Thread: Battlefield 3 Attachment tweaks incoming

DICE core gameplay designer, Alan Kertz, is tweaking and overhauling several of the weapon attachments in Battlefield 3 after posting details of his proposed changes and receiving feedback from the community

The bipod in particular will be getting some 'love', but among the other attachments being tweaked are the foregrip, suppressor, heavy barrel, and flash suppressor.

The bipod will be buffed, which Kertz hopes will increase the amount of bipod users. It will be faster to deploy and the reduction in recoil and dispersion will depend on the gun and ammo type.

Amongst the other tweaks, the foregrips recoil reduction and base accuracy will be tweaked, the max range will be increased for the heavy barrel, and the flash suppressor will receive reduced recoil.

Be sure to check out the full change list for all the in-depth details.

I'm working on a retweak of the accessories in the game currently, as I feel the player is limited in choice due to a few accessories being the clear winners in almost all categories. While this unfortunately means nerfing those that are over used, the goal here is to focus on improving the under performing and under used attachments. Additionally it is the intention for an unmodified weapon to offer the best balance of Recoil, Accuracy, and Stealth. Right now this is preliminary, I've already asked for feedback on different attachments, and there's several good threads here and on Battlelog that discuss the weapons. Again, I'm not promising this will go live, and I'm not promising there will be an update, I'm looking for feedback and a discussion.

Thanks, Alan "Demize99" Kertz

Foregrip

The Foregrip is for players who who are in close combat and highly mobile fighting situations. It reduces the horizontal recoil forces that make maintaining a consistant aim on target difficult, however it makes aimed shots more difficult.
?+34% reduction in horizontal recoil (adjust based on gun)
?-20% penalty to base accuracy when aimed

Rationale: The Foregrip is quite powerful on weapons with high amounts of horizontal recoil, and is generally the goto attachment for everyone using Assault Rifles and Carbines. Currently it has no downside, which makes it a pure bonus upgrade and is a no brainer. Adjusting the foregrip on a per gun basis will prevent the foregrip from over powering some guns, and also means it doesn't need to be globally nerfed into oblivion. For example, 50% of the FAMAS's recoil is 0.3deg, while 50% of the G3A3's recoil is only 0.1deg. A global 0.1deg might work better, generally it will need to be on a per gun basis. The 20% penalty to aimed fire is about equal to a single shot fired on a Carbine.

Bipod

The Bipod is for Players who wish to setup a position and hold it against the enemy, or make long range shots effectively. When deployed recoil and dispersion are substantially reduced and scope sway is eliminated (except under suppression).
?+Reduction in horizontal and vertical recoil (% depends on gun type)
?+Reduction in dispersion (% depends on gun type/ammo type)
?-Has to be setup to get the benefit

Rationale: The Bipod is underused, has a large penalty of needing to be stationary, yet today doesn't offer enough benefits on Carbines and Assault Rifles to be worth using. A buff of the bipod for these, and perhaps even LMG weapons is likely necessary.

Suppressor

The Suppressor is for players who are mostly focused on Stealth. It uses low velocity rounds, which means better stealth at the cost of reduced range. The Suppressor adds bulk to a weapon due to its size, making firing from the hip more difficult, though a high quality Suppressor provides a small aimed accuracy bonus and reduces the muzzle rise when firing.
?+Does not appear on minimap when firing.
?+Reduces sound and visual muzzle signature
?-Reduced range for both min and max, damage stays the same.
?-50% penalty to base accuracy from the hip
?+25% bonus to base accuracy when aimed
?+10% reduced vertical recoil

Rationale: Today the Suppressor's main penalty is the slower bullet speed, the current 34% penalty to hip fire is almost ignore-able at any range you would hip fire, and with the upcoming buff to aim speed (time to accurate when aiming) the downside needs to be larger. Additionally, the damage over range is only actually applied for LMGs and ARs, removing it and replacing it with a reduced to range makes this more consistent for all weapon types and focuses it more on close range (For reference, today an AR kills with 5 rounds at 40m and drops off to 7 shots, with a suppressor this would be 25m, but beyond 25m the damage would be a flat 6 shots.) Today the Suppressor also gives a 50% bonus to aimed accuracy, which is the same as the heavy barrel, but without the additional recoil. In fact the suppressor reduces vertical recoil by 10%, an amount which is essentially negligible, but is just one more reason to use the suppressor instead of other accessories. Reducing this bonus makes sense, and allows the suppressor to offset the foregrip penalty, while not being as good as the heavy barrel. This is of course over all a nerf but hopefully a minor one to what is essentially not an overpowered, just over used/general purpose, accessory.

Heavy Barrel

The Heavy Barrel is for players who are focused on Accurate Aimed fire. It uses high velocity rounds, which means the bullet drop is reduced and the max range of the weapon is increased at the cost of an increase in auto fire dispersion. The Heavy Barrel adds bulk to a weapon due to its weight, making firing from the hip more difficult, though it gives a substantial increase in aimed accuracy bonus.
?+Increased maximum range, damage stays the same.
?-25% increased dispersion per shot
?+50% bonus to base accuracy when aimed
?-25% penalty to base accuracy from the hip

Rationale: The Heavy Barrel gets used decently often today, though I think mostly because it's available quite a bit earlier than the Suppressor for Assault Rifles and Carbines. Frankly, the penalty today to recoil, as well as a penalty to deviation, makes the aimed accuracy increase useless, especially since the Suppressor has the accuracy bonus as well. So, let's pull the recoil penalty off this baby entirely, keep the auto fire accuracy penalty to keep it focused on small bursts of accurate aimed fire, and finally, push the maximum range of the rounds out a bit. This will give the Heavy Barrel better performance in medium range by extending the 5 shots to kill window of a 556 or 545 AR from 40 to 65m. Past 65m, the damage would be the same. This is a rather large buff.

Flash Suppressor

The Flash Suppressor is for players who want some additional Stealth, without the range and accuracy penalties of a Suppressor. It works as a recoil compensator, reducing recoil, though it adds a slight bit of bulk making firing from the hip more difficult.
?+Reduces visual muzzle signature
?+20% reduced vertical recoil
?-20% penalty to base accuracy from the hip

Rationale: The Flash Suppressor is underwhelming generally. While it hides the muzzle flash it doesn't hide you on the minimap. I considered allowing it to hide on the minimap, but then it begins to just be a Suppressor without the aim bonus and range penalties. I want it to be something different. By allowing the Flash Suppressor to work as a recoil Compensator, the FS becomes a middle ground between the Suppressor and Heavy Barrel. If you're otherwise happy with the range, damage, and accuracy of your weapon, then the FS should be a nice buff to manageable recoil, without a whole lot of penalty. This is also a large buff.

Target Pointer

The Target Pointer is for players who want to run and gun from the hip. The laser is visible, making the user more visibile to other combatants and thus less Stealthy.
?-Visible Laser
?+Laser can dazzle opponents
?+33% increase in base accuracy from the hip

Rationale: The Target Pointer works well for its role, and generally feels like it doesn't need to be changed.

Bitching begins in 3, 2, 1...

cant really moan as you wont know untill you play it however i expect gary to make himself known in 3...2....1

Makes sense to me adjust the attachments but if they boost they buff it wont that make more people lie prone and camp?

It was interesting to read what the affected attachments did in the first place. Gonna have to start using them now, i.e. heavy barrel.

Cant complain with those amendments, all seems logical. Makes attachment choice more important, im all for it. No longer standard foregrip and supressor combo.

I’m not sure that the bipod will ever be widely used, it makes you a nice stationary target to have your head sniped off. The foregrip is what makes LMG’s actually usable, without it you’re just randomly shooting bullets in the general direction of your target but barely hitting with anything. We all know how it is until you get the foregrip for LMG’s.

I was going to joke about nerfing the foregrip after all the fuss around the IRNV scope and it appears that they may do just that lol. Everything that’s useful, make it worse, everything that’s crap, make it better.

The suppressor should only hide you on the mini-map, it should not do anything to the recoil. If you’ve got a good pair of headphones on you’ll be able to hear where the shooting came from anyway (I know I can hear it). Heavy barrel, I’ve never seen anyone actually use probably because everyone uses the foregrip.

Next up, make Scout Heli’s worse against infantry (after making them better in the last update), remove Thermal Vision from Tanks and buff stingers again as they’re currently next to useless.

While I understand the wish to balance there will ALWAYS be guns that are better than others. It’s also hard to tell how these changes will affect gameplay, I thought removing the IRNV scope would increase camping but that appears to not have happened so you never know. If there’s one thing I do know it’s letting gamers get what they want generally ends poorly (ahem Mad Moxy)

If forcing teamwork is the idea then make health non-regenerating and if you go below a certain % you’ll bleed out (only med-kits regenerate health), give every class less ammo (force more Supports) & make all the Engineer guns next to useless. Recon class gets the spotting scope back so they’re actually a bit more useful even if they’re not meaning to be and give more points for laser designating targets (50 for a target, 100 for every kill you assist with the target).

lol i dont know why you guys are expecting me to bitch, i bitch about the game as it is now because it has problems, i fully support every change they've made so far and fully support these changes as well.

suppressor/foregrip is the combo im now using on every single gun, thats quite ridiculous. it does need adjusting, its obvious, same reason the IR got nerfed, overuse, dominating attachment slots, even though beaker and BK werent very happy about it lol

scout helicopters seem overpowered since the buff but they are in fact very susceptible to certain things, people just dont use them enough. heavy machine gun (on tanks, on jeeps) rape the helicopter but more often than not kill the pilot outright. even LMGs and snipers consistently kill pilots. also as more people get citv and guided missiles in tanks good luck getting anywhere with a bloody scout heli, there are always MBTs on the same maps as scout helis, so IMO its always fair (well, on noshahr actually the americans dont have an MBT and have 2 little birds instead, which means the russians are advantaged if the russian heli spawn rapes the little birds, but thats a different issue, the russian heli shouldnt be allowed over there IMO). soflam/javelin also works well, although if im fast enough i can usually destroy the soflam, but its hard to be that fast.

stingers i hope stay the way they are, useless. i cant see a way of making them useful thats fair, i hate how one man army the engineers are, lone wolfing is too easy, locking on with a damn auto aim stinger takes no skill at all, giving them a one hit kill is ridiculous. with soflam/javelin the are forced to communicate and work with a teammate, thats perfect. maybe actually, keep the stinger damage the same but let them do more damage if laser designated, and let them hit ground vehicles if laser designated. basically make them like javelins but with air and ground reversed.

i dont particularly think thermal on tanks is a problem, i certainly dont find it that useful when im in a tank, its range is shit and i really dont think it lets you see anyone you wouldnt see anyway. if it was on the gunner it would probably be more of a problem i think.

Originally Posted by BlackKnight616

Everything that’s useful, make it worse, everything that’s crap, make it better.

It's like the Circle of Life - but with guns. And whinging gamers. Pffft. Good becomes bad, bad becomes good! Oh noes! A balance issue! Better nerf the bad>good kits so they're bad again. They should just have a constantly randomising program running that changes stats without warning once a week, make it go crazy once a month so Stingers suddenly fire 30 missiles per shot and you'll never have complaints of balance again.

Originally Posted by BlackKnight616

Heavy barrel, I’ve never seen anyone actually use probably because everyone uses the foregrip.

I'm assuming you do know how a gun works in that bullets come out of the barrel and not the foregrip - Heavy Barrel swaps with Sound Suppressor/Flash Suppressor whilst Foregrip swaps Laser/Light/Pro Pipe Mount. Silly BK! Unless I got all that wrong, but I do know the foregrip AND heavy barrel are both equipped on my L85. I like my guns to roar like Tony the Tiger beating a monk to death, not the sissy suppressed cough like Tiny Tim's death rattle. Literary reference! +150 XP gained. Level up to Cunning Linguist.

I know, I can’t believe they did something I didn’t like, don’t they know who I am?!

What they could do is make every map a circle so there are no corners to hide in, remove all the cover to stop camping and give everyone the same gun just to make it fair. Then we have a perfectly balanced game where it’s a level playing field for all. Also remove crouch and prone as they encourage cheap tactics.

Stingers I agree with the air-ground reversal to be like with Javelins. I always run thermal on tanks and have noticed my performance in them improve markedly since I started using it (although that could also be down to the more experience than anything).

Also quite possibly Sam, I could be getting confused with the underslung rail (similar pictures in the load-out screen will be my excuse and I’m sticking to it).

Ultimately crap players bitch about getting killed by “insert gun name here” a lot so it gets nerfed but the reality of the situation is that they’d be getting killed a lot by anything because they’re incompetent, not that the gun is any better than what they’re using.

Originally Posted by BlackKnight616

Ultimately crap players bitch about getting killed by “insert gun name here” a lot so it gets nerfed but the reality of the situation is that they’d be getting killed a lot by anything because they’re incompetent, not that the gun is any better than what they’re using.

this is the arguement i see all the time on the forums, and while its true in a lot of cases (look on the battlelog forums, you can see people bitch about nearly every gun) it certainly isnt universally true.

Im not saying im some amazing player, far from it, but i have now service starred (100 kills with) every assault rifle, every carbine and almost every LMG (as well as bolt action snipers and a few shottys/PDWs). i can tell, by comparison to other guns, which guns are easy to kill with and overpowered as fuck, as well as ones that are criminally underpowered (AN94, im looking at you. also, Mp7, you are the only gun thats defeated me, you are so shit i refuse to even try again).

my personal playstyle may have some affect on what i consider good or not, thats true, but it so happens what i have generally concluded agrees with what most people will say, the famas is a joke, the AEK/F2000 are slightly worse than the famas but still easier to use than most assault rifles, the A91 is a fucking joke as well. M249 id say is better than the other LMGs as well but not so good that the others cannot compete. basically: fast rate of fire= win (unless you are the MP7 apparently). while id have been be all for nerfing these weapons, it seems DICE have figured out that its the attachments that are the issue, the foregrip/suppressor combo reduces recoil so much that the fast rate of fire guns (whose only weakness is recoil) become ridiculous. whereas there isnt attachments that significantly buff slow ROF, accurate guns. this update should change that