DICE details Battlefield 4 beta findings

The Battlefield 4 beta has provided some valuable feedback that will gear towards some changes prior to launch, according to DICE’s Vincent Vukovic in a recent Battlefield blog.

“We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has played the Battlefield 4 Beta! Your feedback has been crucial in testing the underlying infrastructure and reporting both bugs and balancing issues to ensure a smooth launch on October 29. In this blog post, we want to bring up some of the key findings and how we’re addressing these for the launch of Battlefield 4. Thanks again for playing and keep the feedback coming on the Battlelog Beta forums.”

A small handful of the key findings include things like frame rate issues, loading screen freezes, and empty server listings. However, most of the changes are geared towards in-game mechanics. Most of these adjustments can be seen below:

Gameplay balancing

We are still balancing gameplay, and in true DICE fashion will continue to do so well after the release of Battlefield 4. Below are just some of the gameplay changes based on your feedback that we’re making in time for the launch of the game.

Infantry Changes

-Fixed how the player only receives a single local damage sound effect if he or she was the victim of a quick, clean kill.  The sound and camera impact effect had too long a cool down between hits. This should improve the responsiveness of being killed and taking damage.

-Reduced the fire rate of the AK12 in burst from 1000rpm to 750rpm. The rate of fire was too high when combined with the low recoil of the weapon, making it more powerful than intended in burst mode.

-Tweaked the compensator and muzzle brake so they’re properly less accurate in sustained automatic fire.

-Reduced and rebalanced full auto accuracy based on rate of fire for all automatic weapons to balance low ROF weapons. Low ROF weapons were remaining accurate long enough to get easy kills outside of their intended optimal range.

-Increased the default throw distance of the portable ammo and med packs. This makes it easier to throw these packs to teammates.

-Portable ammo packs now reload 2 magazines of bullets instantly and up a total of 4 magazines per pack over time. The player must stay on top of the ammo pack in order to benefit from all of the ammo reloading. Grenades, RPGs, and other explosive launchers do not benefit from the instant reload function of the Ammo Pack.

-Increased the muzzle flash of the 25mm and 40mm launchers to make their threat position more visible.

-Fixed an issue where the knife stab didn’t align with the kill event.

-The revive time has been increased from 7s to 10s.

Vehicle Changes

-Fixed some descriptions of weapons for vehicles that incorrectly described the function of the weapon.

-Increased the damage of the Stinger and IGLA to 3 hits to kill attack choppers (was 25%, now 35%).

-Increased the speed of all TOW guided missiles to 75m/s from 50m/s so they can catch-up to fast vehicles like the Quad bike.

-Increased the sustained fire accuracy of the Coaxial LMG on armored vehicles because it was underpowered.

-Reduced the damage the 40mm and 25mm infantry weapons do to armored vehicles to highlight their anti-infantry role.

-Reduced the damage main gun on the IFVs against other armor to highlight their primarily anti-infantry role.

-Fixed an issue where the tank main gun did not correctly hit the center of the crosshair at all times.

-Multiple options are now available for controlling how your vehicles steer with a joystick on all platforms, as well as improved the responsiveness of steering while accelerating.

Locking Weapon Changes

-RPG7 and SMAW can no longer lock on to Laser Designated Targets. It was inauthentic and not balanced.

-Fixed some projectiles not warning vehicles when they were fired on a Laser Designated target. Reduced the lock on distance for MBT LAW missiles to 350m from 500m. This gives the IGLA the clear long range AA role for soldiers, and keeps the team play element of Laser Designation.

-All Laser Designated missiles now do a maximum of 90% damage to Attack and Scout helicopters (down from 100%). This was done to give helicopters a chance to use their Fire Extinguisher countermeasure even against Laser Designated weapons.

Battlefield 4 is available on Oct. 29 for current-gen systems.

Source: [Battlefield Blog]