UPDATE/WHAT I'VE LEARNED:

1. Progress has been slow, but I'm slowly getting better by the smallest of increments. And I will say the campaign was surprisingly enjoyable... But that codex where you had to shoot down planes from the top of the airship was a bitch...

2. Is is me, or have map load times seemed to double? I also had more than a couple of freezes last night, and a glitch where after getting revived

3. Why must the UI be so slow, bloated and counter-intuitive?

4. Why must I actually be in a CQ match just to change my vehicle liveries? Or am I missing something? And why do some matches force you to use standard weapons instead of the pre-release DLC special versions?

5. I don't quite understand the vehicle respawn timer -- Sometimes a vehicle like a tank gets destroyed in CQ but never seems to respawn while I'm waiting in the death menu?

6. Now that I've got a few war bonds I've upgraded some weapons so I can finish those special weapon assignments -- Any tips appreciated.

7. Is there any consensus on the optimal controller setup for aircraft?

8. Maybe I'm not using it right, but I'm so glad to ditch the cei rigotti for something, anything else... I lost probably 90% of my 1v1 encounters with it.

9. Do you play around with individual weapon magnifications, especially for iron-sight weapons? Or should I just leave it alone?

10: Any special reason why the Support gets the wrench instead of some other class?

11. You know what really scares me? The fact that I've been playing this long and have never heard another player on mic... Only last night for the first time did I find a half-decent squad where everyone spotted/revived/dropped ammo+meds and the leader actually gave orders and we moved together like a squad... It was glorious!

Weekend update:

1. Starting to get a bit more confident now, thanks for the tips everyone! I still have a huge learning curve getting familiar with the maps and certain game modes, though... On maps like Grappa and Argonne I'm getting shot up from 16 different directions when I poke my head up. EDIT: BECAUSE MY SITUATIONAL AWARENESS IS CRAPTASTIC, AND SA MATTERS MORE HERE THAN IN ANY OTHER GAME

2. I'm still getting those lag/packet loss markers on my screen -- Suggestions?

3. I know I'm a bad player, but for the life of me I can't get rolling with the iron sight bolt-actions, and those are usually the weapons I excel with... Maybe I'm moving too much, because I'm only winning maybe 10% of my 1v1s (I'm using 2x magnification)... I'm thinking there may be a reason why I see them used less than any other weapon in the feed? EDIT: I'M JUST BAD, SLOW, OLD WITH NO REFLEXES AND OUT OF PRACTICE

4. I know it's a hokey mechanic, but may the gaming gods bless whichever programmer who decided to give us kill credit for 80+ dmg... If it wasn't for that I'd still only have one kill with bolts... If they had that in BF3 I'd have like 10,000 more kills.

5. I know I unlocked some vehicle skins after finishing the campaign, but I can't find them at all! Where are they?? EDIT: I played a game of operations and I did see them finally... Maybe they're only available on certain game modes?

6. About how many LMG rounds do you have to fire for the accuracy bonus to kick in?

7. I take back every bad thing I've said about the Cei-Rigotti now that I've given the Selbstlader 1906 a go... What kind of masochist do you have to be to grind out 300 kills? See enemy, pop off five rounds that do maybe half damage, get killed while desperately switching to your sidearm -- Rinse and repeat. I'm even doing better with the Martini-Henry, which is really saying something. EDIT: Martini-Henry is a boss rifle; a rifle for MEN, especially in the Kilimanjaro skin... I've also been watching some youtube tutorials and now know that the Selbstlader isn't a rifle to charge into danger with, it's best used on defense when the enemy has to come to you from a distance...

8. I need skins for the Selbstlader 1906, Huot, and Hellriegel, since it's clear I'm going to be staring down these weapons for a long time -- At this rate I don't think I'll get those 1200 kills for the assignments before Halloween... Fun Fact: I've carried the Selbstlader 1906 for 37(!) minutes, and have a grand total of 6 kills -- But I'm determined to master it no matter how much my KDR and SPM suffers...

9. Should the spawn beacon make a comeback, but only with a limited number of spawns maybe? Yes or no?


Random gripes:

1. I saw on Forumfield that the vehicle respawn is THREE minutes? I don't care who says what, that is too goddamn long... And I wouldn't care quite so much if I could get vehicle XP riding as a passenger like in BF3 and presumably BF4 -- But in BF1 only the driver gets it? And in the 5% chance I'm on the death screen when a vehicle is available, I'm too scared to even take it lest I screw up and cost my team one of it's most valuable assets for three minutes. I get that armor in the right hands is OP; but I think I'd rather see a slight nerf with a faster respawn... EDIT: Maybe respawns are varied on different maps? I played operations in the Italian alps and the enemy defenders bomber and attacker were constantly in the air even while getting shot down, crashing, etc... I swear their respawn timer must have been 20 sec...

1A. So what's the reasoning behind harmless transport and scout vehicles having long respawns?

1B. Is it too much to hope we get some kind of vehicle-focused warfare DLC like Armored Kill in BF3 so everyone gets a chance in the drivers seat?? And doesn't the dearth of vehicles kind of make the Assault a lot less useful? Yes, let me drop down my AT mines for the one tank I'll see this round and I'll just hope he comes down this street...

2. I know they're necessary and add an essential and dazzling dimension to the game, but I really really really hate behemoths and elite classes...

3. EA tech support is worthless, but I'm stating a truism.

4. What's the point of being able to zero out iron-sight bolt action rifles to 300m? Who in the hell is engaging enemies that far away with irons? (well, maybe a player on a big screen with enhanced zoom might try it)

5. The mortar is even worse than the BF3 mortar, which I didn't think possible... Might as well be a confetti cannon!

6. Why isn't there an auto-balance? Especially on the matches where there is a player deficit of 7 or more??

7. Why can I only tickle an enemy 20m away with my 1911 but the 10-A shottie can one-shot me at full health from 50m? The same dude got me like 4-5 times last night in TDM, each time it was from farther away like it was a magic trick or something?

Update/What I've Learned:

1. Okay, I was wrong about the Seb, I was just using it in the worst manner possible (at least according to my playstyle)... Went back to the original sights which makes it a hundred times easier to line up headshots, and I quit trying to snipe people and put the zoom to 1.00. Still don't think it's the best weapon in the class, but it's certainly not the worst... But what I should be doing is getting the 300 Hellriegel kills out of the way, because there's no chance in hell that it isn't getting smashed by the Nerfhammer soon.

2. We need the old Battlelog features back, and we definitely need the old Forumfield back... While DICE/EA is to be commended for clearing out the trolls, flamers and stat shamers, they kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater and the amount of useful information/discussion has slowed to a trickle...

3. There needs to be a way to get in a vehicle from spawn instead of suiciding when the respawn timer is up, or when the Behemoth comes... I know it ruins the carefully crafted aesthetics, but I don't know why the spawn couldn't have some kind of token icons that you could just walk into; like they use in Battlefront.

4. I knew this was going to be the limitation of a WWI game, but am I the only one disappointed at how few weapon customization options are available? Okay, I've got one optional iron sight, an option to change recoil pattern (LOL) and maybe a skin or two... Yeah, I know we can't have the suppressors and laser sights and all that stuff which wasn't invented yet, but I just think we could have gotten more than we have now... The customization options and the ability to try something new or different was one of the things that kept me playing BF3 for so long... Maybe some form of squad specs would spice things up?

4A. As an aside DICE, I don't really need to see whatever kind of camo my killer had on the death screen...

5. Is it me, or is the Fighter worse at A2A than the Attacker?

6. Something about the Support class still doesn't feel quite right... Maybe give that class the dynamite and give the Scouts the Limpet?

7. I know it's just a cheap trick to inflate the number of available weapons, but there's no real reason to have 3-4 variations of the same weapon and treat them as separate... Maybe detach the parts that make each weapon unique and allow us to mix-and-match how we like?

8. Is the Hellfighter shotgun considered a standalone weapon? I don't think I've seen it's regular twin, unlike the 1911 for example...

9. Seriously, the stat tracking is some of the worst I've ever seen... Get a kill assist while on horseback, and that gets counted towards my Cavalry score; kill three dudes while on horseback the next match and none of that gets counted towards my score?? And I can name instances of the game 'losing' some kills with certain weapons (somehow sidearms seem susceptible to this?) I also like how the Lawrence of Arabia gets counted towards the standard SMLE codex, but the Hellfighter 1911 and the Red Baron P08 don't? I gotta use the vanilla versions just to open the codex? This is just straight sloppiness, folks...

Weekend Update (Post-Vacation Edition):

1. So far I only have 29 kills apiece for the Seb 1906 and Martini-Henry... Occasional sprees with the Huot and Hellreigel are the only reason why my KPM isn't 0.00001 right now... I gotta find a way to switch things up or I'm gonna burn myself out...

2. I found out the hard way that someone can really troll the hell out of your Elite Sentinel pickup -- The second I picked it up, an enemy instantly started to melee me and I couldn't shoot him because every time he hit me my "picking up heavy machine gun" animation would reset. So no problem, I'll just start clubbing him back, right? WRONG... Five swings of my club later I was DEAD yet he was still alive (but I did get kill credit for the assist)... Why did I need FIVE club hits to do 94 damage when the club has a base of 60 damage?

3. While I appreciate the wide-open maps, too many infantry-based game modes come down to which team can better flank the other... Nothing but nonstop flank and counter-flank -- It's to the point where I'm spending more time ignoring the capture points and I just venture out on my own looking to pick off flankers...

4. Finally got a mortar kill... Only had to hit a prone sniper twice with direct hits from an HE

Quoted from "Oscar"

Quoted from "botafogo4life"

Weekend Update (Post-Vacation Edition):

1. So far I only have 29 kills apiece for the Seb 1906 and Martini-Henry... Occasional sprees with the Huot and Hellreigel are the only reason why my KPM isn't 0.00001 right now... I gotta find a way to switch things up or I'm gonna burn myself out...

2. I found out the hard way that someone can really troll the hell out of your Elite Sentinel pickup -- The second I picked it up, an enemy instantly started to melee me and I couldn't shoot him because every time he hit me my "picking up heavy machine gun" animation would reset. So no problem, I'll just start clubbing him back, right? WRONG... Five swings of my club later I was DEAD yet he was still alive (but I did get kill credit for the assist)... Why did I need FIVE club hits to do 94 damage when the club has a base of 60 damage?

3. While I appreciate the wide-open maps, too many infantry-based game modes come down to which team can better flank the other... Nothing but nonstop flank and counter-flank -- It's to the point where I'm spending more time ignoring the capture points and I just venture out on my own looking to pick off flankers...

4. Finally got a mortar kill... Only had to hit a prone sniper twice with direct hits from an HE

2. Your reload shouldn't cancel if you're struck by melee. Are you sure you weren't attempting to melee the enemy back and thus restarting the animation?
Clubs deal 45 damage per swing. As usual, don't rely on the in-game stats.

4. Mortar is a situational gadget. Don't force yourself to use it and hope you'll get a kill. Play a mode that benefits from the yse if a Mortar or look for situations in which you'll benefit from using one.
Modes would be Rush, when objectives are in open air, same scenario in Frontlines. Stalemates on CQ and Operations can work too, but not as optimal/reliable. Use it to dispose of rooftop campers in Ballroom, Fao, etc. Use it to harass enemy vehicles that are stationary (HE mortar) if there's nothing else to target.

I only started to melee the enemy back after the fourth or fifth time he hit me and I realized that clubbing him back was my only chance... And I don't know if it makes a difference, but this wasn't the "reload" animation, this was the "just picked it up" animation so every time I got hit I kept bending over to pick up the same gun...

Sad to see that accurate in-game stats are still beyond DICE capabilities...

I don't even really care for the mortar, given that it's even weaker than the BF3 post-nerf mortar -- I'm just trying to do the dumb assignment...

UPDATE:

1. After two really bad nights in a row , it's probably time for me to take a break... I'm grinding my controller into a fine plastic powder from gripping so hard... Even though it's a dead game now, as laughably broken as Battlefront is why am I having considerably more fun and less stress playing that instead?? It's not like I'm doing much better there, either (hovering around a 1.1 KDR in both games)... Maybe because I don't take it as seriously?

1A. As an aside, the only thing in the world worse than playing when fatigued is playing when you're fatigued AND angry... Sometimes you gotta know when it isn't your night and play something else instead...

2. I refuse to believe the hero tokens in Battlefront are random -- I'll search the end of the Earth and never find any while the same people on the enemy team *always* seem to find them every round...

3. Yeah, DICE should probably do something about that whole "gas grenade penetrates concrete wall" thing...

4. Is the mini-grenade good for anything? It's like the only thing I haven't been killed by...

5. WHY is the Kolibri in the game again? Why take the time to code a joke weapon when they could have easily given us an actual useful weapon? For trolling purposes there is already the crossbow and the mortar...

6. I know I asked this before, buy why are the dogtags such an afterthought? In BF3 they were a matter of pride; especially the rare, gold or stat-counting ones... But here they're such an afterthought -- How did the integration and implementation of weapon unlocks, camos, dogtags and battlepacks ever get this bad from the planning stage?

7. Has there been any detailed research on exactly what the effects are of changing the recoil direction to the left or right? And why would you even if you wanted to?

8. Finally got a chance to rock the mortar truck, and even though I was probably way more conservative with it than I should have been, yes it is a guaranteed killstreak in the proper hands...

9. You all know my continued gripes about vehicle balance and respawn, so I'll just skip it.

10. You know what I really love? Trying to do a squad spot assignment and I never have any ammo for my flare gun despite following multiple supports around Fort De Voux an entire round...

11. Current assignment status: 92 Hellriegel kills, 67 Sebstadler kills, 52 Huot kills and 45 Martini-Henry kills... I must be lagging or something because I've gone back to sucking with the Martini-Henry... At this point I'm almost about to say to hell with it and just use other stuff...

12. Anyone made any interesting discoveries with custom controller mapping or crosshair colors? I personally made my crosshair bright yellow, hitmarkers blue, kill markers I left red, and headshots are black... And personally, I'm sick and tired of trying to spot something only for the commo rose to flash on my screen...

13. Let me get to the meat of why I'm so frustrated -- I work best as part of a team, and too many squads can't even do the basic-level stuff to coordinate or help each other out (Note: This is one of the side results when everybody has assignments, challenges or medals to chase)... Even when I find a half-decent random squad, not knowing what everyone is thinking and just expecting things to happen organically is just a roll of the dice... And why do 99.9% of players still refuse to use mics? How did we go from CoD and GTA V where you literally can't get people to shut up to this? Sometimes it feels like I'm playing with crazy, unpredictable bots...

14. Forgot to ask: Why aren't there any proper all-kit weapons?