Battlefield V

[DisturbedSwan]

Put 16 hours into this over the weekend. I will preface these impressions with the fact that I'm nowhere near a Battlefield expert and won't be able to go into the nitty gritty detail about what has been improved, balanced, implemented differently etc. over BF1 and other past titles (I've only properly played a tiny bit of BF3, BF4 and quite a decent amount of time into BF1).

 

So let's dive in shall we? To play, it very much feels like a sequel to BF1 rather than anything else, with some Battlefront 2 elements sprinkled in there. The maps are all pretty good but personally I haven't been as impressed with them as the BF1 launch maps, I guess part of it is when you get a WWII game you expect to have all the infamous locales like Berlin under siege from the Red Army, the D-Day landings and so on but none of that is in here. They've focused on the 'untold' battlefields of WWII like Norway, Northern Africa along with including some Western European locales like Rotterdam, Appas and Twisted Steel in France but everything just kind of feels incredibly familiar if you've played BF1, I actually think the variety isn't as good too, there's one that I jokingly refer to as 'Hoth' as it feels so much like a Battlefront map as well.

 

The only real things I've noticed that's different from BF1 is the customisation options and the ability to repair fortifications at command points around the map and build/destroy bridges. The customisation is roughly what you'd expect of most multiplayer shooters nowadays really but there seems to be less variety of weaponry (for the Medic class anyway - the only one I've played as) than BF1. In the previous game I had the choice of rifles or SMGs etc. but here if you're a Medic you've only got one choice which is the SMG, if you want other weapons you need to be another one of the classes, so as you progress with your particular class you unlock more weapons, outfits for your character and skins for your guns. There are also specialisations (which work a bit like perks) for your gun but I haven't really figured out how to get this to work without resetting the points already assigned to it so I've left it for now.

 

Being able to repair fortifications at the command posts is a bit more of a bigger deal though. As the scenery gets more and more deformed as a match goes on having a decent set of sand bags and other fortifications around a command post when you're defending it can be make or break for some matches, you seem to be able to peform these repairs as any class as well which is cool. Similarly with the destruction of bridges or building makeshift bridges, they can make a huge difference in not allowing vehicles to easily access a certain area of a map and be a huge help to a defence or thorn in your side to an attack of a certain area or command point.

 

I've only played the Grand Operations and Conquest game modes, both are fun enough but incredibly familiar to BF1 players. Not got round to any of the single player 'War Stories' aside from the astoundingly good - but brief - introduction.

 

I want to briefly touch on the technical side of things. I believe this is a pre-launch build of the game that doesn't have the Day 1 patch but I have had a number of bugs, all of them are of the silly variety that break the immersion a little at times but nothing else. There's currently a bug when you're reviving someone that you lean through scenery when reviving them, I've had a few issues where a hand is seen at all times when operating a turret of an APV/Tank, I also struggle on occasion to activate the supply/vehicle drops using LB + RB and the left analog stick and also once it wouldn't let me deploy into the game from the map screen and I had to quit the match. Networking issues and graphical/framerate issues seem to be nonexistant as far as I can tell, I've had a very solid 60fps at all times and the networking has been fast and smooth, there's no micro-transactions in here at all either as far as I can tell.

 

So yeah I quite like it, it is addicting and compelling as ever and I've not really been able to stop playing it all weekend. It does feel like a direct sequel to BF1 with more of that games personality than any from WWII or the previous BF games but yeah it does everything it sets out to do really and at this point if you're a BF fan you know what to expect and this will deliver in spades.

 

Some pics:

 

Spoiler

 

[RoboticMonk3y]

For someone who professes not to be a battlefield expert, that was a pretty comprehensive breakdown. 

Nice work.

[DisturbedSwan]

Cheers @RoboticMonk3y  

[DisturbedSwan]

Just logged on to Origin to play, looks like the 'Day 1 patch' is 16GB  

[RYAN WHITELAW]

I was on the fence with this. 

 

In my 10 hour trial i was left thinking "This is my least favourite BF game ever"

 

I still ended up buying the deluxe version on CD Keys for £47 ha!

 

I think once i start playing with decent squads and actually have some teamplay going then i will enjoy it like previous games. 

 

That reminds me, i think there are a few people here from the glory BC2 days from the BXB and Games Tm crowd, do you fancy squading up or making a group for xbox? A lot of people i used to play with have moved on.

[Hendo]

It’s probably a 3 way split isn’t it?

[Sly Reflex]

I don't think it's a case of the crew moving on more than the series moving on. It's not really the same game it was.

[Duck]

...and people not having 4-7 hours free every night to play. ?.....?

 

I'm keen on getting it but I'm going to wait few weeks and see what people are saying. I'm still playing Blackout a lot too..

[RYAN WHITELAW]

17 hours ago, Nag said:

I think you'd better buy a PS4 to go with your game if you'd like that to happen @RYAN WHITELAW?

 

I have a PS4. Selling it though as i never use it. Have a few people i still play with (on xbox) though and a lot of the old crowd play other games (Siege, PUBG) so i dont buy cross platform on PS4 when ihave a shiny new X  

[RoboticMonk3y]

So I got this with my Xbox one and I'm loving the multiplayer.

It feels like a mix of bad company 2 and BF4.

Not played the campaign so I can't comment on that, but one to check out given its on sale. Especially if you have a battlefield itch.

[RoboticMonk3y]

I'm still enjoying this a lot

although it's plagued with the same thing of every battlefield have I've ever played.

SOME people don't like playing the objective

SOME people like to sit at the back of the map with a sniper rifle

you're kinda kept going by your squad, 2 medics, an engineer and an assault seems to be the best combo I've seen. Assault dealing out the explosive damage, engineer resupplying and building cover, medics picking people back up. I've had a recon who spent most of the game spotting people and moving about to the objective we were trying to cap, but sadly that seems to be the exception, 

[AndyKurosaki]

That always used to bring my piss to a boil, the “team”-mates who did absolutely nothing to contribute. 

Hang back and snipe? F off.

Dont bother capturing objectives? Double F off.

 

I think Battlefield works best with mates,because on your own it just feels a right chore. When you’re with a decent squad of randoms,fun can be had.  I rented it,but didn’t bother with it much. Even the campaign didn’t really grab my attention for long.

[RoboticMonk3y]

agreed.

I was playing with a friend the other night, and I don't remember how many games we won or lost, but it felt fun trying to cop objectives and explore the map.

One of the daily objectives was to get a certain number of points and kills as recon. it was BORING. it was like clicking on an excel spreadsheet.

[RoboticMonk3y]

Have any of you been following the drama with this?

DICE, in order to try and make the game more beginner friendly in time for Christmas, have increased the time to kill. This has caused a lot of the community to become a little upset, as the consensus was that the TTK was spot on.

I did notice that I was surviving longer, but I also noticed that a few times I got the drop on someone and they had time to turn and scrub off half my health.

I also played a good chunk of the game as recon, I was spotting people running out of a building and shooting at people camp sniping in the doorways. Several times I landed clean headshots and didn't kill people. The community have been grumbling that there is a lot of janky net code, and last night is the first time I've actually seen it.

That all being said, I still had good fun playing last night. I'm surprised how many people have skipped over this one.

[AndyKurosaki]

I hadn’t heard about that, to be honest all I see about it on YouTube is how it’s tanking because few people are bothering with it.

 

I didn’t play it long before I returned it to Boomerang. Not because I felt it was a bad game as such. But it didn’t grip me either. It didn’t feel particularly finished,with part of the campaign,and even the training mode being up as Coming Soon.

 

I don’t think they helped their case when earlier in the PR window, they reacted to criticism with something along the lines of “if you don’t like it,don’t buy it”.

Or,maybe people are just tired of the franchise,coming out year after year.

[Hendo]

20 odd minute on the Firestorm mode. Looks good!

 

 

[mmmark]

I’ve been on this all be it not as much as I’d like. BF1 had a great campaign. Beautifully told. But multi I only enjoyed a few maps and upgrading seemed complicated. 

 

BFV I haven’t played on a weak map. It’s honestly almost up there with 4 after only a few hours. Upgrades are clear and feels more akin to how games were rather than micro transactions of everything feeling 100s of hours out of reach. You see how you’re progressing and what you can achieve.

 

I’ve played 1 story and loved every moment. One part is played on a sprawling map with multiple objectives that you can complete in a multitude of ways. Stealth the whole thing. Rambo it. Steal a plane. All three. The companionship and evolving gratitude for one another during that story is told with humanising gravitas and moments you don’t see in other shooters. Like bf1 it’s grounding and respectful whilst also been a lot of fun as a game. 

[mmmark]

Hello I’m back on this having remembered it’s the one game I’d bought digitally that time I briefly had an xb1. 
 

To my delight the servers are chock-a-block with games and I was able to dive right in. On XBSX it looks great. Well as good as possible. I think it might have had XBOX.. hang on I just realised Xbox one X makes XBOX as an acronym. Anyway I think it might be 4k because of it being on the one X. Everything is crisp and the draw distance is awesome. I imagine 2042 looks pretty impressive.

 

I spent longer than I should on a campaign mission also. Within the mission it has a second objective to collect 9 letters. I remembered I’d done this before but I think on PS4 and it did say 0 of 9. However none of the letters were on the map. I looked up a guide to make sure I wasn’t being mega dumb. Maybe it meant 0/9 left to get? But that’d be a mad way of putting it. iirc it unlocks a melee weapon so I could always check if I have that unlocked already.

 

Thanks for listening.