How I learned to stop whining and just play Battlefield One.

[Tekky]

Colli and Ulric are extremely aware that my experience with the beta of BF1 was dreadful. Hit registration was awful, I frequently had 8 hit kills and tanks were freakishly hard to deal with. I also feel that the map choice in the beta was terrible, as DICE clearly had better maps that they could have shown off. Overall I was very unimpressed and had decided not to buy it. Then i realized that COD would have a very low population as a result of the decision to bundle the Modern Warfare remake with the new game. That's definitely not worth my time.

 

Still, I needed a big-team multiplayer shooter to play for the next year on-and-off, as I always do. I figured that the beta of BF1 would probably not be representative of the servers on release, since EA always has problems allocating servers for betas. I don't know why, but it's a significant issue. Regardless, I'm glad I picked it up.

 

 

BF1 functions as a more distilled version of BF4. Individual player ability is greatly overshadowed by cooperation, as it should be in a Battlefield game. I've unsurprisingly spent most of my time playing as Support, which has "LMGs", the ability to drop ammo, and mortars, limpet mines or repair kits. LMGs are more LMG-alikes, or rough IAR equivalents like the BAR. I've made most use of the MG 15, as it has a large enough magazine size to effectively take control of the improved-accuracy-while-firing mechanic, which has finally been brought back to Battlefield. It's things like this that help illustrate the difference between weapon classes, which is far more pronounced than any previous title. Support also has access to the Madsen (yay!), the Lewis gun (which is sadly pretty awful), the Benet-Mercie (Hotchkiss Mark 1, and a little weak IMO), and the Huot Automatic Rifle (I have no idea what this thing is, but it looks hilarious). You can probably see that they've had to look around a bit for weapons to populate this game. Since they wanted to continue to make automatics numerous, only the Scout class (Recon from older games) has access to bolt-action rifles. Assault gets access to a plethora of SMGs and shotguns, and Medic uses primarily semi-auto rifles, though they may get access to automatic weapons later (I haven't played them enough to know). Frankly, I would have liked to see bolt actions be the main focus of the game, but I'm not sure how they could have reasonably achieved that without limiting class selection or something equivalent.

 

I've mainly played conquest, as my adventures in TDM were pretty lackluster. TDM feels very random and even though I won most of the games I've played (compared to 28% in conquest, which is statistically amazing), it's been a lot less interesting than large-team gamemodes. Conquest allows you to make full use of every piece of gear, and 32v32 results in some pretty amazing pushes. I remember a particularly good game in which I ran across a large steep hill while mustard gassing and mortaring people as we swept from spawnpoint to spawnpoint all the way across the map. I've learned that I really like gassing people. I'm concerned.

 

Map options are extremely varied and all pretty good. Some of the smaller ones end up just feeling like killboxes, but large conquest maps are incredible. I've seen a map with several hills split by muddy rivers and populated with small fortifications, all in front of a massive double control point fortress. Zeppelins can be called in, as well as dreadnoughts and huge armored trains, depending on the map. This type of extreme firepower is at great odds with the close-range focus of the game, and the fact that melee weapons are intended to be a viable option. Bayonets allow you to charge people down from relatively long range, and other melee weapons have distinct stats and the ability/inability to destroy or damage certain objects. There has been a large effort to reduce weapon overlap, which has resulted in nearly every weapon having a niche, but at this point I feel that most classes have clear upgrades from low-level equipment. This was part of my gripe with the beta.

 

Vehicles feel a little strong. I realize that this is WW1, so tanks should be properly horrifying, but they are absurdly safe at the moment. They can now be repaired while inside the tank at any time by the driver, as well as supplemented by supports with repair kits. They have regenerating ammo, which means they can stay at medium-long range and provide support fire at nearly no risk to themselves. This aspect of them needs to be limited slightly, as it results in many games with the top player having scores like 30/0 or 40/5. Planes feel pretty good at the moment; They are relatively difficult to down compared to other Battlefield games (probably the lack of guided missiles), and provide a very hard counter to tanks. However, the large amount of AA turrets means that they can't perform their function properly on some maps. Pretty much everything feels as though it has a purpose and appropriate counters though, so minor tweaking should iron this out.

 

 

All in all it's pretty good. They've also put a lot of effort into making sure everything is as historically accurate as possible.

 

Yup. Historical.

[Belesarius]

Good write up Tekky. Almost makes me want to buy it.

[SergeantMatt]

I've mainly played conquest, as my adventures in TDM were pretty lackluster.

Play Operations, I've literally played nothing but Operations since I first tried it. Best game mode by far.

[Tekky]

Play Operations, I've literally played nothing but Operations since I first tried it. Best game mode by far.

 

I'll give them a shot. My experience with them yesterday was that I couldn't find a game.

[SergeantMatt]

I'll give them a shot. My experience with them yesterday was that I couldn't find a game.

Been working fine for me, full 64 player matches every time. I like the maps on the UK vs Germany front best, but they're all good.

 

Still annoyed that they left out RUSSIA AND FRANCE IN A WWI GAME for DLC though.

[Tekky]

I'm confident the DLC will have enough stuff in it to keep me happy, that was another reason I went with BF this year. I'm expecting a lot of weapons (probably only one or two per class per DLC, but with the variant system it'll end up being more.)

 

 

On a different note, the in-game weapon stats are complete lies. Like, even the damage number is a lie. I have no idea where they come up with those.

 

Symthic to the rescue: http://symthic.com/bf1-stats

[RobotMinisterofTrueKorea]

I've been playing a fair bit of BF1 lately myself. I would like to second that Operations is a pretty great game mode.

[Collimatrix]

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to point out that that pistol is a 1911A1, which is from 1924 and therefore anachronistic.

[Bronezhilet]

Literally autist.

 

 

But yes, BF1 is pretty fun.

[Tekky]

I'll be streaming it a bunch tonight, if anyone is interested:

 

https://www.twitch.tv/tekkyscelltv

[Waffentrager]

I'm confident the DLC will have enough stuff in it to keep me happy, 

 

Seeing how short and basic the War Stories are, you can probably expect some for Russia and France's DLC as well. Not like it adds anything to write home about gameplay wise, but more amazing cutscenes I'm all for. 

[Khand-e]

Seeing how short and basic the War Stories are, you can probably expect some for Russia and France's DLC as well. Not like it adds anything to write home about gameplay wise, but more amazing cutscenes I'm all for. 

 

Hopefully it's not the usual pattern EA/DICE has done with Battlefield since BF3 where It's literally "5 DLCs for $15 a pop", most of which has content where half of it will die after the first couple months.

 

Seriously, I don't mind some DLC since it's pretty obvious it's not going anywhere at this point, but theirs is so mind numbingly awfully planned out.

[Waffentrager]

Hopefully it's not the usual pattern EA/DICE has done with Battlefield since BF3 where It's literally "5 DLCs for $15 a pop", most of which has content where half of it will die after the first couple months.

 

Seriously, I don't mind some DLC since it's pretty obvious it's not going anywhere at this point, but theirs is so mind numbingly awfully planned out.

 

Well every Battlefield game since 3 has had the same system regarding DLCs. So can probably expect the same of BF1, especially after Battlefronts DLC mess and shams. 

 

 

Battlefront shilled Space Battles for DLC...

 

Battlefield 1 shill Trench Battles for DLC when?

[Sturgeon]

[Collimatrix]

I was just about to post that.  Best physics engine!

[Donward]

 

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

 

[EnsignExpendable]