Battlefield Core Feedback - Maps - Feedback Thread

These are my (lengthy) thoughts on the AoW maps of Battlefield 2042 and some of the issues I have as a primarily Conquest Large player.

tl;dr  The general issue with the 7 ‘All-Out Warfare’ maps in Battlefield 2042 is a lack of variety in terms of gameplay, a frustratingly high amount of vehicle spam resulting from the poor vehicle categorization and overall, an uninteresting experience both from an aesthetic and gameplay perspective. 

                                                                   AESTHETICS AND DETAILING

All of the maps have a very barebones aesthetic which makes it very uninteresting to play and interact with the environment. Every single object in the game is far too pristine and squeaky clean which ruins the immersion that had become a staple of the franchise since Bad Company 2.  

Understandably, this might be a direct response to the visibility complaints from Battlefield V where some players complained about not being able to spot enemies due to the highly detailed environments, but with the increased spotting abilities in Battlefield 2042 and some lighting improvements, this probably wouldn’t have been an issue. 

The maps in previous games felt a lot more alive and 'war-like', especially with the environmental effects (both audio and visual) that have been lacking in 2042. Smokes and distant gunfire in the background, visual changes to the levels as the round progresses, additional props like destroyed armoured vehicles, abandoned civilian vehicles, etc.  

                                                                        DESIGN AND LAYOUT 

Personally, I don’t find the scale of the maps to be a problem. I fully believe that Conquest plays better when the combat is focused in and around the capture points, with the area in between restricted to smaller skirmishes and mostly travelling.   

Travelling between objectives should be supported efficiently with transport vehicles but it should also take time and effort to reach new points in order to better balance the attack/defend flow of Conquest, something that has been missing in games like BF1 and BFV because the capture points were too close to one another, leading to the awful zerg-rushing meta. The dead area between objectives also needs more permanent cover to minimize situations where travelling on foot becomes a death sentence  

The biggest issue however lies in the capture points themselves. A lot of the capture points are weirdly placed, and they’re quite uninteresting from a gameplay perspective.

D1 on Hourglass CQL is a good example of a poor capture point. It’s pretty much just a flat bit of land surrounded by houses that are outside the capture radius. Fighting on this capture point is boring because there is nothing interesting going on here. Even if you’re in a vehicle, you are still prone to getting ambushed and attacked from all angles with no way to protect yourself. I would love it if the area was condensed so the houses are part of the capture zone, with more permanent cover scattered in and around the objective.  

Other maps face the same problem on various capture points. Some other examples of uninteresting/poor capture points (all on CQL) include: 

• Kaleidoscope B/C sectors (far too open and copy/paste in terms of layout)  
• Discarded B1/C1/D1 (extremely open and bland) 
• Orbital E1 (tiny and restrictive 2 tier layout surrounded by flat ground with zero cover to move around) 

Capture points in Conquest should be treated as genuine points of interest and it should make sense to fight over them instead of fighting over a random house. Renewal is one of the maps where you genuinely feel like there is a ton of variety, where each sector has a strong identity and offers a fairly unique experience. 

                                                                       VARIETY AND IDENTITY 

The levels in 2042 suffer from a lack of identity, unlike previous games where there was a clear distinction between infantry/combined arms/vehicle maps, offering something for everyone. Right now, every map is dominated by vehicles and it is pretty much a nightmare for infantry players. However, this isn’t necessarily down to the map design but rather the extremely poor vehicle categorization.   

Almost every vehicle in 2042 has powerful weapons and because of the vehicle organization, it results in a high level of vehicle spam. Vehicles like the M5C Bolte are sectioned within the ‘transport’ category, which means there can be anywhere between 5-9 Boltes per side depending on the map. That’s an awful lot of firepower and it results in extremely frustrating moments for infantry players. The same applies to air vehicles.  

Instead of nerfing vehicles into the ground and making them useless, I would prefer if the vehicle categories were re-assessed and looked something like this: 

LIGHT TRANSPORT 

• Most abundant class of vehicles mainly focused on smaller scale transport 
• Quadbike / Hovercraft / LATV4 

HEAVY TRANSPORT 

• Focused on larger scaled transport and moderate firepower 
• MAV / Condor  

ARMOURED VEHICLES 

• MBT / LAV / Bolte 

• MBT has the most endurance and firepower to deal with vehicles. LAV acts as a multipurpose vehicle. M5C Bolte acts as a Light Tank with powerful anti-infantry weapons 

HELICOPTERS 

• Attack Helicopter / Scout Helicopter 

AIRCRAFT 

• Stealth Jets 

 
Apart from the vehicle category issues, the maps also suffer from having every vehicle type available on each and every map.  Tailoring vehicle types based on maps would really help give the existing maps a strong identity and provide a far more unique experience. 

By mixing these vehicle type restrictions, there could be a greater variety of experiences such as Infantry Focus / Tank Focus / Ground Combat / Combined Arms / Vehicle Focus. 

Maps like Kaleidoscope and Discarded are obvious candidates for an infantry-focused experience and the current number of vehicles on those maps are extremely frustrating to play against. Having a fewer number of vehicles and limited vehicle types would allow infantry to breathe and move around more comfortably. 

Manifest suffers from air vehicle spam and would fare much better if it were a ground combat map that mostly involved tanks and LAVs instead of all vehicles. 

Orbital, Renewal, Hourglass and Breakaway would be great choices for more combined arms/vehicle heavy maps. Hourglass in particular could become a tank focused map while Breakaway allows for a greater number of vehicles due to its size and layout. 

An example of an ‘Infantry Focused’ vehicle layout 

An example of a ‘Combined Arms’ vehicle layout 

An example of a ‘Vehicle Focus’ vehicle layout 

An example of a ‘Ground Combat’ vehicle layout 

An example of a ‘Tank Focus’ vehicle layout 

                                                                      CLOSING THOUGHTS

The maps in Battlefield 2042 desperately need an identity more than anything. Right now they suffer from too much open space and too many vehicles, capped off by a bland art style, all of which results in very unsatisfying experiences on many of the maps. Instead of shortening the map sizes, I would love it if traversal was further improved through ziplines, additional pure-transport vehicles and more cover in between objectives.

The objectives themselves need to be a lot more interesting from a visual and gameplay perspective. Orbital is the map that keeps coming to mind whenever I think of a good concept that hasn't been fully realized. The rocket launch site and the assembly building, for example, should be a blast to play around, but it's very bland because of the design of those areas. Same with the tunnel that connects the Cryo facility to the warehouse. 

I wish there was more destruction.  The maps feel a little too “clean” currently.  I’d like them to be roughened up and maybe that provides a good opportunity to add cover.  You might add a half destroyed house or building somewhere.  This could help with line of sight/cover and make it feel more like a battlefield.  Hourglass for me is the one where I know I’ll get killed as I go from one area to the next.  It’s a very open desert and inevitably a tank or helicopter will always get me before I make it to the new area.  I also think it would be nice to see the wall in Renewal get destroyed if it is shot by a tank, c5 or something.  That would really change how the game is played mid game.  BF4 is my favorite game and I’m just trying to think of what makes that game the way it is.  Just my thoughts, someone might disagree but this is how what I would like to see. 

Please do not strip 128 player Breakthrough - it is the best mode in my opinion.

Personally, I don't think there is an issue with over-intensity on the objectives. If anything, I'd ramp up the intensity. But for this to work you need to improve the objective areas themselves.

Currently, on a number of maps, you're fighting over unimportant things like a warehouse or two or a sculpture in the park. There's nothing of interest or importance and little cover. You have 128 players scrapping over nothing. Add something to the objective areas. Make us fight for SOMETHING. Chuck some cover in there. Create an environment where proper, all-out firefights can develop and take place. Add in destruction so we get the immersion of the absolute nightmare scenario we are supposed to be in. Right now, it's either a kill-fest for one team or the least intense occupation of an area you could ever experience (differing depending on the objective).

I also don't feel being overwhelmed by vehicles is an issue. You have given us the freedom to attach whatever we like to our classes. Technically, we have the capability to have 64 AA/M5 launchers at our team's disposal. Obviously that won't happen but the option is there for the team. If the opposing team has vehicle superiority, it is up to the team to counter and resolve that. There is absolutely no way a team could maintain aerial superiority if the opposing team adjusted to counter this together. Let's say a team has 3 aircraft up. 15 players equip launchers... we all know how that's ending with a bit of coordination! (VOIP would obviously help with this coordination)

Please do not strip this mode 🙂

Thanks,

clearly  add duo infantry vehicle, in previous battlefield there was a lot of quad and jetski, duo infantry vehicle is missing a lot in this game , just let us call in quad, or bike in futur update... i don't understand why did you show us the quad on trailer and in game its literally impossible to  find one even in conquest..  Just add duo infantry vehicle in call in and that's it ^^

I completely agree, I don’t like the force spawn at the beginning of the match, especially when vehicles are gone, I’d rather wait a few seconds and spawn frontline. 

The setting in which the game is is totally insane but the maps don’t reflect the worldwide conflict. Kaléidoscope should have ruins of a skyscraper where only infantry can get in and fight. Almost every maps from past battlefields offers both an infantry area and places where it’s more opened and dominated by vehicles. A tornado is cool but a map set on the west coast of the US or Can could be great with a setting where it’s surrounded by forest fires similar to that one map in bf1. Since the conflict seems to only start, it makes sense that it does not have ruins yet but it could be cool to see a ruined kaléidoscope in season one or a melted down breakaway. 

We need more infantry maps on breakthrough, i'm killed mostly by vehicles on Conquest. There is no difference between the maps, like it was in Battlefield 4. In my opinion all maps look like Golmund Railway (open vehicles map), and i'm ok with it, if you add maps like Operation locker, Flooded zone, Metro, Pearl market, ... I love vehicles but there is no equilibrium in the vanilla maps experiences. 

Thank you for the communication! All of those changes and questions seem like a step in the right direction. I don't have a list of changes, but most of the comments on pages 1-3 that I saw were spot on.

I just wanted to add a request:

Please implement these changes in smaller chunks and more frequently! Or at least give the community a chance to test the prototype version as soon as possible. Please don't wait for the map to become "PERFECT" just so you can release it and find out that the map doesn't work with the other changes you've made. We don't want to go from "having too little cover" to "having too much cover" (not that I think we can reach that level of cover, but I hope you get my point), or to find out that bringing objectives so close to each other actually causes other issues.

Which maps presently provide a poor opening experience because of the location of the Base Spawn?

Renewal on Breakthrough 128, it feels like the spawns are way too close to each other and the start's way too powerful.
Which maps are making it harder to get back into the fight in an all cap scenario?
I don't see any maps that have this issue.
How do you feel about the current balance between Infantry and Vehicles in Breakthrough?
Reduce vehicle count on attackers by just a bit and increase defender vehicle count, that's it.
Have you played 64 player Breakthrough, and do you feel that this is the better way to experience the mode?
I have and I found it terrible, barely any action, could barely find anyone, the vehicle amount was too high and I prefer the chaos and intensity of Breakthrough 128 more, I feel removing 128 from Breakthrough entirely would be detrimental to the game and possibly kill it, keep 64 players as a separate option to who doesn't like 128 player Breakthrough but removing 128p Breakthrough all together is not a great idea at all, there's people that even exclusively play this mode and It's probably higher population than conquest, please do not remove it.
On which maps and Flags do you see the most immediate need for more line of sight blockers?
Breakaway probably.
Do you have specific areas on maps that currently stand out to you as lacking cover?
The ice parts of Breakaway.
Do you have thoughts on how we can better define traveling paths between objectives to keep combat focused?
Not really.
Do you see improvement opportunities to make it easier to understand how to get from one objective to the next?
What is there to understand? Just use the call in system, I guess you can add a prompt telling the player to use the call in system or something when running too long if the player has tutorial hints on?
That's it really, do not remove Breakthrough 128 I beg you.