DICE has been spilling details on Battlefeild 4 left and right lately. The latest aspect of the game which they are looking to bring into the light is the Field Upgrade system. Lead Multiplayer Designer Thomas “Tompen” Andersson goes in depth with the new feature in a current Battlefield blog. The system replaces the specializations seen in Battlefeild 3 with a more team-oriented setup that rewards you and your teammates for performing various tasks. In fact, the system in place is a heavily modified version of one seen in a previous Battlefield installment.
If you’re a long term fan that played Battlefield 2142, you will already have an idea what these are, but we have tweaked them for Battlefield 4. In short, Field Upgrades are chained boosts that can affect a number of gameplay mechanics for your player.
Similar to the specializations in Battlefield 3, these can for example provide you with faster sprint speed, stronger personal armor, or expanded ammo capacity.
What they’re looking to do is, in their words, “encourage team play” without “forcing it”. So, how do you obtain these boosts? It comes down to two important tasks: play the objective and your role.
You earn [Field Upgrades] through squad scoring such as squad healing, completing objectives with your squad members, squad resupplies, squad repairs, and other squad actions. Instead of one single specialization like in Battlefield 3, you can now pick from different upgrades paths, each containing four specializations.
Keep the squad alive, and you will move through the accumulative upgrade path. But watch out! If your entire squad is eliminated, you will lose some of your progress.
Andersson and the team are planning on fully unveiling the Field Upgrade system next week along with the new specializations it’s packing. Keep an eye on JPS for this exciting news as it emerges in the coming days.
