DICE Team
@filthy_vegans wrote:
- The reload button also has an undocumented "summon enemy" feature..
That made me laugh as it's so true.
Part 2 of the BF 2042 Tips focuses on player strategy (Part 1 for the settings guide can be found here: BF 2042 Tips, Part 1: Settings - Comprehensive PC Settings Guide). This is a no-frills guide that focuses on optimizing team and individual decision-making in a given match. Veterans of the Battlefield franchise may recognize that a lot of these strategy tips apply to previous titles. However, as with each new title, Battlefield 2042 has some unique characteristics from past BF titles that should be taken into account. And, feel free to add your own tips, advice, questions, ideas, or other comments.
Preparation
+ Unlocks and assignments - You can unlock all of your weapons' attachments and vehicles' upgrades in solo/co-op, up to Tier 3 (Mastery 12) for all units with mastery badges. It's a lot easier to unlock your items against AI, and will make MP a whole lot easier with upgraded weapons and vehicles. At the very least, unlocking your go-to vehicles' upgrades is advised, as going into battle with inferior upgrades weighs your team down - e.g. a minigun on the LATV Recon to the enemy's 30mm/50mm on the same vehicle, is like bringing a pistol to an automatic rifle gun fight.
When playing in MP, think leverage and work on multiple unlocks simultaneously. e.g. When working on T1 unlocks for your sniper weapons, play with say, Mackay and snipe from a height advantage while wearing an armor plate. Each kill of the sniper rifle will apply to all three mastery unlocks.
+ Practice flying in solo/co-op, not in multiplayer - Your teammates will likely spawn in on the vehicle you're piloting, and flying a heli (or jet) is not something that most people just pick up right away. It takes practice, and that's with the optimal controls and settings. If you're new to flying, you will more than likely be terrible at it (we were all there once). Killing your teammates by crashing a vehicle because you don't know how to fly is effectively team killing. That is why it's best to learn to fly in solo/co-op mode.
+ Settings (for PC users) - You can find a comprehensive in and out-of-game settings guide for PC over at the Technical Issues forum, or click here for the direct link: BF 2042 Tips, Part I: Settings - Comprehensive PC Settings Guide.
Player Actions
+ Drop ammo / med crates EVERY time you stop - This has tremendous leverage, especially given the aura effect of crates - if you're getting shot at, you don't have to choose between dropping ammo / meds, and shooting the enemy. You're able to quickly resupply / heal while attacking, instead of fumbling to drop ammo / meds followed by a delayed shot. Similarly, when playing as Angel with supply bags or the loadout crate, you should be setting them out to friendlies every chance you get. Your teammates shouldn't have to ask for them - be proactive and it saves time and gives your team supply leverage.
+ Sniper glint - When sniping, don't stay zoomed in the entire time with high powered scopes (6x and higher). There is sniper glint and you will stick out with a target on your back (or rather, front). Stay zoomed in when you're actively searching for enemy targets or shooting. I often take a series of glances in and out of the scope to locate targets. Preferably, if your gun comes with it, use the 4.5x hybrid or 5x PSO-1M3 scope in lieu of a 6x or higher powered scope.
Some snipers like to use SOFLAM to locate targets, which is an excellent idea especially as a deterrent against vehicles (see "Air traffic control below"). Note though that the SOFLAM has a red glint when in use.
+ In Conquest, focus on capturing and holding one-objective-sectors - In terms of its effect on the ticket bleed rate, each sector is equal to another in Conquest. That makes one objective sectors a better focus over 2+ objective sector, as more work is required for multi-objective sectors. A really great example of this is on Hourglass with 128 players. Sectors A and E both require 3 objectives each to control, while sectors B, C, and D only require one objective. So, when the game becomes a nail-biter and B-D are not controlled by your team, it's a good idea to flank and capture one or all of those sectors to tip the game to your team's favor.
+ Use smoke as Attackers, not as Defenders - In Breakthrough, as Attackers, you want to conceal your forward movement to cap the objectives. Smoke helps tremendously to do this, and it should be one of your top choices for your loadout, and is easily among the most underrated items at your disposal. Even still, I see players make the mistake of smoking just the front of the objective instead of either the middle or the enemies' front. If you smoke just the front, then the enemy will still be able to see you coming while you obscure your entry.
Consequently, as Defenders, don't use smoke - you need to be able to see the enemies that are coming your way. It's far better to use other nades instead to soften the attackers. Don't be concerned with using smoke against enemy snipers for the aforementioned reasons, and because if they're too far away, they're not capping. Counter snipe, use suppression fire, etc. instead.
Notable exception: When playing as Angel, Falck, or another medic/support specialist, it's a good idea to equip and use smoke to revive teammates, especially when you're out in the open.
+ If you hear gunfire, always assume that it's the enemy's unless you confirm otherwise - Often times I'll see friendlies get killed from a flanking enemy, while teammates are completely oblivious to anything that happens outside of their peripheral vision. Do not simply assume that it's your teammates' shots that you hear, especially if the tempo and sound of gunfire changes.
+ If you see teammates bleeding out, always assume that an enemy is nearby - Similar to the one above, when there are teammates bleeding out, approach with caution. If you're a medic or sniper, then this is usually a good time to drop smoke to revive, especially when you're in the open.
+ Move from cover to cover - This one's a bit self-explanatory, but it's often neglected. Sometimes you may have no cover, e.g. in an open field, and that's where moving behind vehicles and using smoke comes in very handy.
+ If you're bleeding out, be patient and look for a nearby medic - Keep in mind that if a medic doesn't come to help you right away, they may be looking for the enemy who killed you. Too often, teammates skip revives and cost reinforcements, when a few moments later medics will get to you. Be patient and wait for a revive.
+ Divide and conquer - When engaging multiple enemies, you want to isolate them and take them on one by one. Brute forcing your way on foot into a group of enemies will surely lead to disaster, all else constant. Instead, try and maneuver around obstacles and get the enemies to split up as they try and engage you. The ultimate version of this is a flank with the enemies' backs towards you without any of them knowing of your presence.
+ Play with good posture - This is not only good advice IRL, but also for your specialists in-game. If you play looking down at your specialist's shoes, then you'll be losing that much time moving your mouse up to target. Look level as you move and you'll be able to snap to target faster.
+ Play to your specialist's advantage - e.g. Falck is a combat medic, so sniping as Falck from a km out defeats the point of her abilities, and other specialists are better suited as a recon sniper. Instead, focus on reviving and healing. While doing so, if there's no immediate threat and you must choose between reviving and shooting, revive. Other times you're left with no choice but to kill an enemy in order to reach and revive a teammate. Bottom line: don't leave your teammates bleeding out a couple meters away from you, while the enemy is entrenched 20 meters out. Also note that teammates who are bleeding out can see enemies via kill cam, so they know exactly where they are. Reviving them will mean that they can take very precise action immediately. Also see "Communicate enemy positions" below.
+ Teamkilling - This one may seem obvious, but the more intricate nuances of TK is often overlooked. Below are some of the most common examples that players should be mindful of to be more considerate toward teammates. The consequences become more apparent as the projectile speed and damage multipliers increase.
*Especially on custom servers with 5x projectile speed and "1000%" damage, camping next to teammates makes everyone there stick out even more in an unnatural way. Add a bunch of audiovisual noise (i.e. muzzle flash, gunshot noise, tracers, etc.), and teamkilling becomes inevitable - if one gets discovered, everyone there dies. It also helps to Establish Multiple lines of fire (described below).
Environmental Control
+ Do NOT block doorways - Get in or get out, and do your thing, but don't create a greater bottleneck for the enemy to take advantage of and mow everyone down. It also wastes time and unnecessarily restricts mobility. The same applies to very tight hallways and alley. Vehicles should also not be travelling in a line, especially in tight spaces, as the front vehicle reversing will cause a chokehold. Moreover, the front vehicle often ends up on top of the second vehicle, causing the rear vehicle to not be able to shoot the enemy, while the front vehicle's sight is angled towards the ground.
E.g. here's an absolute cluster on Orbital, in Breakthrough and Rush modes at the inter-objective tunnel area. It can get so congested that no one can get in or get out, while all teammates at that area are sitting ducks.
+ Establish multiple lines of fire - All too often I see teammates capping an objective and hugging a single corner, one in front of the other. This is a big no-no since a single enemy can wipe everyone out (since bullets are great at penetrating...). If you're capping an objective with say one or two other teammates, then go to different corners so you can cover different angles and watch each other's backs.
+ Always set/change control ownership - At various locations on a given map, you may find electronic switches that lock doors and entryways. Only your team will automatically have access (the entryways open up), while the enemy is locked out. This slows down the enemy, especially those in vehicles looking to barge in for a surprise assault. Given the nature of how these control switches work, you should always control ownership of these pathways; playing on Breakthrough mode will make the benefit of controlling ownership of these points the most apparent. One excellent example is on Manifest at the truck docking area, as shown below.
Notable exception: On Rush and Breakthrough modes as Defender, there are some control points that you don't want to take. E.g. in the same example below, the ramps closest to your Defending team should be left alone/down, while the ramps closest to the Attacking enemies should be taken ownership of.
+ Destroy building walls and obstacles facing you - Deny the enemy its cover and expose them. Don't destroy the walls facing the enemy, as you can use that as cover. This is something I do especially whenever I play as a tanker, and I make sure to run over obstacles or blast them with my shell. As an added bonus, I often find myself killing enemies hiding behind the cover over those buildings and obstacles.
+ Darwin Awards - Don't stand next to fire barrels, electrical units, poison barrels, etc.. They explode, burn, and can kill you. Here are some of the common hazards that litter the battlefield:
+ Fire barrels: red barrels will do upwards of 100 damage, armor can save you from the initial explosion, but the fire will kill you very soon afterwards
+ Electrical boxes: upwards of 37-38 damage each (the initial explosion plus the electrical shock)
+ Fire extinguishers: upwards of 30 damage
+ Radioactive barrels: yellow barrels will give off an initial explosion damage of 10 (affects armor first), plus upwards of 60 additional damage (affects only health)
+ Propane tanks: upwards of 100 damage, armor can save you from the initial explosion, but the fire will kill you very soon afterwards
+ Oxygen cylinders: upwards of 100 damage, armor can save you from the initial explosion, but the fire will kill you very soon afterwards
+ Electric cars: Unlike in previous Battlefields, cars will damage vehicles, too - tanks will take 10 damage, so watch for parked cars while driving through a parking lot
As such, if you're necessarily camped, e.g. as Defenders in Breakthrough mode on Renewal sector 2 up on the wall, I like to destroy the electrical box units in advance so that my teammates and I don't take damage from them when an enemy attacks.
Team Movement
+ Move in the direction of least momentum - Don't move towards objectives that are being capped sufficiently or have tons of your teammates already going after it - you're contributing very little to the objective. Instead, move towards the farther objectives to flank the enemy and force them to turn around and decongest the front lines. Additionally, pull up the map, see what's not being capped, and go there; bind the full map key to something more ergonomic like Mouse Button 3. Also see "You win by capping, not by camping" below.
+ Don't move in a herd - If your goal is to cap objectives, then split your forces up (at least into two). Moving as one big herd may make it easier to cap an objective, but the enemy can simply tail you and recap their lost objective. Similar to "Move in the direction of least momentum" above, adding more to the herd has little value added to capping the objective.
Notable Exception: Always stick together in Team Deathmatch and similar game modes. There are no objectives to cap, and only kills matter. That means that you want to stay together to more easily kill enemies instead of dying off one by one as lone wolves. The probability of getting a revive and successfully reviving others increases drastically over going solo, hence you save tickets. It can often be beneficial to stick as a herd in Breakthrough mode when you want to capture the very first objective out of two, after which you split up accordingly to defend and capture the respective objectives.
+ You win by capping, not by camping - Get good at CQB and obtaining a high KDR, over being a lone wolf sniping to get a high kdr. Even PTFO and a low KDR is better than being a lone wolf. Sniping long distance doesn't help the team to get the W. Remember, in terms of capping, killing an enemy on the objective is a net loss of 1 for the enemy; killing an enemy while on the objective is a net loss of 2 for the enemy since you're also now capping. If that still doesn't make sense to you, then think about it in terms of basketball - if you steal the ball and score 2 points, you're not only up by 2 points, the enemy is down 2 points from not scoring before the steal - a 4 point differential! I created a mnemonic to help everyone remember:
ABC = Always Be Capping.
+ Pile onto the last objective - As a Defender in Breakthrough, if the last objective in a sector is being capped, you and everyone else should be charging in. This is regardless of whether or not you're being shot at. Throw nades and briefly shoot as you move in, but don't stop and camp on the fringes. The same concept applies to Attackers when time and/or reinforcements are running out.
One very specific example of this is on the last sector of Orbital. You can time your team's mass invasion why the shuttle blows up - that levolution event will kill all enemies who are at or near the shuttle. That's an opportune time to get your team to storm that objective and win the game.
+ Before you advance to the next sector, push up ahead as far as possible - When you're playing in modes such as Breakthrough and Rush, during the interim before you advance to the next sector, you want to push up ahead of time. This'll reduce the time the enemy team has to prepare their defenses and settle in. Additional enemy vehicles, if any, will become available when the timer hits 0 (e.g. when the enemy Defenders had only 1 tank in the previous sector, they may get a 2nd one when the next sector opens up). Don't wait until the timer goes to zero to start pushing out of the previously capped sector. Rather, inch up to the boundary of the next sector.
Communication
+ Communicate enemy positions - Use your mic or type in the chat to communicate where the enemies are. Don't let your teammates unwittingly walk into an enemy camped inside a house. Let them know where the enemies are instead of having your teammates independently discover enemies. While you're down and bleeding out, you should always be pinging the enemy's location, and a red marker will appear if you press Q (default on PC) directly on the enemy for teammates to see. It adds no value to simply look at medics while bleeding out.
+ Air traffic control - When in the EBAA Wildcat or when using the AA launcher, coordinate with pilots and tell them to lure enemy aircraft over your AA at X objective. Conversely, if you're a pilot, ask others to use AA as you pass over your teammates on the ground (which is easier said than done... but often times simply passing by your teammates on the ground will cause enemies tailing you to get shot down). This frees up your jets and other aircraft from evading enemy aircraft, so that they can engage ground troops and vehicles, which in turn helps out your team's ground units to cap objectives. Moreover, you don't even have to hit/destroy the enemy aircraft - simply locking on with the SOFLAM or AA launcher will act as a deterrent for enemy aircraft to abort its attack and evade a potential missile. So keep your pilots in mind and get on the AA!
Vehicles
+ Repair often - If your vehicle has taken too much damage, don't return to battle without repairing. Otherwise, you're engaging enemies in battle with an unnecessary handicap against you. So, retreat then repair. Also, see "As a tanker..." below.
As a designated gunner...
+ Do NOT shoot unnecessarily - If the enemy doesn't see you flanking or advancing while in a tank or other vehicle, then don't shoot wildly out of randomness, spite, etc. You only disrupt the element of surprise.
+ Play with a repair tool - If your tank is going head-to-head with another tank with no other soldiers around, often times your tanker can stay parked for a while and trade damage, while you can repair the tank from behind (use the tank as cover away from the enemy tank's shells).
+ Do NOT shoot at enemy tanks (in the MG seat) - The muzzle flash and tracer rounds from the gunner's MG will let the enemy tanker hone in on your position, which is visible through smoke since the enemy can guesstimate where the source of the tracer rounds are coming from. Note that enemy tanks are often in the first person view to target enemies and shoot, so their field of vision is limited. The gunner's MG fire will only draw the enemy tank's attention to hone in on your tank, while your tank loses the first hit advantage. And, when your tank is retreating, expect the enemy to engage you with anti-tank gadgets. In general, it's important to not shoot at infantry unless it's a relatively high percentage kill for the aforementioned reason.
To better illustrate why tank gunners' shots are typically a bad idea, here's a Battlefield Friends episode that highlights the general reason to shoot as conservatively as possible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIe2Y-c-0FQ
Notable exceptions:
Teammates occupying gunner seats...
+ Be aware of your surroundings - If the tank has taken damage and it's parked by a destroyed tank resupply station, get out of the tank and repair the station (unless someone else is there to do it). Also look all around for AT mines - both the gunner and the tanker are responsible to keep the pathways clear of mines.
+ Play top minigun / MG gunner cautiously - This may not be as obvious at first, but most of the time, playing as an exposed top MG gunner in vehicles such as the LATV4 Recon makes you a very visible target. When the vehicle's stationary, you become a sitting duck and you will be exposed to everything from sniper fire to assaults from aircraft. It's arguably the worst position to play in all of BF 2042, though it's become less of an issue from previous titles since tank gunners are no longer exposed. Even though the top heavy MG gun absolutely shreds enemy soldiers, it's often not worth the trade-off. Recall the above point, "Do NOT shoot at enemy tanks" - MG fire not only draws attention, but also acts as a beam of light that allows enemy tanks, planes, and other AT units to hone in on your tank's position.
As a tanker...
+ Never EVER ditch your tank as a tanker - You go down with it or don't spawn in with a tank at all. You don't want the enemy to steal your tank, since that lost tank won't be available for your team until you destroy the stolen tank. It also won't become available again if it's left abandoned and hasn't self-exploded yet. This applies specifically to tankers, as opposed to gunners in the tank.
+ Be aware of the gunners - they don't necessarily see what you see. For instance, your gunners don't have the third person view that you do and they may not see anti-tank enemies coming at you from behind. Giving them a heads up opens up opportunities for them to switch seats from say, the slow cooldown TOW in seat 2, to the grenade launcher in seat 3 to much more effectively take on enemies coming at you from multiple directions at close quarters. See "Communicate enemy positions" above and get your gunners to focus on the respective targets.
+ Use tanks to tank damage - Don't camp on the sidelines while infantry get mowed down. The most capable unit against infantry is the tank, so it makes no sense not to push with it. Tank damage and let infantry follow you in.
Notable Exception: In Breakthrough mode, you may be forced to stay far and/or hidden away from C5 drones and aircrafts' AGM. Make sure you to communicate your situation so that your teammates can help out and you can get closer to the action.
+ Retreat in reverse, not with your rear facing the enemy - The tank's frontal armor is the strongest. With that in mind, it makes sense to reverse out of danger. Don't take the longer 180 degree turn and show your weak side to the enemy.
