https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/ ... nope-nope/Wow, Ars gave it an absolutely shoeing. And not just about the economy stuff either.
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One example: at every respawn, players land on the map in a group of four, but BFII does a poor job communicating how those squads could or should work together beyond "fight together for more battle points." (Battle points (BP) build up throughout a given match and are spent solely within combat to temporarily access higher-level characters and vehicles.)
For instance, should squadmates defend or buff each other in specific ways? The few powers that dole out valuable assists—like shields and "leadership" shouts—give zero rewards. It's also unclear during combat when those "doubled" bonuses actually accrue. And unlike Battlefield, BFII fighters can't have a leader "point" to a particular objective or zone and receive bonuses or boosts for focusing on it. The result: you quickly feel like a lone wolf out there, and the class-specific trappings lose importance.
Without those organic nudges, the online game, in practice, melts down to murder-hallways. This is, in part, because of some ho-hum level designs that encourage boring, non-strategic play, but also because players rack up more BPs when they put bullets into their foes. BPs drive your ability to temporarily climb into an X-wing, a TIE fighter, a walker, or the shoes of a legendary Star Wars character like Chewbacca, Yoda, Darth Maul, or Emperor Palpatine. Everybody wants to do that!
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When players hop into a flying craft, either during specific BP-fueled moments on Galactic Assault maps or during the dedicated, ships-only Starfighter Assault mode, the feeling at first is nothing but awesome. DICE's Frostbite engine does a wonder with richly detailed spaceships, ridiculous draw distances, and probably-not-scientifically-accurate lighting effects.
The mode rarely surpasses that first-blush wonder, however, with incredibly mild control and attack options for each ship. These just aren't satisfying dogfights beyond basic, solid arcade-level thrills. Evasive maneuvers like loop-de-loops are practically impossible, and your best hope is to unlock the correct evasion-minded Star Cards through the course of gameplay. Meanwhile, when you board a flying craft during Galactic Assault battles, the results are weird. You don't get any special flight-specific objectives while you're up there, and many of the ships have nothing in the way of ground-specific attacks or perks to help with the objectives on the ground. You're mostly up there trying to awkwardly hit ground targets (with no radar system to help) and trading fire with enemies who made the same foolish BP purchase as you.
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The speed at which cards are doled out in the course of standard gameplay is agonizingly slow. You'll need to play 7-9 matches to earn enough of BFII's "credits" currency to afford the most expensive, 4,000-credit loot boxes, which then contain a mix of unique Star Cards, credits, and crafting parts. (I break down the game's pukey soup of currencies and other economical issues here, but we're already in bad-news territory when I have to direct you to a freaking glossary to understand what's going on.)
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This sucks from a sheer gameplay perspective, in which you can expect a higher-card player to do things like regenerate health faster and have wider grenade radii. But it also sucks from a "welcome to BFII" perspective because average battles play out like an advertisement for the game you wish you were playing. As I've previously said, good multiplayer shooters with progression systems are at least kind enough to set new players somewhere near their mathematical maximum. You eventually unlock alternate styles and options, which typically keep the game fresh. But, in practice, BFII taunts players with a severe gap between "one tier, one card" and "three near-max cards" players.
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