GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Massive Battlefield 4 "Fall Patch" Coming This Month

Next patch will improve "netcode" and begin rolling out DICE's Teamplay Initiative.

122 Comments
No Caption Provided

Developer DICE has announced that the Fall Patch for Battlefield 4 is going through certification on several platforms and is targeted for release at the end of September.

DICE said that the final fix list for the Fall Patch is "fairly massive" and will be released when the patch goes live. However, it did highlight some changes that you can expect.

Among these is an improved "netcode," which should lower the setting for how much time difference is allowed when damaging players, meaning you'll notice less instances when you're hit while you thought you made it behind cover, or trade kills.

The Fall Update will also begin rolling out the Teamplay Initiative, which tweaks several things about the game to encourage players to go after objectives and not just their kill counts.

Here's the full list of highlights from the patch that DICE has released:

Game modes

  • Rush (All base game maps except Dawnbreaker), Obliteration, Capture the Flag, and Carrier Assault. Added the Obliteration Competitive sub-game mode

Sight Improvements

  • Close & Medium range sight reticles no longer affected by weapon firing animation, AKA “Visual Recoil”
  • Improved visibility for red glowing reticule pieces against bright backgrounds

Player Movement

  • Now almost identical to BF3 movement – with BF4 animation sets
  • Dampened third person hit reactions for player head

HUD clarification pass

  • De-cluttered and made customizable a plethora of HUD options to make BF4 look the way you want it to (within reason)

Revive mechanic

  • Made revives much more robust, easier to understand with new UI art and included a new “fully charged” paddle sound.

“Netcode”

  • Lowering the setting for how much time difference is allowed when damaging other players (addressing trade kills and behind cover kills where high pings are involved)
  • An automatic High Frequency Update setting is now the default for all users
  • Added High Frequency update support to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms
  • Additional improvements to bullet damage delays between clients compared to Netcode Patch

Weapon attachment changes

  • Muzzle Brake: Reduced the overall impact of this attachment. Both its positives and negatives have been reduced
  • Heavy Barrel: Lowered the buff it gave to minimum moving spread and moved some of that bonus into reduced spread increase. Should be a good option for longer range tap firing
  • Lasers: Small buff to standing hip-fire accuracy

Weapon changes. Note that this list contains an excerpt – the upcoming patch notes will have a detailed list.

  • Bullet velocity increases: Improved bullet velocity for Slugs and nearly all suppressed weapons. Selectively improved base velocity for weapons that were too slow for their intended range
  • Damage Model: Many weapons have had their maximum and minimum damage adjusted slightly. It may take 1 extra bullet to kill at extremely close engagements and long range combat
  • Trigger Delay: Removed from all revolvers
  • Adjustments to slower rate of fire weapons to make them easier to use at longer ranges vs higher ROF weapons
  • Carbines and PDWs now have unique bullpup modifiers that give improved bonuses over the rifle counterpart
  • Ammo: Gave more ammo to the weapons that were short a mag compared to their counterparts
  • DMRs: Audio when being shot at by a DMR has been improved
  • SKS and M39EMR no longer allow you to hold breath
  • Grenade capacity lowered and resupply times increased.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 122 comments about this story