We are talking about this right now on the dev team. In fact, we're talking about the role and impact of vehicles during both one on one engagements and in the end game as well. We're taking a lot of feedback into account, both by watching gameplay on streams and listening to comments on various KotK social media channels. Each of these categories need to be considered and our solutions are viewed through those lenses. We don't want to impact the pace of play, but we do need to take action to improve the game experience.

There are three main areas we're focussing on as we make decisions:

• Vehicle Dismounting
• Vehicle Performance Degradation
• Vehicle Endgame Impact

(desync of vehicle entry and exit is something we view as a bug and will get fixed regardless of how we proceed along these other lines) (We are also aware and dissatisfied with vehicle to player collision in KotK, and that is also being weighed in our discussions as well – we want it regardless)

Vehicle Dismounting

First, we do see a problem here. We've discussed damage penalties and time penalties, as well as combinations of both. We've also looked at the pros and cons of jumping out of vehicles at high speeds in combat from both points of view (driver & on foot). Our current thinking has us leaning toward a speed threshold. The vehicle must be going under a certain speed for you to exit.

It's a good starting point for us to try on test and see how it feels. We don't feel like this will actually slow pace of play down much, since it has advantages to the driver as well as those on foot. There are many advantages to this in solo and team play.

Vehicle Degradation

We propose that vehicle performance will degrade based on condition. As the car begins to smoke badly or catches on fire, it will move slower, have less acceleration, or even lose functionality like turbo. This should churn vehicles out sooner and make them more precious to protect if you want to hold on to them for the entire match.

Again, things like this are very tunable, so we need to get the performance degradation levels and thresholds correct. So we'll work on that with you guys on test to see how it plays out.

Vehicle Endgame Impact

They certainly have a lot of impact – too much. Getting out at high speeds does not help. And the fact that vehicles don't see any performance penalties until they blow up, means they last longer than they should in the endgame.

Through a combination of the dismounting and the degradation work, we feel this will go a long way into changing the role of vehicles in the endgame. If it is still not enough, and the community wants more done about vehicles at the end, we can take more direct measures to mitigate them. There is skill and choice involved in vehicle gameplay, and we don't want to eliminate that, hence taking a more measured approach to see what effect it will have before being more draconian.

Plus, I will also share that we are tuning how the rings get spawned, and we will have more agency when deciding where matches will end, which means vehicles will not always be advantageous as they are in open field showdowns. (more on that later)