I have a similar overall feeling, the reason why I was drawn to Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (my first Battlefield game) was because of the hard difficulty level but in Battlefield 2042 everything feels much easier to achieve. This might make me feel powerful at first but it rapidly dissipates as there is limited challenge (it almost reminds me of having a “win” or a “happy” button).
With regard to air vehicles when I last played I could execute barrel roles and reclining falling manoeuvrers with absolute ease in the helicopters; no effort or thought required to approximate my time, space or any surrounding obstacles. Even if I lowered the sensitivity I didn't feel impeded in my ability to maintain control of the air vehicle in any scenario even if my altitude were to decay because I adjusted the pitch too much I can easily pull up and recover the pitch and the decent with no risk of catastrophic vehicle failure or even damage (and this is coming from someone who would have been considered just above air vehicle noob in previous titles).
I am sure people will disagree vehemently with me but I believe that this is a larger problem than just my personal preference as what has happened here in principle has been implemented in many different genres of video game resulting in things like simpler puzzles or easier special move executions.
I believe that if the developers were to bring back a harsher difficulty curve to Battlefield 2042 say for example by implementing more delay and less sensitivity in helicopter physics especially in the roll and pitch department then ground vehicles and infantry would have more of a chance to fight in their designated role and helicopter play would not be seen as a kind of movement shooter of the skies as its difficulty level will match its potential. This would invite greater respect for the game and its players. I would also be very tempted to come back and play if this were to be done.
*Just for context: I purchased the game in 2021 and only recently came back this year, played for roughly 2 or 3 weeks and uninstalled again and haven't played since.
I am sure people are legitimately having fun but for me the ease of how I get something in this game makes me want to do other things that are more interesting and challenging (currently playing chess and trying to learn French).
Tell me about it.
This was how I witnessed another helicopter fly to evade me back in the early days of 2042. I was also bad at these early days but an attack helicopter looping several times in a row as if it had rocket thrusters was just unnatural
[BF2042] Helicopter Ballerina : Attack Helicopters are not supposed to move like that... - YouTube
Thank you, it is an amusing video to watch over coffee but the issue as you and I express is very serious. Having easier flight physics also creates an issue with regard to determining how someone is doing something, that is to say whether they are doing something legitimately if you catch my drift (I won't say the word as you all know what happens here if you mention such things but it sounds like “sack” and rhymes with “crow”).
Older games were more resistant to such things not just because of the delay and sensitivity but also because of more noticeable pitch drift and positional drift where the helicopter would emulate more natural flight characteristics caused by wind as such the helicopter would start to move on its own forcing more dynamic pilot interaction.
On note of the above and things being easier, shooting may carry the same affect as pulling down to void recoil is trivial and because the spread cone is smaller than previous Battlefield incarnations and the spread increase per shot is not dramatic (possibly in part due to spread decrease occurring in between shots in this game while you shoot) guns feel to me like chainsaws. That is I can easily pre-fire off target for a good fraction of time a fully automatic weapon at close to moderate ranges and while still holding the trigger guide my sight onto the desired target and deliver a kill.
If a basic or average player can achieve this with ease such that it looks like a master at work than how can one determine not only what is indicative of practice and good technique but also what is suspicious? The difficulty curve is too flat.
If the developers were to perhaps force players to break their fire based on spread increase that is less logarithmic and more like an exponential trend in terms of its rate of increase players would be forced to use short controlled bursts to take down targets at most ranges. Longer bursts could still be used but would be more restrictive to a much closer range and balanced against the weapons attributes and the increased possibility of a miss relative to the length of time the trigger is held.
This would not only be inline with the military type motif implied as I'm pretty sure soldiers don't run around mag dumping targets but it would also help players to visually confirm if a player is using something they are not supposed to as the guns would have TTKs that you could set your watch to.
I also think that it would solve problems relating to people getting one shot frame deaths or feeling that they are dying too quickly as by the nature of the engine sending and receiving data over a communication medium of varied quality data is most likely not being delivered in perfect synchronisation of player movement and animations and if this engine implementation is anything like Battlefield 4 which had an update to prioritise the damage received over soldier animations than the problem maybe that much more potent.
I believe that slowing things down TTK wise by what I have mentioned above would help the game render an accurate portrayal of what players are doing and provide good feedback for players to respond and understand the events of the battlefield.
The point is that the aforementioned would create more focus on technique, stopping it from being a glorified point and click simulator and making it into a think and point simulator while also dealing with the bad guys that you don't want in your game.
*When I was playing I actually tried to make a server mirroring this concept but no one joined so I gave up. It was nothing special the main crux of it was that I: lowered soldier speed, increased soldier health to 130 HP and made bullets slower and slightly less harmful. My experience was that it felt like Battlefield 3 as you had to break your fire to do any real damage but without spread modifications my Portal variant was still lacking.
