Massively disappointed with BF 2042
Have to say BF2042 IS a massive disappointment, not what I had expected or hoped for. I dislike the whole menu system, very clunky and not intuitive at all. I hate not having a server browser and h...
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Besides the major server issues, it's very disappointing. I was hoping it'd be good but expecting it to be bad, based on the beta. Sadly, I was right.
I have the graphics settings set to ultra, but it feels and looks very dated. There's strange halo effects around distant buildings also. Overall it looks and feels like it should have been a free-to-play game. Or even a beta for one in its current state. I've played indie games better than this. And better looking than this.
Even the transition from when you first join a game is messed up. It glitches to show the main menu character, then goes to the loading screen.
Speaking of loading, I tried to play Hazard Zone and there was a loading icon in the middle of the screen the whole time. I can see some improvements with some things compared to previous games, but yikes... 1 step forward and 20 steps back. I played some BFV right before playing this and it felt and looked so much better.
I agree with a lot of what has been said. I've gobbled up everything DICE has given us since BF2 and loved it. I even thought BFV was great when a lot of people seemed to hate it. So, I was really looking forward to 2042, I thought they would knock it out of the park. But got to say, from what I've seen so far, I'm bitterly disappointed.
The sound is a huge step backwards. DICE were always head and shoulders above the rest when it came to sound. It was big, multi-layered, immersive, detailed, added so much to the atmosphere. And it added so much to gameplay too, your sense of what and where things were happening. But the sound in this is terrible, it lacks any oomph, it feels muffled, it's just so underwhelming. But worst of all, they seem to have mucked up the directionality. You can hear footsteps etc but get no clear idea of how far away they are or from what direction. It's like they were trying to emulate the kind of sound from a Christopher Nolan film but it just doesn't work.
I don't like the maps so far. Maybe a part of that is just me needing to learn them better but there are some fundamental things wrong. There's a lack of cover, a lack of detail and a lack of that gritty, messy feel of a battlefield. There's too many bland flat surfaces, no texture to things. A lack of little incidental bits and pieces lying round the place to make it a more believable environment. And I'm so sick of seeing shipping containers! They seem to have gone all in on the huge maps but at the expense of creating detailed environments. The only exception to this is the foliage and plant life which is done brilliantly.
The maps seem to lack flow, it seems hard to see a clear way to flank, there's no sense of a frontline (in conquest that is). It just seems hard to have any sense of situational awareness - of what direction enemies or likely to be coming from, of where you need to be heading to next. As @hairy1611 mentioned. they just seem to be big for the sake of it.
The destruction seems disappointing too. A big draw of BF games was the way it felt like a real, tangible environment that you could interact with and affect. The way at the start of a round, you could have a flag area fully fleshed out with farmhouses, forests, outbuildings and at the end of the round it could be unrecognisable with everything levelled to a WWI type cratered moonscape. I thought they'd build on that but it seems almost dialled back. Remember the very early tech demo they showed with a skyscraper crumbling? That never made it in.
The movement feels clunkier. The gunplay feels off. They binned the health/ammo system from BFV which I thought worked great. You could find yourself low on health, down to just your pistol but you knew if you could just somehow survive to make it back to that flag with the med station and the ammo dump, you'd be back in the game. Or if you were out of RPGs with an enemy tank nearby, the tension of trying to sneak round to re-supply so you could take him on. That was a great gameplay mechanic, gone now.
The frame rate is shockingly bad sometimes as well - and I'm on console. That might improve in updates but we've all just paid top dollar for a finished product, it shouldn't be an issue.
The interface is astonishingly bad. There's no server browser, no filters. There's no personal stats screen. There's no way to go in and manage your loadouts etc without going into a game. You basically just get a play button for each of the 3 modes, nothing else.
When you do join a round, you don't stay with that group of players from map to map. I enjoyed when you could - if you got hammered by a group of opposing players one round, you knew you had the chance to get your own back on them in the next round.
And there's no scoreboard! I mean, seriously??!? You can get a snapshot of how you're doing in game - but not the rest of the players. And even then you can't even do that when you die and are waiting to respawn - which is precisely the time you would want to take a quick a look at how things stood.
The only step forward they've made that I can see is bigger maps and a higher player count. But it seems to have come with a heavy cost with a lack of improvement in other areas and big steps back in a lot.
I've really been trying to like this game. Maybe they'll improve on it over time. But at this point, it's been a big disappointment that I'm not enjoying at all.
My biggest complaint (apart from all the ones you've already made)
No TDM......
Simple and fun - instead you're forced into the running simulator the AOW maps force you into. Run to a location - get killed - rince - repeat.
SOOOOO lazy not to add TDM. It literally is like they just gave up on this game a year into development and went that's it, that's all we need to do people will be stupid enough to buy it anyway.
Very very annoyed and upset at the demise of what was once my favourite game franchise
Yep^pretty much all of this. Doesn’t seem like a battle-space indicative of a world on the verge of collapse. Maybe a climate conscious world that seems to impeccably manicure and leave no garbage or any sort of real world debris?
For example, in BFV when you swam, you could dive (which you can't in 2042). When you did you could see beautifully detailed coral reefs teeming with perfectly modelled tropical fish.
I know in the great scheme of things, it's a small detail but it's the layers of small details that add to together to make a great game world.
I used to laugh at the oh-so-predictable posts every launch of "They've ruined battlefield. This new battlefield sucks. Battlefield 2/3/4/5 back in the day was brilliant. Now i'm that guy 😞
- @FatherDed EA/Dice have mastered the way of pissing off its diehard fan base. Its truly a remarkable talent.
@FatherDed Wrote :
I agree with a lot of what has been said. I've gobbled up everything DICE has given us since BF2 and loved it. I even thought BFV was great when a lot of people seemed to hate it. So, I was really looking forward to 2042, I thought they would knock it out of the park. But got to say, from what I've seen so far, I'm bitterly disappointed.
The sound is a huge step backwards. DICE were always head and shoulders above the rest when it came to sound. It was big, multi-layered, immersive, detailed, added so much to the atmosphere. And it added so much to gameplay too, your sense of what and where things were happening. But the sound in this is terrible, it lacks any oomph, it feels muffled, it's just so underwhelming. But worst of all, they seem to have mucked up the directionality. You can hear footsteps etc but get no clear idea of how far away they are or from what direction. It's like they were trying to emulate the kind of sound from a Christopher Nolan film but it just doesn't work.
I don't like the maps so far. Maybe a part of that is just me needing to learn them better but there are some fundamental things wrong. There's a lack of cover, a lack of detail and a lack of that gritty, messy feel of a battlefield. There's too many bland flat surfaces, no texture to things. A lack of little incidental bits and pieces lying round the place to make it a more believable environment. And I'm so sick of seeing shipping containers! They seem to have gone all in on the huge maps but at the expense of creating detailed environments. The only exception to this is the foliage and plant life which is done brilliantly.
The maps seem to lack flow, it seems hard to see a clear way to flank, there's no sense of a frontline (in conquest that is). It just seems hard to have any sense of situational awareness - of what direction enemies or likely to be coming from, of where you need to be heading to next. As @trh1116 mentioned. they just seem to be big for the sake of it.
The destruction seems disappointing too. A big draw of BF games was the way it felt like a real, tangible environment that you could interact with and affect. The way at the start of a round, you could have a flag area fully fleshed out with farmhouses, forests, outbuildings and at the end of the round it could be unrecognisable with everything levelled to a WWI type cratered moonscape. I thought they'd build on that but it seems almost dialled back. Remember the very early tech demo they showed with a skyscraper crumbling? That never made it in.
The movement feels clunkier. The gunplay feels off. They binned the health/ammo system from BFV which I thought worked great. You could find yourself low on health, down to just your pistol but you knew if you could just somehow survive to make it back to that flag with the med station and the ammo dump, you'd be back in the game. Or if you were out of RPGs with an enemy tank nearby, the tension of trying to sneak round to re-supply so you could take him on. That was a great gameplay mechanic, gone now.
The frame rate is shockingly bad sometimes as well - and I'm on console. That might improve in updates but we've all just paid top dollar for a finished product, it shouldn't be an issue.
The interface is astonishingly bad. There's no server browser, no filters. There's no personal stats screen. There's no way to go in and manage your loadouts etc without going into a game. You basically just get a play button for each of the 3 modes, nothing else.
When you do join a round, you don't stay with that group of players from map to map. I enjoyed when you could - if you got hammered by a group of opposing players one round, you knew you had the chance to get your own back on them in the next round.
And there's no scoreboard! I mean, seriously??!? You can get a snapshot of how you're doing in game - but not the rest of the players. And even then you can't even do that when you die and are waiting to respawn - which is precisely the time you would want to take a quick a look at how things stood.
The only step forward they've made that I can see is bigger maps and a higher player count. But it seems to have come with a heavy cost with a lack of improvement in other areas and big steps back in a lot.
I've really been trying to like this game. Maybe they'll improve on it over time. But at this point, it's been a big disappointment that I'm not enjoying at all.
You have summed it up perfectly, and yes I am also sick of shipping containers. 🙂
@RayD_O1 I can still see some glimmers of light in it. I think at least part of it is my own frustration at being really bad at it! It might become something good in time- BFV was a mess at launch but was a really good game by the time they released the Pacific maps and stopped tinkering with the TTK.
- @RayD_O1 I feel you, you essentially summed up my issues with the game and probably everyone else. I want to enjoy the game I REALLY DO but it just gets me mad D:
I have bought and played every version of BF since BF2. Some were really good, BF3 and 4 and even 2142 and others were not so good. None have been as bad as this. No ability to select where you play except in Portal which is full of stat padders. It was a huge mistake moving away from individual servers as witnessed by the success of BF4 over all the others. There are still full servers in BF4 and loads of them.
This game is quite frankly not fit for purpose and certainly not woth the money. If you are thinking of buying it, don't, it really is rubbish.@FatherDed wrote :
@RayD_O1 I can still see some glimmers of light in it. I think at least part of it is my own frustration at being really bad at it! It might become something good in time- BFV was a mess at launch but was a really good game by the time they released the Pacific maps and stopped tinkering with the TTK.
I really hope you are right and yes the Pacific maps were a gamechanger for me too. I still love to play those maps.
There is a lot of very constructive feedback on this thread. I just hope DICE / EA pay attention and take the necessary steps to get this game into shape. At the moment it does not come up to the standards we expect from the Battlefield franchise.
This is arguably the finest assessment I've read since the Beta release.
Succinctly put Sir.
I agree with all said.
mand the maps are so badddddd. It’s just fun for snipers. No where to hide. No cool close combat or barely. I am really sad. It’s hovercrafts and snipers.
mits so annoying. Day 2 and I am super frustrated. Fix this crap please- @Dutchdevil23 Yeah I feel your pain, snipers heaven especially the Breakaway map. Hovercrafts are indeed definitely overpowered at the moment.
- @Dutchdevil23 The more I play the more I see the lack of close combat you refer to. The maps are sniper heaven and there are twice as many as before due to the 128 players, not fun.
I switched to playing Breakthrough now. It's much more focused and cuts out a lot of that horrible running for 5 minutes only to be shot out of the blue thing. Between that and the fact that since the launch patch, rubber banding has gone and I'm getting far less of the shocking framerate slowdowns I was getting before (still not acceptable by any stretch).
There's still a whole lot wrong with the game but now I can see the glimmer of what could be a great game if they make a LOT of changes/fixes. I've had a few enjoyable rounds of breakthrough now.
It's all well and good for adults like us to be able to spend 60+ quid on a game and shrug if it's not turned out to be what we wanted. But put yourself in the shoes of a young kid without a chunk of disposable income who's had to save up for ages or wait for a birthday or xmas for the game. A big event for them with all the anticipation. Must be a terrible let down. it's for people like that that EA/DICE have a huge onus to get their fingers out and get this game up to an acceptable state as quickly as possible.
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