DICE are deepening the level of customisation you’ll have over vehicles in Battlefield 4. Passengers in assault boats will have a range of guns to fire at the shore and you’ll be able to cover your vehicles in all sorts of camouflage.
They’ve also changed up how damage works. You’ll be able to take out vehicles temporarily with direct hits.
“In Battlefield 3 there were three vehicle customization slots; Secondary Weapons, Gadgets and Upgrades,” writes DICE’s SlyOkapi. “In Battlefield 4 we’ve added customization options for the primary weapon slot, and split gadgets up into two new slots, Optics and Countermeasures. Unlocks for Optics and Countermeasures shared the same customization slot in Battlefield 3, which wasn’t optimal when it came to tanks. When you had to choose between optics modes and a protective countermeasure, the countermeasure is sort of a no-brainer, which takes player’s control out of that choice. So adding dedicated countermeasure and optic slots removes that problem and adds more customization options. Now tanks have more countermeasure options and they can be used at the same time as any optics unlock.”
A new system, too, is the critical hit mechanic. Any serious hit to a vehicle and now result in them being momentarily disabled. The vehicle can recover after a few seconds but that may already be too late if you’re flying a helicopter.
“The critical hit damage threshold is carefully tweaked alongside the damage zones and glancing-hit scaling on each vehicle, in a way that promotes playing smart as both a vehicle operator, and in an anti-vehicle role. This new concept of temporary critical hits means that we keep the sense of impending danger that a damaged vehicle brings – while still allowing for brave drivers to regain control and keep fighting.”
Angles of shots are getting greater precedence in previous games. That means that to score the most damage on a vehicle you’ll be wanting to make direct hits. Anything less can cause only glancing damage.
There’s a load more in the blog post so do head over and have a look.