Huge Star Wars Battlefront Patch Adds New Offline Mode and All of These Changes

A new patch for Star Wars Battlefront arrived today, adding the offline Skirmish mode and making a number of changes to the shooter's UI, maps, modes, weapons, heroes, and more.

As announced previously, Skirmish lets you play the Walker Assault or Fighter Squadron modes against bots by yourself or with a friend online. You can also play split-screen, but only on console. GameSpot tried Skirmish recently and you can see what we thought in the video above.

Today's Battlefront patch also tweaks the partner system so that spawning checks happen at a one-second interval instead of two. "This should make it less likely that players will be able to partner spawn when being close to an enemy before a fire fight has started," DICE said in the official patch notes.

Additionally, spawning on your partner is now disabled if an enemy is within 10 meters; previously this was 2 meters. In terms of scoring changes, no longer will it be possible to gain trait rank when earning a kill assist. Now, kill assists will only yield score.

This update also fixes a problem where Rebel items could be used on the new Bespin maps even if players hadn't purchased them.

Other notable changes include the time between rounds increased from 60 seconds to 90 seconds, while if you stay close to objectives your star cards will refresh faster.

The Battlefront update also makes a number of weapon balance changes, including DT-12 fire rate rising from 220 to 250, while the DLT-44's fire rate is boosted from 180 to 210.

In terms of hero/villain changes, Vader can now deflect Han Solo's Lucky Shot or Leia's Trooper Bane, but he will become stunned for a period. Additionally, when using Luke or Vader, enemies will now always die from lightsaber attacks, even if they're using the Bacta Bomb star card.

Also, Boba Fett has been changed so that his flamethrower ability can be canceled; you can do this by pressing the activation button again. What's more, his flamethrower damage distance has been boosted from 3.5 meters to 4.75 meters.

The complete July 21 Battlefront patch notes are below. The download is 12 GB on Xbox One (which is twice the size of the complete No Man's Sky game) and is likely similar in size on PlayStation 4 and PC.

General:

• Skirmish: A new mode, Skirmish, is now available for all players.
  Play Walker Assault or Fighter Squadron against AI bots together with a friend in online co-op, split screen (console only), or singleplayer.
• Partner: Increased the spawning checks made on partner from 2 seconds to 1 second in order to more accurately determine if you are able to spawn or not. This should make it less likely that players will be able to partner spawn when being close to an enemy before a fire fight has started.
• Partner: Spawning is disabled on partners if an enemy is within 10 meters, changed from 2 meters.
• Cloud Car: Resolved a bug in which the blaster VFX incorrectly fired while playing in first person in the cloud car.
• Scoring: Changed the kill assist event to not trigger a kill and count towards your next trait rank. Now a kill assist will only give score.
• Team balance: Resolved a bug in which a team could be split and no auto partner assigned if the server had a low player count.
• Appearances: Resolved the bug that made all Rebel items usable on the Bespin maps without purchasing them.

Maps & Game Modes:

• Pre-round: Changed the pre-round timer from 60 to 90 seconds
• Administrator's Palace: Resolved a bug in which Boba Fett could reach an invisible collision box located very high up on the level.
• Cloud City: Resolved an issue with a misplaced out of bounds area.
• Cloud City: Resolved an issue in which the capture area for an objective in Turning Point was cut off by out of bounds.
• Cloud City: Resolved various instances in which the players could fall through the map and not die.
• Heroes Vs Villains: Round ends after three rounds on the Outer Rim levels.
• Cloud City & Turning Point: Moved back the Imperial spawn locations from the last set of capture points.
• Cloud City & Walker Assault: Reduced amount of turrets & droid power-ups for the Empire.
• Cloud City & Walker Assault: Increased the time for AT-AT Pickups to spawn from 30 to 100 seconds.
• Cloud City & Walker Assault: Changed the AT-ST token respawn time from 34 to 60 seconds.
• Cloud City & Supremacy: Increased the size on the final Rebel objective and moved it slightly.
• Cloud City & Supremacy: Resolved a bug in which the hero spawn was outside of the combat area, resulting in the player dying when spawning in.
• Supremacy: Changed the default respawn time for AT-ST tokens from 34 to 60 seconds.
• Bioniip Laboratories: Resolve a bug which limited the usage of orbital strike to a few select areas. Now it should be usable a lot more on the open areas on the map.
• Bespin: Updated various locations where objects weren't correctly placed next to each other creating breaks on the maps.
• Twilight on Hoth: Resolved an issue with a DF-9 being partially hidden underground which resulted in players falling through the level when they tried to exit the turret.
• Hero Hunt: Resolved a bug in which players wouldn’t correctly spawn as a hero and would remain a soldier, making it so no one could be killed and no new hero spawned.
• Hero Hunt: Resolved an issue in which 20hp was only granted from health pick-ups and not 50hp.
• General: Resolved a bug in which players could get stuck in the lobby if the teams were unbalanced and the pre-round timer had started.
• General: Staying in close vicinity of any game mode objective will decrease the cooldown of your star cards.

UI:

• Spectator: Resolved a bug in spectator mode which caused the charge icon to get stuck in an enlarged state when observing a player in private matches.

• Spectator: The switch team button has been removed from the spectators view.
• Private Matches: Players are now unable to switch teams after they have become a hero in hero hunt or heroes vs villains.
• Heroes Vs Villains: Resolved a bug that would make the UI disappear in the lobby for players on the same team as a player who left the server.
• Charge: Resolved an issue which caused the charge icon above an enemy to cover the health bar if active at the same time as a level 3 trait was reached.
• End of Round: Resolved issues which caused text overlapping to occur for stats in some game modes and for certain languages.
• Partner: We now correctly show the yellow partner color instead of green when playing as a hero or inside a vehicle.
• Texts: Added the trait descriptions for Lando Calrissian, Dengar, Nien Nunb
• Text: Resolved various spelling issues, spacing, missing commas etc.

Weapon & Star Cards:

• Shock Grenade: Slight decrease to bounce speed multiplier and increase to explosion delay to prevent grenade from detonating in air after bounce.
• RelbyV10: Changed weapon sway from 0.8 to 0.5 and the amount it’s increased by from 0.2 to 0.1. Recoil per shot has changed from 0.3 to 0.1.
• X-8 Night Sniper: Changed weapon sway from 0.35 to 0.2, increased start damage from 32 to 40, and changed end damage from 20 to 25.
• DT-12: Increased the fire rate from 220 to 250.
• DLT-44: Increased rate of fire from 180 to 210 and increased end damage from 13 to 19.
• EE-4: Changed the dispersion angle from 1.5 to 1.75, reduced the end damage from 10 to 9, and changed the damage falloff range from 20 to 10 meters.
• Cloud Car: Lowered damage multiplier against Cloud Cars with blasters and Ion Neutralizer
• Disruption: Changed the penalty time from 2 to 1 second.
• Disruption: Increased the cooldown for standard from 18 to 23 seconds and upgraded from 16 to 20 seconds.
• Scout Binoculars: Fixed issue where binoculars wouldn’t spot soldiers in Missions
• Scout Binoculars: Fixed issue where the binoculars wouldn’t spot enemy soldiers when looking up and down

Heroes:

• Lando: Enemies failing the Shocking Trap mini-game will die instantly.
• Lando: Increased the damage dealt to heroes in Shocking Trap from 90 to 100.
• Lando: The Power Blast ability can be cancelled by pressing the activation button again.
• Lando: Power Blast has a slight homing effect when fired towards an enemy.
• Lando: Power Blasts active time has been changed from 7.5 to 5.5 seconds.
• Lando: Power Blasts recharge time has been changed from 17 to 16 seconds.
• Lando: Increased the multiplier chances, RISKTAKER: 2% to 5%, GAMBLER 5% to 10%, HIGH ROLLER 10% to 20%, ****’S ARRAY 25% to 50%.
• Lando X8: Increased the start damage from 50 to 63 and the end damage from 30 to 35.
• Lando X8: Increased the start damage fall distance from 25 to 40 meters and end damage fall distance from 50 to 70 meters.
• Dengar: Updated the explosive rush ability to now throw only 3 grenades.
• Dengar: If an enemy soldier is hit by a grenade and standing still, he will no longer be immobilized.
• Dengar: The Hurricane Strike ability will no longer instantly kill Luke.
• Dengar: Regular enemies that are under the effect of the Bacta Bomb will instantly die from the Hurricane Strike ability.
• Dengar Trait: Increased the traits multiplier, RESILIENT 10% to 15%, BATTLE-HARDENED 25% to 40%, UNSHAKABLE 50% to 60%.
• Dengar: Increased health from 1000 to 1075.
• Dengar: Increased close damage from 19 to 21 and far damage from 16 to 17.
• Vader: Can now deflect Lucky Shot and Trooper Bane, but will still be stunned.
• Luke/Vader: Enemy soldiers will now always die from lightsaber swings even when under the Bacta Bomb effect.
• Boba Fett: Resolved an issue in which the flamethrower would not affect elevated players correctly.
• Boba Fett: The flamethrower ability can be canceled by pressing the activation button again.
• Boba Fett: Flamethrower outer damage distance has been increased from 3.5 to 4.75 meters and the outer damage angle from 25 to 28 degrees.
• Boba Fett: Flamethrower inner damage distance has been increased from 2.5 to 3.5 meters and inner angle from 17 to 22 degrees.
• Han Solo: Increased close damage reduction distance from 10 to 25m and increased far damage reduction distance from 25 to 35m.
• Leia: Increased close damage reduction distance from 10 to 25m.
• All Heroes: The Disrupted duration for abilities is now the same as regular soldiers.
• All Heroes: Disruption immunity has been added and will be active for 5 seconds after a Disruption ability hits them.