Battlefield 4's Free Fall Update Released - Has 30 Pages of Changes

[Steven Bogos]

Battlefield 4's Free Fall Update Released - Has 30 Pages of Changes

The highlight of the Battlefield 4 fall update is the new, "community map" - Operation Outbreak.

30 pages of patch notes [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/battlefield%204] to know what's new. In another shocking move away from the status quo, the update is completely free to all Battlefield 4 players - regardless of whether you own Battlefield Premium or not!

The highlight of the update is the new "community map" - Operation Outbreak - which was designed by the Battlefield 4 team with the help and influence of the Battlefield community. You can check out the awesome cinematic trailer for the map above.

"Our initial goals for this map were to have an infantry focused, terrain based, medium sized map (like Zavod 311) featuring all out destruction but sporting no massive set-piece event, and it was to be a pleasant place to play for longer periods," explained DICE.

"With this as a starting point, we asked the community through polls and our channels what direction we should take, and everything from the theme (Jungle won the first vote), the name (Operation Outbreak) and points of interest (Waterfall, Temple, among few) were picked by and influenced by the active community."

The vast majority of the balance changes focus on vehicles, with infantry changes made to compliment those balances. There are also quite a few netcode improvements, as well as some "quality of life" style changes - such as encouraging more objective-based play by promoting players to squad leader if they request an order, and are not given one by their current leader within 30 seconds.

It's a big patch and I'm honestly surprised to see DICE putting this much effort into the game so long (comparatively) after it's release. It gives me hope for Battlefront...

Source: Electronic Arts [https://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/dice-commerce/battlefield4/assets/patch_notes/Patchnotes_FallPatch_EN.pdf].

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[Paragon Fury]

Well, that is one hell of a patch.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Man, Hardline flopped THAT hard, huh?

I mean, when you update the game previous instead of its sequel...

 

[Loonyyy]

That trailer is several orders of magnitude more fun than the actual game.

Hell, it reminded me of BC2 more than BF4.

 

[NLS]

Man, Hardline flopped THAT hard, huh?

I mean, when you update the game previous instead of its sequel...

Different developers. Hardline was mainly developed by Visceral Games.

 

[Voxoid]

After all the other troubles we've had with the game, I'm more worried that these will turn out to be 30 pages of newly introduced bugs rather than anything else. Ah well, only time will tell.

 

[Cowabungaa]

That trailer is several orders of magnitude more fun than the actual game.

Hell, it reminded me of BC2 more than BF4.

Yeah in BC2 I actually had moments that were as epic as in the trailer. Those combined helicopter assaults (in a level looking like the one in the trailer, actually), those machinegun sprees, etc. In the later Battlefields? Not so much. Somehow BC2 felt a lot more epic. Funny considering it's quite a bit smaller in scale.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Man, Hardline flopped THAT hard, huh?

I mean, when you update the game previous instead of its sequel...

Different developers. Hardline was mainly developed by Visceral Games.

Still, I'd imagine that EA had to sign off on something at the end of the day.
I'm just wondering how exactly they got the time to do this with them making Battlefront.

 

[fix-the-spade]

It's a big patch and I'm honestly surprised to see DICE putting this much effort into the game so long (comparatively) after it's release. It gives me hope for Battlefront...

I get the impression that DICE and EA are locked in a permanent battle over the treatment of their games long term.

Historically they've always supported Battlefield games for a long time after launch, BF3 and BC2 kept getting updates for two years, Battlefield 2 kept getting updates for five(!) years after launch. BF4 will soon be at two years of updates.

EA on the other hand always wants them to push the next release out of the door. They forced a twelve month DLC program on Battlefield 4 so it was 'complete' by the release of Hardline. Hardline's commercial failure seems to have let DICE push the focus back onto BF4, which is nice after BF4's release and Hardline in general hammered consumer trust.

Maybe EA will get the message about Battlefield (and now Battlefront) not being an annual series one day, maybe.

 

[Loonyyy]

Yeah in BC2 I actually had moments that were as epic as in the trailer. Those combined helicopter assaults (in a level looking like the one in the trailer, actually), those machinegun sprees, etc. In the later Battlefields? Not so much. Somehow BC2 felt a lot more epic. Funny considering it's quite a bit smaller in scale.

Oh man, the transport helicopters in BC2 were so cool. I loved that game, I loved how on that one with the Island start on Rush, the transports would circle, and a competent pilot could keep it going as long as they liked, so one of the gunners would have a blast machine gunning things, and the helicopter was tough enough to just stay up as a mobile spawn.

And the sniping rocked, Mortars rocked (And you'd think they'd be broken as hell), Rush was amazing. The ping-correction was dodgy as hell, giving poor rego, but you could manually set it and fix it, once I did that, I never had any of the rego problems I have with BFs 3 and 4, where people feel like they're holograms that you're sort of glitching through, and take a minute to die after you shoot them.

In BF4, not once have I felt the vehicles worked right, they're either too powerful, or too squishy, and the transport helos are just worthless, since AA means you need to stay high and come down low, and there's never a good opportunity for the gunners on them.

I think being smaller, BC2 had the room for being epic, it had people clumped together, holding on by the skin of their teeth, being a medic was incredible in that game, being an assaulter, supplying people with ammo, actually meant something. I still remember that Rush map with the jungle start, I think it was veracuz or something, had a Lighthouse, I brought down my mortars (As you would on the two sheds at the start), and it actually clipped the helicopter and brought it down.

The only way you get that in BF now is clusterfucks like Metro and Locker, and it's not for a good reason.

Now I know what I'm going to get on when my exams end.

 

[Strazdas]

but did they fix the Stealthy bouncy vehicles [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INfKcA-ck9E] in this update? i mean sure its great fun but it makes them pretty much immortal.