Battlefield 6 Auto-Spot Nerf Confirmed; Devs Don’t Want to Make Open vs. Closed Decision for Players
If you played the Battlefield 6 Open Beta, chances are you might have noticed how auto-spotting might have been a tad too powerful, as it even marked players even if they were obscured by smoke and more.
The folks at Battlefield Studios, which is comprised of DICE, Motive, Criterion and Ripple Effect, have commented about auto-spotting, and what they shared should be good news for players.
Battlefield 6 Spot Is Getting Nerfed Big-Time
In an interview, Technical Director Christian Buhl and Senior Console Combat Designer Matthew Nickerson discussed key topics about Battlefield 6, and one of these was auto-spot.
Nickerson confirmed it’s getting nerfed significantly. “So, yeah, we definitely reduced the range and overall reduced the power. We found out a lot in open beta that it was obviously very strong, just like players said. Really, players ended up just shooting Doritos. Light environments, dark environments – they were just like, ‘Hey, aim at the Dorito. You’re going to hit something at the end of the day.’
Nickerson added, “We definitely don’t want that for Battlefield, so we’ve definitely reduced the duration, reduced the range – everything across the board to really hit that system and align it more appropriately with what we want. Again, we want the information. It’s important to ping players, but it’s got to be an active part of Battlefield. It can’t just be a fire-and-forget sweep across the whole thing [and] everyone’s lit up. That was very apparent in open beta, so we’ve made some considerable changes to the system. In terms of strength overall, we’ve definitely toned it down.”
This step should be appreciated by the Battlefield community, and before anyone cries that the developers remove spotting entirely, it’s a core part of Battlefield and is a way to communicate with the team if there’s a vehicle nearby, tagging an enemy you’ve seen and more.
The chat didn’t stop there, as the long-standing discussion on closed vs. open weapons is something the dev were asked too, and it seems not only are we getting the open and closed playlists in the final version of the game just like in the beta, but it’s a decision the devs do not want to make for the players.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, closed weapons locks each class to only be able to use certain weapon types, such as Engineers can only use submachine guns, while an open weapons system let’s any class use any weapon they please.
The developers were asked about it and what they think about the discussion circulating online about it.
Battlefield 6 Closed vs. Open Weapons Is a Decision the Devs Aren’t Making for the Players
Nickerson acknowledged the conversations about it, and said, “It’s philosophy at the end of the day. We don’t really want to make a decision or really pigeonhole how you want to experience Battlefield. I know we’re supporting both open and closed weapon sets in Portal and in different game modes. We ran a giant telemetry, data collection test in open beta, and we posted those results.”
Nickerson adds that they want to make sure they support both, so that players can play the way they want. “I think it’s ongoing, and I think it’ll continually evolve, but again, from a design side, we don’t want to make a decision for the player base at the end of the day. We want to support both moving forward, and again, a key mantra for Battlefield 6 is, ‘Play Battlefield how you want to,’ so we’re making sure we support both open and closed systems. We just don’t want to make the decision for the player.”
This is a discussion that might not be ending anytime soon, though I wish it would. It’s clear DICE is not going to budge on open weapons, and I am betting dollars to doughnuts, that their data shows that majority of the player base prefers it. It’s just the very vocal minority is always the one whining, so you hear more about it often. Personally, I’m OK with any, but it is tiring to see players argue about this non-stop.
In the same interview, the developers confirmed that there will be console-only crossplay in Battlefield 6, though some players might find it odd on how to turn it on.
As for the latest Battlefield 6 community outrage, it’s one about soldier skins, and how it might lead to crazy skins in the game. We wrote about it recently, which I recommend giving a read.
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