Having duel mode for the beta would have been anything but pointless, it's a mode we've been asking for months now that would allow for proper and in-depth testing of combat, it would have made everything combat related a lot easier to study and then work on improving. Testing was already hard enough in previous stages, now it's harder than ever because of the limited number of TDM servers, the class costs, player interference and the fact that we don't even have access to passworded servers. Trying to properly test stuff in this game is a nightmare because we don't have even the most basic tools available.Duel mode isn't really something that needs wide scale testing so yeah having it in the beta is pretty pointless. Siege on the other hand, hoping we get the chance to test that before EA.
On the main topic, I'll buy the game first day and dive in head first into the singleplayer, but I'm honestly pretty worried about the state of the multiplayer at this point, combat is still in a very bad spot, I find the class system to be an even worse idea the more stuff they introduce and the more I play, and lately I'm finding the game to be incredibly boring at times.