MBT/IFV Turret turn-speed is far too low, feels like wading through molasses
Armor in this game seems to be much weaker than previous titles in a similar theater of war (BF3/4,) but regardless of the actual "balance" of these pieces, my feedback here is primarily that playing them feels bad.
The only way to adjust your aim to multiple different threats that aren't right next to each other is to constantly swap between first and third person views, which is incredibly disorienting, slow, clunky, and imprecise. They feel unresponsive.
I'm not asking for the turret speed to be totally free, but I do think it needs to be upped significantly, not from some perk or upgrade, but by default. I worry that many players (myself included) will be put-off by how unresponsive these vehicles feel, and neglect one of Battlefield's most core elements.
From a balance perspective I think there are also a few other things to discuss here:
- Infantry is much stronger in this game than prior titles in a similar theater of war. Rockets reload faster. Health regens MUCH faster, which allows infantry to more easily peek vehicles then hide for a few seconds to regen all their health if they got grazed by the HMG or other infantry fire. In BF4 for instance, if you were low on HP, you'd be low for a while, so you couldn't peek without being at risk of dying to a single HMG shot or shot from another infantry. Here there's no risk.
- Tank survivability is much lower. Tanks, as far as I can tell, do not naturally regen to full without engineers. I've also noted that it is much more likely a tank gets killed in only 2 shots in this game compared to previously. When the tank turret speed is so slow, engineers have more time to line up a shot after peeking because your turret simply can't move quick enough to keep up if there are multiple engineers involved. Because of this, engineers will get more rockets off, and "critical hits" that do over half your health seem much more frequent.
- C4 jeep strategies have been a part of Battlefield for ages, but I worry that these kinds of strategies will become overbearing on many maps when the tank is unable to rotate its turret quick enough to respond to a vehicle approaching from an awkward angle. C4 jeep strategies should be high-risk, high-reward, not a first-order strategy to deal with vehicles because they can't respond quick enough. Something to keep an eye on.
The above few points make MBTs/IFVs much more punishing. In prior titles you could mess up and then maybe back out, assuming you didn't drive right into the middle of a dozen infantry, in this game if you mess up you're dead. That's it. Tanks are too squishy and too unresponsive, and infantry are stronger than they ever have been against armor, by a lot.
Keep in mind all of this feedback is before even considering open weapons. Open weapons means that much more vehicle-centric maps will be filled with Engineers more than ever. This is not hypothetical, I played some 2042, and it was not unusual for larger conquest maps to have 28-30/32 players on Engineer per team in a match. This is one of the big negatives of open weapons, when I can use the only class that can deal with vehicles AND the best weapons in the game, why would I ever use anything else? Open weapons further hurt vehicles more than probably any other element in the game.
And just to be clear, my frustration lies in the feel of using these vehicles primarily, due to the turn speed, but I also think that, from my experience so far, tanks have felt much less threatening than prior titles. They've lost a lot of their impact on the Battlefield, and I've yet to really feel like a tank (either on our team or the enemy's) has turned the tide of battle in any way, because they just don't live long enough, and simply cannot handle multiple engineers, even when playing very defensively. Prior titles tanks already had extremely high skill ceilings. If you weren't very experienced with them, and you drove recklessly, you would die. But here the skill floor is much higher, if you aren't already an experienced tank driver from prior titles, I don't think there's room for you to do almost anything, and if you are an experienced tank driver, I think the feel of the vehicle is still just miserable and unresponsive.
Even with tanks that were much stronger, it was rare for someone to go on crazy crazy kill streaks in ground vehicles in past titles. And if they did, a team could band together and take them out by focusing the threat. This was cool. Here it feels like they can get overwhelmed by just a pair of engineers.
TL;DR: Turret turn-speed feels super unresponsive and forces you to constantly swap between first and third person which is imprecise, the game feel is bad and, when combined with how much stronger infantry are relative to prior titles, MBT/IFV's impact on the match feels lower (despite being decently balanced in prior titles,) they feel more punishing, squishier, and more off-putting for casuals/newer players. Balance concerns are amplified further in open-weapons playlists where there is no downside to playing engineer on vehicle-heavy maps.