Good return to form, stick the landing.
I hopped into this series via BF4 and stopped after the disaster of 2042 so I'm biased in that way. That being said, playing the beta this weekend I'm thoroughly impressed at how they've returned to the style I fell in love with. TLDR; game plays great, but needs a couple of balance fine tweaks, and maybe some optimization, without which may blue screen your pc due to kernel errors.
Pro's:
-It's plays just like I remember, with some newer mechanics and smoother overall gameplay. Classes are back, and in doing so team roles are more etched out. Maps I've played have either been wide open or cluttered streets with lanes. If promises are kept to keep things grounded and in theme this can be a great battlefield game I'll happily fork my money over for.
Con's (keeping in mind this a beta and probably a early version of the game build):
-Firstly, I feel all the guns are a little too lazery there's no reason a SMG should be able to hit as accurate as DMR past 50m, i feel this can be addressed by adding some recoil to some guns or bullet spread to others. (this is also an issue that's already been addressed by the dev's and is just general balance things). As it stands there's almost no reason to even use the DMR because you'll just get hit by someone with full auto from an SMG or AR before you get the 3rd body shot it needs to kill anyone.
-I think tanks could be spared enough health to maybe take a 4th rocket without a repair torch since most likely once the challenge goes away most people will focus DPS unless specifically working on a team. (that's more for after launch and again is kind of just balancing)
-Why are iron sights and the standard mag guns come with counted in the accessory points for equipping things? if you plan to keep it that should at least be lowered, as it stands the one sniper in the beta will only afford you 4 attachments at most in any configuration. (personally I'd scrap the attachment point system, it didn't exist in 4 and wasn't really a problem to begin with).
-Maps were really only a swing of either wide open or congested (I know i said this was a pro but here me out). in general the maps were good but may need a slight relocation of certain assets to make points slightly less open for snipers to pick off the team capping them. the congested maps are great for run and gunning but also lack those longer lanes that would make even a DMR worth trying to use in them. I know partly this is due to the 64 player games but still could use some small tweaking IMO.
-Playlist matchmaking (works for the beta but should be changed in the actual game), part of why BF4 was so good and the latter's fell off is the removal of this feature, it showed how much ping you could expect form the get, community servers where awesome and it was much simpler to squad up that way, and some even allowed voting for map rotation and game modes. Having weapon restrictions, hardcore only, 24/7 TDM Lockers/Metro i remember fondly. BRING SERVER LISTS BACK!
-As for performance, I didn't have to many glaring issues which i know some did, but occasionally the game would crash when exiting a match, and it even blue screened my pc once when I alt + tab'd, which I'm sure is related to secure boot. (I'm tech savvy enough to turn it on but i shouldn't get kernel errors to run your game). The kill cam would occasional just show nothing ( really copying BF4 here, I was almost ready to have killed by tree with weapon branch for a min). there were many connection issues (which ill chock up to it being a beta), and sometimes I'd also have weird graphic issues like suddenly seeing a purple wall spanning the whole map (again beta and no GPU driver update for it specifically).
