The Battlefield V Tides of War Chapter 1: Overture Update Notes

Hello Battlefield™ V players, and welcome to our latest update!

Kicking off the first Chapter of Tides of War, this update adds a new single-player War Story titled The Last Tiger, a multiplayer map called Panzerstorm, and a Practice Range where you can hone your skills – and more.

We’ve also made several changes based upon feedback from the Battlefield™ community, as well as fixing many of the issues that you have reported. This document will summarize the most noteworthy changes. See the full update notes here.

See you on the battlefield!

The Last Tiger
A fresh single-player War Story is added to Battlefield V with the update. This is The Last Tiger.

The Rhine-Ruhr region, Spring 1945. The vast Twelfth US Army Group presses the borders of Germany. German lines are in disarray; units are broken, separated, and poorly supplied. In this setting, you’ll join the German crew of Tiger number 237 – “Stefan” – as it operates a near-indestructible Tiger I tank in an unwinnable battle on the borders of their fatherland. As with our other War Stories, this one is presented in the native language of the crew – German.

New Multiplayer Map: Panzerstorm
Take part in the first major tank battle of the war, larger than any that came before. In the first few days of the Battle of Belgium, Axis armor steamed ahead of infantry forces into Hannut, clashing with Allied tanks in the rolling hills and farmland of the Belgian countryside.

Now, tank husks litter the landscape of the once beautiful surroundings as the second wave begins. Scarred and singed, the landscape tells a horrific story of a battle that is far from over. Wind your way through muddy trenches and shallow rivers to fortify key positions. And utilize the Supply Stations built around the forested cabin and gain an advantage by taking the high ground farms.

Stand your ground and brace yourself from the relentless incoming armor attacks to survive.

Panzerstorm Map Intent
Our latest experience focuses on the tanker crew fantasy by offering vehicle-centric gameplay with light infantry support roles. Strategy and communication are key between squad mates in order to create the ultimate tanker crew. Fortifications, repairs, and Supply Stations scattered across the map also become crucial to the survival of your vehicle.

Roll across a huge Battlefield map with a massive force of armor, carving a path of destruction through the countryside.

Practice Range
In our Practice Range, you’ll be able to get familiar with various weapons and vehicles that Battlefield V has to offer. In the Practice Range you’ll be able to:

• Explore the base class weapons offered and find your favorites, and learn their spray patterns as you practice aiming, flicking, and turning accuracy.
• Practice flying a fighter or a bomber and take out enemy planes or bomb targets.

Top Issue Fixes and Changes

• Made several stability and performance improvements while running the game with DXR real-time Ray Tracing on (PC only). This includes improving tracing performance against foliage/vegetation and, where applicable, using frame buffer data to improve the quality of Ray Tracing.
• Fixed a bug where weapons would stay locked even if the player had reached the required level to obtain them.
• Made improvements for the issue involving infinite loading screens. This should be drastically reduced with this update.
• Fixed an issue where vehicle passenger gunner turret animations would not align with where the player was aiming.
• Players no longer get into a soft hang when viewing assignments in game.
• Made tweaks to the Conquest Soft Catch-up mechanics. The catch-up will now only be activated when the losing team is very far behind instead of rounds that are fairly close. We think that this will make matches more fair in general, while at the same time making the matches a bit more exciting if the skill gap between the teams is too big.
• Adjusted the amount of ammunition given to airplane forward firing machine guns and cannons. With fast resupply, we feel like we can reduce the ammo in each weapon so attrition becomes a factor over a long period of flying. This also allows us to use ammo load as a balancing mechanic for some weapons like the 8x LMGs on the Spitfire or the explosive cannon rounds on the BF109.
• Airplane Zooming in 1P will now give 2.5x zoom, allowing for superior scouting of the battlefield and aiming at long range or small targets. This should help planes like fighters from be more connected to the ground combat.
• Reduction in the damage airplane parts take from LMGs and a buff to the health of the engine of airplanes means that dogfights should no longer be determined by an almost guaranteed part disable. Players will have to focus fire on parts to get disables, or they will need to equip higher caliber, but lower rate of fire weapons to do effective part damage. This should deepen the experience in dogfighting and plane customization.
• Adjusted the Stuka 37mm cannons to be more effective in direct fire against vehicles and less effective in splash against infantry. This brings them more in line with their original intent. Additionally, a delay on dropping bombs that was unique to the Stuka has been cut from 0.3 sec to 0.1 sec (there’s an arm on this bomber that swings down to drop the bomb; we sped that up).This should make bombing from the Stuka more accurate.
• The 8x MG specialization on the Spitfire has a new overheat behavior. These weapons offer great burst damage, but begin to overheat quickly, with their rate of fire dropping substantially in sustained fire.
• Rebalanced the BF109's Minengeschoss towards its intended role. The weapon now performs similarly to a single default cannon against fighters, but has seen a damage reduction against bombers. It retains an effective splash damage against infantry, though at a lower damage rate than previously. Combined with the increased 1P zoom, BF109s with this round should be able to make targeted strafing passes on single targets, but no longer be able to sweep an area of multiple targets.
• AA tanks were too vulnerable when engaging infantry, making them an unattractive vehicle when aircraft were not active. We reduced the damage AA tanks take to their turret to be better in line with side hits in order to make them more survivable. Their damage against infantry has also been slightly increased.
• Tweaked the JU-88 bomber to only carry one 1,000kg bomb and reduced the rate of fire when dropping the 16x50kg bombs. This ensures that the bombs have a larger spread when hitting the ground.
• Changed the Stuka damage model to be closer to bombers, to improve its intended ground attack role.
• Players occupying top gunner positions in land vehicles are now able to duck down and become somewhat protected from incoming shots. While ducking, top gunners are still able “blind-fire” the machine gun.
• The automatic spawn when a round starts will be disabled in all game modes (except Final Stand). This change has been made to not force spawn players that temporary went "afk" during round transition and are not back in their seats at start.
• The icon above the bomb carriers in Airborne and Frontlines will no longer be visible. We've decided this based on community feedback. Note that the icon will still be visible for a brief moment on pickup as it is mentioned by audio.
• Panzerfausts are now designed to be simple ranged damage against tanks, and have been adjusted to have less spikey damage. The previous damage model relied heavily on the angle of attack, which played against infantry since infantry rarely can pick their angle of attack against tanks. Poor hits could gravely punish the shooter with as low as just 5 damage for a hit. The new model has reduced the maximum damage output of the projectile, especially against the rear of tanks; however, it now guarantees far better damage for poor hits, around 2-3x more damage. For example, the previous poor hit that would give just 5 damage will now give 15 damage. In addition, Panzerfausts are now extremely potent against the parts of the tank, meaning that they will more easily disable turrets, tracks, and engines and give the attacking infantry a boost in fighting the vehicle. Note that a part disable is not guaranteed with a hit.
• Angled damage is now better exposed to players, with a critical hit (headshot) hit markers playing whenever a player makes a hit at an optimal angle or against a weak part like a turret.
• Increased the direct hit damage of Stationary and Half Track mounted AT guns. Being exposed in these guns is a heavy disadvantage, and a higher amount of damage against tanks is required to balance the risk and reward.
• LMGs and Soldier Guns have been doing more damage to airplanes than intended. We have reduced the damage of soldier weapons against airplanes, so that they’re a threat to – but not a killer of – airplanes.
• The first version of Vehicle Customization is rolling out for all players, with skins for tanks as well as skins and nose art for airplanes. More to come in the future!
• Reworked the Panzerfaust to be less effective on rear shots on vehicles. Armor angle on vehicles now matter less, and the Panzerfaust now deals a more consistent amount of damage to vehicles. Panzerfausts also deal more systemic part damage, allowing them to be used more tactically, taking out engines, tracks, and turrets, etc.

Thanks for reading. As mentioned, you can deep-dive further by reading the full update notes.

- Jaqub Ajmal
Producer – Battlefield V (Twitter: @jaqubajmal)

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