What happened to the real Battlefield gameplay (a look into it's decline)

As you will tell, I am a long-long time Battlefield player fromn the orignal onewards, so I know the true nature of Battlefield intimately.

Often, when asking for help capturing in a Battlefield 2042 Conquest match, I receive a ‘why bother capture it’s not a tactical shooter’ comment in return. Well, did you not know that Battlefield had its very own popular E-sports league e.g. ESL One?

Let’s take a closer look.

What is it that makes Battlefield frankly Battlefield.  Battlefield gameplay always was summed up by ‘play for the team, not yourself’. This is and always has been the Battlefield mantra for true, long-term battlefield players (i.e. not those just mucking about, essentially 'playing tennis in a cricket match').

Not that the newly enticed players appear to know this. Guess they haven’t looked up YouTube videos on ‘Battlefield tactics’, and ‘How to play Battlefield’. Or even taken notice of the EA created in-game ‘how to play Conquest’ video’s, in which EA themselves state ALWAYS PLAY THE OBJECTIVES.

All these videos will place team-play first and capturing and defence above ‘look at me’ K/D hunting every time. Nothing wrong with being a great gunsmith of course, but in Battlefield this should always be used to assist in either: A) Capturing a target, or B) Defending a target C) helping defend your Team. Note: NOT camping just to get a high kill count.

Proper team play doesn’t happen very much at all now though; the majority of the player-base simply don’t care; they paid barely more than £6 for the game or have it as part of a ‘game pass’ and are just playing just for ‘sh*ts and giggles’. Couple this with the fact that the dedicated BF players have pretty much all left the franchise. See further below for the reasons.
Matches now just feel like a K/D fest of people who could care less if they win, so long as they look good. If you are asking what is wrong with that, you are not a Battlefield player.

The Battlefield ‘experience’ has (cetrtyainly always had) a balance that favours team-play. You could choose to solo-play, however you would always get further and quicker if you played with your squad / team.

For those NOT interested in this style of play there is Fortnite and Cod for example. These fulfil those roles. Don’t get me wrong, for those that like that type of thing, then great - those games are specifically made for that game style. But please, always play the objectives when in Battlefield.

What EA failed to understand (or worse still, simply didn’t care about), is if you introduce/incentivise those solo only game-play aspects to Battlefield conquest mode, you end up with another boring ‘run and gun’ title. The game no longer has its special gameplay, with its very own unique style and feel.

Typical Battlefield qualities.
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  1. Great Squad Play and strong Squad command system.
  2. Commander role to help the team / guide squad leaders.
  3. Battlefield destruction and 'Levelution', that significantly changes the level and how it is played throughout the match (this often demanded a change in tactics).
  4. Player classes. Meaningful differences in the classes. A good squad will mix these to have strong loadout and spread of abilities.
  5. Excellent collection of available guns. Also, a good levelling up experience with a significant number of weapons becoming available as you level. Plus, a large selection of additions that          make a MEANINGFUL difference, becoming available as you progress.
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Unfortunately, I can't deny that since Battlefield 4, EA have twisted Battlefield with each release, and degraded the experience ever since, until the travesty that is Battlefield 2042.

What EA REMOVED from the Battlefield experience upon this release:
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This is easily stated - ALL the above. (Which unfortunately is what made Battlefield, Battlefield).
  1. NO meaningful squad orders possible
  2. NO commander role
  3. NO meaningful Levolution (a transmitter falls of a roof. Uh-huh.)
  4. NO classes (see the embarrassment that is the ‘specialist’ below).
  5. Incredibly poor range of weapons at launch, with a hideous balance.
Clearly took no notice of comments from the pre-release session to evaluate gameplay.

PLUS
  • Removed any kind of scoreboard (engage Woke mode!)
  Don’t want to make anyone upset because they aren’t at the top of the leaderboard. All together now,” Everyone is a winner, yay!”).

  • No-voice comms (engage Woke mode!)
  Don’t want to upset anyone because they were called out for playing/acting like an idiot.

  • No in-game chat to other team
  No longer possible to call out cheats/poor sportsmanship in an enemy team.

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What EA ADDED to the Battlefield experience.
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• ‘ Specialists’.
    o Gave them excruciating one-liner dialogue for the beginning and end of matches. Anyone not immature just found them cringingly embarrassing.
    o Added stupid abilities to the specialists - e.g. use a wing suit to fly like a bird just above the ground across 100's of meters, without loosing ANY altitude!  Just like real life!  ([Edit - Admin.] this           is how bad it has become - every hero movie trope added - to appeal to who exaclty?).

• Unlocks as you gain level (BF always had that, you say?) Ah yes, BUT
   o Let me see, there are:
      Player skins
      Gun skins,
      Vehicle skins,
      Aircraft Skins,
      Skin skins,
      Oh, and did I say skins?
      SKINS.
     (OK so maybe one of those was made up).
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Seriously, that’s how little thought they put into the game. They did include a small small sprinkle of guns and vehicles, but mainly added ‘the shiny’. Obviously the 12yr old players have the have ‘the shiny’, so in they went. I mean which army worth it's salt doesnt have jangly trinkets to add to the side of the gun right next to the ejecctor! Of coruse said gun should also be bright flouresent blue so you stand out like a bright standy-out thing so you can be shot in the first 3 seconds on the battlefield. Talk about developers totally NOT GETTING WHAT BATTLEFIELD IS - jeez.

But they wouldn’t, would they? They got rid of all the previous Battlefield developers, so they could make a game called Battlefield that WASN’T actually Battlefield.

EA thought process and resulting effect:
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  • " need to have a game to appeal to 100% of every other gamer type" [EXCEPT Battlefield players ofc] result: alienated 80%+ of the existing Battlefield community

  • "need to have what Fortnite and CoD use in-game" (have to have the 'shiny' thing) i.e. gotta appeal to immature 12yr olds.

  • "gotta have specialists that have their own look and names" (but not one you truly can make your own, or name differently).
   - Result: no kind of logic in the game, so you end up with a squad full of ‘Boris's’. I mean what’s wrong with 5 of the exact same person in a squad, it’s not like that makes it feel
     ridiculously unrealistic. (Oh wait, of course it makes a laughingstock out of the series). Guess the new 12yr old players probably won’t care!

  • gotta give them stupid cartoon like and mainly unreal abilities
  Oh wait no, this is Battlefield, you should feel like a soldier with human limitations, 2042 or not. Guess new 12yr olds will be excited though - feel like you are an avenger!!

  • "Let’s not do the obvious and make a dedicated game to target this demographic! In fact seeing as we progressively degraded the Battlefield brand in the last two titles, lets twist this
   game franchise to suit! what WE want it to fullfill. And the BF shareholders might become happy again!"
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The sad result is this: they completely alienated and lost 80%+ of the existing Battlefield community as they largely ignored them, and absolutely prioritised making it a * game that allegedly would appeal to all gamer types and therefore make loads of money (mu-ha-ha-haa). How naive. Of course, it’s appeal was not long lasted once played, as it was just a little bit of ‘something’ to many, but not hing at all to the Battlefield players. Subsequebtly, and through ineptitude, arrogance and ignorance, they are left with approx 20% of the original Battlefield players (if that), and a possible new 15% playerr base from the CoD/Fortnite group and others.

Evidence:
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Outisde of the most popular times, conquest matches can take an age to start (2 mins plus), and can be half-filled with A.I. bots. (i.e not enough players to fill the server so it starts with 20 something each side and fills the rest with bots). There are meant to be 128 players in the match. Some game modes won’t start at all (again, simply not enough players in the lobby for a match to even start). And forget playing without cross-play enabled – except at launch there has never been enough players for a PC-player only match to start. I can’t comment on the console only side, as I don’t have one.

The Steam concurrent player count is laughable / horrific (both) depending on your perspective. When I checked last on a prime-time Friday night [14th July], it was in a lowly 109th place. Behind a great may indie games I might add  :-( 
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The irony of it all is this: They have since *tried* to put back in ALL the bits they removed from the original 2042 title (effectively all the quintessential ‘Battlefield’ components). I think they realised the player count was becomming so catastrophically low they needed to try and woo back the Battlefield players. Of course as they have no clue about all the previous titles, what they have tried to re-impliment are a pale comparison to the original. And it was just too late.

The above is my take on the general decline over time, and the lack of care showed for the franchise from EA / the development team for the 2042 title. Also, the degradation of team-play as a side effect of that lack of understanding that the developers had for the title. Don’t believe me – go play Battlefield 4. It won’t look as good, but by goodness it plays a lot better!

Battlefield will never again become what it was, it is now just goin to be another boring, predictable run and gun P.O.S. They will introduce ever more over-the-top / stupid clothing / items with each release and season. Dont beleive me take alook a the joke that is Call of Duty. Ofc no army would ever wear such things - this is how low Battlefield has dropped.  And it is destined to be as terrible and laughable as CoD, rather than the brillaint and realistic looking military shooter that it pretty much always has been.

Wow - you realy read it all.  You dont have to agree with my sentiments, however thank you taking the time to consider my thoughts!

NOTE: I haven’t even touched on some of the many issues within the game - such as balance / stability / maps and other technical issues. To see more on that aspect of the game, take a look at the great little article ‘Jakob’ wrote in the Steam forums
see:  https://steamcommunity.com/app/1517290

Feels good to get that finally of my chest, but I truly, truly wish I didn’t have too… ☹