Battlefield V Open Beta Update Notes

Welcome to the Battlefield™ V Open Beta update notes!

We hope that by digesting this document you’ll get a glimpse into how the development of Battlefield V’s Open Beta progressed, and at the same time give context to why we chose to do the things we did.

Consider these first patch notes a small but important piece in a much more open communication approach from us developers to you, the player. We will from this point forward try our best to communicate changes, learnings and improvements made to the game as early as possible, direct from the source!

Before we delve into the actual changes, let’s look at what we learned from the Closed Alpha and what focus areas it spawned, and ultimately how we kept pushing towards our goal: The best Battlefield Multiplayer gameplay ever.

Thanks, and see you in the Open Beta!

/David Sirland, Multiplayer Producer

Closed Alpha Wrap-up

The Closed Alpha(s) were a great opportunity for us to learn how all our new gameplay systems actually perform in the real world, with real players. So great in fact, we had a second run at it - which allowed us to do some proper A/B testing on the weapons side, and fine tune our matchmaker’s and squad lobby features.

Feedback Outcome

We got confirmation we were very much on the right track when it came to the second to second gameplay. This cemented our pretty substantial changes to core gameplay loops and systems, while allowing us focus on the bigger picture.

But more importantly the areas needing more work as we were able to identify areas that we could improve on further based upon feedback and telemetry data.

Focus Areas from Closed Alpha

Considering both the negatives and positives, these were the high-level Focus Areas we started to work against immediately following the first Closed Alpha:

Minimizing long term player friction

Battlefield V is built to live on as a service - the need to minimize long term fatigue & reasons to stop playing is a bigger priority than ever.
We chose to focus on this not only because it makes for a better game for all players - but because it was clear from feedback and data alike that this was a top issue, and in some cases the needs were made bigger by some the design choices we’ve made for the game (One example: Soldier Visibility & No active spotting so players don’t solely rely on the UI for enemy identification).

Within this area, these were the key goals:

●     Soldier Visibility
Are soldiers visible from a gameplay perspective at all times that they are supposed to?
Example: During severe weather we want players to be difficult to see (severe fog at a distance etc.), but in general they should be easy to see.

●     Soldier Team Separation
How can I tell friend from foe in a natural and reactionary manner?

●     World Visibility Enjoyment
How can we use extreme weather, heavy screen space effects other potentially long-term gameplay fatiguing features in the best possible way?

●     Physical Soldier Experience Quality
An area sporting an impressive amount of new innovations, improvements and changes, clearly worthwhile based on Closed Alpha data & feedback now needed to reach full quality.
Starting from the most common and top occurring issues (in average play), working our way across the game we set out to create a smooth and seamless experience in the most important and impactful areas for Open Beta.

For example, the experiences when spawning, dying, reviving, getting revived and the transitions between them.

Gameplay Tempo
With the key core functionality performing very or showing massive promise in the Alpha (Gunplay, Soldier traversal & Physicality).

Within this area, these were the key goals:

●     Death Experience Quality
The Squad spawn screen (or “Parrot Cam” as we lovingly dubbed it internally) and the downed state changes were some of the very last additions to the Closed Alpha build, and it shows quality wise - The Death Experience in the Alpha was far from where it needed to be. The general concept was very much validated and showed the promise we were after however.
Reaching quality across this whole system (including Revives) became a top priority for Open Beta.

●     Squad Engagement Tempo - Peaks & Lulls
Using the Squad and its life loop as a base - we want to utilize all our systems to ensure engagements have clear beginnings, middles and ends. With the explicit goal of creating a natural place for our non-combat systems to shine in gameplay (things like Building fortifications, Buddy Reviving, Re-Stocking Ammo & Health Supplies, Repairing vehicles etc.).
For example: If you win the engagement fighting over an objective against one or more enemy squads, you should expect a brief lull in action before the next engagement begins.

●     Gunplay - Time to Kill & Time to Death
Always a pretty controversial subject - and key to the general tempo of the game - Time to Kill and Death is something we are very keen on getting just right.
Closed Alpha #1 gave us lots of good feedback on general Gunplay - but at the same time we had feedback about dying too quickly...

This meant that we were in a spot where shooting and killing enemies felt good (and in extension the guns), but on the receiving end some players felt they had too little time to react to incoming damage. This puts us in an awkward spot, as these things are in many cases tightly integrated, and changing one risks messing up the other and vice-versa.

Enter Closed Alpha #2: Adding an additional A/B test in which we could test a distinctly different approach to the first Closed Alpha TTK & TTD. With this test, we could now gather telemetry data and player feedback against the exact same game - and get a much better picture of what is needed to find our coveted balance.

With these key goals set - we pushed hard to get the best possible experience in your hands, and we hope you can tell from the change-lists and playing the Open Beta that we picked the right ones!

Open Beta

Key Areas Deep-Dive

To give some additional context to the changes made, some areas warrant a deeper dive into the explaining our rationale, and how we group areas and features together when polishing things in the game.

Time to Kill (TTK) Changes

Time to Kill (TTK) is roughly defined as the time it takes for an average player to kill a target in an average gunfight, and how fast that feels.

Time to Kill also has a less talked about sibling: Time to Death (TTD). Time to Death is not always equal to Time to Kill, as more factors than bullet damage play into how fast it feels like you are dying to enemies. Things like average player health state, network delays, damage impact camera shake, audio & visual damage feedback etc. play a large role in how fast it feels being on the receiving damage end vs the side doing the damage.

With Battlefield V we are also introducing the concept of attrition, which impacts Time to Kill (and Time to Death) in many ways. Having limited amounts of ammo and health means you need to use your weapon more effectively over time, and limited health regeneration affect your life expectancy as well.

The key factor that controls Time to Kill is per-bullet damage, but there are a multitude of factors that we can use to impact Time to Kill outside of that.

With our gunplay direction, where “you shoot where the gun points”, we want our weapons to feel and play distinctly different - it's even more important to be allowed to have weapons with higher potential max efficiency damage per bullet.
To make sure that this in turn doesn’t end up leading to a shallow and ultra-fast affair, we are instead making sure reaching the max potential of a weapon is harder to achieve consistently, rather than by average lowering damage per bullet across the board. 

Battlefield V damage model and intent

In Battlefield V, we want the damage model to allow for more focus on headshots compared to Battlefield 1. For most of the weapons, a player that takes the time to accurately aim for the head will be rewarded with much more damage than a player that tries to quickly aim for the center mass or just hip-fires.

We’ve also worked to make ADS even more viable by removing things like aim-punch which could previously kick your sight away from your target during a gunfight if you ever get hit, resulting in missed shots and made close range fights much more often about hip-firing.

To give you a relatable comparison, we are getting a bit closer to Battlefield 3’s gunplay – especially with the addition of assault rifles that weren’t available in Battlefield 1. However, we don’t necessarily have equivalents to some of the weapons that killed really fast in Battlefield 3 due to the World War 2 weapons having on average lower rate of fire.

While the current body parts damage multipliers might get some adjustments moving forward (and based on the data we get from the Open Beta as well as your feedback), here is a comparison of how fast automatic weapons can kill at different ranges, with body shots (center-mass) only but also with headshots only:

Additionally, while it will not be in the Open Beta, we are currently working on bringing a solution that will allow limbs bullet penetration and will solve situations where a soldier’s arm is in the trajectory of a bullet that was intended to hit a head. In those cases, damage will no longer count as a limb shot but as headshot instead.

Weapon changes (General)

●     Weapon Recoil
Changed the way recoil decreases on automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Initial recoil is much slower now. Previously recoil decreased very quickly from the first frame, which made it possible tap fire weapons close to their maximum rate of fire with significantly reduced recoil. While you will still have a bit less recoil now, the result is adequate for the loss in rate of fire.

●     Dispersion/Spread
Completely changed the way dispersion (AKA “spread”) works. For the player, the most obvious effect will be a different behavior of your crosshair when shooting in hip fire. Besides that, small details in weapon handling have become more graceful. For example, you will no longer be stuck at terrible dispersion if you fire before or while going ADS, your weapon can regain some accuracy if you stop moving while firing and firing single shots too quickly can no longer build up unnecessarily large amounts of dispersion.

●     SMGs are now stronger at medium range. While still the worst weapon class [at this range], we moved out damage drop-off to allow medics to be somewhat competitive at medium range.

StG 44
We increased vertical recoil on this weapon to better balance its potential. Damage is unchanged to make sure it does not get crushed between SMGs, Semi Autos and SLRs.

●     Increased initial vertical recoil from 0.45 to 0.57

●     Decreased maximum vertical recoil from 0.87 to 0.78

Gewehr 43
Like on the StG, we increased vertical recoil to be more adequate for its power. We also removed its ability to kill with one head shot and one body shot at any range. This is necessary to make sure the ZH-29 is not outclassed by the Gewehr 43 at range.

●     Moved to Assault class

●     Increased initial vertical recoil from 1.0 to 1.2

●     Increased vertical recoil increment from 0.25 to 0.4 per shot fired at maximum ROF

●     Increased maximum vertical recoil from 1.5 to 2.0

●     Decreased minimum damage to 34. Maximum range at which one head and one body shot are lethal is now 50 meters

EMP
Besides damage, changes are minor. The EMP has become slightly harder to use in preparation for weapon progression upgrades. Its sustained fire accuracy has been increased slightly. The biggest issue of this gun in the alphas was it being an SMG with a 1x sight on a map where range mattered.

●     Moved to Medic

●     Increased initial vertical recoil from 0.38 to 0.46

●     Increased maximum vertical recoil from 0.57 to 0.66

●     Decreased horizontal recoil from 0.4 to 0.35

●     Increased 6 hit kill range from 35 to 50 meters

●     Increased 7 hit kill range from 50 to 70 meters

MP40
Besides damage, changes are minor. The MP40 has become slightly harder to use in preparation for weapon progression upgrades.

●     Increased initial vertical recoil from 0.34 to 0.40

●     Increased maximum vertical recoil from 0.51 to 0.60

●     Increased 6 hit kill range from 35 to 50 meters

●     Increased 7 hit kill range from 50 to 70 meters

Bren
The Bren was noticeably underperforming in the first closed alpha. While this was improved with higher damage in the second alpha, we decided to keep the damage of the first alpha and instead improved its accuracy in sustained fire. We think this is a more consistent solution and a better fit for a ranged LMG.

●     Decreased aimed stationary dispersion from 0.3 to 0.2

●     Decreased horizontal recoil from 0.6 to 0.38

●     Firing after sprinting now takes 300 instead of 400 ms

Kar98k
We think the trajectory changes of the second alpha were a bad fit for the Kar98k specifically. We will keep the trajectory of the first alpha, which is very similar to the M98B of BF3 and BF4 in terms of where leading and drop compensation starts to matter. We will use velocity as a differentiating factor between the Kar98k and other sniper rifles, like the Lee-Enfield. Other sniper rifles will have a trajectory similar to the Kar98k of the second alpha. Maximum damage and damage drop-off end were reduced slightly to reduce the amount of body shot kills on wounded players.

●     Reduced maximum damage from 80 to 75

●     Reduced damage drop-off end from 80 to 60 meters

P38 Pistol
Rate of fire was too low and has been increased. Aimed accuracy has been increased.

●     Increased rate of fire from 299 to 359

●     Decreased aimed stationary dispersion from 0.4 to 0.3

●     Decreased aimed moving dispersion from 0.45 to 0.4

New weapons in the Open Beta

●     Turner SMLE: Semi Auto Rifle that fires faster than the Gewehr 43 but has a weaker bullet at range.

●     M1A1 Carbine: Very fast firing Semi Auto with a rather weak bullet. Best used within 50 meters.

●     STEN: The easier to control twin of the MP40.

●     Suomi KP/-31: Very hard to control, fast firing SMG. It starts off a bit weak, but benefits more than other SMGs from progression. Highest damage output weapon on the medic kit.

●     KE7: Medium rate of fire LMG.

●     FG-42: Very fast firing automatic rifle with a small magazine. Highest damage output weapon on the support kit.

●     M30 Drilling: A triple barrel combination gun that leaves you more flexible than you would think. Use it as a double barrel shotgun in close quarters or change fire mode to the rifle barrel for medium range shots.

●     Lee-Enfield No.4: Very fast firing sniper rifle. Its bullet is significantly slower than that of the Kar98k, making it preferable for medium range.

●     ZH-29: A hard-hitting self-loading rifle that can kill with only two hits.

●     Ruby: This fast firing pistol can be switched to very quickly. Its bullet loses strength fast over distance.

Time to Death (TTD) Changes

Time to Death (TTD) is roughly defined as the time it takes for an average player to die from an opponent in an average gunfight, and how fast that feels.

Some of the feedback from the first Closed Alpha highlighted that our Time to Death was too fast at times. Players commented that they didn’t feel like there was enough time to react before dying.
Since we had very positive feedback from general Gunplay, and tempo, and the majority consensus that the slower Time to Kill in Closed Alpha #2 was worse - we knew we wanted to improve Time to Death without directly changing the Time to Kill.

The following areas and changes were the ones we focused on to increase our Time to Death.

Player Health system

Similar to the attrition system, we wanted to add a deeper degree of strategy and teamwork when it comes to replenishing health as such we’ve removed the auto regen health system and replaced it with a partial health regen system, meaning the player will only regen a little amount of health. Additionally, we have added one health pouch per life for all soldier types which can revive you back to full health. These are meant to be used as a final resort if there are no medics or health crates nearby. Just like our Ammo Attrition, the user can resupply this Health Pouch. This can be done with received health pouches from Medics, Medical Crates and Medical Resupply Stations.

Player Visibility

Being able to properly see enemies (and friendlies) in the wide variety of environments offered by our maps and weather states is critical to how taking damage is experienced.
This has never been truer than in Battlefield V, where we have more destruction, more character customization and less UI clutter than ever before.

A character rim light effect has been added globally across the entire multiplayer experience to enemy players. It will increase character visibility in most cases, against most backgrounds.
As we move towards launch, this effect will be tuned per map, per unique area on each map and weather-state.

We have also looked over the on-screen visual effects in terms of particles (snowflakes on Narvik for example) and these have been gradually toned down.
Extreme weather now also has more strict limits to how often, and how long they can occur for. We still want extreme weather to impact things like visibility and how the game plays, but they shouldn’t feel overpowering or commonplace.

Camera shakes and damage communication

A key factor to how taking damage feels is damage communication and camera shakes. We want to improve the player’s chances to fight back when being fired at but also communicate damage in a better way across the board.

In this Open Beta, we are replacing the previous camera shake system when aiming down sights by a new system that allows the player to remain on target when a shake happens. This means no more aim-punch, less gameplay intrusive camera shakes from explosion but this change also means more value to firing when aiming down sights.

Changed the behavior of camera shakes generated by bullet hits and explosions when the player is aiming down sights. Shakes no longer move the sight’s position relative to the world, this will allow players to remain on target when a shake is happening while their camera will move in a way that doesn’t impact aiming but still conveys an impact.

Greatly reduced camera shakes strength from AA Gun projectiles explosion (Flak 38). 

Improved the directional clarity of shakes when getting hit.

Added blood splatters effect on the edges of the screen when getting hit and going low health, those blood splatters also show the direction of the damage.

Increased the duration of shakes when getting hit to allow players to read the direction of the damage. The previous shakes were too short to be readable.

Added an animated kick to the 1^st person weapon model when the player is getting hit while not aiming. The weapon will move in the opposite direction of the damage.

Soldier experience and locomotion

A key factor to survive for longer is being able to get away from damage effectively - having smooth and responsive controls and traversal will allow players to react to incoming damage in a better way.
During the Closed Alpha, a lot of issues introduced chunkiness which prevented the player from completely feeling in control, resulting in a faster Time to Death across the board.

While we are still looking at more improvements, we have addressed some of the major offenders for Open Beta:  

Fixed an input delay when the player spawned from the deploy screen or from the squad spawn camera, preventing the player from getting control of his soldier or his camera as soon as he is spawned into the world.

Fixed an input delay when the player completed a syringe revive or a buddy revive, preventing the player from being able to move his soldier or his camera as soon as the revive was completed.

Fixed a common issue where the player would get stuck in an animation after falling from certain heights

Fixed an issue where the player could see himself “inside his own body” and far behind his weapon when spawning and throwing a pouch instantly.

Fixed an issue where the player wouldn’t smoothly transition back to sprint if firing out of crouch-sprint when holding the sprint input.

Fixed an exploit that allowed players to ignore fire and ADS restrictions when jumping and transitioning to prone with the “crouch toggle / prone hold” key-binding.

Buffered prone inputs when the soldier is in the air. This allows the player to go prone without having to release and press prone again when hitting the ground.

Removed enemy soldier idle animations that caused mismatches and head-glitching issues when an enemy would aim down sight. The idle animations are still visible on friendlies.

Reduced the delay before aiming limitations disable when standing out of prone from 600ms to 150ms. This will allow players to turn around faster when standing-up.

Reduced the time to recover when landing from a high fall.

Landing from a high fall no longer forces the player into a crouched stance.

Increased the maximum possible distance to pick-up a weapon. This fixes an issue where the player had to crouch to pick-up a weapon.

Vault improvements

While many more improvements are still being worked on (vault timings, vault detection on more complex geometries, speed momentum on certain vaults), we’ve been looking at adding some quality of life changes to vaulting with the goal being to give the player more control over the system. In short, if you never want to initiate a vault while moving around a map, you can.

●     Disabled vault from crouch to prevent players from unintentionally vaulting when they use the “crouch-toggle” feature and intend to stand using jump.

●     Disabled vault when the player is aiming down the sight to prevent situations where the player did not intend to vault.

●     Separated vaulting and jumping in two different key-binding options. This allows players to have full control over vaulting or jumping. The default key-bindings will not change the old behavior where “Vault” and “Jump” are assigned to the same key.

●     Replaced the aiming constraints system with a smoother solution that allows the players to effectively move their camera freely 90° in both directions while vaulting and never feel like they reach any angle limits. This does not affect the player’s sensitivity within the 180° angle.

●     Slightly increased detection distance of possible vault grabs when the soldier is jumping/falling to improve consistency.

●     Fixed a rare issue where the player would get stuck in a vault animation after completing a vault.

●     Various vault detection & animation improvements.

Crouch-sliding

The crouch-sliding feature was not available during the Closed Alpha as we were still fiddling with the implementation of the feature to ensure that the base foundation works well for both PC and Console alongside other new features such as crouch-sprint.

●     Crouch-sliding can now be performed with a quick double-tap on the crouch key while stranding and sprinting. This will commit the player to a slide for a limited duration and it is not possible to stop sliding unless the player decides to prone or jump.

●     Added a 2 seconds cooldown before being able to perform another crouch-slide.

●     Updated the aiming limitations when turning with an aiming constraint that allows the player to aim freely within a 180° angle before slowing down the aim when the player tries to turn too much while sliding. This restriction cannot be bypassed with different sensitivity but will not affect the base sensitivity when the player is moving his camera within the 180° angle.

●     Increased the accuracy penalty when crouch-sliding to match the inaccuracy of jumping.

Note that this is still an early version of our new implementation of crouch-sliding and animations as well as the system itself has issues we are aware of!

Base soldier movements & ADAD spam

We came into the Closed Alpha with soldier movements that we limited on purpose to reduce legacy issues that we were aware of. The biggest being one that we have been attempting to address in a nice way since Battlefield 1: so called “ADAD Spam” (changing direction left and right during combat to make yourself a harder target to hit). Even with our limitations, this has remained an issue during the Closed Alpha.

In this Open Beta, we are taking steps to keep ADAD spam in check by adding a new “exhaust” system and we will keep tuning it moving forward alongside some adjustments to animations. Our goal is to improve the tracking of soldiers in combat while retaining a high degree of movement responsiveness to ensure that players always feel in control.

Added an “anti-ADAD spam” system based on the amount of direction changes done by the player in real time, this will gradually lower the accelerations of the player after two quick consecutive direction changes but will not impact the general movements when the player is normally moving around in the world.

Increased the base soldier accelerations by 12.5%.

Increased the maximum strafing speed to 3.2m/s from 3m/s.

Increased the swimming accelerations when changing direction, this fixes the feeling of “input lag” when changing direction.

Reduced the swimming maximum speeds.

Improved jumping and sprinting animations in 3^rd person.

Tweaked soldier in air physics to slightly improve the tracking experience of jumping and falling players. This change increases the time player are in the air by about 10%.

Improved Ragdoll model with more accurate joint limits and part weights.

Explosions now cause impulse on Ragdolls pushing them in the world.

Brace animations in for all weapon types - sprinting into flat surfaces at glancing angles causes a reaction on 3P.

Quality pass on 1P weapon reloads/deploys and vehicle enter and seat transitions across the board.

New Pistol Sprint animation.

New Sniper Rifle Sprint animation.

New Rifle and Sprint Jumps matched with new physics in air duration. Tuned animation blends into and out from jumping.

Added running into wall 3P animations for all weapon types; left and right shoulder impacts with variations.

Sprint in water animations for all weapon types.

1P sticky dynamite plunge animation starts sooner to match instant detonation.

Misc. state machine transition logic and animation polish for common gameplay items and loops - result should be a smoother gameplay experience.

Revive

The revive experience during the Closed Alpha was very early and had a lot of issues with the consistency of revives, visibility of icons, revive durations which made revive a more frustrating experience at times.

With this update, we looked at fixing the most glaring issues and ensured that reviving becomes more desirable and fun.

●     Syringe revive duration reduced from 2.33s to 2.16s.

●     Buddy revive duration reduced from 6.18s to 4.37s.

●     Buddy revive now restores full health for the revive player. (instead of 30HP)

●     Fixed an issue that caused revive durations to be longer depending on the direction of the player relative to the teammate when initiating a revive (up to 1.5s).

●     Improved transitions in and out of revives.

●     Changed the revive interaction to require only a short key press instead of a hold.

●     Added the ability to cancel the medic revive and the buddy revive. This can currently be done by pressing the interaction button during the revive.

●     Fixed an issue where a reviving player would not be revivable if killed during a revive.

●     Replaced the white screen effect when revived and coming back to life with a shorter subtle effect.

●     Fixed an issue that caused the revive icon to often not be visible for players that should be revivable.

●     Enabled server-side ragdoll. This will considerably improve the consistency of the revive experience from a player to another. What you see is what other players see.

●     Improved ragdoll settle consistency to allow for a revive quickly after a teammate gets killed.

●     Man-down icons now stick to the edge of the screen if the soldier in need of help is outside of the players main view. These icons also visually show you if a manned-down player is actively requesting help.

●     Teammates can notify downed soldiers that they intend to revive. This is done by looking at the teammate who is in a man-down state while pressing the spot button. This is also shown to other nearby medics letting them know if someone else is already on it.

●     Added a “Give up” option for man-downed soldiers in addition to the “Call for help” option.

●     Fixed an issue where a player would get awarded two kills when they killed an enemy that was in the middle of reviving someone. Killing in enemy that is reviving someone only awards one kill now.

While we think those changes are going to significantly improve the experience, we are still looking at more improvements and quality of life changes when it comes to revive!

Tides of War

The Open Beta will be your first early look at how parts of the Tides of War will work in Battlefield V. You will take part in the “Shock Troops” event, and by completing challenges during the beta you can earn the unique “Tides of War Beta” dog tag. This is just a small taste of Tides of War, but we want to hear your feedback on how the flow of playing these challenges feels like.

Your Company & Progression

In this Open Beta you can play and progress with Your Company and we are really keen to hear your feedback on what that experience feels like. These are the things you will be able to progress on during this test:

Chapter

The Chapter rank is what you will earn when playing Tides of War. In the Open Beta there are no rewards tied to this rank, but we wanted to take this chance to get a feel on how well it is presented and how the pacing feels.

Career

The Career rank represents your overall experience in Battlefield V and will earn you Company Coins in the Open Beta. These can be used to acquire new visual looks for your gear. In the final game this rank will also be one of your sources for new tanks and planes. Players can see their career score in both the scoreboard and the end of round screen. For Open Beta, all the available vehicles are unlocked at the beginning of your journey.

Classes

Each soldier class has its own rank and leveling these up earns you new weapons, gadgets and other tools for your soldiers. In the Open Beta not all the weapons or gadgets from the full game are available so we’ve moved around a lot of rewards for testing, but we want to hear how you feel about the loop of leveling up and earning new items for your soldiers.

We recently gave you a deep dive in a blog post what The Company is in Battlefield V, which of course includes visual customization of your soldiers. We will not have this as part of the Open Beta as we focus more on additional elements related to Progression and The Company, but we can’t wait to tell you more about customization for your soldiers as we get closer to the launch of Battlefield V.

Weapons

Every weapon in Battlefield V is a progression journey on its own. You will earn Specializations that you can use to customize the gameplay aspects of your weapon to fit your personal playstyle the best. You will also earn weapon parts that are used to customize the visual looks of each weapon. Finally, throughout the weapon journey you will earn Special Assignments that can be completed to earn rare weapon parts.

Vehicles

Just as with the weapons, vehicles will earn specializations that you can use to customize the gameplay and unlock new weapons and gadgets for vehicles to use.

Some of the items you earn will show up in your Shipments section in The Armory. Many items that you earn throughout Battlefield V will show up here, so make sure to take a look! We are still working on making it clearer where these rewards come. The Armory is a place for you to browse the weapons, vehicles and visuals available in the game. You can access much of it contextually from Your Company as well. One of the features we want your feedback on from the beta is the ability to acquire duplicate weapons and vehicles from The Armory. These can be used to set up different Specializations if you feel like you want to master every aspect of a certain weapon or vehicle.

Full Change List

Here follows a complete list of changes from Closed Alpha #1 to Open Beta grouped by area. With the caveat added that we might have missed something, this list should give you a pretty clear picture of what to expect from the game if you played in the Closed Alpha.

Weapons

See Key Area Deepdive - Weapon Changes section for details.

Vehicles

Tanks

The Churchill Crocodile flamethrower tank have been made more survivable with heavier armor.

The big change to tanks in Battlefield however is the detached 3rd person driver camera:

●     In 3rd person the driver can now look freely around the tank as fast as you want to, while the turret will have its own turning speed.

●     The turret will follow the camera viewing direction and track to line up with the camera.

●     The turret direction can be locked using the zoom-input. This stops it from tracking the camera movement while held.

●     In 1st person the turret speed will be as slow as in 3rd person, which will feel different at first. You may want to consider scouting for targets with the 3rd person camera, and go to 1st person camera to aim and fire with precision. Keep in mind that the 3rd person reticle is not a true representation of where the gun is pointing.

Air planes

The feedback that we got for the Closed Alpha was that the air combat felt somewhat detached from the general battlefield, so we have done some improvements to make the air vehicles more versatile for various combat scenarios.

●     Machine guns and cannons for airplanes have significantly increased damage. This should make airplanes more effective at strafing infantry, as well as make the dynamics of dogfighting more decisive.

●     Airplane speeds have been increased to increase their mobility.

●     Map flight ceilings have been increased to offer more space for dog fights.

●     The Stuka B has gotten an engine torque increase as well as getting its drag coefficient lowered to bring it closed to other planes in terms of gameplay balance.

●     All bombs have had their effective damage and radius increased. Heavier bombs are now much more powerful.

●     Spottings on the ground are visible from much farther when you are in a plane, so you have a better chance of lining up targets. Good to know if you play recon. All planes will see your spottings. The planes also have on-board spotting equipment as part of their progression.

Maps

Narvik

●     Improved the Soldier visibility on the map, making it easier to determine enemies from the background.

●     Additional lighting passes have been made improving the overall visual quality of the map.

●     Fortification locations have gotten an update based upon closed-alpha telemetry data

●     Supply station locations have been changed to the better based upon closed-alpha telemetry.

●     Found and removed the invisible collision that planes could crash into on the German side of the map.

●     Found and removed the invisible collision that planes could crash into on the British side of the map.

●     Fixed several issues across the map where players could get stuck while walking

●     Fed the Narvik Whale to keep her happy and strong for the Open Beta.

Rotterdam

While most of you have not had the chance to try this map yet, these update notes are here for those players that did get the chance to try out a slightly older version at Gamescom.

General focus on fortifications to allow squads to control the map objectives and other strategic locations - which should:

●     Allow players to shut down enemy access to captured objectives.

●     Create huge off-flag strongholds from which squads can assault objectives.

●     Vehicle path denial though creation of anti-vehicle hedgehogs.

Additionally, we have worked on the general flows of the map by tweaking the following:

●     Refined combat in the varied urban environment.

●     Worked on the layout for the Vertical combat between street level, the Elevated Railway, and buildings.

●     Improvements to the Elevated railway "Metro-Light" linear infantry combat space.

●     Close quarters battle areas with both corner-to-corner and 'infantry arena' flavors.

●     Close and mid-ranged laned tank combat.

●     Balanced ammo, health, and vehicle supply station distribution across the map.

Modes

General Improvements

●     Added more on-screen messages to make game modes easier to understand.

●     Added short delay after round has finished to allow players to react and understand what just happened before screen is fading to show the Victory Declaration screen.

●     Added functionality to flash icons in teams’ score bars to show why they are losing points - enemies owning flags or team members dying.

Social Improvements

●     Several bug fixes and stabilization improvements on how you matchmake into a game and get to play together as a squad.

●     Several bug fixes to how you can set privacy of your squad - Public or Friends only.

●     Squad VOIP Improvements and bug fixes. Players on PC use a push-to-talk key (Left ALT as default) while players on console just need to connect a headset to start communicating.

●     Added basic profanity filter to remove offensive words to reduce toxicity in the chat on PC. Our goal for Open Beta is to monitor the efficiency of the filter and make possible adjustments to it in future updates of the game.

HUD & Screens

Mini-Map

●     The much-requested compass has been added above the mini-map.

●     Added location names based upon the players position on the map.

●     Heightmap has been added to the mini-map.

●     Player directional icons have been added for squads and team mates.

Kill-feed

●     Added an option to toggle weapon icons in the kill log.

Spotting

●     An issue which caused unintentional automatic enemy (passive) spotting has been fixed.

Squad Mate HUD

●     Squad-mate icons will now stick to the edges of the screen if they are outside of the players view.

●     Squad mates name, icon and health bar is now always shown if they have lower than 100 health points.

●     Last man standing notification has been moved to the area above the squad list to reduce UI elements in the middle of the screen.

●     Health bars have been added for each squad member in the squad list to give you a strategic overview of your squad.

●     When you are low on ammo or health the closest resupply station will always be marked on the map and its icon will stick to the edges of the screen when outside of the main view.

●     Squad leader mutiny: Like in previous titles, asking for an order without a reaction will take over ownership of the squad. This is also reflected in the announcement log.

Social Hub

●     We have identified an issue in the social hub where players that are no longer active may linger in party. This issue has been resolved for the full game.

Core Gameplay

Health Changes

Some changes have been made to the way health is distributed in the game.

●     You no longer regenerate all your health.

●     You can no longer just be inside the radius of a health crate to regenerate health. You now instead need to go up to the health crate or station and interact with it.

●     You do automatically regenerate 30 pts of health still, as long as you are out of combat, though.

●     As a soldier you also now have the ability to pocket a health pouch for later use. (As seen next to the health bar.) You start without one however and need to go pick one up. You apply the stored health pouch by holding 5 (PC) or D-PAD UP (Console).

●     There are several ways to restock your health pouch and start regeneration health in the game:

○     Medics can throw you a health pouch, which gives you a pouch AND starts your full health regeneration. One or the other or both if you need it. You need to stay out of combat for regeneration to start.

○     Medics equipped with it, can pop down the health crate, from which you get a health pouch AND start health regeneration.

○     Health supply stations populate the levels and works just like the health crates.

○     Supply drops can be called in by the squad leader and works like health crates too.

●     As a medic, you always have health pouches to distribute, or use.

○     They are equipped as a gadget and distributed with the gadget 1 key.

○     The medic can also self-apply pouches the same way any other soldier does it.

○     There is a slight cool down for throwing out too many pouches in quick succession.

Attrition

Ammunition for your weapons and gadgets will not automatically be resupplied in Battlefield V. Nor will you be able to stand inside the radius of an ammo crate and automatically be resupplied. Just like with health, you must interact with the ammo crate or ammo supply station.

●     The ways to acquire more ammunition for primary weapons and side arms are:

○     Interact with an ammo supply station.

○     Interact with an ammo crate deployed by a support class player.

○     Have a support player throw an ammo pouch to you.

○     Walk over an ammo pouch that has been dropped by a dead player. (No need to interact with that one. It will be picked up automatically.)

●     The ways to acquire more ammunition for your gadgets are:

○     Interact with an ammo supply station.

○     Interact with an ammo crate deployed by a support class player.

●     There is a slight cool down after interacting with the ammo crate or ammo supply station before it can be interacted with again.

●     The way a ground vehicle resupplies itself with ammunition, is by driving close to the vehicle supply station, and the holding the ‘self-repair’ button when it says ‘resupply’. This will both repair and resupply the vehicle.

●     The way an airplane resupplies is by flying close to the airplane resupply point, marked with a supply icon in world This will resupply ammunition. Repairs are conducted by holding the ‘self-repair’ button anywhere.

Classes and Combat Roles

There are four classes in Battlefield V. Each of them comes with a ‘combat role’ A combat role is something you select with your class. In this beta there is one per class, but in the end product there will be more to pick from, so you can give your play style an edge.

●     The Assault

○     Mobile and offensive

○     Carries the rifle grenade launcher

○     Access to stand-off anti-tank weapons and explosives

○     Combat role: Battle Hardened

■     You auto re-generate 40 pts of health instead of 30 when critically wounded (counting from 0).

●     The Medic

○     Lightly armed but with a smoke grenade for cover

○     The ability to heal and revive any friendly on the field.

○     The new ability to distribute health pouches for other players to keep

○     Can equip the deployable medical crate.

○     Combat role: Syringe revive

■     Everyone can bring back a squad mate with the ‘buddy revive’. But only the medic can bring back any team mate with the faster syringe revive.

●     The Support

○     Armed with powerful machine guns or shotguns

○     Has access to anti-tank mines

○     Has the ability to distribute ammunition or deploy ammo crates, that also re-supplies gadgets

○     Combat role: Fortifications expert

■     Can build all fortifications and also the heavy items like machine gun nests and tank traps.

■     Builds faster than the other classes.

●     The Recon

○     Armed with a bolt action sniper rifle or a light faster self-loading rifle

○     The only class with access to the spotting scope and flare. The only item that can relay spotting information to the whole team, including aircraft, that can see spots farther away now

○     Access to the spawn beacon, for forward deploying the squad

○     Combat role: Tactical retreat

■     Will sprint faster when critically hurt.

In our closed alpha testing we also had a 5th class in the game called the ‘machine gunner’. It has since been removed and rolled into the support class. What made the machine gunner special was the primary weapon - the medium machine gun. This is an all new weapon class for Battlefield. There are still light machine guns, that work like in previous games. This medium machine gun however is a different beast. And you will see it in the full game.

●     Medium machine guns are poor in hip fire. This is a trade off because…

○     Medium machine guns are really great when deployed from prone or against a support with the bipod out. In that stance they have 0 deviation and kick

○     They overall have very high fire rate and ammunition capacity

The medium machine gun gameplay is about positioning and anticipation. A defensive weapon if you will. Very powerful, but with one great weakness, you cannot fire on the move and it takes time to get into a stable firing position.

This gives the support class new purpose and is also the reason we have given the main stand-off anti-tank capability to the assault class.

Reinforcements

●     Added the Supply Canister call-in, a health and ammo supply source para-dropped in the Battlefield. Cost is 7500 requisition points

After the first Closed Alpha, we communicated our intention to nerf the raw power of the rocket strikes. However, we have also received feedback from the community indicating that the game changing nature of the rocket strikes is very appreciated and we have decided to keep it at its current power for now.

We are still monitoring the pacing aspects of reinforcements including rocket strikes, this includes making a broader reinforcement options available in a larger range of requisition costs. Furthermore, balancing of the requisition cost for all the reinforcement options is still ongoing. 

●     Fixed a bug that where players could survive a V-1 or JB-2 Rocket within the radius where he should get killed.

●     Fixed an issue that made the soldier’s screen completely black for a duration when knocked or killed by a rocket strike. 

Dynamic world

Destruction

For Battlefield V the maps contain a higher degree of destruction and in-world “cause and effect.” Moving away from one-off levolution events where single event would change the entire map we have instead focused on changing the map based upon how the battles between players unfold during the game.

Weather

●     Weather visibility has been changed for states with occlusion or noise to allow for less clutter, but still provide a different experience from the default state.

●     Default weather states have been considerably toned down for noise or occlusion.

●     Rules for weather transitions are changed to only allow intrusive states to exist for a few minutes. Exception are made in Airborne and Final Stand since both are shorter game modes where weather should be allowed a higher impact.

●     Non-transitional states like time of day have been removed and replaced with states that can transition smoothly.

Bullet penetration

We are very keen to hear your feedback on the current level of bullet penetration in the game. If you feel like your weapon should be able to punch through an object - but it didn’t, or if being on the receiving end is confusing in any way - please let us know!

●     Asset overhaul on buildings, doors, vegetation and barricade assets have been made to allow vehicle MGs, stationary MGs and Sniper Rifles to go through with heavily reduced damage.

●     Pistols may now penetrate doors, but with high damage reduction.

●     New projectile materials for upgraded shotguns and rifles now allow for bullet penetration of thin materials like wood planks.

●     Window glass has been adjusted to allow bullet, grenade and explosive projectile penetration.

Fire damage

●     Gradual fire damage buildup has been implemented as a core system, allowing players to run through intense fires without taking high damage.

●     Smoldering fire (below boot height) now only deal damage when you go prone, while standing up won’t affect the soldier.

●     Explosive fuel barrels can now create domino effects when standing close to other explosive assets.

●     Oil barrels with leaking, ignitable functionality have been implemented.

Spectator

Spectator Mode

Players will be pleased to find that all major Spectator features from Battlefield 1 are also in Battlefield V. And in some cases, significant improvements have been made.  For example, the director camera that once followed soldiers with limited flexibility attached to their Upper/Lower body has been expanded with the ability to attach to the animation bone of a soldier.

Tabletop View

●     Bird’s eye view of the map, like the deploy screen.

●     Users can select and follow particular soldiers/vehicles from the tabletop view.

●     Users can drop a camera while in tabletop view by double clicking the mouse anywhere on the map (PC Only).

●     Users can toggle the Camera Auto-Follow feature that will automatically zoom the camera in to the selected soldier/vehicle and move the camera to keep it on screen.

●     In response to community request, we improved Camera Zoom with the mouse scroll wheel, we call it quick zoom in the key bind settings (PC Only).

●     Table Top view will display capture areas on the map, for game modes with capture point objectives. This can be turned on/off in the options.

Player View

●     Users can view players in First Person and Third Person views.

●     When following a player, users can deploy a Director Camera that is attached to the soldier/vehicle and can be controlled by the spectator.

○     Orbit control mode - The user can rotate the camera, offset it up/down/left/right, or zoom in/out.

○     Free Look control mode – The user can rotate the camera in place.

○     Tilt/Roll functionality – Users can now tilt or roll the camera in either mode.

●     Users can now attach the camera to various projectiles when the spectated soldier/vehicle discharges a weapon or throws a grenade. The input to activate this can be changed to a toggle or a hold in the options.

●     Users can directly select players in the squad list for each team by pressing the number keys or using the Broadcaster Mode (see more details under “Improved Controller/Gamepad Support” section) on a controller.  The squad list must be expanded for the direct player selection to work.

Free Fly Camera View

●     Spectator can use a Free Fly camera that can be moved anywhere within the combat area of the level.

●     Additional control to tilt or roll the camera while in Free Fly view has been added.

●     There is a limit of five Free Fly cameras per map.

●     Users will automatically drop a Free Fly Camera when switching from Player View. A Free Fly camera will be placed where the spectated player was in the world.

●     Pressing the select player input will change to player view mode for the player closest to the camera and the center of the screen. On PC, this selects the player the mouse cursor is over.

●     Upon selecting a player to view, an icon will draw over the soldier/vehicle, pixel perfect precision is no longer required with a larger selectable area around players.

Improved Controller/Gamepad Support

●     Users can now choose between two different controller layouts in the spectator options menu. Each control scheme uses contextual input which increases how many different uses a button can have.

●     Broadcaster mode is designed for people who want to use Spectator for broadcasting a game for something like a tournament. Controls are designed so that switching between players and modes is easy.

●     Cinematographer is designed for people who want to use Spectator for taking screenshots or capturing video.

●     A help screen can be accessed from the spectator UI that shows all the controls for the current controller layout.

Options

●     In response to community feedback, we’ve added the ability to adjust mouse sensitivity for all spectator cameras (PC Only).

●     Adjust if users can toggle or hold a key bind to activate the projectile follow camera.

●     The Player Death Transition option has two additional choices to select which are "Drop Camera" and "Same Player"

○     “Drop Camera” will switch to Free Fly mode picking up where the spectated player died

○     “Same Player” option is ideal for those watching friends and will remain on the spectated player even after they can no longer be revived. While waiting for the player to respawn the camera will follow the player or objective the spectated player may spawn on. Once the spectated player respawns the camera will resume spectating the original subject.

UI Redesign/Improvements

●     Spectator user interface has a minimal design to showcase more of the action on screen.

●     Improved player card in all modes.

●     Added input hint icons on buttons.

●     The camera can now be moved in any mode while the spectator options UI is opened.

Improved Keyboard Input (PC Only)

●     After selecting a specific player in a squad, their squad mates will have a dedicated key bind to quickly jump between the members of the squad.

Quality of Life

●     In response to community requests, the Vignette, Film Grain, Motion Blur, Chromatic Aberration, Lens Distortion, and Resolution Scale (PC Only) settings will be saved for Spectator Mode separate from the Video options for playing the game.

●     Cinematic options can be accessed in the spectator options, users are no longer required to return to the main menu Video options to change them.

Cinematic Options

We heard our community and have added some in-depth cinematic options that are designed for capturing screenshots and videos.

Camera Filters

Users will find this option while in Player View or Free Fly camera modes. Various filters can be selected to change the visual look of the level.

●     Sepia

●     Noir

●     Tilt Shift (This filter is only available in freecam mode)

Depth of Field

Users will find this option while in Player View or Free Fly camera modes. Which can be enabled/disabled and has settings for blur intensity, focus distance, near start, near end, far start, and far end.

●     Choose between various shapes for the bokeh effect when depth of field is active.

Color Correction

●     Brightness

●     Contrast

●     Saturation

●     Hue

●     Exposure

●     Bloom Intensity

Screen Effects

●     Film Grain

●     Motion Blur

●     Chromatic Aberration

●     Lens Distortion

Weather Control

●     If the current map being played has more than one weather state, the user can cycle instantly between each weather state. Or disable the weather to view what all players currently see. Please note, this will not impact what other players see.

●     When switching between weather states, the screen fades to black and slowly fades in over 5 seconds, expect this cooldown to affect how quickly a user can cycle between weather states.

Screen Overlays

●     Users can select various frames or borders to overlay on the screen for taking screenshots. There are also options for changing the color and alpha of these.

●     Users can also select one of two Battlefield V logos (color versions and black and white versions) that can overlay on the screen.

●     The logo can be placed in the top left, top center, top right, bottom left, bottom center, and bottom right areas of the screen.

●     Users can create a vignette frame by adjusting the brightness/saturation along the outer edge of the screen.

Video Options (PC Only)

●     Highest Level of Detail

●     Render Distant Objects

●     Resolution Scale

Screenshots (PC Only)

●     Pressing the dedicated screenshot input/key bind will take a screenshot.

●     Anti-Aliasing Enable/Disable when taking a screenshot.

●     Users can select what type of image file to create when taking a screenshot, between PNG, TGA, and JPG.

Open Beta Server Location Availability

For the Open Beta we will have game servers available in the following locations:

●     Europe West - UK

●     Europe Central - Germany

●     US West

●     US East

●     South Africa

●     United Arab Emirates

●     Brazil

●     Australia

●     Japan

●     Hong Kong

Please note that this list is not final and does necessarily represent what will be available for the full game, as we are still evaluating server locations which could further improve our coverage.

Known Issues

In this section we are sharing the most common issues that we think that you will encounter during the Open Beta. We are working on resolving these for the release of Battlefield V and as such there is no need to report any of the issues below to us.

●     In the Axis Company menu, it will visually look like you have two of the same tank in your inventory, but these are actually the same instance of one tank.

●     Many of the Airplane Passive Specializations do not function in-game yet

●     Some of the Tank Passive Specializations do not function in-game yet

●     Multiple interactions can be performed at the same time creating unintended behaviors.

●     Danger Ping: when playing squad leader, and hovering an objective - pressing the contextual button (Q on PC) will cause both the order and a danger ping at the same time

●     Tanks

○     Some entry points are very hard to activate and enter on the bigger tanks when the first one is occupied

○     Third-person tank turrets are misaligned relative first-person sights on some of the vehicles

●     Health pouches have the following known issues:

○     Communication around triggering self-heal is not communicated clearly in game (you hold the button to apply the pouch, hold: [5] on PC or hold D-Pad Up on console)

○     Activating the health pouch when not necessary still has the HUD reacting, making it look like you apply health (you are not)

●     Narvik map heavy snow storm effect is still rendering center screen (should diminish in the center part of the screen), causing player fatigue/friction. This will happen for a much shorter timeframe however as the extreme weather changes limits max length.

●     On consoles, the lighting on Narvik is currently too dark in certain areas due to a bug, and we are working on improving this for the full release of the game.

●     Players may end-up in a T-pose, if they are getting revived by another player, and the revive is cancelled prior to completion.

●     Server Side Ragdolls: There are some known issues where rag dolls end up looking less than stellar.

●     Downed state: Can still cause clipping with objects in the world rotating your view.

●     Airborne: Occasionally the bombs can end up under ground on Narvik.

●     Origin: Disabling the Origin overlay may cause long client freezes using DX11.

Future Changes

The Open Beta includes a massive amount of changes and improvements, but there are still areas we haven’t gotten to yet - the following is a list of Key Future Changes.

This section aims to communicate to you what is on the short list - and making sure we can foster discussions on the same premise (and game knowledge) as much as possible.

Key Future Changes:

Based on a lot of feedback that we got during Battlefield 1 we have decided to do some changes that will further reward skill.

●     Console Aim assist re-vamp: Remove Snap-To functionality completely and polish remaining Aim Assist systems and curves to quality.

●     Limb penetration damage model - we are currently working on bringing a solution that will allow limbs bullet penetration and will solve situations where a soldier’s arm is in the trajectory of a bullet that was intended to hit a head. In those cases, damage will no longer count as a limb shot but as headshot instead.

●     Body dragging - This is a feature that we are still working on, we want to get it right before introducing it to our players, and as such it won't be available in the Open Beta.

●     New airplane resupply station - the Sky hook. Airplanes will have to fly very near or through a “sky hook” gate on the ground. Two masts with a hanging cable connecting them. They are usually found around the edges of the map and will show up in the HUD with the ‘supply’ icon when in an airplane.

●     The scoring events for Reinforcements have been refined and extended, in order to more fairly reward team play:

○     Offensive Reinforcement Call-ins now reward all members of the squad with assist score, if the call-in successfully kills enemies

○     Squad Members are now rewarded when any Squad Member deploys in a Reinforcement vehicle that has been bought by their Squad Leader

○     All Squad Members are now rewarded when their Squad Leader successfully purchase a Reinforcement Vehicle or Reinforcement Call-in. This also fixes an issue where players were rewarded for simply selecting a call-in in the menu

●     Debris kill recognition: Killing enemies with falling debris will properly reward the player causing it to fall

Player Feedback

As always, we value your input, and we want you to reach out to us with feedback!

For general feedback, please use our Battlefield V Open Beta section on the Battlefield forums which you can find by following this URL: https://forums.battlefield.com/en-us/categories/battlefield-v-open-beta

(Please note that this URL will only work once the Open Beta is up and running).

Should you encounter any issues or bugs we recommend that you report them on our Battlefield V - Answers HQ forum which you can find here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Battlefield-V-Open-Beta/ct-p/battlefield-v-beta-en

(Please note that this URL will only work once the Beta is up and running).

You can also reach out to our Battlefield multiplayer producer David Sirland and Battlefield LIVE producer Jaqub Ajmal on Twitter if you have any further topics that you would like us to write about in future blog posts.

You can reach them on Twitter @tiggr_ and @jaqubajmal

Also you can reach Jaqub on Weibo: @jaqub

At times we’ll utilize surveys to measure things - and this is true for Open Beta as well, after you’ve played, please make sure you take our survey, it really helps in making a better Battlefield! The survey will be sent out to selected players through e-mail once the Open Beta period has finished.

As always, we hope to see you on the Battlefield and we look forward to the journey that Battlefield V will take us on through the Tides of War!

And last but not least a big thank you to all of the Battlefield players supporting our games throughout the years!

David Sirland & Jaqub Ajmal on behalf of the teams at EA and DICE.