The Critical Analysis of EA/DICE
BFV is officially dead as of June 2020. Wow. I would never have thought that one could mess up a Battlefield to such a degree that it goes down as one of the biggest flops in the history of game deve...
Forum Discussion
@PaterSjarel I have read your post and the comments above. I have provided XP to your post to show appreciation. In my opinion criticism is something which should always be allowed unless with arguments and written without shouting and swearing.
-
Let's state first that I'm currently in love with BFV. Spend to much hours in it and not looking to buy any shooter game at this moment to replace it.
To come back about you talking about the trailer, and the beta I have played, I was bit disappointed about not being a more realistic WWII game indeed. Although there where already so many WWII shooters.(Where the single war story player I think they met more the expectations and realistic. Although a political correct sauce was implemented , but that was logical in the current situation world was in, as also discussed here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/WW2-girls/td-p/8982111/jump-to/first-unread-message)
So then the Tides of War (TOW) events came, and really for me this is the engine of BFV. Every Thursday I wanted to get home asap from work to play the events with a beer and some snacks. Annoyed when another appointment came across. Then mostly still starting to play although way to late in the evening.
Then came the waterfall of bugs, one positive thing it brought me here in this fine community. But the bug part and your story about glassdoor gives me a good picture. Myself as a former IT manager for a large international media company can imagine what is happening there. The TTK panic, the bugs, bugs returned. There is no test environment like in BF1.(At least not for players like myself)
For new players the game was / is very disappointing due to the many bugs they are still facing. Weapons not unlocking instantly for them is really disturbing, and no solution until today. (Besides manually forcing a synchronization by EA support)
Personally I'm not that salty, but see more and more salt ingame and on reddit. The part I like is that with the picture contest, also allowing some sarcasm or jokes about Dice, the community managers doing there best to keep the community happy and alive. I can only provide them a big thumbs up.
-
Maps are fine for me but looking indeed forward to the latest update where a new map will be implemented. The game dead in june2020 I don't think so. Also with Rush and frontlines servers where never been so full. I have played with so many new players, starting up Battlefield.
What I do think is the BF community will change, some people leave and look for alternatives, Like is BFV a game for a diehard realistic player? (perhaps when community servers have been used more) Currently I see it as a family game for entertainment , enough content , possibility's in game and have fun.
And the management? They will be promoted or leave in a reorganization. Looking skeptical to a new BF version in the future, yes for sure. Based on s.m.a.r.t. objectives I think management should get targets like: Manage the customer happiness, and experience . (we had the February survey but have not read about the result of that, never
published I'm afraid.) implement a roadmap with deadlines and focus more on this then new cosmetics.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
-
Let's state first that I'm currently in love with BFV. Spend to much hours in it and not looking to buy any shooter game at this moment to replace it.
To come back about you talking about the trailer, and the beta I have played, I was bit disappointed about not being a more realistic WWII game indeed. Although there where already so many WWII shooters.(Where the single war story player I think they met more the expectations and realistic. Although a political correct sauce was implemented , but that was logical in the current situation world was in, as also discussed here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/WW2-girls/td-p/8982111/jump-to/first-unread-message)
So then the Tides of War (TOW) events came, and really for me this is the engine of BFV. Every Thursday I wanted to get home asap from work to play the events with a beer and some snacks. Annoyed when another appointment came across. Then mostly still starting to play although way to late in the evening.
Then came the waterfall of bugs, one positive thing it brought me here in this fine community. But the bug part and your story about glassdoor gives me a good picture. Myself as a former IT manager for a large international media company can imagine what is happening there. The TTK panic, the bugs, bugs returned. There is no test environment like in BF1.(At least not for players like myself)
For new players the game was / is very disappointing due to the many bugs they are still facing. Weapons not unlocking instantly for them is really disturbing, and no solution until today. (Besides manually forcing a synchronization by EA support)
Personally I'm not that salty, but see more and more salt ingame and on reddit. The part I like is that with the picture contest, also allowing some sarcasm or jokes about Dice, the community managers doing there best to keep the community happy and alive. I can only provide them a big thumbs up.
-
Maps are fine for me but looking indeed forward to the latest update where a new map will be implemented. The game dead in june2020 I don't think so. Also with Rush and frontlines servers where never been so full. I have played with so many new players, starting up Battlefield.
What I do think is the BF community will change, some people leave and look for alternatives, Like is BFV a game for a diehard realistic player? (perhaps when community servers have been used more) Currently I see it as a family game for entertainment , enough content , possibility's in game and have fun.
And the management? They will be promoted or leave in a reorganization. Looking skeptical to a new BF version in the future, yes for sure. Based on s.m.a.r.t. objectives I think management should get targets like: Manage the customer happiness, and experience . (we had the February survey but have not read about the result of that, never
published I'm afraid.) implement a roadmap with deadlines and focus more on this then new cosmetics.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
@flyinghorse101 Yes I agree with you. To some degree I understand how things went with BFV, including some of the (not so loved) changes they implemented in an effort to roll with the current situation/sentiment regarding certain topics in the world. The main point I am indeed trying to touch with this post is that I am (looking from a professional standpoint) just surprised by the very bad organisational skills and conduct by EA/DICE during the entirety of BFV's development/life-cycle. Games flop, that is something that can always happen due to a variety of reasons. However, in BFV's case so much could've been avoided if they just organised their work and set their priorities straight. Following the employees' complaints and looking at how things went from a consumer's standpoint something just seems very off with the entire (stakeholder)communication-structure in this company. Things that could and should have been in good condition in a industry of such prestige as we know EA and DICE.
To summarise; games and content change. We might not like all the changes but that's also just the way it is, as new generations of gamers come along and like different things than we are used to. However, the organisational skills, behaviour and communication by EA/DICE has shown to be very amateurish and unprofessional during the BFV development.
Let's hope they at least realised where things went wrong and will constructively build upon this in the future.
To summarise; games and content change. We might not like all the changes but that's also just the way it is, as new generations of gamers come along and like different things than we are used to. However, the organisational skills, behaviour and communication by EA/DICE has shown to be very amateurish and unprofessional during the BFV development.
Let's hope they at least realised where things went wrong and will constructively build upon this in the future.
- @PaterSjarel Yes, and I think most players agree on this post (Post #6) what I would appreciated is a response / memo with lessons learned. An apologie has been given earlier so this should absolutely not be about that or management talk. (I also never asked for an apologie, and besides bugs I kept me a bit away from TTK ) More a lessons learned including a time line , what went on, why some things went wrong and in a technically way described the challenges and though decisions they had to make as well.
Like we had Ribbons in BF1. This was in the early stage of BFV also implemented. I missed the communication about this and was not into the community at that stage that I even missed them when they where gone from BFV. It is a simple example of the roadmap BFV gone through.
From PR perspective, I do appreciate updates like these https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/battlefield/battlefield-5/news/the-future-of-battlefield-v?utm_campaign=bf5_hd_ww_ic_soco_twt_tw-the-future-of-battlefield-v&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cid=63048&ts=1588249950120
Although short it provide players some information about what is going on. These notes have appeared as a response on community feedback.
What is your professional opinion about that?
Cheers,
