BF1 Beta - Partial review

[Morphza]

Morning Whatsapp Lovers...

Okay, so here are my thoughts on the BF1 Beta, i've only managed to get to level 15, so this is by no means a "professional's" viewpoint

Positives:
- It's so pretty - the scenery is really really good, had some texture issues, but a driver update should resolve that, but i may be getting a little tired of the desert already :)
- The gameplay seems to be rather smooth and the guns handle well (no, i don't pretend to be a gun expert like most of you try to :D )
- The game loads quickly, and I love the way you zoom out from your corpse to the battle map, and then back in to your new spawn position
- My little 7970 HD runs the game on default HIGH settings at about 75 FPS!
- The horses run really weirdly, but they add a great feature to the game... definitely the fastest way to get around.

Negatives:
- NO MUSIC SLIDER... WTF
- There is some rather weird glitching in the game...
- Try to climb onto a rock and suddenly you are climbing a building 100m away, and once you are up, you are back on top of the rock
- The rocks out crops have areas that would be very easy to climb, but they have an invisible barrier wall
- I've found spots that allow certain guns to fire, but others hit the object next to you... WTF
(i.e. without moving the sniper rifle hits the rock "in front of you" while a hand gun fires without a problem.

Concerns:
- Not having local servers really does put a spanner in the ability to truly test the game before buying.... but having said that, if this is how the game handles at 250-300ms ping, i'm impressed!
- Are the only going to show one map for the beta... so much sand!

Comments:
- People are bitching about the same things when BF4 was in beta... QB, the movement does feel sluggish, just like BF4 beta did on day 1... some graphic setting changes and you all sorted!
- No Pre-Order still stands for me at this point
- Yes, it was highly annoying, but last night's connectivity issues were out of their control, so should not hold it against the beta

Add your thoughts...

[Thor_23]

Good review Morph,

Personally had a lot of the same as above.

One thing that was annoying to me was the tank getting stuck on a brick. Funny enough the tanks those days were made to climb trenches.....

The feel of the game is good and the game on high ping performs very well. Noticed some lag on sniper shots.

Personally with what I have seen I am happy with my pre-order and think I will be getting the premium.

[SlipperyDuck]

all the negatives are things you as a BEta signup are supposed to be repoting to DICE to fix up, the point of a BETA test is to find these kind of annoyances to get fixed up for final or second beta test.

I reached about level 20 or so - a few unlocks through.

Whats really great is that Levelling is class specific too - so not only do you gain levels and earn Warbonds, which are used to buy weapons as upgrades, but you also need to spend time with a class to level that class up. LEvelling a class unlocks more gadgets and weapons to be purchased with your warbonds. eg. my default medic had pretty standard gun and medic satchels, but when i eventually levelled him (i think when i reached level 16 - so its not quick) i unlocked the good old-fasioned medic box on the floor and a seni-auto medium scoped rifle, this pretty much chnaged my play style entirely.

I kinda like this system. (its a battlefield staple - with purchsing added, to make you feel more like you earned it)

What really has made an impression on me, is the stark differences in weapons. unlike previous games, weapons are so vastly differenet that you struggle to swop from one class to another for a few minutes, as you come to grips with the weapon again. Obviously with enough time and favorites unlocked etc. this will not really be an issue at all, but it does show how much effort has been put in to the actual weaponry and i REALLY like this variety and massive diffenences that this makes with each players play style.

The Horses, yep they are supposed to feel a bit weird, its not a car, you dont have complete control, it is an animal, you suggesting speeds and directions.... also take a few minutes to figure out how to get the best out of a horse, but when you do, OMG they are actually amazing.

More to come once we all play some more.

[BadA$$jack]

I've only manged to play for about 2 hours, so can't really give a true reflection of the game, from my side i'm not going to pre-order and will wait till game launch and then read the reviews, like Ion said, BF4 Beta was awesome but the game was a fail in the beginning.

[Thor_23]

Posted this on wa and not sure if anyone looked at it.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/whotube-2/how-historically-accurate-is-battlefield-1.html

its a good article and shows that EA at least made a effort to keep it historically accurate

[Cat Nipples]

I really like it, I think it's a bit more challenging than the other BFs in terms of pure gunplay and combat yet still caters to the more casual crowd.

Feels a bit iffy that there's no ticket bleed but I see a lot of people are complaining about it on reddit. Hopefully DICE gives us the option to enable it (as a server option, maybe a 'classic' mode).

So far it feels like a pre-order for me, loving the WW1 theme. Plenty of glitches that will hopefully be sorted out before / during the release.

Good idea (for the people who are definitely getting the game) is to buy / preorder it but not to play it too much the first week... Expect a big release day patch and release week patch.

[Morphza]

Ticket Bleed?? but the tickets go up...not down ?

[Cat Nipples]

Well then err... ticket feeding!

[TygerBS]

My impressions:

Looks pretty.
For the map we have same issues that bf4 maps had. Cap zones are waaaaay to big, map designed for scenery not the game play.
Same Bf issues as always, shoot and get nothing, other guy turns around and one shots you, the around the corner blues.
Tanks are way to dominant, and will only get worse as guys become better at them. The fact you cant kill them from a distance is a very big problem that I am not sure how they are going to solve. Perhaps the horses are the way forward to dance around them.
Initially guns didn't feel good, but after getting used to them they feel pretty good. Snipping seems way to easy ATM.
Ducky was saying it feels more like bf2 that you actually had to learn the weapons and class and i think he is right.
But the running and jumping and movement mechanic is broken in several places.

Overall I am just still left with a meh feeling. Perhaps I am just old and jaded.
Features like when I change seats in a vehicle it plays an animation of me climbing into that seat, while all nice and fine and dandy. It adds nothing to the game play, it takes control away from the player for those seconds, and for me breaks the suspension of disbelief. The same is true of the vaulting mechanic. I don't need to see a fancy animation, i just want to jump over the thing in front of me. The fact i can jump over a 8 foot wall, but have to try 10 time to get up a 1 foot ridge is very frustrating. All because a quick time animation must be played.
The knifing mechanic. Why oh why oh why is it possible, why would they add it into their code that an ok can run at you from 20 meters away and you can shoot him the whole way, but because he pressed his melee button he gets to kill you. That will never ever sit comfortably with me. Its fucked up.

Its these things that piss me off about what dice does. They just keep adding features, so called COOL features, but dont fix the existing features.
If you cant make the vault thing work 100% then take it out, it detracts from the game.

My hope and wish is that they spend time making the things they add to the game work properly and dont add new things till they have fixed everything, but i doubt it.

Yes the final game, it will prob run a bit better. With local servers it will be a better experience. But I predict its gonna have the exact same issues that BF4 had.
Flat game play because of poor design decisions when it comes to weapons, classes maps design and flag cap zones.

Makes me sad.
Hope I am wrong.

[Phatso]

I haven't played much at all but I know for a fact that the Battlefield engine doesn't react consistently with high ping. Sometimes you can wreck guys, other times guys are bullet sponges.
High latency can also cause issues with vaulting over obstacles and horse riding etc.. remember that.

My first impression is refreshment of a new era.

Also, here is one of the first decent montages. If you only watch one part, go to 1:55 in the video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqy-9yUHF_Y

[Cat Nipples]

I think my favorite thing about BF1 was 10 people in the teamspeak channel last night

[Morphza]

Has anyone else been in the front gunner seat of the biplane??

What a ride... its like a rollercoaster, except you cant tell which way is up, which way is down, so basically what the fuck is going on... as soon as you correct yourself, the pilot dives off in another direction!
(even flying upside down now and then)

I would recommend it to all of you! :D

[Voetsek-Mikey]

Beta is not that bad. Some teaks to be done before final release. But definitely playable and fun.

Anyways Not as bad as some of the other EA Bata releases I have played.

Money i tight as it is, but I will get standard edition.

And its always more fun playing in a proper squad with most of you fucker/clan mates. :D

[Paul]

I have played a few rounds and I agree with most that has been said.

Like all BF games I am sure the true game will only be created by the 2nd or 3rd patch after they have fixed enough bugs and tweaked it enough to be very playable. I think that it has a good foundation to be a fantastic game.
Once they fixed the glitches like not being able to jump over 30cm rocks and we get local servers it will be a lot of fun.

So my advice is not tp pre-order and if you really aren't sure give it a month for the patches to be implemented and then get it. I plan on buying it, I am actually going to go for the Hard copy, which my internet being less than optimum, it will take a week to download the game assuming it is going to be between 30gb -40gb

[RussianElite.]

Clocked nearly 30 hours on the beta. Loved every second of it.
Game runs great on my dated hardware and looks amazing.
Love how every class feels different because of the detail put into their respective available guns and gadgets.
The AT gun of the assault class is the most fun weapon Ive played with in the BF franchise. Nothing like taking a sniper out or demolishing the building where people are camping on the roof.
Guns take more skill to kill someone rather than the almost non existant recoil we had in BF4.
At first I was dissapointed to hear of the WW1 setting because it was gonna be trench warfare and limited weaponry, but in the end the setting is amazing and they mostly have weapons featured at the beginning of WW2.
Atmosphere is thick and sounds are brilliant. Feels like all out war with the planes bombing and dust everywhere while distant gunfire is being heard aswell with all the chaos going on around you.
Game will only get better and will be amazing with local servers.

Bugs Ive found was also the vaulting over certain rocks not working right and on Sunday when we all didnt have our weapons availible, but surely its their servers struggling with the launch of the beta or something. Im sure its not going to be a ongoing issue.

Best Battlefield Ive played and I have played them all.

[Morphza]

1) Russian is very very easy to please...
2) Russian's point of view means nothing, please ignore the above post.

[Megageth]

Having watched youtube vids and played a bit, >150ms pings are definitely spoiling our experience of the game. They will fix a lot of the bugs before launch but, we can expect a few to linger.
It will be good. I am more keen to play ~20 vs 20 than 32 vs 32. Spawning and dying constantly also ruins the experience. The scenery is fantastic and I would like to look at it for more than 2 secs before I am bombed/shot in the back.

I was really impressed by Jackfrags vid on BF1 without the HUD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f30mH6XXtog

[Reaper]

Pity now R1000....

[RussianElite.]

cdkeys.com selling Standard edition for R680. Microsoft https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/store/p/battlefield-1-standard-edition/c1n415jn37hs selling for R800

[Phatso]

Already given up on this Juandre.

I have read a lot of a angry SA Battlefielders that are simply not getting it due to the price increase.

While Microsoft would be fine, its still R800 and cdkeys.com... well I don't like supporting 3rd party key-resellers (like G2A).