Constructive Feedback for DICE & EA

Here are my suggested changes for Battlefield 2042 based off of my experience and the opinions of others I have heard. I won’t be discussing technical issues or monetization. This is just about the gameplay and core design. I hope EA or DICE will see this and hopefully acknowledge it. I want to see this game improve. Thank you in advance for reading.

MAPS

There are 7 maps in AOW, and they all suffer from the same problems. They’re too open and clean. They feel so barren and empty, you’ll spend minutes at a time running through empty space between objectives, accomplishing nothing and finding no one, just to get sniped by a camper or killed by a vehicle. Infantry gameplay is practically impossible in these maps, and vehicles still dominate. The vehicle call in system enables constant vehicle spam throughout the entirety of a game.

So much of your time in matches is spent being bored and just running through empty swaths of land towards the objective.

Maps should feel less “clean”, have military emplacements and more cover to not only fit the game’s “collapsing world” tone, but also to facilitate infantry gameplay. They’re just so lifeless and desolate right now, and that’s a big problem. We only have two modes, so perhaps we could see smaller, more infantry focused maps for game modes like TDM? 128 players shouldn’t be the main focus of All-Out Warfare. It simply doesn’t work and makes every match boring and frustrating. Many players would like to see smaller CQC maps for infantry-focused gameplay and more action-packed fights.

LEVOLUTION

Destruction is a big part of what makes Battlefield unique. I’m Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 1, huge explosions and buildings being destroyed made matches feel awesome and cinematic. But in Battlefield 2042, levolution seems nonexistent. The maps feel so static and nothing changes on them. The epic destruction we saw in the trailers is nowhere to be found in the game, and it’s disappointing to fans. Walls can brush off tank shots, buildings don’t collapse, it just feels kind of boring. The little village in Hourglass is currently the only area with actual destruction in the entire game. It’s very underwhelming.

Before launch, we saw that video of an entire skyscraper crumbling in a tech test, and we thought we would have that level of destruction.

CUSTOMIZATION

There are only 22 guns in the game right now, and players are already starting to get bored of the weapon pool. There’s just so little variety in loadouts and so little choice given to players.

There are only 4 categories to customize for each weapon, and half of the attachments have the exact same effects as each other. The character and weapon customization just feels incredibly limited for a Battlefield game, with not enough content to justify the hefty price tag at the moment. There should be more attachments and attachment categories, with those attachments having more unique effects (right now all of the grips just increase accuracy while moving or while static).

Also, not a priority, but I would love to see an optic like the Coyote RDS from BF4 return. The Fusion Holo has too small of a sight picture.

GUNPLAY

Part of what made BF4 and BF1 so fun was the satisfaction you would get from scoring kills. There were visibly clear and opaque hitmarkers, score bonuses for avenger kills, savior kills, headshots, squad wipes, etc., and animated score counters that made it feel like you were being rewarded for your skill. The kill feedback in this game feels significantly toned down. There are no score bonuses, animated score counter, the hitmarkers lack a feeling of impact, and the poor console aim assist all make gunfights feel frustrating and unsatisfying. I feel like these fixes could be implemented fairly easily.

Also, controller aim on console feels very jerky and unintuitive. It’s so difficult to aim properly in this game that I can’t kill anyone past point blank range. It’s like my reticle resists my inputs and actively moves away from my target. In every other Battlefield game I’ve played, I was able to hit my targets fairly consistently, and the aiming felt normal, but the aiming here feels awful. I frequently miss shots I shouldn’t (and wouldn’t in other FPS games).

Armor should be exclusive to Hazard Zone. In AOW, it creates inconsistencies in TTK and makes gunfights unfair. This is another feature that is pretty much universally disliked by the community. Armor does not belong in standard FPS modes. This isn’t Warzone.

Third Person Takedowns are another disliked aspect of the game that feels like a downgrade from other titles. Melee kills used to feel epic and intense without taking you out of the action, and now they feel boring and lifeless while jarringly switching the viewpoint and taking away player control. Half the time they don’t even work properly, and the animations are the always same regardless of the enemy’s position (why would a soldier pick up a prone enemy just to sweep their leg and knock them back down?) Please reimplement first-person directional takedowns, the current melee system is a poor imitation of Call of Duty.

SPECIALISTS

I know that specialists won’t be changed. But they can be improved. Right now, there’s no distinction between factions, so everyone just looks like a clone of each other regardless of their team. Not only does it hurt immersion, but it also makes visibility difficult.

Specialists also throw game balance out the window. Everyone just uses the one or two meta operators who are just straight up better than all the others. Seeing 20 Sundance clones just fly over a point you’ve been working hard to defend is very annoying. 

The specialists don’t look anything like soldiers, especially in the near future. Almost all of them don’t even wear helmets. Sundance has big poofy hair, piercings, and tattoos, with a constant smirk on her face. The “Zero Resistance” skin is what players should look like, but unfortunately it can only be used on Mackay, who’s snarky personality and locked gadget turn me away. Specialists should be relegated to Hazard Zone exclusively. There, they don’t ruin the immersion and actually make sense from both a gameplay and lore standpoint.

The end of round voicelines are universally hated among the community, since they don’t fit at all with the tone and lore of the game and just come off as obnoxious.

PORTAL XP

Just make it so that killing players gives full XP, ribbons, and progression, and killing bots doesn’t. There’s no need to punish the entire playerbase by locking everyone out of progression. That’s a major reason people aren’t playing Portal as often now, since now players can only progress by playing official featured modes, which sometimes actually turn out to be bot farms, the reason the entire community is locked out of progression in player-made modes.

CONCLUSION

This game needs a lot of work and major overhauls to live up to the expectations of fans and previous Battlefield titles. The customization, gunplay, specialists, maps, and content are currently in a very poor state. It’s not beyond saving, but the player count is rapidly dwindling and time is running out. The community is losing trust in EA and DICE, so just acknowledging these core issues would go a long way in restoring that relationship.