All aboard the BF5 hype train

[StarfisherEcho]

Well points are one thing. My concern is how the scoring system plays out in GC. It actually sounds like we can make it work, assuming we get server controls. Hold spawn rounds were fun and I'm sad to see that go, but this new system could result in fun close rounds as well.

[KoffeinFlummi]

Just started playing the beta yesterday, so here are my first impressions.


Setting

I am a big fan of WW1, especially as a Battlefield setting, since DICE can't just introduce tons of annoying gadgets, fire-and-forget launchers and other annoying crap. In that respect this beta fulfills my expectations. You got your mines, you got your grenades, your class-based things (syringe, ammo etc.), but that's it. Now obviously there's a lot more scopes and fully- or semi-automatic weapons out there than there probably should be in a WW1 game, but that's fine.

I'm currently split on the gas stuff. It didn't see much use in the games I played, but I generally like the idea of the gasmask making you unable to aim down sights. It might be useful if you spam a flag with a bunch of gas grenades in an organized setting, but that remains to be seen.


Tech

for a proper in-game server browser. Performance for me was surprisingly good. With a GTX660Ti I wasn't expecting to get decent performance, but I get a solid 60 FPS with medium settings, so I'm happy there.

The game has been fairly stable for me so far; minor lag spikes, and only a few connection issues (I'm assuming I missed most of them since I missed the start of the beta).


Gameplay Changes

From what I've seen so far the game seems more innovative than BF4 was. I like a lot of the smaller changes, like being able to choose what kind of plane you want. In theory that should give more depth to the air game (although we might just end up with one being clearly better than the others). I like the stationary weapons, they actually seem somewhat useful. I like that only the driver class can repair vehicles from the outside, making vehicles more valuable.


Gamemode Changes

(Disregarding the timer stuff, because I missed all of that)

I'm split on the Conquest changes. At the moment, as Zebra said, it's basically a reverse bleed without ticket loss on spawn. On the one hand, I kind of like that it decreases the importance of a single life; it seems appropriate for the setting. I'm not sure how it would work for GC though. It's probably going to be slightly better for campaign balance, since capturing flags would be "buffed", while outkilling the enemy team would be useless, unless it's used to cap flags. I would like to see how the "hold spawn" situations of past campaigns would have looked like with this system.


Conclusion

In short, I kinda like it. Still going to hold off on purchasing for a few weeks after release though.

[Róka]

wrote that before I got a chance to play a round or 2 after they removed the time limit. the mode does feel slightly better without it in that the rounds are generally closer than they were with the 20 minute limit. with the limit once you got a small lead the round was basically over because there wasn't enough time to make a comeback. but to call your team point gain a "reverse bleed" is just being facetious. the mode is simply a rip of the domination mode from CoD: you gain points by holding flags, and that's all there is to it.

there is no benefit to defending on a team level unless you hold every flag. you gain team points faster if you have more flags, therefore you always want to be capturing flags. actual conquest mode just required a majority for a bleed, didn't matter what majority you had. there's no reason to say "eh we don't need that E flag, we have the bleed, we can defend what we have" and let the enemy come to you, thus bleeding them from defensive positions - the way you could mount a comeback in the actual conquest mode. constantly attacking until you are completely trashed by the enemy zerg or you all cap the map is the only real focus of the mode, especially if you're trying to mount a comeback. then on the squad/soldier level in public play there's no reason to defend because you get astronomically more points for attacking and capturing a squad ordered enemy flag than you do defending a flag, so once again you're better off attacking. no part of the mode makes playing defensively have any benefit.

Okay, I understand exactly the issue you see now. "there is no benefit to defending on a team level unless you hold every flag. you gain team points faster if you have more flags, therefore you always want to be capturing flags. actual conquest mode just required a majority for a bleed, didn't matter what majority you had." Like I said, I noticed when the map was all-capped the point gain was 1 ticket/sec. So regardless if you hold 4/7 of the flags, you want more, and the enemy team is still gaining points, just at 75% the rate you are [which is still pretty slow because you're not even gaining a ticket/second with 4/7 flags (1 ticket every 1.75 seconds vs 1 ticket every 2.33 seconds)]. I'm guessing this is their way of hot-wiring multiplayer matches to be "close-games".

Now on whether this is really bad or not I'm not entirely sure. On one hand (the old conquest), in GC when you hold the majority flags you're scrambling to hold those flags and keep the bleed - trying to take more usually ends in losing some (with the exception of some of the landslide victories/campaigns). This supports the kind of gameplay where you have attacking/defending squads, and exciting firefights/sieges on flags between those squads. On the other hand, the new conquest would reinforce the end-goal being an all-cap, and in GC that usually ends up being constant merry-go-round capping (maybe the most plausible strategy being leaving some trails of 2-3 squads on flags previously capped while the rest of the team is leading the merry-go-round).

[matsif]

On one hand (the old conquest), in GC when you hold the majority flags you're scrambling to hold those flags and keep the bleed - trying to take more usually ends in losing some (with the exception of some of the landslide victories/campaigns). This supports the kind of gameplay where you have attacking/defending squads, and exciting firefights/sieges on flags between those squads. On the other hand, the new conquest would reinforce the end-goal being an all-cap, and in GC that usually ends up being constant merry-go-round capping (maybe the most plausible strategy being leaving some trails of 2-3 squads on flags previously capped while the rest of the team is leading the merry-go-round).

more or less sums it up. keeping people around anywhere is really just a wasted resource, while in previous games you almost always kept people around to defend your bleed or prevent the enemy team from gaining a larger flag majority. this is partially a map design issue as well, but the mode in general does not promote playing a game where being conservative and defensive is the best option, which at least could have occurred in the real conquest mode with tickets. sure you could play it like traditional conquest and just sit on 4 of 7 flags, but then you're just going to get zerged on one flag and lose it because there's little reason for the losing side to defend what they have, plus they get a train or a zeppelin or whatever else DICE has in store for these "behemoths" to basically allow them to cap multiple flags at will without much the other team can do. as the winning side there is little incentive to hold back at all if you know that stuff is coming, plus you'll win the round faster with more flags, so you might as well just do your best to all cap the map and then worry about defending to gain a larger lead.

don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we couldn't make it work here with some adaptation time and the appropriate server controls assuming they exist. but there are definitely issues with the system for our style of play that imo dumb team level strategy down quite a bit, which is a big portion of how we play the game here. the FC position for one loses a lot of value if there's no tickets to keep track of to force your decisions and dictate where people need to be. good SL cohesion becomes vastly more important and having a bunch of mobile squads not attached to any specific area is much better than setting up distinct defensive points and training why those points need to be defended. things like lanes in karkand or the hill on caspian just won't exist in this game mode, those players are better off just removing themselves from the enemy team's fire and capping something else to keep the point gain in the inevitable game of hot potato that will occur.

[StarfisherEcho]

Dunno. If you can detect the enemy's main thrust, stall it and counter elsewhere, you win. Stalling requires defense in place.

The meta will evolve as we learn the mechanics. It might start simple but I expect we'll eventually see the same depth as previous titles. Just directed differently, probably.

Still not sure how the hell you FC this game though.

[Calloutman]

Dunno. If you can detect the enemy's main thrust, stall it and counter elsewhere, you win. Stalling requires defense in place.

The meta will evolve as we learn the mechanics. It might start simple but I expect we'll eventually see the same depth as previous titles. Just directed differently, probably.

Still not sure how the hell you FC this game though.

+1

I think FCing will be possible with being in game and having the minimap expanded. You can see your team on there, and enemies where spotted. Not as nice as BF4 as you don't have direct views of where all the squads are, but it's manageable I think.

[StarfisherEcho]

I mean, yeah, you can do it, but they've explicitly removed anything that might help people fill a commander role. Even said so in interviews. Blergh.

I finally played a round and I'm astounded at how smooth it runs on my old ass hardware (GTX770). Gameplay was fun enough. I only played medic with a semi-auto DMR-ish thingie. Felt like a DMR. Reviving felt hard for some reason - I think the paddles make you think you can just fire randomly whereas the syringe implies accuracy.

Also, WWI = everyone using automatic or semi-automatic weapons! Of course!

I want to see a few more maps before I go full grumbly bear matsif or .. well, is anyone ever excited around here? Fields I guess. Before I go full Fields. Seems like there's the bones of good game here.

[ZebraPeps]

I'm excited about BF1, finally a setting where there's no friggin lock on dumbfire bullshit
Regarding the conquest and discussion about "merry go round", holding flags or just zerging there actually are incentives to cap and hold certain flags, some for strategic reasons as in where the flag is situated, i.e. routes to other flags or high ground advantage, but probably most important - flag assets such as tanks/planes/horses (and stationaries (AA/field cannons)).

[matsif]

patch out today apparently gives everyone every unlock on everything. if you had something you wanted to test but missed the bugged battlefield.com/careers page or got caught up with the squad rank up bug, today's your day to try it out.

recommend you try out the MG15 suppressor on support (the only reasonable LMG), mondragon on medic, automatico light infantry and MP-18 experimental (burst weapon) and maybe the shotgun on assault, and the various vehicle loadouts if you're vehicularly inclined.

[Jokerle]

a pity I am not at home to play the beta with all unlocks...

From the alpha I remember that the current "tanks-are-so-strong problem" gets solved by the assault class and this
anti-tank gun you unlock late. Shooter wont show on the mini map, no large rocket-projectile, ...

Shotguns were also damn good in the alpha.

[A Docile Sloth]

I'd like to chip in with respect to FCing (mainly because I saw someone talking about needing to work out how FCing will work out). I don't know how many people remember FCing in BF3, but I see FCing in BF1 as basically the same minus a MAV.

BF3 had no commander mode and we FCed perfectly fine there. Open the mini-map/sit in the spawn screen and see all the friendly guys in blue and bad doods in red. Just have to make sure everyone is spotting. Sure, you can't zoom in and look at the little people running around but if the SLs are communicating properly and everyone is spotting, it's fine. You just end up losing one spot in game for the FC, so are fighting 31v31 (unless the FC goes Rambo) but strats are easily set up to work around this (remember we had 6 campaigns in BF3 with this limitation). I see zero issue with FCing in BF1.

[Jokerle]

but I see FCing in BF1 as basically the same minus a MAV.
.

Do we know all gadgets yet? Maybe there are observation ballons of some kind

[ZebraPeps]

but I see FCing in BF1 as basically the same minus a MAV.
.

Do we know all gadgets yet? Maybe there are observation ballons of some kind

That'd be cool

[ZebraPeps]

In regards to the new/revised conquest point system there are some huge misconceptions within the BF community in how it actually works compared to "old conquest" with the ticket bleed system. I didn't quite understand it until I found some posts discussing the mechanics (obviously a lot of players never really understood the present ticket bleed mechanics either ).
Anyways, thought I would share the links here so anyone interested can read for themselves. In essence, the new conquest point system could actually fit very well with the Global Conflict concept...

Reddit post - Why New Conquest Ticket Bleed Promotes Better Gameplay - A Design Analysis
BF1 Beta forum post - How to Win (and come back) in New Conquest
Another BF1 Beta forum post - What's with all of the hate for the new conquest?
(read the reply by "ikjadoon", might need to scroll up a bit - also refers to reddit post above)

[matsif]

BF3 had no commander mode and we FCed perfectly fine there. Open the mini-map/sit in the spawn screen and see all the friendly guys in blue and bad doods in red. Just have to make sure everyone is spotting. Sure, you can't zoom in and look at the little people running around but if the SLs are communicating properly and everyone is spotting, it's fine. You just end up losing one spot in game for the FC, so are fighting 31v31 (unless the FC goes Rambo) but strats are easily set up to work around this (remember we had 6 campaigns in BF3 with this limitation). I see zero issue with FCing in BF1.

if I remember our single BC2 campaign correctly (which I probably don't, but whatever) the FC just played in a squad or ran solo as that game didn't even have MAVs. it's going to be possible, there's just no good tools for it and the role overall is going to be diminished due to the game mode changes imo.

different subject, did anyone see anything about clan tags anywhere? if we can't signify armies things are going to be slightly more difficult in terms of server organization.