instead of the objective. This has since been patched so that the MAV dies when it kills another player.
** E-Sports / Rent-a-Server Patch
*** The SKS. Before the patch, it was considered terrible in lieu of other sniper rifles. The patch decreased the recoil to the point where there is practically none, and now it's become an alternative to regular assault rifles which have been massively nerfed because of the now-gimped Foregrip, which now only has a use for guns with at least 850-900 RPM or more. You now have a semi-automatic rifle that's super-accurate, and with the Flash Suppressor it easily becomes the most accurate weapon in the game. This was somewhat rectified in Close Quarters, when the range on it was reduced to around Medium. Armored Kill gave it another buff in the form of adding Heavy Barrel as an unlock, which slightly increases its accuracy at long range and undoes the nerf to an extent. Despite this, most people still prefer Flash Suppressor.
*** The M26 Dart Underbarrel Shotgun. Due to a glitch with Heavy Barrel at the time, a gun with the M26 and a Heavy Barrel would fire the M26 dart rounds, but each of the 9 darts would have the power and range of the rifle it was attached to. The result is just outright stupid: you have a shotgun that can effectively snipe people from any distance, so more often than not you would see someone running around with a [=G3A3=] (as that rifle has the longest range with Heavy Barrel) one-shotting people. This glitch has been fixed, but the M26 remains as powerful as an 870, and it still very much hated.
** Close Quarters
*** The [=M16A3=] was a competent starting gun, but ever since the [=F2000=], AEK-971, and FAMAS were beaten with the nerf bat, the [=M16=] became ''the'' gun to use. It has the fastest reload of the assault rifles and a fast 800 RPM firing rate, making it irresistible for tryhard players; getting killed by an [=M16=] with 100 service stars is a common sight. DICE tried to nerf it a bit by adding more horizontal recoil, but this could be easily controlled with practice, not to mention the Foregrip reduced much of the recoil.
*** The introduction of the SPAS-12 to the weapons lineup was eagerly awaited by all...until people started using it over almost every other shotgun. The SPAS is essentially an 870 with higher capacity, less recoil, and a tighter spread which was ''supposed'' to balance it with the 870, but just made it more reliable at medium range. What made it so feared? ''Slug rounds''. Slugs make its accuracy near-pinpoint, increase its range even farther, and make it a highly-recommended mid-to-long range one-shot weapon. While it is quite balanced, many players ban the use of this weapon from Team Deathmatch servers.
*** Think people bitch about the SKS too much? Close Quarters proudly introduces the M417, a single-shot variant of the already numerous M4 weapons. The M417 is basically a pre-patch SKS with slightly increased recoil, requiring people to time their shots so it can't be spammed as much. To make up for the recoil, its damage output is much higher than the SKS, which is what makes it so hated. Laugh at the sounds of thrown controllers and angry screams as you kill people from a mile away with 2-4 shots to the body. Alternatively, as the recoil is still relatively low, at close range a good player can use the 20 rounds per mag to kill a dozen players with fast, accurate shooting.
** Armored Kill
*** The AC-130 Gunship. While it has been balanced in the Aftermath patch, during the Armored Kill period it was nigh-indestructible unless you had a whole squad (sometimes ''two'') using Stingers. What made it so hated was that its spawn time was so quick that once people wasted their ammo on the first one, another one popped up less than a minute later and the whole process starts all over again.
** By the Aftermath patch, it seems they've finally gotten the balance just right, as there were no weapon changes to be found when End Game was released.

* AcceptableTargets:
** Being Russian. Dima makes fun of this when he's warned by Bulganov in the novel that he'll be looked at as the bad guy when he hunts for Solomon in Paris.
--->'''Dima''': "So? We're Russians. We always get to be the bad guys."
*** Cole and the CIA seem to believe this in-universe. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero It works as well for all parties involved as you would think.]]
** In the community itself, campers who refuse to move forward, USAS users, MAV riders, and M26 Dart glitchers.
** Hackers. Obviously.

** There has been a fascination with [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs dinosaurs]] being in ''Battlefield 3'' or other Battlefield games ever since [[http://twitter.com/#!/gustavhalling/status/78029240041345026 a certain tweet]].

* IdiotPlot: Let's be honest, the entire climax is set up solely due to everyone above Blackburn in the chain of command being inhumanly stupid. [[spoiler:The sequel seems to indicate that even in death ''and'' in the face of overwhelming evidence, the CIA ''still'' takes every thing Solomon said at face value without a second thought.]]

* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: Most reviews hated the campaign's shallow IdiotPlot and boring missions and advise players to skip it and jump straight into multiplayer (Reviewers who know about the tie-in book will also tell players who want the campaign story to look it up).

* UncannyValley: A rare audio-example. For someone who speaks Russian, the way Dima and his squadmates talk is just imperfect enough to make it sound very, very weird. The actors seem to speak Russian with a very slight accent, which almost disappears at times, and the translation from English in the script to Russian in the voiceover is just a bit too literal/incorrect. The end result is... quite jarring.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: For some, the [=PLR=], or People's Liberation and Resistance. They're supposed to be your generic terrorist enemy forces that the player guns down by the dozens indiscriminately, because their part in the story and its imagery were blatantly based off of the UsefulNotes/WarOnTerror. However, not only are they manipulated by [[BigBad Solomon]] into causing a global war between the first-world nations, but even despite [[MoralEventHorizon executing Miller on recording]], their motivation is summed up entirely as "America invaded our nation without due cause, get the hell out." With no context for why the U.S. forces are in Iraq besides to capture or kill the enemy leader Al-Bashir without ever being told why, complete with some pointing out that the security checkpoint at the beginning of the game looks a ''lot'' more unbecoming of U.S. forces than it should, it raises the question of whether the [=PLR=] [[VillainHasAPoint actually has a point]], and Al-Bashir himself warns Blackburn about Solomon's ChronicBackstabbingDisorder in his dying breath, which helps save the day in the end. Even worse, they completely disappear after this game, meaning either everyone stopped caring about them or without Al-Bashir they crumpled in-between games without a word as the world went to shit.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: For some, the [=PLR=], or People's Liberation and Resistance. Not only are they manipulated by [[BigBad Solomon]] into causing a global war between the first-world nations, but even despite [[MoralEventHorizon executing Miller on recording]], their motivation is summed up entirely as "America invaded our nation without due cause, get the hell out." With no context for why the U.S. forces are in Iraq besides to capture or kill the enemy leader Al-Bashir without ever being told why, to the point that Blackburn's squad even accidentally demolishes a whole city block just to kill one sniper, it raises the question of whether the [=PLR=] [[VillainHasAPoint actually has a point]], and Al-Bashir himself warns Blackburn about Solomon's ChronicBackstabbingDisorder in his dying breath, which helps save the day in the end.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: For some, the [=PLR=], or People's Liberation and Resistance. Not only are they manipulated by [[BigBad Solomon]] into causing a global war between the first-world nations, but even despite [[MoralEventHorizon executing Miller on recording]], their motivation is summed up entirely as "America invaded our nation without due cause, get the hell out." With no context for why the U.S. forces are in Kurdistan besides to capture or kill the enemy leader Al-Bashir without ever being told why, to the point that Blackburn's squad even accidentally demolishes a whole city block just to kill one sniper, it raises the question of whether the [=PLR=] [[VillainHasAPoint actually has a point]], and Al-Bashir himself warns Blackburn about Solomon's ChronicBackstabbingDisorder in his dying breath, which helps save the day in the end.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: For some, the [=PLR=], or People's Liberation and Resistance. Not only are they manipulated by [[BigBad Solomon]] into causing a global war between the first-world nations, but even despite straight up executing Miller on recording, their motivation is summed up entirely as "America invaded our nation without due cause, get the hell out." With no context for why the U.S. forces are in Afghanistan besides to kill their leader Al-Bashir without ever being told why, to the point that Blackburn's squad even demolishes an entire city block just to kill one sniper, it raises the question of whether the [=PLR=] [[VillainHasAPoint actually has a point]], and Al-Bashir himself warns Blackburn about Solomon's ChronicBackstabbingDisorder in his dying breath, which helps save the day in the end.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: For some, the [=PLR=], or People's Liberation and Resistance. Not only are they manipulated by [[BigBad Solomon]] into causing a global war between the first-world nations, but even despite straight up executing Miller on recording, their motivation is summed up entirely as "America invaded our nation without due cause, get the hell out." With no context for why the U.S. forces are in Afghanistan besides to kill their leader Al-Bashir without ever being told why, to the point that Blackburn's squad even demolishes an entire city block just to kill one sniper, it raises the question of whether the [=PLR=] [[VillainHasAPoint actually has a point]], and Al-Bashir himself warns Blackburn about Solomon's ChronicBackstabbingDisorder which helps save the day in the end.

* CrazyAwesome: Anyone who uses the skid loader added in Back to Karkand in a game where there are tanks, jets, and rocket launching helicopters.

** The F-35 in the ''Back To Karkand'' pack is horribly slow, turns like a tank and switches thrust modes seemingly at random. More specifically, it slows down quicker than conventional-flight jets and holding the "throttle down" long enough will cause the F-[=35B=] to switch from forward flight to "hover" mode... which can be a nasty surprise for Russian infantry and ground vehicles, but the Russian jet is a conventional-flight Su-35, which will frequently win a dogfight unless the US pilot is consistently good at forcing overshoots.[[note]]This is TruthInTelevision, as it was recently revealed the F-35 is really awful for dogfighting, albeit this also overlaps with AccidentallyCorrectWriting, as the game was released before many of the flaws of the F-35 were revealed, though this is now inaccurate, as with improvement over the years the F-35 now has way better maneuverability and and in a series of mock dogfights once had a 15-1 kill record.[[/note]]

** The F-35 in the ''Back To Karkand'' pack is horribly slow, turns like a tank and switches thrust modes seemingly at random. More specifically, it slows down quicker than conventional-flight jets and holding the "throttle down" long enough will cause the F-[=35B=] to switch from forward flight to "hover" mode... which can be a nasty surprise for Russian infantry and ground vehicles, but the Russian jet is a conventional-flight Su-35, which will frequently win a dogfight unless the US pilot is consistently good at forcing overshoots.[[note]]This is TruthInTelevision, as it was recently revealed the F-35 is really awful for dogfighting, albeit this also overlaps with AccidentallyCorrectWriting, as the game was released before many of the flaws of the F-35 were revealed.[[/note]]

*** 3D Spotting became such an issue in subsequent games (''4', ''Hardline'', and ''1'') that ''Battlefield V'' is ditching it completely.