Battlefield 2042 devs respond to player feedback from open beta

In a new blog post published today, DICE talked about the changes players should expect to see in Battlefield 2042 following the open beta, including the reveal of the final five Specialists.

The Battlefield 2042 open beta is over and after getting a chance to test the game, many players complained about Specialists. One of the main concerns was about the Specialists limiting teamwork and the lack of variety. 

DICE recognized these problems in the open beta but see Specialists “as the next evolution of the classic Battlefield class system that will not only enable individual players to have a bigger impact, it will elevate teams that cooperate to newer heights” and points out other “multiple factors” contributing to the perception of the inability to work as a team.

The first factor is the user interface. DICE said players should “recognize that numerous improvements to the user interface, identifying between friend and foe, the ping system, and in-game team communication that were missing during the open beta … are vital to gameplay.” 

The user interface was missing “some essential components” like Big Map, Commorose (quick actions), a ping system, and others that DICE decided to disable to remove debilitating bugs. But all those bugs are resolved on the present build of the game. DICE believes that with all of those missing features, teamwork will be more present in the gameplay moving forward.

The other factor is directly related to the variety of Specialists and the fact that only half of them were playable in the open beta. DICE has now released a new gameplay video, showcasing the last few Specialists that will be present at the launch of Battlefield 2042.

There are a lot of other changes from the open beta that players can expect to be coming in time for the launch of Battlefield 2042. Here’s what DICE revealed today.

Playing Conquest on Orbital

• Increased the number of Tanks that you’ll experience on Orbital. It’s up from four to eight on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
• Made changes to movement, adding strafe input to sliding, adding the ability to vault on moving objects, and toning down jump spamming.
• A nearby Grenade Indicator has been added.
• Entry and Exit animations are now shorter, with some being removed entirely.
• Elevators have been fixed so that you see less funky behaviors with doors.

Servers

Servers with too many bots were prevalent across the first few hours of the open beta for many players. Many of these games weren’t successfully backfilled and players were fighting bots until the end of the match. Bots were mainly there to help new players and “are not designed as a replacement for other players,” according to the devs. DICE was able to make real-time changes to the behaviors of matchmaking and now ensures a majority of human players on servers. 

DICE also monitored matchmaking sending players outside of their region and “ironed out a great deal of those creases in time for launch.”

User interface 

Big Map was disabled in the open beta, but DICE has it in the game’s build today. Players will be able to pull it up at any time during gameplay by pressing the View/Touchpad button on console or M on PC and it will provide a lot of information to players. 

Here’s what it looks like:

The Commorose, also absent from the open beta, is present in the current build of Battlefield 2042 and can help players communicate with their squads on how they intend to react to battle. 

Here’s a video showing how the feature will work:

The compass will always be on, so players will have the ability to easily communicate with their squad on nearby dangers and opportunities.

The ping system wasn’t working well during the open beta but will be more responsive when players are pinging locations, assets, and enemy soldiers at launch.

The Heads Up Display (HUD) was updated to its final state, with score events in the central area beneath the crosshair. DICE also posted a video to show the final result:

There are multiple scoring events related to Transport Assists, Spawn Support, Resupply, and Heal support that will be present at launch to encourage more teamwork. The kill log is now more readable, with highlighted colors denoting friends or foes killed and more appropriately sized messaging on the status of sectors and flag capture events to “prevent UI elements from diverting your attention away from the crosshairs, and the battlefield in front of you.”

The colorblind settings have been improved to help players with color deficiencies who were struggling to distinguish UI elements. Critical Alert messaging was reduced in size and DICE lowered the frequency of the alerts.

Team and squad play

DICE claimed that the loadout system was only partially represented during the beta. “We unlocked more of the sandbox than is experienced when you first start playing the game, as an important way of testing the behavior of certain gadgets in a live environment,” DICE said.

Players will notice that in the first hours of the full game, they’ll be working with a reduced array of gadgets. The journey through the ranks will slowly introduce new ones for your loadouts. But as players progress in levels, they’ll “gain access to more specialized hardware, and Specialists, that help to solve scenarios you can encounter.” Beyond that, loadouts will be fully customizable with a much bigger suite of tools available than in the open beta. The loadouts from the open beta will be present as default options for all players in the full game, though.  

To ensure that players will have more control over the plus menu at launch, DICE acknowledged the feedback about inconsistencies with the plus menu and the necessity to reset it in each round and on every respawn with the AK-24. 

DICE also wanted to share a deep look into the complete behavior of the plus menu with the following video:

“There are multiple slots per attachment type that you can assign different items into, drawn from an extensive pool of weapon specific attachments that unlock as you play more with the weapons,” DICE said. “Anything assigned into slot 1, those closest to the center, is your effective spawned setup. When you deploy with the weapon in hand, you’ll always be set up with your preferred attachments. This can be accessed from the Collections Screen on the main menu, and from within the deploy screen during gameplay.”

The squad composition in Hazard Zone will be unique, without the possibility to run duplicates inside a squad. All-Out Warfare won’t use the same restrictions, though.

The Insertion Flow and End of Round (EOR) flow will be both ready for launch and reinforce the freedom of moving between the Specialists and loadouts that you need to support your squad.

“When the round wraps up, we’ll be paying tribute to the best squad players, and recognizing the contributions folks made to capturing objectives, reviving fallen teammates, and keeping ammo stocked up,” DICE said about the EOR flow.

There are also changes to health regeneration on the way, “slowing down the time it takes for the healing effect to start, and helping to increase the need to work with your Medics.” Specialist Maria Falck’s Syrette Pistol has been enhanced to improve the feedback you receive when you successfully heal an ally and it’s now easier to land a syringe on a friendly target by having the syringes magnetize to friendly targets. Revives are also faster.

Other changes

Lighting and tint models have been changed to make enemies more visible and the UI has been adjusted for when you’re within 10 meters of an enemy. An icon is now present above the heads of enemy soldiers since they wouldn’t be otherwise occluded by any terrain or map objects. Friendly icons have also changed to no longer be occluded through walls within 40 meters.

DICE improved controller mapping, enabling total mapping of the controller. Aim assist strength on controllers is now increased. 

In terms of crossplay and communication, text chat will be available on console while VOIP will be present. Crossplay invites will also be functional at launch.

With all of that in consideration of the feedback from players, DICE seems to be hearing and responding accordingly while defending its own design choices. The full game will be released on Nov. 19.