Battlefield Patch 1.3

[SAS]

The latest Battlefield patch has been unleashed, weighing in at 438.21 MB or 82.3 MB if you have version 1.22 installed.

- Air dropped vehicles: Squad members can now send a request up the chain of command for a vehicle to be dropped at their location.
- Co-op: Co-op Mode allows you to play Single Player levels on the Internet and LAN with both AI controlled bots and human players. Several new options have been created that will allow the server creator to modify how the bots behave in game.
* Number of Bots: This setting allows you to determine the total number of bots that will spawn in game.
* Bot Ratio: This setting allows you to determine the percentage of total bots that will spawn for each team. For example, setting this value to 25 means that 25% of the total bots will spawn in Team 1, and 75% in Team 2. Team 1 is always the MEC, Chinese, or their allies, while Team 2 is always the USA, EU, and their allies.
* Bot Difficulty: This setting determines the skill level of the bots. 10 is easiest, 100 is the most difficult.
- Default Kit Selection: The kit that you used last is remembered at the beginning of the round and between maps.

 

[Jimmae]

the incremental patch seems a bit messed up - you cant see player names or full server info from the in game browser.. it fixes itself if you use the full patch instead.

 

[throdgrain]

A BF2 patch messed up??

Dont believe a word of it !!

 

[Jimmae]

hehe
now got to watch out for jeeps falling on your head too

 

[MadsKaizer]

sounds like a few good things in that patch, I especially like default kit selection, always buggers me to suddenly get changed to some random class.

and the vehicle drop sounds fun, only jeeps or also bigger vehicles avaible?

 

[DaGaffer]

Full patch or incremental, it doesn't matter; the in-game browser is really screwed. If you try to click on a particular server you end up somewhere else. Favourites still seems to work though.

As for the dropping vehicles thing; hilarious if you're a commander but utterly ridiculous for the game. Last night I was playing MEC commander on Sharqi; as the US got into the AH-1 on the TV station helipad, drop a Voidnik on them (you don't get the 'kill' but they're still dead). That sniper up on the crane that no-one can hit? Drop a Voidnik on him. A Humvee pulls up to a spawn point and there are no freindly troops nearby and you've just used your arty? Drop a Voidnik on him. And the vehicle drop feature respawns really quickly so you can make a helluva mess.

Apart from that, everything else seems OK.

 

[Chameleon]

I do like the vehicle drop feature, but it relies on a sensible commander .... so it can be a pain in the arse on public servers
When I first read about the 'not being able to spawn on squad leaders' thing, I misread it and thought you couldn't do it all, i.e. you'd have to go for the nearest spawn point and catch them up ... but having read it properly now, I think this is actually an improvement. As you now can't just switch squads every time you die in an effort to get to a contested flag, you are essentially forced to stick to your squad and you are all encouraged, as a result, to make a well balanced squad that has a greater chance of success. This hopefully will improve teamplay and limit the advantages of squad swapping, meaning you don't feel inclined to do it so often. Haven't tested it yet, but am assuming you can switch to a squad contesting a flag BEFORE you are killed and then spawn on them after death? So, it can still be used to your advantage.

 

[Clown]

No. It means clan games are going to get a whole lot more slower and probably end up circling through flags. Clan leaders are going to end up having to hide in a corner waiting for the rest of the crew to be ready. Vehicle drop is just retarded if used as an arty strike thing. This new patch is killing the competetive side of the game and I don't see it helping teamwork at all. Now there's even less of a reason to join a squad in a public game as everyone ends up running around doing what they want anyway.

 

[Chameleon]

Have played it quite a lot since it came out and I can't see any of that actually happening tbh

 

[Clown]

You've played quite a lot then. And you haven't noticed the flag chasing on every map in public play? You probably haven't noticed clan leaders hanging back because nobody cares about anything in public servers. I don't think you play enough.

 

[Chameleon]

Oh I do.
What I've seen is ...

People still switching squads, as it is almost as effective as it was before. You just have to wait one spawn.
People filling up squads way more than was ever the case before.
More balanced squads.
Squad leaders apparently thinking more about attacking different flags than other squads, to give people more options on the next spawn.
Players taking the time to think one step ahead, joining new squads in advance of dying.
Players making an effort to get themselves, squad mates and players hanging around wondering what to do, across the map to help out their squad members with backup and vehicles.
It seems to be working great so far imo.
If squad leaders previously cared less about staying alive as a spawn point, this patch will improve that situation. The game tries to achieve realism as much as possible at the end of the day and you wouldn't go storming into a battle thinking "oh it's ok if I die, someone will take over and I'll come back to this same spot". A squad leader SHOULD feel he has to hang back a little and stay alive for the good of his squad.
It's easy to reject changes like this because we're not used to playing this way, but having to change the way you approach the game presents a challenge and in the long run, should make the game better. Either that or you can enjoy the game less or just stop playing it *shrug* Maybe it's the people you play with or the servers you use that's the problem?

 

[Clown]

In clan matches, we bollock clan leaders who do their Rambo routine. I'm saying that in public play, everyone are twats. It probably is the servers that I play on though, they are all higher skilled and think they can do everything on their own. People that play on public servers generally are all twats though.

The gaming is slowing right down for the rubbish players that complained about these 'problems'. Maybe they should have taken the time to raise their tempo to compete with the people that were able play the game.

 

[DaGaffer]

...The game tries to achieve realism as much as possible at the end of the day...

Of course it does I often see TV reports of the Americans dropping Humvees on Insurgent snipers in Baghdad...

All the things you claim you've seen in the last two days...well, lucky you. I've seen no evidence of increased squad leader thoughtfulness. A squad leader who hangs back gets fewer kills and fewer team/capture points, so squad leaders still seem to be pretty much as before. Of course that's partly because Squad Hopping was only ever a minor phenomenon in the first place.

 

[Aada]

Of course it does I often see TV reports of the Americans dropping Humvees on Insurgent snipers in Baghdad...

All the things you claim you've seen in the last two days...well, lucky you. I've seen no evidence of increased squad leader thoughtfulness. A squad leader who hangs back gets fewer kills and fewer team/capture points, so squad leaders still seem to be pretty much as before. Of course that's partly because Squad Hopping was only ever a minor phenomenon in the first place.

Must suck ass playing on public servers.. i haven't played on any in like 4 months.. we have a large clan and 64 player server 32v32 is no problem each night and its a blast.

 

[Chameleon]

I'm sure if you went on to a random public, you could find bad play a plenty, squad leaders or otherwise. I mostly play with clan mates and on clan servers with other 'clanned' people and 99% know exactly what they are doing. Those 'rubbish players', as it was put, usually have no idea about squad switching (random publics usually have 10 squads of 1 person ), so I doubt it's going to make the slightest difference to them. I don't think they've bought this change in to slow the game down for people who aren't as good as you

Heheh I must admit, I couldn't help but go commander for a few games directly after the new patch to try the 'dropping vehicles on peoples head' thing It's realistic in the sense that it wouldn't be uncommon for vehicles to be dropped in for ground troops .... but dropping it on players heads and killing them is probably not what they had in mind.

 

[DaGaffer]

Which misses the point entirely... if clans are playing each other they could simply ban squad hopping if they felt they wanted to so they didn't need this 'fix' anyway (and from what I've seen, most of the agitation against nerfing squadhopping has come from clans). By writing it into the software, they took it away from publics; where most people play, and replaced it with an even more exploitable feature. Well played Dice.

 

[Chameleon]

No, you missed my point. The distinction between clans and publics was simply to point out that it's not going to ruin public play, as most don't use squads effectively anyway. They certainly don't squad hop. The patch therefore has nothing to do with slowing the pace down to let crap people catch up, as was suggested.
Clans will whine initially, but it's in clan games that it needed fixing. The constant leaving and joining squads to get yourself an almost perma presence at a given location is really not a good thing. Squads are meant to be a (up to) 6 man affair with a leader, to encourage team play and the use of the different classes. It's not meant as a means to 'port' people across the map to far away locations as long as one guy can run and hide quickly enough. Squad swapping works very effectively, so it's removal is bound to cause some whine, but personally I see it as an improvement if you can look beyond the initial outrage that they had the cheek to change something like this in the game .....

 

[SAS]

Good news in a way I guess:

After a thorough investigation into the issues plaguing the server browser after the 1.3 Update, we believe that a last minute update in the way the Battlefield servers and Gamespy servers communicate may be the cause.

We have decided to revert this change in an attempt eliminate these browser issues. Please note that no uninstalling or re-installing is required by players or server admins. All servers currently running must be restarted once this change has taken place.

Please also note that if you are experiencing CTD issues upon start up that any alternate-ranking redirections in your windows "Hosts" file must be removed.

The reversion will occur at 2:00 PST. We are continuing to review other issues players have noted with 1.3. Further updates will be posted to this space as they become available."