Hi!
Today we are kicking off what we've chosen to call the Battlefield Roots Initiative (BRI)! Within this project we are going to target areas important to experienced players and veterans of Battlefield.
We will discuss issues, improve features and reach conclusions. We will disagree, and we will have fierce discussions - but we feel it's high time we start to focus on this now!
In the near future we will be expanding on this through direct communication, so if you know of a great representative you think we should be talking to - let us know!
TEAMPLAY FIRST
We will start looking at our teamplay gameplay and loops - we feel there are several places where we can do a better job here, and we will probably need to experiment and do some pretty controversial changes to accommodate this going forward. The goal here is to take what we have, fix obvious issues - and improve the teamplay aspects, including depth, communication and teaching players how it works.
AMMO TEAMPLAY & BALANCE
With They Shall Not Pass (XP1) We knew we had several maps with heavy chokepoints (Like Fort De Vaux) - which creates some really tense and hectic gameplay - but also comes with its slew of problems.
Challenge 1: Explosive spam
In the retail game we currently have a problem with grenades and how much they affect general gameplay (it's to put it in player words - spammy). We needed to fix this for the XP1 release, but the time was short in supply, so we had to split the solution up in pieces.
Long Term Goals
Our long-term plan is to improve the utility of ammo crates and pouches. We want ammo gadgets to matter for all players in all situations, as soon as they spawn in.
We think the current system does not achieve this, as ammo usually only comes into play when you spam gadgets or survive long enough. We also want to address the gadget spam and frustration stemming from the current way resupplies are handled.
For the near future, we are looking into tweaking the passive regeneration times of some grenades vs average player lifetime, which might currently be on the short end, and the effect of smoke grenades.
What have we done now?
Changed resupply mechanic for grenades from hard reliance on ammo to cooldown-based with significant acceleration from ammo crates
Temporarily disabled Ammo Pouches resupplying grenades
Reduced all grenade ammo to 1
Small tweaks to Mini, Impact, Incendiary and Light AT grenades
Why did we do the resupply tweaks?
Limit the amount of grenades players get when constantly resupplied by support players, without having to resort to very long and bad timers like in BF4 (Illustration:
BFFs - Grenade Resupply (Season 5E12) - YouTube).
Prevent support players from resupplying themselves quickly to spam grenades. A single support player could easily block a choke point indefinitely with incendiary grenades. Spam like this is no longer possible.
Better balance between grenades: We no longer have to spawn players with multiple grenades because the single hit/burst damage is weaker. This gives us much more granularity for balance. The most notable example here are gas grenades, which come with one grenade only now and have less availability than smoke grenade (previously, availability was exactly the same).
Staying alive should not be inferior to dying a lot when it comes to ammo availability.
What are our current findings?
The duration it takes for grenades to be actively resupplied seems to be in a good state. We do not expect bigger changes in general to be necessary here.
The duration it takes for smoke grenades to regenerate on their own seems fine. You get close to 100% uptime and more grenades per life than previously even if you are unlucky about finding ammo. As grenades that cannot deal damage, smokes should have high availability.
The amount of grenade kills per time for Soissons and Rupture is comparable to similar maps of the base game. The amount of grenade kills per time for Fort de Vaux is high, but there are no comparable maps in the base game.
What is up next for testing?
Gather more data on grenade kills per time and average infantry player lifetime.
Balance the passive resupply times based on the collected data. Players should not get too many grenades passively during the average lifetime. Some passive resupply times are likely to go up a little.
Look into making the cooldown mechanic more ********* to reduce grenade availability on Fort de Vaux specifically.
Improve smoke grenades. You should not require two at a time for them to be viable. Test expanding the visual effect and improve system for distribution.
What are testing plans beyond that?
Make sure team mates cannot spot targets for you if your line of sight is occluded by smoke. This makes the effect of smoke on spotting inconsistent.
Create a proper gas AOE system. While we currently could prevent gas from damaging through walls, it would also get blocked by rocks and small pillars, making it very inconsistent. There is no way for gas to creep around objects as expected.
We want to take care of gadget spam. Expect ammo count adjustments and a few damage increases where it makes sense.
The overall system of resupplies is currently not working as intended. The best squad composition to fight a tank is to bring 5 assault players. 3 assault players combined with a medic and support should beat that, but usually it does not. We want ammo gadgets to matter for all players, no matter how long you stay alive. Ammo should be relevant the moment you spawn in. Medic players are rarely affected by ammo unless they run rifle grenades. However, a support player can currently allow a medic to fire 12 rifle grenades in a row with almost no delay. This should not be possible.
Tweak the balance between Ammo Crates and Ammo Pouches. In general, pouches are better and allow for more abuse currently.
We want to improve the clarity of being resupplied. The game should let you know what is being resupplied and how much longer it will take.
We also want to improve clarity to support player regarding which players are the lowest on ammo, so they can prioritize accordingly.
Additionally, we want to reduce the impact of support and medic players not paying attention to their team mates.
And many, many more things - but let's focus on one area at a time!
Reference values & Context
Type Old resupply time New resupply time (active) New resupply time (passive)
Grenade 6s / 1 grenade 12s / 1 grenade 36s / 1 grenade
Frag/Stick 6s / 1 grenade 12s / 1 grenade 36s / 1 grenade
Light AT 6s / 1 grenade 12s / 1 grenade 36s / 1 grenade
Incendiary 6s / 1 grenade 12s / 1 grenade 36s / 1 grenade
Impact 6s / 1 grenade 12s / 1 grenade 36s / 1 grenade
Gas 8s / 2 grenades 9s / 1 grenade 27s / 1 grenade
Mini 8s / 2 grenades 8s / 1 grenade 24s / 1 grenade
Smoke 8s / 2 grenades 6s / 1 grenade 18s / 1 grenade
Some numbers for comparison:
Respawn time in Conquest: 15 s
Health regeneration duration: 10 s delay, 20 s to restore 100 health
Medical Crate/Bandage Pouch healing duration: 8 seconds to restore 100 health
DISCUSSION & FEEDBACK
That concludes our first, and pretty meaty update! Once XP1 testing is over on the CTE we will start testing more of these features (and others we'll talk about later)!
If you have a great idea, an area you've been irritated about and have constructive ideas or criticism about - please let us know in this thread!
David "t1gge" Sirland, Lars "IlCarpentero" Gustavsson
