Battlefield Core Feedback - Maps - Feedback Thread

This may fix some of the issues but not all, especially since running for 5-10min after spawning before you even reach a flag is annoying and frustrating. However, without being able to join a server to actually play, this all seems pointless as many of the player base have left. Want to fix it quickly and get the fan base back? Create a BF2, BF3, BF4 type modern game with the original 4 classes, and get rid of the stupid “woke” specialists. Put building destruction back in, and get rid of the stupid big maps. Just because the new gaming systems support big maps, don’t necessarily mean that you have to. From my own experience and talking to people and reading complaints, this would get your player base back. 

The maps need quad bikes and lots of them. Even the ability to call down quads.

Running huge distances is not fun.

One of the worst examples of huge distances is the experience of starting on the initial spawn as an attacker on Manifest breakthrough 128.

Also why are the defenders able to be on the last sector of Manifest breakthrough 128 and pound/snipe the attackers on the first sector from high ground?

Hi DICE. After 600 hours of gameplay I've only played 2042 128 player Conquest AoW, and cover is lacking on all maps, and honestly I don't mind being sniped from a distance. While the bases on all maps are far away it's really the need to spawn in ALL vehicles at the start, so not just by squad, that I think is needed, plus quadbikes in the base. Generally I've got used to the flag layout and so I'm pretty happy about it. That's all I'd expect. Cheers, Jez

OK.  A few things.

- The maps are too wide-open for infantry, almost without exception.  Hundreds and hundreds of meters of open space where infantry are completely exposed to helicopters and armor.  And it doesn't help that all of the "transport" vehicles are also fantastic at killing infantry.  Hourglass is the worst about this but all seven Conquest maps have far too much open space where infantry is completely exposed.  As an infantry player, this makes it no fun.  These maps need to be reworked.  You can't fix these maps by shifting Conquest flags...improve, *maybe*.  But fix?  No.

- INFANTRY.  ONLY.  MAPS.  Give us a Metro.  Give us a Locker.  Give us a Pearl Market with a couple of MAVs and no air.  Or at least give us large areas of mixed-mode maps that are not accessible to vehicles (indoors, underground, etc.) where we can have infantry vs. infantry fights.  The infantry-only maps on BF4, for example, are STILL the most populated maps and servers eight years later.  I genuinely do not understand how you did not grasp this during development, and came up with seven maps that play virtually identically.

- Yes, BF2042 is basically a jogging simulator if you play infantry, are not with a squad, and can't coordinate to mount a vehicle.  Would it be possible to add extra cap points on the main lanes between current cap points on some of these really big maps, with the new cap points having buildings and some cover for infantry?  Ideally we should not have to leg it for 600m+ to get to a fight.

- I know a lot of people love 128-player Breakthrough.  I don't.  It's just a giant clusterbleep repetition of spawn-die-spawn-die.  There are certain areas (Respawn A area for example) where you can be sniped or blown up from spawn, on either side, plus Nightbirds and Boltes will be on top of you in SECONDS after the start of the game, before you have any chance to prepare.  That's unacceptable.  The problem with 2042's 128-player Breakthrough is that, unlike the fantastic Breakthrough mode in BF1, it's way too easy to flank.  BF1 Breakthrough was a grind, you had to force a wedge into the enemy defense and push them back to open a hole to the flag.  In BF2042?  Farm the cap point with Nightbirds while a couple of Sundances jump out of Condors and set up insertion beacons 100 meters BEHIND any coherent defense you can set up.  Every flag defense is instantly a hedgehog instead of a defensive line.  And with the huge amount of vehicles and their ability to be on top of you in mere seconds, it's nothing but Infantry Farming Simulator 2042.  You MIGHT be able to fix that by dropping to 64 players, although if you do that, I expect the maps will need significant adjusting or else things will get too spread out.  However, you'll still have the issues with the modern mobility you have in this setting making it incredibly easy to flank any defense, and with a lack of cover around the points making it way too easy to just use HE to solve all your problems.  As weird as this sounds, the same maps that are way too big for 128-player Conquest are almost--almost--too *small* for 128-player Breakthrough.  At least in their ability to provide defenders any breathing space.

- Nowhere near enough destruction/levelution.  Not even close.  I know this doesn't pertain so much to flow between control points in either game mode, but still, there is a pitiful amount of the classic Battlefield destruction when compared to even BF4, much less BF1/5.  Plus the maps need to be much, much, MUCH grittier and dirtier.  Everything's too clean and polished.  Where's the trash?  Where's the slums?  It feels like we're fighting on a soundstage compared to every previous Battlefield since BF3.  And I'm sorry, the tornado might've been cool in trailers, but in practice it's the epitome of "meh."  It's an annoyance that adds nothing to gameplay.

- One small thing--review each map to see if there's points you can get rid of or even whole areas.  That cliffside point on Breakaway...why is it there?  Does anybody ever fight over the thing?  It just get shadowcapped back and forth from what I've seen.

In short...I appreciate that you are listening to us now and giving us this opportunity to provide feedback.  But you don't need us to tell you now.  We've been telling you since November.  Let's be honest, you knew this TWO YEARS AGO.  And still you gave us seven of the worst maps in Battlefield history.  If your execs didn't know what was wrong with this game 12 months ago, they shouldn't have been developing a Battlefield game.  It's that simple.  Look to the past to see what worked, then build on that for the future.

The problem with 128 Breakthrough isn’t the number of infantry, it’s the vehicle balance. The Bolte should be classified as a tank rather than a transport, because currently a number of them can be deployed and their speed means they can fly through cap points pretty much unopposed. The larger tanks are fine, but being able to deploy like the Bolte alongside them can make vehicles generally oppressive. Equally, the night bird being available alongside the attack helicopters make it very easy for helicopters to farm infantry kills (this, coupled with the ineffectiveness of anti air launchers). 

in terms of reducing the frustrating levels of chaos sometimes seen with infantry, I’d like to see an increase in cap points on some Breakthrough sections, including additional capture points between flags to help divide up troop concentrations. In addition, the lack of cover between objectives also leads to frustration, as it often becomes difficult to push up onto points with embedded enemies. 

Whilst it can be frustrating getting killed at long distance, I think maps should be better oriented for medium-range combat due to their size and the number of players. At the minute there’s so little cover it means fighting is relegated to either mostly long range firefights, or extremely close range meat grinders and the sort of ‘zerging’ we saw in BFV where large numbers of infantry circle between objectives. More intermittent between objectives should lead to more combat at medium range and provide players with more opportunities to identify enemies before they’re engaged. 

The Condor/Hind is such a fun element to the game. It's very rewarding to be with your squad in these vehicles and helping take objectives/get kills. Changing this to a transport-only vehicle would be a major loss to an aspect of fun within the game.

Poor opening experiences:

Practically every map. Especially heinous with hourglass, renewal, manifest, and discarded. I always make sure to spawn in a vehicle since the force-spawned infantry on these maps (but also literally every map!) have to run hundreds of meters to get to an already-capped flag. The next flag on these maps? several hundred additional meters away, and guess what, the vehicles are already there and capping them! infantry have nothing to do at the start of the map and have to run for MINUTES to get to possible infantry action (supposing vehicles or boltes dont gun them down). Infantry should have access to large troop transports (seating like 10 players) at the spawn to at least get close to action, since in-map vehicles are four seater pickups or two person quads and theres maybe 1 on the first point. It literally makes more sense to respawn at the beginning of a match as infantry rather than waste the time running to already-capped points. If the infantry could do anything at all to contribute somehow to an initial game start, maybe this (respawning to get near action) wouldn't happen. Again, I think they need big troop transports that can be used to deploy closer to action since all your transport vehicles that are actually in game are used as offensive vehicles with little to no room for the intended purpose, TRANSPORTING. (bolte, cough cough, MAV, cough cough, not that anybody uses it because it sucks but it also has no seats for infantry to just sit in).

Maps that are hard to get back into the fight?

practically every map, but again, hourglass, renewal, discarded, maybe not manifest due to proliferation of hard cover, but also kaleidoscope. Not only do infantry face the same problem of hundred-meter runs across zero cover, but there is also no spawn camping prevention for vehicles, especially air vehicles. Helicopters and jets can spawn trap all the enemy vehicles from being effective and rain fire down on exposed infantry. This is part of a larger problem with the map design, wherein there is no cover from helicopters, for infantry OR vehicles. a tank has nowhere to hide from an attack helicopter or a jet, and an infantry soldier can only hope to hide in a bush to avoid the wrath of these air vehicles. and then a bolte will probably just run them over anyways.

Balance of vehicles and infantry in breakthrough:

cannot speak too extensively on this, but I have played both versions, and the lack of vehicle symmetry makes breakthrough terrible to play, in my opinion. Air vehicles, once again, dominate the maps, and since attackers have way more of all vehicles (sometimes without competition??? orbital comes to mind for this on early flags) it becomes a farming simulator for the attacking side even if it is not making an appreciable impact on the progress of the attacking team. Both teams should have similar vehicle counts, as the defender vehicles will end up spending their entire time getting ganked by multiple enemy vehicles or desperately trying to take them out 1 on 1 pretty much continuously, instead of actively  defending points. Perhaps vehicle respawns should be very slow to incentivize destroying a teams vehicles for a temporary tactical advantage.

64p breakthrough:

it is better, but the chaos of 128p is actually also fun in different ways. much like the squad rush gamemode was a very intimate and tactical take on rush, and everybody seemed to enjoy it at the time, generally the less players the more fun and impactful the gamemode feels for individuals.

maps and flags needing LOS blockers:

Renewal has extremely poor cover on the green fields side of the map, where infantry moving to points are quite often crossing very open fields where the only cover is a ditch or simply going prone, neither of which is particularly viable. On both sides of the map, there exists basically no air cover besides the few scattered buildings, some of which don't even have points attached to them in 128p cq.

Hourglass is the biggest offender besides Kaleidoscope, with an amazing amount of nothingness in 80% of the map. the city portion has barely any passable cover, only buildings protect from helos, not many large pieces of cover to maneuver and hide behind. The open desert and especially the highway flag cap have literally no cover except one side or the other of a dune, and need the most LOS blockers. You should really look at the concept art for this map, as it showed a lot more buildings out in the playable dunes area that players could use as cover and LOS blockers. The two buildings with a crane by them in the one corner of the map is the most useless allocation of buildings and cover in this map, its almost insulting how useless it is and how much better it would have been placed like anywhere else. All the cap points outside of the city should have small to medium sized buildings that infantry can use, take hard cover in, and most importantly, maneuver through between flags and sectors. All the cover out there sans the stadium is soft cover, almost always leveled completely a bit into the match, and provides no protection from air or ground vehicles since they can plow through or destroy all of it. The same goes for the cap points themselves, either no hard cover (esp from air), or extremely predictable LOS blocking positions that are of no use against vehicles. The cap areas should be bigger perhaps, but most importantly block LOS for air AND ground vehicles.

Manifest and discarded and breakaway also all suffer from a distinct lack of aerial cover in some of the outside points, such as the ships on manifest, the top and areas surrounding the ship on discarded, and the points for the US spawn / iceberg cap point on breakaway.

Specific areas on maps that lack cover:

Kaleidoscope: all of it. Expanded underground metro tunnels or more man-made hard cover structures all over the park, some use for the vehicle tunnels underneath? No aerial cover. No vehicle cover. No infantry cover. it is just field and rooftop.

Breakaway: US spawn iceberg lacks aerial cover especially, and not much infantry cover. same goes for the suicidal C point (no air cover barely any ground cover). The point in the ice floes area likewise has barely any cover, no air cover. Why is 2/3 of this map not used? why does E point or whatever (the radar station) exist? it is like a trailer piece only, no practical fights over it, only one way up without a air vehicle, nothing to even basejump to below it (another point? a facility? something to fight over?)

Hourglass: as stated, needs tons of work and cover. Im imagining half flooded buildings out in the dunes, with basements and lower levels that run under the sand to one another for infantry fighting and cover, some more un-covered in sand areas with vehicles, streets, and buildings to fight in and take cover.

discarded: another 90% empty nothing map, where points are the only places with cover, so assaulting them is terrible. More built up areas and facilities maybe?

Orbital: needs more ways to cross the rocket street, the only viable way is under ground. needs a lot more clutter, maybe some extra facilities scattered around.

Renewal: desert side has no cover, no buildings, you just get farmed by air vehicles.

Improvement opportunities for travelling to objectives:

make transport vehicles actually transport people. bolte is an offensive vehicle not a transport. As stated earlier, teams should have access to large troop transports that actually, you know, transport troops. Im talking at least 10 people, or some smaller vehicles that offer little to no defenses in exchange for many player slots. Perhaps they could be mobile spawn points, weak but good for getting to the fight quickly? Your dedicated transport vehicles such as the MAV and air vehicles offer only offensive seats, small capacity, and barely pass as "transports" since people end up occupying every seat to shoot at stuff. they should be able to move players without having them sit in gunner seats. same goes for bolte, and the LATv4 / hovercraft are primarily used as offensive vehicles and not point A to point B transports. The call in system and vehicle categories need to be revised in such a way that players can actually call in and use transports, for transporting. Every call in is a heavily offensive vehicle, not a quick solution for moving to a point. Why cant we call in light transports like ATVs or jeeps that function ONLY to move around? It boggles my mind that the bolte is even considered a transport with 2 seats and an arsenal of offensive capabilities. It should be in an assault vehicle category separate from tanks and transports.

Dice, I hope you read this, I want this franchise to succeed but this game needs some serious heavy lifting in a TON of areas.

• Which maps presently provide a poor opening experience because of the location of the Base Spawn?
  - disguarded spawns too far from objectives
• Which maps are making it harder to get back into the fight in an all cap scenario
  - kaleidoscope is just so open its hard to move around from the ground obj to obj breakaway has the same issue but more due to size
• How do you feel about the current balance between Infantry and Vehicles in Breakthrough?
  - vehicles have too much power id recommend to remove 30mm canon and 57mm canon from the truck and bolte.
• Have you played 64 player Breakthrough, and do you feel that this is the better way to experience the mode?
  
  - absolutely, having to travel less and rely less on vehicle transport makes it much less tedious and makes every life more action packed rather than running across an open field and getting shot to death over and over
• On which maps and Flags do you see the most immediate need for more line of sight blockers?
  
  - every map other than manifest
• Do you have specific areas on maps that currently stand out to you as lacking cover?
  
  - the crop fields on renewal, the open desert on hourglass, the open fields at the top of disguarded, open fields on kaleidoscope, the runaway and hills on orbital, open area around the c flags in c sector in breakaway.
• Do you have thoughts on how we can better define traveling paths between objectives to keep combat focused?
  
  just more roads and structures between objectives and id recommend side objectives now with the size these maps are i think adding some side objective factor between objectives that benifit teams who have them in some way not affecting point but just gives a team a small advantage if held so the maps fill out more and have more flow between objectives rather than objectives being 300 meters apart without much incentive to advance an open field to likely die there.
• Do you see improvement opportunities to make it easier to understand how to get from one objective to the next?- what i said above also vehicle spawns on captured objectives and just more roads and structures between objectives