5 Things Hardcore Players Hate About Battlefield 1

DICE’s Battlefield 1 may almost be a month old but it’s still going strong. In between server troubles and a few bugs, the launch has been mostly stable. Then again, it wouldn’t be a DICE game without a few annoying things nagging you at every turn. Here are five things that hardcore players hate about Battlefield 1 and while your annoyance mileage may vary on some, there’s still plenty of things to feel annoyed about.

Locked Squads

Battlefield 1’s multiplayer teams are often broken up into squads of five players. Forget how this makes things a little weird in modes like Rush which are 12 v 12. The actual problem with squads is how they can be locked. You’ll see numerous squads with a player or two and be unable to join. Given how you’ll have a better chance of survival by being in a full squad of five, it would make sense to unlock squads from the beginning. However, with the UI how it is and things just being generally confusing – not to mention players wanting to skip that headache nine times out of ten – and some matches can devolve into complete clusterfraks.

Medals

The motive behind the Medal system sounds fair – complete a set of objectives each week for a chance at EXP and a neat little medal for your career. However, not only do the objectives seemingly diverge away from team play – which is the point of Battlefield 1 – but they’re randomly rotated each week. You don’t get to choose which medals to pursue during a given week – simply pick one from the five offered and good luck (and no, you can’t track multiple medals). To top it all off, there’s a bug which prevents players from earning medals even as they complete objectives. Oh and you also have to complete the medals in a specific order, forcing you to prioritize medal progress at every given step as opposed to, you know, playing the game.

Rent-A-Server Shenanigans

Of the more annoying features yet to launch with Battlefield 1 (which should be available as of November 15^th) is the Rent-A-Server program. This is essentially a way for EA to introduce servers that players can run on their own and host custom matches on. The first problem is not making them available with the launch of Battlefield 1. The second is the pricing – PC players will have to pay a whopping$149.99 for 180 days as opposed to Xbox One and PS4 players paying $99.99 for the same period. Thirdly, though game mode can be customized, DICE will actually restrict the number of modes available in the beginning. These will then be introduced based on “feedback and other circumstances”. More customization and UI design features will arrive later but this isn’t exactly the smoothest handling of it all. To top it off, the program is now completely through EA so forget about dealing with third parties for a better deal.

Spawn Issues

In a game like Battlefield 1 with such an immense warzone, there are bound to be issues with spawns. It could be your inability to join a squad because it’s locked. Perhaps you could join a squad only to be wiped out immediately. How about those vehicle spawns though? Or spawning into a vehicle that’s immediately blown up? Now all we need is a vehicle that spawns after forever with a locked squad inside that immediately blows up. Maybe the universe will shatter into pieces or something. Remember: it’s not really the rule of thumb in Battlefield 1 multiplayer but terrible spawns will happen often enough to tilt you.

Announcer

This was a complaint from way back when the multiplayer beta first debuted. It’s not that the default announcer is a terrible voice actor – she just sounds out of place at times. Granted, it’s meant to mirror World War 1 where women called out objectives and stayed calm to help guide male soldiers. With all the different factions in World War 1, why is the same British woman calling out objectives to everyone? Is it really that difficult to get different voice actors? Maybe not calling out objectives in the faction’s language but with a voice that sounds vaguely not-British? It’s really not a big deal for us but it’s admittedly weird.

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