Battlefield Heroes Open Beta Set for Summer

I've been in the beta for a few months. I'll give my impressions and correct some misinformation below.

First of all, if going in you thought this was a big serious Battlefield game, you've a moron. The teaser videos and information that was readily available over the past year should have told you exactly what kind of game this is. It's casual, directed at the casual market for guys with low-end PCs looking for some fun shooters and probably not into competitive gaming. If you're looking for a clan-friendly, LAN tournament, competitive game, this is NOT it.

Having said that it's quite fun. I've spend over 100 hours playing it myself and I have several characters I'm leveling up.

There are only 3 character classes you can play as (6 if you count both factions, but each side has identical equipment and weapons with only their names and model/skins to differentiate). Commandos (long range snipers equipped with steath), Soldiers (mid-range equipped with SMG, shotguns and grenades), and Gunners (short-range equipped with machine-guns, shotguns, and anti-vehicle weapons). There are also only 3 maps; a smallish infantry only map, a mid-sized map of mixed infantry and vehicles, and a large map with lots of vehicles. Hopefully they'll add more maps for the public release.

There are 3 types of points in the game. The first are Hero Points, which you use to improve the abilities of your character (each character has 5 or 6 abilities, each of which can be leveled up to a maximum of 5). You get Hero Points by leveling up your character (every second level you get 1 point, and the game starts you with 1 point pre-assigned... though you can reset your hero points with no penalty and redistribute them). The second type is called Valor Points. You get these by playing the game (getting kill assists, etc) and by completing in-game missions (ie: "kill 10 infantry in one round and deal 1500 damage", or "Kill 30 vehicles with the rocket launcher" there are dozens of missions) . The third are called Battlefunds. This is your ingame currency, sort of like Microsoft points in Xbox Live. Currently there are 3 pay tiers. $5 for 700 points, $10 for 1400, and $20 gets you 2800 points.

The points you use to get better weapons and equipment are Valor Points, the ones you earn by playing the game and completing missions. You don't pay real money (Battlefunds) for weapons or equipment or anything that gives you any type of in-game advantage over someone else. The only things you pay real money for are experience and valor point boosters and purely cosmetic clothing and character customization items (and there are some clothing and accessory items that you can get that use Valor Points instead of Battlefunds).

I'm perfectly fine with it this way, and I see plenty of guys running around with customized characters so it seems there are a lot of other guys fine with it as well. The cost of customization is high though, and there are only a few items that are permanent, most last up to only 1 month (to fully outfit your character can take more than $20 I'd expect).

The BIGGEST problem with Heroes right now is the same problem DICE always seems to have with their games: crappy lag, frequent disconnections, and terrible (TERRIBLE!) matchmaking. There are also some pretty horrid character balance issues as well, but hopefully DICE will listen to the guys in the Beta Forums and fix those before opening it up to the public.

I had this long write up about the pros and cons of this game then realized I can't post that stuff. So, overall the bad reviews in this thread are very true. The game is bad, really bad. It's so far from the original series its scary.

Pretty sad they could of been putting this time and effort into a real BF3. I highly recommend you sign up and experience it yourself.

Every Battlefield game I was exposed to I was hooked after five minutes of playing. And went on to play each of the series for hundreds of hours. I didn't like this beta after an hour of playing and realized I would have to play it a few days before discovering the potential of fun. Heroes feels like a version of bf1942 that only consist of 3v3 Midway and I'm playing the role of a level 1 Fatass Mcgee. I can see the 16v16 Kursk where I'm a level 60 Flex Plexico, but I am not interested in going through the grind. Maybe it is the graphics and the clown shoes humor of it all.

aside from the standard issues with the aesthetic choices,
anyone out there involved in the closed beta sharing thoughts?
and better yet, are those thoughts available as words that
one could read?
it seems there are issues to be dealt with if the open is being
pushed back. then again assumptions do not get one laid.

BETA THOTS

I honestly enjoyed the beta up until the price release. I think it is a lot of fun, but the fact that you have to basically rebuy all your weapons and clothing items monthly is a joke. And from my math, to decorate a character to look unique (a couple clothing items, not every slot), you would need to pay $20+ a character.


That's a pretty ridiculous $20 a month per character for a game that can only hold my attention against the swarms of aim-botters for about an hour.

I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying the closed beta. The few complaints I have are mostly about balance. Things like grenade spam (an ability that lets you through 5 grenades that explode only a few seconds after leaving your hands) are almost always impossible to escape if its on level 5.

I've been playing the closed beta, its really not too bad. You gotta realize that they are aiming for a free and casual game. Games are pretty short, 50 Points using the classic BF style of deaths and not owning any flags causing you to lose them. Its got a really cheesy feel, the rate you generate points to buy weapons really makes its easy to keep buying your weapons every month. Ive been enjoying it as a time waster. You just have to realize that DICE is going for a pretty casual game.

All the negative comments I've read seem to be either "The game is unrealistic!", or "The game just isn't fun!"

OK, really guys. It's an arcade version of Battlefield, what were you expecting? And I'm guessing that it wasn't "fun" because you didn't give any real time to it. Once you start unlocking abilities (NOT the pay stuff, you use points you gain over time), the game starts to gain more depth, and becomes a ton more fun.

And honestly, stop comparing it to TF2. It is NOTHING like TF2. Nothing. Not even the art style.

I really like BF:H, the class/powers balance works, it looks good, the UI is kinda crappy, the pay items are overpriced, and it's fun.

There really needs to be more "reason" to keep people together though, the game works best where 3-4 people are within healing range, but without easy team communication, there is no way for this to happen continuously.

The speed is more MMO then Quake, it takes 5-10sec to kill someone (sorry CoD4 hardcore players), and the 3 classes (sniper w/invisibly, soldier w/medic powers, gunner w/big-ass-gun) work OK, but you're locked into one class until you log out, which is a PITA if you have 7 of the same class.

Give me a friends list, voice chat, and a way to see the health of other team mates.

I found this game so horrible, seriously. It was so bad, I was really disappointed. Team Fortress 2 is like Quake 3 compared to this. :(

Use of third party hacks in the game is currently a problem.

Logged in for an hour when I got an invite and then promptly uninstalled. Sorry, it just wasn't fun for me. I would love to know the market they are gunning for...is there really a large amount of casual PC gamers who want to play a shooter? Especially one this "dumbed" down and, to me, quite boring?

I think I played two or three times once I made it into the beta. I was hoping this game would be good. I really tried to like it but even after just a couple sessions I really am not feeling it. The whole time I was playing just made me mad that it was sucking and not awesome like Bad Company.
:(

I waited for ever to be invited to the beta. I have a beta account now and I don't play it. The game is just not that great and it is still full of bugs and annoyances.

I've got way more hours on Battlefield Heroes open than I want to say. At first I didn't like it, but I can totally see where EA and Dice are going with this game, as it's actually quite different than other shooters. I see most Shackers dislike it probably because it's just too easy, and the casualness of the game is kind of a overwhelming. For a free game, there's definitely better options, but if you really, really, really want to turn off your brain then Heroes is not so bad. It's not so much the bugs that are annoying in the game (As it's technically pretty stable right now) but the community is absolutely terrible, and the class balances right now are just pathetic (But l doubt there will be any major changes).

I really don't care for the game as I had some good moments but at least it's another place for casuals to hang out in.

If you are bored and want to play a game that's comparable to something you'd get in a box of Lucky Charms, go right ahead. It's insulting they'd even slap a Battlefield label on this drivel.

this game is a lot of fun. maybe the other people didnt find the challenges and figure out how to level up your abilities. what keeps me from playing more is how they don't have a friends list. you can join a friend by name but you have to know they are online. i dont see this game doing well unless they have this feature by open beta

Only one year late, and now nobody cares.

I feel like its 2008, when I first heard that an open beta was coming in the summer.