Reply To: Battlefield 1 Closed Alpha review

Graphics:

You say the game is very beautiful and that it runs well on a GTX 960. I would like to know a few things about that.

1. What graphics settings are you running and what fps are you getting?
   Settings are 1080p and on high with FPS of
2. If you set the same settings in BF4, what is your FPS?
   Same
3. If you set the same settings in BF4, which game is more beautiful?
   Battlefield 1 definitely is more beautiful.
4. Tell me more about dem graphics!
   The graphics really will immerse you in the game. Everything looks so detailed and explosions are just amazing looking! The scenery of the map is gorgeous.

Rag doll effects:

Rag doll effects are super important. They add so much joy to a kill and keeps you immersed if they look realistic.

1. Are the rag doll effects physics based or animations? Or both? Definitely both. The physics seems much more improved.
2. If they are physics based, are soldiers clothes static or do they move like objects on the soldier? Have not really paid much attention to this yet.

Combat and weapons:

Some games are just better at giving you that powerful feel when you shoot a bullet. CSGO does a great job with the Deagle and AWP but not so much with the Colt compared to BF4 with similar weapons.

1. Would you say this is done better in BF1 than in BF4? I would say yes BF1 has this sound effect that makes you really feel that your bullets are hitting the flesh of your enemies hard. Like bullets hitting meat. The weapons give you a feeling of superiority. I do think that the TTK on some of the weapons are a bit high.
2. Do you have a favorite weapon? We have only played with the n00b weapons so we have not truly got a good chance to declare favorites.
3. What is the range of the weapons? Is it like BF4? How far can a sniper rifle shoot for example? The assault and support n00b weapons seem kind of hard to shoot with at long range but good at medium to short range. Medic weapons are semi-automatic rifles and do very well at long, medium, and short ranges. Vanessa does pretty well as the medic even though she never uses DMR type rifles in battlefield 4.
4. I think not even a percent of my kills in BF4 are melee kills. Some maps give you the opportunity more often than others but even on those maps (like Lockers for example) are melee kills rare. Why is melee more common in BF1? Is it because of the way the maps are designed or is it because of the way the weapons work? Melee flows so much better. When you press F at point blank range, it is kind of like hack and slash style. Then if you get the kill, a animation starts. But it feels so much less buggier. Then of course you have the bayonet charge which requires good aiming because if you miss your enemy then you’re fucked lol. But it feels to ram your enemy with a bayonet up his stomach. Battlefield 4 just fails horribly because you have to be at the right angle for it to work or nothing happens at all.
5. Are any of the maps you’ve played so far famous historical battle sites? St. Quentin is the only map we have played and available I think. A famous battle happened there between the Germans and British, Australian, and American forces in 1918.
6. How big are the maps? Vanessa feels that they are not big. I feel that over time EA has made BF maps smaller but St. Quentin is about medium sized but well-sized for 64 Players. I really do love St. Quentin as a map.
7. Are there any big houses or something? What i want to know is if you’re always outdoors fighting. Is there any maps like lockers or metro where you are inside?Right now it is just one map, St. Quentin. There are houses but don’t get too comfortable because almost all the houses can be destroyed just like in Bad Company 2. And fuck me I hope there are no maps like Locker or metro. I will hang myself if so.
8. Does the respawn system work like in BF4? Respawn system is very similiar to BF4. You can announce to medics nearby for revival and speed up deployment time with space bar. Vehicles cannot be stolen as soon as they are spawned when a flag is captured. They have to be spawned in by the player and abandoned first before they can be stolen.
9. Most important question!! How is the teamplay? Do you have squads? If yes, how does it work? Squad system is same as BF4.
10. Didn’t really understand it when we talked about it on TS but, are there going to be medics in BF1? Yes Medics are in BF1 and they use syringes to revive players. Medics have very lethal semi-automatic rifles as their primary weapons.

Vehicles:

I love the vehicles in BF4, basically all of them. Having helicopters, fighter jets, tanks, jeeps and boats all in one map adds a lot of ways one can play the game. It creates this feeling of large scale battle that i love about BF4.

1. What types of vehicles are in the game? Is there boats and jeeps? Right now there are tanks, armored cars, and bi-planes. No boats yet.
2. Horseback riding? Do you think it will be in the game? Not sure about horses in multiplayer but they don’t give us horses to try out.
3. How fragile are the planes?
   Planes are not too strong or too weak. The AA guns tore me to shreds though.
4. How hard is it to aim from the back of a plane? Depending on the skill of the pilot, it can be hard to track them but I didn’t find it too hard to shoot the pilot out of his plane. Perhaps I got lucky. It is fun though and good to have a gunner behind you while you are flying.
5. How much can the ground be destroyed? When you shoot with the tank for example. What happens if you shoot at the same place twice? For now we have shot the ground once but I think only one crater per area that you shoot is created. I have not seen deep ass craters but they are deep enough to take decent cover in. Most of the ground can be destroyed and create craters which is so cool.
6. Are there objects that can not be destroyed? Some buildings, like the windmills, aren’t destructible but most buildings do blow up.
7. Do you think Dice has done a better job at having vehicles encourage team play compared to BF4? I have not seen a difference yet. I can tell you that one assault player cannot take on a tank alone. You need two assault to take them down. Tanks seem stronger.
8. Are the planes of BF1 effective against ground vehicles and infantry? The planes have bombs that you can use and if you are good can fuck infantry up. Right now everyone is a n00b so I have not seen true effectiveness of bi-planes against ground targets. I do see a lot of people saying that planes are still insignificant in battle. For now, i may have to agree. They don’t seem to cause much havoc. Ever since BF4, DICE seems to enjoy making planes useless. They are still fun to fight with against other bi-planes.

User Interface and stuff:

1. How does the chat function work? I hate it in Battlefront, just hoping they won’t do it that way. Chat function is same as BF4.
2. Deployment timer? How long do you have to wait before you can respawn? You can speed up deployment timer by pressing space bar it seems.  At this point you can also alert nearby medics to revive you if you want.
3. Are there addons to weapons? There are not addons from what we saw like in BF4 ( this is WW1 so the addon scopez and gadget kiddies will have to get over it). Each weapon has detailed stats with line graphs regarding damage fall off and bullet drop.
4. Can you change the appearance of your character? Nope. But the character uniforms and gear looks very cool to me.
5. XP and leveling? Did you get to see any of that? Leveling seems similar to Battlefield 1. The rank system is of the British military for the time period. Have not paid attention exactly to the XP points. But you do get something called WAR BONDS (money) that you will use to unlock weapons.
6. Did you launch the game from a server browser? You can do the console peasant style of quick-match or you can use the server browser and look for servers to play on.
7. How many players maximum in one game? Right now we played with a server as much as 56 people but the limit is 64.
8. I’ve heard there are weather effects, do you think these are customizable for server hosts or just random? Also, are they any good? I think the weather is random and I do like the rain. People complained about the fog in the game and Vanessa didn’t like it. People can’t see shit in it but I like it because it forces you to adapt to a more difficult environment.
9. What game modes are there? Right now it is only conquest but when a team is losing, the zeppelin spawns in for that losing team in order to turn attempt to help the losing team win. The zeppelin can be lethal with it’s bombs and heavy machine guns,

Gamescore:

Give 1-10 points on each one.

1. Graphics– 10!!!
2. Optimization– 10!!! (Ran so well!)
3. Gameplay– 10!!! ( So fun)
4. Teamplay (yes its a part of gameplay but i want it emphisised) – Basically the same as BF4, unorganized team means you get rekt and we have experienced it first hand.
5. Weapons– 9.9 ( Never used WW1 weapons and the ones we used so far seem cool but some seem to take a while to kill people with. Like the MP18, but maybe I sucked.)
6. Vehicles– 9.9 ( The vehicles seem so authentic and fun to use. They also actually do seem to kick some serious ass too. Machine guns on the vehicles are stronger. The tank cannons will fuck you up. Bi-planes are fun but I think all of us need to learn how to use them better. For now, they don’t do much to ground targets.)
7. Classes– 10 ( I like the new class organization and it is fitting for the time period of WW1.)
8. User Interface – 9 ( Vanessa gave it a 8 because she does not like the objective clutter on the screen but overall the UI is very nice.)
9. Server manageability – No idea on this one. But thank goodness for server browser and dedicated server support.
10. Overall score – I gave it a 9.9! Vanessa gives it an 8.5.