Battlefield 2042 - DICE Goes Back to the Future, Just Not the 2142 Future

Watch them put out like 4 new maps total, one to go with each specialist, then they let the game die off the rest of the way.

For what it’s worth I still enjoy it and play a couple matches daily. I’m on PS5 where the performance is good and the player base on Conquest is healthy enough to keep cross-play off. I’ve been out of the BF loop since… BF3. You cant find the same chaotic infantry/vehicle/air madness that you get from a BF game. (Aside from older BF games of course, but I have no PC to play those at the moment.)

There’s a lot of issues that need fixing (PC performance a big one) but I think there’s a good core there.

Scoreboard coming…eventually.

I admit, I did not think a scoreboard would be the content the playerbase had to look forward to when the season starts (or whenever it drops).

Seems like they’re pretty committed to not showing anything like K/D ratio. I know it makes vocal forumgoers squawk, but I’m not sure I disagree with DICE. It makes more sense in TDM or something, but I don’t think K/D ratio should be the concerned in objective-based play. Anyway, don’t have strong feelings one way or another.

It is however, a really good indicator of hacking. A player might have 200 kills, but when they have 150 deaths, it’s no big deal, 200:0 is an entirely different thing. I don’t get what the reluctance is in showing it. Is it to avoid someone seeing themselves at the bottom? If that’s the case, maybe a solution is to just mask the bottom half of the server?

That’s a good point!

Hmmm, that just made me wonder: could a lack of scoreboard disincentivize cheaters in any way? I’ve never really understood the motivations to cheat in a game like this, I’ve kind of assumed that they like to piss people off. And nothing pisses off people more than seeing that 100:1 K/D guy, if my experience with BFV is anything to go by. I’m not saying that’s the case, but it’s a thought that popped into my head when you mentioned it. :) I’d love some data, telemetry, or studies on that, it’d be really interesting to me.

Also, in older Battlefield games being able to identify a cheater like that felt more helpful because the servers were managed by admins who could then boot them. In BF2042, what do you do when the scoreboard shows you there’s a cheater? You can’t even pick what server you play on in that game, so what do you do with that info other than stew about it? in BFV I could at least switch servers.

I’d wonder if that kind of thing factored in to their decision not to include it. I’m a bit skeptical, though, because there doesn’t seem to be that level of thought put into any aspect of the game. ;)

I spent a good chunk of my BF2 career getting booted from servers for ‘hacking’. 100:0 KD doesn’t indicate anything except that the other team sucked. I’m not as good as I used to be, in truth I tend to get bored and move on from a title quicker than I used to so (so don’t hone my skill as much) and I am getting older and slower. Still, as someone who’s been on the other side of that equation, it sucks.

Servers with active admins playing were probably the worst. Kill the wrong dude 5 times in a row and here comes the kickban. A good lesson in egocentric bias, at least.

you’re right, 100 or 200:0 doesn’t always mean hacking. It can also mean spawn-killing, team stacking or someone that’s just too good for the server: any of which are pretty good reasons to remove them if you’re looking to run a good server. Ya, bad admins exist, and everyone’s probably run into them at some point, but if i had to choose between no admins and occasionally bad admins, i’d probably go with the later.

There’s been a lot of negativity for some time and it has been frustrating as someone who actually enjoys the core gameplay. I do think however that the messaging and recent updates from Dice has been abysmal. That last update… woof.

Anyways here’s my list of prioritized items that I’d like to see as opposed to a lot of the hot takes that are more “throw everything out and start over”:

  • Fix crashes (this has been happening more frequently)
  • Fix performance issues (mostly PC/XS)
  • Fix PS4/X1 latency
  • Fix disappearing characters / vehicles
  • Fix lock on issues
  • Let players actually hear Boltes/Choppers coming a mile away so they aren’t silent but deadly.
  • Let players know how many players are waiting in a lobby and how many are required to start a game.
  • Let game lobbies carry over from one match to the next so there’s no re-matchmaking.
  • Add squad voice chat (Squad leaders chat would be cool too)
  • Let players earn more points:
    • Following Squad commands credits
    • SOFLAM credits
    • Vehicle damage credits
    • Assists count as kills
  • Let players spawn on team vehicles at start of match.
  • Balancing fixes

That should be top priority IMO. After that we can discuss further balancing classes like potentially not allowing all characters have all items. I would love to see more maps. I personally don’t have a huge problem with the open spaces as there are usually “paths” that infantry can take from one objective to the next without being completely out in the open.

As for bringing players back? I would say first fix all the glaring issues above. THEN have a major season update with new maps, weapons, and characters. Have infantry only maps. Have some radar off modes. I would drastically change or remove the end of game quips (I hate them so much). Let the final screen reflect more than just one dumb data point for each squad mate and show more meaningful data.

That’s kind of the problem though. They need to fix a lot of stuff and they need to add basic stuff that’s still missing from the game and they need to crank out the live service stuff and they need to bring back players. They need to do all the things.

They’re on the hook to deliver at least 4 battle passes with a new character each, but after that? Well, this is EA and they seem to be all-in on Respawn right now while DICE has gotten their hand slapped pretty hard. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a repeat of the way they shorted Battlefield V’s support and live service map.

You’re right they do need to do all the things. But the order needs to be: Fix, balance, then add. They can’t bring anyone back if the game is still borked.

I’m not disagreeing. I doubt execs see this and think the same though.

That’s 163 on the list below Kenshi, Squad, and Hell Let Loose.

BFV has 16K players. BF1 has 7K.


Someone took time to make these, lol.

That’s so depressing. I know a few lapsed players that loved 2142 and stopped playing with that incarnation after playing 1942 and BF2 as well.

What a fall Dice has taken. Used to be my favorite FPS. shame…

Season 1 delayed to Summer.

Highlights:

  • In-game voice chat, scoreboard, and player stats are highest priority
  • Map design feedback taken to heart and future maps will be discussed with community
  • Ultimate and Gold edition buyers will receive a bundle of cosmetic doodads

So a MP game with 7 months of no new content, a bold move.

Challenge everything!

This has echoes of Anthem post-release, where they really needed to rework their itemization and add some new content. And as the months of nothing happening dragged on, the playerbase continued to dwindle.

Arguably, I think BF2042 is going to require more work to get up to speed than Anthem did. And they never bothered with actually doing anything with Anthem. Given that BF is an established IP and they sold a year one pass I’m guessing they’ll do more than nothing but I’m doubtful they’ll be willing to put in the work required.

I think they’ll do exactly what they did with BFV. People will get some big fixes/additions that are critical like the voice chat and scoreboard, then 3 anemic seasons of barebones content. The 4th will be an attempt at a soft relaunch like the BFV Pacific update but it will end the same way.