Tides of War in Battlefield 5 has introduced weekly challenges, but this week features a particularly frustrating goal for medics. And the players are letting their frustration be known.<\/b>
\nEA and DICE recently launched the first week of Tides of War for Battlefield 5. Tides of War mimics the weekly challenges and unlockables of Fortnite, offering an ongoing series of weekly seasonal events. The first week focuses on supplies and fortifications, and if you complete the challenges you can unlock the VGO medium machine gun for the support class.
The game is frustrating many players, myself included, with this week\u2019s health crate challenge. And no one seems to know an effective way of getting it done.
\u201cDeploy as a Medic and make sure you\u2019ve equipped the Medical Crate gadget in the Company menu for this challenge,\u201d the official tips page explains . \u201cIn Battlefield V, the Medical Crates let your buddies restock with Bandages (instead of creating a healing radius for those close to the crate).\u201d
You have to heal your teammates for 400 points to complete the challenge. There\u2019s no other way forward if you\u2019re following the Medic\u2019s path through the weekly challenge.
The problem comes from the fact that while the challenge description sounds like you\u2019re doing something active, the only control the player has over the situation is choosing where to drop the Health Crate. Other players have to actually pick up the health for me to get any points toward the goal, and I\u2019m competing with medics who are running around the battlefield and throwing health packs directly to wounded soldiers.
All I can do is drop the crate and hope for the best. Players have been littering the text chat with pleas for others to come take their health so they can finish the challenge and move on.
When you really need people to take med packs from your crate #BattlefieldV pic.twitter.com\/mwnRVxqXnO
Some players blame the game design, citing this challenge\u2019s difficulty as evidence that health crates aren\u2019t very useful in the game.
\u201cSeriously for the past three hours I\u2019ve been pulling my hair trying to get the one damn challenge that I am currently missing,\u201d one player wrote on Reddit . \u201cAfter three hours, I\u2019ve only completely 175\/200 for the Tide of War challenge. This if fucking ridiculous. There are already so many standard medic crates lying around that nobody bothers to go to yours.\u201d
Other players have suggested underhanded strategies to get ahead.
\u201cI\u2019m a total dirtbag,\u201d another fan wrote, \u201cas I\u2019ve been shooting other medics\u2019 crates and dropping mine.\u201d
People are looking for tips to try to get others to use their crates, while others are wondering if the game itself is broken. Maybe there\u2019s a particular mode that makes it easier? It\u2019s also possible that we all just need to vent a bit to get it out of our system.
pic.twitter.com\/kAlfjfoH1k
This challenge won\u2019t make or break my week, since I can unlock the gun using any of the paths and it\u2019s much easier to just avoid the medic branch for the time being. It\u2019s still frustrating that one of the three paths is so much harder than the other two, and this particular challenge has helped to highlight a very real design flaw in both Battlefield 5 and the challenge structure.
I can increase my chances by destroying other health crates \u2014 which helps me but hurts my team \u2014 or by spamming the text chat, but in the standard course of the game it can feel impossible to get other players to use my health crates.
If that\u2019s the case, are they really serving their purpose in Battlefield 5? Players should want to use helpful items within the course of a round, but the health crates are too easily overshadowed by medics throwing bandages and reviving fallen players. EA and DICE have found a weak spot in the medic\u2019s load out options, and all they had to do was make its use mandatory.<\/p>\n