DICE will implement a “fairly massive” list of Battlefield 4 fixes today. You can tell the 1.16GB update’s a biggie because it has a name rather than a number: the Fall Patch will address many of the issues that’ve most irked players in recent months, including problems with the HUD, ‘netcode’, player movement and peering through reticules.
Feedback from Battlefield 4’s community test environment has inspired most of the changes – and you can tell.
After a couple of years of unpopular tweaks, player movement is now almost identical to that seen in Battlefield 3 – bar the sequel’s animation sets. The HUD has been de-cluttered and made customisable to a much greater degree.
“Make BF4 look the way you want it to,” suggest DICE. “Within reason.”
The dev team have stripped out the “visual recoil” prompted by firing down the reticule of a close or medium range weapon. Clarity seems to be the aim, if you’ll excuse the pun – revive mechanics, too, will be “easier to understand” thanks to new UI art and a ‘fully-charged’ paddle noise.
The common complaint with netcode is that damage is recorded a little while after a shot hits a target, resulting in behind cover kills when high pings are involved. To combat that, DICE have increased the number of times the game updates per second by default.
Elsewhere there’s a new sub-game mode – Obliteration Competitive – and a rash of weapon attachment changes.
See anything here that’ll bring you back to the most troubled Battlefield game in the history of the series?