During a roundtable interview, Thad Sasser, Visceral Games’ Lead Multiplayer Designer for Battlefield Hardline, discussed battle speed, map size, and damage feedback, addressing various concerns fans had with each subject.
According to PSU, Sasser mentioned that “Hardline is going to give you a different experience, a faster-paced experience” than Battlefield 4 does, which he hopes will give players a reason to play Hardline instead of its predecessor. While he admitted that some players may not be used to the speed, or may not like it at all, it will hopefully establish the upcoming shooter as its “own distinct game.”
Sasser also explained that the use of smaller maps will also help the battles move faster in Hardline. Not only do the maps help speed things up, but they also correspond better to the cops and robbers theme, he noted.
We still have the classic Battlefield scope of huge maps down to tiny maps, but we’ve shifted the focus on many of these maps to a shorter engagement range, like a 20-30 metre range as opposed to the 100-200 metre range which you quite often get the larger outdoor maps of Battlefield 4. We’ve intentionally shifted the focus so it’s a little bit more personal and moved away from the military realm into the cops and robbers realm.
While the difference in speed was a valid concern for many Battlefield veterans, Sasser also touched upon another concern that players of the recent beta had — a lack of damage feedback. Sasser explained that the biggest issue for him is to address the “damage feedback for both players on foot and in vehicles” before the shooter releases on March 17.
There’s sometimes a lack of notification when you take damage and you don’t know that you’re wounded. This is something we really want to address. I think it’s particularly a problem in vehicles where you could be down to 27% health but not even realise it and then you feel like you get one-shotted. If you could rewind it and watch it, you could see that you’re actually really damaged, you just didn’t know. So this is one of the big things that we’re really focused on, improving that feedback loop between the player’s hearth state and the damage he’s’ taken.
Overall, it appears as if the Battlefield Hardline team is going to take a lot of fan feedback into consideration, which is great for those of us who may have had some complaints with the beta. What do you think of Sasser’s comments? Do you like the faster-paced combat in Hardline?
