DICE Team
Not bad, these are baby steps in the right direction (both the vehicle balance changes and the map changes). You could make a (seemingly) simple bigger change that would have just as immediate an impact, and that would be to stop the forced spawning at beginning of round, and open spawning up into any vehicle. That would help with the crazy travel times at the start of a round because we could more efficiently fill up the spots in the vehicles that we do have.
Also I'm a little concerned if the numbers of MAVs ever get increased. That thing is an absolute beast of a transport vehicle, reasonably tough with a good chunk of firepower. I'm not saying that all transport vehicles should be made out of kerosene-soaked toilet paper, but the MAV is almost as tough an opponent as a tank when you man all the guns, if you're on foot. At least it's a fairly big target. The Condor and Super Hind are pretty strong as well. There might need to be some adjustments made, but let's put your initial changes in first and see what happens rather than start trying to tweak everything at once.
(EDIT TO ADD: Stuff like this is the reason that a Community Test Environment/test server like Battlefield 4's is an absolute necessity, so fairly sizeable groups of REAL PLAYERS can test this stuff out ahead of time and provide first-hand feedback.)
As for specialists, when that feedback comes around? REMOVE. THEM. I don't give a flying crap about your monetization plans. I don't care about your cool skins. Battlefield is not specialists. Battlefield is classes, full stop. Battlefield is grunts that you put your own story on top of as you play them. No specialists unless they are somehow either made into some kind of battle pickup (a la Battlefront 2015) or a unit that can be "purchased" after you accumulate XP in a game (a la Battlefront II). Otherwise, grunts. And that is a hill I think a lot of the community is willing to stand and fight on.
Thanks for your updates and for what you're doing. It's small, but even a journey of a thousand miles does begin with a single step. Just keep walking for us, OK? 🙂
