Really nice post!
I hope you dont mind me doing a friendly argument. I also like to add that we come from similar backgrounds. Grew upp on quake 3 and UT 2004 games.
-Community and solo play. I agree with people playing solo is a struggle. Blowing up heli in spawn is just trolling but i think it happened once in my 45h in the game. Its an easy patch for dice non the less if it will become an issue. (indestructible first 30 sec of a game). While teamplay is lacking i played with a friend who played BF for the first time in his life. BF can be really intense so i don't think people really dont use their kit for other player cause of solo mentality its just more that they are fully engaged with managing themselves. Specially when you need to manage your machinegun, give people ammo and ress people at the same time. I find it to be a far worse issue when we have 30% of the team playing sniper or assaults running in circles around the map with a shotgun. I think we need to give some people the benefit of doubt. Community is also something that isnt static, it will change. For me personally i think its a bad idea to give support both healing and ammo. That makes sniper and assault solo-play classes. Support is the backbone for ALL infantry support and with an LMG with no real suppression mechanic its hard. Engineer is mostly doing its own thing. IMO assault should be medics and support LMG ammo. In this way we kind of force teamplay instead if having support not being fire support but all the support.
-Mapsize. I agree that the maps are rather small. Liberation peak is not really a small map but it lacks meaningful terrain outside the center. Its also a sniper hell with people hiding on rocks as you pointed out. If we get a bit more cover and spread out points i think it could be a great map. Kings battery feel weird to me. The other parts of the map feel rather claustrophobic. SMGs and ARs dominate this map. Kairo is fun and tactical but it can feel random and unpredictable in conquest. The worst issue with the maps is vehicles, specially the heli and jet. So far we only have liberation peak. Playing jet is so far a disappointment. Locking on targets are hard, bombing is not doing much and mostly cause the maps is so small. Stinger and AA is making it even more problematic. Jets get insta locked on flyover so you just pop flares and get out of the map and wait for CD. Heli is even worse. Sometimes you get locked in spawn and if you take a close look at the reveal event it was the same from the top players. You enter the map, dump your ammo and you dive back into base for repair and CD. Less then 30 seconds of fighting cause you get bullied out of the map instantly. Alot of this can be balanced after release. In bf2042 they for example added cover to the hourglass map cause infantry had no where to take cover and i think the same could happen to liberation peak.
-Healing and suppression. Again i think we should de couple support from healing. ATM the LMGs are mostly ARs with large mags with slow ads. Suppression should be a core mechanic. Right now as an LMG player you can get shot if someone is peaking you fast enough so it kind of looses its value. Slowed healing rate is nice BUT its a proactive effect. Players with full HP is not affected by it at all and you kind of want it to be proactive instead making it disadvantageous to peak when a LMG is blasting blasting at you or at least make them spotted like in BFV.
-RPG and C4. I sort of agree with you but if RPG is too good against infantry you will get mad fast. It hurts and supresses and i think that is enough since infantry is not what its supposed to used against in the game. C4 throw range i sort of like. Too short and it will be really hard to use. If its to long it will be abused. I think they are in a good spot right now. Easy to throw into a second floor wall, over barriers or onto a passing tank.
-Locked weapons. This point is a double edged sword. If we want teamplay we want supports to bring and LMG to the party and specially if we get actual suppression. We want recon to play backline with sniper/dmr or carbines. You want the engineers to focus on vehicle action and assault to do assault stuff. As of right now the Assault rifles are way too good with recoil mods. They can dominate close, medium range. LMG dominates no range really and SMGs great for CQB but they can reach out to medium too. Specially the mp7. Carbines are also way to good with certain setups. Problem i have its current state and open weapons is that people will simply not play LMG, SMG or DMR if other guns outperforms it at most ranges. As you mentioned yourself you don't want an engineer with sniper and RPG. If we want assault to dominate in most gunfights with AR and shotgun then sure but we can not have all classes use them. The beautiful thing with BF imo is when all weapon systems are used together. Suppressive fire for the LMGs, assault pusing the frontline, engineers engaging tanks and pushing with assaults while the recon spots and try to provide cover from range while providing a foundation for the squad to spawn from.
We are all free to express our opinions and i think its important to encourage conversation. I hope you continue with elaborate feedback like this.
Ps. English is not my native language so please have some oversight.
Hey, thanks for your feedback, always appreciated! (seems like we're in agreement for some points) and raises a few points the devs might still want to read as well.
I'm sure you're right about people coming around to understand the game better. It's more of a "hey it wouldnt be a bad idea to give new players a quick rundown on how you lose games / score points." for newer players.
splitting up healing and ammo is perfectly fine. But it wont resolve the - insta heal / no suppression issue.
On the sniper point, I dont think the people making the 'lens flare' memes / posts realise their idea of a fix is the same picture without the intel, which is the same situation but arguably worse... which I find hilarious, which doesnt change the fact that they still need to land their shots. Now at least you know you're being targeted by a gun that has a heavy advantage over you.
On the vehicle part, I think it works, but you need more experience, which we didn't get to have time for in this beta alone, yet true that it's harder to learn on such a cramped surface. I do agree that the TTK on air vehicles is still very quick (just like in Battlefield 2042). the amount of stinger shots you start with may be a bit overdone.
The issue with suppression is that there is none like there used to be in BF3 / BF4 which brought debuffs & gave points for the player laying it out. That in combination with almost instant healing makes a healing kit useless unfortunately. Imagine giving someone floaties to visit the desert or sunscreen for cave exploring.
The whole point of reducing C4 throw range is that you cant just 'outgun' the engineer vs vehicles. So I agree with the RPG aspect but it doesnt make sense that a point blank shot at their feet doesnt even kill them when 2,5 can take out a tank (with the high autoheal time, 2 sometimes didnt even do it, only a direct hit, which is absurd).
For the locked weapons part: I'm advocating FOR not agianst, but allowing the option will lead people to playing the locked variant eventually anyways. When it comes down to playing the actual objective (if you've played a lot of battlefields at least, and or the ones where suppression existed) you'll notice that sooner rather than later the players run specific weapons for specific roles. If you do not force people into locked weapons (which I could live with) you're most likely going to end up with lobbies of players not playing the objectives, runnign snipers and RPGs. Changing the capacity to kill with RPGs & be stealthy with snipers is FOR SURE going to lead to that. People arguing for any of those points; locked weapons, no lens flares, deadlier anti personel RPGs must take that into consideration (or are me-me-me players).
I'm open for further feedback. Glad to see the dialogue evolve :)
