about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Hey folks,

This week we have wrapped up Chapter 5, and now we’ll be taking a short break between our Chapters whilst we finish up work on our next Update. We’ll be filling this gap with some of our favorite maps and mode rotations until the start of Chapter 6, which started today with an extension to the Extreme Weather playlist ‘Cats and Dogs’ focusing on Breakthrough.

I also wanted to provide you with a quick update on what to expect over the next couple of weeks, and our next set of updates for Battlefield V.

First, a massive thanks to everyone for jumping in and playing War in the Pacific. This was a huge update for us, adding 3 new maps, 14 new Vehicles, 8 new Weapons, and everything else that goes along with establishing a new theater of war, and growing that Battlefield sandbox.

Alongside the new content that we’ve added during War in the Pacific, we’ve developed a multitude of changes and enhancements to the game across this 12 Week Chapter, including the option to run your own personal servers in Community Games. We’re going to continue expanding and improving the game in future updates so a big thanks to everyone who takes the time to share their feedback, and highlight the areas that we can enhance and further develop.

For many of you here, the biggest change of the Chapter came in the form of our recent Weapon Balancing. We improved the experience that players have when they are being engaged at long distances, and you’ve been active in sharing with us how these changes feel. Since we returned from the Winter Break, we’ve invested a great deal of time reviewing that feedback and measuring it against the behaviors that we’ve seen from Players in the game, and the safeguards that we set in place to determine if we were making a change that positively impacted the gameplay experience for all players.

In Update 6.2, we’ll be publishing a series of further changes designed to address the learning's based on your feedback and game data. Full details will be shared after we’ve launched Update 6.0, but in short, you’re going to find that in close quarters much of the same Recoil, and Rate of Fire that you’re previously accustomed to will return.

We will continue to operate a damage model that ensures that weapons that are designed to be lethal in close quarters will still do less damage beyond 30M than experienced in 5.0, however we’re making adjustments to the damage curves to ensure that the damage drop off doesn’t feel as instant or severe. Weapons that should be more effective at range such as the Semi Auto Rifles and Pistol Carbines will have their damage drop offs extended, ensuring that they regain a purpose closer to their design and perform significantly better at range. Similar changes are also being made across MG’s and AR’s, and I will keep you updated as we finalize the design, and move them into a shippable state.

What’s in Update 6.0?

Full details on our next update will be shared in the week leading up to its release. We won’t be updating to 6.0 next week, but I’ll be sharing that news with you all as soon as it’s fit to print.

Update 6.0 primarily focuses on providing you with all new content to set the scene for our next Chapter. A New Map, New Weapons, and New Gadgets.

In Chapter 6, we’ll continue to move Weapons and Gadgets out of Weekly Rewards and into Chapter Rank Rewards as we’ve seen a great response to that throughout War in the Pacific.

We’ve seen New Weapon ownership double thanks to this approach in Chapter 5, and so we’re keen to see how we will improve that across our next Chapter. We’ve also tweaked the earn rate of Chapter XP at End of Round to better reward players who place higher on the scoreboard, to ensure that your performance across the round is better rewarded.

There will otherwise be a handful of focused Vehicle Balancing changes performed in Update 6.0, as well as a small selection of fixes and changes to Maps that we were able to identify and develop solutions for at the end of last year.

Our 6.2 update is targeting a more expansive set of fixes and adjustments, so bear with us as we work through the issues that you’ve highlighted to us so far in 2020 - we’re on it, and we’ll keep you updated over on the Battlefield Trello as soon as we’re ready to kick off Chapter 6.

Speak to you next week!

Freeman // PartWelsh

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about 5 years ago - /u/tek0011 - Direct link

Full details will be shared after we’ve launched Update 6.0, but in short, you’re going to find that in close quarters much of the same Recoil, and Rate of Fire that you’re previously accustomed to will return.

about 5 years ago - /u/tek0011 - Direct link

Originally posted by Jarltruc

Revert

Are you telling me that all these years Ive been eating non HD Ketchup?!?!

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Enchilada_Nacho

Please don’t have the rank 40 xp requirement be at 2.9 million like in Chapter 5. Have it back to 2.25 million like before.

As far as I know, we haven't changed the Rank 40 requirement - only the requirement for getting the final dog tag (it was badly calculated and you were getting the dog tag before you were hitting Rank 40)

about 5 years ago - /u/manimal_prime - Direct link

Originally posted by SMK_GAMING_

"you’re going to find that in close quarters much of the same Recoil, and Rate of Fire that you’re previously accustomed to will return"

So is this update 5.0 previously or 5.2 / 5.2.2 previously? If 5.0 I see this as a positive.

I agree, I see a lot of good in the phrasing of this update. Looking forward to seeing more in the coming weeks. Hopefully a AT Gadget buff and some team balancer love is in our future.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by SMK_GAMING_

"you’re going to find that in close quarters much of the same Recoil, and Rate of Fire that you’re previously accustomed to will return"

So is this update 5.0 previously or 5.2 / 5.2.2 previously? If 5.0 I see this as a positive.

5.0 is the baseline we're working from for the next set of revisions. To be clear, it won't be a full revert of all the numbers, there's inevitably some weapon balancing that needs to happen (Hello Type 2A). But we do intend to improve the damage weapons are doing at range and we want to smooth out those curves so whilst you're going to see performance much closer, and more familiar to 5.0, it's not a full revert to that behavior.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by SFSeventh

u/PartWelsh Ok so if i understand correctly, the damage and recoil values will return to what they were in 5.0 but with a gentle damage dropoff beyond 30m is that correct ?

For the most part, that's a good summary. If you factor in that there are places which need to be rebalanced anyway (which would create places where that's not necessarily true), so it's not 100% accurate, but you're still thinking about it in the right terms.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by FellintoNightmare

And about the removal of auto-snap on consoles? Christmas noobs are gone.

This won't be changing, but options to manage the strength of this for your personal preference is targeted to ship in 6.0

about 5 years ago - /u/tek0011 - Direct link

Originally posted by r1v0p

Please keep the comments related to the topic or I will ban you

I can just ban myself. Sorry :(

about 5 years ago - /u/tek0011 - Direct link

Originally posted by sunjay140

I don't understand this joke.

Their flair is HDKetchup

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by deadzone404

Honest question about the move from weekly challenges to overall ToW rank unlocks for weapons:

When you say the new weapon ownership metric increased with this approach in chapter 5, was it considered that is probably due to the fact that when you hit a rank the weapon is unlocked automatically, vs when you miss out on a weekly unlock you have to know that it is available for cc purchase the next Thursday from the loadout screen?

Without a doubt, there is a lack of communication in game about this. It seems every single time a weapon is available as a weekly reward, when that week ends there are a measurable amount of posts here asking how to unlock the weapon or complaining that they missed out on it when the answer is the same every time. That knowledge gap is something I could see heavily skewing the numbers in favor of the "automatic" style of the ToW rank unlock.

I bring this up without really having a dog in the fight. With little exception I've done every weekly and maxed out ToW rank each chapter, but I can't help but think how frustrating it is to not just "know things" about how this game works. The UI/UX is growing more and more cumbersome it seems, and I think a reapproach to that aspect would be much more impactful than any "TTK" rework. Speaking of knowledge gaps, I don't know the answer to this and am curious. If you miss a ToW rank locked weapon, how do you unlock it after the chapter ends? Historically I believe you can buy ToW ranks with boins after the chapter ends, does that apply to the model 27 and type 94 for chapter 5 as well? I can guarantee people will stir up a shit storm if it comes to pass that weapons end up locked behind boins in any capacity.

Weapons you miss in the chapter rank reward system go into the armory a few weeks after the Chapter ends for Company Coin purchase similar to how we have had it with Weekly Rewards.

about 5 years ago - /u/tek0011 - Direct link

Originally posted by Juno_Girl

That can mean literally anything. I'm not holding my breath.

We are looking for light even in the darkest of places. Here's to hoping.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by thewoogier

/u/PartWelsh Does this include the knives and skins or just the weapons?

Cosmetics usually aren’t available for purchase after the week/chapter. I’ve not been informed of any changes to that so I’m expecting that it will behave in much the same way.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by jack-fractal

u/PartWelsh

Please address not only the damage outputs of weapons but also recoil values.

I hope that you are still working on a hardcore mode. I'm scared of a laser STG44 doing double damage. Recoil (and long range damage) both need to be tweaked (read: increased).

Any news on that (and hardcore?)

Recoil and Rate of Fire are both in review - they're likely to go back to their 5.0 values but we are still in development of the changes so this is subject to change. On some weapons it could differ from 5.0 as we may identify instances where changes are needed during that process.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by kapselrr

u/PartWelsh what about the ghost reloads? They occur when you start healing while reloading not-empty weapon. I think it's a hot issue too. Will there be a fix for this?

Not in 6.0, but we are tracking it.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by NoWhole4

Also we need the balance on Wake Island fixed the map is great but there are too many vehicles period.. especially on the attacking team but just too many vehicles overall why don't you guys balance it out so the attacking team don't win every time

We've tested some changes for this that should go live with 6.0. Weirdly the Attackers/Defenders Win rate is pretty close to 50% for both sides, but what's apparent to us is that there's some sectors where the game simply grinds to a halt, and when we compare that to how other maps perform on Breakthrough it's clear that we need to make a couple changes. We'll make these initial changes and keep monitoring the effect that they have in case we've gone too far one way or the other.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Belviathan

Hey u/PartWelsh can you clarify if when you say there will be a new map/weapons/gadgets in update 6.0 is that before chapter 6, or is update 6.0 referring to chapter 6? Clarification would be greatly appreciated

Update 6.0 will likely release a few days before 6.0 starts (this is pending final confirmation on the update). The content in the update starts our next chapter.

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by KillerCh33z

/u/partwelsh Will there be any weapon balancing tweaks in Update 6.0? Or only in 6.2?

A pair of Muzzle Velocity changes for the Ross and Type 99 (increases) will land in 6.0, but no the changes for the wider pool of weapons are otherwise presently scheduled for 6.2

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Tier1OperatorBFV

It all sounds great..Can't wait.

My #1 thing is seeing a true balance with the gunplay.

What I mean is having every gun in the game be viable in the right situation.

Right now Semi Auto Rifles are not viable, you will lose CQC matchups, and at range the damage drop isn't worth running...M1A1 Carbine says hello. I used to love this gun but now can't run it. 5 BTK at 30-40 M vs. 6 BTK from ZK at 30-40 M isn't even a matchup. Go out to 50M and 6 BTK vs 7 BTK from ZK still isnt even close

Majority of what I see right now in kill feed is (Minus M3 because it is new)

  1. Type 2A
  2. STG
  3. ZH-29
  4. Shotguns
  5. KE-7

Occasionally the MP-40/38, Suomi, LEWIS with 93 round spray and pray clip.

Not much variety right now...Hopefully that will come back with 6.0

SAR's are up for significant revision in 6.2

about 5 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Scumblebutt

Are we getting the chapter video preview today?

It won't be today.