Battlefield 3 Developer, Alan Kertz, talks about buffs and fixes for certain weapons as well as goes into more detail regarding the upcoming weapon attachment rebalance.

If you haven’t yet, read up on the upcoming changes to pistols and suppressors.

It was recently mentioned that the .44 Magnum could be seeing a buff in the near future. Kertz answered a fan asking this question saying, “it could use some love.” Particularly of concern was the rate of fire and range, rather than stopping power, since it’s already a 2-hit kill at close range. Some players have been reporting a bug that prevents the M9 Beretta (and perhaps other pistols) from firing consistently. Apparently, when firing at a steady rate, a click (pull of the trigger) will not register 100% of the time. So far, it seems to be at random. Kertz has stated that it is a “known issue,” and that there is a “fix coming up.” This most likely has to do with the upcoming fix he mentioned for semi-automatic weapons. Lastly, Kertz further clarifies the situation regarding bolt-action rifles. A few players have been asking, “if bolt-actions will get a deadly hitbox at close range, how close will it be? In meters?” Kertz answered, “15m, like a shotgun slug from the 870.”

As for more weapon attachment details, some players have been expressing concern over the use (or uselessness) of the flash suppressor. Kertz assures that “the flash suppressor will be changed to no longer make auto accuracy worse and will also reduce your recoil more than a suppressor.” The drawback so far is that it still will not hide you from the minimap while firing. Others have been asking what will become of the bipod, which seems to be rather under-used at the moment, except for LMG users. Kertz stated that “bipods will be faster to deploy.” He is also “going to look at fixing several bugs with deploy and similar things to make it more usable.”

So far, it looks like Battlefield 3 is well on its way to being able to boast some of the more balanced gunplay included in an FPS yet. Let’s hope some of these other issues like the PS3 VoIP and Input Lag can be sorted out.

Alan Kertz, Core Gameplay Designer at DICE, gives us even more details of the upcoming weapon attachment rebalance. In cased you missed it, he began going into further detail in yesterday’s post which you can check out here.

For those wondering, Kertz confirmed that “the changes to suppressor and laser will affect pistols” as well. He also mentioned that other semi-auto weapons “should be much better with the ‘jamming’ fix,” which will hopefully be included in the upcoming February patch. It was asked if Kertz had any plans to tweak the the M1911’s minimum damage, considering it can be tough to use with it’s small clip size. He responded, “it’s 3 up close, I can double check the range. Big diff will be its easier to hit the fire rate in next update.”

Many fans are curious about the changes being made to the suppressor attachment and are worried that it might not be as effective as it is currently. “Will the suppressor still be the only attachment hiding me from enemy’s minimap?” one fan asked. Kertz answered, “yes, as it’s the only one with enough other negatives to balance that positive.” However, Kertz mentioned that to balance it out, “the suppressor will no longer cause a damage reduction over long range, thats a nice buff.” Many PDW users favor the suppressor as a go-to attachment, but with the suppressor’s 50% reduction in hip fire accuracy, will these submachine guns still be as effective for those run-and-gun players? “They will have a hip penalty yes, though [PDWs] are so good to begin with it won’t hurt much,” according to Kertz.

On a side note, Kertz clears up the situation regarding the much talked about FAMAS assault rifle. Many have been asking if it will be seeing a nerf in the upcoming update. Kertz clarified saying “no, it becomes balanced with the accessory changes.”

Are you an avid user of the suppressor attachment? Are you concerned about these upcoming changes? Let us know in the comments below.

Two other conversations worth checking out: ‘PS3 VoIP and Input Lag issues‘ and ‘Shotgun Balance‘.

Alan Kertz of DICE has recently done some follow-up work on weapon and weapon attachment balance issues. For a full explanation, check out ‘Big Changes To Weapon Balance In Store for Battlefield 3‘ and ‘Battlefield 3 Dev Defends Weapon Attachment Re-Balance‘.

Kertz recently announced that he “playtested the accessories changes yesterday for several hours.” He concluded that “big buffs to heavy barrel and flash suppressor seem to have converts.” More interestingly, he also mentioned Shotguns in Battlefield 3. According to an in-depth analysis by YouTuber NitroGamingNet, shotgun balance is currently rather… not balanced. We highly recommend checking out his analysis.

In regards to this video, Kertz has stated that he has “taken direct action on the great suggestions.” He also mentioned that “for those who hate the USAS with Frag, the USAS didn’t have the reduced frag rate of fire like others. Expect that to be fixed.”

Let us know your thoughts on the balance between shotguns in Battlefield 3 in the comments below!

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