Battlefield 1 - Charging Tanks on Horses Since 1914

[John Price]

The gunplay and map design determines how the game turns out, not the presence of flags or objectives. A Battlefield veteran would be very well aware of that, especially considering BC2 is your favorite; the BF with the tightest map design and overall balance ever.

It's easy to back cap in BF1 because there's no mobility for the other team unless they find one of the few vehicles. You can spawn bomb any point easily. With the lack of armor, it's pretty easy to push any straggling defenders off the point. Most of the conquest maps in BF1 are simply too large or too open between capture points for them to play well.

Sinai Desert, for example, has two playable points, and one of those is still an awful wide open cluster**** (train side of the city). Don't even get me started on crap like Amiens or Ballroom Blitz.

DICE has forgotten how to make truly great maps. They've mastered making pretty maps that play bad.

Amiens and Ballroom Blitz are not crap. In fact they're some of the best maps in the base game. Amiens is arguably the best map in the base game. I won't argue with you on Sinai. It seems too big. I'm not a big fan of the desert maps because it takes forever to get from point to point. Amiens is just good city combat.

"DICE has forgotten how to make truly great maps." Yet that's all that are in the expansion...

 

[KingBran]

I think the BF series just tries to be more realistic. No, I am not saying its this uber realistic game or anything. What I mean is the guns in the game act more like they really did in real life. Where you get COD and guys are jumping in the air doing 360 no-scope's with a sniper rifle running around at 20MPH screaming lolololololol! COD is a "twitch gamers" paradise.

Battlefield advertises itself as having huge maps with lots of vehicles, 64 player games, all out war... etc. And the average gamer expects COD with big maps and vehicles. It's true, running for two cap points can take a while in BF. It's still a video game but they try to be more realistic about movement and gunplay.


Again I am not saying the game is perfect or anything and I would agree some of the maps are a lot less fun than others. If I had a complaint it would be that the game has a super depressing atmosphere with no relief. That damn sad violin always strumming like a clown just died in Paris gets old.

 

[XX]

I think the BF series just tries to be more realistic. No, I am not saying its this uber realistic game or anything. What I mean is the guns in the game act more like they really did in real life. Where you get COD and guys are jumping in the air doing 360 no-scope's with a sniper rifle running around at 20MPH screaming lolololololol! COD is a "twitch gamers" paradise.

The LMGs getting more accurate the longer you fire them isn't realistic, it's just ****** design and balance. There's a lot of random bullet deviation on all the guns that isn't realistic and robs the game of the skill aspect of past Battlefields.

COD is basically hitscan paintball in a phone booth so I don't see how it's relevant at all.

From BF3 to BF4 they really refined the 'mix' and the gunplay, then they threw everything they learned out the window. BF4's dirty little secret is that most of the maps were really awful because they weren't designed for a particular mode and were instead made to be pretty locales (sound familiar?). But over time, BF4 became balanced enough that it didn't really matter. BF1 doesn't enjoy that same advantage, as the balance is awful.

Being on Orgin Access has bought the game extra time but the design decisions they made heading into the game in combination with slow DLC releases + premium DLC means the fate of this game was sealed long ago. Apart from fantastic visuals and sound, it's completely forgettable.

 

[KingBran]

The LMGs getting more accurate the longer you fire them isn't realistic, it's just ****** design and balance. There's a lot of random bullet deviation on all the guns that isn't realistic and robs the game of the skill aspect of past Battlefields.

I think you missed my point. Like I said, I wasn't saying its some uber realistic game. But it's still a game and they had to create balance. If every gun was on point from hundreds of yard away that would be ridiculous.

COD is basically hitscan paintball in a phone booth so I don't see how it's relevant at all.

It's relevant in the context I used it in as its' BF's main competitor when it comes to FPS war games.

From BF3 to BF4 they really refined the 'mix' and the gunplay, then they threw everything they learned out the window. BF4's dirty little secret is that most of the maps were really awful because they weren't designed for a particular mode and were instead made to be pretty locales (sound familiar?). But over time, BF4 became balanced enough that it didn't really matter. BF1 doesn't enjoy that same advantage, as the balance is awful.

Being on Orgin Access has bought the game extra time but the design decisions they made heading into the game in combination with slow DLC releases + premium DLC means the fate of this game was sealed long ago. Apart from fantastic visuals and sound, it's completely forgettable.

Its modern war vs World War I. Of course the gunplay is going to change. A lot lol.

The game has sold 14 million worldwide across Xbox, PS4 and PC. What do you mean "bought the game extra time"? You are acting like nobody plays it anymore. The game is still one of the most played games today. Adding it to Origin Access Just means even more players. BF has always had slow DLC releases. Hell EA in general has. The last SW Battlefront expansion came out what? Last DEC? The game was released in Nov of 2015.

This isn't new stuff or BF specific. You are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. The game is played a lot and has DLC that is released on par with many other EA titles.

 

[John Price]

Sadly our good friend XX has become really jaded by the direction of Battlefield over the last 3 years which is a damn shame. He does seem very intelligent at times, however his opinions are more cynical and bitter by the day. And it was like this for Battlefield 4 too.

Some of us still enjoy this game. The servers being empty has to do with them mismanaging premium. Since everyone wants to play the new Russian expansion, nobody is playing TSNP anymore. And when another expansion comes out, people are going to empty out of the previous one too. The game has sold very well and people are still playing, although it's largely the base game at this hour.

The LMGs getting more accurate the longer you fire them isn't realistic, it's just ****** design and balance. There's a lot of random bullet deviation on all the guns that isn't realistic and robs the game of the skill aspect of past Battlefields.

This is such a ludicrous assertion that I'm going to have to see proof of this. Never heard about this, never seen it, and I've logged over 70 hours of Battlefield 1 time.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Am I allowed to say that I just truly do not enjoy BF1 as much as 4? I think 1 feels like a re-skin of Battlefront and doesn't feel... like Battlefield. I think I'd feel more at home with BF1942 than I do with BF1, in terms of movement feel, vision feel and gun feel.

 

[XX]

I think you missed my point. Like I said, I wasn't saying its some uber realistic game. But it's still a game and they had to create balance. If every gun was on point from hundreds of yard away that would be ridiculous.

There's a happy medium where you let people capable of controlling their fire keep the rounds on target. They still suffer damage dropoff, so SMGs are not going to beat sniper rifles, but it helps with mid range engagements. Right now, there's really no point to having a large magazine on an LMG other than to attract unwanted sniper fire. The support and medic guns are a joke, for the most part. The weapons are balanced poorly within each class, so you end up with a couple clear favorites everyone uses. That makes the game extremely stale.

Its modern war vs World War I. Of course the gunplay is going to change. A lot lol.

You wouldn't know it by the ratio of automatic weapons to bolt action rifles. They really missed the boat with how they set everything up. They didn't change things nearly enough.

This isn't new stuff or BF specific. You are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. The game is played a lot and has DLC that is released on par with many other EA titles.

The game isn't played nearly as much as BF4 was at the same point in time, and the DLC releases have been slower than past games. There's definitely significant buyer's remorse out there with this game, which is not what you want to see.

 

[John Price]

There's a happy medium where you let people capable of controlling their fire keep the rounds on target. They still suffer damage dropoff, so SMGs are not going to beat sniper rifles, but it helps with mid range engagements. Right now, there's really no point to having a large magazine on an LMG other than to attract unwanted sniper fire. The support and medic guns are a joke, for the most part. The weapons are balanced poorly within each class, so you end up with a couple clear favorites everyone uses. That makes the game extremely stale.



You wouldn't know it by the ratio of automatic weapons to bolt action rifles. They really missed the boat with how they set everything up. They didn't change things nearly enough.



The game isn't played nearly as much as BF4 was at the same point in time, and the DLC releases have been slower than past games. There's definitely significant buyer's remorse out there with this game, which is not what you want to see.

Prove it. There are still people playing.

 

[KingBran]

There's a happy medium where you let people capable of controlling their fire keep the rounds on target. They still suffer damage dropoff, so SMGs are not going to beat sniper rifles, but it helps with mid range engagements. Right now, there's really no point to having a large magazine on an LMG other than to attract unwanted sniper fire. The support and medic guns are a joke, for the most part. The weapons are balanced poorly within each class, so you end up with a couple clear favorites everyone uses. That makes the game extremely stale.

Yes, I would like to see a sniper take me out when I am in a bunker / tunnel / rock / building / bridge... etc. hosing down the only entrance or way people are able to get to me.

You wouldn't know it by the ratio of automatic weapons to bolt action rifles. They really missed the boat with how they set everything up. They didn't change things nearly enough.

What does this even mean? What "everything" and "things" are you talking about?

The game isn't played nearly as much as BF4 was at the same point in time, and the DLC releases have been slower than past games. There's definitely significant buyer's remorse out there with this game, which is not what you want to see.

BF4 sold 7m on it's release to 360, PS3. 5m total to Xbox One, PS4. 1.5m on PC. About 500,000 less than BF1 and spread out over 5 different platforms instead of just 3. The game does not have crossplay and runs completely different on 360/PS3 and XO/PS4. So different in fact that the 64 player battles were reduced (I believe) to 24.

But pretty close to the same (total) sale numbers. Where is your proof that it was played so much more than BF1? What's this data you have on buyers remorse? Games don't sell 14m copies because tons of people had buyers remorse.

Games like Haze, Too Human, No Mans Sky, Street Fighter V, Star Fox Zero, Last Guardian... etc. those are actually trackable estimated sales that didn't come close to being reached because they were so hyped and then they came out and were found to be so terrible their sales plunged and nobody bought those games. That's not the case here at all with BF1. It's one of the better selling games that has come out recently.

 

[The Head Crusher]

Platinumed this game over the summer, even on the hardest level the campaign wasn't that hard. Hardest thing I found was trying to stealth through all 3 checkpoints in the forest , only because they would send you back to the start of the first one.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Sadly our good friend XX has become really jaded by the direction of Battlefield over the last 3 years which is a damn shame. He does seem very intelligent at times, however his opinions are more cynical and bitter by the day. And it was like this for Battlefield 4 too.

To be fair, BF4 at launch was far inferior to the product they have out there now.

It was a broken mess.



I admit I am also a little jaded when it comes to DICE's direction and especially map design in recent years.

 

[XX]

Yes, I would like to see a sniper take me out when I am in a bunker / tunnel / rock / building / bridge... etc. hosing down the only entrance or way people are able to get to me.

"hosing down the only entrance" to a place. Yeah, tout that brilliant map design.

What does this even mean? What "everything" and "things" are you talking about?

"everything" is the awful gunplay that they reverted to after finding a sweet spot in BF4. I don't expect you to understand the intricacies of random bullet deviation, TTK and the like (frankly, you don't seem interested in any details) but the guns in Battlefield feel like **** for a reason. If it wasn't a problem, they wouldn't be trying so hard to fix it:

BF4 sold 7m on it's release to 360, PS3. 5m total to Xbox One, PS4. 1.5m on PC. About 500,000 less than BF1 and spread out over 5 different platforms instead of just 3. The game does not have crossplay and runs completely different on 360/PS3 and XO/PS4. So different in fact that the 64 player battles were reduced (I believe) to 24.

But pretty close to the same (total) sale numbers. Where is your proof that it was played so much more than BF1? What's this data you have on buyers remorse? Games don't sell 14m copies because tons of people had buyers remorse.

Battlefront sold extremely well. What's the community like for that game? Want to play it? Think it will have a lasting impact on shooters? It's entirely possible for a game to sell well yet burn people and erode the core audience. Just ask COD.

By the way, the number of players online at a given time is easily trackable by using sites like bf1stats.com. Peak BF1 doesn't hold a candle to peak BF4, and BF4 is widely regarded in all circles as the better game, despite it also having some flaws. The playerbase has already dropped well below where BF4 was in its life cycle at the same point in time. BF4, for reference, had 150k players three years after its release. BF1 is already below that less than a year after release.

The game has issues. If you want to talk about them, I'm down, but this rustled jimmies routine where you simply laugh off any critiques of the game is pretty boring.

 

[KingBran]

Really? You are complaining that it's awful map design to have a room with one entrance in a building? Pretty standard in many FPS games. You are being very obtuse about this whole thing.

Millions of people do play it and still play it and love it. All of what you say is opinion. I will keep playing it an having fun with millions of other people. Sorry but not sorry if that angers you.

 

[John Price]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/6y2tbi/battlefield_1_gets_biggest_weapon_balance_shakeup/

A new patch for Battlefield 1 has given the game its biggest change to weapons balance since it launched.

Available now in the community Test Environment, the September Weapons Balance update has increased the time to kill of all major weapons.

Light machine guns and SMGs now do more damage, typically requiring one less bullet to kill.

Self-loading rifles now have better accuracy and range, and shotguns now have a more consistent dispersion of pellets.

“We’re tweaking many weapon values to get them to feel more powerful and to slightly reduce the disparity in raw time to kill between fast firing and slow firing weapons,” said DICE.

 

[Raekwon]

Servers are down for me. Anyone actually getting to play the new maps?

 

[Dogewow]

Servers are down for me. Anyone actually getting to play the new maps?

I was having the same issues as well with the whole "Could not connect. Please try again later" BS.

Turns out that there is an update after the fact that inexplicably didn't download until a few hours after I updated for the DLC. Just something to keep in mind if people have been having issues.

 

[Dogewow]

Really? You are complaining that it's awful map design to have a room with one entrance in a building? Pretty standard in many FPS games. You are being very obtuse about this whole thing.

Millions of people do play it and still play it and love it. All of what you say is opinion. I will keep playing it an having fun with millions of other people. Sorry but not sorry if that angers you.

Meh, a lot of what he's saying is pretty on target. And this is coming from a Battlefield/Battlefront fanboy who's argued against XX in the past and been playing games in the franchise since the great BF2 came out.

I play the game still (due in large part to the new DLC) and I certainly still have fun with it, but there are plenty of issues that keep this from being a great game. Only now have they really started chipping away at some of the issues, which is the formula that has been followed with a lot of battlefield titles as of late (Release a game with noticeable issues, but still playable and fun for some. Then fix the glaring issues with map design/gun play in later DLC when the player count inevitably drops).

There was a pretty long stretch of time up until the new DLC where I would get bored pretty quickly with the game and couldn't play more than a match until I got burnt out. Millions is also a stretch when describing how many people play this game.

 

[John Price]

Looking through Origin and pondering Premium pass so I'm seeing the page right now and it says Revolution 60.00

Well I paid around that for the base game and 15 for the expansion...if I had known this before why would I have brought it full price back then? Just inconvenient. I vaguely remember Battlefield 3 having premium at launch, and you didn't have to pay 60 extra for it.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Looking through Origin and pondering Premium pass so I'm seeing the page right now and it says Revolution 60.00

Well I paid around that for the base game and 15 for the expansion...if I had known this before why would I have brought it full price back then? Just inconvenient. I vaguely remember Battlefield 3 having premium at launch, and you didn't have to pay 60 extra for it.

Battlefield 3's premium was $50 at launch IIRC.

 

[MMC]

I just cannot find anything fun about the multiplayer of this game.

 

[Yarborough]

I'm actually really enjoying the new DLC, the challenge to unlock the Nagant Marksman is the single worst experience in my history of gaming.

 

[John Price]

Battlefield 3's premium was $50 at launch IIRC.

Yeah, one of them included the game though so you didn't have to pay another 60. At least that's what I recall.

I just cannot find anything fun about the multiplayer of this game.

I'll say again the only reason I'm not playing it is because everyone is on the premium servers and I don't want to play the base game.

 

[XX]

I just cannot find anything fun about the multiplayer of this game.

Operations mode is where it's at. Play it. It's probably the only redeemable thing in the game. It's what Rush used to be in the older games - good. But the map design and game balance in general still sucks ass. The entire concept of behemoths and elite classes is just straight cheese. Shouldn't be in the game. Ditto for the mortar and the crossbow launcher, and I love support.

No auto-balance on official servers basically kills this game though. How many people have jumped into a game where their team was getting clown pounded? Those rounds disgust me, even on the winning side. In the past, people would switch on their own to even it out and to have a good challenge, but those days of having a community that cares are long dead.

Default conquest in this game is near unplayable most maps. DICE needs to go back and study what made past maps great. Fao Fortress is a great example of a pure cheese map - elevated positions that can see the entire map with almost no cover inbetween. The DICE team should be forced to play a few hours of that map in a row against a competent group.

I'm actually really enjoying the new DLC, the challenge to unlock the Nagant Marksman is the single worst experience in my history of gaming.

DICE is really into masochistic challenges. The one with the sniper shield in particular I see people attempting all the time. There was one in BF3 or BF4 that involved getting a blowtorch kill with your EOD bot. I'm level 45ish and I've yet to be credited for an actual vehicle kill with anti tank grenades despite hucking them like I'm Aaron Rodgers.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I actually think the lack of auto balance is what may have hurt my experience the most.

Granted, I don't miss the days of having your party split up by the aggressive auto balance of yore. Unfortunately, almost every game I played of BF1 was a stomp one way or the other. Tends to be frustrating on both sides.


The close games are always the most fun.

 

[XX]

The close games are always the most fun.

Fun killing you some the other night.

Lost a close game to the new style conquest scoring today. Can't wait until they change it back with the CTE patch. Managed to battle back and get some good flag control, but a couple flags was enough to just eek out a win for them. I vastly prefer scoring only occurring when there's a majority capped rather than each flag ticking. That stupid middle of the desert outpost on Sinai shouldn't be as important as the C flag. It makes back-capping less about scoring and more about map control, as it should be.

Never really messed with the medic guns but man are they unreliable. Also getting addressed in the patch. I don't know if that's going to fix what I call "Battlefield Automatico" but it should help.

I dig operations because it minimizes the bad map design but there's no server browser for it (they are named servers, you can see them in the top right like any other) which makes zero sense.

I rarely agree with or like LevelCap nowadays but his point about the release hype finally fading away so the issues can be addressed is on point. DICE has really gotten into this cycle where they release something horribly unbalanced and then take a year before they start to fix it with CTE. I personally wish they'd give up the mainline BF games to another studio.