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4v4 Rush is back in 2042! – Test Cups & ESB Council

4v4 Rush is back in 2042! – Test Cups & ESB Council

Information

One year ago, we introduced 4v4 Rush to the Battlefield V competitive scene. Today, we are very excited to bring it back into Battlefield 2042.

Over the past two weeks, our team has been hard at work testing the mode, maps, weapons, gadgets, specialists, etc. After many lonely hours spent in empty portal servers and some very entertaining scrims, we are happy to bring you the first draft of our 4v4 Rush ruleset.

We will be hosting multiple test cups over the coming month to keep testing the mode and gather critical feedback from you, the players, and the teams. Before we get to the ruleset, we want to go over some essential items we will be looking at in the test cups.

Please keep in mind that Test Cups are made for testing, and each event will have a slightly different set of restrictions to help us gather the proper feedback.

Our 4v4 Rush Test Cups will be available on all platforms: PC, PlayStation 5 / Xbox Series X & S, PlayStation 4 / Xbox One. Region-wise, we will be hosting separate cups for both North America and Europe. You can find dates and sign-up links in the “Schedule” section of this article.

 

Battlefield 2042 has brought a lot of changes into the franchise, some more welcome than others. The franchise is evolving, and the competitive scene has to evolve with it if it wants to try and be successful. It’s a unique opportunity we have, and we hope that Portal gives us all the tools we need to work effectively soon enough.

In Battlefield V, we gave teams 37 tickets & 10 minutes to capture each sector while destroying objectives in an A-B order. This time around, teams will have a total of 35 minutes to play through each map as the attacker and 32 tickets per sector to destroy the objectives in a B-A order (don’t get it wrong!). The maps we will be playing all have five sectors, of which we only play four (skip the first). Doing some quick maths, you should end up spending 2-3 minutes burning through the first sector, and then an average of 8 minutes per sector to arm the remaining four sectors (if you make it to the end).  Doing more maths means that each player gets 1 ticket per minute of game time (compared to 0.93 tickets per minute in BFV).

Map-wise, we have been testing 1942, BC2, and BF3 maps in Portal, and sadly only Noshahr Canals, Valparaiso, and Arica Harbor are playable in this format. The good news is that Rush game mode layouts will be added for all 2042 maps next week! We hope that despite the enormous size of these maps, we’ll be able to salvage a few of them to use for 4v4 Rush. Please pray to the Battlefield gods that the layouts have been designed with 32/64 players in mind and not 128.

Goodbye classes, hello specialists! This is where the evolution begins. While many may be hesitant at first, it is essential we try and embrace specialists if we want competitive play to be relatable to new players and hopefully a bit more interesting to play/watch.

Some specialists are not suited for competitive play (*cough*PAIK*cough*), and others need further testing. Before you all panic after reading the rules, Mackay is only banned in Test Cup #1 and will be unbanned in Test Cup #2 as we want to test how he affects match flow. The grappling hook has caused some interesting issues in the games we tested, but we’ll see how the Test Cups play out.

Talking about questionable specialists, Dozer will be allowed for Test Cup #1, and we’ll see about banning him for Test Cup #2 based on your feedback.

With four new specialists also releasing throughout Year 1, it will be interesting to see how they may affect the competitive meta and team strategies over time.

Our long-term vision with specialists is to introduce a ban draft before each match to keep things interesting (similar to what League of Legends does, as an example).

As you all know, weapon class balance is fairly nonexistent in the current state of 2042. While we would love to try and tie certain gun classes to certain specialists in the name of balance, we realize that this isn’t the moment to do so. We really loved seeing the team play that our 1/1/1/1 class set-up brought to 4v4 Rush in Battlefield V. Hopefully we can bring something similar back in the future, or at least limit gun class usage a bit.

Weapon variety is always good if there’s balance. We definitely wouldn’t want to play Smgfield 2042 for too long.

For now, we have banned the classic shotguns and a few other weapons. We’ll collect your feedback and see how the upcoming patches change the guns before going further here.

Attachment-wise, we have primarily banned the underbarrel weapons to avoid extra explosive spam, and while certain extended mags may need to be looked at, we’ll wait on your feedback there as well.

The main gadget change here is the ban of the Insertion Beacon, mainly because everyone can equip it, as opposed to being able to limit it to only 1 player in Battlefield V. While presented with the choice between 4 insertion beacons or 0, we went with zero. This may change in the future if we find a reliable way to track who is using it (gadgets displayed on the kill-card, for example).

We have also banned the SOFLAM and AA Launcher, mainly because they don’t have any use in 4v4 Rush, and we want to avoid people spawning with them by mistake and having a useless gadget slot for the remainder of their life.

There are a lot of roofs and areas that you can jump, fly, grappling hook to, thanks to 2042 specialists. Add the fact that maps are made with 32+ players in mind, and you end up having too many angles/buildings/corners to check while playing.

To reduce this, we have provided map overviews with clearly marked areas you shouldn’t be entering (unless you want to be penalized). They may seem like a lot (and it’s possible we missed a few) but trust us, playing without excess amounts of verticality greatly improves the game flow.

We’ll closely listen to your feedback here as well. Hopefully, we did cover everything, though.

One of the great things Portal brings to the table is experience codes. Gone are the days of getting server settings wrong or server set-ups confusing new players and teams.

To ensure that server creation is as accessible as ever, we have created experience codes for 4v4 Rush for all Bo1, Bo2, and Bo3 map combinations. These codes are in Section 3.3 of the general 4v4 Rush rules (linked at the end).

We have also included many tips and explanations to make your 2042 competitive start as smooth as possible. Make sure you take some time to read the rules from top to bottom so you don’t miss anything!

ESB Councils are periodical meetings with team leaders to discuss and vote on rule changes that need to be made to our rulesets. Each team that plays in the Test Cups can send one representative to voice their opinions and vote on key changes to the ruleset.

More information on the date of our first 2042 council, and how to sign-up for it will be provided over the coming weeks in a dedicated article.

Tournament organizers that would like to use ESB rules for their upcoming events may also send a representative to participate in the conversation.

 

You can read the complete ruleset by clicking HERE.

 

Schedule & Sign-ups

Test Cup #1 – Sunday 05/12/2021

Test Cup #2 – Sunday 19/12/2021

Test Cup #3 – Sunday 09/01/2022

 

F.A.Q

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

  • I don’t have a team. Can I still play in the Test Cups?
    • Unfortunately, this is a team-based event, and you will need a team of at least four players to participate.
  • What is the roster size for the Test Cups?
    • Roster sizes for qualifiers are:
      • 6 Players (4 Starters and 2 Substitutes)
  • When is the registration deadline?
    • The registration for each Test Cup closes 1 hour before each event starts, as detailed in the “Schedule” tab on each event page on Battlefy.
  • How many teams are required for a Test Cup to launch?
    • The minimum amount of teams is 6 for each Test Cup to launch.
  • Are the Test Cups region-locked?
    • Yes, there is a region lock in place. We want to ensure that teams start forming with this crucial fact in mind to avoid issues once bigger events launch.

 

DON’T FORGET TO JOIN OUR GROWING DISCORD COMMUNITY, WHICH IS ALREADY HOME TO THOUSANDS OF COMPETITIVE BATTLEFIELD PLAYERS

discord.gg/t2CsNWj

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