Reviews - Delta_43

The final nail in the coffin in regards to what the Battlefield franchise once was.
Performance is pretty mediocre, especially when compared to BF4. This game crashes quite frequently on older hardware, especially GTX 600 and 700 cards. Visuals are impressive, and kudos to DICE for effort. Map destruction is definitely a step up from BF3/4, and the weather effects are pretty good.

Mod support is still left out, but this is no surprise. More worrying however is that there currently are no tools for server administration. You can rent a server, you just can't really do anything except change the name, and this allows cheaters/trolls/griefers free reign.

Gameplay ranges from bland to extremely rage-inducing. Map design and class balance promotes sniping, which has been buffed to a one-hit-kill without a headshot. Vehicles range from overpowered to worthless, and they still have the same awful physics and collision problems that plagued previous games. Teamplay is as absent as ever, but that has been the case since BF3.

Single player is okay, but suffers from the same issue of most modern FPS games by throwing you into situations where you're never really in extreme danger. It's definitely a step up from the mind-numbingly awful BF4 campaign, but it's not hard to improve on garbage. At least the tank missions in BF1 are pretty memorable, but the aircraft missions suffer from awful controls and flight models that are specific to single-player.

Lastly, about half the content is tied up as DLC, so I'd advise waiting for a sale in about 6 months, provided anyone on PC's still playing this.

Review updated after fall 2014 patch:Even after the launch of the community test environment, a place where game improvements can be tested more quickly, BF4 is still in a bad place. The Fall patch reduced all weapon damage by 1, which would be fine if headshotting were rewarded at all. Right now the strongest weapons all have ridiculously high ROF, and when coupled with the proper attachments and the game's minimal recoil, become pure laser guns. In short, infantry combat's devolved into a spray-and-pray fest.

Vehicle combat is still not nearly as entertaining as in previous games. DICE implemented a rock-paper-scissors philosophy in regards to vehicle balancing, which results in stale gameplay. When I die in a vehicle, I don't feel that I've been outplayed, but rather that I've been destroyed by a nearly unbeatable "hard counter." The ground vehicles themselves have a rather poorly thought out unlock tree, as the majority of unlocks are never used once the final ones in each category are unlocked. Tanks feel less like tanks, and more like disposable killstreaks thanks to the ridiculous number of infantry gadgets that can damage them. Aircraft are in an especially poor state. The Attack jet is strong to the point where it can almost instagib tanks, but is hard-countered by the stealth jet. The stealth jet's sole purpose is to shoot down the attack jet, and is almost useless against any ground targets or the scout heli. The Attack heli is a glass cannon. It's slow, unmaneuverable, but packs incredible firepower. Sadly, due to the mobile AA and the prevalence of infantry anti-air rockets like the stinger, the attack heli is a deathtrap. The scout heli, with its two passenger seats and high agility/speed, feels more like what the attack heli should have been. With two engineers repairing from the passenger seats, it can tank insane amounts of damage. They're nearly indestructable on the level of the battlefield 2 US transport heli with engineers repairing it. Lastly, the mobile AA's been tweaked to the point where it either instagibs aircraft or is utterly incapable of stopping them.
Naval warfare, one of the most hyped parts of BF4, is utterly lacking. Boat combat boils down to which vessel can hit two TV missiles first.

As mentioned above, BF4 is less about skill and more about avoiding hard-counters. In some cases, DICE SE actually nerfed skill-based actions. A key example would be how heli TV missiles can no longer kill aircraft in 1 hit, and how headshots aren't rewarded.

Classes and weapons have less distinction than ever before. 3/4 of the classes can equip anti-armor gadgets, where previously only the engineer class could. Carbines are now multiclass weapons,so the class-specific weapons are now rarely used.DICE SE appears to have gone the "COD" route with gadgets- adding in a ton of equipment that give easy kills with little to no risk to the user- drones, remote mortars, etc. Lock-on missile launchers are powerful enough that there's no incentive to use the slightly harder-hitting dumbfire rockets. Lastly, the addition of high magnification scopes such as the 40x "hubble telescope" provide high incentive just to camp back in the mainbase and snipe. The current class design just kills teamplay.

Map design is terrible. The majority of maps have no flow, poor cover, few flanking routes, and far too many places for people to camp on roofs where they're extremely hard to kill.

Commander mode, although back in BF4, is tacked on and fairly useless, as the majority of players simply ignore orders.

For those that want to play single player, forget it. Apart from the first mission, the campaign is extremely generic and utterly forgettable. The ending feels very similar to that of Mass Effect 3 (A choice that doesn't really affect the ending in any way).
In short, avoid this piece of rubbish at all cost