NOW PLAYING
I do not blame you for not being healed by me in Battle field V.
Why won’t you be healed by us?
It’s fine, OK. It’s fine. It’s just… let’s not forget it was you who initiated. “Request medic.” You said that. You requested health, so I placed a medical crate. And sure, I’ll admit that it wasn’t a wholly altruistic act. I was trying to complete Battlefield V’s Tides of War objective to heal 400 points of damage with crates. This was a marriage of convenience. You needed health. I needed someone to heal. And then you ran past my health crate, and what? Died? Was that your plan? I don’t think that was your plan, but it’s what happened. I’m not going to revive you. There was a medical crate right next to you, and you charged past it and now you’re dead. I don’t blame you, per se, but if there was such a thing as objective blame, I think you’d have to admit that some of it is yours.
But it’s fine. This is a confusing war. The rules aren’t consistent. If you run over a dead enemy soldier you will automatically pick up their ammo. If a medic throws you a bandage you will automatically be healed. But crates don’t work that way. You have to actively pick up the bandages. You have to press a button. Who’s got that kind of time? Other than people who don’t want to wait to respawn after they get themselves killed. Sorry. That was uncalled for.
Maybe I’m to blame for carrying the crate. I mean, it gives you full health and a bandage that you can use later. That sounds useful. But the fact that neither you nor any other player on this map has used one, maybe I should’ve known better. That’s fine. I was wrong for trying.
IN OTHER BATTLEFIELD GAMES THE HEALING WOULD HAVE JUST HAPPENED TO YOU
Maybe nobody is to blame. Crates are easy to miss. They don’t show up on the minimap, although the way you charged towards all of those red dots suggests you weren’t paying attention to that. And, hey, on my first attempt I placed the crate on a hill and it clipped through into some unknowable void. But then I tried again, making sure to sprint in front of you so the crate would appear directly in your eyeline. Maybe you didn’t want healing, despite telling me just seconds ago that you did.
heal and grow
In my darker moments, I wonder why DICE created this new system after decades of medical crates automatically healing in an areaof-effect around them. In other Battlefield games the healing would have happened automatically. In other Battlefield games, I might have been able to save you from yourself. Maybe you think health crates should return to the previous system, or that you should automatically grab the bandage as you run past, or that there should be some compromise where the crate automatically heals but you can only restock your supply of bandages by grabbing one. Maybe you thought you were an analytical martyr, your death a datapoint arguing that crates aren’t working.
But war is unfair. Medical crates require an active participant—that’s just how it is. And now you’re dead. It’s fine. It’s. Fine.