UPDATE NOVEMBER 24: Battlefield 2042’s second post-launch patch arriving on Thursday, November 25, also addresses bullet spread.
Battlefield 2042’s dreaded hovercrafts and Nightbird helicopters are getting nerfed later this week, when the title’s second post-launch update goes live.
That’s also when a fix for a rather annoying revive bug that stops players from reviving teammates, especially if their bodies are close to or connect with the level’s geometry, will be deployed.
Battlefield 2042’s second post-launch update also seeks to address a rarer bug that rendered players unable to respawn, forcing them to quit the match.
Battlefield 2042 Revive and Hovercraft Patch Fix
“The LCAA Hovercraft will be re-equipped with lighter armor, lowering its health, and we’re tuning down some of its weaponry,” reads a tweet from the publisher. “The MD540 Nightbird will have similar tuning done on its weaponry too.”
It’s unclear whether or not this update will also render Battlefield 2042’s hovercrafts unable to defy gravity and scale skyscrapers.
The game’s second post-launch update also aims to re-enable the UAV-1 on Bad Company 2 maps and address an issue that resulted in missing loadouts.
Battlefield 2042’s second post-launch update is currently slated to go live on Thursday, November 25 and will also introduce a series of changes to address complaints surrounding bullet spread or bloom, as it’s often referred to.
“We have observed that on many weapons, predominantly on Assault Rifles like the AK-24, the spread tends to be too high, especially when moving while zoomed which causes problematic engagements in the average combat distances of our maps,” publisher Electronic Arts wrote on its website.
“Weapons miss more often than they really should which makes for an unsatisfying experience and can feel unfair when you have done all you could to nicely align your shots. We have made a series of adjustments to many of the weapons that aim to greatly reduce the impact of spread on the shooting experience.”
Battlefield 2042’s Update 2 will reduce spread across the board when players are moving while zoomed in, improve the accuracy of several weapons when stationary and zoomed in, and make spread decrease faster and sooner when pacing shots, increasing the effectiveness of weapons when used in single fire mode or fired in short bursts.
The PP-29 submachinegun will also have its vertical recoil increased, to make it less effective at long range. In addition, Update 2 should also fix a bug that stopped players from spawning with their desired loadouts. Here are the full Battlefield 2042 Update 2 patch notes:
Battlefield 2042 Update 0.2.2 Patch Notes</h2>
Fixes, Changes, and Improvements
- Bullet spread has been reduced on all weapons except Shotguns. This should result in better accuracy during gameplay
- Increased PP-29 vertical recoil to ensure that the weapon does not overperform when engaging outside of its intended combat range
- Resolved an issue where players who were killed close to obstacles such as walls or water were unable to be revived
- Resolved instances where players were stuck in a downed state and unable to respawn. We’ve also introduced a hidden timer that will activate after 30 seconds of being in a downed state that will force a redeploy should it be required
- MD540 Nightbird Mounted 20mm Cannons - we are reducing the radius at which bullets do damage upon impact, and decreasing their splash damage
- Reduced Blast Radius size from 3 to 2
- Reduced Inner Blast Radius damage from 1.5 to 0.75
- KA-520 Super Hokum - 30mm Cannon (side mount) - we are reducing overall damage and range at which bullets do full damage, while increasing the overall bullet spread
- Reduced Blast Radius from 2 to 1.6
- Reduced Blast Damage from 20 to 14
- Reduced bullet damage before Damage Fall Off starts 18 to 15
- Reduced Damage Fall Off distance from 200 to 180
- Reduced bullet damage at max Fall Off distance from 8 to 6
- Increased bullet range and spread
- AH-64GX Apache Warchief and KA-520 Super Hokum - 30mm Cannon - we are reducing the radius at which bullets do damage upon impact, and decreasing their splash damage
- Reduced Blast Damage from 20 to 18
- Increased the Damage Fall Off for enemies that are further away from the bullet impact center
- We reduced the overall damage of the Minigun for all Land Vehicles, alongside bullet damage drop off now starting earlier
- Reduced bullet damage before Damage Fall Off starts from 18 to 13
- Reduced Damage Fall Off distance from 60 to 40
- Reduced bullet damage at max Fall Off distance to 6
- Equipped armor type for the LCAA Hovercraft has been adjusted which increases it’s vulnerability against different weapon types
- Battlefield Portal - UAV-1
- The UAV-1 has been re-enabled within Battlefield Portal
- Greatly reduced health regeneration delay and speed
- Increased missile damage against vehicles and infantry
- The drone is now able to roadkill enemies
- Breakthrough matches will now correctly end after the last sector has been captured
- Resolved an issue that caused players queued for a match in Battlefield Portal to be sent back to the menu, instead of joining the match when a slot became available
- Made general improvements to stability to prevent rare occurrences of game crashing
Publisher Electronic Arts previously confirmed that "a larger and more substantial update" is also scheduled to release before the end of 2021. It then revealed that a fourth update was also in development and planned to go live before the holidays.
The first-person shooter launched to Mostly Negative reviews on Steam, players expressing disappointment towards missing features, the game's performance, and certain design decisions like Specialists replacing traditional classes.
Specialists didn't really do much for me outside of Hazard Zone and the performance was consistently unstable when I reviewed Battlefield 2042, but the game does come with its share of fun, especially if you're exploring its Portal mode.
Battlefield 2042 is out now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, and PS4.
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