A long Letter to DICE in hope for Change.

[Exoskelett]

This Topic has been made due to the Experience Changes in the Battlefield Franchise that always drasticly differ from each other.
Every Battlefield Title has had massive Upsides but always included such Negative Gameaspects, even minor things might or did ruin the Games.
At first you might get the impression, as other call it to make their lifes as simple as possible "hate", but its not such a thread and its not my intend to hate on sth i dont like, that doesnt make any sense.
Its a perspective coming from a fan of the Franchise, ever since 1942 and the first time hype totaly kicked in BF2 DEMO.

The reason to start this Topic is because every time a new Title comes up, it brings a massive amount of NO GOs or issues and ever since DICE is not able to focus on negatives in a proper manner of attention,
it would require them to offer a good experience that barely has negatives.

So after testing 2042 and beeing a clear disappointed customer once again,
i went through all older Battlefield Titles and gave them a few hours to revisit them and get the memories in a proper up 2 date shape but also including release experiences from my own memory, aswell as old youtube content.
What i figured out in total was, that it never required many adjustments to make any of these titles extraordinary well Games, very unfortunate alot of issues constantly fell under the radar.

My perspective is an 100% objective focused players perspective, i dont like Conquest much since it always ends up in chaos and i only play it super casually, instead i prefer clear frontlines where the game offers a clear expectation of when and where to encounter enemies,
i do also expect a harsh "punishment" for people that do not PTFO in terms of losing super fast and with a clear indication that players have not performed any good in that match,

while PTFO players shall be rewarded well.

Let me nail down the ups and downs now, i will go over alot of aspects of each Title based on Objective Gamemodes and their respective Gameplay and a few other things.

Starting off with Battlefield Bad Company 2:

When firing up the Game even the Companies Logos are highlighted in a manner that is still surprising for todays standarts.
Usually people tend to skip or even delete these files in order to get rid of them since they are most of the times really awful,
but when firing up BFBC2 it has sth very unique to it, especially audio.
When loading a Map there was great music that introduced with drums of war introducing to the Game.
During Gameplay however there wasnt Music going but the Audio in general spoke for itself.

The Maps have had a clear design towards the Rush Gamemode and they played amazingly well, even to this day i can consider BFBC2 the creator of the rush community that made people spend hundreds or even thousands of hours lifetime into.
There always has been plenty of Cover and flanking routes - the dream of a PTFO Rush Player was born right here.

The Game has managed to provide an "okish" Footstep Audio plenty of times even while there has been many explosions as it is usual for a Title from the Franchise of today.

The Netcode was in an "Okish" state, atleast when you have had a low ping and a good routing towards the servers due to beeing serversided
but this wasnt an issue at any time since you could buy your own server or simply choose plenty of locations theyve been hosted on.

Anticheat (Punkbuster) was in a considerable good state back then, for today it wouldnt be good enough anymore.

When it comes to Gameplay then this Game has had very clear issues back then, playing it today is quite annoying.
So you could only sprint and walk forwards towards your crosshair location, you couldnt sprint left or right side as you can today.
It didnt had Prone, which was sth that people were missing back then but due to the lack of prone, visuals where not as much of an issue as they are today, simply because camping was more restricted or better say less useful.
Spotting was a big issue in BFBC2, you could spot enemies and see them through ground, stones, buildings - literally everywhere.
Another thing that is important to mention, is that you could wallbang plenty of places.
Valparaiso, even it beeing considered one of the best maps, suffered from Spotting the most. Since wallbang was a thing back then and plenty of buildings made of wood and sheet metal it has caused massive frustrations,
without server restrictions and modifications it was barely ever fun. Smoke Grenades were a pretty much useless tool back then aswell since spotting got through the smoke.

It offered a very well made Campaign that was worth to be played.
So overall id say it was a good game back then with its own flaws, however nothing i would touch today again let alone because of the movement beeing so restrictive.

Battlefield 3:

Battlefield 3 was the first Title that came up with a Meme of "Music", you might remember all these videos trolling the so called music which was just some awful bass without soul.
BF3 finaly brought the so missed Prone back into the Game, a feature people loved, movement was much better than BFBC2.
The vehicles and their controls where exceptionally well made, Jets and Choppers are considered even to this date the most impactful tools when flewn correct in terms of impact and damage, next to Battlefield 2.

For the average player the Jets where best to crash into sth but for well experienced pilots they were devastating tools that could decide the outcome of a match.
Whoever has had air superioty from excellent Pilots pretty much also had the control over the groundwars. Admins back then unfortunate had to kick pro pilots due to their impact on the game but heres the very first issue that has massive negative impact on it:

Spotting. The Range of Spotting was almost across the entire screen, one button press pretty much revealed every enemy on the entire screen exaggeratedly said.
Pilots always flew very high, out of any Anti Air Range and flew down in a slow speed to spot out targets and once they acquired any, the chase was on. Once theyve recieved a lock on they used their Flares and went back up high.
It was impossible to get a single AA missile to hit and hence only other pilots that were even better could take them out. I never considered the Jets an issue, spotting was the issue.
It just has replaced the ability from player to spot targets with their very own eyes which made these pilots so devastating.
Spotting here again has had almost the same negative impact on the Game as BFBC2, smoke grenades once again were useless toys that had only one use: to remove a useful slot of your equipment.

The amount of possible wallbangs have been reduced to only sheet metal (fences in example), however bullets could still penetrate multiple targets (Players).
So when we come to Bulletpenetration this is one of the major reasons why operation Metro has played very well in Rush Mode (and even in Conquest with limited players and gear restrictions),
a single well timed flank and you could shoot down an entire team with just one clip of ammo and your sidearm.
The impact you've had back then on the outcome of a Game was the most rewarding experience.

However the first days of Battlefield 3 have not been funny for quite a while, atleast on official EA/DICE Servers, in fact the official Experience was damn awful for PTFO players.
Remember the days on Seine Crossing and Metro first Objectives when people figured that Mortars have a massive blast range and insane damage and you could reload them yourself as a support?
The days where people shot their mortarshell and left the "mortar vehicle" to not get hit themselves.
It took quite an insane amount of time to nerf Mortars but this wasnt an issue, admins restricted the tools very fast and gave the final, much needed, balancing to this Game.
This did also include Playernumbers, because some of the Maps had extreme long Chokepoints (Metro the best known example) and the best Experience has been offered between 24-32 Players.
Every Server that went above these numbers have caused so called "Clusterf*cks", Servers where you would spawn in and instantly die before even playing the Game at all and they were extremly frustrating experiences.

Also people might remember the days where people ran across the Metro with explosive shotgun ammo, all these issues flew under the radar of DICE in their official experiences theyve offered for their players.
All of that was an Admins Job, to fix the Issues that shouldve been fixed by the developers in the first place, if this would not have been possible back then,
then likely Battlefield 3 would not been a good Game since it wouldve only offered "Clusterf*cks", the pure hate of any PTFO and performance oriented Player.

Balancing was also a massive issue in Battlefield 3, AKS-74u was a great looking gun for fans of the AKs, however the gun was simply useless and awful, bloom, slow bullets, non existent damage...
there was a reason every good player stood with certain different weapons: .44 Magnum, AEK 971, M16A3, AN94 etc.
Plenty of guns may have been decent but they never performed this strong and consistent in many scenarios, unfortunate the Balance has never been good enough to make use of all weapons this game has had to offer.
Sniperrifles were quite consistent across the entire lineup but that was more due to the great bullet velocity and bullets hitting multiple targets in a line and the playermodels having a normal realistic size (more about the size later in BF4),
which made headshots nothing easy but with quite some practice very reliable even in close quarters (and yes, includes Metro).

Overall the Game has had a very deep learning curve, no matter if you wanted to be a good pilot or good infantry, you had to put much time into practice but every single second was worth and well rewarded by the Gamemechanics.
Your time spent was never a complete waste unless you spent your time throwing explosives in Metro next to 20 ammo boxes and 31 players of your team but hey,
even that worked out because the Revive mechanics were simply fast and non clunky and the XP generated was great for unlocks.

The first controversy Battlefield 3 has had was the Battlelog. "Old" players were totaly used to have a completly normal serverbrowser on PC platform and every piece of information inside the game itself, instead on a webservice.
People complained about geting Serverbrowsers back into, but they never came in time. However time has passed and now 2 screens beeing more a common thing or PCs simply so powerful that minimizing the game no more is a issue.
Looking back on Battlelog today, after having experienced the most recent titles it feels like a feature you wish would still be used while having experienced the worst Interface ever made with BF2042 in the History of the Franchise.
The second controversy in BF3 was the blue tint over the screen, people didnt like the blueish color on the screen, looking back at the game today however, it keeps it younger than it really is - call it artstyle but BF3 somehow looks better than BF4.
The third issue has been the DLC Politics, nobody knew if you get well made DLCs or horrible ones and prepurchasing wasnt a good idea for the customers, also it was an issue that caused playerbase splitting.
The 4th issue... the Netcode, it was no longer pure Serverside, it was a Client and Servermix - this has caused plenty of issues such as regular tradekills and limiting player skillceilings on the top levels.
The 5th issue: The Anticheat was insufficient, due to the clear increase of players playing the game, there have been plenty of cheaters too. Remember geting killed by a Spawnbeacon or T-UGS? Ye this wasnt a good time and official servers were flooded by these cheaters.
The 6th issue: No Spectator at all, some players were suspicious but you couldnt proof, you never knew if someone was good or has had additional awareness coming from third party software.
The 7th issue: A Big one, a real big one - no Commander!

Due to issue 4, 5 and 6 the Game has failed to establish a esports scene even tho while the game itself was very capable of creating one.

The Mapdesign to keep it short has offered the most amazing Maps for Rush and PTFO Players, Damavand Peak was just as special as operation Metro or Grand Bazaar, these Maps will always be in my Memory and keep a place in my heart.

Battlefield 3 in total has had extreme weakspots but thankfully you could fix alot of them by owning your own Servers. Spotting and super strong air vehicles because of that, useless smoke Grenades, sad balancing (mortar, explosive rounds etc.)
unfortunate Serveradmins couldnt adjust damage numbers or tweak bloom etc.
It also had a quite decent Campaign people wanted to play, the complete staging when you did hop into the jet for the first time - what a pleasure to be seen.
It wasnt considered to be as good as BFBC2 and it doesnt really have replayability, but it was a great addition and an amazing showcase for the Frostbite Engine.

Battlefield 4:

It was the first ruined Title in the history of DICE, the first title with insane amounts of complaints.
Not just did it came way too early (not even considering its state) while Battlefield 3 Players still had a blast but it caused a big Split in the Community and ruined both alike.
Players that went to the "New Hype" were quickly disappointed but the set of new Maps and various other things kept quite a considerable amount of players for the time to come.
In the meanwhile Battlefield 3 has had suffered a playerbase loss, no more going forward in terms of content and the time for the game to die out has come.

It was also THE title where the scaling issues (playermodels beeing super small size and everything in terms of distance beeing messed up) started.
On Beta and even on Release Siege of Shanghai Servers simply crashed constantly, the start of the Game was very well rushed and the product was unfinished.
The very first PC title i have ever felt the need for and refunded was exactly Battlefield 4, i never have seen such a bad state of a Game in the shooter franchise before, especially ive not seen a Title from DICE in such bad quality.
BF3 back then has recieved a few passes on bugs from my side due to the Engine beeing so new and good looking.
Battlefield 3 also has had plenty of issues but overall none of them were so bad, the majority couldve been fixed by Admins as said above and the Game itself not beeing a complete mess allowed meaningful changes to get a good experience still.
The Music overall wasnt any better than BF3, so was the introduction.
The Netcode ... or let us call it "Its Magic" was the best known Meme for a long time, the game was hardly playable for good players because of the Netcode simply beeing so bad, that it restricted the Skillceiling of individuals to literally Zero.
Bullet Penetration has been removed entirely, gone are the Operation Metro days where you could kill 10+ people with one magazine Clip of your assault rifle by penetrating your first target and hitting everyone behind.
Gone were the days were a single player had a good decision and earned a solid "payout" and massive satisfaction from playing.

BF4 may has had recieved a Operation Metro remake but compared to the BF3 version it was way worse, not because the Map itself has gone worse but the Gunplay got dumpstered down so hard, that BF4 as a Title was considered a casual friendly game by Battlefield 2 and 3 Veterans alike. Same with Jets, gone are the days were pro Jet Pilots had their dogfights on the ESL, controls and overall damage of Jets have been nerfed to a level,
where the amazing pilots known from Battlefield 3 said good bye to BF4.

A very well change however was how the revive has been balanced, the rez trains were gone, no more had you to kill the same player 20 times due to revive spam but so were you farming hundreds of deaths on Metro.

As Battlefield 3 Spotting was still a big issue but clearly not as big anymore, plenty of changes have been there but in total they were never relevant enough. Spotting through smoke grenades still was a thing and even worse, Infrared Sights were overused and ruined any tactical thinking or PTFO oriented gameplay. On EU atleast there wasnt a decent administration at all anymore, there barely has been thoughtful rush servers that killed players for the use of IRNV etc.
I suspect it came by the Game simply targeting a casual audience and hence so was the administration of most servers.

The Maps became much bigger, less thoughtful and pretty much EMPTY worse than like Operation Firestorm and in total it already was THE END of the Rushcommunity.
There was no way to cross open empty area that has had absolute zero cover without proper functioning smokegrenades.
The Mapdesign was really bad for Rush Players, the lack of bullet penetration downgraded Operation Metro into something terrible, the overuse of Infraredsights from hardcore Casualplayers caused only harm and never had value for the gamemode.

It was a big punishment for experienced Players, not just were you killed by "Magic" around the corners more often but also tradekills almost were 100% present between high skilled players and you just couldnt get a good flank going anymore, by the time you have finaly killed one target without penetration, 20 other people have turned and shot at you.

In terms of audio and audio awareness Battlefield 4 was a massive downgrade, its barely possible to hear footsteps anymore if not indoor.

The Audio has gone to waste by the believe an explosion 500 meters far away is more important than the guy with a knife sprinting behind you.
Having revisited the Title today, i felt like it doesnt even have Footsteps anymore at any given time, causing the feel of pure chaos and an unease experience in total.
Not just do mindgames based of audio not exist but it makes you uncomfortable while believing that theres possible enemies behind you.

Battlefield 4 has then finaly introduced the so wished Observermode, veterans and esport interested players from BF3 were hyped to finaly get an esports experience in this game, but that hype only lasted untill people tested beta and then experienced the Release.
Quickly players noticed how many things have been made worse in the Gameplay and Mapdesign, no longer was this Gunplay good enough to put/invest enough time into but so were Airvehicles.
The Impact these Vehicles had have been nerfed by nerfing the Vehicles but never was the issue of spotting or thermal sights touched in a meaningful manner, a big fail decision that caused so much harm, that Jetpilots said "not going to play this".
As much as i was annoyed from BF3 Pilots back then on Caspian Boarder in example, i was very able to understand why they couldnt enjoy it anymore. How can i expect pro pilots to enjoy this game, when i as an above average pilot at best see the issues already and not enjoy the flight anymore in this Title.
However chopper pilots also recieved the nerfhammer but it wasnt as impactful since you could fly around plenty of buildings to not get constantly hit by AA due to the worse input and vehiclebehaviour this game has recieved.
Littlebird in Battlefield 4 still is a very hard to learn but super satisfying chopper that can still cause impact on the games outcome if the maps provide enough cover and due to its highly responsive behaviour.

Battlefield 4 has had recieved a grey tint instead of a blue one and overall the graphics did look heavily outdated and worse apart from certain well made map areas such as the rooftops of floodzone compared to BF3.
People yet again have had to complain about the colortint, all they wanted is a well saturated and natural looking game.

As said at the beginning for BF4, the scaling issues have started HERE. For some reasons maps felt much bigger, while they were much emptier than BF3, the bullet velocity was damn slow in the early days and suddenly sniping wasnt good anymore in close quarters.
Grenades still to this day have the normal BF3 flying curve but they feel entirely weird when beeing thrown, like rocks with the weight of a feather.

Battlefield 4s Campaign was still sth worth to atleast be played once but it wasnt as good as Battlefield 3 and graphics barely beeing improved, if any improvements at all.

In Total Battlefield 4 was the Title, that not just shouldve been delayed by default since BF3 was still young but also a broken mess to say the least, that shouldve never been released this fast and early.
Almost the entire effort put into this Game was a waste, the only upside it has then had was a finaly good Netcode that came years late at a time the majority of playerbase has wanted to say good bye to the franchise.
Netcode and Observer were Features that came out of this misery of a Game, great things by default but introduced in the wrong game, when BF3 shouldve recieved it and was requested for.

Battlefield Hardline:

Pretty much the same as Battlefield 4, once again broken and too early in its release.
Its the title id like to say it doesnt exist and was never made, so i just dont talk about it, also since i have never purchased it after beta playtesting and watching youtube content.
I didnt even try to visit it one time, so cant say anything about its current state but i dont hear people or friends talking about it ever since released, so i guess not worth anyways.

Battlefield 1:

Finaly a enjoyable Battlefield Title came on the market, well optimized and decently enough polished on its release day.
It has had a well introduction in total, finaly the so missed great music of Battlefield is back in the Franchise.

What is that? Breakthrough??? Oh wow, an amazing replacement or addition for the Rush Community that has its very own atmosphere, finaly no more camperconquest where people walk around like headless chickens or not at all.
A solid and again well thought mapdesign with decent amount of cover and proper Unitscales on all Assets, unlike BF4 it looks normal again in that regard, even if you sometimes cant find a tree that you can take cover behind.
But... where are the Custom Servers? DICE? DICE Please? And where is the Anticheat? Marketingfight? What does it do when Cheaters spawn in Sentry and kill the entire server? Nothing apparently.
Where is Punkbuster? ... Assaultrifles etc. have quite massive weapon bloom?
Still people can spot through smoke grenades but it doesnt matter much because Maps have better cover and tanks are more tanky, no problemo and its not as easy to use as before anymore.
But dang, why are reload animations so slow and in general why is it more like a movie, these exit vehicle animations are annoying...
The Campaign? What is that, thats not a Campaign!

Thats how Battlefield 1 introduced itself to the playerbase.
The early days felt like playing BF3 on operation metro with an administrated server, while it wasnt. People ran through the argonne forest with shotguns and mps and gone all out rambo mode but so did the cheaters.
Ragehacking was a very common issue that ruined the complete experience this game had to offer, returning back to this title doesnt feel right at all.
It may has great atmosphere and finaly a good objective based Gamemode for those PTFO lovers but with cheaters emptying the server this is soon to be doomed.
The still existing Observermode soon proofed that theres an extreme amount of dirty cheaters across the entire scoreboard but especially in the hardcore casual audience that still cant aim properly even in a much easier title like this.
So many people have i seen tracking through buildings and other obstacles while they barely maintain a 0.3 K/D to either stay low and quiet or simply because they are completly terrible in Shooters and wouldnt even take an advantage out of any Wallhack,
thats how bad they were.

In Short it was a decent game and i had a blast but the day the cheaters came to the conclusion that Fairfight doesnt work and doesnt do the Job we have first thought back in its introduction during BF4.
It have been proven to be complete marketing BS from the AC Dev by experiencing it in other games such as Rainbow Six Siege, it barely busted anyone at any given time, not even blatant sentry hacks or 200-0 K/Ds it could detect, what a failure.
Punkbuster and Server Admins did not exist so all players were doomed and had to beg DICE would do something about it but it has never happend.
There was Hope to get administrated servers and make use of the amazing observer feature which also allows to track even private hacks very easy by watching player behaviour
and then hit the Trash with the perm. banhammer but it never came, thats how Battlefield 1 got destroyed.
A proper functioning AC also was never brought into Battlefield 1.

In terms of Gameplay, even while it was tuned down quite alot and much more hardcore casual with a learning curve of 60 minutes to become pro at, but it was damn fun to play on a casual level.
The Atmosphere, the Mapdesign, the new Breakthrough Gamemode, such an amazing game release for infantry combat. Even planes had sth very unique and super powerful to them, so did heavy tanks.
They werent as fun as Battlefield 3 and had no longtime motivation but the way how the game staged, all of it just gave it a blast.
Finaly back to business where decent players and especially PTFO players could shine on the scoreboard with stats above the 80-0 range, not using cheats.
But Holy Moly, this Game was full of cheaters that didnt even want to invest an mediocre amount of time to get good at and flooded the game in their usual terrible logics of "good players cheat, so i cheat too".

Thats how the Battlefield 1 experience has ended for me and my friends, an actual cool game and even when revisiting today still has its charm and plenty of highs and lots of enjoyment.
However the lack of custom servers, administration and anticheat are 3 issues of such a massive size, that the entire game turns into sth unplayable, no matter how good it actually is, it became trash and another failure because of that.
The Campaign of Battlefield 1 was nothing worth to be played or even mentioned, just some random cuts with characters that nobody would or could ever care about at any given time.

Battlefield 5:

This Title is quite up 2 date in peoples memories since its the last title before geting to BF2042 and doesnt require much explanation and impression, people should know the issues and flaws.
Once again this Title has not shipped with an Anticheat and 2-3 Cheaters could roam any Server on the world and simply shut them down. Again there were no Custom Servers and zero administration,
this Game almost repeated every single Failure in the Franchise History and not just small issues but issues of such massive size, that this Game was never worth to be considered or purchased outside of EA Play.
Battlefield 5 is the very first Title where Spotting through Smokegrenades finaly got nailed and removed, the first Title since BFBC2 where Smokegrenades have not a complete waste of harddrive space and a loadout block.
However in this Title once again Vehicles have been touched and nerfed, even while they no longer had Spotting in such a strong manner, as we were used to be.
A change that was wished for Battlefield 3 came in here and inside a Game, that was like Battlefield 4, the terrible version of its predecessor.
Not really wanting to spend alot of time typing down what positives this game has shipped with since the negatives are of such massive size, that mentioning them would fly under the radar anyways.

Battlefield 2042:

Now here comes the current Title and the list of issues is as big as it can get.
The complete introduction into this Game is quite messed up, it doesnt ship with any good music at all, in fact id say it doesnt even have any that should be called music.
The interface does not do any job its supposed to do, the squadsystem doesnt work (does it even exist as previously? dont think so), theres no battlelog, no serverbrowser for official experiences apart from Battlefield Portal, No Scoreboard, no Allchat
and a automized Matchmaker for normal play in Conquest or Breakthrough.

BF2042 gives the least amount of control in the History of Battlefield to its playerbase, while Battlefield Portal gives players more control and basicly a server to administrate, you dont have a Allchat, you dont have a Observer which makes it impossible to ban cheaters if they arent completly obvious ragehacking. This literally makes the Portal Experience just as terrible as Battlefield 1/5 without Anticheat.
No Observer means you cant proof and no proof means that your ability to deal with cheaters is almost not existent. Its not possible this way to figure out if someone is observing players through walls and with Paik and Motionsensors in the Game it wouldnt barely even matter.

Balancing:
While the game currently offers a total of 22 Weapons they are very sadly balanced, so sad that all Assaultrifles are useless and outperformend by PP-29 as a example at any range.
Sniper Rifles having a insane bullet velocity which actually is a good thing but the bad thing are the bad guns.
Some guns have a really cool recoil pattern that is fun to control with a mouse but they currently underperform so hard, that they are not satisfying and especially not rewarding a player at all.
Other guns have randomized Spray, nothing you could ever control and hence never be satisfied as a player with.
Kills coming from a gun that you dont have full control over are just as terrible as guns that have no recoilpatterns, none of them reward you for your time spent in this Game.

The Mapdesign:
across all Maps now have reached the lowest point possible, they are made of battle royale size and they look and play exactly like that. A few hotspots but in total many places are just simply flat and empty.
The Vehicles once again have been dumpstered down to the new all time low, when people say "they hate new things and afterwards they do enjoy things they hated previously" than this should be a clear statement with a certain interpretation.
When you hop into your next Title of a Franchise and it turns out that the Game is worse, then basicly you already have Battlefield 4 or Battlefield V in mind.
This isnt something new here, while the playerbase hops onto the new Hype Title and suddenly notice, that it isnt any good, then they want to return back to the older title but its a dated one.
Once again this is happening and Battlefield 1 and V still not having Anticheat or Serveradministration means, that you CANNOT RETURN if you didnt forgot about the Cheaterissue that still persists.

The Airvehicles are now at a point, where only Full Squads of 4 and in addition an extra 2 players (Hind) are able to perform well (if you could only even properly join a match and the same squad properly or at all lol!).
Too much Anti Air Spam is in this Game, from up to 256 Sundance grenades (since 128 players) up to 192 Anti Air Missiles PER TEAM,
not even including the ability to grab new ammo or the short cooldown of sundance grenades.
Breakthrough now is impossible to be played, it is the biggest Clusterf*ck you will ever get to see, an Gamemode that was introduced in BF1 only took 2 Titles to be ruined, remember something?
Yea right the same has happend with Rush in Battlefield 4, Voila! Your Memories are working.

Not just because some Objectives are placed at locations that are impossible to take control over (hello Orbital skyscraper) but also because 128 Players are too much for any Game that isnt 100% Battle Royale and with multiple teams.
More Players should always mean more player and loadout restrictions, not less! If you couldnt get a proper in 64 Player Rush Metro back in Battlefield 3, it wont get any better when you add 128 players to that.
People have back then already said that 32 Players  can be too much on Metro for Rush, it was the absolute limit in order to have a solid gameplay experience.
128 Players are so much, that even Conquest turns into a completly horrible Experience, the core Gamemode Battlefield Franchise has more or less mastered now is a mess.
You cant enjoy your Sandbox because 128 eyes per team are very likely to find you, hit the spotting and get you out of the Game and if its not that, then motion sensors, drones etc. will seal the deal for sure.
In exact that moment, where people fight for a very important flag such as the center area of any map and its respective objective capture range, is exactly the moment where 2042 becomes the worst game ever made.
You spawn in and you die, permanently for MINUTES. Be it overpowered hovercrafts camping and roadkilling on any open field spawn that doesnt have any cover due to terrible Mapdesigns or simply terrible spawnplacements and lets mention that they are terrible no matter where they are in a 128 player environment, they already were full of issues during 64 players, now they are impossible to fix.
* complains exist for over 10 years in this Franchise, what do people think about this 128 now? I dont think its good.

Yet even tho while there are so many players to kill or get killed by, everything in this Game is tuned down onto the worst possible casual levels in terms of skill ceiling, this includes the PP-29.
The PP-29 is powerful yes, but is it hard to master? No its damn simple, its an issue and i mean that the gun is so simple is the issue, not the damage it does.
When you finaly managed after 50 deaths to get to a flag running across open fields, the enemies will spawn as a horde, dozens of people suddenly everywhere and all around you and your squad.
These guns when taken into direct comparison with Battlefield 3 in example all underperform so hard and the lack of bullet penetration etc. will seal the deal for above average players.

So to finaly start cutting the Wall of Text that includes so much explanation i want to get to the End.

Basicly if you managed to read through all of this, then you should know where the issues lie down, if you didnt, then you most likely care the least about the Franchise.
Every single Title since BFBC2 has had its upsides but a big bunch of negatives and this leads to confusion and frustration alike, whenever a new title gets released.

Every single Battlefield Title since then is missing things, if those things were changed, a new Title could come up easily taking every single player of its previous franchise title and make them play the new one.
Would you not prefer Battlefield 3 remastered, properly balanced (bad guns brought up on pair with the meta weapons, instead of making good ones to paintball guns), a new Anticheat, spotting changed, new Graphics, same Maps in updated visuals and a good working killcam, including the observer of Battlefield 4?

I atleast can say that i would prefer such an Title because it would be an all out upgrade that fixes so many issues of Battlefield 3, that i could easily be the happiest customer willing to pay for the most expensive game version.
However the reality is, every time a new Title in the Battlefield Franchise comes out, good things are made worse and bad things remain untouched and bad to deal with.

Battlefield 5 with custom servers as battlefield 3 has had them, including a functioning anticheat and administrative rights to deal with those, who didnt get banned yet? I'll take it immediately!

Battlefield 1 without spotting through smoke grenades, a working Anticheat and Custom Servers + Administrative Rights and with a modern Setting and faster and more precise gameplay as BF3 (no IRNV)? GIMME THAT!

Do you even know what PUBG made as succesful as it was? It clearly wasnt the Anticheat, it wasnt the Maps, it wasnt the bugs... the Gunplay of this game was the best in 2 decades ever made, thats why!
Imagine tomorrow a new Counter Strike comes out in a brand new Engine, 128 Tickrate Servers, an Anticheat like Valorant has it, more support where it really matters... easy Game of the Decade Achievement.
Why is Apex Legends rocking since it has been released? Because it focuses on the important, Hitboxes are imbalanced? Patched. Servers cause issues? Patched (mostly) Guns are not balanced? Patched.

It doesnt require an all out changed Game every 2 years, take a look at Codemasters, they throw a title each year (hate it or like it) but they always improve on the weakspots, they dont kick their entire formula and rework it.

Today you release a solid foundation for a game, well fine, but when you polish it 1-2 years late like Battlefield 4, then you shouldnt make a new product in the meanwhile that splits your community. Battlefield is Battlefield, the Community plays Battlefield.
Call of Duty has this issue aswell, i did enjoy MW2019, the first Title since Modern Warfare 3 and in the meanwhile theyve released 2 more Titles and i can barely find players anymore but i dont like the new titles again, be it the lack of audio awareness or the maps.

You can just support a Game for 5-6 Years and a shooter doesnt really need much but requires alot of attention to DETAIL. Perfection in Balance, make the Recoilpatterns interesting and rewarding for those willing to invest alot of time to master them.
It is possible to ship games that require alot of hours to master them, without leaving the casual playerbase behind - many examples are on the market doing exactly that and they are successful.
Just because im a terrible builder in Fortnite doesnt mean i cant enjoy my time there, just because im an above average pilot (at best) in BF3 doesnt mean i didnt enjoy my time there.

As you might guess it already, its damn easy to change terrible Games into good Games when you know where to search for the issues!
Some issues are so damn small but they have such a massive impact on the games experience a player will have, that it ruins the entire Game.
Im sitting here and asking myself as of why nobody has figured this out yet? Why does Battlefield always need to rework everything, even those things that you can easily say that they were absolutely perfect many years ago?

The Franchise with 2042 now has identity problems, im not sure if this is PUBG without the gunplay, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 without the performance or something, i cant see the Battlefield in front of my eyes, i just cant!

The very last thing Battlefield has needed was a change away from Class Design to Operators / Specialists.
Now do we not just have to deal with broken 128 player environments and terrible maps that dont even fit a single gamemode but also Wingsuits that only cause the worst chaos possible, Sundance Grenades that chase vehicles up to 1000 meters and Wallhacks from Paik.
Why do we have Easy Anti Cheat in this Title, when this Game ships with integrated Cheats such as Paik or Motionsensors? Who thought that it is a good idea to introduce sth like that, when your playerbase permanently hates on Cheaters for a good reason?

When it comes to Battlefield 2042 then im not sure if this Game can be saved in 2 years from now on, it has shipped with so many flaws and terrible design decisions, that i dont see possible fixes without REMOVING Content.
There is no way, that i will enjoy flying in this Game when every single map only has 2 or 3 buildings to take cover from an possible incoming total of a whopping 192 Anti Air Missiles.
There is no way, i will enjoy running across empty maps just to get shot 5 seconds later or right before the objective.
No way i will enjoy dying after spawning constantly on every single Flag in Conquest.
No way can i enjoy sniping, when a million wingsuits land behind me.
No way i will enjoy playing Objectives when i have to run 500+ Meters every single time across empty fields.

This Game ships with issues coming directly from the Game Designers, this is something entirely new, this time i dont abandon a Game because it doesnt have Anticheat, but i abandon it because decisions made are out of place in this Franchise.

I dont understand why a perfect formula of the Battlefield Franchise constantly needs to be made up entirely different, instead of missing contents and community requests beeing added.
Im not a big Call of Duty Fan but Call of Duty most likely always stays true to the core and only adds additional things, Groundwars from Modern Warfare 2019 is a prime example as of how to make old games "NEW" Experiences.
Theyve only had minor changes on how the guns handle but these minor changes were so damn good, that it became a game to enjoy for a long time.
Groundwars was literally for 2 years my Battlefield Franchise Replacement, it offered everything, no stupid Spotting, useful Smokegrenades, a solid netcode, well made guns,
superior audio (footsteps in release MW made the Battlefield Audio look like casual trash for bassheads), ye even the nuke was worth sweating for.
Lets not mention the unlock system and customization, as much as i usually dont like CoD for beeing CoD, but holy moly was i amazed.
I have even unlocked Damascus, nothing that was really important and it was a real pain to do that,
but in the meanwhile i dont even have guns unlocked in BF1 or BF5 because they require awful things that ruin my gameplay experience, so hence i never did them and got extremly frustrated that these unlocks even have such requirements.
A Skin and the required grind for it is "free" and your very own choice, a weapon might be meta and a musthave, good luck expecting people to be happy and not complain.

At the same time Headquarters was THE RUSH REPLACEMENT, i just had such a blast together with my friends to PTFO and punish those, who didnt care enough to play Objectives.
How long have i not be able to PTFO and get rewarded in a manner i feel like i deserved, this was offered by MW, not by Battlefield.

Those experiences i should have recieved from Battlefield, i never expected to get this from Call of Duty but MW2019 was so damn well made about literally everything on release, i couldnt resist the addiction to play. Every. Single. Day.
Imagine, theyve added a small change "Audio Occlussion" and it literally silenced footsteps, the game immidiately turned into trash and threw my friends and myself out of the Game, such a small change is required to turn a Game into sth terrible.
Audio Awareness is not just a useful element but it also is Gameplay, trick people into thinking you are retreating or flanking and enjoy your mindgames - this is Gameplay and its hell alot of fun.
This aint possible without Footsteps and its not possible when the explosion at the end of the other side of the map is more present, than the guy sprinting with a knife towards your back and it totaly is not fun when enemies permanently surround you, without you beeing able to notice.
AND NO, spotting, red icons on minimap and other, basicly CHEATS, do not replace the lack of sound or well made maps and gamemodes.
You cannot take away audio awareness from players and then replace it with annoying Icons, everyone has experienced that in Battlefield 3, players have not shot players, they shot icons the whole time, spotting macros beeing a thing!

Yet i sit here, waiting for a Battlefield Title that satisfies me as BFBC2 or Battlefield 3 did, just without their issues and i dont get anything, im still holding complete emptiness in my hands.

My deepest please to DICE is, to please STOP reworking constantly the working wheels of your Franchise. Focus on the terrible things of your Games, make them better and then you should easily get better Products and a happy audience!
Its not this difficult but it is difficult when you make things more complicated than they really are.
Since Battlefield 2 you have amazing vehicle controls, why did you change them? Especially why did you change them into sth this bad as they are in 2042?
Same with Stationary Equipment, why isnt there any on the Map, why do up to 128 players get Anti Air in their own pockets with ease?
Those are the questions i have every single second im TRYING to enjoy 2042, i just wanna hop in and play a good game and focus on the Gameplay, i just cant, too many negatives show up every single second, its not possible to enjoy Battlefield 2042 right now.

So this is it. I know im missing out on plenty of things, but it simply isnt easy to bring 11 almost 12 years of a franchise onto Paper, especially when i have a whopping total of idk .. 2000-3000 hours combined.
Battlefield 4 in example couldve easily taken the whole Text in terms of issues and complaints, so i did cut down to the most important.

Thanks for reading and if this did lead to just a little thinking about the Franchise and the Designdecisions, then i have gladly spent this many hours to type it down.

[kbshakenbake]

@Exoskelett Wow this is an incredible write up. DICE please listen to our friend here.

Some things I really resonate with are the "spawn and quickly die" dynamic of this game that is introduced when a single objective is contested (thanks to 128 players, bad spawn locations, poor map design). Sector D on the Egypt map comes to mind.

I also love how eloquently you described that this game could have been incredible if DICE didn't try to reinvent the wheel, but just focused on fixing issues from previous titles. They changed too much for no good reason at all and got it all wrong. I looked forward to this game so much and it makes me incredibly sad when I realize they probably won't address 10% of what you wrote here.

[0rweII]

@Exoskelett Listen to this guy DICE.

2042 will be my last BF game, sadly. And I've been buying them since the original came out in 2002.

[Ayyildiz_MGenius]

@Exoskelett 

You my friend, you have nailed it!

I can agree with you to 99%, but Battlefield 2 should have its own sub header in your list 😉.

Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 3 were so good, but my favorite BF game is still Battlefield 2.

Back in the day at Battlefield 2, you had to really learn to play the game. The learning curve was very steep, but oh boy, it was worth it in the end in every aspect of the game (infantry/vehicle).

But in Battlefield 3, the jets were so amazing and I had blast piloting one of those in dogfights. Battlefield 2 and 3 did a great job with the balancing of the infantry and the vehicles. Vehicles were powerful and you have felt the fear of encountering those enemy beasts.

Unfortunately, there is the “problem”:

Lots of infantry and “ground” people (non-BF2, but BFBC2 players) claimed, that jets were way too “OP” in Battlefield 3, but you were able to shoot them down with normal tank shells, RPGs or even snipe the pilot out of its jet while they are diving to attack. And to do this, you have to learn playing the game. I see a lot of impatience learning to play a game today…

This was the reason why Battlefield 4 has introduced the garbage “Stealth Jet”, “Attack Aircraft” and the stupid shielding system against projectiles of ground vehicles. My first kills in the stealth jets were some road kills…

Also, since and with Battlefield 4, EA/DICE has changed the audience of players to a very wide range.

People which have played CoD and other shooting games could easily join the battlefield and should not be frustrated by playing the game. I pretend these new players where the majority of the player base, since lots of people moved back to Battlefield 3.

Now with battlefield 2042, there are again lots of posts about how OP the helicopters are, because a big part of the player base is coming from other games or had begun their BF journey with Battlefield 4. But the truth is, the AA spam is insane and the damage output of the helicopters is very low.

With the 1%, where I disagree with you, is about the weapons customization. Since Battlefield 3, you have many weapons with many attachments, but in the end, there is always one meta of ~3 weapons for every class; like for weapon X use attachments YZ. In Battlefield 2 however, the weapons were “static” and you had to learn to control your gun instead of adapting the weapon to your own needs. And each weapon was unique in its firing behavior.

If it were up to me, I would slightly buff every vehicle besides the hovercraft and the huge transport helicopters and I would replace the anti-armor grenade of Sundance with a simple flashbang grenade. Also, I would replace the current jets with the jets from Battlefield 3.

After all, EA/DICE will never - I guess - going back to the roots of the battlefield franchise, because they produce games for a wide range of players coming from various shooter games, and those players should experience little to no frustration with "strong vehicles".

Edit1: typo

Edit2: reformulation

[Exoskelett]

@Ayyildiz_MGenius^But in all honest, they dont need to design the entire game around Casuals, at one day casuals might also get experienced and then they lose interest because theres nothing left to improve.
When a game gets throttled down this much, then even casuals will feel the impact of these changes even if it takes them several months to get where other peoples are at after a few hours.

Predicting shots or rockets comes with practice and the more people get that, the harder times pilots will get.
Of course nobody should expect to become excellent at a game without puting any meaningful effort into it but that doesnt lock out people from having fun overall.
It would only lock them out when SBMM is a thing, because then everyone would sweat for every single kill but it is battlefield, casuals meet casuals, high skilled players meet high skilled players.
During BF3 days there has been servers especially made for newbs, if you joined onto these and rolled the casuals, you were simply kicked for not respecting their territory.

Nothing DICE should ever take hands on when the community can solve an issue themselves. Once a decision has been made and cant be changed, thats the decision that locks out players from enjoyment because you can no longer fix it manually.

I was also playing on my most favourite community rush servers in BF3, they all had a maximum of 32 players, explosives led to a kick and if people kept ignoring rules, they got banned. Ive always felt welcome and i was very well pleased to stay there.

Right now i just hopped into Battlefield V, its quite impressive how gameplay was adjusted ever since the Beta, if that game only has had an aggressive anticheat with hardware and IP Bans, i would straight up purchase it even this late after release. My first round today straight has had an speedhacker with aimbot, this is literally the major reason i havent purchased it since it came out.

The gameplay itself i currently feel like became very well, im having a blast for the first time ever in the franchise to lay down inside a bush while playing breakthrough etc., since the foliage is no longer a useless graphics intense feature without use, i can finaly go prone and sneak up into enemy territory and provide a spawn for my squad and simply PTFO.
Dropping smoke grenades without even giving me a single point is satisfying to me because i can open up a new path when theres no cover.

This experience however only exists when theres not a single wallhacker in the Game, you'd immediately notice if thats the case when you get shot through smokes and or foliage that is rendered across the entire map.

Im really not happy with these decisions beeing made, i dont understand as of why the lack of an proper Anticheat is a thing when it makes people not want to purchase a product because of that.

Anyways i also feel like air vehicles should become powerful, if pilots are that good, then they should get their earnings and the fun they deserve.
I probably wont ever be a good pilot as others but im not saying "hey please remove their toys and ruin their gameplay", id rather try to find workarounds how to deal with them in my way, atleast if it is made possible in the correct way, such as predicting a rocket very well, rather than having an Lockon Missile. Im way more happy if im responsive for the missile to hit a littlebird, it feels so much better than a rocket, that completly automized flys into any vehicle. That is not fun for me and it ain't for the pilots.

[TheFireOfTitan]

@Exoskelett Agree with you completely. Brilliantly said.

[UP_Hawxxeye]

@Exoskelett I am glad to read that someone else also aknowledges the crime against music that the BF3,4, H and 2042 music is

[trip1ex]

nostalgia vs the game that just came out.  I know who i'm betting on. 

I didn't read the book. 

[AerialDominance]

you really weren't kidding when you said "long"

[TheUltimateSmug]

Not only do I agree, but this is going to be my last Battlefield game. There is just so much inherently wrong with the game that I can't even see the pros anymore. There is just so much wrong, so much garbage, it's unreal. It genuinely strains me to try to figure out how things went so wrong. Corruption? Was the money spent elsewhere? Did EA just force DICE to put out garbage? Did DICE just stop caring after BF5? Which, by the way, also wasn't a good game. It took a long time to become fun.

Console players get great auto lock-on, which is fair to an extent, but when I boot up the game on xbox and use the PKP there is literally zero recoil. It's a laser. How is that fun for either side?

Why is gun bloom so extreme that the SMG out-ranges ARs and LMGs?

Why are snipers so easy to use? Aim, shoot. No travel time, no recoil.

Why is the hovercraft busted.

These things and more - never to be explained. RIP.