The Battlefield 6 beta felt like a throwback to an older era of Battlefield in all sorts of ways, but one of the big ones was its generous spotting mechanic: Slap that Q button in the general direction of a bad guy and their head got tagged with a scarlet "Dorito," making them visible and vulnerable to the entire team.
The 3D spot is a staple of Battlefield that Battlefield Studios has no plans of abandoning again, but it agrees with players who thought spotting, and especially the Recon's auto-spotting ability, was way too powerful in the open beta. In a recent interview with IGN, console combat designer Matthew Nickerson said changes are coming in the final game.
"We definitely reduced the range and overall reduced the power," Nickerson said. "We found out a lot in open beta that it was obviously very strong, just like players said. Really, players ended up just shooting Doritos. Light environments, dark environments—they were just like, ‘Hey, aim at the Dorito. You're going to hit something at the end of the day.’"
I wish that were hyperbole, but I'd guesstimate that a fourth of my kills in the open beta were enemies I never actually saw. It could hardly be helped: Those red diamonds shone clear as day through all the dust and smoke that filled the streets of Siege of Cairo, and if you didn't take advantage of the intel, they surely would.
The planned changes will reduce the range and duration of pings, presumably meaning that you can't just spam Q at a small black speck on a hill and conjure a Dorito. That said, I assume you can still mark locations with a non-tracking ping from a great distance, which theoretically accomplishes the same thing, but only your squad can see it.
"Again, we want the information. It's important to ping players," Nickerson added, "but it's got to be an active part of Battlefield. It can't just be a fire-and-forget sweep across the whole thing [and] everyone's lit up. That was very apparent in open beta, so we've made some considerable changes to the system."
You can read the IGN's full interview with Nickerson and technical director Christian Buhl for more insights ahead of the Battlefield 6 launch, including the team's reaction to leaks and updated stance on cosmetics.
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