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Hey folks,
We’re always grateful that when we talk and deliver changes to our games, you respond. We believe that the changes that we’re making benefit the gameplay experience in Battlefield V, and we have no issues acknowledging the areas where we fail to meet our goals. There were two big topics of conversation over the past week (TTK and 3D Spotting), and we’ve spent this week processing that feedback and developing the changes we intend to make in response.
We think of you as our most passionate and loyal players. The experiences you’ve had with Battlefield games across our History at DICE have happened together, in concert. Today we’re talking about how we’re continuing to refine, and improve the experience you have with the game based on the feedback that you’re offering, and the behaviours that we’re seeing.
There are standards of quality that have not been met with parts of this update. To the folks who have spent the week sharing constructive feedback, we’re grateful. Keep being engaged, and continue to share your thoughts with us once you’ve gotten hands on with these changes.
This is the TL;DR of what we’re changing in an upcoming Hotfix:
- With thanks to the feedback shared with us, BTK values on guns which have been too heavily impacted by the changes will change - both up close, and at range. You’ve told us you don’t like the way some of the guns behave since Update 5.2, and we’re keen to acknowledge the weapons that we got wrong.
- We’re removing the Enemy Acquisition Icon’s which appeared when you were in close proximity to enemy players - we believe that it’s best for us to remove this system, and move on without it.
- We’re making changes to the Enemy Acquisition Systems that activate when you’re aiming directly at a soldier - we’re lowering the activation range to 20M, improving how it behaves when enemies aren’t truly visible and narrowing the angle that determines when the icon appears. That’s in direct response to the feedback that you’ve shared with us on this system, and to offset the removal of ‘Passive Spotting’ - Thank you for the feedback here.
- We’re testing improvements to Smoke Grenades to ensure these systems are blocked more responsibly in instances where they should have been.
- We’re deploying a Hotfix as soon as we can to deliver on the above changes, alongside some other fixes related to general performance listed later on in this post.
- Issues with End of Round, and Unlocks not unlocking are high priorities requiring updates to our backend servers. I’ll keep you updated on our progress with this but I want to assure you that your progression is correctly tracking in spite of the End of Round issues, and we are actively working on new scripts that will realign the systems.
What we’ve heard direct from you
- These changes have reduced the amount of fun that you’re having with the game
- The new weapon balancing has changed the way that you look at the weapons that you want to use, and pushed you towards weapons that you don’t want to use.
- Some of the guns massively underperform compared to 5.0 and below our own performance expectations
- Automatic Weapons are preferred at longer ranges
- There are too many hitmarkers and you’re worried that the Zerg meta will return from Battlefield 1
What we’ve seen in terms of how the Update behaves
We set out with the intent of clarifying the roles of different guns and how they each perform at Range, without impacting the overall TTK, and with the intent to preserve the lethal nature of Battlefield V’s gunplay.
When we’ve spoken about this previously, we haven’t been clear enough with you that these changes are directly focused around what we know to be the common engagement ranges in the game. We have failed to be clearer in expressing that these changes are intended to raise the TTK when you’re engaging at much longer ranges, so that you’re more regularly changing your loadouts to suit the map and the distances you intend to pick fights at in what we know to be the common engagement ranges. Our goal for this Hotfix is to ensure that the TTK experience at short ranges is closer to how the game has behaved at the start of Chapter 5.
We have succeeded in achieving our goals in some places. We are happy to see that globally, Kills Per Minute (KPM) are up across the board, telling us that we have not reduced the pacing of the game, and we are seeing more kills at shorter ranges. We’ve kept the game as lethal as it always has been.
In some areas we missed the mark, and we thank you for the constructive feedback helping to highlight where things don’t feel right. We aim to address some of those items immediately. We’re all for making changes here, especially when it’s clear that our own goals and safeguards weren’t being achieved.
The FG42, SL1907, and MG42, and fast firing SMGs specifically have been rightfully called out as a TTK nerf. This was not the intent. These guns will see the most significant adjustments so that they return to levels much closer to how they operated before Update 5.2.
We’ve also adjusted weapons that specifically performed outside of their expected weapon class, or had other factors like magazine size that limited their intended performance level. The FG-42 is a good example of such a weapon, with a 20 round magazine, and a damage and range curve too similar to an SMG, it simply didn’t feel like an LMG anymore.
We were also unhappy with how the maximum damage drop off proved to be in the live environment, and have adjusted our global damage model so that no gun ever does less than 10 damage at range. We can see from range statistics that we are able to accomplish our goal of adjusting the effective combat range with the drop off distance, but the reduced damage was simply too punishing, so that’s a change we’re making in this upcoming Hotfix.
Weapon changes
ZK-383, EMP, MP40, STEN:
- Improved damage model from 4-11 to 4-10 BTK
Light Bolt ZK-383, MP28, M1928A1, Suomi:
- Improved damage model from 5-13 to 4-10 BTK with faster damage dropoff then the MP40 damage model
- Increased Vertical Recoil by 25%, and Horizontal Recoil by 60%
Note: Due to an error with our Damage Tables, the M1928A1 will do 9.6 damage at maximum range making it a maximum 11 BTK, but this will be corrected in our next update.
Type 100:
- Improved damage model from 5-12 to 5-10 BTK
StG 44:
- Improved damage model from 5-8 to 4-8 BTK
Sturmgewehr 1-5:
- Improved damage model from 6-9 to 5-9 BTK
- Reduced Vertical Recoil by 25%, and Horizontal Recoil by 20%
M1907 SF:
- Improved damage model from 5-13 to 4-10 BTK with reductions made to the damage dropoff.
Breda M1935 PG:
- Improved damage model from 5-6 to 4-6 BTK
KE7, Type 97, Bren Gun, Lewis Gun:
- Improved damage model from 5-8 to 4-8 BTK
LS/26:
- Improved damage model from 4-11 to 4-9 BTK
FG-42:
- Improved damage model from 5-13 to 4-9 BTK with slightly faster dropoff than the LS/26
VGO, MG 42:
- Improved damage model from 5-13 to 4-10 BTK with reductions made to the damage dropoff.
- Reduced Vertical Recoil by 25% and Horizontal Recoil by 20%
- Fixed an issue where the MG42 dealt too much damage when using High Velocity Bullets
Turner SMLE, MAS 44:
- Improved damage model to 3 BTK within 30 meters as these weapons had an incorrectly low maximum damage
Ag m/42:
- Increased rate of fire from 300 to 360 rpm
- This should better balance the Ag m/42 against the MAS44 and Turner SMLE
The full list of weapon changes is visible here (changes from the current version are highlighted in Green for ease of access).
Additional Changes to Enemy Acquisition
Below you’ll find a list of other changes we’re making in our Hotfix that change how these systems behave:
- Completely removing the 5.2 enemy acquisition icons when not looking directly at an enemy player but who are inside your field of view
- The range at which you can see an enemy icon if directly aiming at the player is now 20m, down from 25m.
- The angle at which we consider that you are looking directly at an enemy player is now 3°, down from 6°
- Making soldier icon occlusion a bit more strict to reduce the scenarios where an enemy icon could be visible, without the player being really visible on your screen
- Fixing some issues with smoke grenades not blocking enemy icons consistently.
- Reducing the impact of wind on smoke grenades to ensure that the blocking of the icons is more consistent with the shape of the smoke grenade effect.
- Fixed issues with squad member names not being properly displayed above their head in close range or when in a vehicle.
When we are making these changes
- We’re working to get these changes to you as fast as possible. I will have more details on rollout for the Hotfix closer to the time.
Hotfix Update Notes
General
- Fixed an issue that would cause the MG42 High Velocity Bullet Specialization to not have the new damage model
Performance
- Fixed an issue that was causing stuttering issues during a scenario that involved getting kills with the LVCP vehicle
Stability
- Multiple crash fixes that we hope will improve overall game stability
We’re also identifying potential fixes for a Backend Server update that target making improvements to ‘Could not fetch your report’ and players not receiving their Unlocks when they reach the required levels. I’ll have details on that once we’ve confirmed our next steps.
What happens next?
After we’ve delivered this Hotfix, I’ll follow up with you all and share more details about where we currently are with any further changes, and talk some more with you about when we expect to make them.
Core Gameplay Designer /u/DRUNKKZ3 (Florian), Producer /u/tiggr (Daivd Sirland) and myself will be active in the comments answering your questions about this update.
Freeman // u/PartWelsh
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