[2020] BFV 6.6 Update Notes

They are indeed. They weren't submitted through the patch notes system for how they were worked up but for the base uniform changes they're in this update and you'll see them tomorrow.

They are.

Weekly Mission Rewards for the next two weeks (Outpost this week, Grind Next Week) are presently set at 100BFC each week

As we get closer to understanding when we will launch 7.0 goes live I'll be able to confirm what our plan is for weekly rewards but our current thinking is to alternate between 100BFC each week and 1000 CC

*A Note on all the above that this is all 100% subject to change. If it does, I'll state where I can but if you're opting to share this detail elsewhere, please do so responsibly.

Both true. Some of the additional tank customisation may only feature in bundles but the files are being delivered in this update.

Won't be able to answer the question today. Just wanted to make sure you understood that it was seen.

Instant I can provide an answer, I shall.

Until it's locked into an update with 100% signoff, any answer I give to any question is No, or Maybe.

Some maybe's become no's for reasons outside of my control, and not always with the ability to inform you on why it's changed from one state to the other.

In order to behave as responsibly as possible regarding future content, the most appropriate thing I can do is wait until I have the clearest indication and the firmest ground on which to stand when I give as honest an answer as possible.

In any instance where the team are 100% comfortable confirming and sharing where we are with something, it gets shared. The rest of the time we're working as best as we can to move things away from the No, and Maybe territory.

There's always a story to be told for sure. Simply speaking you're still experiencing Chapter 6 right now (which I appreciated is something that now ended a few weeks back).

For this chapter, we front ended all our content. No weekly rewards, more focus on chapter rewards - removing the FOMO of a weekly reward that you HAVE to get in favor of encouraging folks to play at their own pace, and helping to ensure that people who did play weekly got a better experience out of the Chapter Rank Rewards with more skips.

Chapter 6 inevitably became unintentionally extended because of COVID (in terms of development time vs. experience with the player) and then there was the additional transition we've had to make into our next Phase for Battlefield V and focusing on the Summer Update.

In terms of expectations based on things that get Data Mined - this is something I've talked about before, with the main thing being that it often distorts peoples expectations. Sometimes you're exposed to content that isn't ready or we feel isn't good enough either in terms of quality, or in terms of actively improving the game. So sometimes that content remains inactive until we've either taken a re-approach to it, or have removed or changed something else which prevents it from being usable/of value to you.

We always have the option of enabling certain pieces of content in patches but unless there's a point to it, we'd rather not frustrate or patronise you by providing something to you that has a 'NEW' shiny sticker on it just for the sake of it.

Not scrapped, but here's an update.

We wanted to get a change targeted at improving the experience that you have with unbalanced rounds into the game, and live alongside the release tomorrow as a part of Update 6.6 . It was always slated for this update on our development timelines, and we've actively made the changes that we want to make in the update tomorrow.

So why isn't it listed in the Update notes, and why am I not talking about it in more detail today?

The feature/changes that we've developed are locked behind what we call a 'Killswitch' and we're launching the update tomorrow with that kill switch active (meaning you won't experience the change).

Transitioning to a mass scale testing environment in a world of COVID and work from home requires something that we don't have - more people to test with. All of the content for update 6.6 has been rigorously tested to the very best of our abilities and I've complete confidence in the team in what's delivered, but a change to things that improve Team Balancing simply requires more people to give accurate confirmation that it does what it's designed for.

So, what happens next and when will you learn more about all this mythical feature?

Tomorrow we'll launch the patch, and we'll listen and look for any instances of instability or issues with the changes and make sure that if this stuff has any issues, that they are actively tracked and tested in case we need to move quickly to attend to those issues, either pre 7.0, as part of 7.0, or explore plans for anything beyond 7.0 to address any problems that require it.

To change something in the core experience as big as Team Balance at the same time could massively overshadow anything else that crops up or skew how people look at stuff, so first priority is to get 6.6 out and make sure we're happy with that.

Parallel to this, we'll explore our options for turning off that killswitch that I discussed earlier, but to do so first in a limited capacity, in a way that we can carefully observe and study in the live environment.

If 6.6 is going well and we don't need to divert resource to fight a fire anywhere, we'll potentially do this in the next two weeks. When that plan gets locked in, I'll give you a brief on what the feature is, how it's supposed to behave and talk to you about where and how you can experience it, and then what our next stage is for introducing it across the entire game.

Shortest possible answer - we're working on it, more to come, lets focus on making sure 6.6 is healthy first.

I share that hope too. Never tire of stating it.

Feedback on this always comes from two sides.

First - Data vs. Design

We have the telemetry to know that if our design states, game should do this, that the data should back that up. There are simple data questions we can answer to prove out success.

Are games ending with full teams? Are games ending with balanced numbers of players on each side? Are games close, or one sided? How does this compare with past behaviour?

That's data. It's useful in certain circumstances and we like to informed by it, but not driven by it.

Second - What are you saying, and is the design right?

This doesn't need to be as formal as a survey. We're a multicultural player base of varied age ranges and I can task our UXR team to produce a scientifically accurate survey that will respect how different people approach surveys and give us the right answer, all after carefully extracting high quality feedback vs. someone sh*tposting a result out of fair protest.

Or I can click through to any of the different communities across the internet and take a raw pulse check. If I open Reddit on any given day, it's very easy for me to see where people's heads and hearts are at, and then dive into what's driving that reaction. From here I can then be a voice back to the team and volunteer what's being expressed from you all to the development teams.

There are times when we do both, there are times when we do only one, there are times where we do entirely different things all together.

For this topic of reacting to team balance, I'll rely on that raw feedback from when the change goes live, and we can chat with the mods here to determine the best way for that to feature here (without dominating the rest of the sub). Meanwhile the development team will explore the data and together we'll better understand if we've gone the right way.

In terms of the best way for you to format that feedback, I always encourage you try to share things from your perspective and how it affects you, what your experience with it is, and how it makes you feel.

You can, if you want to, just default to 'ey freeman f*ck yu and the people who bought you your horse, ded game' and I'll unpack that to the best of my ability to help share back that 'Folks are pretty riled up to the point where they're too angry with us to participate'.

Genuinely you can. I don't think that you should, and I would prefer you didn't, but if that's how you communicate and that's all the time/energy that you have in your day to devote to it, genuinely you absolutely can do that and I will take it vs. nothing.

I'm pretty thick skinned, I've been around the block, and as many know, I play of lot of games and participate in plenty of diverse communities across our industry. I see this stuff everywhere (sadly inside and outside of Video Games) and whilst I hate this toxic culture that exists in our industry, I personally wont discount it and will represent what exists underneath it and what fuels it.

Or - you can state - 'I gave this a go, didn't like it. It did this and that meant that this happened. When that happens, it affects me in this manner. I would prefer it did this, and if it did, I'd be happier'.

Even if its as HORRENDOUSLY bad and dry as that example is, and even if you're ultimately still expressing that same sentiment as in the first example (that you didn't like it), you're helping to give feedback in a way that we can better explore, and more easily develop ways of reacting to (both verbally, and in terms of action).

Repeatedly posting isn't aimless here or on the boards. I'll volunteer that it's counter-productive for growing a community and promoting a healthy relationship with one another, but in terms of the goal being 'I want DICE to understand how I feel', that goal is achieved, and in spite of any hatred or cruelly designed remarks that are directed my way, or in the way of my colleagues that I work with, I do value that there is a passionate base of people here who want for the Battlefield franchise to be the thing that they all love. I'll take that any day over a community where people don't care enough to participate.

Thank you for being part of that community /u/DakLives and for caring enough to ask. I hope you can appreciate that I've tailored this response to a wider audience and isn't out of direct response to the manner in which you asked the question <3

To make sure everyone is crystal clear on this - that is correct. Chapter 6 was the final Chapter in the Tides of War. We will still have Weekly Missions and rewards, but there is no overarching chapter and you won't be seeing that system of chapter rank or rewards when 7.0 launches.

I appreciate that's what has been reflected by others in the comments threaded above, I just want to make sure that the speculation is removed from that topic so that you best understand what to expect in 7.0 and beyond

Everyones aware.

Spoke about it in the past so I don't mind answering again.

Chapter 5 provided us with the best example of players obtaining new content through playing the game and engaging with chapter ranks vs. weekly rewards.

Ownership of weapons via that system vs weekly reward was far higher so in the interest of ensuring that more players were gaining more access to more things, we removed them from weekly rewards and got them into Chapter Rewards instead.

We appreciate that we get lots of great weekly engagement from folks who do log in and either smash out the challenges in one go, but there were also players who either didnt get the chance too, or couldn't complete the tasks in time. By changing the system so that these rewards were earned based on overall engagement across the entire chapter, it was providing more opportunity to unlock, and better overall experience for more players.

Flip side, yes it came at the cost of reducing the enjoyment and removing additional engagement points for more committed and engaged players and that's a lesson we need to unpack and take forward with us to what comes next in the story.

It's a nice change.

It won't show with a big alert like a Skull or anything similar, but it will be a line of score that properly acknowledges and rewards it.

Tomorrow morning EU Time.

Usual patching times, except Xbox is up first this time around and will go live just before when PC usually does.

I won't give you false hope other than to say it's been raised for discussion. Can't tell you where we'll land on it till the final changes are committed, but on a personal level it's an idea that I'm a fan of and would support.

How does everyone else feel? Conscious that for some, having certain rewards are status symbols and I want to be conscious of not mistreating that.

Sometimes we simply can't show you how the sausage is made.

Because until the change was committed and certified as shippable, it's not fit for discussion. To speak before we reach that point is to speak only from a platform of speculation or optimistic expectation and that's not an appropriate way to ensure you're not left with a bad expectation as many have been here in the past.

I empathise completely that with an absence of facts, you're only left with speculation and that's both disruptive and destructive, but designs and plans don't become facts until they ship.

If I can work to change and improve these things, I will, but until a regular cadence exists where you feel you can trust what's stated and promised to you, we don't have the right to expect that us sharing a plan we may go on to action can be viewed in the right light. For that reason, we share when we ship.

Sorry - missed this one. Will need more insight from the team to properly answer so will try to find out. Sometimes this type of stuff gets tagged into 'Performance and Stablity fixes' vs. called out independently.