General Gameplay Feedback
So a few gameplay issues/balances I think should be looked at. Others may disagree but each to their own.
1 - Revive timer is way too long, feels like you can kill somebody and they have a full 30 seconds or so before they actually die. Should be no more than 10 seconds as trying to kill a group or hold an angle means nothing if they can all be revived instantly, also on the revive topic, downed players get up way to fast, they shouldn't be able to be at full health and shooting back at you instantly, should be a delay where they are low health or stuck in a short animation to give the player shooting an advantage rather than a disadvantage when fighting them. Along with that, dragging players. Cool mechanic but I should be able to shoot the person getting dragged to kill them or cancel the revive attempt. Feels like a free revive at no risk to the one doing the reviving as they can sit behind cover to do the animation.
2 - Engineer stacking on vehicles - May become less of an issue when the game comes out but there should be something that limits how much a vehicle can be repaired while in active combat, or some splash damage to the people repairing. For active combat, I mean if its actively taking damage or firing. On top of that, the people repairing should also die if a vehicle explodes rather than being able to just walk it off. Give some reward to whoever took it out. The drivers of vehicles should not be allowed to be revived after it blows up. Not sure if this is a bug though or they hit E as it was dying.
3 - Sniper glint should be reduced but not removed. Its a bit over done. Not much more to say here.
4 - Suppression or aim punch - not sure if its a bug but everyone is 100% accurate after being shot or shot at, can't suppress snipers as they can shoot back at you at any point with 100% accuracy. I should be able to suppress them to move between cover. If not suppression, they should at least have aim punch when you shoot them. I could headshot them with a rifle and they aren't affected at all.
5 - Spawns - I could be wrong, but I feel like I have people spawning behind me a lot when attacking objectives. They should spawn on it or around their friendlies not behind the attacking force. On top of that, I can be actively shooting someone and another player spawns on them. Might be a bug but it has happened a few times already.
6 - Shotguns - Personally I feel like assault shouldn't get both a rifle and a shotgun. A shotgun is balanced as great in CQC but bad at range, a rifle is great at medium range and worse at CQC. With both, they have the best of both and no drawback to their kit except ammo. I feel like if you want a shotgun, you need to accept you lose out on your range performance as a way of balancing how good they are at CQC. Regarding the ammo, there are enough boxes just laying around that it becomes a non issue for the most part. Its annoying but not really changing much. Maybe give them something else like a breaching tool or something, pretty sure that was in the trailer.
7 - Vehicles - They do not handle very well. I'm not sure what it is exactly but they just don't feel right while driving them. Air vehicles feel sluggish and hard to use, not sure what's happening with the attack helicopters rockets but they go all weird. Could be user error though. The gunner on the attack heli feels weak also with a lack of magazine and splash damage. The AA sucks in general as it has a short magazine and does no damage to anything other than aircraft. Its an auto canon and thus should shred infantry and light vehicles. Its trade off is having no armour. Another thing is there is no feedback for someone driving a vehicle as to if someone is repairing them. Should have a sound or indicator that they are being repaired. Just a QOL item I think should be added.
8 - RPGs and Anti air launchers - The RPGs fly way to fast and are too easy to aim and use. Players can peak for less than a second and shoot before a vehicle can return fire. I understand IRL they are fast but looking at previous titles, they should be slowed down to give some back and forth with vehicles. They also should drop a bit more to make players think before just quick peaking to fire. On to the AA launchers. Why can you take both AT and AA launchers. Should be one or the other like previous titles to make players choose what they want to deal with. Not have one player able to deal with everything. This also promotes the teamwork aspect that DICE is after. With the AA launchers, they are way too good ATM. 600+m range, 6 rockets, fast lock and fire and forget. Can kill helis and jets in 1 shot most of the time. 1 player shouldn't be able to kill all of a teams air assets in 1 life from almost anywhere on the map with no support. Sure you can hide behind hills but the asset becomes useless and stuck in spawn the entire game. I feel like AA launchers should be more of a deterrent for air vehicles going after infantry on points rather than a guaranteed kill. That's what the AA vehicles should be for. It should be what covers most of the map and becomes a target for each team if they want to control the air.
9 - Damage drop off - Feels excessive how fast it drops off. There is no graph or anything in the stats that show what the drop off looks like but it feels like its set to full damage at sub 10m and minimum damage at over 50m. Does the muzzle velocity effect it? If it does, maybe show that in the stats page for the weapon.
10 - Weapon balancing - Some weapons feel utterly useless compared to others. DMRs for example. Absolutely no reason to take a DMR over anything else. Worse recoil and worse fire rate. The assault rifles dominate as they always do but the SMGs also feel like assault rifles half of the time. It more seems like fire rate is what matters most rather than damage/recoil. The LMGs are okay at what they do, they seem to be in a pretty good spot. The M4 is by far the best carbine. Of course it is because of fire rate. The AK carbine feels so weak in comparison to pretty much everything. Its not winning any engagement apart from one where the other player doesn't shoot back. Another thing that not may people use is the thermobaric GL launcher. Feels a bit cheap that it locks you in place and damages you. Should maybe reduce how much your movement speed is affected just a bit.
11 - Headshot damage - Why is it so low. I understand you can get attachments to increase it but where is the reward for good aim. 1.25x damage? may as well just keep aiming for centre mass. Takes the same time to kill as it does going for headshots. Should be bumped up a lot more as a base to reward good aim/picking your shots. You are taking a risk aiming for a smaller target and should be rewarded when it pays off.
12 - Sound - I feel like the vehicle sound, footstep and gunshot sound need a boost. Well vehicles other than the jet. Why can't I hear a multi tonne tank until its 1M away. Should be loud. Same with footsteps. Someone sprinting up behind me, I should hear and be able to react. Same with gun sounds. Guy shooting 3m behind me, I should hear him shooting. This maybe a settings issue on my part though.
13 - UI. The UI is hard to navigate. Can't find half of the settings/controls I'm looking for and modifying weapons is a pain. Half of the settings are hidden in submenus on submenus that aren't very intuitive. I would rather have more main submenus that have to go searching though all of them to find what I'm looking for. On to weapon customization menu. The attachments should be what comes up when I press modify with the skin or whatever being on another menu past that. Shouldn't have to click 4 times on the same gun to change the attachments. The attachments are the main draw to the menu and should be front a centre not behind multiple other menus. I feel like skins, favourite and firing range can all be in the attachment menu off to the side rather than where they are now.
14 - Movement - It feels a little bit fast in all but that could be due to the small maps rather than anything. Just feels like you can jump, sprint and slide around corners and peak a bit faster than you should be able. Won't be too upset if it stays as is but would be pleased if it did get slowed down a bit. Maybe reduce how accurate weapons are while jumping or sliding to dissuade people from peaking while doing that.
That's all for now. Over all I'm pretty happy with the game and will be playing it regardless of if any of these changes are made. Thanks for the hard work.
