[2020] *SUGGESTION* Bring EMP grenades to Blackout, giving us the ability to temporarily disable enemy vehicles, mesh mines, reticles, mini maps etc...

While I personally don't think the EMP should remove player names. I do think the EMP could be an interesting addition to Blackout. It's on the schedule, but a bit downstream and lower priority than some other things (at the time of this writing and, like anything, subject to change.)

So you all understand how this works, how I personally feel about anything doesn't determine or guarantee how something will work. It's always a team effort.

Currently, we are reviewing the viability of LMGs in Blackout. They are trending under the intended design target. I recently had a conversation about giving LMGs more damage to vehicles. Thus, they would have a type of "built-in" FMJ ... but not necessarily the part of FMJ that destroys player armor. I don't think we can improve the usage of LMGs with tuning alone. I know this isn't what you asked, but I am setting up some context about what we ARE thinking about with FMJ.

Summary

I think your idea has merit on the surface. Just adding a new type of Attachment other than Fast or Extended would be swell ... but

... we aren't ready to go to this specific place yet. I don't think we are done dialing in Armor enough to add a variable or bonus modifier

... and, going to that place isn't as simple as it seems on the surface when you start to unpack that downstream impact. You wouldn't feel you had an Attachment at all without increasing Armor bullet protection significantly or FMJ would be so good that you invalidate other attachment types in that slot. It's hard to balance against Fast and Extended.

Details / Context / Explanations

With regard to FMJ as an attachment and Body Armor, I wouldn't go to that place until we land armor in a good place. To add something to that mix right now is a variable that will increase the complexity of getting Armor right. I'm not ready for it, but I like the suggestion of creating a hard choice between "Extended" and "Fast" and "???" or another attachment point.

FMJ would have to be balanced in a way that doesn't make it the only attachment of that type you will use. To do that, it would likely need to be nerfed down to the point where you don't even know if it's working or it's so good we couldn't make it viable amongst the other choices in that attachment slot.... OR it would have to be a very rare item (which is worth considering in Blackout IMO) or part of a / built into a certain weapon [like an Operator Mod in MP] (which is also worth considering.)

It's one of the things I love about Blackout. We have other ways of solving problems beyond nerfs and buffs of the content itself, since we also control it's spawn rate/availability.

It's a common misconception about Armor ... but the number of shots you need to hit between no Armor, level 1 Armor, level 2 Armor, and then the delta between level 2 and level 3 to then put the guy down isn't really all that much that in the first place. We just don't have much wiggle room with Armor right now ... and creating that wiggle room so we can have FMJ creates as many problems as it solves.

The above is just my opinion and may not represent the opinion of the team. I've never spoken to them about FMJ as an attachment, so I'm not equipped to tell you "what Treyarch thinks" about this only what came into my mind thinking about your post.

-V

We have not fully committed to Operator Mods in Blackout just yet. We are making an earnest attempt to get them into the game in the right way. I saw them working in the test map and they are in the production plan. I have not playtested with them.

It's very unlikely that every gun that has an Operator in MP would exist in Blackout. Some of them conflict with other system, features, or even the core combat loop itself.

Real talk right now. This is a good example of something that makes you gun shy to talk about. The whole thing might not work. It might turn out to be a bad idea. The folks working on it may have to put it down for a bit and work on something else.

For anything we make any number of things can go wrong that delay or cut said feature entirely for unexpected reasons that weren't in the design document or production plan. Sometimes, it's also just not good enough or not fun enough.

When this kind of thing happens, people get pretty upset about it. They even feel cheated or lead astray as if we had made a promise or guarantee. I haven't figured out how to be transparent about the development process and not also get my teeth kicked in and seemingly just disappoint people.

Nonetheless, we haven't stopped trying to figure it out or given up on it.

Thanks. We are trying to figure it out. We really are. I meet with the social/digital teams all the time.

Transparently, this is one of the things we are trying. Social/Digital will find interesting things and point them out to us. Then we have a bit of discretion to figure out if I (or others) want to engage.

Very clever and interesting thinking to use the ballistics feature to de-tune FMJ. It would even make sense and we have the precedent of Suppressors which do something similar.

However, it doesn't solve all the problems I pointed out. I appreciate your simple, easy to read, inspired, and polite (no name-calling) perspective. That matters to me.