For Battlefield ™ V , we’ve set up two pillars for what we want to achieve with gunplay. First, we want our players to really be able to both learn and master it. What’s key to achieving this? Simply put, to allow the player to understand the behavior of their weapons, be it recoil, fire power, or any other aspect. If a player can foresee this behavior, they will learn what's going on – and if they learn, they can improve. Overall, we want to create a more physical experience where players firing a weapon really feel like they’re in control. Combined with the movement systems in Battlefield V , you‘ll have a responsive and controlled experience. Second, we want to create a clear character for all the weapon classes. They should feel distinct, but at the same time not confining. For example, Assault Rifles are great for burst firing. Semi-Automatic Rifles should be about finding a rhythm. The Bolt-Action Rifles are all about pulling off that single, important shot. On top of this, we believe that good weapon design should support game balance and player choice. There should be viable options for many different playstyles, with none of them being best. Weapons should also be easy to understand in their function, as first-person shooters can be quite unforgiving to new players.

DAMAGE, SPREAD, CONTROL, AND OTHER FACTORS

As you’ve seen when choosing and customizing your gear in previous Battlefield titles, there are several fields in which weapons can be efficient – and less efficient. Your gun can dish out a great deal of damage but be hard to control. Range is a factor, so is rate of fire. Setting all these values to make your fights fun and fair can be challenging, but we believe we’ve got something really balanced and good going with Battlefield V. Let’s get in to the specifics of how we’ve approached the various weapon values.



Tweaking the Bullet Damage

Bullet damage has been chosen with two things in mind. First, even weapons with a low rate of fire should allow you to win a 1-vs.-2 situation reliably when flanking and surprising the enemy. You should also not experience catching an enemy off guard, shooting him or her in the back from close range, only for your enemy to turn around and kill you because he or she uses a weapon with higher damage output.



In a game like Battlefield V, the time to take out a single player should not surpass 300 milliseconds by a lot.

Hence the MP40 and STEN, with their rate of fire of 539 rounds per minute, require four bullets to kill a healthy enemy at short range. This results in a Time to Kill of 333 milliseconds if all shots hit. With this damage output, the player will not be forced to use faster firing weapons only to be able to flank successfully or win a 1-vs.-1 in which he had a significant advantage.



Second, the difference in raw damage output between the fastest and slowest firing weapon should be as large as possible. Why? To ensure variety between weapons. As an example, the Suomi KP/-31 has the same damage as an MP40, but handles very differently, making it much less suited for medium range.



Turning Spread into Recoil

Bullet spread is a gunplay aspect that’s hard to communicate to a player firing his or her weapon. We have worked hard on improving this, and the main change is that spread has been converted to behave more like recoil. This creates an instant visual feedback, which makes you understand when you’re not in control of the weapon anymore, and that you should stop firing due to the spread.



Furthermore, Semi-Automatic Rifles no longer have increasing spread while firing while aiming down the sights, making them more intuitive to use. Applying recoil as spread in this way required some major changes to how recoil is added (it can now be added over time) and the underlying spread decreases (it can now decrease while firing if you start at very high values). You’ll find that recoil itself is significantly higher than in previous titles.



Adjusting Effective Ranges

Effective range refers to the range where a weapon or weapon type excels. Shotguns are best in close-quarter fights, Bolt-Action Rifles are for taking out enemies from afar. Effective range in Battlefield V is similar to older titles like Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4, where guns used to be best at a certain range, but not useless outside it. While you will likely lose an even 1-vs.-1 fight against an equally good player if your weapon is outside its effective range and theirs is not, being a better player or having another advantage can still allow you to win the fight.



Shooting from the Hip

Hip fire accuracy is comparable to Battlefield 4 or Battlefield 1. While firing, accuracy decreases much quicker now, especially for weapons with a high rate of fire. This means landing your first shots matters much more, as otherwise your weapon might no longer be sufficiently accurate.

