- Keep in mind all of my comments are based on being a Breakthrough main, with over 1000hrs in the game and stream your game daily.
- Which maps presently provide a poor opening experience because of the location of the Base Spawn?
Discarded: For both Objectives there is little to no cover while trying to run 300+ meters to even get to cover specifically at A2 and even at A1 there is zero cover besides a small rock right in front of the objective on the fence line which is also being covered by snipers on top of the crane at A1 and people sitting in the red dual containers just to the left of this spot who are either using DMRs or LMGs with boris turrets and provides very little to zero counter play while being targeted 500+ meters out from snipers on the crane. For A2, same issue with snipers/DMRs on top of the main building directly behind the objective or even the middle facility that can affectively snipe/DMR infantry from the roof holding the Russian spawn while running with zero cover.
- Hourglass: US spawn is way too close for Russians to even defend at all. A possible fix is to either move the objective point from in front of the bridge to under the bridge or even the back of the bridge however, this would mean you need to move the Russian spawn slightly further back to balance the run time for both teams. The reason for this is because for the attacking team, I can push the objective and sit behind the truck trailer or just left of that point and prone on the sand dune with cover from the majority of the players on top of the bridge and take the objective without having to fight the other team. This would also entice the attackers to actually fight for the objective and make it slightly more challenging to open the map up to the B sectors.
- Orbital: Russian spawn is way to far back to even consider running on infantry, its almost a requirement to spawn a vehicle to reduce travel time. Also, if defense is better than the pushing team, they can push almost up all the way to the attacking spawn point and camp their spawn as the run back the first sphere tower and parking garage with the containers in the center between the hill of A1 and A2. Also keep in mind most infantry will try to get to A2 by running on the side of the hill to the right of defense spawn and the attacking team can push all the way up to the start of the hill next to the railing just off the right of that tower previously mentioned. Potentially pushing the attacking spawn line further up will help alleviate some spawn camping issues for the casual community, however, if you are shoved all the way back to your spawn on attacking that is deserved because you as a team are not winning your gunfights to gain space pushing the objective.
The other 4 maps have little to no major flaws from the first spawn to the A sectors, the only slight longer travel time is on Manifest however, there is plenty of cover between both A1 and A2 due to most of the map having shipping crates while having a linear 3 lane road to push to the sites. Also nicknamed "mackay's playground" due to his ability to climb on top of these containers.
- Which maps are making it harder to get back into the fight in an all cap scenario?
Kalidagope
A1 to A2 very little cover after push past the bridge to get to the concrete blocks that provide cover from players after the yellow overhang circular walls
B1 from A sector provides little to no cover if you try to go directly to the point due to snipers/DMRs on the 3rd floor sniping the players swimming as well as the players
holding the wall to run over which causes the attackers to focus them first while getting shot from the players using the 2nd and 3rd floors for cover and shooting the attacker
at the same time.
Breakaway
B sector fight is fairly open and hard to recover if you can not take B2 almost right away, and after taking B2 the transit from B2 to B1 is very open with some cover however
the run from B2 to B1 is roughly 400 meters and there is too much open space from the first set of glacier cover to the next while pushing the objective as the defending team
can sit on the side of the cliff or ontop of the hill at B1 and snipe/DMR/prone LMG with boris turrets beaming out to 100m.
Discarded
A & B sectors have again little to no cover which is a deterrent for infantry players to willingly run from the spawn point to the objective without either a MAV or super hind as a spawn point to get behind the defending team and initiate a flank to help the forward line push to the objective all while getting either sniped/DMR'd/LMG w/boris turrets etc.
Hourglass
B2 & B3 are fairly hard to get back into the fight due to nothing but open sands especially if the bolte drivers are destroying the building in between B1 and B3 ontop of little cover
at the containers next to the semi truck trailers on the main road and where the dip is under the B3 objective which also forces me to use the zipline if im not playing mackay
Manifest
B sectors due to the fact that both objective are sitting below all 4 cranes which allows the defending team to drop spawn beacons/snipe/DMR/LMG/boris turret giving the attacking
team very little cover in the main road and having little breathing room to flank even in the water if the defending team is aware and watching the ziplines on both shipping
carriers.
Orbital
A sectors due to the amount of space needing to be travesered for infantry players if the defending team is doing well and you having no transport vehicles playing objective for
the attacking team, running out in basically the open with foliage as cover does not stop bullets from hitting you while being spotted by a either a soflam, boris turret or casper
drone, forcing exposure and no counter play all while having to run 300+ m
Renewal
Only minor adjustment I see needing here is between A1 and A2 since there is very little cover and is open space desert style fighting which is ideal for defenders to snipe onto of the
tower at A2 or even the back of A2 while the attacking team is pushing up finding cover and really the only affective cover at A2 is the objective point itself and defenders will sit just
under the ridgeline in front of A2 shooting players as they drop down to get to the generator boxes on the objective. The counter play to this for attacking is to push left
from the initial spawn or use vehicles to cover travel time
- How do you feel about the current balance between Infantry and Vehicles in Breakthrough?
Attacking team has far too many vehicles to the defending team vehicle ratio. Not restricting the amount of M5C Boltes which are still fairly tanky and annoying to infantry due to their mobility and natural tankiness spamming these vehicles causes a lot of headache for infantry players even if they're running the M5 recoiless due to skilled drivers being able to dodge from mid-long range rocket shots fired at them. Playing defense in Breakthrough overall is a deterrent for the amount of vehicles attackers have because there is little to no counter play for 1 armor vehicle on a defending team to the 3 on the attacking on top of possibly being targeted by other infantry running AT and air vehicles running AGMs/Anti tank rockets.
- Have you played 64 player Breakthrough, and do you feel that this is the better way to experience the mode?
Overall experience is far better for infantry players however, you still run into too many vehicles on the attacking team for defense to affectively hold the objectives IF the attacking team is playing better than the defending team on the points directly. Also, due to performance issues in 128p due to the game not running properly for GPU performance over CPU, I pull 30-40 more frames in 64 player running a Ryzen 9 5900x and a 3080 and still only getting 75-90 frames in 128 when I should be getting easily over 100+ frames when im running all graphic settings on low.
- On which maps and Flags do you see the most immediate need for more line of sight blockers?
I am specifically a Breakthrough player so I do not have any affective feedback for conquest. However, ALL of the maps excluding Manifest need more cover for the attacking team while running infantry to help provide cover from your defending players that prefer to snipe/DMR/boris turret with a LMG. More specifically the areas I talked about above for needing more cover in the previous question.
- Do you have specific areas on maps that currently stand out to you as lacking cover?
As stated above in the question - Which maps are making it harder to get back into the fight in an all cap scenario?
- Do you have thoughts on how we can better define traveling paths between objectives to keep combat focused?
For breakthrough only, I personally do not see an issue here. Once you provide more cover for the attacking team to push, its very clear where the objectives are and still provide multiple routes for the team to push to the objective and not feel as if they are being bottle necked into one specific chokepoint which would entice defenders to prioritize over other routes causing now what seems to be a far too chaotic experience for the average player.
- Do you see improvement opportunities to make it easier to understand how to get from one objective to the next?Again as stated in the above question, specifically breakthrough, its fairly to understand where I need to go to get to the next objective. With that being said, I think it would benefit the players if the Cardinal direction compass above the player model on the top middle of my screen, provided where the objective are in the U.I. and showed how far away in meters I am to that objective and if my team controls that point or the enemy teams does(mainly for conquest). This will help new players visually see where the points are on the map and give a directly distance to help players be guided to where they should go.
DICE Team
