It’s the end of another week, and that means another Battlefield V Weekly Debrief from DICE. While the studio dived deep into weapons and vehicle specializations, the big thing here is the Q&A part where DICE answers a ton of questions collected from Reddit, Twitter, etc., in one go!

Check out the full questions and answers below, with DICE’s answer in bold lettering.

Weapons General

• Any chance we’ll see mortars again?
• Florian Le Bihan (Game Designer): Not initially as we want to make sure we keep explosive spam as well as indirect fire kept in check. There is a chance mortars will return but with some changes to the gameplay design to ensure that we can minimize the frustration those can create.
• Can you elaborate on the mechanics for the new Throwing Knives? Damage? Dropoff distance? Can we pick them back up after throwing?
• FL: We’re actually modifying the design and giving it a final pass for launch. We used to spawn players with 6 throwing knives (that you can’t pick-up) dealing a flat 60 damage, getting a one shot kill would always require a headshot and the knife would initially fly at about 30m/s. This means it would drop very quickly and you would have to compensate quite a lot to hit targets at about 40 meters or so. Now, we are considering spawning players with fewer throwing knives, maybe dealing more damage in close range, and maybe some more changes.
• Will Pistol Carbines be considered as sidearms? Maybe as stock upgrades for pistols?
• FL: The Pistol Carbines will not be sidearms, more details on that soon!

Range

• Will you also be making the StG44 less effective at close range?
• FL: We’ve adjusted automatic-rifles base damage to be lower (25 instead of 27 with 2x headshot multiplier) after the Open Beta but we are still playing around with balance. More specifically to the StG44, it’s likely that we will give it some more tweaks that you will get to see in action when the game releases!

Balance

• A concern is that weapons will change too much from Beta. Some thought it was perfect when they played. Are you changing weapon gunplay drastically from now until launch?
• FL: We’re happy with how weapons felt and played during the Open Beta. At this point we are only looking at balance across the board (automatic rifles vs semi-auto for instance) so expect the gunplay to still be familiar on launch.

Controls

• Will there be an adjustment made to the sensitivity while using a scope on consoles? During the beta we noticed that making very slight point of aim corrections when using the long scope was difficult due to how sensitive the stick movements were. We tried adjusting all sensitivity settings to counter it, but none of them made any difference.
• FL: We’ve heard the feedback on that point, and we are looking at the issue!
• How are you adjusting or improving auto-rotation aim assist on consoles?
• FL: We are looking at it on a weapon classes basis and trying to make it non-exploitable, non-intrusive and fair. This applies to all controller inputs, not only console.

Recoil

• How will you balance weapon recoil between the platforms? For example, we’ve seen Suomi gameplay on both console and PC, and there is a stark difference between the two.
• FL: To clarify, the weapon balance and the amount of spread/recoil was the same for all platforms during the Open Beta. When it comes to the way forward, we aim to make weapon balancing as consistent as possible across all platforms.

Hitboxes

• How are you mitigating against “jack-rabbiting”? Ex. When a player jumps consistently in a firefight to avoid getting their head hitbox hit, meaning less damage is taken.
• FL: If a player jumps in a firefight they should be at a disadvantage already as it’s easier to track a target in the air given the direction can’t be controlled as much as on ground (more predictable). We’ve already made sure that the accuracy penalties are high enough when jumping which means there shouldn’t really need more mitigation for in-combat use. The soldier’s hitboxes are accurately representing the soldier model in the game too.

Squad Leader Reinforcements

• What are you doing to mitigate against a player jumping in a squad, working quickly to get enough points to call a V1 rocket, firing it off, then bouncing to another squad just to rinse and repeat? We saw this happen in Beta on numerous occasions.
• FL: I haven’t seen a lot of that, but to get multiple V1 Rockets by jumping from a squad to another you would need to take Squad Leader control from an idle Squad Leader since you can’t just join a squad and steal his spot! There is technically not a lot of room for abuse since the requisition points are tied to the squad itself and don’t carry over when you move from a squad to another.

Scopes/Sights

• Any possibility of canted iron sights for scoped rifles?
• FL: This is a good suggestion. We don’t have that option at this point but could be something interesting to add down the line!
• What are you going to do to make bolt action rifles with iron sights as viable weapons on the battlefield for players who want to go aggressive recon?
• FL: Iron sights actually are already the best choice if you want to play recon aggressively. It’s the sight that zooms in the fastest of all available choices and they often get some added benefits (for instance, the Kar98k gets the strip reload that isn’t available with a scope).

Bipods

• What was the bipod issue that was fixed?
• Dan Mitre (Global Community Manager): In Beta, the bipod animation was wonky as you ADS. If you were to ADS close to any object that you can bipod on you would lose in the firefight. Why? The bipod animation is much longer than if you were to ADS – the game instantly prioritizes bipod animation over your manual ADS. We fixed that. We also adjusted timings further across the board, deploying the bipod and aiming down sight can be done at exactly the same time now, which really helps with stop-and-go bipod gameplay and more particularly the MMGs.
• Any chance we’ll get an option to turn off auto-bipod?
• FL: If this is a common request we could definitely look into adding that feature.
• Any thoughts on adding freelook when using a bipod? So, you’re able to look right and left (albeit a little limited) and not lose your bipod weapon as often as you would when moving the sights right/left.
• FL: That would probably require us to either get away from auto-deploy bipod or add a key that can be used while bipoded, or maybe there is a better solution! I haven’t thought through it a lot, but the idea is interesting for sure – could be expanded to more than bipod I would say.

Panzerfaust

• Will the panzerfaust also be an effective anti-infantry weapon (within reason)?
• FL: I wouldn’t use the word “effective” but you can one-shot kill soldiers with a direct hit and a very close splash damage hit would deal significant amount of damage.

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Blog Feedback – Road to Battlefield V

General

• Why not just force the map packs as an update to BF1 so all the current player base can use them?
• Andrew Gulotta (Producer): With every update rolled out to Battlefield 1, all content was delivered to every player who owned the base game. However, each expansion pack and its content were locked. Access limitations are lifted once a player either purchases a standalone expansion pack or Premium Pass. So, in short, everyone who owns Battlefield 1 that has latest updates installed has all content readily accessible. Now, how do we ensure all maps are played regardless of parent expansion pack? We want to mitigate against segmentation as much as we can, so we’ve ramped up our weekly map rotations, which contains a thematically, curated list of maps (both base game and expansion packs) that all players can access (regardless if you own Premium Pass or not) for the week that the map rotation is active.

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Blog Feedback – The Importance of Bullet Penetration in Battlefield V

Weapon Types

• Does bullet penetration only work for LMGs and sniper weapons?
• Richard Antroia (Sr. Game Designer): Just as in previous BF titles, there are some materials that let through all types of bullets (glass, vegetation, etc.). This category now also includes wooden doors, but there are different weapon classes that have different degrees of damage after penetration. The general class collections are: Vehicle HMG/LMGs (shoot into buildings and through brick walls); Infantry LMGs (shoot through barricades); SLR, Slug and SemiAuto rifles (medium penetration through doors); SMG, Improved Buckshots (low penetration through doors and low on sheet metal); and finally Pistols/Sidearms (BF1 bullet penetration with the addition of low damage through wooden doors).
• This is an example of projectiles VS the damage class containing crates, carts, shelves and chests (wood)

Bullet Types

• Are you looking at any type of weapon specialization for increased penetration versus normal stats? Such as, the equivalent of a “steel core” or “high momentum” round.
• RA: We have projectile upgrades for Buckshot, Slug and LMG rounds. However, as new weapons and upgrades are added, this projectile set is ready to be expanded.
• Would it be safe to assume that the upgraded weapon penetration specialization maintains the same base material penetration rules, but increases damage when penetrating incrementally vs without an upgrade?
• RA: As we can see in the example above, both Slug and Buckshot actually open up their capacity to penetrate certain materials as they are upgraded.

Materials

• You didn’t dive as deep as we wanted into the different types of materials that different weapons can penetrate (Sidearms/Carbines – doors/thin assets, SMGs/shotguns – slightly better penetration values, etc.). Can you dig in a bit more?
• RA: See the first answer above. Here is another example of the penetration matrix for the sturdier “DamageClass4” material set. This is the category where LMGs and HMGs shine. Vehicle weapons are much more devastating in this game in order to give vehicle gunners an upper hand, increasing the danger of facing a fully “squaded-up” vehicle.

 

• Does each layer of cover add to the reduction in damage dealt per shot? Is there a limit to number of layers (sand bags for example) that a LMG can penetrate?
• RA: Yes, each layer has a reduction (even glass, even though it’s minimal). Each new surface keeps reducing the incoming damage until the projectile is so weak it cannot beat the defined threshold of the material (minimum damage required for pass-through).
• Can you blow holes in walls and see through them, using this as a tactical advantage?
• RA: Making holes are still a pure explosive feature, but LMGs/HMGs now have the functionality of deteriorating barricades and other “simpler” covers, breaking them down over time.

Kill Feed

• Can we can some sort of indication when we die through bullet penetration?
• RA: That is the intention, yes, and is a feature we are working on.

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Blog Feedback – How to Customize and Specialize Weapons in Battlefield V

Trees

• Are we reading this correctly that there are effectively eight different “maxed” variations for each gun?
• FL: That’s correct!
• Will there be ‘optimization’ trees for handguns as well as the rest of the weapons?
• FL: Handguns do not have access to specialization trees.
• Will Specializations have no negative side effects? Will there be any downsides, or do they only provide advantages?
• David Sirland (Producer): There are disadvantages on top of the missed positives from the other side of the tree you did not pick in most cases, but not all.
• If we can own multiple EMP, please can we modify weapon’s title, i.e. EMP-hip and EMP-ads for ease of mid-operation switching?
• DS: If and when we add multiple weapon support, some sort of naming will have to be included.
• Can we expect to see Specializations changed if one side is significantly better than the other side?
• FL: Absolutely. We will keep a close eye on how the specializations perform and we are open to tweaking them or replacing them if needed to maintain a healthy balance.

Re-Spec

• Have you considered allowing us to de/re-slot a weapon perk in between spawns to adjust to changing situations? This would mean we don’t need duplicates of the same weapon in my inventory.
• DS: Yes, we want to add in-game re-specialization, but starting with re-specialization and unlock handling in between rounds (as part of the end of round flow of results which is where you unlock new things).
• Will we be able to set Specialization while on the server or do we have to back out to the menu to set?
• DS: That is the long-term goal, yes. Initially, we’ll add this between rounds in connection to where you unlock/rank up your weapons and vehicles in the first place.

Customization General

• Can we expect more weapon cosmetics than what we saw in the beta?
• FL: Absolutely, there will be a lot more weapon customizations available at launch!
• Will any sight be available on any weapon?
• FL: No, sights are part of the weapon balance and we want to make sure to add sights that properly fit the weapon’s intended range. In general, all weapons have access to at least 3 different types of sights including the iron sight.

Blog Feedback – How to Specialize Vehicles in Battlefield V

Trees

• Will this be all the specialization options, or will the trees have more than 4 choices to choose from?
• DS: All trees have at least 2 choices per level as launch. However, this is only where we are starting with. Upcoming weapons and vehicles might utilize more than that, and there is always a possibility to add to existing trees post launch as well.

Movement

• Will top gunners be able to duck into the turret?
• FL: This is something we are investigating. It would be a great thing to add some elements of survival!

For more Battlefield V reading, head on over to the game’s hub page here on MP1st!

Make sure to check out our first look at the game’s dog tags right here. We also posted what the in-game ammo timer looks like as well for you Support players.