Focused on addressing community feedback regarding game play, weapons, tweaks/balances, and adjustments to Operations, the May Battlefield 1 update is now live on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. According to players it’s 2.6GB on PS4 and 1.14GB on PC.
Here’s a look at several of the changes to Operations, maps and modes, vehicles, gameplay, and more included in the new update:
Operations
We’ve received a lot of feedback from gamers regarding matchmaking into Operations servers, and we’ve made some adjustments – the first of many – to help mitigate getting matched to an empty server.
With this change, a completed match of Operations will loop back to the same Operation rather than exiting the mode. However, you’ll be on the opposite side of the battlefield. For example, if you started as the French Army in the first Operation, you’ll be on the German side when it loops back after the “End of Operation” screen.
By remaining on the same server with other players, instead of returning to the globe screen, we believe this will reduce the occurrence of being matched into an empty server. In the coming updates, we plan to continue to expand this feature to cycle through a complete Operation playlist.
Premium Friends
- We’ve tested Premium Friends twice in the last couple of months, and we’re bringing it back again. It will be active as we lead up to EA PLAY.
Maps and Modes
- Fixed a Spectator Mode bug where the first-person camera could become stuck during the Pigeon Carrier Artillery camera sequence on the Assault Tank.
- Changed ticket count for Domination to 200 from 100.
- Fixed missing game mode description for Operations.
- Tweaked scoring values for capturing flags in Conquest. Capturing gives less score now, however more capture ticks have been added and the team controlling more than 3 flags than the other team will be awarded Conquest Control bonuses.
- Decreased the percentage of contribution to flag capture/neutralize from 50% to 30%.
- Added “Join Any Operation” button to main Operations screen. Will start a matchmaking session to join any available operation at any size (40 or 64).
- Spectator camera no longer missing from the map on Frontlines, Verdun, and Soissons.
Vehicles
- Tweaked self-repair for A7V, FT17, St. Chamond, and Pierce Arrow.
- Reduced health gained per self-repair cycle from 320 to 200.
- Reduced time taken to complete a self-repair cycle from 8s to 5s: This makes these vehicles’ self-repair equivalent to the self-repair of the MkV Landship.
- Doubled the health of Field Gun and Stationary AA. Made Field Gun and Stationary AA repairable. Field Gun and Stationary AA will now enter a disabled state at 50% health where they become unusable. To use the weapons again they must be repaired back to 100% with the repair tool.
- Increased time that the shell camera is active on the MkV mortar landship from 3.5s to 4.5s. This better suits the increased flight time of the new heavy shell.
- Changed how max range for AA is applied. Max range now varies depending on the pitch of the gun. Shells can travel a maximum horizontal distance of 300m, and a maximum vertical distance of 450m. This applies to both the stationary AA and the AA truck. Previously AA shells timed out at the same max distance from the gun regardless of direction, resulting in a roughly spherical volume covered by the gun. This means horizontal range was as large as the max height the shells could reach, and that at very high altitudes the AA could cover very little area, even if its range was technically large. The new AA shells will have slightly less horizontal range than before at low altitudes, but they will retain that range all the way to the flight ceiling. This will make AA much more effective against high altitude aircraft without making it able to reach distant, low flying ones as well.
- Extended Fighter and Attack Plane elevator flap scaling curves to better cover the entire speed range.
- Reduced cooldown of speed boost ability from 30s to 15s for both the Dogfighter and Airship Buster Attack Plane.
- Set up rear view on all planes: Albatros, Fokker, Spad, Sopwith, Rumpler, Halberstadt, Salmson, Bristol, Gotha, Caproni. To activate: Hold freelook while in third person to use rear view.
Weapons & Gadgets
- Fixed bug where Bipod Audio could persist when switching to secondary weapon.
- Tweaked criteria for cross-class medal to require single shot rifles.
- Added UI for grenade resupply.
- Reduced the occluder size for the scope glint from 0.25m to 0.15m to hide it behind walls better.
Changes to Bayonet Charge:
- Activated aiming speed modifier during prepare state as well as charge state. This means a player can rotate a maximum of 50 degrees during the prepare state. Also added an input modifier disabling strafe while charging.
- Adding subtle boost to third person footsteps when bayonet charging to increase threat awareness. Boosted volume of Enemy VO for Bayonet Charge when close to player.
- Slightly reduced maximum turn rate while charging.
- Removed damage reduction while in charge. Weapons will now hit charging players for normal damage.
Gameplay
- Added a camera shake advanced gameplay option to adjust the amount of camera shake caused by explosions, etc.
- Added missing spotting animation when spotting a downed allied soldier as a medic with the Medical Syringe.
- Automatically show low on ammo icons on friendly soldiers.
Controls
- Players using controllers can now do custom button/stick mappings.
- Fixed “Select Operation” button not properly appearing when using the joypad or on console.
UI
- Moved ping widget to be below the kill log.
- Fixed an issue in the squad select screen where no squad would be automatically selected for player not part of a squad. The first squad in the list will now be selected by default. Also added support on PC for pressing the space bar to join/leave a squad.
- Fixed issue with the flag icons and world icons ghosting when going in and out of the customize screen from the deploy screen.
- Added ability to disable UGC
Netcode
- Implemented per region threshold settings for server side hit detection: 130ms for US + Europe, 200ms elsewhere.
- Fixed server side hit registration interpolation.
- Leading shot only necessary by the margin above the threshold, e.g. For US @ 150ms ping, you have to lead by 20ms.
- Fixed latency display for server which is also responsible for decision if to perform client or server side hit registration.
- Fixed input offsets for server side hit registration to match client side.
- Fixed wrong hit indicator display when dying.
You can see the full list of patch notes on the game’s website. At EA Play next month, the In the Name of the Tsar expansion will be revealed. It’s currently scheduled to launch in late summer.
