Battlefield 5 had an open beta, so I decided to dip my toes into the game and see what it is like. This one is a bit harder to write for me because I feel that Battlefield is tailored to a specific audience while Call of Duty is a game built for everyone. Because of that, I feel that whatever I say about the game can be undermined by Battlefield fans as 'it's just another casual player.' So, here is what I am going to say before I get in: I am a casual player of the game (the only other one I have really played is Battlefield 1). This blog is my point of view as a casual player trying to play the game. So, let's get right into it.

I did play Battlefield 1 back when the game came out, but I have little memory of it now. Still, I can say that in large part, this is still a Battlefield game. Not really much of a shocker, but as someone who doesn't really play a lot of the series that is the first thing I noticed. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, I'm just setting expectations. The modes offered are the same, the general map structure is the same, and the classes are the same (at least as far as I can tell). But this game does have some changes, for better or for worse, that I think or know are unique to Battlefield 5, so I want to get into those. And if they aren't changes from previous games, then they are just things I noticed throughout my time with the game worth talking about.

The biggest thing that popped out to me were what I think are the changes stated to make more squad-like play. I could be wrong if they are changes from the previous game, but these aspects I noticed were things I don't remember noticing when playing BF1. These changes I am talking about are how much ammo you can carry, a different revive system,and the squad size being cut down to four. I didn't really care about the squad size, but the ammo amount and revive system really bothered me. Most of the time I got killed, the game would put me into a revive state. There I had three options: speed up the meter ticking down to my death, slow it down in hopes of someone reviving me, or press neither button. In this game, anyone can revive you but medics do it faster. But I found that not a lot of people try to revive me because even the medics and their revive speed couldn't be fast enough to heal then hide from enemy fire (probably some sniper off in the distance picking people off). Because of that, I wasn't revived all that much and I chose to speed up the death meter instead. So, where is the issue in this? The issue is that it takes way too long to get back into the game. After leaving the revive screen, you have to wait another eight seconds to respawn. I counted how long it takes from you dying and holding the quick death option to respawn and it is around fifteen seconds. I'm not asking for immediate respawns, but fifteen seconds is pretty ridiculous. The only bright side to this is that I started striking up conversations with others in that time. At one point, I was talking to another person and they said they take snack breaks every time they die. If you can take a snack break every time you die (unless you are talking about a no respawn game of course), then I think it takes too long to respawn. But it was a bigger issue for me than others because I am a casual player who quite frankly sucks at the game. I have good moments here and there and I can accept losing in a firefight, but I feel that most of my deaths are from snipers off in the distance who are super good at the game. And I know that this is a Battlefield thing, but having that plus a super long respawn time made the game a bit hard to play for me.

The other change I noticed is the ammo count. Unless you play as the support class (who technically has unlimited ammo), the classes have very little ammo. And I mean VERY little. Most guns (other than the support ones of course) will only start you with one extra magazine. That means if a gun has a thirty bullet magazine, you will only get thirty bullets extra. And the max amount of ammo that can be carried for these guns are only one clip extra. That means if you are relatively decent at the game and you are not a support class, you will have to constantly depend on either finding an ammo crate or another player who is running a support class. This to me felt pretty ridiculous, especially considering you are carrying nine magazines of pistol ammo. I felt constantly tethered to an ammo source when playing with these classes, which meant I didn't really want to rush anything which sucks because both the assault and medic classes have good rushing guns. Because of this limitation, I mostly ran with the support class because I didn't want to constantly have to ask for ammo. And because of that, I felt that the assault class, other than having the most fun weaponry, felt useless (I know it's a good anti-vehicle class, but the support class also has some good anti-vehicle items too). Another issue similar to this is health regen. Unless you are a medic, you only regenerate your health to around half health. The health limitation feels like a similar problem as the ammo problem, but it felt more manageable because picking up health from a health crate gives you an extra health pack, which made me feel slightly less tethered to a medic or health crate. Still, I found this to be annoying as well.

I know why these annoyances are in place though (or at least I think I do). I get that these changes are to promote more team-oriented play. They want you to stick with your squad and play more tactically than go Rambo. But these changes didn't feel like a push towards teamplay, it felt like a forceful shove. I remember playing solo in Battlefield 1 to be harder but doable, but this game is much more difficult solo (unless you play the support class). And I get this game isn't for everyone like Call of Duty is trying to be, but it made the game harder to jump into for people like me, and I feel like even if I was really into the game it would still be hard to jump in by myself. I did play with friends and we did try to play a bit more tactically (choosing specific classes, sticking together, etc.), but I think ultimately we were trying to have fun more than play tactically and I think we didn't do as well because of it (unless we were in a tank, because there we did great!). I am not calling for this game to be open for anyone to play like Callof Duty, but I believe these changes push towards a more hardcore audience while making casual play not as fun.

While I feel strongly about the small changes above, I did find another small change to be surprisingly fun and useful. You can build in this game. No, this game isn't the next Fortnite or anything, but the maps offer various places to build sand mounds, walls, and sometimes even turrets. Anyone can build them, but some classes can build them faster. I really like this option to build because in a game filled with talented snipers, building cover felt really useful. Also, I think only having specific places to build instead of anywhere is the right choice. You can't just build a sandbag barrier anywhere; you have to find the selected place to build it. The building mechanic offers a good way to defend a place while not being some free-for-all for building whatever wherever.

I went over the bigger aspects of the game that I noticed, so let's go over the smaller ones. I won't go over the modes offered (because they are pretty much the same as last game), but I really liked the maps I played on. One map is a snowy mining area while the other is a beautiful city, and both are quite the spectacle. Weapons feel like they have more depth because now you can level them up and upgrade them. The one thing I have always enjoyed in Call of Duty is weapon progression and working towards attachments and skins, and this game sort of offers that. For me, having weapon progression keeps me in a multiplayer game longer because I love having physical progression and it is something worth working for. That was something not present in BF1, but having it here is pretty big for me. One issue I have with the upgrades are that the upgrades branch into two paths, and if you want to remap them then you have to repay for those upgrades. Weapon skins are now segmented to different parts of the gun instead of the gun as a whole. I am still not quite sure how these skins are obtained (other than the fact that they are not random), but instead of a skin for the gun you get a skin for the barrel or the magazine or whatever part you get it for. One thing I surprisingly enjoyed is the music. Whether it be in the game or in the menu, the music did a good job at setting the tone while still being something worth listening to on my free time. And last but not least, I'll talk about the state of the beta. It was fine for the most part. The biggest issues I noticed are bad spawns (I had multiple times where I spawn right next to an enemy), slower frame rate at spots, and bodies sometimes dangling in midair. I generally don't judge a beta for how well it performs because, well, it's a beta; but I never encountered any major issues which is nice.

In conclusion, I feel that Battlefield 5, at least from what I experienced, is more Battlefield. It's changes, though small, feel tailored towards more hardcore players but in annoying ways instead of good ones. I feel that to really enjoy the game I have to play with friends instead of just being able to manage by myself. After this beta, I feel less inclined to pick the game, but my interest in the game doesn't lie in multiplayer. For me, I want to see what their co-op mode and battle royale look like, so I still have interest in what the game will turn out to be. While some positives like building and weapon progression feel good in the game, I can't help but think about my experience and think of the negative aspects.

Those are my thoughts on the game, but what about yours? From what I have seen, different people are liking or disliking the game for different reasons, so I want to see what your thoughts are down below. Also, if you want to know my thoughts on anything else BF5 then you can also ask down below. And as always, thank you for reading.

Hey,

good summary. I feel similar about the revive/respawn mechanic.

In terms of ammo - enemies drop ammo packs now so yo can resupply from that - but agree, a bit annoying. Also, it does not really promote team gameplay if you play with randoms. Not to mention a lot of people play assault or medic.

RE snipers - I picked up an Enfield off the ground yesterday and those guns have zero sway so sniping is prevalent to say the least... I think it's to entice filthy casuals like you and me :)

I totally get your frustration with the respawn timer, but the game can't work without it. Teams need to be able to push objectives and that's impossible if players respawn quickly. Battlefield has always been a game you play with friends compared to CoD.

@kubazse: Most of the time I played with randoms who were off doing their own thing, but like I said I did play with friends and we did try to be more strategic. A lot of people did play assault (that stg is really good), but for me personally who actually got good with the gun and ran out of ammo super fast, I found it annoying to constantly depend on someone else and because of that I stopped using the class. As for the other classes I did find other players playing all four pretty equally, it was just for me personally I found support to be truly worth my while. And as for sniping, I accept that as a Battlefield thing. I remember it being similar to the last game. But then to add a 15 second respawn makes the game a little frustrating. Thank you for writing in though. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to hear how people felt about the game. This game feels like one of those games where people love it or hate it for different reasons.

@meteora3255: I agree that instant respawns shouldn't be there, but I think waiting 15 seconds makes me question how much longer I want to play the game. I think cutting that time down to about 5-7 seconds or at the very least having an instant death when choosing the death option in the revive screen would be nice. And I do know playing this game with friends is always better than solo. Going solo isn't the preferred method, but I have friends who live in two different time zones and it is a little hard for us to come together and play. I think the game should be a struggle for solo players, but it should at least be doable for those who still want to play the game and can't form a squad. This game feels like they eliminate that through limited health and ammo so that you always have to stay near a team. I knew a lot of what I had to say comes from the standpoint of playing solo (I did play solo for most of the game after all), I just wanted to offer my thoughts on the game as a solo player.

Personally i think the ammo change is great it forces teamplay, and most real battle's are won through logistic, just look up the Ho Chi min trail, It gives you a more solid and realistic warfare feel i know this is still battlefield and not ARMA ( in ARMA you can even bring 5 drum mags of a 100 rounds each :D). And this reminded me of when the Americans got stuck at the battle of the Bulge with some troops reporting they had to charge German encampments with only 1 mag of AMMO for there M1 Garand rifle. At first i was diasapointed by the lack of ammo but i started to play more in team and resupplied myself at flags. I think this system makes more sense and i hope they keep it, it's a good balance thing IMO.

One last minor gripe i have with any BF game is Snipers, like everyones Grandma and there dog included play a fucking sniper class it's supper irritating when you get one killed all the time by 30 snipers. I hope they cap them games like Rising Storm 1/2 Do a great job capping them to 2 or 3 per team, Wich is more realistic and is just a better gameflow/gamebalance, or at least cap the high zoom scopes or something. It's like Hitlers wet dream in every BF. game with 50% of the team playing a sniperclass ( Hitler had this weird war doctrine where he wanted every soldier to be a sniper.)

Also great write up BTW.

O yeah and the Health Regen system is way better now!

@soulcake: I get the reasons for the lack of ammo, but I still think it is dumb to be able to only carry up to two mags of your primary but nine mags for your pistol. I get it is to show the scarcity of war and what you must do to survive, but if that were the case then why do support classes have unlimited ammo? Still, if I missed the true fun of scarcity of ammo by not playing as a team more often, then that is on me. Also, I agree that the amount of snipers in the game is stupid. Anywhere I went on the map was always in the range of a sniper, and the high time it takes to respawn made that all the worse. I don't know about whether or not locking the classes would be good (especially because the squad size is now four), but at this point whatever it takes to limit the amount of snipers is something worth trying.

I played a few matches of Conquest last night and mostly agree with your assessment. Although, I did not find many snipers in the matches I played. As someone who has played Battlefield MP since Bad Company 2, your experience is not surprising, though. I also hated it in the previous games where half my team was playing as the Scout/Recon class, not capping flags in Conquest. Conversely, when the other team was full of snipers, it usually made it easier to cap flags.

@blackredgaming: I used to play more of a lone wolf style in BF but with the ammo restriction it forced me to play in team, I had some great teams but i had a lot off awful teams who just went there own way and then the ammo, policy is a real bummer. Maybe starting with 3 mags seems more reasonable in the end.

@soulcake: I'm not saying by any means you have to run around in a giant bullet suit (though imagine a giant bullet suit), but I do think three mags is an appropriate amount. I guess I should've said this better in my blog but I don't want the things I called out to vanish. I just want a better balance (three mags instead of one, seven second respawn instead of fifteen, etc.)

Low ammo means the ammo crates at each rally point are now super important; it helps to prioritise not only team play but objective play. I think the system has real promise and am keen to spend more time getting used to it.

@wardcleaver: You are lucky. Maybe some of it has to do with what map you are on, but I feel like it should be controlled a little better. Which is why I love the building so much. On the snow map I think capturing b and d is hard because snipers are on the side picking everyone off with not a lot of hiding spots, and those barriers help a lot.

@fram: This is true, but not all of the action lies around rally points. Fighting towards a rally point means using ammo and even if you are there you could be on the wrong side of the ammo crate. For me, I felt more inclined to stay at rally points because of my access to supplies instead of trying to capture new points.