Hey everyone, I just wanted to make a blog covering some of the stuff I've experienced playing the beta so far this weekend. The blog is kinda long but I wanted to include everything I think is worth mentioning. I'm playing during early access so there will be more maps and another mode added later on in the public beta. The beta is based on the multiplayer reveal build, so some things have already changed in the base game. There will be some IMO stuff too, also I've typed this on the phone so I tried to keep formatting acceptable 🙏

To start off, the agents of 2042 are gone and back to the regular assault/support/recon/engineer. There was a few playlists to choose from; conquest, class weapon locked conquest, domination, and breakthrough. I did some conquest, but mostly breakthrough.

At the moment, breakthrough is extremely unbalanced. The two maps in that mode, Siege of Cairo and Liberation peak, absolutely favored defenders. In the near 100 games I've played, attackers have won twice. This may be due to the fact certain gadgets aren't in the beta, and vehicles can't be upgraded or customized. Though certain choke points will have to be changed; losing near 200 tickets to one objective does not feel good. 

After trying out each class, support is my favorite with recon being last. So my preference order would be support, assault, engi, then recon. Each class has 3 levels that upgrade or help out their class weapons/gear as you play. Getting to level 3 is easy, its just by getting points. The most notable one I remember is that recon at level 2 makes sniper rifles headshots unrevivable, and engi at level 3 essentially gets a temporary upgraded version of the repair tool.

The support class now has health and ammo boxes combined, meaning one bag does both. It's incredibly strong and great at helping the front line. The defibrillator is insanely fast, much faster then BF3/4. You can even instant tap it to revive someone to half their health. BF4 may of had it too, but I don't really remember. The greatest thing they added though was the ability to drag downed teammates. So when a teammate peaks a corner and dies, I can drag him back and revive him without overly exposing myself. You can revive squadmates this way too, with any class. Support also gets deployable cover, which is great for making choke points for defenders. 

The assault supposedly gets two main rifles, though in the beta it seems the second weapon is locked to being the shotgun. Which is fine with me as I would use it anyway; its very strong. I saw some people complaining about it in chat, but I think the shotgun should be strong. It's a pump action with 16 rounds in total. Assault gets a stim stick as it's gadget which gives faster movement speed and reduced explosive damage received. IMO its mediocre, and apparently the class will be getting the spawn beacon in the final release. Having an AR and a shotgun is neat though.

Engineer feels almost exactly how it did in bad company 2. You have your carbine, an rpg, repair tool, and a newer version of an anti tank mine. I didn't feel like anything was wrong with the class in general, but certain issues with the vehicles made it feel weird. I'll get to the vehicles in a moment. 

Recon has the sniper rifles, TUGS (spotting stick), spawn beacon, and c4. Besides the spawn beacon, I just don't flow with the rest of this class. The snipers feel clunky and the bullet time to travel was unusual. This may be a server issue but I didn't like it at all. Unless something happens and DICE makes snipers more like BF3, I won't be using it in this game. Also the sniper "glint" is insane, the developers already came out and said it's been tuned down in the base game. As it is now, it's basically looking at someone's bright beams from two feet away.

As for the vehicles, they still need major tuning. For example, the tank hits like a wet noodle to any other armored vehicle. If there is a Engineer on the other side repairing it, the battle between two tanks will never end. That said, it is completely inferior to the Bradley. I've seen quite a few battles between tanks and IFVs and almost always the IFV comes out on top due to having access to TOW missiles. That being said, apparently all armored vehicles can be one shot by an rpg to it's backside? I think BF4 had a better system, where it disabled your ride instead of instant killing it. Though shooting tanks/IFVs in the front does almost no damage at all, you're going to need 5 or 6 RPGs to kill it that way. Also, like in the game warrock, they added vehicle repair stations in the game. So if you don't have an engi nearby you can drive to a station to get it repaired. I like it, I think being able to pull up somewhere to get your ride fixed without needing another player is nice.

 The aviation vehicles are the fighter jets and attack helicopter. I didn't really get to experience much with jets as using a jet with keyboard and mouse is insufferable. That and most players online just ended up crashing them. Sadly, the attack helicopter is the worse iteration of it I've seen in any battlefield game. I could make a loud sneeze and it would rip it apart. The worse I saw was when a pilot spawned in, took off about 100 feet above spawn, and it blew up. When I was shooting at one in a tank's gunner seat it took about two to three seconds of shooting to drop it to half HP. Jets absolutely destroy it as the mini gun tears it up in under a second as well. It gets one shot by all missile types. The few seconds I was a gunner in one was underwhelming; nearly 5 direct shots to kill or the whole mag if you're doing splash damage.

Now for the gunplay. The gunplay in this game doesn't feel like any FPS I've played before it. The closest I could compare is maybe mw2 2019 edition? Even then there is a difference. The devs said recoil changes have been made so I still have to wait and see. As it stands, I had to get used to it and when I unlocked the AK version of the AR-15 and got some attachments it started to feel good. It was accurate up to 150 meters, shot decently fast and still packed a punch. I was having fun with it. Though the hip fire in this game is atrocious. If the enemy isn't covering your entire screen don't bother trying to hip fire; you'll just miss. I added a laser sight to the weapon and it helped a tiny bit, but still not that great.

I know some people online have been complaining about TTK(time to kill) with weapons being too fast. Personally I think its perfectly fine the way it is. Battlefield 4 and later have always felt sort of bullet spongey to me. I know it's a video game but if you're gonna mimic warfare, it turns out guns are pretty quick on taking others out. It still takes between 5-6 rounds depending on the AR you're using. Snipers do 80 to the body.

The destruction in this game is almost overbearing. One rpg shot is enough to deface an entire side of a multi story building. Most single/double story buildings can be flatten. I just wish they would keep the level of destruction they have, but make more explosives required to deface multi story buildings. Otherwise it's a big improvement over recent battlefields, and feels closer to bad company 2.

Overall, I'm having fun with the beta. I wouldn't be surprised if the game came out a bit glitchy, as every battlefield since 3 has had a rough launch. I see something good here though, and the classes feel classic again. I know class locked weapons is a hot topic for the community, but it doesn't really bother me. If anything, BF4 did it right with class locked weapons or your choice of a carbine/dmr/shotgun. Though whatever they choose is fine with me. 

If you read this far, well thanks for reading and hopefully I provided some insight.  The open beta starts this weekend if you're interested in trying out for yourself.