Battlefield 4 Beta: What to Expect

For Assault the AK-12 was ok, but now that I have the SCAR-H its beats mode time... I have to put it back on ironsights, the RDS really sucks, I'll wait for the holo sight and try it out. The dot on the RDS gets lost in bright colors easily.... and there are plenty of vibrant colors in this game. FYI you can see you legs when you jump over objects like on PC in the PS4 version as I assumed before. This is actually helpful because when you are on a ledge looking down, you can see where your feet are at and know how much closer you can get before falling.

A few more notes

1. Parachuting has reverted back to BF2 style... you can jump off a building and deploy quickly and land with no damage... this frustrated me in BF3... yeah thats more realistic, but I liked this system better. I did an epic jump and land behind a squad defending a flag on domination and destroyed them all in epic fashion.

2. Swapping to pistol is a lot faster, and I'm glad. You start out with the Walther p228 and its a beast. It fires as fast as I can lay in to the PS4 trigger button. It takes about 4-5 shots to kill someone center mass, but you can fire it so fast, it doesnt take a lot of time.

3. Defibrillators... man has this changed.. In BFBC2 and in BF3 you could spam the shit out of these and revive someone quick... not anymore... you now have to wait for the 1-2 second animation of you rubbing the defibs together before hitting your team/squad mate... this has thrown me off so bad.. I'd try to run by a downed teammate and end up missing them completely because I was banking on hitting them with the defibs instantly when pressing the button... nope, you have to stand over them and wait for the animation to play out. Its more realistic and you take more of a gamble when reviving someone now.. I've been killed a lot trying to do so. 

4. On PS4 there must be a lot of COD players that don't know that every level has multiple floors. You can climb some ladders above these flags on dominations and rain down grenades and bullets on people trying to cap them. I've caught people just standing behind crates like they couldn't be seen and lit them up from a rafter. Very few times did someone come up and try to get me.

5. Using higher end Turtle Beach headsets with Dolby is incredible but overwhelming at the same time.... Hearing footsteps, and gunshots is wild... but running and hearing bullets zip by and hit the wall is astonishing. It can make you panic for sure because you don't hear these subtle noises from the TV speakers... heck you can ever listen you your solider rustle through the grass on some maps.

The parachutes on BF3 were annoying to control. Push forward to drop faster but take damage when landing.. or pull back to slow your descent and get shot out of the sky. Go to slow and a jet can get a road kill on you or a tank could hit you easily with a canister shell. But whats really funny is that a mobile AA could shot down a helicopter no problem, but killing a guy in a parachute was almost impossible. I swear the mobile AA's bullets were like rubber rounds when shooting infantry.

Uh oh.. COD players and turtle beach head phones.. I bet you can hear every complaint and insult so much clearer now.

Well there is no lobby like COD so i can be slurred between each match . PlayStation 3 didn't come with a mic, and I take it not a lot of people are use to talking because I haven't heard a peep from anyone yet on BF. Its definitely going to be a culture change within the community. Which is cool, when I'm playing with people I don't know I mute my mic anyways... and on COD normally someone else with turtles was playing solja boy in the background and their mic was picking it all up as they munched on chips, breathed heavily, and/or constantly cleared their throat ever 2 seconds.

Yes! lmao! That was my entire experience with COD.

I don't know how BF3 was on xbox 360, but on PS3 everyone was used to not talking to each other. I'd usually see 1 or 2 people with mics on. Hell, I was so used to BF3 not keeping me on the same squad with my friends that I never bothered to even sync a bluetooth headset to the system. I'd just call my brothers on the phone in a three way call and play that way. It worked out better for us, especially if one of us lost connection or got banned. With the PS3 not having a party chat, we'd potentially loose communication far too often so we never even tried using the BF3 voice chat. It wouldn't surprise me if hardly anyone on PS4's BF4 even voice chats.. however it was a different case on COD Black ops 2. Everyone talked on that damn game. Randomly talking about everything except the game. No strategy, just annoying talking, eating sounds, yelling, or music. One time I thought I heard a urine stream and a toilet flush.. but no hand washing sounds.. ewww.. wtf.

ROTFLMAO... and the thing is, if you're wearing turtles you cant hear a damn thing outside of the headphone.... so wtf are you doing playing damn music?! I missed a text from a friend wanting to know if I wanted to grab something to eat once because I was marathoning BO2 one day... I felt like a dick because I didn't see it until 2 hours after.

I love the SCAR-H so much right now, It will be a while before i try out the M416 which was my hands down favorite in BF3... I'm getting back in form..

I took down a group of 3 with one mag in the SCAR-H... this is insane... Squad Wipe ribbons FTW!

Here is your Trailer for BF4 Second Assault which will be available for Xbox One at Launch, and later on other platforms. Second Assault features BF3 maps with sleeker visuals and new Levolution events.

Wow the sand storm on Oman is going to be crazy... Parcel Storm's rain levolution is awesome with turtles, it really sounds authentic how the rain hits the ground and your head. I can only imagine what Oman holds. I watched some Live Stream of Metro last night... although I don't like the map, It did look a lot better visually. The roof caving in is going to be interesting. I wonder if they will add choppers for this... at least a little bird for each team.

This post has been promoted to an article

A few more notes:

Sniping is a pot luck with the first rifle you get. High center mass seems to be a instakill but I've had plenty of hit markers. There are a few maps with high vantage points, and you can close off the ladder access via a hatch, but none of your teammates will beable to get to it as well, and if you die, then that roof is no longer accessible. I was assault one round and my whole squad was sniping from the roof, I ended up with 3 defib ribbons with how many revives I performed.

As recon, you can't unlock all the sniper rifles by using a carbine or shotgun... you'll only progress unlocks through that weapon type as you use it. (Crap... I have to go through all that to get my GOL Magnum arguably the best sniper rifles in BFBC2). Every class has access to, Carbines, DMR (designated marksmen rifle), and shotguns when they are unlocked. LMG, Sniper Rifle, Assault Rifle, and PDW are exclusive to their respective class.

I did my first counter knife yesterday... its as easy as pressing one button. I'm not sure if its O or whatever you have as your melee button all the time or it prompts a random button. You have ample time to hit it and there is no point to knife from the front, because unless the other player just completely sucks, you'll lose every time... which is funny because my first successful knife was from the front. When a teammate is knifing someone from the front or the back, the enemy player becomes invincible so you cant steal their kill... however its wise to keep your cross hair on them on frontal knifing for the reasons I just listed. If an enemy is the knifer you can take them out before the process is complete.

Field upgrades are similar to squad perks in later ranks on BF3, except there are in sets now and you can gain each tier as your squad progresses... once everyone in the squad dies the field upgrade resets to zero. I don't think people on PS4 realize how important it is when "LAST MAN IN SQUAD" pops up on your screen... its even more crucial that you don't die so someone can spawn and the field upgrades stay intact.

Thats good info to know. I wondered why "Last man in squad" would keep popping up. I loved Oman because of the attack helicopters in it.. but it was also a map that was prone to base raping because of jets. But with the sand storm, I wonder if that will ground all the air vehicles. If so, then good. Too many maps were ruined for me because of ace jet pilots owning everyone for the entire round.

Try using the SKS with laser sight, hip fire the hell out of people when you see them in the distance. You wont get instant kills with it, but the range bonus should be noticeable and more accurate than ADS. Whenever I used that rifle like that, I'd play aggressive recon on domination maps. I went positive almost every time with sniper rifle ribbons.

I should have probably mentioned you can open and close the hatches at will, and when you die with the hatch closed then the area is inaccessible. I like it though because you dont have to worry about getting knifed.

I also learned that back knifing has a decent range, if you're running behind someone you can hit the button and you will lunge out and grab them. I guess the length of time it takes to complete the process is the balancer. I've saved a few teammates that were in the hug of death, and I've been shot trying to get dog tags. Unlike COD where you can knife from a mile a way and the air bleeds while the person dies

Field Upgrades you start with the defensive set, I had the shadow set too, but I dont know if this is for premium members or not from the get go because its 3rd on the list after Defensive.

Defensive:

LEVEL 1: ARMOR: Reduces incoming Damage to the Chest by 10%

LEVEL 2: COVER: Decreases amount of Incoming Suppression by 50%

LEVEL 3: FLAK: Decreases damage from explosions by 15%

LEVEL 4: QUICK REGEN: Decreases time before Out of Combat Heal by 20% <This is amazing

Offensive:

LEVEL 1: SPRINT: Increases maxiumum Sprint Speed by 10%

LEVEL 2: AMMO: Increases maximum inventory of Bullets by 50%

LEVEL 3: GRENADES: Increases maximum inventory of Hand Grenades by 1

LEVEL 4: REDUCED FALL: Increases height you can Fall without Damage

Shadow:

LEVEL 1: QUICK UNSPOT: Reduces time you are Spotted by 2 seconds

LEVEL 2: SPRINT: Increases maximum Sprint Speed by 10%

LEVEL 3: REDUCED FALL: Increases height you can Fall without Damage

LEVEL 4: STEALTH: Undetected by Motion Sensors except when Sprinting

Anti-Tank:

LEVEL 1: MINES: Increases maximum inventory of AT Mines or M2 SLAM to 6

LEVEL 2: ROCKETS: Increases maximum inventory of AT and AA ammo to 7

LEVEL 3: MORE DEPLOYED EXPLOSIVES Increases maximum deployed Explosives to 6

LEVEL 4: FLAK: Decreases damage from explosions by 15%

Mechanic:

LEVEL 1: FAST REPAIR: Increases speed and sabotage of Repairs by 35%

LEVEL 2: FLAK: Decreases damage from explosions by 15%

LEVEL 3: COVER: Decreases amount of Incoming Suppression by 50%

LEVEL 4: REPAIR UNIT: Occupied vehicles will slowly Repair nearby Vehicles

Anti-Tank and Mechanic look like the best field upgrades for conquest. Increased rocket ammo to 7.. that seems overpowered to me. If an entire squad teams up using RPGs or SMAWs they could shoot off over 30 rockets in a matter of a couple minutes.

True, but it also could swing the balance of power on Oman, you cant base rape when you have a whole squad of stingers can you? Of course jet jockeys are going to cry hard about it when people start unlocking the set, and you have to unlock the field upgrades per class. If you unlock anti-tank on assault, that's the only class you can use it on. They focused a lot on making you earn certain things instead of taking the easy route. The only thing that carries over each class are grenades and non exclusive weapon type unlocks. If they don't do it later in this game. I can see BF5 letting you customize your field upgrade. Id make one with Ammo, Quick Unspot, Sprint, and More Deployed Explosives.

These battle backs are really neat. You get them every so many levels. I got a few from the start, then rank 5, 7, and another one at 10 coming up. 5 and 7 were bronze packs giving you 3 standard items. Rank 10 is a gold pack. The gold pack gives you five with a chance at 1 rare item. As a premium member you get a gold battle pack once a month I believe when i looked at the calendar. Apparently you can buy them all too. People tend to get pissed off at this stuff, but really who gives a crap? None of it really gives you that much of an advantage, and if they want to take the fun out of unlocking them, more power two them to waste their money. When I earn them through game play, it has some sorta of value to me, same as completing a hard assignment.

Good point about the stingers as long as they'll actually hit jets. For some reason jets just fly straight with afterburners and they outrun them in bf3.. wtf.

Oh.. but I was just thinking.. if the 64 player conquest is still limited to 2 jets per team, then jet domination and jet base raping shouldn't be nearly as bad. I'll have to check to see how many jets are on the bigger maps. One of the other problems with BF3 in terms of jets was the lack of Mobile AA.. with most of the maps being scaled down for PS3 and Xbox 360, mobile AA was only on Wake Island and on one round of Rush.. other than that all the default most played maps did not have any Mobile AA, while the PC version had them on almost every map for conquest. Those Mobile AA destroy jets easily and were a great counter against them. When the armored kill maps came out, Alborz Mountain had mobile aa.. not jets could get my base. As long as someone was in there, all enemy aircraft was easily taken out.

Its a shame BF4 is so damn buggy right now. Whenever I look for more info about certain things, all I find in search results are complaints about bugs and unplayable game modes.

Kotaku posted today that they are planning on giving players some "bonuses" when everything is fixed. They'd better hurry up because Double XP weekend starts the 30th, It would be nice to get in longer matches than the 12-15 minute domination round. If you have two evenly matched teams going against each other, domination is actually more fun than just crushing the other team... the matches can go on 30-40 minutes because most of the ticket loss is from kills as either team rarely controls all 3 flags and the control of two switches hands a lot... They did a better job with putting the flags out in the open, with less flags you can corner camp capture. You really have to expose yourself trying to get them like the one in the lobby on Zeba Tower rather than the pool area or that upper floor watchtower-like area. Even the ones that are inside a smaller room there are at least 3-5 entrances and you can only keep 2-3 of them in your field of vision.

As for the bonuses, I'd imagine is some free gold battle packs with premium members getting double xp on top of that. The link kotaku posted was just to the origin store with no news.

There were a lot of people crying about the battle pickups in this game. So far I've picked up mostly modded shotguns... these things are are decked out weapons that aren't much better than what you can make when you spend time with one firearm to get all its unlocks. I found a USAS-12 with a green laser, and holo sight. It was watered down from its super ultra mega over powered BF3 counterpart, I think it was equipped with slugs to prevent you from spamming it abusively... nothing really impressive, and carrying it around with you doesn't help you unlock more for a weapon class. The only thing its good for is extra ammo.... I don't know if this was a glitch, but as soon as I hit switch weapon, it went away.

EDIT: MWAHAHAHA!! I've unlocked the RPG! Be warned chopper pilots, I shall make you rage face in Conquest now!

If you switch weapon and it disappears, then that reminds me of Defiance. Most of the special weapons I'd pick up in that game would disappear after I switch weapon. I think because its a special pick up you have to use it or lose it and it doesn't get ammo from ammo drops or ammo kits.

Have you been able to get into a conquest match yet? After looking at my brother's twitter he finally got into one and he said it was epic. But after looking around yesterday, I've seen quite a few complaints about the BF4 maps being too small for 64 players and the maps aren't nearly as large as the BF3 maps. I also read the maps were too large for 24 players, just like in BF3 on the consoles. So many complainers. x_x

I haven't tried. You can't really listen to the complaints. The maps are pretty big, and are multi layered. A lot of buildings have several floors. And then we have Caspian and Oman coming up next?. People are going to cry no matter what.

Ohh... so it looks like the maps are still 2 jets per team regardless of being 64 players. With 64 players, jet domination in conquest won't be bad at all, especially with mobile aa. But stingers could be a real pain in the ass for helicopters. But with 64 players, people will probably opt more for RPG and SMAW because if half the team had stingers, they'd be useless after the aircraft are taken down. I'm really looking forward to playing this now. The possibilities for conquest sound and look completely epic. DICE better not let me down with Star Wars Battlefront. I'll play the hell out of these 2 games once I get the PS4.

Yeah Conquest is won with ground vehicles, as it should be. Choppers can catch flags but are sitting ducks for rpgs which is a one hit take down. Tanks roll in to defend the APCs and Jeeps that get their first and clean up if there is any threat left while the fast movers go on to the next objective.

BTW I noticed I got assists that count as kills from non squad mates last night... so without looking into it more from what I gather, Squad assists are automatically counted as kills reguardless, but regular assists in the 80 range and higher also count as kills.

Ground troops should be the key to the game. In BF3 on PS3, a strong air team could dominate the ground. I remember it got so bad that helicopters were nerfed out of their gunner flares and stingers could lock on at ridiculous ranges. It was always a pain in the ass to get someone into and repairing a little bird when I was the pilot. Unless it was one of my brothers as a squad mate, almost nobody would get in and repair because there were always ample vehicles for everyone because of the small player count.

I just remembered the dumbest thing.. I was on a game of conquest once on Gulf of Oman. I was driving a BTR-90 and surprisingly enough, every seat got filled.. thats when I realized we only had 10 out of 12 people on my team.. which means half of our entire team was in this APC/IFV with me. Then I saw we had two helicopters in the air.. if there were 2 people in each of those then we only had 1 guy out there on his own trying to capture a flag while wondering where the hell the entire team is. And there were 2 jeeps, 2 tanks, 2 jets and a stationary AA at our base that were all available. 12 players was just way too small of a player count, even on the smaller maps.. oh.. and then I hit a land mine. Some guy killed half our team with one mine.

Boats were useless in just about any battlefield game ever. They were armed with one mini gun and were victimized by choppers and jets. Their only porpose was to get behind the enemy defending an objective by hugging the cost.... they finally addressed this and now boating is pretty fun and they can hold their own when attacked.... of course they still have those old useless boats from previous games in case you're feeling lucky or nostalgic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYYs3hluoNY

The boats look like a lot of fun. Holy crap those TV missiles reload quick. The only TV missile on BF3 was in the attack helicopter.. and the lag input was so horrible, I only got a couple of kills with it out of the probably 100 times I've shot it.

I love vehicle combat and this boat game play looks exciting.

I spent last night being a douche and sitting at the deploy screen every time I died. I was able to rotate between boats, choppers, and jets... the jeep and the old school boat just kind sat their the entire game. They were always available every time I died ! I really want that burst fire cannon. I was able to destroy a little bird and another boat... I need some practice, I accidentally grounded myself on land not paying attention while shooting at targets. The Javilen is overpowered again... every time I got hit, I couldn't move for a good 30 seconds, I put a perk on that takes people longer to lock on to me.

I love the fact that you get points for hitting the enemies. Every shot was racking up small points.. same with capturing a flag. This is another good improvement over BF3. I could have gotten so many more jet upgrades earlier on in BF3 if I'd have received points for hits instead of just disables or kills.

When you get xp boosters from battle packs they are banked and you choose when to activate them by hitting the options button (formally known as start) and toggle to it with the stick... So if you find yourself in a good server with a good squad, you can activate it while you're on a hot streak to make the best of it.

EDIT: I forgot he showed that in the second video. lol

Ok thoes extra rockets and stuff, that was a load out for Engineer only... everyone has Defense, Offense, and Shadow, and then each class has their own special

Recon:

SPEC OPS
LEVEL 1: STEALTH: Undetected by Motion Sensors except when Sprinting

LEVEL 2: C4 EXPLOSIVES: Increases maximum inventory of C4 Explosives to 6

LEVEL 3: MOTION SENSORS: Increases maximum inventory of Motion Sensors to 5. Increases range of T-UGS and MAV by 40%

LEVEL 4: QUICK UNSPOT: Reduces time you are Spotted by 2 seconds

SNIPER:

LEVEL 1: HOLD BREATH: Increases time you can Steady your scope by 100%

LEVEL 2: COVER: Decreases amount of Incoming Suppression by 50% 

LEVEL 3: QUICK UNSPOT: Reduces time you are Spotted by 2 seconds

LEVEL 4: ADVANCED SPOT: Increases time your targets are Spotted by 45%

Support:

INDIRECT FIRE:

LEVEL 1: AMMOBAG UPGRADE: Increases maximum deployed Ammo Boxes and Packs by 1

LEVEL 2: AMMO: Increases maximum inventory of Bullets by 50%

LEVEL 3: INDIRECT FIRE: Increases maximum M224 and XM25 Ammo

LEVEL 4: RESUPPLY UNIT: Occupied vehicles will slowly Resupply nearby Soldiers

PERIMETER DEFENSE:

LEVEL 1: AMMO: Increases maximum inventory of Bullets by 50%

LEVEL 2: SUPPRESSION: Increases amount of Outgoing Suppression by 50%

LEVEL 3: CLAYMORES: Increases the maximum inventory of Claymores to 3

LEVEL 4: MP-APS UPGRADE: Increases time MP-APS can deflect incoming explosives

Assault
 

COMBAT MEDIC:
LEVEL 1: MEDKIT UPGRADE: Increases maximum deployed Medic Bags and Packs by 1

LEVEL 2: SPRINT: Increases maximum Sprint Speed by 10%

LEVEL 3: DEFIB UPGRADE: Increases charge up speed of the Defibrillators by 100% (That explains it... they pulled a COD there by nerfing the paddles)

LEVEL 4: MEDICAL UNIT: Occupied vehicles will slowly Heal nearby Soldiers

GRENADER:

LEVEL 1: GRENADES Increases maximum inventory of Hand Grenades by 1

LEVEL 2: SPRINT: Increases maximum Sprint Speed by 10%

LEVEL 3: 40MM GRENADES: Increases maximum inventory of 40mm Grenades by 3

LEVEL 4: FLAK Decreases damage from explosions by 15%