DICE Asks Fans What to Balance Next in Battlefield 4

[Alex Co]

DICE Asks Fans What to Balance Next in Battlefield 4

DICE has taken to its blog to ask players for feedback in regards to upcoming in-game tweaks for Battlefield 4.

Developer DICE has now taken to the official Battlefield Blog [http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/01/bf4-balancing-feedback/] to ask fans what in-game tweaks they should concentrate on next. In a post titled "Tell DICE: What We Should Balance Next?," the studio states they have a wide range of tweaks planned to further balance the core gameplay of BF4 in upcoming patches, but that it needs help identifying these steps and have asked fans to vote on the upcoming changes.

First up, DICE is asking if it should tweak the air defense of the Attack Boat. Possible improvements include an Anti-Aircraft ability for the Burst Cannon, adding an MMA style 20MM Cannon, additional types of secondary missiles with Anti-Aircraft intentions. Next, the studio is asking whether the Engineer's FGM-148 damage against tanks should be increased from 25& to 34% or leave it the way it is. The rest of the three other fixes concern the Stealth Jets' Cannon and whether it should be given a nerf, Fast Attach Craft Cannon tweaks and a buff for the Canister Shell for the IFV and MBT.

You can read up on the planned changes, vote on what you prefer and check the results of what fans voted on so far by going to the in-game spawns like it did in its last server update. [http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/01/bf4-balancing-feedback/]

What do you want changed in Battlefield 4 or should DICE fix the game's stability first before tweaking anything in-game?

Source: Battlefield Blog [http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/01/bf4-balancing-feedback/]



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[Longstreet]

Oh fuck....

Well they done fucked it up now, this game is going down the shitter.

It's simple, every gun that can kill you is overpowered, while the gun you are using in under-powered. So basically, everyone will start crying for nerfs for the guns they never use, while at the same time bitching for buffs for the guns they do use.

You can see this in the game chat every single round. "NOOOOOB you are using weapon A, that is SOOOOOOOO overpowered." two minutes later, same guy gets killed again; "NOOOOOOB you are using weapon B, that is sooooooooo overpowered."

If i would pick up a feather in the game, one that requires 60000 hits to kill, i would get called a noob for using such an overpowered weapon if i would manage to actually kill someone with it.

 

[marurder]

What do you want changed in Battlefield 4 or should DICE fix the game's stability first before tweaking anything in-game?

What that question supposed to be clever? Being snide is easy when you're just a talking head. Push pulls aren't the way to progress.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Congrats DICE you've now given the OK for fans to destroy what little you had of the game left.

Asking the fans what they'd like balanced is asking a few select, not everyone, ergo it fucks it over for those that never had a say, couldn't say and din't want in the first place.

Asking to find middle ground from the select fans is hard as it is anyway.

 

[Vrach]

Congrats DICE you've now given the OK for fans to destroy what little you had of the game left.

Asking the fans what they'd like balanced is asking a few select, not everyone, ergo it fucks it over for those that never had a say, couldn't say and din't want in the first place.

Asking to find middle ground from the select fans is hard as it is anyway.

Because devs tend to listen to the community 100% of the time. They're just trying to gauge what the community thinks, they're looking for clues at best or possibly, as stated above, just doing a PR stunt, either way, they'll implement what they want to implement, the community can at most point them in a certain direction to think about it.

It's annoying to see the gunboats are getting more powerful. Those things are floating tanks, fill one up with the right people and it can literally hold most of a water-based map by itself. I don't mind if they're doing it to make it more real. Fine, a gunboat can bring in some serious firepower. But if so, they need to balance out their health/armor.

That thing takes pretty much as many rocket shots to destroy as a tank, while being able to move as fast as a bike, have a permanent "moat" around it (so planting C4 on it is remarkably difficult), cover every flank and still have the most firepower of any vehicle in the game. The only downside is that the drivers/gunners are exposed, but it's hard to take shots at a high mobility vehicle that has a gatling gun to protect it on each side on top of being able to fire TOW missiles and the like.

Most of the times I took out a boat was either when they were understaffed (take out the gunner first, driver next and take it over, but even that can be hard) or with a large amount of vehicles/engineers firing at it together.

 

[Barbas]

Well, that was a mad ride while it lasted.

It lasted about 20 minutes before crashing, usually.

 

[Vivi22]

What do you want changed in Battlefield 4 or should DICE fix the game's stability first before tweaking anything in-game?

What that question supposed to be clever? Being snide is easy when you're just a talking head. Push pulls aren't the way to progress.

I don't think it's all that snide to point out that DICE released a broken game and may want to actually fix it before worrying too much about the other stuff. Seems pretty reasonable really since people actually paid money for this thing and should be able to expect a product that works.

As for asking fans what they should balance: bad idea. The general public for a game rarely have a functional understanding of what is and isn't balanced, and have even less of an understanding of how to fix it.

 

[Frost27]

I want the second damn DLC that the Xbox has had access to since release.

 

[Metalrocks]

stable servers, fix the damn connection issues to servers, lagging issues even with low ping.

these are my main problems i have with the game.

 

[electric method]

Battlefield 4 is a fun game, when it works. That's the problem though; getting it to work right. The only thing Dice should be working on are the stability, bugs, and server issues that plague this game. Seriously, don't ask the fans what they want to see balanced when you can't even fix the bug that wipes out campaign progress every time you patch the game and has been present since launch on all the platforms it runs on.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I can understand gathering feedback from and communicating with the playerbase, but allowing them to actually vote on the changes?

 

[Alex Co]

What do you want changed in Battlefield 4 or should DICE fix the game's stability first before tweaking anything in-game?

What that question supposed to be clever? Being snide is easy when you're just a talking head. Push pulls aren't the way to progress.

I don't think it's all that snide to point out that DICE released a broken game and may want to actually fix it before worrying too much about the other stuff. Seems pretty reasonable really since people actually paid money for this thing and should be able to expect a product that works.

As for asking fans what they should balance: bad idea. The general public for a game rarely have a functional understanding of what is and isn't balanced, and have even less of an understanding of how to fix it.

Exactly. While I, personally, haven't had much of an issue with BF4 on PS4, the same can't be said for friends. I know a lot of people who are still experiencing issues up to this day. And I agree with letting fans dictate the game is a bad idea, too.

But I gather DICE won't listen to every single thing fans say, which is a good thing.

 

[purplemonkey555]

Maybe they could fix the glitch on Second Assault maps that freezes you permanently if you die right after being revived and forces you to leave the game? That would be nice. As of right now, I have to run away from any of my teammates who are medics on Metro, for fear of waking up right next to a grenade or something and having to leave.

 

[rasputin0009]

Jesus DICE, just watch Levelcap and Jackfrag's videos. They breakdown exactly what's broken. With everything. Attack choppies need a boost to the gunner's damage (at least on other aircraft). Transport choppies need an accuracy boost to the miniguns. Stealth jets are near useless so why nerf? The mobile AA needs a range nerf so people don't sit in their base and dominate from there. DMR's need a damage boost obviously. Tank staff shells need to balanced so that spamming between it and a main shell isn't a possibility. Maybe a very slight adjustment in the AEK-971 and ACE-23's stats so as to specify their ranges more.

 

[Covarr]

I hope they give more heed to experienced players, competitive tournament players, etc. The vast majority of fans (of this and any game series) have no clue what they're talking about, but the ones who make a living at competition actually understand the mechanics well enough to know what works and what doesn't. They need to, if they're going to win the prize money they depend on.

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. Edit: I am not a tournament level gamer, and certainly not a professional gamer. Not for any game. I wouldn't want to be. It seems like it'd be really stressful and take the fun out of gaming. However, after seeing what the competitive crowd has done with Super Smash Bros.: Brawl and Left 4 Dead 2 to improve balance, I strongly trust their judgment.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Didn't they say just a month or two ago that this is exactly what they WONT do because if the fans go to decide things like this the game would be incredibly broken?

 

[Neyon]

Wait. They want to INCREASE the ability of attack boats to shoot down aircraft? The attack boat already has ridiculously overpowered AA and they think it needs a buff? Their designers are completely incompetent.

 

[proctorninja2]

sounds like a good idea, at least the weapon changes make sense also are the stability issues only for certain consoles because Ive been playing pretty regularly on the ps4 and only had a handful of crashes and even less laggy maps