Although the most recent Battlefield 4 update went live this week, DICE LA is already hard at work on the next update, planned for release in September 2014.
Using the Battlefield 4 Community Test Environment to gather feedback from fans, Battlefield 4 Live Producer David Sirland explained all the major fixes that the next update will feature, including changes to soldier movement, Netcode improvements, and more:
Game Mode Improvements
- General improvements and tweaks have been made to the following game modes: Rush, Obliteration, Obliteration Competitive, Capture the Flag and Carrier Assault.
Visual Recoil
- Close and medium range optic reticules do not move with the gun any longer, however both bullet spread and bullet drop are still present.
Soldier Movement
- Changes have been made to soldier movement so that it closely matches the one in Battlefield 3, but without compromising the visual fidelity. This change also makes it easier to get away from undesirable firefights.
- Additionally, we’ve dampened third person hit reactions where the soldier previously moved his head around a lot when getting shot at.
HUD Triage
- Focusing on clarity, and de-cluttering the HUD/UI to only show what is important – we have added several options and functionality to make your screen much less cluttered (and give you a lot of choice in making it the way you want).
Revive Mechanic Improvements
- A special effort went into making revives easier to use, more robust and easier to understand. Additions include a “fully charged” paddle sound, UI indication on revive time and better networked ragdolls.
“Netcode” Improvements
- Making ping differences, trade kills and kills behind cover less of an issue by lowering the time allowed to damage on the client side.
- Automatic High Frequency Update setting enforced with the intent of release to all platforms, including Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Improvements to bullet damage times from client to client, “dusting” and de-syncs.
Vehicle Balance
- Identifying and tweaking the top vehicles in need of buffs and nerfs.
Weapon Balance
- We’ve focused on maintaining a consistent Time To Kill (how long an average engagement lasts for). With the changes to visual recoil, the third person hit reactions and improved “tickrates” has been sped up somewhat as we still need to balance this with damage and recoil changes.
- Suppression systems has also been re-tuned and made clearer.
If you want to take part in CTE and play early content and test new features, all you need to do is have Battlefield 4 Premium and sign up over here.
When the new update is released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, we’ll let you know.
[Source: Battlelog]
