Everyone is a newbie at Battlefield the first time they play. Even if you’ve played other shooters, there are important differences to learn.
Battlefield at its heart is a team game. Much of your goals in the game, and the points you score, come from doing things for your team, and for your team mates. No matter how many enemies you kill — barring death match game modes — your team won’t win the game without success in the game mode’s objectives.
You earn a lot of points by achieving game objectives, and by assisting your team mates. It is entirely possible to have a high score — even top the game leaderboard — with no kills, by being a good team player. So even if you suck at killing the enemy, you can still contribute effectively while you learn.
You can have a lot of fun doing this, and that’s important to keep in mind. The game is about having fun, and there are a lot of things to do while on the battlefield. The game offers a huge range of options in the form of weapons, gadgets, and vehicles to play with.
When you start out in Battlefield 4, you have almost no choices for weapons and gadgets to select. The options open up as you advance in the game. It is easy to forget how confusing the initial choices can be, and all the questions that experienced players simply know the answers for.
Starting Play
There are some nice guides for this, so I’m going to go over just a few things here.
When you first enter a game, you will be placed on the deploy screen. Here you can select your soldier kit (class), and choose a location to spawn (appear) on the map. Depending on the game mode and map situation, you may have several choices. If possible, it is always worthwhile to spawn on your squad mates (shown in green).
If you joined a game on a friend, you will automatically be placed in their squad, unless their squad is full or their team is full. In either case, you may be assigned to no squad, unless you disable (in the team menu) joining on your friend for that game. If your friend’s squad has an opening, which typically happens automatically in succeeding games, you will automatically join them (as long as you have that option on in settings, it is by default).
The deploy screen is also the map of the battle. You can see symbols for soldiers of both teams (red for enemy, blue for friendly, green for your squad – default colors), objectives, and vehicles on the map. There is a zoom function to let you look at the map in more detail, and if you select a squad mate or vehicle to deploy on, a small window will show the action around them. If you see a “WARNING” flash on that screen, it means they are under fire and deploying there risks coming under fire yourself immediately, and often, instant death.
Soldier Kits — Equipment and Weapons
Starting out, there are four kits — general specializations — for your soldier. As you progress, you will get more options to customize each, and that happens fairly fast, but at the beginning you can choose only one. Each kit has a couple of subdivisions based on the sort of gear used. You always choose one of these when joining a game. You can configure the equipment and custom appearance of your soldier by selecting the kit and equipment in it. At the start of a new career, you have almost no options, so you may as well jump right in and play.
Assault: Infantry Specialist – Medic & Heavy Infantry
When you start out, a good choice is the Assault kit. The assault is a heavy infantry specialist, with the M320 40mm grenade launcher, and a medic, with the First Aid Pack. You can fire three heavy grenades, in addition to the hand grenade available to all soldiers, before having to resupply. The first aid pack is even more wonderful. You can drop up to three at once, and they will heal up both you and your team mates. The first aid pack continues to heal the soldier as they move. They replenish quickly, so toss them down as often as you can to help out your team. And every time someone uses them to heal, you get points. Remember that — help out your team, get points.
As you progress, you get more medical tools — the Medic Bag and Defibrillator — and more grenade types and the underbarrel shotgun. You may choose to be a combat medic specialist, or a grenadier specialist. The underbarrel weapons deserve special attention. If you have an assault rifle equipped with an Underslung Rail, rather than going through a “change weapon” delay to use it. This makes using it as a backup or auxiliary weapon much faster, as your primary weapon is just a fraction of a second away from use. Not all assault rifles can use this, or use it for the shotgun. You will notice that if the rail is usable, the underbarrel weapon will use the rifle’s sights and weapon body, rather than having its own.
http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Underslung_Rail
The 40mm grenades can damage vehicles, but will not easily destroy them alone. They are best used to clear out groups of infantry, especially in enclosed areas like building interiors, stairways, and hallways. The grenade launcher gets alternate ammunition choices that you can unlock, adding flexibility. A few weapons will show the Russian GP-30 instead of the M320 when you equip the grenade launcher. It works exactly the same either way.
The First Aid Pack requires some effort to use because you can toss them out almost as often as you think of them. If you are like me, and many other players, you will be overjoyed when you unlock the Medic Bag which you can just drop and let players come by to get healed. But the First Aid Pack has some advantages, and there will be times when it is worth taking over the bigger Medic Bag. First, it works while moving, which makes it very useful in games where you can’t afford to stay still (Rush & Obliteration especially). Second, it works while under fire as long as no bullets hit, making it easier to stay alive while in the open.
Your primary weapon type is the assault rifle, the most well-rounded, good for all ranges weapon type in the game. The starting gun, the Russian AK-12, the latest version of the Kalashnikov series (going back to WWII’s AK-47), is an easy weapon to learn to use, and to manage recoil on. It has a special feature: if you switch to Burst Mode, it fires three bullets at 750 rounds per minute (RPM) rather than 680 in full auto. This can help in longer range combat, to help outshoot some of the faster firing weapons while retaining its superior accuracy.
Note that all weapons in BF4 benefit from reduced recoil, and thus better effective accuracy, when fired on single shot or burst mode rather than full auto. The AK-12 (and its carbine counterpart the AKU-12) just get an added bonus.
Engineer – Vehicle Specialist – Mechanic and Anti-Tank
The second kit is the Engineer. The Engineer is a vehicle specialist. You can be mechanic to repair vehicles, and use heavy weapons to destroy them. You start out with the repair tool — shown in game as a torch — and the MBT LAW antitank missile launcher. A nice thing about the MBT LAW is that it can be free fired — without waiting for a lock on — against any target. It has a smart seeker to help it strike vehicles it gets near to, but it can also be used against infantry, walls, and other objects. This makes the Engineer another heavy weapons specialist in foot combat.
As you progress, you will get more antivehicle weapons — mines and missiles — and more tools.
The repair tool is the main tool of the mechanic. By repairing friendly vehicles, you not only keep them alive in combat but score points. The repair tool can be used while riding as a passenger in certain open vehicles, like the Scout and Transport helicopters and the Attack Boat. Otherwise you must get out of the vehicle to repair it (or if on foot, just walk up to a friendly vehicle and start fixing). The tool can also be used as a weak weapon, able to damage and destroy vehicles, enemy equipment, and enemy soldiers if they stay still long enough.
The Engineer will unlock a wide choice of rocket weapons, but can only use one rocket weapon gadget. The anti-tank series, which can be fired at many other types of targets, include in order of increasing damage, are: MBT-LAW, Javelin, SRAW, SMAW, RPG-7V2. The first three are guided weapons, the last two unguided. The Stinger and Igla rockets can only be fired at and harm air vehicles. The choice and use of rocket weapons could make an article itself, but as they make up half of the Engineer’s specialty, it is worth knowing a little about them from the start.
The MBT-LAW, along with the Javelin and SRAW (and a range of vehicle weapons), can lock on to a laser designated target. You will see a red diamond indicating a locked target when you have this type of weapon equipped. This can allow someone else on your team to find the targets, and let you engage targets you can’t see. And for the MBT-LAW and Javelin, to hit air vehicles which they will not lock onto by themselves.
The Engineer’s primary weapon type is the PDW — Personal Defense Weapon. Short range, high fire rate, decent accuracy without aiming down the sight. They are short ranged, close quarters dominating weapons which let you hop out of your vehicle and engage infantry effectively. At point blank range, while moving, firing from the hip you will take out most opponents easily, especially with a moment of surprise.
The starting PDW is the Beretta MX4 Storm, is powerful and effective, especially fired from the hip. Don’t expect to land hits easily at long range. as it has moderately high recoil — choose your engagement range appropriately.
Support – Supply Specialist – Indirect Fire and Perimeter Defense (Suppression)
The third kit is the Support kit. The first, and usually primary, role of the support is ammo supply. You start with the Ammo Pack, and you can drop up to three at a time to resupply ammunition for your team mates. You also have the XM25 25mm Airburst Grenade Launcher. The XM25 is a unique weapon type, and can be hard to learn to use fully.
The XM25 is intended to engage targets hiding behind cover, rather than being a direct high damage weapon. The explosion is unlikely to kill with one hit, but it will Suppress the enemy, making it harder for them to engage your team mates. Suppression is the second role of the support, with the powerful LMG weapons able to fire for extended periods and limit the enemy’s abillity to return fire effectively. It has five shots, and you may need them all to get a kill, but the blast radius can take out multiple targets at once.
The XM25 has two fire modes — direct fire and airburst. When fired from the hip or without an Airburst lock, the grenade explodes on impact with a solid target, limiting the area damage but effective for directly hitting a target. Airburst lets the weapon explode at a set distance in the air, allowing you to engage targets you cannot see directly.
To set the airburst distance, aim the weapon at the cover BEFORE you aim down the sight. When aiming down the sight, it will show LOCK and the distance where the grenade will explode. Move the aiming point to clear the target, and fire — the grenade will explode at that distance, letting you hit people on rooftops or hiding around corners. The sight has IRNV – Infrared Night Vision — with a greenish yellow tint, which can see in darkness and through smoke. It also has a rangefinder function, showing the distance to the aiming point.
As you progress, the support gets more tools for both indirect fire on the enemy, more resupply, and more explosive weapons to defend or attack key locations.
As Support, you will act to provide covering fire for your team mates and keep them supplied so they can continue the attack. You get points for every ammunition resupply. Drop ammo packs constantly. Your team mates use ammunition all the time, so this is an excellent way to get a lot of points. Do not be the guy who ignores the team mate asking for ammo, when you can easily drop it and keep them happy. You start with the Ammo Pack, and like its medical counterpart, you get three of them but later unlock the more powerful Ammo Box. The packs have the advantage of being more usable when on the move, and they supply ammo instantly without waiting. But they will not supply explosives such as grenades or rockets, which makes the large Ammo Box more valuable.
The starting weapon is the U100 MK5 Ultimax Light Machine Gun (LMG). It is a magazine fed weapon, with a smaller (45 round) magazine than the typical LMGs, which have 100-200 rounds. It falls in the category that the US Army calls Infantry Automatic Rifle, and it is much closer to an assault rifle in handling than the bigger LMGs. It is fairly accurate and has an easy recoil pattern (straight up), making lining up a shot in the center of the target automatically rise up to hit the head.
The Support sub-specializations overlap more than the other kits. The starting equipment is in the Indirect Fire specialty, but the LMG is the best weapon for providing Suppression. In Battlefield 4, soldiers will react to weapons fired in their direction. Sniper rifles with their long range surprise death threat are good at this, but LMGs are the best. The threat of a sustained, unstoppable stream of fire will limit the effectiveness of enemies you fire at, even if you can;’t actually hit them. There is a reason you have bigger magazines than other weapons, so take advantage of this.
Recon – Scouting (Spotting) Specialist – Sniper and Special Operations
The last kit is the Recon. Recon is all about locating the enemies, and if possible taking them out on your own, often by surprise. You have two specialties, the Sniper — fairly obvious, a long range bolt action rifle which can kill enemies with one hit head shots at long ranges.
One shot to the head, the enemy is dead. If you are accurate enough, you can kill at any range with a single shot. It may kill with a chest hit at very short range, but the Defensive Armor upgrade will allow your target to live. This makes close range engagements very risky. Still, take the shot — you will get a “assist counts as kill” for the high damage hit when a team mate kills your target. Snipers are also spotting specialists. While everyone can use the Spot button to point out enemies for their team, Recon has more tools to make it easier and more effective.
For every enemy you spotted killed by your team, you get points. This can add up quickly.
The second role of Recon is special ops — Spec Ops. Get close to the enemy, locate enemies, and destroy them with explosives. These two roles aren’t absolutely mutually exclusive, which is a good thing as your starting gadgets are the PLD Portable Laser Designator — a hand held tool to spot enemies — and C4 explosives, remotely triggered explosives to kill enemies and destroy vehicles and objects.
The PLD has an IRNV scope with 1x and 3x zoom and a rangefinder. This makes it excellent for spotting targets, especially in the dark and through smoke, and determining the range to enemies for long range shots. But its key function is a laser designator, which will mark and lock vehicles for your team mates to fire lock on missiles against. It is good for up to 500 meters against ground targets, 300 vs air, but its IR sight gets fuzzy at long range, making it hard to distinguish targets visually. You get points for any hits or kills assisted by the laser designator.
C4 is a versatile tool. You can stick it on walls or vehicles — two are a sure kill in direct contact — or lay it down or even throw it through windows and over walls. Once placed, you can detonate it with the trigger device, but it can also be detonated by weapons fire and other explosions — even very light ones such as Flash Bang grenades can do it. C4 can be placed while swimming, which makes it a good option to destroy boats.
The Recon gets a good collection of equipment to help locate and target enemies, as well as some additional tools to kill them, But there is one gadget which is both extremely useful and worth equipping often once you unlock it: the radio Spawn Beacon. You and your squad can deploy on the map on any Spawn Beacon placed by a member of your squad. This makes having at least one Recon with it very important when you wish to have a closer spawn location in case you all die.
Recon has Sniper rifles as their primary weapon type, and the Chinese Norinco CS-LR4 as your starting weapon. With a 6x scope, moderate fire rate and fast bullet velocity, it is good for moderate range engagements. If you can learn to use this one, you can master any sniper rifle in the game.
Bolt action snipers only fire one shot at a time, and unless the Straight Pull Bolt is equipped, will not allow you to reload for the next shot while aiming down the sights (scope). Sniper Rifles are the only weapons which use the Long Range Optics (6x and higher magnification). They have a special accessory, the Variable Zoom, which adds an alternative 14x magnification to any Long Range Optic (and can’t be used or equipped otherwise).
All Long Range Optics (and the 3X Scopes available for some pistols) will have Scope Glint when you aim down the sights with the weapon. If your target is looking in your direction, this will make your presence and location very visible. Try to limit the time you aim, or use another weapon (or your PLD) to look for distant enemies, and shoot as soon as you have a good shot, then move on if you get a kill. You can equip medium or close range optics and not suffer this effect on Sniper rifles.
Sniper rifles can benefit from the scope zeroing function, which adjusts the scope aiming point to center at the designated range, with ranges of 200, 300. 400. 500, and 1000 meters available. This can help hit targets at 200 meters and beyond. While you might not try for that early in your play, it is a skill worth developing.
When you use a sniper rifle, you are at a disadvantage in any close combat situation. While most sniper rifles do 100 damage (instant kill) on a body hit at close range, the Defense upgrade path gives Armor which reduces this damage. And if you miss, or get a leg hit, you aren’t likely to get another shot. You should avoid close combat, or learn to use your secondary weapon (pistol). If you must engage up close, try to stay near team mates you can rescue you or finish off enemies you wound.
The All Kit Weapons
There are three classes of weapons, besides the secondary weapons, which are available to all player kits.
Carbines — smaller versions of assault rifles, better at close combat but shorter ranged. A good universal all-range alternative to the kit’s primary weapons. Unlocked by playing Engineer.
Shotguns — very effective short range weapons, with poor long range potential compensated for by alternative ammunition. Unlocked by playing Support. At close range, very high damage makes them reliably lethal, Slow fire rate and limited magazine size requires care when engaging multiple targets.
DMRs (Designated Marksman Rifles) — semiautomatic (single fire) accurate battle rifles good for moderately long range engagements. Gives all kits a longer range option. In normal mode games, they take three shots to kill, or two with a head shot, at any range. Unlocked by playing Recon.
Grenades and Melee
All soldiers start with the M67 Frag Grenade, a high explosive thrown weapon with a fuse delay. Throw it, and shortly afterward it explodes, doing nice and potentially lethal damage in an area. You unlock additional grenade types by points earned with grenade kills, so early on, use these often. There are two other types of explosive grenades – the V40 Mini (you get two of these), and the RGO Impact (explodes on impact with no delay, slightly less damage). The other grenades are M34 Incendiary, M18 Smoke, M84 Flashbang, and Hand Flare. In real life, there is a dangerous trick called “cooking the grenade,” where you activate the fuse and wait a second or two to throw it. The USMC does not approve of this use, because it is impossible to be certain exactly how long the fuse will take to burn — resulting in deadly results to your own side. In Battlefield 4, use the RGO Impact grenade if you want it to explode with no delay.
All soldiers are equipped with a knife. You will get a lot of choices for custom knives to choose. All only affect the appearance of your soldier. They work exactly the same way. Use the melee (knife) key when near an enemy solider to begin a knife attack. If you are behind the soldier, you’ll see a fatal takedown attack play out. If you attack from the front, the enemy can use the knife key during the first second of the attack to perform a Counterknife action, turning the attack around and killing you, the attacker.
The melee attack is also usable against objects such as windows, fences, boxes, enemy equipment such as Spawn Beacons, and can be used to push vehicles (very helpful for boats which have run aground).
Running, Swimming, Jumping, Parachuting
Moving in Battlefield has a lot of options, and while they aren’t hard to learn it is nice to know the rules before you start.
Running (or sprinting) is easy — hold the run button down, and you move faster. It also makes shooting harder or impossible. Running around corners blindly will leave you vulnerable. Crouching and laying down (going prone) slow your movement down a lot, but can help let you hide behind cover. They also make shooting more stable and accurate, In Battlefield 4, you can run as long as you want in one direction, but will slow down if you turn.
You can swim in water simply by entering any body of water which is deep enough. You can dive by using the crouch or prone key in water, and swim underwater. You can hold your breath approximately five seconds, and must surface after that or take damage. While swimming on the surface, you can use most sidearms to shoot (hip fire only), and some gadgets such as repair tools and C4. You can swim more quickly by using the sprint key in water. Water breaks line of sight for spotting, but doesn’t offer good protection against enemy fire.
Your soldier can jump, but unlike the “When I say jump!”, you don’t have much control over how high. It is enough to get over low obstacles, but larger objects will still block your path. While in the air, most gadgets are useless and weapons are difficult if not impossible to use. Jumping while running will not make you move any faster, and might even slow you down, but you’ll often see players jumping anyway, perhaps just to do something different.
All Battlefield soldiers are equipped with parachutes. No, you won’t see them before they deploy, but they are there. Any time you are far enough off the ground, whether from exiting an aircraft or jumping off a high building or cliff, you can press the jump key to deploy your parachute and try to land safely. You can control your flight to a small degree, and practice will make controlled landings easier. It is possible to shoot most weapons while riding a parachute, and use some gadgets including rocket and grenade launchers, but the motion can make accurate aim much harder.
Go Play Now
You know you want to. Jump in, try things out, have fun.
