Overall Feedback
Started the journey in BF2 and BC2, and have only skipped 5.
Make BC2 again. Or a 3.
Okay all jokes aside, I'm....not joking.
Okay so all jokes aside, I'm being serious.
Aaaanyways......
Battlefield 6 Beta. It brings excitement and hope to the table.
The Mechanical Basics: The back-end, the "feel", the reliability. Generally the Frostbite engine is doing pretty well pushing the boundaries. Of course, there will always be further optimization to be worked on.
However, I joined reliably, I played rounds reliably, and went back to main menu reliably. This feels, on it's own, like a VERY good sign. Feels responsive and capable of working within intense moments where my 2070 SC super is getting pegged a little, and a 7700k is showing it's age.
That being said, it feels relieving on this area.
We come into combat itself. I'm convinced there's just no way to not make "something" totally awkward when it comes to war games. I don't have too many complaints honestly.
I'm sure plenty complain about the tank stacking, but you know what? I think it's hilarious. Call it OP, until some random person gets a 7-person kill at once with a launcher.
The animations, whilst being pretty good, are absolutely hilarious. In honesty, I don't really want it changed much. The absolute jettison-bounce in to the cosmos of bodies near a well-placed grenade....it's gonna be hard for that to get old.
I know many won't agree with me on this, but I don't really care. SO FAR, in the betas, I felt like bullets connected and MISSED more reliably. YES, the 'round the corner bullet is still a thing. YES, you'll see blood explode off the head of a stationary medic you shot with a sniper.
HOWEVER.....I don't recall a moment of any previous game that didn't include that in droves and droves and droves. Sometimes to the point of just plain giving up on it for a bit to try later. This problem, unavoidable in every game, in this particular BF, it felt the best. That doesn't mean it's "THE BEST OMG" no. Specifically from BF to BF generation. I was a massive BC2 and Vietnam expansion player, and let me tell you I STILL to this day visually remember the sheer amount of "headshot didn't count SCREW YOU" netcode we endured back then.
No, it's still far from perfect, but so far, I felt BF6 beta exhibited the least of that frustration. Keep going!!!!
The guns felt pretty good, I suppose. I feel like it's at the point where....like Need for Speed, you can't "realistic" harder with sounds before it's obviously overblown intentionally to "excite" you. This just about hits that limit, but doesn't completely insult you with it either. It's the same with recoil and bloom. It's at the hard limit of being overblown, but not too insulting about it. There's the slide-cancel thing they're looking into, which I did notice once or twice on a match.
TTK is very fast and honestly, I liked it. Keep it hardcore. Headshots should be life-ending pretty fast.
The guns are fast. Modern, and I wonder if TOO fast, which may also give the impression of extreme TTK. Was there bullet drop? I couldn't really tell much with the sniper. These bullet velocities make me question some of this.
That brings me to the sniper class, with the one sniper and 2 DMR's. I liked both DMR's and hated that stock sniper rifle. Slow, seemingly unresponsive compared to every other gun. Granted it was satisfying to get those HS's, I think another sniper would have helped to compare the differences of feel and response, if any. This leaves a large hole with a reference point.
Now even further, I believe the glistening is just.....we gotta get to a better solution to this. Maybe more uneven light instead of stationary light-house beacons. What's the point of the cool suit to unlock for the release with this? It's not camo anymore.
The closed classes felt like, generally, classes. Weapon balancing? Sure! Also with the realistic expectation that modern weaponry is built to DEFEAT and OVERPOWER your adversary. That's the point. So I feel like attempting to "balance" everything into 50:50, you will lose the soul of everything there is to offer. Careful treading.
For me, and this is from Battlefields long-life identity, get RID of the open class stuff. Personally for me, and it's fine if you disagree, but for me, this should be trashed out immediately, and maybe left only for basic deathmatches. Don't tell me you refuse to learn that lesson from the last installments.
Now to the maps. Oh boy, this is heated, I would guess. Listen, I don't dislike the maps during the beta.
On their own, I'm fine with them. On conquest, I don't have many complaints besides a couple minor things. However as we all yell about, they're all small in context and limited in scale. MUCH further heated, is seeing 9 maps at release with 2 being smaller iterations of small maps for different modes. So I see...3....or 4? big maps. That's deeply concerning. That alone looks limited right there.
For prices as these, it's getting hard to bargain for this. I believe strongly that this will need to expand quickly and initially WITHOUT paid DLC to bring that to an acceptable level.
Now, I'm not extremely angry and screaming and hating. I'm just saying, this looks very concerning.
(personally, I never really liked firestorm that much, possibly because it was already a re-added map in 4)
I would have loved a BC2 map, personally. HINT HINT FRIGGIN HINT
Another concern and down-tick as of now I have to say, is the placements of Rush points on these maps. They're entirely too close to together, and completely funneled visually directly at each other.
It creates a full-on hodgepodge of confusion, and completely non-strategic battle.
Maybe this was intended to force as much to happen as possible, which I could understand, but I do hope this is heard. This applies to breakthrough as well.
BREAKTHROUGH!! I'm not upset about it. Besides what is previously stated, I like this mode. It's similar to Rush, but just different enough in concept that it changes battles a little.
Now, this, in conjunction with "point of capture" issues, these should be different points entirely from the Rush points. Having them repeat the same Rush points is lame, they should be different locations and feels. Maybe a possibility (with future designed maps) to somewhat randomized them on a few possible locations within a general sector.
Tanks felt pretty good I guess. IFV's as well. The trucks are fun and hilarious at times. They have their place. Some say OP, some say this or that. That's kinda what tanks are meant to be is overpowered.
I don't have a lot to say, other than coming back to map design; funneling, areas of openness, point of capture placement.
There were some good BC2 and BF4 maps for some of these issues to take notes on.
GURRRPHIX: It's frostbite, it's about what you'd expect. Good looking, detailed, could always use some work but I don't really have that many complaints. It "seemed" like bullet impact smoke impacted performance harder than smoke from larger explosions and launched smokes. Can't confirm, but it felt like a pattern was going on. The occasional IDFK glitch happening that looks like a epileptic nightmare, possibly from a mixture of lighting and smoke's post-processing. I'm sure these will be worked out.
Points of UI: The UI looks sleek, but it's also fairly annoying to customize weapons. LOTS of clicking through menu's to get that new attachment on, or to see what it was. I hope there will be some improvements. I find the same issues I've had across all battlefields, here, where attempting to spawn on a point, or a squad member, for some reason is hilariously difficult sometimes. You end up mashing space bar and click until it works. BC2, again....had the solution, IIRC, or BF3/4, where you can just click their squad name and spawn, completely eliminating the finicky map spawning system. I hope some work there is met, along with suggestion of communication specific to vehicle management. Sometimes the simpler lists work better to create communication systems that work.
Okay, you've probably seen it enough to question, Why do I keep mentioning BC2?
YOU **bleep** WELL KNOW WHY!!!!!!!
Okay...restore your mind back to a time where, BC2's Vietnam expansion comes out.
You enter the first map loading screen with a song you can't ever forget.
You enter the map for the first time in awe and throw the first grenade thinking
"wuuuut comez aaaaftur oooooone? TWOOOUUU COMEEZ AAAAAFUR OOOOOONE!!!"
And you love it.
The maps made sense. The BF2 remakes were gorgeous and brutal. HEAVY METAL.
The memories even BF3, 4, One couldn't withstand the test of time. You know.
And you know we've been watching. With a careful eye.....and waiting.
You have my attention, DICE, with BF6. There is definitely concern, as with anything, especially in 2025.
However, this actually feels like a glimmer of hope.