devtrackers.gg
DEV NOTE: State of Vehicles for Season 7
Alongside the work that our Weapons Team is doing across weapons, we are also making changes to how Infantry and Vehicles interact with each other in Season 7: Turning Point!
We’re aware that Ground Vehicles currently face too many threats both from infantry and other vehicles, and due to this it automatically encourages defensive gameplay which takes place from a large distance.
It has always been our aim to encourage and empower vehicles so that they feel able to engage with objectives and be alongside their fellow infantry team mates as such with this update we are aiming to lessen the amount of threats towards ground vehicles in order to give them breathing room, while also ensuring that infantry are capable of engaging too.
To achieve this, we are increasing the time before a vehicle can be hacked, and we are also removing the EMP functionality from Casper’s OV-P Recon Drone, going forward this will now be focused more towards spotting infantry and vehicles.
We’ve continued our work with the Gadgets Team to lower the amount of C5 from 3 to 2 on Assault and Recon Classes, while Engineers will have access to 3 C5. Anti-tank mines will now take 2 seconds to activate upon being placed, so they can no longer be used in the same fashion as C5.
All of these changes are about alleviating some of the active fire that vehicles are undergoing through the course of a match, however to offset these changes we are increasing the cooldown of flares to encourage a more aggressive downtime window which contributes to healthier air and ground balance.
The engagement between the Wildcat and our Air Vehicles is not where we want it to be and can often result in very lopsided gameplay loops for either side, in order to help with this we are lowering the range of the main default cannon which will create a window of opportunity.
We are removing the lock-on that exists on the Y-axis, as well as removing the 40MM Cannon on the Wildcat in order to fully commit this vehicle towards ground to air duty.
First-Person Sensitivity on Ground Turret Vehicles
Up to this point we had aggressive sensitivity constraints on aiming systems on our ground vehicles in order to make sure players cannot necessarily turn the turret at very high
speed and there was always a catch up phase for the turret to match your input unless the player was zooming in with these vehicles' primary cannons.
With this update, we are changing that. You will now have a similar experience to zooming, when driving around unzoomed. This sensitivity rate can be changed within the options menu. Please note that there will still be a threshold to prevent extreme cases of sensitivity. We have also increased the turret speed on all ground turreted vehicles to complement this change, except the EMKV-TOR.
One final note…
Finally, there are many more changes taking place around vehicle play within our Update Notes tomorrow.
We wanted to indicate that these changes are aimed at reshaping how Infantry and Vehicles interact with each other. They are not aimed at giving one side an advantage over the other, but balancing so that they can coexist and if you want to counter one or the other you can do so successfully.
As part of the necessary balance changes that are taking place with this season, we are now in a position to provide further emphasis on the Engineer class as being the main anti-vehicle role. As such, in an upcoming update we’ll be increasing the available RPG, Recoilless and all other era-equivalents by 1. As well as in a later update, revisiting the System Repair balance and Irish APS changes. Crawfords trait will also benefit from these changes in a future update.
Naturally, we’ll continue to assess feedback following all of these changes and act accordingly, thank you for your continued feedback and we’ll see you on the Battlefield!
// Battlefield Vehicles Team.
Want to learn more about Season 7: Turning Point?
Take a look at our Dev Notes on the Weapon Changes coming in, or discover more about Haven.