Quality of Life Improvements
Dev Notes: Aim Assist Improvements for Controllers
With this update we set out to improve the experience of aiming and aim assist for controller peripherals with a high degree of customizability.
Our goal with aim assist on Battlefield is to make controller aim more accurate while retaining the challenge and skill required of aiming within a First Person Shooter. Aim assist is not only about the process of helping you aim but also about tuning and customizing the feel of input to your personal taste.
We have made multiple systemic improvements, while also ensuring we don’t obstruct the player.
Alongside code and design changes, we are including a new, carefully tuned Default Aim Input Response Curve with an emphasis on customizability. You will now be able to select between many different Response Curves from previous Battlefield titles. These curves can be found within the options and will alter the feel of your aim stick input. There are also legacy acceleration presets and a new slider for tuning slow down separately from other assist features.
Dev Notes: Vehicle Handling Improvements
One of our key focus areas for Update 6.0 was to improve the Vehicle Handling of Ground Vehicles and how they interact on a mobility level in comparison to the general gameplay pace that Battlefield 2042 offers.
Ground vehicles have received a wide range of changes in relation to their Tank Track Friction, Engine Power Curves, and Vehicle Gravity to allow for more weight and more. Additionally, we have made further changes to Jet Afterburners, Tor Tank balancing and Gunships to further realign and improve ground vehicular combat in cohesion with air and infantry Combat.
Dev Notes: Recon Balancing
Rao’s Cyberwarfare Suite will now trigger all damage states on targeted vehicles, as well as no longer blocking firing on vehicles. Additionally, Rao no longer reveals players around an enemy he has recently hacked and killed. Instead Rao will now reveal enemies in the target's area when he hacks a target.
This will reveal all information in that area, such as all enemy soldiers, vehicles and gadgets within 10m of the hacked target for a very brief period of time.
We have also made adjustments to the EMP Grenade and Casper’s OV-P Recon Drone to align with this new hacking behavior.
Other Areas of Improvement
Subsonic Ammo & Suppressors
The first update is a minor design change regarding Subsonic Ammo, and how it works in combination with Suppressors.
Previously, this combination would hide the directional indicator in the hitmarkers on the receiving end, hiding the orientation of the attacker.
We have decided to update this following our hitmarkers update and to improve the synergy with Suppressors in a way that minimizes frustration for the receiving end and promotes weapon build variety.
Previously:
- Heavy Silencers = No self-spotting on minimap at any distance
- Light Silencers = No self-spotting over 20 meters
- Subsonic Ammo had no impact on this
Update 6.0:
- Light Silencer = No self-spotting over 40 meters
- Light Silencer + Subsonic = No self-spotting over 20 meters
- Heavy Silencer = No self-spotting over 20 meters
- Heavy Silencer + Subsonic = No self-spotting at any distance
Camera Recoil
Through Community Feedback we became aware of an issue where the crosshair of a weapon could deviate too much from the center of the screen and was affecting certain weapons a lot more than some others.
This resulted in a lack of consistency between weapons and could make controlling recoil more difficult particularly when it came to quick bursts on higher recoil weapons. We have done a pass on every All-Out Warfare weapon to resolve this issue and improve gunplay.
With the new settings, the weapons will still have some minor movement to transmit the feeling of the recoil but recoil control and bursting should feel more responsive and consistent.
We have additionally taken the chance to do some further small tweaks to the way bolt action recoil works with the camera which should also improve the feel of the weapons and help you keep your aim in follow up shots.
LMG Balance Update
Looking at the recent Update 5.2 release where we updated Vault LMGs Attachments, recoil and other stats, a dispersion change was also done to bring them to where we thought they should be when compared to Assault Rifles and the rest of the roster.
We believe we didn’t quite hit our intended goal with those changes and that we had pushed them a bit too far, where the gunplay when using LMGs didn’t feel quite right.
We decided to do an extra tweaking pass on the entire LMG category, take a look at the changelog below to learn more about the detailed changes coming as part of this update.
DMR Balance Update
DMRs have also received tweaks, but to a much lesser extent. The intention here was not really to do any significant blanket nerfing or buffing, but to review the state of the weapons and make sure they performed as intended. Take a look at the changelog below to learn more about the detailed changes coming as part of this update.
Boris & Crawford Improvements
In response to Engineer feedback, we are taking steps to improve the experience of playing as Boris and Crawford with Update 6.0. As we outlined many months ago as part of the Class Rework, the role of an Engineer is both as an anti-vehicle Specialist and one able to hold down a position and we feel this aspect of Engineer gameplay needed further balance improvements to make the available choices within the class more interesting.
As such, Boris will now have further emphasis on ensuring the uptime of his Sentry Turret in order to have optimal damage output of that Turret, while Crawford will have a completely new Specialist Trait called Deep Pockets which provides an extra rocket to shoulder-fired launchers.
We will continue to assess Engineer feedback, and all the other topics listed above as we begin to hear your thoughts once all these changes are live!
