Hazard Zone Improvement Ideas

I have about 250 hours in Hazard Zone, 10+ streak with every character, and I'm capped at max credits. I love the game mode. Here are some of my thoughts regarding it and how it can be improved.

Voice chat

There needs to be voice in HZ.

Data drive

Data drives should give more XP and money. Right now data drives are an afterthought. Our squad kills everyone at extract and grab their drives, but we don't go out searching for data drives. Call-ins are more valuable than data drives. Having drives on you makes you vulnerable to be searched. There should be more incentive to grabbing data drives.

As for the data drive scanner, it's free but currently it's worse than useless: it's a noob trap. All you get is random teammates that spam it and clutter up the HUD with a distorting circle and warn people you're tracking them. You can see pods on the full map anyway, and as previously mentioned, can grab them off fallen enemies at the extract. If you want to find enemies, you can follow the shooting (for teams going for drives) or just wait for them at the extract. Or use prox sensors, which everyone uses.

Simple solution here, data scanners should also show call-ins along with drives to make it worth taking.

Operator

The Operator balance in Hazard Zone is surprisingly good. Yeah, there's a clear meta: Sundance, Angel, Falck, and the last slot being filled by Dozer, Mackay, or Boris. Maybe even Paik. But I've just listed 6 or 7 out of 10 operators, so it's not a particularly restrictive meta yet. Sundance is a little too good, but that's the way they are in AoW too so it's whatever... I'm sure they'll eat a nerf sooner or later.

Gadget balance

Only two gadgets matter: the rocket and the SOFLAM. The rocket is good for obvious reasons and the SOFLAM 3d spots people and is a no-drive zone for anything within 400m of your overwatch/safety player. You can invent reasons why the C4 and AT mines are situationally useful, but unlike AoW you can't switch weapons, so their lack of versatility is their downfall. Data scanners are useless as previously mentioned. Armor/medpen/ammo/med crates are useless because you should run an Angel and Falck anyway and they do those things better. There's also repair tool, which you can get your gunner to use, but it won't out-repair 5 Sundance grenades or 3 homing rockets.

I'm honestly not sure how to fix this issue other than putting gadgets on the map and allowing people to pick them up like loot (which has its own problems). Maybe the rocket should cost more, but for that to mean anything, credits need to mean something.

Vehicle balance

This one will be controversial but the LATV sucks in Hazard Zone now. Vehicle drops are supposed to be rarer than Ranger drops, but Rangers are FAR better. The best LATV weapon is the 30mm by far, but with the recent stealth nerfs (direct hits do less damage than splash what's up with that?) and parachute fix, there's basically no reason for a good team to run it. When you run it duo (driver/gunner), you're down 2 guns for a weapon with less damage and range than an assault rifle.

And they're incredibly easy to counter for a halfway decent team. It takes 3 Sundance grenades and zero skill involved to destroy a LATV within 200-300m; they can carry 5 with perks, which refills constantly, and instantly refill for another 5 with an Angel drop or if you're sitting on one of the many ammo boxes on the map. Sure, you can hop out to stop further grenades from locking (which tbh should be considered a bug), but you better hope the other 3 members of the team aren't converging on your now static position. When our squad sees a LATV now, we just see free kills in a metal box.

It's a Battlefield game and what made this game mode unique was the vehicle combat, and nerfing the LATV killed that in HZ; I'd say either allow people to call in Wildcats, MAVs, and MBTs and make those drops more rare, OR buff the LATV guns just in Hazard Zone somehow. And no, I'm not worried about turning into Panzerstorm when every member of the team can carry infinite lock on explosives on spawn. Vehicles are fun, killing vehicles is fun, and there should be benefits to either approach instead of a clear choice.

Rangers

There are a couple problems I have with Rangers. In AoW, Rangers are mediocre and are only good for cleaning up kills, but in HZ they're buffed and often actually a bigger threat than players themselves. They take 2 rockets to destroy, can't be targeted by Sundance lock grenades, and they basically make it impossible for you to be ambushed. My point is they're really good in HZ, which isn't a bad thing since they're drops aka loot, but the issues with them that are small in AoW become magnified in HZ.

First off, their controls are garbage. Ordering them anywhere is unreliable and they often ignore orders. Fix that. And let me rebind the key to order them and have that be a separate thing. It's pretty hard to have them come up an elevator with you; not impossible, just hard. Which is silly; it should be one or the other. They won't jump off ledges or small roofs and just blow up when you get too far. In general, I'm leaning towards we should just be able to pack them up and redeploy them, and that would solve the issue.

Second, their detection should be a bit more natural. They can detect enemies through solid walls in HZ. That shouldn't be a thing. Their detection lock-on range is weird; sometimes they can only see across the street and sometimes they shoot across half the map, depending on how alert they are. This inconsistency should be fixed.

Rangers have a lot of health: two direct hit rockets worth. Personally I don't feel like this is a problem (gives people a reason to run Rao), except at extracts where it becomes one. But then again, everything becomes a problem at extracts, so this isn't something that needs to be fixed.

Currency

Currency is weird in Hazard Zone. When I first started, it definitely restricted what loadouts I could run for a few games. Now I'm hard capped at the ~100,000 credit cap (which shouldn't exist in its current state but that's a small issue), I run whatever I want, and I just about break even if my win rate for the night is ~80% and I don't go for drives. At one point, I did have a high win rate and went for drives which is how I got to 100k, and I would run some eco perks, which I guess makes that a balanced design choice.

Technically 0-2 out of 8 teams can extract so the general population average win rate should be around 0.125, maybe a bit higher because two teams extract more often than none. I'm guessing for a lot of players (based on this napkin math and experience with randoms), the currency does limit their loadouts and force them to choose eco perks from time to time. So that seems fine for average players.

On the higher end, for people who get more money than average, there should be better rewards like purchaseable cosmetics. Maybe even allow me to purchase attachments for weapons, but that would water down the rest of the progression so maybe AoW people would have a problem with that.

Perks

I categorize perks into three type: useless perks, eco perks, and real perks.

Starting Armor and Inside Info are useless perks. Starting armor for obvious reason (Angel, Irish) and Inside Info because it doesn't really help you get drives, which aren't even that good to begin with. Starting armor should be an armor perk that raises your armor cap to 30. Inside Info should mark concentrations of call-ins on the map, or maybe you shouldn't be able to see data capsules on the map unless you have Inside Info.

Negotiated Bounty, Loadout Insurance, Data Storage, and Table Deal are eco perks. Negotiated Bounty is free so it's almost always worth it if you're going for max payout. Loadout insurance breaks even if you pay more than 400 for weapons (it doesn't apply to itself and other perks), so it's worth it if you run primary, gadget, AND a grenade. Those two are pretty good eco perks. Data Storage breaks even if you have 4 drives and I'd only consider it worth it if you're full. Table Deal breaks even if your team extracts a total of 4 drives, so you should always take Table Deal before Data Storage. This is pretty counterintuitive and I think Data Storage should either be free or give some other benefit. Table Deal is good for money but its high price will put off the exact same people who need it. Maybe it should give a smaller benefit for a lower price, or it might just need another way to word it.

The rest are actual perks that help you win. Squad Reinforcement is in a great place value-wise, and I think there should be a Ranger or Vehicle Reinforcement perk as well (for higher prices obviously). Quickdraw is probably situationally good for Dozer and snipers, but I've never really used it seriously; it seems useless to most players, and I think they should change it to something like Sleight of Hand for a quicker reload or the Faster Sprint perk from previous BF games. Faster Healing doesn't improve time between damage and health regen, so it's not THAT good; I think it costs way more than it's worth but it could come in clutch for some people. Ammo increase is useless on any team that has an Angel or even an ammo crate, and it should probably be cheaper. Finally, grenade increase is incredibly OP and should be nerfed. You can get up to 5 grenades on every character by equipping both grenade perks and more importantly, Sundance gets 5 smart, regenerating grenades. You should only be able to use one of the perks, not both, and it really shouldn't apply to Sundance grenades.

Overall, I think one way to solve both perk and currency issues would be to allow people to equip more than 3 perks. If you have a 5 streak, you should be able to equip 6 perks. If you have a 9 streak, all 10 perks. This would burn people's currency at the high end and not even give that much of a boost.

Maps

All the maps are great for Hazard Zone except one thing: tornadoes. Please please pleeeeease remove tornadoes every match. They should be rare. I understand it's supposed to be a replacement for red zone in other battle royale games, but its existence on the map basically drowns out any sound in a 2 mile radius and makes a lot of maps unenjoyable to play.

Two maps are especially egregious with storms: Manifest and Hourglass. Hourglass has sandstorms on top of the tornado. Manifest is already dark and rainy to start with. Seriously, this isn't even a gameplay balance thing, it's just annoying to deal with them every match.

Also, bring in some of the Portal maps. They're not particularly designed for them, but I'd love to play Hazard Zone on Caspian Border or Arica Harbor maybe with the expanded areas. Just not El Alamein for obvious reasons lol.

Conclusion

Overall, I think Hazard Zone is a really fun game mode all things considered. I love it, and I'll continue to play it even though my progression for the mode is capped. If vehicles are buffed and data drive/money/perks gets rebalanced, I think it could be an even more fun mode, but the biggest issues are voice chat and dear god please tone down the tornado spawn rate.