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    Battlefield 2042

    Game » consists of 2 releases. Released Nov 12, 2021

    Battlefield 2042 features 128-player battles across seven maps that span across the globe with more customizable options than ever before.

    Battlefield 2042 Release

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    inspectorfowler

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    Well, it’s out. I bought it on PC and have played a bit there, and I have played a bit on Xbox through Game Pass.

    It’s better than the beta but still has substantial bugs. Menus flickering, the commo rose coming in and out of existence, being unable to access your loadouts in some matches, and a persistent connection issue today.

    The big thing that makes me sort of sad is the Cross Play stuff. We have a gang at work and I’m the only PC player. I’d be willing to re-buy if it was going to be ”our” game but we’re split between PS5 and Series X. The problem is that the consoles can’t wall off just the PC players - it’s either ”everybody plays together” or “stick to your own platform”.

    I’m definitely not a pro player, but I can say that when I switched to console about 8/10 people who killed me were PC players and I doubt that 80% of the total player pool are PC right now. I wish we could set it to “console only” but ah well.

    As far as the actual game, it has good bones but they need to fix the worst bugs before it’s that decent. It’s definitely Battlefield in a lot of ways. I appreciate being able to hack the damn chaff off a helicopter for 10 seconds :)

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    deactivated-6357e03f55494

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    I haven't encountered any bugs yet, other than the "unable to load persistent data" whuch can be gotten past with a few requeues, and is probably server related.

    All in all....this feels like a step back from V. The graphics(ultra 70 fps) are kind of flat and bland. The movement feels stiff, but at the same time floaty.

    The gun play is nice though, just the right amount of recoil. And the attachment modification is neat.

    The specialists are whatever, they aren't needed but it doesn't bother me that they're in there.

    I don't know, its not the same chaos we've gotten since bf3. It feels more like a Battlefield 2. Which was great at the time but there's a lot of other pc games that fill that slower play.

    I also find the large map hard to read. It takes me a good 10 seconds to figure out exactly where I am on it.

    Ill play it cuz well, I bought it, but it's not hitting the same way 4 and V did when I first started playing them. There's no real wow factor so far for me. It's just "a game I'll play".

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    ThePanzini

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    #3  Edited By ThePanzini

    It’s better than the beta but still has substantial bugs. Menus flickering, the commo rose coming in and out of existence, being unable to access your loadouts in some matches, and a persistent connection issue today.

    These are Dice problems that have persisted over a number of titles.

    Apart from a few server issues the (fake) launch has been pretty good, 2042 is in a much better place than BFV and miles from a BF4 disaster.

    2042 isn't perfect and could do with a load of QOL improvements, the UI is still poor especially during gameplay and the unlocks require an insane amount of kills/points probably because the lower number of items.

    However the core is definitely there, shooting is punchy with decent recoil, the tanks and vehicles in general are a lot more fun to use and 128 players is mind blowing the scale is immense with every map having combined arms nerfing the power of the zerg and ghost capping.

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    inspectorfowler

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    Also, does anybody know if there is a method to group up with people short of everybody making friend lists? Like some kind of clan/guild system? I figured with all the talk about "no-pats" that would be a sort of built-in thing.

    And y'all are right - the shooting itself is pretty good and I think as people get used to the maps the "flow" of BF will set in the way it usually does.

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    LonelySpacePanda

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    Can't even install game on PC through Game Pass or EA Play. Very cool!

    While I'm tempted to buy it for PS5, I know if I wait a year it will be so much better: More legacy maps, more bug fixes, and better performance. My only concern is that the playerbase will be so hardcore by then but maybe not.

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    jacksmedulla

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    LonelySpacePanda

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    @jacksmedulla: I dunno. I'm assuming issues with Game Pass persist there. Currently, it broke my entire EA Play client so maybe uninstalling and reinstalling may fix but don't care enough to try. When I go to download manager, it keeps loading forever and never shows anything -- judging by my internet connection nothing is being downloaded. If I got to main store, it shows downloading and I can't stop or retry. Completely borked. On Game Pass, Microsoft have an error code that explains they are aware of issues with this. Never had this happened before but just as well, I got other games to play.

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    inspectorfowler

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    I've played many more rounds now. Some bugs seem to be settling out but others remain. It's shocking how bad the menus have been on Xbox and PC. Click on "next reward" and it closes out the menu, leaving you to puzzle out what you have unlocked. The commo rose still doesn't consistently work on both platforms. But in terms of actual shooting people, it seems relatively decent, and the connection bug is getting less frequent.

    Overall so far, my tl;dr is that it feels like Battlefield if you didn't matter at all. There are too many capture points and too much going on for you to really make a difference with just your squad.

    A few matches have had close scores but for the most point it feels like one team has the "swarm and capture" mentality and they get out, get ahead, and that's it. I've been the beneficiary of this and the victim of this and it's not really that fun either way. I'd say I get 1 close match for every 3 blowouts (a team winning by more than say, 200 tickets).

    Seeing 30 enemies swarm a point is impressive from a technical perspective but it really makes the older games' "C'mon, guys, this is our Alamo! We'll keep 'em at bay!" moments a thing of the past. Your squad isn't going to do squat against two tanks, a hovercraft, and a helicopter and 12 more soldiers.

    I feel bad being down on Battlefield, and I know that the meta will change when a bigger player base joins in, but for me the fun of BF has always been that as I age I can keep doing well by being sneaky, flanking, trying to capture a remote point to distract the enemy team, or holding a point against all odds even if I'm not Mr. Insta Headshot. In this game, there are so many people everywhere that these tactics are very difficult to execute.

    Can't go back in time but I do wish there was something modern that captured the "just big enough to be epic" feel that might mix BF3 and BF4 together.

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    deactivated-6357e03f55494

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    I know the last Battlefield was just 3 years ago, and the multiplayer gaming space hasn't changed THAT much, but I feel like the frame of mind of the average gamer is much more of a solo mentality than even when V came out.

    Battle Royales and the, imo, sharp spike in "everybody wants to be a streamer" have made being the best far more appealing than just winning. I feel the same when I try to play Valorant vs CSGO.

    With 2042, I like the clustered sectors idea in THEORY, but in practice like inspectorfowler said, it just ends up with everyone going to the one point with the most people at it just to get as many kills as possible.

    That combined with the specialist(which on their own I think are fine, heck some of them are actually great) and new loadout concept(anyone can have anything) means it's A LOT easier to solo play. I don't necessarily blame DICE for doing this. It is what people are into now, but they might have hedged their bet on it a little too heavily.

    I'll be curious to see how this game progresses over the next year, or if they will just focus on Hazard Zone and weirdly enough the core Battlefield experience will end up being the secondary experience.

    I see a lot of people praising Portal, but I don't get it. I messed around with it and I guess it's cool to see some of the older maps updated but like, if I want to play BF3 or BC2...I'll just play them. Plenty of people still play those, and it's not too hard to find a decent lobby.

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    ThePanzini

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    #10  Edited By ThePanzini
    @reap3r160 said:

    I know the last Battlefield was just 3 years ago, and the multiplayer gaming space hasn't changed THAT much, but I feel like the frame of mind of the average gamer is much more of a solo mentality than even when V came out.

    Battle Royales and the, imo, sharp spike in "everybody wants to be a streamer" have made being the best far more appealing than just winning. I feel the same when I try to play Valorant vs CSGO.

    With 2042, I like the clustered sectors idea in THEORY, but in practice like inspectorfowler said, it just ends up with everyone going to the one point with the most people at it just to get as many kills as possible.

    That combined with the specialist(which on their own I think are fine, heck some of them are actually great) and new loadout concept(anyone can have anything) means it's A LOT easier to solo play. I don't necessarily blame DICE for doing this. It is what people are into now, but they might have hedged their bet on it a little too heavily.

    I'll be curious to see how this game progresses over the next year, or if they will just focus on Hazard Zone and weirdly enough the core Battlefield experience will end up being the secondary experience.

    I see a lot of people praising Portal, but I don't get it. I messed around with it and I guess it's cool to see some of the older maps updated but like, if I want to play BF3 or BC2...I'll just play them. Plenty of people still play those, and it's not too hard to find a decent lobby.

    That solo mentality has been around Battlefield for a long time, the specialist could in theory alleviate the problem or at least help.

    How many players are actually playing their class or picked it based on the weapon they wanted to use, at least with the specialist system the player chose the ammo box and you would assume a desire to actually use it.

    I think the sectors kinda work but I think their should be more flags/sectors, and they should take a lot longer to cap within much bigger zones. The distance between flags does solve the zerg issue, I've seen people actually try defending for once in a long time.

    I'm like 99% sure Hazard Zone dies on the vine and Dice won't support it, Grand Ops was Battlefields most succesful new mode and only 15% of the player base ever played it, with Portal as well HZ toast.

    I'm with you on Portal I played those games to death I have no desire to go back especially not for just two maps on rotation.

    My biggest problem so far has been the connection Friday & Satuday was fine but Sunday has been a nightmare with rubber banding, weird hit reg and getting killed after the fact, has me concerned for the offical launch I've seen a few poeple on reddit with similar problems.

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    deactivated-6357e03f55494

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    @thepanzini:

    I think the specialists just need some time to breathe, maybe balanced a bit and expanded on.

    I do wish you could tie loadouts to specialists. Like the guy that can hack, he's my AA guy with the lock on aa missile, so I have a load out with that.

    But if I'm playing my medic class(along with falk ofc) that's two options I need to switch. It's definitely clunky and needs to be streamlined for it to shine.

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    inspectorfowler

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    I've come to a personal decision on the hovercraft after being enraged at its combo of mobility, firepower, and durability:

    It's hilarious if you aren't really into winning or losing and just like silliness.

    It's a lot of fun if you're the driver or the mini-gunner - I find it hard to use the side guns if it's moving as fast as it should be.

    I don't love it as an addition - in my mind it would be the modern "desert buggy" thing - it gets you there fast but it ain't gonna take much punishment. But if I look on the bright side, we get a turret-less tank that is drifting around an objective flag at like 35 lateral mph while three different guns are spraying in all directions and it can take multiple rocket hits before it has to leave to "heal".

    It was very frustrating for a while and then I just decided that it's fine if I can hear Tokyo Drift playing in the back of my head when one rolls into an objective.

    Now...let me level up and get those anti-tank mines and I'll make 'em sorry. But until then, drift on, my friends.

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