The ex DICE veterans are a huge loss to this series.
They have absolutely knocked that "other game" just released and free to play out of the park. The levels of detail & polish put this game to shame. Bring them back at all costs.
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@I_DYN4MO_II'm not buying the narrative that Battlefield was good because those devs were working on the game, and because they left it became bad.
Everyone knows 2042 was rushed and EA scaled back the development resources after the bad launch. Details and polish only happen when there's enough resources and time for that. Look at Cyberpunk 2077 before and now, 2042 literally had more detailed water. Even then, every new or reworked map has shown 2042's devs can do good maps. Compare literally any AoW map to Altai Range, Silk Road (even pre-rework Hourglass felt like it might be better), Operation Whiteout, Giants of Karelia or who knows what else.
There was a 2042 UI/UX designer dunking on Elden Ring's UI, who left 2042. After some updates, 2042 now has a settings menu that handily beats Onion Ring's, off is not the same as low Fromsoft! And it's a step above the settings menu of many other games that in their enum options will use an arbitrary number of very low, low, medium, high, very high, ultra, and randomly pick if the specific setting ends on high, very high or ultra, AND make them loop so you have to guess what the highest is. 2042 has a very simple and clear solution to this.
Was that guy an atrocious UI designer and the game's UI only got good because he left? I kinda doubt it. Again, the game being rushed seems the more likely explanation. UI gets done last. And those settings squares definitely step into polish territory.
Furthermore, I'd like to mention Alara Prime, another game made by the magical ex-Battlefield devs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSOllRWeFnk The game doesn't look to have anything particularly innovative like The Finals, rather it looks like yet another CS clone. We'll see how it goes once it releases but I think this further makes it clear veteran BF devs aren't some magic sauce you add to a game and then it suddenly becomes the best thing ever, and not having them on (like how CS2 doesn't have BF devs) means the game becomes bad.
@Lady_One Not sure that holds up. BF1 had a three year development time, the same as 2042. And...well just compare the launch states. It sort of speaks for itself.
From what I can gather, post BF1 is when the exodus of Dev's began and since that time we've had BFV and 2042. I think a case could be made that we've seen a fairly solid decline in quality.
The sales since BF1 would also back that up too.
From what I can gather, post BF1 is when the exodus of Dev's began and since that time we've had BFV and 2042. I think a case could be made that we've seen a fairly solid decline in quality.
The sales since BF1 would also back that up too.
@BFB-PraetorianIn many ways BF1 is the best BF-game ever made (BF4 was more fun though) and it the was last game, before the live-service-model "destroyed" the BF-franchise.
I think the devs actually matter less, the big problem is management. There are no 'gamer-soul' left in the decision-making and everything is about money at this point.
We must see what the next game does for the franchise. I think that if they disappoint once more, the franchise could end up dying.@BFB-Praetorian2042 had devs working on a new version of the engine at (or around?) the same time which from what I've heard second hand from some dev podcasts might be the main reason and supposedly the engine work took 1.5 years?
I do wish info like that wasn't behind paid podcasts...I'm not gonna pay to learn why 2042 was bad, lol.
Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age Inquisition also blamed Frostbite, so I think that gives the engine issues even more credence. Unless you think it's become a meaningless excuse...
Besides that, 2042 itself also has larger scope than BF1 with Portal, 128 players, maps too big for 128 players, 5 platforms vs 3. I think the rumors about the game making a shift from BR late into development hold ground given the launch AoW map design and Exposure afterwards. 2042 launched with 14 maps, sure 6 were remakes however that's still work playtesting or making brand new assets for decently old maps, it's not just taking the last game's maps from 2 years ago made in the same engine, but removing the annoying blue filter.
The game has kept on improving, and that's with the clearly reduced resources after the mass refunds or old devs leaving. I think it's a safe bet to say that if the game took another 4-6 months to release with development at full speed, it would've equaled to 1 year or more of what we got post-launch (mostly bugfixes, huh?) and there would be a lot less refunds, and in turn a lot more development after launch, and in turn things like more maps.
BF1 released a year after Hardline, were they rotating studios like COD or was Hardline really just that much of a BF4 DLC? I really don't know.- @Lady_One Frostbite has been a problem for Dice for a long time. In BF1 we got the 'we do not have the tech-meme', from the developers. Doing all kind of apparantly simple things were a mess even in BF1. Things like showing achievements/unlocks while playing, double XP-events etc etc all had issues, because of Frostbite being a problem.
Frostbite looks nice and mostly runs fine (BF1 looks nice even today), but it is apparantly hard to use for development and loosing the old developers is a problem for Dice, in this regard.
But still, 2042 is not a matter of bad 'coding', but rather stupid design decisions and bad game-mechanics.
Hardline was not made by Dice, it was another studio.- @cso7777 Agree completely. The design decisions for 2042 must have surely come from management.
The low regard Battlefield seems to be held in shows in how everything seems to be downgraded. Look at the care, love and craftmanship that went into BF1 and then see how we're losing everything in 2042.
1) No server browser.
2) Platoons gone.
3) Servers downgraded. And BFV struggled on 60Hz.
4) The absolutely abysmal level of content.
I can feel myself building into a rant so I'll stop there or I'll be listing grievances all night.
My main concern is that EA has already decided that the future lies in their sport franchises and the utter abominations that are cash cow Battle Royale's like Apex.
It's the only reason I can think of that Dice would attempt to turn Battlefield (their baby) into whatever Tarkov/Royale monstrosity it was intended to be until Dice regained their sanity mid development.
I really hope Vince Zampella and co can turn it around 🙏
@Lady_OneHardline was made by Visceral studios. Likewise Portal was developed by Ripple Effect Studios not Dice.
Dice themselves announced that amongst their many failures from management on down was that many of the developers are new to Battlefield and that a period of adjustment was going to be needed.
When the company themselves are saying the developers are largely noobs and need to 'Git Gud' then there's not much room for debate.
You are right that it's not entirely the developers fault. The disastrous decisions made by management and losing the software engineers that ran Frostbite for so long hurt too. BF1 ran on Frostbite and it played beautifully. (Haha for a Battlefield game I mean 😂)
- @BFB-Praetorian And at the end of 'BFV' is when it bled dry: the exodus was complete (old-hands, that is). '2042' suffered from new intakes, and we saw first hand what happened.
- @BFB-Praetorian Nobody seems to recognize the development of 2042 was during the pandemic shutdowns. Devs taking breaks, getting switched to working from home or remotely, completely disconnected from what other teams would be doing. I point the finger for the failures of 2042 at the managers who clearly didn’t communicate to the devs in the trenches what was wanted, or worse gave them the direction that resulted in what is clearly the worst game of the series. I cut them some slack because of the siloing they had to work on, but there was no overall command and control (or like I said, managers had the wrong vision)
Making a Battlefield game is a team effort. From the coaches (managers) to the players (developers).
EA has been rebuilding the Battlefield team from the top down. Hopefully the next Battlefield game is good and launches with a scoreboard.
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