A few weeks ago, DICE and EA were openly pontificating the ramifications of changing the time-to-kill value, basically how long it takes to kill an opponent, in Battlefield V multiplayer. While players enjoyed being able to kill opponents faster, they also disliked being killed so quickly, so DICE set up different servers to study and see how things play out in alternate matches.
They eventually decided to increase the time it takes for an enemy to keel over so that players can live longer and have theoretically better matches. The community didn’t really like this change. So now they’re changing it back.
“After rolling out those changes last week, we’ve listened to your feedback, reviewed our statistical data, and have made the decision to return to the original TTK values seen at launch,” a DICE spokesman wrote on the game’s subreddit. “Our intent with the TTK changes was to see if we could evolve the Battlefield V experience and make it more enjoyable for new players, whilst also making sure the Battlefield vets have a choice with a more ‘core’ experience suiting their preferred play-style. Clearly we didn’t get it right. Veteran players didn’t ask for the change, but as game developers, we took it upon ourselves to make those changes based on extensive data and deliberation. It truthfully wasn’t an easy decision for us.”
DICE admits that part of the problem is the ongoing issue of balancing a game for both veterans and new players, as it’s difficult to onboard new players when they die so quickly, even though veterans love the challenge of dodging bullets like Neo. While they erred toward the wants of veterans this time, they are seemingly not sure how to keep these two groups happy at the same time, but do have some plans that they will be rolling out in the future.
Battlefield V is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can find our review of the game right here.
