DICE’s ideal vision for Battlefield 4’s multiplayer

Last month, DICE introduced a number of tweaks to Battlefield 4's weapon balance, while also making note of items that they consider "working as designed," but still monitoring. With all of the balance changes and weapon tweaks, one might get confused as to what exactly is DICE's "ideal vision" for Battlefield 4's multiplayer. In an "Ask DICE" post, lead core gameplay designer Alan Kertz answered just that.

"The ideal balance for Battlefield 4 is a battlefield where each item has a valuable role, and no one item, weapon, or vehicle is the clear winner in all situations," explained Alan Kertz.

"Each item has a counter tactic, a fundamental weakness and a fundamental strength. Essentially, it comes down to one really big game of rock-paper-scissor: tank, infantry, airplane, boat, helicopter, sniper, and so on."

So what's involved in rebalancing a weapon or vehicle? What's the process like?

"When balancing a vehicle or weapon we always start with the original intention for the item, and compare it to how the community sees the role," Kertz added. "Sometimes we have a different idea of how a weapon is intended to work than the community does."

"Then there’s a period of analysis about how that differs and if changing the design of the weapon would change the game for better or worse. Generally a high level principal is that no weapon, vehicle, gadget, etc., should be the best at any given combat situation. We try to avoid all powerful weapons and instead rely on a rock-paper-scissors setup," he added.

Elsewhere, Kertz answers what determines the unlock order for weapons and items, why certain things — like smart weapons — were added to Battlefield 4. Check out the full post here.