They've made tons of big changes. Every piece of this sounds phenomenal. Why wasn't all this showcased during that reveal instead of that lame trailer?
1. You no longer regen to full health. You need a medic for this. It's no longer an AOE heal. You have to interact with med packs and watch a full animation.2. Anyone can revive a player on their team. Medics revive quicker and to full health, unlike other classes. This is also a full animation.
3. Bodies are server side, which means they have full ragdoll physics and are interactable. For example, you can drag your teammates behind cover to heal them if they're in a risky spot and you don't want to go through the full animation in the open.
4. You can set down fortifications in key locations (sandbax, fox holes, trenches, etc). Support players are the only ones who can set down offensive fortification options with turrets and the works. You can also rebuild destroyed buildings. Support builds quicker than other classes.
5. You don't spawn with tons of ammo so you'll need to actually refill ammo. This is also a full animation instead of an AOE restock. You can refill off packs/crates from support players, supply depots, and dead bodies.
6. Grenades can be thrown back or shot to explode quicker. That said, grenades have been toned down. You wont be showered in them like BF1 again.
7. The movement system has been overhauled. You have a body now. You can dive ingame. You can dive forwards, backwards, and to the sides and your character will shoot from this position (this was shown in the trailer). Think similar to Rainbow Six Siege. There is also now a crouch sprint if you want to move but keep a low profile. You can also jump out of windows. You don't have to shoot out the glass first; you just burst through. A large explosion will knock over your soldier, even if its not fatal.
8. You can tow things ingame with your vehicles (stationary anti-air guns, supply depots, field cannons).
9. No premium which means free map packs and modes
10. Your soldiers and vehicles have tons of customization options. You can create a soldier and add them to your existing pool of soldiers. You can change gender, hair, facial hair, ethnicity, jackets, headgear, accessories, prosthetic limbs, and the class archetype that soldier will be. The archetypes are apparently very in depth. For example, an assault soldier can now specialize in being anti-personnel or anti-vehicle or more exotic archetypes (for example, a fully stealth recon build with silenced weapons, silent footsteps, and throwing knives). Soldiers have full skill trees that allow for tons of customization in how they play.
11. The spotting system has changed somehow. You have to watch the world and actually find enemies visually instead of relying on the minimap.
12. Gunplay has been completely revamped. There is no artificial screen recoil. Every gun has unique recoil patterns you can learn that lend to a higher skill ceiling. Weapons also have a specialization system similar to soldiers with 5-7 different elements you can change about them besides just the visual elements (which is also extensive in its own right). I'm assuming this is in answer to BF1s barebones weapon customization and variances. Tanks and vehicles follow this same system.
13. Destruction has been reworked. An explosion inside of a building will blow walls outward. An explosion outside a building will blow walls inwards. Tanks will push and break walls inwards as they drive into buildings, and buildings without proper supports will break down over time. The destruction is more believable as opposed to how obvious and scripted it was in BF4 and 1.
14. You can shoot during movements like vaulting, diving, and jumping. This cannot be abused like prior entries or COD. All the movements have limits on this which makes it not ideal.
15. Bullet penetration has been added and depends on the weapon and surface you're trying to shoot through.
16. There is a greater focus on squad play. You have to work with your medics and support players to be most effective, and there are a ton of incentives for doing so. A good squad can call for supply drops, rocket support, smoke barrages, heavy weapon pick ups, and squad only vehicles. All this costs squad points and can only be requested by the squad leader.
17. Not a change but war stories will be back, which is great. I liked the the BF1 campaign more than prior games for this.
18. They added a new game mode called Grand Operations which take place over four matches. Each match can have different objectives (which DICE will regularly change) and will impact the matches after it (for example, you may have to take out 4 anti-air guns one match and then have a front lines battle with air vehicles included the next match). It only goes to the fourth match if the teams are fairly even. This 4th match is called final stand, and every player spawns in with a single life.
19. They've added a 4-player coop mode with a dynamic mission creator and you use your custom multiplayer soldiers for this.
20. Tides of War: Dice will now be hosting huge community events and goals, and the new maps will be introduced threw these. They will reward customization options. They're promising tons of community interaction over this games lifetime.