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Battlefield 1 Incursions Review from JSOC


Guest AudioChocolate

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Guest AudioChocolate

I was accepted into the closed alpha testing of the upcoming competitive game mode, BF1 Incursions. You can check out a recorded live stream of my review on twitch.

 

I'm waiting on a new microphone, so the voice over quality isn't the best, but hopefully it'll spark your interest. Skip the first 2 or 3 minutes to get past the UNKSO overlay.

 

Watch Live Stream on Twitch

 

 

Review

Game Mode

Battlefield Incursions is a 5v5 competitive game mode. It plays very similar to frontlines, in that you have a series of bases to capture in sequential order. Each team begins with one capture point and two bases to spawn from. I found this arrangement to be very beneficial, as it prevents base camping if a team were to be pushed back too far. From there, the teams battle to capture a central base (usually marked as B). Once the base is taken, the next unlocks for your team to push forward.

 

Rounds are divided into "steps". Every minute of game play, a progress bar increases by the number of bases you hold. When you or a teammate is killed, a "death" entry is also added to your progress bar (but hurts your overall score). Once the progress bar for either team fills up, the scores are recorded, the progress bars for both teams reset to 0, and the next step begins. Taking a few back, at the beginning of the round, each teammate selects a kit. Each kit is limited to a single player and cannot be changed once the game has begun.

 

Quirks

For the most part, my experience was bug free. There were only a few quirks with affected gaming:

1. Player will randomly switch to secondary weapon

2. Tankers can repair their vehicle faster than an enemy tank can shoot. This got me killed a few times, because I'd run out of shots and the enemy would hop back in his tank and kill me.

3. Match making will kick everyone from the game if one person in the round quits (only before the game begins).

 

Balancing

The alpha version only offers a single map, so I can't speak about others. Overall, the map was well balanced. There were a couple times when my team either pushed the enemy to spawn, or vice versa. These matches occurred playing on each side, so I wouldn't blame the map. Honestly, it was lack of coordination on the losing team.

 

A couple new abilities were introduced to the game. Squad leaders, for instance, can drop random spawn beacons as a gadget. Tankers have health packs and can repair slightly faster than in a regular game (I didn't find this too OP other than the nuisance previously mentioned). I didn't feel one class was too overpowered over another, but I didn't get a chance to play all of them, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

Hard Core...ish?

Incursions is slightly more "hard-core" than a regular game and not as extreme as BF1's poorly implemented hard-core mode. Vehicles, for example, can switch to third-person mode, but can't shoot until switching back to first-person view. You can still spot enemies on the mini-map and have your sights available. It doesn't quite compare to BF4's hard-core mode, but it's a good start and much more enjoyable to play.

Verdict

This game mode has huge potential for competitive gaming. It leaps ahead of a typical domination round, which makes competitive teams like JSOC difficult to effectively show their skills. Battlefield 1 is a great game, but I believe most of us agree it's not the game we would play for hours on end without playing as a group. I enjoyed my time gaming solo for a few hours and didn't feel fatigued afterward. All in all, I wouldn't mind loading it up again and going for a few rounds solo.

 

- CPL.MParsons

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Guest MadMonkey

I would like to add that whatever class you pick you are stuck with throughout the match. No class switching so it is very important for the teams to choose wisely. Make sure you have a medic and an operator. Pre-game strategy plays a big role in how the match plays out. Big influence on the Rock, Paper, Scissors balance system. Much like R6 Siege we will need to work on kit strategies, some time will need to be put into this game to determine how our team picks classes. The new system is nothing like the old kit system. Weapons and gadgets are all mixed up.

The scoring system is pretty cool, still trying to work out the exact details but essentially you have a timer to represent in game scoring rounds, I think its the first team to reach 10 points wins (not 100% on that). Points for each in game round are either flag caps or player kills. First team to reach required points in the round wins the round and gets a point to count towards end game score.

 

Maybe the CPL can expand on some of what I have here. I had time to play a couple of rounds yesterday but that was about it.

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