Battlefield 3 New Players Guide

New Players Guide

This is a really nice write up by a fellow tester. If you are just coming to the Battlefield series I highly recommend you at least skim over this so that when release day comes you won't be one of those guys getting yelled at by your teammates.

Objectives

I noticed many people sat in my base for many games sniping while I was one of the only players trying to arm the m-com. NO! This is NOT how the game is supposed to be played, guys. Most of you are new to Battlefield. After all, it is a free beta, and the hype for the game is massive. I once was helped by a good friend to learn how to play BFBC2

correctly, so now I will pass that information down to everyone who has never played battlefield before.

Teamwork

This is NOT COD. While there are similarities, such as an evil russian army, similar guns, and similar game modes, Battlefield is not Call of Duty. Therefore you will not play it as such. This is a team based objective based game. Call of Duty is too, but Battlefield NEEDS teamwork to be successful. Use your squad, and change your kit when you need it changed. They give you the option to switch your attachments and guns whenever you want for a reason.
You need to be versatile. If you need more support gunners, become a support class. It's as simple as throwing health or ammo when your buddy needs it. If you have to do something to get closer to that m-com, do it.

One Man Army Doesn't Work Here

It's easy to get a big head and try to spray down 8 guys at once like you might do in black ops, but here in BF3, it doesn't work that way. Operation Metro may remind you of a COD map, but when you get into the more complex games like conquest, there's a lot of thinking involved.
The enemy is taking 2 objectives at once, and you only have time to provide helicopter support to one location. Which one do you pick? The one closer to your base to provide easier defense for your main base, or the one closer to the enemy's base, for more pressure to their forces? These decisions need to be made quickly and often, just like in real war, and messing up might cause your team to lose the battle. It takes a long time to hone the skills required to become a "super soldier", but if you play the game right, you'll understand how to handle situations like this.

Flying

Don't know how to fly? Don't try. Obviously, you need to learn somewhere. But please, do it on your own time. Nothing pains me more than being the co-pilot of a chopper with a player that cannot even get off the ground. If you want to learn how to fly, I suggest an empty server. It's really easy to learn when you have no enemies shooting at you.

Squads

USE YOUR SQUAD. In Battlefield, a squad is perhaps the most powerful weapon there is. Yes, even more powerful than a jet, helicopter, tank, or heavy MG. For a good squad has all the elements needed to take out any obstacle in the game. Stick with your squad, and you'll do fine. You need a balance of course. You might not need 2 recons, but you DO need another engineer to take out the enemy tank. Or maybe you need a support gunner to keep the enemy suppressed while your assault buddy arms the mcom. No matter the situation, if your squad needs more of a specific kit, you use it. In the beta so far, choosing a squad isn't exactly up to you unless you're in a party with friends. So work with your squad well. Just like in real war, you don't pick your squad mates, and they'll be the guys who may or may not revive you if you're hit in a fight. Squads are the key to victory in battlefield. Battlefield 3 is no exception to that rule.

Kits

Use each kit the way it was designed. This is another point that drives me crazy. In Battlefield 3, there are 4 kits. Assault, Recon. Support, and Engineer. Assault is a combination of Bad Company's Assault and Medic kits. They have a fully automatic assault rifle with the health kits and defibrillators. This means that if they see a downed teammate, they should revive them, but ONLY if the area is cleared. The worst thing is to revive a teammate right in the line of fire for the enemy. Make sure all resistance is cleared, or that your buddy can take the time he needs to reload before entering the fight again. The Recon kit is perhaps the most frustrating for a veteran player to see a rookie try to use. It is called "recon", not "sniper". Recon means you need to spot your enemies ("q" on pc, back or select on ps3 and 360.) and use your high powered rifle to take out the enemies from a safer spot. No, this doesn't mean the back of your base. This means from a location where you can see the mcom/flag you're trying to capture. Recon needs to cover the teammates planting or defusing the charges.

Supporting Your Team

Support contains new features for many of us that previous games had not used, such as suppression and the bipod. The suppression mechanic allows you to put fire down on enemies behind cover  and blur their vision. This might just give you time for a teammate to successfully defuse or plant an mcom. It's a valuable tactic, and with your ammo boxes and bipod, you can become an  endless killing machine. The name of the class is pretty self-explanatory. Engineer is not very useful as of right now, unless you have access to Caspian Border. But let me tell you what they do best: DESTROY. They can take out walls, buildings, and vehicles with that rocket launcher of theirs. Also, they are equipped with a repair tool to help repair damaged vehicles (or slowly burn an enemy to death).

Respawns

Die for your objective. This I cannot stress enough. If you need to take a bullet to make sure that mcom doesn't get defused, then do it. There are countless times where, when I was outnumbered, holding a last stand against the waves of enemies paid off. Sometimes I survived, others... Not so much. But the important thing is that the charge survived, and we took the base. This is a game, not real war. You'll feel incredibly epic if you die a hero rather than live as a coward. Besides, odds are your character is going to die sooner or later, and he might as well die a war hero. You might think "I'll let the other guys defuse that bomb". Well guess what? All your buddies are thinking the same thing, maybe. Which means no one defuses it. You'd be surprised just how many times this ACTUALLY happened to me. Objective gameplay is the key to victory. If you die, your buddy may revive you. If not, your sacrifice will be honored. This is all I got in my quick summary of BF3 Beta and battlefield in general, I hope you enjoyed. P.S. If you think I'm attacking cod, I'm not! I love the call of duty series when I play it, but its just nothing like battlefield. They are 2 totally different games with 2 totally different  play strategies.

Source: BF3 Forums