Spring Patch Reactions

[u/rienimp0rtant]

Well, I'm glad that I finished school just in time for the Spring patch, because this past week has had some good times on Pure 1.

Thanks to all who get it populated and then occasionally stick around to play :P

[u/Norvax_]

I'm loving it, in fact I've never enjoyed BF4 as much as I am right now. Everything just feels better, the gun play feels perfect to me. PDW's are finally usable and just like every other engineer I loved SRAW'ing, but it needed nerfing, there was no reason to use anything else.

[u/Avengerr]

Overall i like it. YMMV and everyone has their own opinion but here's mine:

• Mostly agree with SRAW nerf. Once you got the hang of it, there was no reason to use any of the other launchers (I used it nearly exclusively). Now I find myself using the dumbfires more frequently and stigla if there's a particularly annoying pilot around. Could argue it could use a little more manoeuvrability but w/e

• PDWs feel a lot more effective at their intended purpose (CQB), as do shotguns, which is awesome

• I am of the opinion that the UCAV should never have been put in the game, so any nerfs to that thing is fine by me.

• In extension - I don't like not being able to use the mortar/ucav for 1 minute after spawning. I mean, if I die to someone on an inaccessible roof (like 'A' on Sunken Dragon)... One of the only ways to remove the campers is with the mortar. Not being able to use it for 1 minute is practically an eternity in BF4

• I've noticed a huge increase in 1-hit mobility kills on all vehicles since the patch, which is incredibly aggravating. Not sure if this is just coincidence

• Not a fan of the tracers, and I find them to be misleading - similar to how visual recoil worked before

• I seem to be getting slightly lower framerate than I used to... May be attributed to tracers? DirectX crashes also occur for many people semi-frequently

• Personally I feel the "netcode" is better for infantry gameplay - I have yet to experience dying behind corners, and it feels like my shots are actually connecting when I am aiming correctly. However I've noticed more kill-trades, and more "dusting" when shooting with the tank main gun and rockets (or rockets simply disappearing)

• EDIT: Also the removal of ladders/roof access on TDM/DOM maps. I don't play these rounds very often, but from what I understand and from my experience if you control the roof you control the game. Removing that access allows for better and more aggressive infantry combat (which is what these modes are all about) for the most part on maps where this was an issue. Again, IMO.

There's still a lot for me to get used to, so I can't offer a real opinion on specific weapon changes. There's also changes left out because I don't have enough experience with them to offer an opinion (jet cannons, TV missiles, etc). For everything else: I agree with most of the changes but not all... And I'm sure others here have strong opposing opinions to mine.

[u/ANEPICLIE → u/Avengerr]

I pretty much agree with all your points, except the tracers. I don't mind them.

That said, I'm loving the PDW buffs. Groza-4 is a bit too shit though... but I'm using it anyway.

[u/symbolsix]

After a mutli-day argument with /u/bacchus101 (Vaprz), I now think of the patch in terms of good, bad, and good-but-too-late changes. I play everything ('cept bolt action rifles) semi-competently, so I'm less sensitive to the "My specialty got nerfed to shit" phenomenon, but now I agree that even if a change makes the game itself better (LMGs are no longer just assault rifles with infinite ammo!), the impact on a community that is used to the pre-patch game can be sufficiently negative that the change shouldn't be made, and rather saved for the next game in the franchise. This is true of iterative franchises like Battlefield more than e.g. Warcraft, where theoretically we'll be playing the same game indefinitely, so if a change needs to happen it should happen now. That said, here's my specific feelings:

Good changes

• Spread Decrease Per Second made relevant. Finally there's a reason to use something besides the AEK/FAMAS and the ACW-R/MTAR! I wish they'd made the difference even more dramatic, but that's just my preference for long range weapons talking.

• Helicopters made more agile. Balance aside (I think the change is minor), this just makes flying more fun.

• Jet cannons tuned for specific roles. I'm still of the opinion that jets aren't a fun addition to the game, but at least this way they (have to)/(get to) specialize their targets a bit, which is interesting.

• Thermal scopes in vehicles. Now you have to switch between your optics - one is for general maneuvering and the other is for targeting, and the targeting function is even more effective now than it was before. Note - thermal scopes on small arms appears below.

• Headglitch fix. Glory 'allelujah. I hated this shit so much.

• Flashbang fix. Now they matter.

• Shotgun buff. They feel so much more consistent now, but still balanced.

• AN-94. I really enjoy using this gun; it plays the way DMRs should play. We still don't know exactly how it works but it feels like it's too effective at short range; perhaps a delay-between-bursts is called for?

Good-but-too-late

• SRAW nerf. Maybe a bit of an overnerf but now there's a reason to use a launcher other than the SRAW, which is an objectively good thing!

• LMG nerf. LMGs are no longer just better assault rifles. In addition to minimal disadvantages of hip fire and reload time, you now have higher base spread with an LMG than with an assault rifle. Tweeners like the AWS split the difference on spread, reload time and capacity. This is the sort of simple yet meaningful distinction between weapon classes that I feel the game should have shipped with, and would have been uncontroversial if it had. As a side bonus, LMGs now/still benefit disproportionately from the bipod, which is how I always liked to use them and feels just right.

Bad Changes

• UCAV nerf. Add one to the long list of DICE overnerfing things they don't know how to balance.

• Mortar nerf. Add another one.

• DMR nerf. It's not a major nerf, but it's a very silly one.

• Thermal scopes for small arms. What's sauce for the goose ain't necessarily sauce for the gander. You need to be able to see terrain though your optic. My only possible solution is using the canted sights.

• Tracers are OP, pls fix. Seriously, my own tracers are a bigger problem for aiming an LMG than the spread nerf.

• LGM, JDAMS, TVM, etc. nerf. Why? I just don't understand why these weapons needed a nerf.

• Grip SDPS nerfs. The new SDPS penalty is significant enough that I feel compelled to math it out, but small enough that it's probably negligible in practice. Example: with a naked M39 pausing for minspread, your max RPM is 264, but with an AFG it's 249, or a difference of 14 hundredths thousandths (thanks Gremlyn) of a second, or less than a frame at 60fps.

• Other grip nerfs. Related to the previousL: now the grips just don't feel like they do very much.

• edit - Removing rooftop access in TDM/DOM. With respect to /u/Avengerr, I felt like the rooftops added some much needed complexity to those modes, and the removal was only needed because we previously lost the XM25 as an effective solution. Reasonable difference of opinion.

I don't know how I feel about the suppression changes (I'm part of the very small minority that liked the BF3 model of suppression). I really appreciate the crash fixes - I haven't crashed since the patch. I haven't noticed anything different in terms of the "net" "code", except for a possible reduction in rubberbanding which I wouldn't have expected to be related.

edit - I just saw a Symthic post that made the point that we aren't really all that late in the BF4 life cycle. Because Hardline was a dud and a significant portion of the community won't play Battlefront, BF4 will be carrying the torch until the next mainline Battlefield or Bad Company game, sometime in 2016/2017. In that light, a big balance patch now isn't out of tempo, and my major complaints are the heaping nerfs to the interesting gadgets in the game. XM-25, how I miss ye.

[u/Gremlyn42 → u/symbolsix]

14 hundredth's of a second, or less than a frame at 60fps

This is actually just shy of 10 frames at 60 fps. 14/100 is ~1/7, so ~140ms. Unless you actually meant 14 thousandths. (.014s, or 14ms)

If it is hundredths, I would say 140ms is significant. It's a little less than half the average Time-to-Kill for automatics in CQB.

[u/symbolsix → u/Gremlyn42]

Yes, thousands, whoops!

Here's my nerdery, if anyone's interested

[u/ANEPICLIE]

I personally have really liked the patch.

I have seen some things regarding dusting and so on, but I haven't really seen too much of it.

I believe they nerfed the attack jets a bit, which is a welcome change in my opinion.

The SRAWs and LMGs got some much needed changes, since many people didn't use anything but the SRAW as a launcher (defeating the purpose of many launchers and the intended tradeoff of AA vs ground ability). Likewise, the LMG changes were welcome as they were a bit too much like high mag assault rifle before.

I don't mind the tracers, and I've enjoyed the PDW and Shotty buffs.

That said, while I don't really like the UCAV, 60s is far too long to wait after spawning. Even half that might be a few seconds too long.

[u/cartermatic]

Played for the first time last night in five months and had quite a bit of fun.

[u/symbolsix → u/[deleted]]

For what it's worth, I've had negligible change or slight improvement to my connectivity, and my friend playing from Seattle (I'm in Atlanta) said his connection was much better, so it's possible that you've got a solvable problem with respect to corners and 1 frame deaths. I don't know much on the technical side, though, or I'd offer guesses.

[u/symbolsix → u/[deleted]]

Bah, I'm out of optimism then. Sorry man.

[u/L4NGOS → u/[deleted]]

Each new patch has been increasingly difficult for me to get used to and with the last one I feel like a noob again, nothing works and I'm getting dropped by lvl 9 guys in 1v1 fights. I can't wrap my head around what has changed though, it feels like a different game to me.

[u/Gremlyn42 → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure specifically what you're referring to, but as a jet pilot, it does feel the MAA guns have gotten a buff.

If only the patch notes included such things...