Hello there,
Early this week the team got together for a new Inside Battlefield Podcast episode to look at the current state of vehicle gameplay, and changes we’ve made throughout the Seasons of Battlefield™ 2042.
While we encourage you to listen to the full discussion, we’ve added a short recap below for those of you who’d prefer to read instead.
State of Vehicle Gameplay
At launch Battlefield 2042’s new vehicle call-in and deployment features, alongside the increased map size and player counts opened up more freedom than in previous Battlefield titles. This allowed for new gameplay opportunities versus the old structure many of you were used to. For the team this also added the challenge of having to make more frequent balance adjustments to ensure gameplay remained fun and fair.
Throughout the Seasons we’ve continued making those balance adjustments based on your feedback and gameplay behavior, as well as ensuring all vehicles fit into their intended gameplay roles such as transport, or combat
Overall the team is now happy with the status of vehicle gameplay in Season 6. There is of course always room for improvement! Please keep sharing your feedback with us.
Vehicle Changes Throughout the Seasons
Frequent feedback we’ve heard from the Community was around the prevalence of explosive weaponry, and unclear combat roles across vehicles. During Season 5, we fully overhauled all vehicle loadouts to ensure combat roles were once again clearly defined. This largely meant that some vehicles such as the LATV4 Recon which was meant as a transport vehicle, no longer had access to explosive weaponry.
The handling of ground vehicles was also a big topic in the community, recently with Season 6 we added improvements to steering, acceleration and overall feel while handling them.
Additionally, most vehicles have received a physics upgrade which makes vehicles feel more grounded when traveling, but also includes changes to turn rates so steering feels better.
For the pilots out there we also made several handling and camera adjustments to jets and helicopters that allowed for much tighter gameplay opportunities. We’re happy with those changes and we feel the gameplay now feels more responsive, reactive, and fun!
The team is also happy with how the changes to the EMKV90-TOR have been received by the community, and how it moved away from being a notorious vehicle for sniping from afar. We felt reducing its long-range combat potency was necessary, but to compensate we also increased its close combat power to allow for a more aggressive role. We think it's more fun, and what we wanted to see for the TOR!
Lastly, another big change we made based on your feedback was to adjust vehicle counts across all maps and modes to ensure vehicle gameplay felt unique and fun based on what you are playing.
Upcoming 6.2 Changes
We’re still working on the full Update Notes which will include all 6.2 changes, and we aim to have them in your hands tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a sneak peek of some upcoming vehicle changes.
The aiming system of air vehicles will receive an update. This should help players with their accuracy when shooting. Due to the way weapons on the sides of vehicles work, we’re making changes to increase their accuracy by using computed impact points that are influenced by drag, gravity, projectiles and velocity of the vehicle.
We’re also bringing the rotational HUD icons back for pilots and gunners. This will increase the ability to communicate more clearly between the two and should lead to a better combat feel.
Community Hot Topics Q&A
The team often takes the time to read and discuss your feedback internally, so we also wanted to answer some of the questions we’ve seen you chatting about.
Q: Why do we have weapons coming over from Battlefield Portal but not vehicles?
A: A considerable amount of work is required to ensure Battlefield Portal vehicles fit within the All-Out Warfare roster, and the team preferred to instead focus on adding new vehicles throughout the Seasons to bring you new and unique gameplay opportunities.
To confirm, that means right now there are no plans to bring over vehicles from Battlefield Portal.
Q: Why aren’t jets as competitive for ground combat as in previous games?
A: In previous Battlefield titles, jets could dominate an entire match by themselves. We didn’t want that for Battlefield 2042 and changed their role to focus on air combat, while making ground support capabilities secondary.
Q: How do you feel about the Nightbird, and can we expect further changes?
A: While we’ve identified some areas where we feel the Nightbird can slightly overperform, we’re happy overall with its performance and we currently don’t have any immediate changes planned.
Q: Are you planning any changes for stealth helicopters?
A: Our current intent for the stealth helicopters is to be a more casual gameplay option versus their attack helicopter counterparts, which offer higher risk vs reward type gameplay. We feel stealth helicopters fulfill that casual role well by making it easier for players to avoid being targeted.
Q: How do you feel about the current gameplay of Lis vs vehicles?
A: We've observed that Lis is currently one of the most visible anti-air gameplay elements, while also knowing that it isn't always a fun experience to be taken down by her unexpectedly.
While we don’t have any immediate changes planned for Lis, in the future we may adjust her kit to tone down those areas. Simultaneously, we’d also like to increase anti-air effectiveness for general soldier gameplay.
Q: Are there vehicle changes the team would like to make in the future?
A: No changes are locked, and nothing is set in stone for the future, but there are some areas that the team would love to get to.
Top of mind are thermal vision for tanks, and removing their turret aiming delay. We also see room to improve the vehicle deployment screen functionality, and the general balance and defensive capabilities of vehicle versus soldier gameplay, and vice versa.
That’s all we have for you today! We appreciate your continued feedback and we hope you enjoyed this sitdown with the vehicles team!
//The Battlefield Team
This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.