The first large update for Battlefield V arrives on December 4th and with it as you would expect, a host of improvements. There’s a lot to unpack here so let’s start with the message from DICE followed by the updates we know of today:
There’s been a lot of great discussion within our community around potential updates to Battlefield V that will be released alongside the first Tides of War Chapter 1: Overture drop on Tuesday, December 4th. We want to get ahead of all the speculation by providing you some insight into what we have planned for release next week. (We did note that there was an overwhelmingly positive reception to current TTK as it sits and a desire to improve TTD.)
Before we get into it, you’ve probably seen some teasers hitting Battlefield social channels with glimpses into Panzerstorm (new map), the Practice Range, Vehicle Visual Customization, and the new War Stories episode: The Last Tiger. And, as mentioned in the ‘This Week in Battlefield V’ article, the all-new Tides of War Chapter 1: Overture landing page has been pushed to Monday, December 3rd.
Okay… enough spiel. Let’s get into it!
Now, on to a laundry list of specific game elements that has been in discussion within our community as we lead into next week’s update release.
Please note that this is not fully inclusive of all updates being implemented. This is just a taste of what to expect. We will be releasing the full update notes prior to the update being released which will dive into all of the changes/improvements introduced.
- Revive Mechanics
- With the update, we are providing improvements that will make the Revive experience better on both ends (for the “reviver” and receiving “revive”). We identified a few delays that prevented players to get full control after the animation was completed – this is now resolved and will virtually make the reviving experience “faster”. We want to see if what we are addressing improves the quality of the experience enough. Increasing the revive speed is something we still keep in mind but aren’t implementing just yet.
- Medic Class Balance
- We will be introducing some weapon balance changes that will help most of the Medic weapons to perform better at-range, more specifically for the slower rate of fire SMGs that struggled to find a good place where they could compete against other weapons like Assault Rifles or Light Machine Guns. All the specific changes can be found in the weapon notes below but here is an outline of the changes we targeted:
- Increased muzzle velocity and reduced bullet drag to allow more consistent range combat.
- Increased the 5-hit kill range of SMGs to 30m instead of 25m.
- Improved sustained fire accuracy of SMGs while aimed and stationary.
- We will be introducing some weapon balance changes that will help most of the Medic weapons to perform better at-range, more specifically for the slower rate of fire SMGs that struggled to find a good place where they could compete against other weapons like Assault Rifles or Light Machine Guns. All the specific changes can be found in the weapon notes below but here is an outline of the changes we targeted:
- Weapon Balancing/Changes
- Damage
- Decreased M1928A1 maximum damage to 25.1 (previously 30)
- Increased the 3 hit kill range of the Gewehr 1-5 to 30 meters (previously 25 meters)
- Increased maximum damage for the Sturmgewehr 1-5 and StG 44 to 25.1 (previously 24)
- Reduced the range at which the Turner SMLE can kill with one headshot and one body shot to 30 meters (previously 35 meters)
- Increased the 4 hit kill range of all assault rifles, LMGs, MMGs and SMGs to 10 meters (previously 9 meters) to make close quarter damage more reliable
- Increased all SMG 5 hit kill range to 30 meters (previously 25 meters)
- Slightly extended pistol damage drop-off distances
- Bolt actions no longer deal slightly reduced damage when hitting the lower body or upper arms, this means the minimum damage will never go below 55 damage.
- Recoil
- Increased horizontal recoil of the KE7 to 0.45 (previously 0.36)
- Increased horizontal recoil of the M1907 SF to 0.41 (previously 0.39)
- Decreased horizontal recoil of the STEN to 0.38 (previously 0.4) and increased the efficacy of the Ported Barrel specialization
- Specializations
- Increased the effect of the Slings and Swivels specialization. Switching to your primary weapon is now an additional 50 ms faster for all weapons and firing after sprinting is allowed an additional 16 ms earlier for bolt actions, assault rifles, semi auto rifles and SLRs
- Changed the specialization for the KE7. Recoil Buffer has been removed. Quick Aim has been added. Specialization tree has been reordered
- Reload
- Increased the reload speed of the KE7. Base reload time is now 3.55 s (previously 3.75 s)
- Increased the reload speed of the MG34 with the double drum magazine. Tactical reload is now 3.7 s (previously 4 s) and empty reload is 5.083 s (previously 5.5 s)
- Increased the reload speed of the M1907 SF. Tactical reload is now 2.7 s (previously 2.9 s) and empty reload is 3.3 s (previously 3.5 s)
- Miscellaneous
- Improved sustained fire accuracy of SMGs while aimed and stationary
- Decreased sustained fire accuracy of assault rifles while aimed and moving
- Increased muzzle velocity of all SMGs as follows:
- MP34: 495 m/s (previously 450 m/s)
- MP34 (High Velocity Bullets): 560 m/s (previously 520 m/s)
- STEN: 495 m/s (previously 430 m/s)
- MP40: 455 m/s (previously 400 m/s)
- EMP: 420 m/s (previously 380 m/s)
- MP28: 345 m/s (previously 320 m/s)
- Suomi KP/-31: 330 m/s (previously 300 m/s)
- M1928A1: 330 m/s (previously 280 m/s)
- Decreased drag of SMG bullets from to 0.005 (previously 0.007) for regular bullets and 0.0035 (previously 0.005) for High Velocity Bullets
- Damage
- Dragging Downed Teammates
- You will not see the ability to drag downed teammates with this update. We are still investigating feasibility around this mechanic.
- Max Rank Company Coin Accrual
- We have a backend fix we have proposed (server side, so no client update needed). We are still testing to ensure stability and will update everyone once it’s live.
- We are also working on a way to retroactively award Company Coin for hours played at Max Rank and hope to have an update for you soon that we can share.
- User Interface
- Syncing Loadouts Across Factions
- Although we won’t have improvements implemented for the upcoming update, we are actively working on a solution.
- ‘Apply All’ to Weapon Skins
- This is coming in next week’s update!
- Airlifts
- What are Airlifts? – Battlefield V Deluxe Edition players and Origin Access Premier subscribers are granted 20 Airlifts, one new Airlift each week (each Airlift containing a single customization item) starting on the day that they receive the Deluxe Edition entitlement (whether through a pre-order, upgrade, or full code redemption method). Upon logging into Battlefield V for the first time, you will notice you have received Shipments in your Armory. Depending on when you received the Deluxe Edition entitlement you may have more than one Shipment waiting for you. In other words, if you received Deluxe Edition entitlement 5 weeks prior to actually playing Battlefield V for the first time you’ll have 5 Shipments waiting for you. At that point, you will have 15 more Shipments to be delivered, once a week for 15 weeks.
- When do I start getting my Airlifts? – Your 20 Airlifts start deploying, one per week, when your Deluxe Edition entitlement is added to your account. This would be either by completing the purchase of Battlefield V Deluxe Edition, upgrading to Deluxe Edition, or redeeming a Deluxe Edition code.
- What is in the Airlifts? – We’ll have a detailed rundown on what everyone gets in their Airlifts coming out soon. The 20 Airlifts consist of 2 emblems, 13 weapon part skins, 2 sidearm skins, and 1 uniform set.
- Please note we are also working on a blog that will dive into Airlifts in much greater detail to clear up recent confusion.
- Syncing Loadouts Across Factions
- Endless EOR (End of Round)
- Resolved! This was fixed with the recent Battlefield V 11-26-2018 Server Update. If you’re still experiencing issues, please let us know so we can refine.
- Spectator Mode Improvements
- Two new features added to Spectator Mode including:
- “Look at Player” Free Camera Option – When enabled, the camera automatically rotates to always be looking at that soldier/vehicle that’s selected in the center player card. You can still move the camera while this is enabled which we do in a couple parts of the video below. It should be useful for players that make cinematics since they can make some unique shots with it. Its’s also useful for broadcasting tournaments since broadcasters won’t need to rotate the camera manually to follow a certain player.
- “Smooth Rotation” – You can see at the start of the video below. It’s a PC-only addition to get smoother rotation when rotating the camera with the mouse.
- Two new features added to Spectator Mode including:
At the end of the day, our goal is to improve the gameplay experience of Battlefield V with you while providing visibility with our intentions. We hope this article does exactly that. We’re looking forward to seeing you on the Battlefield when the new update rolls out next week!
Our Take
We’re really loving how quickly development companies are updating their games nowadays. We’re seeing large scale balancing and tuning in a matter of weeks post-launch which really improves the experience for all players. We’ve been loving BFV and have primarily wished for two updates – adjusting the TTK/TTD and some of the gun balance. DICE is addressing both. So we’re quite pleased!