Forum Discussion

4 years ago

Regarding jets

I am a battlefield veteran and have spent thousands upon thousands of hours playing various BF titles, since BF1942 to BF2042. I am one of those people who play the game for one purpose, and for me that is to fly jets. I consider myself very experienced in the jet, and genre in general, and want to highlight some major issues currently with the jets in BF2042.

I know this might come off as a rant, but honestly I love the concept that is Battlefield, and If my feedback can in any way shape the future of jet-design I feel like its my obligation to at least give my honest feedback

#1 - Flying jets is not fun / unresponsive flight controls

This is obviously the #1 issue for me. Jets have always been fun for me to play, because I’ve always felt in control of my plane. In BF2042 this is not the case. The rudder input is very unresponsive, making skill based adjustments when strafing ground targets or dogfighting very difficult. The pitch input is extremely difficult to control: When the plane pitches up beyond the fine input, the pitch accelerates, making minor adjustments exceeding hard.

It feels like the developers have tried to implement more “realistic” physics for the jets in 2042, which unfortunately does nothing but add pain for the pilots. If the reason they changed the entire flight-physics from BF3 and BF4 was to balance the jets then they could have done that through other means than ruining the way the jets handle.

#2 - No joystick support

This is a major issue for me. Since the 1942-days I’ve always used a joystick when flying, because i find it way more intuitive and enjoyable than using the mouse and keyboard alternative. There is no support for using a joystick at this point, and currently I have to use a work-around I found online to get it to work. Why is there no joystick support for a battlefield game released in 2021? Please add this, as it has always been available in previous BF titles.

#3 - No skill required

A bit of a sensational title, but mostly true. While skill will always exist, BF2042 jets has been designed to remove as much skill requirement as possible. Aside from the cannon, all 3 unlocks for the jet are non-skillbased weapons. The AA missiles are both lock on, with the last one literally locking itself. The AG rockets are also lock on. Is this where the skill ceiling ends for jets? Where are the rocket pods, the bombs, the TVG or the JDAM? Many will argue “More unlocks are coming!” - and thats fine, but they were literally already there in previous games, so whats the holdup?

Currently the **only** skillbased weapon on the jets is the cannon, and with the current horrible flight-controls for the jets they are just painful to use. Sure they are good, if by chance you can hit something. The spread on the cannon is ridiculously high, making inf-strafing requiring more luck than skill.

#4 - Camera control / Overview

I remember back in the days of old, in BF1942 and BF2, what separated the best pilots from the good ones was their ability to maintain view of their opponents through changing camera angles. I’m not arguing for the re-implementation of “Fly-by-camera” (although I would be thrilled..), but the current solution from Dice seems to be stripping away all such tools except the bare minimum. My primary issue here right now is that while watching chase camera to see my opponent I am unable to pitch the aircraft. Why is that? I’d love to look behind me while dodging incoming missiles or trying to outmaneuver my opponent in a dogfight. Currently I cannot do anything other than maximize my FOV and use third person camera. Please let us manipulate flight controls while in chase camera.

#5 - Other issues

Here I’ll list other issues I currently have with the game which affects me flying the jets.

At the start of every round, if I’m not able to get the jet, I’m forced to spawn as an infantry on the battlefield. My current solution to this is just redeploying and waiting for the jet to become available. I have no interest in infantry, I just want to fly the jet or perhaps a helicopter, so why am I forced to spawn as an infantry?
AA missiles are too widespread and broken. The experience of flying jets and helis right now consists of prolonged durations of that incessant lock-on sound. With the current “operator” design everyone runs around with AA missiles if they want to. In my opinion, the best design choice for AA would be to have fewer but better AA options. Giving everyone “lock-on” options is just a cheap way to design counters to vehicles which are supposed to be powerful. On top of this, if you don’t use flares before the missile is fired, it will circle around for a while and hit you anyway.
In BF2 and earlier titles there were stationary and powerful AA platform on key capture points. I loved this design, as it gave infantry easy access to counters.
Rivalries don’t exist anymore. Jets in the BF series has always been very competitive. I remember logging on the servers I frequented often and seeing a pilot on the opposing team I knew was good. My adrenaline increased as I knew meeting him in the air would mean there would be a long exciting dogfight. My favourite memories was meeting someone completely unknown to me who was really good. I’d compliment them after dogfights and actually create a connection with the person behind the plane. This won’t happen in BF2042. I cannot talk to the enemy team, and honestly I don’t even know who are on my team anymore. It saddens me to think about how many dedicated battlefield communities have been destroyed by Dices current un-social game design. If i meet a good pilot who kills me I don’t care anymore. Its just another name that I’ll forget and probably never meet again.
Out of all the changes Dice has made to battlefield over the years, this might actually be the one that makes me dislike the game the most. I really, really hope Dice listens to community feedback and makes serious changes here..
“Parts disabled”. What is even this. I don’t understand what this information is telling me. I’m sure its supposed to indicate that I’ve met certain damage-thresholds on my target, but beyond that I have no idea if the bombs i dropped on the tank left him with 75% or 5% health. We need to have some more information rather than just the obvious.

Thank you for the long read! I'd love to hear your input as well, so we can bring the current state of BF2042 jets to the attention of the devs :-)

discussion

23 Replies

Terminator00000
4 years ago
Nice points. 🦆
I try to reply to each of them.
1. From the pure physics, I must say, it´s at least somewhat of an improvement compared to Battlefield 5, where the only viable "tactic" is to go on full break mid air, floating in the air and violate against any physic laws (even for just game logic) , let the chaser overshoot you and then go full throttle again and be behind him. That´s the most stupid thing I´ve ever seen in a game which has planes included. BF3 and 4 horribly punished you for trying this. It´s beyond me, why they changed that.
This is still somewhat the case in 2042, mostly when people sit in the F35, thinking they´re smart and try to do the very same again with just entering hover mode. Ofcourse this works, if the enemy pilot is stupid enough not to counterreact to this, but it´s fortunately possible to outplay those tryhards.
2. Personally I must say, I don´t miss this. I just tried once to make use of Joystick while flying, but my flight stick reacts way too sensitive, even with putting down the sensivity down in the settings. I was always a M+K pilot. But if they include it one day again here, then have fun.
3. Yeah, I also miss manual controlled weapons like rocket pods a lot. I actually never used anything else. JDAMs were never my taste. And I absolutely agree that the spread on the main cannon is absolutely unnecessary. Beside for the AGMs, you have absolutely no options to go for ground targets. the 25mm cannon doesn´t even hurt hovercrafts... why? As of right now, beside the Air-to-Air combat, jets are only there for decoration (and most likely only for making that stupid meme trailer we first saw). Yesterday, I had a good pub wingman, and we cleared the enemy sky completely. For literally like 10 minutes or so, there wasn´t a single enemy plane or chopper in the air. So we both were bored to hell, because we couldn´t help the ground units in any way. If Dice is already not giving us rocket pods or such, then at least they should remove the spread on the main cannon, so we can help at least a bit on the ground properly.
4. I don´t know what you mean with "Fly-by-Camera", since i didn´t fly in 1942 or 2, but yeah, it bothers me, too that you can´t pitch up while looking through the chasing camera. Or that there´s no way to disable the camera roll depending on your movements.
5.1. The forced spawning is indeed stupid and needs to be removed. Even if it´s not about "But I want to play that vehicle", maybe I want to quickly change my loadout or weapons, before I decide for the first spawn of the round. I´m not interested to watch to the stupid cutscene, that wants to make me feel that this game tries to be super realistic with the invasion like landing of the whole force of your team.
5.2. For the most part, I don´t mind AA how it is. Since there´s the possibility to have up to 6 helicopters at once in the map (4 attack choppers and 2 Little birds/Ospreys/Hinds), you need the extra firepower. Because for whatever reason, there´s no stationary AA placed on the map. But what really needs to get fixed are the bugged flares (or missiles?) that ignore the part, that your flares actually countered that incoming missile, but re-lock again and hit you. And immediately after this, a second missile is incoming and kills you and there was nothing, you could do about that. This HAS to be fixed ASAP.
And what I also strongly wish is, to have an actual working air radar (the animation in the minimap is already there, so why planes aren´t spotted within the radius?) and an indicator from where you are currently get locked on. BF3 had this already, so why not here?
carsono311
4 years ago
@X3D-PhantomThank you for taking the time to write this up. My feedback is below:

1. I agree that the control surfaces feel sluggish, however I appreciate the physics at play in this game. Now, clearly some of it is... inaccurate, but I do not find it hard to learn or develop a "feel" for...

2. Yeah, joystick support was always a part of the Battlefield series and it should come back. I personally do not use or prefer it anymore, but I used to and it was fun.

3. Cannot entirely agree. There is still some skill / tactics in employing the lock-on missiles, particularly the radar missile, since it can be fired early and locked after the shot... so timing is an issue there, which is skill based. Otherwise and overall, rear aspect usually equals a win, but not always...

4. Mostly agreed here. You do retain yaw, but no pitch, as you said. Part of me is fine with this and I have my rear look bound to LCtrl, which is infinitely better for me than middle mouse... so I am overall okay with controls.

5. a. Yep. It is dumb
b. Yep. Flares are broken, badly. I only want EA DICE to fix that first before making further changes...
c. Completely agreed that those community / social moments have been severely degraded with recent changes and they need to come back in a big way.
d. This could be improved, but there is some degradation of flight performance with various part(s) damage... but I could not tell you what they are! lol

Again, thanks for putting this together and I hope to see you on the Battlefield.
X3D-Phantom
4 years ago
@Terminator000001 Wonderful reply Terminator! I see we agree on a lot of things. As you mention, the air radar is also something that has to be fixed. Why have the animation of a radar when it doesn't even work? Its misleading for the player. I think that folds into a bigger issue of general user interface, which in my opinion is both invasive and non-intuitive to use. Hopefully Dice can get around and fix a lot of these glaring issues in the upcoming patches!
X3D-Phantom
4 years ago
@carsono311 Regarding point number 3, you are of course correct. An element of skill will always exist, even with lock-on. I suppose many players who are not like me, with thousands of hours behind the jet, just wants to get in the jet and have a change to kill something. Lock-on weapons give you that option and I think its fine having it. I just wish there were alternatives for people who have more experience or will to develop their skills with weapons that require that little extra to make it worthwhile.

I think more unlocks are coming tho, so hopefully its just a matter of time :-)
carsono311
4 years ago
@X3D-Phantom I am 99% certain more airframes will be coming and probably unlocks as well, but I hope flare behavior is fixed by that time, because that is the single biggest thing pissing me off in a jet right now... well, that and the random, beefy tree hitbox...
daniellematti
4 years ago
Flying in this game feels horrible. I used to have so much fun in planes like you say going up against other aces was what made the aerial combat so fun. But this just feels so broken. I just don’t understand the drastic changes that have been made. I really think in future they need to get Aces involved in making the game so it feels right. Get Silk involved he will make it fun again.
carsono311
4 years ago
@daniellemattiNo, let's not get Silk involved. He has already suggested some things that are narrow-minded and not well thought out. Ultimately, he is more likely to suggest things that help himself and his playstyle, consciously or not, since it directly supports his personal lifestyle.

We have had enough "influencers" and "content creators" changing this game for the worse over time. There are infinitely better and more timely ideas coming FROM THIS VERY FORUM and yet they are routinely ignored.
daniellematti
4 years ago
@carsono311 I’m sure his input would have made flying a lot better than it is in its current state. Not being funny here but what has he said that is narrow minded?
X3D-Phantom
4 years ago
@carsono311 Oh god yes, those * trees, lol. But yes, the flares being as broken as they are now it feels like the obvious choice for any map with air. Personally I fly only with AGMs because I want to practice my cannon, and also feel like I can assist the against ground targets, but the number of dogfights lost on initial contact because I am completely unable to dodge missiles and them re-locking after flares make me rage so hard.. haha
X3D-Phantom
4 years ago
@daniellematti I agree that Dice probably should get input from people with a lot of experience in certain aspects of the game at an earlier level. Not necessarily to change major aspects of the game, but to catch things that might not be obvious to people who don't regularly spend hours after hours flying etc.
I'm sure many people like me feel that many of these issues could and should have been discovered earlier than they have.