After a slight delay Battlefield V made it to release before 2018 ended, and is quite fun to play, despite being rushed by publisher Electronic Arts. Where Activision gave Treyarch three years to make Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and the freedom to change things up during development - dropping its story campaign in favor of the Blackout battle royale mode - DICE has been beaten down year after year by deadlines it seems.
There was Star Wars: Battlefront, a game rushed for release alongside Star Wars: The Force Awakens hitting theaters, so much so that the game didn’t even feature a campaign. A year later came Battlefield 1. A year after that the terrible Star Wars: Battlefront 2. A year after that Battlefield V, a game that is missing major sections of content, and a game that needs a substantial amount of updates to function as well as some previous Battlefield games.
When we were first shown BFV by devs, a day before its public reveal event, we were told about some neat features that don’t exist yet in the game. The ability to drag downed allies into safety for instance. That’s not in the game. Nor are a pile of customization options for characters and vehicles. The Combined Arms co-op mode is missing from the game too, same with the Firestorm battle royale mode which on paper already seems disappointing since it supports less players than the other popular battle royale games. But there’s more!
We enjoy playing Battlefield V and when it works, it works really well, better than most shooters on the market. It runs better and looks more impressive than any other large-scale FPS titles, but it’s buggy and has a ton of small problems with bugs and interface issues, issues that inexplicably don’t exist in some prior BF titles. And it’s lacking on content. Here’s a list of just some of the many issues Battlefield V still has and needs to address ASAP because we’re bored of this already. Some of these are noted in the official ‘Known Issues List’ but a bunch aren’t listed there.
Battlefield V Issues and Missing Content/Features
- Matchmaking times with a party are super long. Server list doesn’t let players filter correctly (turning on some filters shows zero available servers) Quitting a match before the next round begins (or during) can take longer to get to the menu than just shutting the game down and restarting. Players cannot redeem or add assignments during a match. Bigger picture: players can only have four assignments on at same time for some reason. In between matches, players can’t do anything with their assignments. When in main menu, players must back and click through seemingly endless menus to navigate (inefficient UI design) Tides of War challenges have issues tracking correctly. Company Coin (the in-game currency) payouts don’t work when players reach level 50 which happens very quickly. Company Coin prices for cosmetics are very high and the low amount of options in the Armory to purchase are largely unimpressive. Tank gunners appear alive when dead or are sometimes invulnerable to bullets. Map screen sometimes doesn’t show map from correct angle. Map screen shows red error bar and doesn’t let players spawn sometimes at the default point (a game breaker in Domination mode). Downed player models can appear floating or in stationary positions when they don’t exist. Players can float on air in some map areas. Building fortifications is a gamble as to whether the HUD displays the correct progress and to whether it builds according to your actions. Sometimes vaulting just doesn’t work. On some bump terrain player character stands up when pressing prone command. Repeatedly. Plane controls on PC are terrible. End of round rewards screen doesn’t make sense (the XP payouts all over the place seem meaningless) Every round has some squad leaders not issuing orders and there’s nothing you can do about it. Support and medic players not offering or dropping supplies for nearby allies in need, even if using the command options. Command rose for setting objectives bugs out frequently. There are limited options available to spend squad points on. In a lot of modes the only option with squad points is to save up the expensive 41500 points to summon a rocket, which results in everyone calling rockets at the same time near the end of the match in most cases. Calling in squad reinforcements is occasionally broken, with a partially black screen obscuring binoculars and preventing players from calling in their strike or supplies. Vehicle-based challenges (especially airplane ones) are too challenging due to limited availability of vehicles. Combat roles don’t seem useful or visible. Autobalancing seems missing - there are matches with one team crushing another, or one team having far more players than the other. If players disconnect and reconnect to same match on same server, their stats/progress resets to zero. Netcode issues with shots registering. There are too frequently instances of players being shot despite running behind cover, or shooting someone close range for shots not to register at all. Medic class is underpowered and SMGs are outclassed in every way except against snipers up close. Practice range doesn’t let players use any weapon mods or optics. Game features no bots (option to play multiplayer with/against AI units) despite having a campaign and, in the future, is getting a co-op campaign. For comparison, the original Battlefield 1942 supported bots. This would let players learn maps, and get a chance to use vehicles and setup custom co-op matches, etc. Deluxe Edition rewards (skins from air lifts) are extremely underwhelming and disappointing. Weapons skins are limited and the same for each weapon. Custom weapon skins aren’t available for the longer-range scopes, only iron sights. There are no options in any mode to expand squad size or have sort of commander role to organize or be tactical. There’s little tactical awareness or communication in normal games, even in the PC version where it should be easier to do so. In armory screen, shipment items often don’t display correctly, and sometimes, don’t display at all. There are too few maps. Shooting a sniper who is aiming at you doesn’t affect their aim at all. Not even a flinch after taking multiple bullets. Sometimes trying to bleed out fast to respawn doesn’t work. When trying to spawn with certain weapons, game returns a “The class you selected is violating server rules” error. There’s no hardcore mode like in previous games. Grand Operations mode doesn’t seem to work as intended. Two of the three days don’t really affect the last. Sometimes invisible walls appear or something related happens preventing players from moving forward for a moment. Climbing/mantling edges on rocky terrain is inconsistent and clunky. Trees can randomly have a warped/stretched visual effect. No rewards are given out for being MVP squad.
While some of these content/feature omissions listed above we know aren’t coming soon (Combined Arms and Firestorm are months away), the more bug-related problems could be addressed soon as part of the larger January update coming timed with the next chapter of the Tides of War live service. According to DICE producer Jaqub Ajmal, there are 10 pages worth of patch notes for an update that was completed before Christmas but that needs testing before it releases in the next few weeks.
Have you been playing Battlefield V as much as us? What issues have you noted? Which of the above (if any) are important to you? What content do you want added the most?
