EA DICE Live Producer Alexander Hassoon posted on Battlefield V‘s official website reporting on what the studio learned from the recent closed alpha, and what is already being tweaked.
The matchmaking system didn’t work perfectly, and it will see “many changes and improvements” before release.
There were also issues with staying with your squad between consecutive matches, and this will also be fixed. On the other head, the target for game stability was “almost” hit, but the team pledges to keep working and improving on that as well.
More things the team is working on are the “queue system, minimizing toxicity with a potential non-cross-faction chat room, and squashing strange bugs – like a picturesque Norwegian cabin mysteriously appearing around a downed player during a revive.”
DICE will adjust revives, both from medics and other soldiers. Buddy revive has been made faster by 2.5 seconds, and the second you wasted after being revived will also be removed. The issue that caused delays in initiating a revive and in the appearance of the icon will also be worked on.
Feedback on ammunition scarcity was generally good, but numbers will be slightly tweaked for some weapons.
Reinforcements will also be adjusted as it was too easy to call a V-1 rocket in Conquest mode and that will be tone down. The team is also investigating details like the blast radius and potential warning and countermeasures (Editor’s Note: I certainly hope fighter planes will be able to shoot down V-1’s since that’s exactly what happened in the real world. RAF Spitfire pilots even “tipped” the wings of V-1s with their own in order to confuse their gyroscopes and cause them to crash).
Moving on to Time to Kill, the team received polarized feedback, with some feeling it was too fast, and others thinking it was just right. DICE will keep tweaking this. They will also aim to improve a player’s ability to tell where he’s being shot at from and adjust camera shake. If this isn’t enough, they’ll look at tweaking weapon damage.
DICE will also use telemetry to adjust the flight path of the paradrop planes, and the handling of the parachutes.
The recoil of some weapons has already been tweaked upward, and the system has been implemented with the hope that players will be able to truly master their guns. When you miss, you shouldn’t feel that it’s the gun’s fault.
More tweaks will be done on vehicle controls, the volume of footsteps, and various bugs.
The post ended with the promise that there will be several more tests for the game, both internal and external, and a new build will be playable at Gamescom before the open beta in September.
What did I learn from the closed alpha? I certainly found out that I still suck, even if I can get some kills when I’m behind a sniper scope. The good things about alphas and betas is that I’m not the only one running around like a headless chicken with zero situational awareness. Unfortunately, that tends to change rather quickly once a game releases.
If you want to learn more about the game, you can enjoy our interview with Creative Director Lars Gustavsson.
Battlefield V will launch on October 19th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. You can already pre-order it on Amazon.
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