[Multi] EA/DICE Battlefield V

[Infinite Zenith]

A summary of my experiences in the Battlefield V closed alpha, after around seven hours of gameplay, are as follows:

• Attrition is a great mechanic for slowing down the game's pacing and encouraging tactical play. There is much more value in defending capture points now. However, not being able to carry more ammunition is a major impediment.
• The conquest system is awesome: it plays very well, and should not have changed to begin with
• Fortifications allow for very dynamic gameplay. While sniping, I grazed a guy, and he immediately ducked behind cover and began putting sandbags down, so I could no longer snipe him at all, forcing me to change the way I approached clearing the capture point
• The game still needs optimisation and has performance issues: frame rates drop when I spawn over a squadmate from the over-the-shoulder screen.
• The snow is too intense and obscures things inside the buildings
• The Panzerfaust is a little too powerful.
• The UI for bleeding out and spawning back in is a little confusing
• UI elements are very hard to read because of their colours, especially for the weapon status elements and kill confirmation indicators.
• Movement is a little clunky. I sometimes got stuck in walls and sandbags. Diving through windows and being able to see my own body while prone was cool
• Squad play is excellent. Sticking to squadmates and teammates improves survivability, and this is a pretty nice way of encouraging team play over lone-wolf approaches.
• Grenade spam is very nearly gone, which is great.
• Removing random bullet deviation and suppression accuracy penalties makes gunplay very satisfying
• The medic class is downright amazing now for having good weapons for long and closer range combat

The rest of my impressions can be found in a longer discussion, where I've also got a bunch of screenshots.

Now to address the other things: I have no intention of getting the Peacemaker, since that takes too much effort. That also belongs on the Battlefield 1 thread. As for the idea of a Pacific Theatre, I'm hoping that the War Stories model and free DLC will make this a reality. A modernised Wake Island would be brilliant, too.

[Alisa~Chan~]

Cool thing about the snow is, that it interacts with the surroundings~ like the corpse or the edges of the tanks and stuff~ they also get blown away when a vehicle is fast enough passing through it~
For the corpse one is the most awesome in my opinion~ the snow doesn't pass through the player model~ instead just glides on the dead or downed player~

For the fortifications~ I remember some gameplay of a team holding down the objectives only until they collapse because of an enemy tank~ that scene was so cool~!
Like how the enemy teams dies while trying to get their objective with continuous machine gun spray until they get sniped in the head by a scout from a different angle~! So cool~!

On another note~ if DICE do the attack on Pearl Harbor or the beach Normandy scenes~ that would be like a game of the century~ I can just imagine it~ the Call of Duty WW2 did a good job in getting that scene feel cool~ but I somehow feel like DICE is going to make it so much better with all of their new mechanics~!


Also~ Not gonna comment about the new team play mechanics as everyone seems to have good impression on it~

Can't wait for it's full release~!

[Infinite Zenith]

Did you get into the closed alpha?

[Alisa~Chan~]

Nope just watching some friends online do it for me~! Because I'm still working the game that I want to buy and watching them play even if we are from different countries is really fun~! We were discussing about some details as he plays and he keeps getting stuck on debris and some other parts of the map though~! Funny thing is~ there is an invisible wall in the air near the parked boat and I just laughed at his unfortunate death~

[Infinite Zenith]

Originally Posted by Alisa~Chan~

Nope just watching some friends online do it for me~! Because I'm still working the game that I want to buy and watching them play even if we are from different countries is really fun~! We were discussing about some details as he plays and he keeps getting stuck on debris and some other parts of the map though~! Funny thing is~ there is an invisible wall in the air near the parked boat and I just laughed at his unfortunate death~

They really do need to fix the geometries in the map, but as I've noted, if they address these issues along with the host of other problems that I've mentioned, we have a fantastic title on our hands. For me, the deciding factor will be the open beta. If that handles well, it'll be a no-brainer to buy.

Out of curiosity, are you intending to play on console or PC? If it's the latter, I imagine that you'll need a modestly powerful setup to run the game at 60 FPS – if you're looking to buy Battlefield V for PC and you don't have the hardware for it, then it'll be much more expensive than the price of the game

[rladls2121]

To me, the Console is absolute no no.
It is not about the graphics and framerates.
The gameplay for me in the console makes me feel like im controlling the character.
For PC, I feel more like im the character.
It feels more like a casual game playing on a console.

[Alisa~Chan~]

Fufufufu~! I thought you'd ask this me that question~! I have indeed a beefy computer setup~!
Also I'm going to play it in PC since I'm used to it~ been playing FPS for about 5 years with some breaks in the middle~ but I'm a good shot you know~?

Still hate the console version because of the controls since I can't do an instant 180 when someone shoots me in back~ I have high sensitivity in my mouse settings~ saved me multiple times when getting shot at~!

[Infinite Zenith]

Looks like I'm going to have to take y'all to school when this comes out, then The lack of a sweet spot in sniping and random bullet deviation means it's all skill based now, and I caught on to the weapon mechanics within two hours; check my screenshots with the double kills!

[barcode120x]

Saving up to upgrade my PC. So excited

[Infinite Zenith]

Originally Posted by barcode120x

Saving up to upgrade my PC. So excited

My PC's already good to go: I upgraded it two years back so it could run Battlefield 1 on ultra at 60 FPS, and it's holding up just fine. Of course, it might be worth waiting a little and seeing if the next generation of NVIDIA cards tickle your fancy – if not, then you can still get this generation of cards on discount if such is offered

[rladls2121]

If this comes out on Steam, I might consider it, and I don't want to use Origin.

[barcode120x]

Originally Posted by Infinite Zenith

My PC's already good to go: I upgraded it two years back so it could run Battlefield 1 on ultra at 60 FPS, and it's holding up just fine. Of course, it might be worth waiting a little and seeing if the next generation of NVIDIA cards tickle your fancy – if not, then you can still get this generation of cards on discount if such is offered

I have a measily ol 970 and an I5 with 8 gigs ram. Good enough for current games on high settings. BF1 ran smoothly for the most part, but once in awhile there will be nasty "lag spikes." I could never run anything in the backround either while running it in borderless windowed (which I do for most games) killed the FPS. BF is always game that I want to look prestine.

Originally Posted by rladls2121

If this comes out on Steam, I might consider it, and I don't want to use Origin.

It'll never come on out Steam

[Infinite Zenith]

Originally Posted by barcode120x

I have a measily ol 970 and an I5 with 8 gigs ram. Good enough for current games on high settings. BF1 ran smoothly for the most part, but once in awhile there will be nasty "lag spikes." I could never run anything in the backround either while running it in borderless windowed (which I do for most games) killed the FPS. BF is always game that I want to look prestine.

It'll never come on out Steam

Besides there GPU, my machine is a shade more than five years old, rocking a third generation i5. In spite of this, it's been holding out okay on modern titles on high-to-ultra settings at 60 FPS. I have no plans to update for a little while, and it was good to see how the game (unoptimised) handles on my aging system: I think it might last another two years before I really need to upgrade.

As for Battlefield and Steam, I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but there hasn't been a Battlefield game offered on Steam since 2010's Bad Company 2

[Renegade334]

So, I've received an invite for the next closed alpha of BFV and...boy, am I frustrated. I know my computer isn't exactly the freshest fruit in the orchard, but at this point the technical difficulties I encountered while playing this new build can no longer be attributed to old hardware, but rather bad coding and whosesale instability.

My first games resulted in crashes (not even CTDs because it wouldn't let me see my desktop unless I forcefully pulled up the Task Manager with Ctrl+Alt+Del) as I played with Ultra settings. I have a GTX970 and my CPU still holds up well (its performance boosted by an aftermarket cooler to keep it cool despite constant heavy load, for the latest, CPU-intensive games like Assassin's Creed: Origins), but Ultra just caused trouble: my guess is that I need more RAM (>8Gb). Scaling down to High made the game much more stable: not a single, memory-related crash so far.

But the bugs.

And the UI.

And the gameplay.

*sigh*


The bugs...I crashed when being watching the after-battle report (ironically, the match itself went bug-free). I got stuck in a permanent "bleeding out" animation with no way of redeploying or calling out for help...basically, a haemorrhagic limbo. Had go Ctrl+Alt+Del to pull myself out of this mess. Not cool. BF betas have always been unstable in one way or another (I remember BF4 beta making me feel like I was wading, waist-deep in a pool of jello), but BFV seems to raise the bar for me.


The UI. The Narvik map is easy on the eyes, but I had to eliminate that annoying image grain setting and the snow remains very distracting (some of the GFX, however, were impressive - especially watching the flying snow realistically bounce and slide off walls)...exacerbating my annoyance towards the very small, poorly-contrasted "spotted" enemy icons that forced me to squint to properly locate them. It wasn't agreeable and though I know there are some purists that prefer a minimalist UI with as little cues as possible for immersion, it made playing a chore for me (almost had to go find a loupe to properly scour my surroundings). On another topic, there is a plethora of settings in the options menu and I wish DICE would simplify that mess (not to mention, I was a bit miffed that the menu wouldn't allow me to scroll down using my wheel menu).


The gameplay...I'm still on the outs because so far I haven't had a proper match that allowed me to explore the game peacefully without some interruption or nuisance (my first flight with a bomber made me realize the hard way the game was making me play inverted). Last problem I had (not even twenty minutes ago) was that I was stuck on the redeploy map - the game just wouldn't let me redeploy anywhere (even on my teammates), claiming all points (which were clearly open) were no longer available...and that was on a Conquest match where the matchmaker somehow decided a 24p vs 4p lineup was fair.

That said, I've been playing mainly as Assault and it seems my gun is just spraying everywhere but where I'm aiming. I've been going back to BF3 TDM lately, and I know my aim is not shoddy, but either the RNG wants to screw me over or I'm having desync issues (i.e. the target has already moved on the central server but my game client is not properly updating the screen in time).

I haven't had many opportunities to acquaint myself with destruction and fortification but I've already had the misfortune, today, of getting stuck in the broken floorboards of a house on Narvik. Couldn't extirpate my soldier out of the hole and had to redeploy (kill myself).


That said, my grievances are numerous enough to make me decide to pass on this game. I know the release build will probably be better, more stable, more fluid, yadda yadda yadda, but my experiences have left enough of a bad taste in my mouth to make me look for something else. I'll still try to find a silver lining in the current alpha, but I'm not expecting some sort of cathartic moment that'll make my opinion perform a 180° spin.

[Infinite Zenith]

The gunplay is actually quite consistent. My main gripe is performance, which has improved since the first alpha but still remains choppy, spawn bugs and worst of all, that enemies are too hard to spot. Beyond this, the rest of the mechanics are a matter of familiarity. I'm still in a wait-and-see mode right now, but folks who are feeling that the game might be delayed might have a point if this is where things are.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

I personally would have like it if the game focused on the Pacific theater instead of the European for once...

If I recall right, this is a mistake made by many games using WW2 as a setting, and you are not alone in wondering why that is so. One of the earlier Battlefield titles, as I recall, had the Pac as a backdrop, as did one of the storylines in CoD: WaW (the precursor of the 'war stories' in BF 1 and V?). And it's not like the Pacific is bereft of relevant material should you want your WW2 experience to have a bit of a... paranormal bent. For example, Pinnacle Entertainment Group's Weird War 2 setting has a whole sourcebook devoted to such.

On another note, there is one incident on the European front I'm surprised hasn't gotten any attention in gaming: the Battle for Castle Itter. Aside from the interesting story, it would work quite well for either flavor of multiplayer (cooperative or adversarial).

[Infinite Zenith]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/-FEgeuGsmzQ

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[rladls2121]

Frostbite.

But I'm disappointed at the trailer.
Because of Xbox One at near end.

[blakstealth]

Originally Posted by rladls2121

Frostbite.

But I'm disappointed at the trailer.
Because of Xbox One at near end.

what's wrong with xbox?

[Drake]

Ugh these trailers are really becoming unbearable...

The woeful preorder numbers should really be a telling sign of how badly something like this is being marketed.