Battlefield V

I would say that something interesting maybe the medic class could have implemented on it is the ability to drag teammates in multiplayer, but have it so that other classes that drag the wounded out accelerate the bleed out counter, while medics can stabilize teamates and move quicker when dragging.

Otherwise I would day I struggle to really think of gadgets after thinking about it that wouldn't be too game breaking (like a self revie gadget similar to that in hardline, or deployable armor plating kits, adrenaline speed boosts that can be applied to other players or other stuff) so I honestly would Give DICE some slack in that regard.

I still feel a bit nitpicky that the M1 carbine is still in the assult class (it has carbine in the name...) but that's just my OCD.

Otherwise I feel like the grenade launcher carbine might be interesting to say the least...but if they are just importing carbines from BF 1 I feel like they could do it a bit faster like 2 "legacy" weapons ever other week. The PO 8 artilerie is interesting...but I would rather prefer to have the m1911 carbine or C96 carbine.

That's just me though...

(Update: it seems they edited the category for medic to read "bolt action carbine" instead of just "carbine". Frankly on one hand they answered my nit pick, on the other it seems the PO 8 carbine might go to the assult, because from what I know it is not indeed a "bolt action carbine"... otherwise I am rather hyped for the anti-material boys anti tank rifle...)

Edited by Btothe3rdpower on May 3rd 2019 at 10:37:02 AM

So the P08 is a Recon primary weapon, and it's RIDICULOUS. It has no range, so-so damage (24 or 25), but the magazine is massive (33 rounds) and accuracy is great: the spread pattern is almost completely vertical, and if you're not countering the recoil, at short range if the first shot goes center of mass, the third will nail the enemy right in the head. That and upgrades allow you to equalize hip shot accuracy with aimed shot accuracy, making you a very interesting, short-range ninja.

But, that's not the only thing the Recon is getting. In two weeks, the weekly reward is... the Boys anti-tank rifle. If you can slap a 6X scope on that thing... it's gonna hurt. Sure, you'll most probably have to deploy it like a MMG to hit anything (see: BF1's Rocket Gun), but I'll be more of a danger to vehicles than Tromboncino's launcher.

They aren't going to limit it to damaging infantry and light vehicles only, are they? Or, at least allow us to damage tanks by shooting them in their weak points, which would be a bit closer to real life?

I noticed that light and heavy vehicles have different resistances to whatever you're chucking at them. So they don't really need to tweak the Boys rifle all that much, you'll still have to shoot the Tigers and Churchills a lot to do any significant damage, while (most probably) being able to wreck a Staghound or Pz 38 with three to five shots. I'll look at my Twitch clips involving fighting tanks to check the numbers and circumstances of landing crippling shots to engine, tracks and turret.

That and I really hope it won't deal more than 90 dmg to infantry with body shots.

Edited by NotSoBadassLongcoat on May 14th 2019 at 1:24:13 PM

The Boys is back in town.

So, it's absolutely overpowered when it comes to infantry. If you can see the target well through a 6x Scope (that can be mounted on this beast), it's dead.

But, try to hit a Tiger tank head-on, you'll deal a 1 HP glancing blow.

Between that, it works well against transports and stationary weapons.

This new map in Greece strangely reminds me of... well, several games. Sniper Elite 4, Just Cause 3, World of Tanks, Overwatch... why is it that I recognize Greece's beaches via virtual facsimiles than I do it's actual landmarks?

Also, there's been a gradual trickle of information suggesting that the next big content update is going to introduce the Pacific Front. That's a guarantee for Imperial Japan to be added into the factions, but I wouldn't be surprised if DICE decides to hold off on the Yanks for a bit longer and chooses another scenario the British were involved in - say, the Battle of Singapore.

And yet another Internet Backdraft (or perhaps Internet Firestorm?) is erupting against Battlefield V, this time because EA is (likely idiotically) removing Frontlines and Domination from play.

Regular modes at launch and advertised, removed.

What's the given reason? Are they trying to encourage people to play Firestorm?

The official(ly bullshit) "reason" is allegedly low player counts in the modes.

The real reason appears to be that such modes offer such high XP rewards for various things that it completely bypasses their new microtransaction XP boost things.

If the low player count reason holds any water regardless of the XP situation, then BFV has a lot lower player count than anyone believes.

They can ditch Domination if they keep Squad Conquest as a permanent mode. And Frontlines... You don't know the meaning of "tedious" if you haven't tried Frontlines on Hamada with two equally skilled teams. I remember being dragged back and forth across the bridge for an hour or so with no resolution until someone fucked up and we got chased all the way back to the British spawn.

That's not tedious, that's a somewhat close approximation of symmetric real war between two evenly matched armies. An utter stalemate until either someone pulls off a brilliant maneuver or one side makes a crucial mistake.

If you want tedious, play modern Conquest. It's tedium with flags.

Conquest has had problems ever since BF 4. Mostly on account of either poor design (map and/or objective areas), too many flags, too fast capture rates, insufficient reason to hold flags (no vehicle spawns, emplacements, Commander assets, etc) or a combination of all of the above.

The mode thus devolves into either merry go round flag zerging with very little contact with the other side (Running Simulator) or a game of whack a mole randomly seizing or attacking flags with no real order, flow or front line.

Whack a mole happened a bit in BF 3 and earlier games mostly on account of people trying to solo cap by way of ejecting from planes or using quad bikes or etc to sneak away from the establishing front lines. It was however not a first reaction, it only started happening if one side got too much of an advantage more often than not.

It also doesn't help that modern Conquest is usually predetermined in outcome in the first 3-5 minutes. In BF 3 you could get some epic comebacks if you had a skilled squad or two joining in (or an Admin-executed team shuffle) even if you had a several hundred ticket disadvantage in some cases. There were no gimmicks such as Behemoths or biased cap rates to facilitate this, just better design and execution.

I wouldn't be so sure of Behemoths providing a sure-shot last-minute comeback. Most of them were just false hope for the obviously less skilled and less coordinated team.

That and, say what you want about Conquest (and I'm going to add a litany of colorful curses to that), but at least it's fast. Twenty minutes tops, and one side's done.

The problem with tedium of playing Frontlines on Hamada was focused on the fact that there were EIGHT capture points on that goddamn map. When it was three to five on others. So you had to grind through those eight, and every stalemate prolonged it until one side got tired and everything fell apart. Hamada is not a good Frontlines map, and a barely better Breakthrough map.

Seconding the Behemoths being useless in most cases. Everybody's gotten used to taking those things out by now so any sort of advantage they once offered has become moot.

Well, except maybe that French super-tank from their set of DLC maps. Since players can control it's direction and which control point it attacks and all that, I've seen several situations where it's sheer tankiness helps it recapture several control points from enemy control.

Still sounding like real war, more than Conquest ever is.

Chapter 4 trailer:

Looks like the devs are finally trying to Win Back the Crowd— we got a semi-frequent map release now, with Marita, Provence, an Under No Flag map, and Metro Remake teased, with promises of the Pacific War too. Reception definitely is in "universally praised", as least if Youtube and Reddit are to be judged.

Edited by SantosLHalper on Jun 5th 2019 at 10:13:57 AM

Wonder how they're gonna balance the Welrod pistol. It's bolt action, meaning you're gonna need to place your shots carefully, and the caliber lacked any real punch or range, which will force players to attack up close and hit the target multiple times. And since stealth is generally very situational in most battlefield games... yeah, not seeing much use for it.

It just needs to do as much damage as the Webley Mk VI. That will be enough.

That and, have you seen the rate of fire on Delisle Carbine? "Bolt action" in BFV is surprisingly... relative.

Edited by NotSoBadassLongcoat on Jun 8th 2019 at 3:33:57 PM

The Tides of War Chapter 4 timeline is released.

I have to say, this is looking a lot like the Tides of War in my head when I first heard it announced. We're getting four new maps in the next three months^note the rumour engine does say Provence and Lofoten Islands will be 5v5, but frankly this is a vast step up from prior "progress", and an indeterminate amount of new weapons and vehicles. I'm glad to see DICE is stepping up their content, and I only hope that they'll be able to deliver the high quality the fanbase has been hoping for this summer.

That and they're desperately trying to revive the faltering Firestorm (it's not as badly propped up with a stick as COD's Blackout, but the popularity drop is noticeable in searching and waiting times). Now if only they restored the Duos mode they keep disabling (mostly due to incompatibility with weeklies, I assume), it'd be great. Also, yay berets. I will finally have more awesome headgear for the game, particularly for the Allies.

Frankly I honestly believe that firestorm is one of the things that hurt the game more than it ultimately helped. In the process of diverting resources and time into development, not only did they take away from developing more content for a game that frankly still is in need of it, but also ultimately subjectively failed in the goal of making a long term profiting competitor to other battle royales.

Sorry if that's word salad, but frankly I have no idea what any of these companies are thinking when it comes to developing battle royales aside from "its a profitable market". They should have realized not only would it be a blatantly bloated market, but they are only ultimately hurting their product in the attempt to compete with a product that frankly is in the position to certainly win in the long run due to a number of valid reasons.

1. Focused niche: The fact is, in real life...if you are attempting to compete with another entity unless your willing to drop everything and are willing to crunch and focus to always be better than the competition in what they are good at...they will likely ALWAYS be better than you unless they make mistakes. Fortnite, Apex legends, and other battle royales that focus primarily on themselves as battle royales will almost always be better at what they do in the long run than COD, Battlefield, and most recently Fallout because all of those games are not ultimately as focused on being battle royales. They will develop content for all their modes and ultimately the spread of resources will produce subpar products that will struggle to compete and remain relevant with their competition (a competition in which can focus and refine ALL their assets in improving their product in the areas that matter, and ultimately invest less as a result of specialization in that field)

2. Customer Investment: consider the point above, would you willingly invest more money into an unfocused product (in the long run with competition) with already a large down investment, or invest into a focused product (in the long run) who has NO initial investment? The fact is if you are just looking for a battle royale not only is infinitely cheaper to pick up Apex Legends or Fortnite but also it is easier to convince and in some cases trick the consumer to invest into the product through microtransactions. Most people tend to subconsciously remember the larger investments when they purchase a product, go above 40-50$ and most people (outside of wealthy) tend to remember the value of that product and are hesitant to invest more unless said product is already in their mind worth the initial investment and that it is a good investment to invest further. However, if a inital investment is light to non-existent it is easier to justify further investment into a product. Where this gets devious however s that with the pricing of microtransactions, unless bought in bulk it's subconsciously harder to keep track of the total value of your investment into a product (this especially works in children). Ex. try to remember the total money you invested in fast food, soda, or coffee you have bought in the past month. Unless you keep consciously keep track of those small purchases, you would likely make a much larger investment than what you imagine. Now imagine if all that money was going into an experience that was ultimately given to you at first "for free", I am certain if asked players who invest in microtransactions would be unable to recall their total investment into a product, and in some cases likely underestimate their investment. All of this explains why battlefields and other AAA microtransactions can come off as unpalatable in comparison to free games microtransactions.

3. Failure to execute/lack of consideration: I will be honest and say that this reason is ultimately what hurt battlefields "Games as a service" models profit the most. The fact is the battlefield as a whole community did not even consider or request for a battle royale mode in their game, primarily because battle royale is so polarly different in both theme and style of gameplay from the battlefield experience we have come to expect. The decision to attempt to jump on the "battleroyale" bandwagon ultimately resulted in delivering a product that ultimately left some battlefield fans disappointed, as well as failing to capture a good chunk of the battle royale player base (primarily due to the reasons above). What's worse...

4. The game missed its window of max profit due to an almost inevitable trend: The game was released unfinished, lacking in content, and ultimately lacking the very features they wished to profit primarily off of in the first place (battle royale AND microtransactions) Not only did this fail to draw the battle royale community, but also didn't allow for any after profit until many months after release. In which time...not only did they miss their biggest window of potential players to market their microtransactions to, but ultimately left their community on a dissatisfied drip feed of content that personally I feel has left the battlefield community relatively jaded.

The fact is, ultimately even if the controversy the game had done damage on the sales and public opinion(an issue I am not touching with a 50ft pole as to not ignite a flame war), It was EA and DICE themselves with their decisions that ultimately hurt the game FAR more...

A fact I actually feel sad about as BFV has introduced features that have I personally believe have added more depth and improvement to the current battlefield gameplay such as better penetration, the introduction of fortifications and buildable, and dynamic movement systems.

I hope this is decently thought out.

^ You nailed most of it. The only thing you forgot with regards to Firestorm is that the rest of the game was designed around that, not being a Battlefield game. The cosmetics, the poor and scarce maps, everything being a microtransaction or some kind of currency^note That's partially a remaining legacy of the notorious pay-to-win mechanics of Battlefront II but it's also emulating Fortnite's V Bucks., the COD/PUBG style gunplay of minimal recoil and zero spread, weak and less than useful vehicles and a number of the animations were battle royale inspired (revive comes to mind) and the COD killstreaks Squad Call-Ins were at least partially thought of that in mind (the V1 can be called in with a specific flare in Firestorm).

Edited by MajorTom on Jun 23rd 2019 at 5:19:50 AM

Season 4 is in, and guess what. The Boys rifle got smacked with a serious nerfbat. Now it's only borderline more powerful than the G95 against infantry, but the Tier 4 AP ammo upgrade allows you to actually ding a Churchill front armor halfway across the map (specifically, from the radar station on Aerodrome to the inside of the hangar - F to C). Sure, it's Cherry Tapping since it deals only 3 damage, but I feel that now this niche weapon works like it should.

Also, I've heard about new weapon leaks, like the PzB.39 and the Broomhandle Carbine. The PZB is even more gimmicky than the Boys, it's got an ammo rack bolted on the right side, and after every shot you open the breech, eject spent casing, put a fresh round from the rack, then close the breech, which is just as slow as you think. The Broomhandle carbine has smaller ammo capacity than the Luger Carbine, 20 to 33, but I think that it will either hit a little harder, or fly a little farther (Luger Carbine has no range).

And the season pass outfits are pretty bitchin'. We get two US uniforms, with a bare and camo net M1 helmet, and pretty cool ponchos and a garrison cap for the Germans (sadly, the garrison hat doesn't include hair, I wish it could), and a MOTHERFUCKING NINJA OUTFIT called Nachtigall at level 39.

Edited by NotSoBadassLongcoat on Jun 27th 2019 at 1:46:01 PM

Why hasn't anyone posted about the horror known as the Finger Gun? Sure, it seems cut and comical at first... until you have to reload. At which point your character BREAKS THEIR OWN FINGERS AS IF COCKING BACK A HAMMER, ALONG WITH THEIR FINGERS!

Al-Sundan still missing in action, but Marita is in...

And half of that goddamn map is the craziest I've seen to date. It's a town of narrow streets and brick houses... and you can build ramps on the roofs of those houses, allowing you to run across the roofs between the points D, E and F. While you're mostly shielded from enemy snipers by a fuck-off huge mountain.

Also, somehow, Germans paradrop on the Fjell basespawns now. Which is infinitely infuriating as everyone knows you're coming in and in the unfortunate event of getting pubstomped, you have absolute zero way to unfuck the situation.