I've been playing Battlefield for quite a while. The only time I've seen actual teamwork is when I'm with friends using some sort of voip. Playing with groups of friends is the only answer to teamwork. There's too many players on the field with a lack of directional roles to coordinate teams. BFV did a pretty good job of incentivizing players to coordinate to gain points that you could spend, which was a fantastic idea. That's a better design in my opinion then Classes.
The amount of teamwork has been the same before and after that patch, that's my experience with over 1,000 hours in 2042. Classes will not fix that. It's just an annoyance at this point. It's one thing if the game was built on that foundation, but it wasn't. The game was specifically designed and balanced around Specialist. It was advertised one way, which I bought knowing that, and now we've gone a step backwards to try appease people complaining. Which we don't have any actual statistics to back who wants what, or why the game has essentially failed to retain players. There were 4.3 million copies sold in the first week apparently. The game sold well, how many of those people are on reddit and here complaining? Probably not the majority. Everything is speculation, and only Dice actually knows. A week after this update, watching Steamcharts, it hasn't improved much at all. People were more excited leading up to the patch if anything.
I personally was able to be a better teammate prior to the patch. The only reason you're seeing more "teamwork" is because they made parts of their kit that actually contribute outside of themselves permanent equipment in their load-outs.
I know many "vets" will argue with me on this, but Battlefield isn't about the Classes. It's a sandbox, arcade military themed shooter, and conquest has been the main mode since I've been playing. It's about working as a team to win, but not just because of the Classes and the dependencies they create. While that has been a part of the game for a long time, BF2042 did feel more modern in that aspect. I've done the Class thing forever at this point, I'm bored of it. I want to choose my load-out.
Like it or not, the Hero Shooter element in FPS games is sorta an evolution, it adds something new, but I understand if it's not everyone's cup of tea. Just like extraction shooters will probably be the next big thing, and I'm all for it. BF2042's take on the Hero Shooter thing was really tame as well, and fairly balanced. Most abilities and gadgets were in previous title's in some form. There were a couple outliers, like the grapple and wing-suit, but nothing too crazy. Everyone freaked about Paik's "wallhacks", but it was pretty underwhelming, and again balanced. It's how things are implemented. If she could see someone clearly through walls while they moved for instance, that would be pretty busted.
I'd love to see some actual data backing up all these claims of the game didn't do well just because of Specialist. If that's the case, why did it sell over 4 million copies in the first week?
