The Idiot’s Guide To Battlefield 1

Battlefield is a complex first-person multiplayer shooter that demands coordination and teamwork to find success. But that doesn’t stop legions of idiots from running and gunning like Rambo impersonators in search of a glorious kill-death ratio and little else. Consider this roundup of tips as a Battlefield intervention. You don’t have to run from gunfight to gunfight attracting the derision of every solider in your platoon. If you simply follow the handy suggestions outlined below, you will be well on the path to recovery.

Battlefield veterans just jumping into the latest game may find some of these tips helpful as well, considering the new World War I setting creates a new dynamic between vehicles and infantry.

Join A Squad And Stick With It
The top of a Battlefield 1 leaderboard is typically dominated by one savvy squad. Why is that, you ask? Because they stick together and help one another, which leads to a windfall of experience points. Being a lone wolf does no favors for you or your team. 

Think about it this way – you’re running down an alley in Amiens by yourself and suddenly five soldiers from the opposing team turn the corner. Who’s going to win that showdown? Even if you manage to take out one of these enemies, the rest of the squad is going to wipe the floor with your corpse and the medic will probably undo the good your one kill did by reviving their fallen teammate. If you roll solo, you are basically volunteering to be cannon fodder. Don’t worry; thanks to the commo rose, you don’t even have to talk to your squadmates!

You Have Supplies. Give Them To Us!
The medic and support classes play a critical role in squads. Medics can revive downed soldiers and heal the wounded with medpacks. Support gunners can resupply the ammo of the soldiers around them. The lone good contribution Battlefield Hardline added to the franchise formula was allowing anyone to simply walk up to a medic or support soldier and grab the supplies themselves, but Battlefield goes back to the analog days of World War I, where you needed the person with the supplies to manually service teammates. THIS MEANS YOU NEED TO DEPLOY THOSE SUPPLIES! Don’t be stingy – intermittently throwing down supplies around you helps your teammates and helps yourself by earning teamwork points for sharing. 

Issue Squad Orders For Free Points
Squad leaders have a simple job – coordinate your squad’s strategy by issuing attack and defend orders. This is as simple as pointing at a flag and hitting one button. If you can’t be bothered to take a half second to issue the command, you should expect a mutiny because you are robbing your squadmates (and yourself) of free experience points. There’s a reason your teammates are constantly spamming the “request order” command, and it’s not because you’re a brilliant leader. They want the bonus points.

Unlock Your Squad
Battlefield 1 has an annoying feature that automatically locks a squad formed by a pre-existing party. This is the reason you see so many two-person squads locked when joining a new server. Two-player squads are only slightly more effective than the fool’s quest of going solo (see tip above), so if you are using the party system, do yourself a favor and unlock your squad before you start a game. 

See That Tank? Destroy That Tank!
You see that guy at the top of the leaderboard with 57 kills and only 9 deaths? Chances are he’s rolling in a heavy tank, effortlessly racking up the kill count as enemies rush at the flag he’s defending. Outside of the behemoths, the tank is the most formidable weapon on the World War I battlefield. That means you and your squad should throw all your resources into taking out a tank if you see it roll into your vicinity. 

The good news is almost every class can bring anti-tank equipment to the party. The assault class is best equipped to deal with these heavy metal threats thanks to dynamite and anti-tank grenades, mines, and rifles. The support class has anti-vehicle mortars and a limpet charge that can be attached to the tank. The medic class has a high-explosive rifle launcher (think of it as an early rendition of the RPG). The recon class can use a K bullet to do more damage to armored vehicles. Though these bullets hardly match the firepower of the other available options, they can at the very least disrupt the repair plans of the tank user.

Tanks And Planes Aren’t Car Rentals
If you’ve played Battlefield before, you’ve likely seen someone hop into a plane or tank at the team base, only to jump out at their objective and leave that vehicle open for anyone to commandeer. This offense should be punishable by court martial and execution. Armed vehicles are the most valuable assets your team has. By abandoning one in perfect condition, you could potentially give the opposing team yet another powerful instrument of death while robbing your team of the critical commodity. 

If you’re in a hurry, just hop on one of the motorcycles available at your base camp. Hell, there’s even a sidecar so you can escort a second idiot to his inevitable death.

Keep Your Distance When Using Tanks
If you have a tank, the worst thing you can do is rush into the heart of a close-quarters battle and expose your vehicles to threats on all four sides. To better aid your team (and your kill count), keep your distance from control points, clearing out oncoming troops first to create an opening for your own infantry to capture the position. If they are still having trouble capturing the point, only then should you venture into the dangerous space to help take control of flag. 

Repair Tools Still Matter
Battlefield 1 introduces the ability for tank drivers to repair the vehicles themselves from within the tank, removing the threat of stepping outside and exposing yourself to enemy fire. This is a blessing when a lone tank occupant is away from a frontline and has time to waste on the slow repair, but when you’re in the thick of a battle it’s still faster if a passenger in the tank steps out to repair with a wrench while the driver continues to fire the cannon. As tempting as it is to abandon that repair tool in favor of mortars and ammo when using the support class, if you spawn into a tank, it’s smart to tweak your loadout and add that wrench. That means you should should also stop firing the pea shooter out the side window and get your lazy ass out there to speed up the repair! 

If You’re Going To Snipe, The Least You Can Do Is Spot Enemies
We get it. You don’t take orders from other players, and you don’t care about squad dynamics. The only thing that matters to you is the supreme kill-death ratio you get by hiding in a rock bed and sniping unsuspecting enemies from afar, never dealing with the uncomfortableness of seeing the whites of their eyes as you drain the life from your foes. Believe it or not, there is still a team role for you to play while on your spirit quest. Snipers are equipped with tools to make spotting enemies easier, allowing your teammates who are less afraid of charging into the fray to see the soldiers lurking around the corner. That way, when the enemy rains down a mortar strike on your sedentary ass, at least we can clean up your leftovers.

PTFO! 
If you are racking up impressive kill counts but still find yourself stuck in the middle of the leaderboard, chances are you aren’t playing the f-ing objective. The goal of Conquest, Rush, Operations, and Domination is to capture or destroy control points, not kill more players than the opposition. Playing the f-ing objective earns you more experience points than kills, and winning a round due to playing the f-ing objective also imparts end-of-match experience multipliers. With so many incentives for playing the f-ing objective, WHY THE F AREN’T YOU PLAYING THE F-ING OBJECTIVE?! JUST PLAY THE F-ING OBJECTIVE ALREADY.