The game and its lifecycle is full of controversies. But I would love to hear the honest opinion of the devs.
You guys put alot of hard work into it so it's only fair to listen to what you have to say. Knowing the things you guys know now, what would you have done different if you got the chance? Are you satisfied with the game? Are there any plans for it? Can I expect anything coming soon that is gonna make me want to play the game again?
External link →I'll give you my comment here in a bit. Watch this space.
Watch him blame the players for not giving enough feedback or not taking surveys and as a result they didn't know what direction to take. Lol
"At it's core, it's a good shooter, but without input from the community on what they want we can't deliver a content rich live-service."
Wow, this sub really is on the saltier side ATM (I don't blame you). Hope to be able to change that. We'll see.
Can you really blame people for being "salty" about being sold a product which is, literally and without exaggeration, non-functional?
I'm not [blaming] anyone, in fact I was very much feeling the vibe and acknowledging it. Just to be very clear there, I realize that could be misinterpreted as something other than that, and given the situation that's probably likely.
I do however not control everything that is BF sadly, so I can't go into details or speculate or anything like that without internal support for it.
I´m pretty sure a lot of the salt would have been mitigated if you(not you specifically, but DICE in general) had been more open and honest with us. The constant broken promises (one of which, ironically, was for you to be more open and honest with us) and the subsequent PR speak, then radio silence got old a long time ago.
Yes, absolutely. I am very much not arguing against that. I am all for more open and direct communications.
While we're at more open and direct communication, do you have any information about the letters from the front? Or regarding the 4.6 patch. I mean there are 6 days left in September, it's pretty silent atm. Anything would be appreciated at this point.
I'm sorry about that, I am very much not involved in that setup or know the details of the delay sadly. I'll see if I can find out.
So, to finally get back and answer this post (as I said I would, sorry for the delay):
I was personally pretty bummed out by the controversies surrounding this game around and before launch (especially the focus it took away from the good stuff), and I think that goes for many of the devs. I hope we can bridge that gap and get back to making a better game and experience that meets expectations from players that like Battlefield and ourselves as devs as well.
There are of course multiple things I'd personally would have done differently, but I prefer to start doing things directly when I realize I should rather than dwelling on what could have been 🙂 - I hope that my personal and the teams effort will be something that speaks for itself within the game rather than merely a topic of discussion.
As some of you know, I recently came back from ~8 months away on parental leave, with fresh eyes and an eager mind to make some Battlefield. Although I stayed away from social and the game in general (kids eat your time up!). I, of course, didn't miss the June patch issues and controversy to follow that - so I had a rough idea of the state of the game and community.
The first thing I did when I got back at the beginning of September was to sit down and play the game A LOT (both what is public and internally) - to build myself a clear picture of where we are and where we need to go from here.
My initial verdict was that in many ways there have been little to no improvement or movement in some small, but key/important areas many players (myself included) care most about. There are several places in the second to second gameplay where an iterative constant process of improving quality in the greater package should have occurred in each patch or so. With the explicit goal of upping the quality, shave away issues, tighten up the tempo of things, and just generally improve these things in a continuous manner.
This has for a multitude of reasons not happened - but, there has of course been a massive amount of other content, and lots of other improvement happening during this time instead.
With 20:20 hindsight unlocked the prioritization of these quality of life core areas is very needed and should have happened earlier for sure. These priorities have been changed now, and the team has been setting in motion a pretty massive undertaking in this area, which has been going on for some time as I write this.
You've probably already seen an inkling of this in the latest patch (4.6), and there is much, much more to come here in future updates and other efforts connected to this strive to continuously improve the game.
Without promising anything - I sincerely hope the combination of these efforts will coax anyone that has left, that hasn't tried the game for a while or simply isn't playing as much as they used to into giving it a go and liking it again in the near future for sure.
Finally, direct dev communication in general and around these specific areas of what we are doing and how we are going about improving the game is also sorely lackluster in my personal opinion. I think we absolutely need to do better here, and I will try my hardest to get us back to the level of communications we had just after launch and leading up to it - you deserve that.
I hope this feels like a satisfying enough answer for you to start finding our way back to a healthy dialogue!
See you on the Battlefield
/David "t1gge" Sirland
The foundation is there, its a great super gameplay in BFV. its just buggy and very small content wise so far.
Imo biggest problem has been lack of content - stuff to play with and to do ingame (vehicles, maps, features, gadgets etc), Feels like most of the 1st year has been focused a lot on fixing and fixing but delayed and cancelled content has made the game sort of desert dry drip fed, especially for us who love the classic core conquest style, very few conquest maps (like 2 vehicle maps from launch until recently) and barely any vehicles (beginning of year we got 4 variants of vehicles). Weapons and skins have continuously been comming out thats great. But so much focus has been on small modes and infantry, its kinda disappointing for being a battlefield game. Adding the cool gadgets from 5v5 mode would enhance the mp so much and make it fun and challenging. So many vehicles for germany and britain has been found in files, i wish you could push development of 2-3-4 of these every 3 months at least since its getting very dry in this area.
Bugs has been nasty until latest few months. Now i dont experience any game breaking ones and can play easily, so thats ok for me atm. Team balancing often break server sessions since it often derails the games, cheating has become more common than ever in my opinion (pc), like every 2-3 maps now has a cheater, i barely met any cheaters before last 2 months.
I hear you - and there's some good stuff coming within the type of gameplay you like, including revisiting things like spawned vehicles etc. I'd lie if I said I wasn't excited for those :)
So, to finally get back and answer this post (as I said I would, sorry for the delay):
I was personally pretty bummed out by the controversies surrounding this game around and before launch (especially the focus it took away from the good stuff), and I think that goes for many of the devs. I hope we can bridge that gap and get back to making a better game and experience that meets expectations from players that like Battlefield and ourselves as devs as well.
There are of course multiple things I'd personally would have done differently, but I prefer to start doing things directly when I realize I should rather than dwelling on what could have been 🙂 - I hope that my personal and the teams effort will be something that speaks for itself within the game rather than merely a topic of discussion.
As some of you know, I recently came back from ~8 months away on parental leave, with fresh eyes and an eager mind to make some Battlefield. Although I stayed away from social and the game in general (kids eat your time up!). I, of course, didn't miss the June patch issues and controversy to follow that - so I had a rough idea of the state of the game and community.
The first thing I did when I got back at the beginning of September was to sit down and play the game A LOT (both what is public and internally) - to build myself a clear picture of where we are and where we need to go from here.
My initial verdict was that in many ways there have been little to no improvement or movement in some small, but key/important areas many players (myself included) care most about. There are several places in the second to second gameplay where an iterative constant process of improving quality in the greater package should have occurred in each patch or so. With the explicit goal of upping the quality, shave away issues, tighten up the tempo of things, and just generally improve these things in a continuous manner.
This has for a multitude of reasons not happened - but, there has of course been a massive amount of other content, and lots of other improvement happening during this time instead.
With 20:20 hindsight unlocked the prioritization of these quality of life core areas is very needed and should have happened earlier for sure. These priorities have been changed now, and the team has been setting in motion a pretty massive undertaking in this area, which has been going on for some time as I write this.
You've probably already seen an inkling of this in the latest patch (4.6), and there is much, much more to come here in future updates and other efforts connected to this strive to continuously improve the game.
Without promising anything - I sincerely hope the combination of these efforts will coax anyone that has left, that hasn't tried the game for a while or simply isn't playing as much as they used to into giving it a go and liking it again in the near future for sure.
Finally, direct dev communication in general and around these specific areas of what we are doing and how we are going about improving the game is also sorely lackluster in my personal opinion. I think we absolutely need to do better here, and I will try my hardest to get us back to the level of communications we had just after launch and leading up to it - you deserve that.
I hope this feels like a satisfying enough answer for you to start finding our way back to a healthy dialogue!
See you on the Battlefield
/David "t1gge" Sirland
What an amazing edit. Thanks for sharing /u/tiggr .
So, to finally get back and answer this post (as I said I would, sorry for the delay):
I was personally pretty bummed out by the controversies surrounding this game around and before launch (especially the focus it took away from the good stuff), and I think that goes for many of the devs. I hope we can bridge that gap and get back to making a better game and experience that meets expectations from players that like Battlefield and ourselves as devs as well.
There are of course multiple things I'd personally would have done differently, but I prefer to start doing things directly when I realize I should rather than dwelling on what could have been 🙂 - I hope that my personal and the teams effort will be something that speaks for itself within the game rather than merely a topic of discussion.
As some of you know, I recently came back from ~8 months away on parental leave, with fresh eyes and an eager mind to make some Battlefield. Although I stayed away from social and the game in general (kids eat your time up!). I, of course, didn't miss the June patch issues and controversy to follow that - so I had a rough idea of the state of the game and community.
The first thing I did when I got back at the beginning of September was to sit down and play the game A LOT (both what is public and internally) - to build myself a clear picture of where we are and where we need to go from here.
My initial verdict was that in many ways there have been little to no improvement or movement in some small, but key/important areas many players (myself included) care most about. There are several places in the second to second gameplay where an iterative constant process of improving quality in the greater package should have occurred in each patch or so. With the explicit goal of upping the quality, shave away issues, tighten up the tempo of things, and just generally improve these things in a continuous manner.
This has for a multitude of reasons not happened - but, there has of course been a massive amount of other content, and lots of other improvement happening during this time instead.
With 20:20 hindsight unlocked the prioritization of these quality of life core areas is very needed and should have happened earlier for sure. These priorities have been changed now, and the team has been setting in motion a pretty massive undertaking in this area, which has been going on for some time as I write this.
You've probably already seen an inkling of this in the latest patch (4.6), and there is much, much more to come here in future updates and other efforts connected to this strive to continuously improve the game.
Without promising anything - I sincerely hope the combination of these efforts will coax anyone that has left, that hasn't tried the game for a while or simply isn't playing as much as they used to into giving it a go and liking it again in the near future for sure.
Finally, direct dev communication in general and around these specific areas of what we are doing and how we are going about improving the game is also sorely lackluster in my personal opinion. I think we absolutely need to do better here, and I will try my hardest to get us back to the level of communications we had just after launch and leading up to it - you deserve that.
I hope this feels like a satisfying enough answer for you to start finding our way back to a healthy dialogue!
See you on the Battlefield
/David "t1gge" Sirland
Thank you for your response and 4.6 was definitely a step in the right direction. The ping fix along the fluidity of movement have made for a much better experience. Sliding in particular is feeling much closer to BF:1’s solid movement style. Again thank you for your commitment to the game, and if Battlefront:2 is any indication of what we are going to see for BF:V it has a bright future. Now if I could just slide around throwing Limpet Mines like in BF:1 I’d be a very happy player.
Just get RSP out before November and fill the current vacancies in maps, modes, and items. Then everything will be fine /u/tiggr
This is key in my mind...
RSP is going to solve so many issues right now with the game. Communities can run their servers the way they want, kick out people who are toxic or cheating and play whatever game modes they want. Plus, we can start to revive the comp scene in Battlefield with custom servers. I think it's so vital to keeping this game going.
Glad to have you back, and thanks for this very honest and straightforward response! I hope your time with your newborn was fun, it's wonderful you got time off for that! :)
I don't really expect a response here, since you're already being flooded with replies, but since the team is looking to address some of the QoL/etc issues the community has had for the past few months, I've got a couple to consider passing on to the team that aren't the usual "authentic uniforms / vehicle cosmetics / unreleased stuff in the files" that we tend to see around here.
Back in BF4, even before CTE started, I was regularly on comms with one of the LA animators (Ryan / AnimationMerc), and through BF4 and BF1 we got pages and pages of fixes, changes, and improvements done to weapon animation, function, and even name correction done through BF4 and BF1, especially BF4; he gifted me the DICE Friend dogtag in BF1 too. :D However, he moved on from DICE a few months back, and passing on some of this stuff has been extremely difficult since then, partly because I don't know who on the team actually handles / is passionate about this sort of stuff.
While technical function/gameplay errors are drastically lower in BFV (as well as BF1 at launch) thanks to members of the team constantly upping their standards, there are always things that slip though (incorrect damage models, magazine capacities, etc).
However, BFV's largest weapon authenticity type issue is naming schemes/standards. Or lack thereof. But the issue here is that because names are just a UI thing (zero gameplay relevance), because names have to go through Legal to be changed (which is doable, we got names changed in BF4), and because it's not something I think any devs active on reddit/twitter/etc actually handle themselves... I've had about zero luck even finding a dev that might handle this, let alone actually being able to talk with them.
Battlefield, since at least BF3, has been stellar about authentic and correct names for weapons and vehicles, but BFV has been... a total mixed bag. In BF3 we had, for example, the F/A-18E Super Hornet and Su-35BM Flanker-E, which are stellar examples of Battlefield's high-quality/authentic naming standards.
Meanwhile, in BFV, we have things like Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk I, Ag m/42, and Panzerbüchse 39 (stellar), to VGO and M1911 (too basic, ditching the variant designations like the Lee-Enfield includes), to Boys AT Rifle and Kar98k (colloquialized names), to Trench Carbine (entirely descriptive, no actual name) all in the same weapon pool.
On top of that, we also have errors clearly made by grabbing one of the first Google results, a couple that are simply incorrect entirely, and a general lack of consistency among weapons of the same nation/military, like MP40, FG-42, and MG 42 all in the same game (letter-letter-space-number-number is the correct German style).
In addition to all that, the vehicle devs seem to still be on the "NAME EVERYTHING IN ALL-CAPS" train that we finally got away from in BF1. Being all-caps was BF3/4's biggest name issue, as plenty of names and designations depend on a mix of upper/lowercase letters to actually be correct; BFV has the StG 44 (perfect) sitting alongside the FLAK38 and PAK40 (instead of FlaK 38 and PaK 40). This also makes the short-form/acronym and roman numeral elements harder to identify and more confusing for casual / less knowledgeable players, for example SPITFIRE MK VA instead of Spitfire Mk Va.
Vehicles also entirely omit the accents and special characters that the weapon names in BFV do use, which leaves us with things like Panzerbüchse 39 and STURMGESCHUTZ IV (instead of Sturmgeschütz IV, with the umlaut) in the same game. We also have omission of key elements of names, such as PANZER 38T instead of Panzer 38(t), with the brackets and lowercase, and so on.
Given we're about to get a bunch of Japanese weapons and vehicles, which are probably the most "complex" to get correct/consistent, my experience tells me those might end up being a bit messy too.
I don't believe it's that any of the devs "don't care" or "are lazy" or anything like that, but there definitely seems to be a lack of standards set for naming in BFV, like maybe all the different devs that work on these things are individually naming their own work, which gives wildly inconsistent results. I have a Google doc running with a whole list of corrections for this stuff, but it's never gotten any traction, with all the devs that actually post around here being in other departments and such.
I realize this is pure QoL and ultimately not overly "important", but I do feel it's this sort of detail that's made Battlefield great over the past decade, and it's also definitely something the vocal parts of the community wanting "authentic uniforms" and such would appreciate.
Sorry to bother you with this, but if you actually read the whole thing, thanks. :)
Hey! I'd consider improving things like this as part of a QOL thing for sure. But names, as you say are not easy to get what you want all the times. Most of the time it's a legal risk assessment that stops us from using the "correct" names, or similar things. In many cases it's not deemed worth it.
It's also a tricky thing to rename something after the fact (many regular players could get confused with a rename) - but that said, I am all for trying if there is something we can do here too.
There is another organized group of hack users on NA servers playing under the clan tag HKR (get it, hacker, funny, right?) who show up every day individually or in groups to run up impossible scores, talk about how many times they've been banned but it doesn't matter because they can get all the cheap accounts they want, and generally laugh about spoiling the game for everyone else. It is simply unacceptable that the anti-cheat system takes so long for troll cheaters like these to be banned. If PUBG can ban such cheaters in a day or two, there is no good reason it should take EA weeks (if not longer).
New content is a waste of time for PC players if the cheating issue is not dealt with more effectively. Like the still unfixed team balancing problem, if this is not dealt with I for one would see no reason to buy any future BF games. This is something that every DICE dev should be expressing to management as often as possible.
I agree on the hacking issue, there is some ample room for a more aggressive stance here (we have in the beginning not been the most hard hitting). I'm not fully up to speed with where we are at the moment from a anti cheat POV (they are for obvious reasons a little more secretive with what they do) - but I'll make note of looking that up and seeing if there is anything we can do short, mid and long term to improve the experience when it comes to this.
Absolutely, the regular first person on tanks being entirely unusable really hinders their ability up close and in hectic situations. While Assault's AT burst-damage is also probably a tad too high at close range (while tanks also do rather low damage to other tanks), I feel that the sensitivity/delay issue is definitely the worst thing tanks have to deal with right now.
Please give me more detail - what exactly is the issue you describe? I think I have an inkling of a clue, but let's make sure we talk about the exact same thing.
especially the focus it took away from the good stuff
It's funny because your team did the opposite and willingly enforced the entire controversy and blew it out of proportion. Valid complaints about the game were blatantly ignored and the team acted as if everyone who disliked what they saw was a misogynist even if they never spoke a word about women. Yes, the new gameplay mechanics are great but on literally every other level the game is incredibly lacking, I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. It seemed you were sore about the fans not liking what they got and chose to stay in denial about it and find some extremely weak excuse for it and even mocking your playerbase while doing so.
When I say team - I mean dev-team, as in the devs making the game and the content for it - just for posterity.
I tryed all on the training mode nothing to do with the aim assist i know what im talking about i tryed all setting possible and still the same thing when i move the joystyk slowly it go to too slow even with hight sensivity the start of the curve is too slow, i have bf1 and bf4 on ps4 too i still play them no problem, what i asked is an addition of option to choice the aiming curve as on Apex, on Apex i play with the steady curve its similar to bf1, its a good addition for consoles players, im not asking for a redesingn of the aiming system, one of the devs called Julian Manolove told me on twitter that it is already on his list of things he will do but he was busy with the 5v5 competitive now he works on other project becouse he left bfv so nothing until now.That's why.
Doesn't the advanced settings for controllers allow you to tune this to your heart's content? It should be possible to reach the same feeling?
Controller peeps with detail insight - correct me if I'm wrong here.
My initial verdict was that in many ways there have been little to no improvement or movement in some small, but key/important areas many players (myself included) care most about.
Such as? I can come up with my own list with ease, I'd like to know what issues you see. I'd also like to know how some of those issues qualify as small, frankly there still being no team balancing or endemic cheating on PC don't strike me as small issues.
We will be talking about specifics in a bit - and why we deem them important as well. I don't wish to use the S-word.
I had left the game months ago, considering returning in the coming months after reading this post. Transparency is key, and the type of content that your core player base demands is essential. We admire your devotion to the BFV vision, and we are willing to accept the limitations of your work, but the devs have to know by now what it will take to re-earn our trust. All of you at DICE have heard the criticisms a thousand times, but many of us crying the loudest are the most devoted to your former achievements. The potential for BFV was/is impeccable. I don’t know if this game is salvageable, but we know you’re better than this DICE, you should know that too.. please don’t let us down again.
Thanks for the feedback - and I absolutely understand what is asked for and why. Most of that can be rectified - the question is in what order, and how fast (and is that fast enough for the players).
I promised myself to not talk about hypotheticals or promise anything before you can see it, so let's take this discussion up again once we start showing movement and talk about that (and you can play it).
Oh man, thank god you're back. I still believe in this game, but it's been tough hanging in there, all this time. And tougher still defending what I feel is good about it to the angry mob
At it's core, you have a great game here. But there are a lot of cracks in the foundation and ancilary issues that build up to something not so ancilary. I don't need to list them, you already know what they are. I really hope you can get them fixed and get this game to a state where everyone can start enjoying this game to the maximum level of it's potential
Because that potential is there my man. You just have to chip away the things that have infected it and keep adding the things it's sorely needed and you can get there
I agree completely. At the core this is a very solid foundation. Just needs some much needed TLC in the most important areas.
So what are your thoughts on removing frontlines?
I wouldn't call not featuring a game mode removal (it's still there, but unavailable).
I agree to the practise if it means players find more games to play - but we really need a way to spawn our own experiences (so if there is gaps in what is featured for the current week - you can always at least spawn a server running what you'd like to play)
The King is BACK on the throne,
Or should i say Mr FIX he gets the job done Glade you are back Mr Sirland .
One thing i noticed when playing on LOW res is that you only see half of a player from far away and also rock's are invisible until you ADS , So you see the players behind the rock then you ADS and see half the player . It's strange .I have to play all low to get the best FPS .
Please do something about TAA Give us a command to turn it off in console please .
Thanks man ,
As a fellow "max-FPS need more speed" player I've noticed these as well.
TAA is a favorite of mine to allow turning off. It makes little sense to me to limit this and force people to use "sharpen" or similar functionality on PC. I'd say if you want a smoother experience on any platform - we should allow you to turn that kind of functionality off. Allow for gameplay first.
Not sure if I'll convince all the stakeholders on the merits of that though - but I'll try!
Glad you are back! I continue loving the game even without these modes (i have already 600 hours on Bf5). But having fan favorite game modes like Rush and Frontlines permanently on the game it will bring ppl back and a lot of us we will play the game more. Maybe you could add them for 1 month and check the population of these modes. Also as Bf4 fan, in that game you had LOTS of 32 player game modes (Rush, Domination, CTF, Obliteration etc). ATM in Bf5 we have none.
I miss the mid size in between option too, yeah.
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