In case you weren’t able to watch last week’s Battlefield V Dev Talks video episode, the studio focused on weapons, gunplay, and how these things are being sorted for the shooter.

In a new post on EA’s website, DICE talks about their ambition for Battlefield V’s gunplay, as well as a list of tips straight from the developers themselves. We’ve included some choice excerpts for you to read below.

THE AMBITIONS OF BATTLEFIELD V GUNPLAY

For Battlefield™ V, we’ve set up two pillars for what we want to achieve with gunplay. First, we want our players to really be able to both learn and master it. What’s key to achieving this? Simply put, to allow the player to understand the behavior of their weapons, be it recoil, fire power, or any other aspect. If a player can foresee this behavior, they will learn what’s going on – and if they learn, they can improve. Overall, we want to create a more physical experience where players firing a weapon really feel like they’re in control. Combined with the movement systems in Battlefield V, you‘ll have a responsive and controlled experience.

Second, we want to create a clear character for all the weapon classes. They should feel distinct, but at the same time not confining. For example, Assault Rifles are great for burst firing. Semi-Automatic Rifles should be about finding a rhythm. The Bolt-Action Rifles are all about pulling off that single, important shot.

On top of this, we believe that good weapon design should support game balance and player choice. There should be viable options for many different playstyles, with none of them being best. Weapons should also be easy to understand in their function, as first-person shooters can be quite unforgiving to new players.

Next up, the studio explains the time-to-kill decisions, and how a weapon with lower rate of fire shouldn’t be penalized for using a weapon like it.

Tweaking the Bullet Damage
Bullet damage has been chosen with two things in mind. First, even weapons with a low rate of fire should allow you to win a 1-vs.-2 situation reliably when flanking and surprising the enemy. You should also not experience catching an enemy off guard, shooting him in the back from close range, only for him to turn around and kill you because he uses a weapon with higher damage output.

In a game like Battlefield V, the time to take out a single player should not surpass 300 milliseconds by a lot.

Hence the MP40 and STEN, with their rate of fire of 539 rounds per minute, require four bullets to kill a healthy enemy at short range. This results in a Time to Kill of 333 milliseconds if all shots hit. With this damage output, the player will not be forced to use faster firing weapons only to be able to flank successfully or win a 1-vs.-1 in which he had a significant advantage. 

Turning Spread into Recoil
Bullet spread is a gunplay aspect that’s hard to communicate to a player firing his or her weapon. We have worked hard on improving this, and the main change is that spread has been converted to behave more like recoil. This creates an instant visual feedback, which makes you understand when you’re not in control of the weapon anymore, and that you should stop firing due to the spread.

Furthermore, Semi-Automatic Rifles no longer have increasing spread while firing while aiming down the sights, making them more intuitive to use. Applying recoil as spread in this way required some major changes to how recoil is added (it can now be added over time) and the underlying spread decreases (it can now decrease while firing if you start at very high values). You’ll find that recoil itself is significantly higher than in previous titles.

You can check out the fill article here, where it also talks about shooting from the hip, effect weapon ranges, and more.

Lastly, DICE has also listed a set of Battlefield V gunplay tips!

TIPS AND HANDY INFO FOR YOUR BATTLEFIELD V GUN FIGHTS

Whether you’re new to Battlefield, a veteran since Battlefield 1942, or somewhere in between, you may find some of these general Battlefield V gunplay tips useful.

• Weapons in Battlefield V are very intuitive. You can feel when your weapon becomes inaccurate, and you should pause firing for a bit when this happens.
• If you can see an enemy, you most likely can hit him. However, the question is whether you can hit him often and quickly enough to get a kill.
• Familiarize yourself with the weapons of Battlefield V – we’ve recently published an article with the full list of guns, gadgets, and vehicles.
• It doesn’t matter if you’re playing on the British or German side, you can still use and deploy with the weapons associated with the opposing faction.
• Veterans will see that Battlefield V’s gunplay is reminiscent of Battlefield 3. However, prepare for more recoil and better balance this time around.

In related Battlefield V weapons news, DICE has confirmed that unlike in the beta, weapon specializations will come with trade-offs. Also of note, more weapons will be added post-launch via Tides of War.