Battlefield 4 CTE - Patcher och Diskussioner.

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

UI TRIAGE
Goal: de-clutter the HUD and give players options to customize the major components

Now drawing the squad leader/commander objective orders in the game status UI (good for hardcore!)
Moved the chainlink HUD a bit down so it doesnt overlap scoring messages
Made chainlink UI use the same “physics” effect as other UI elements on the HUD
Fixed an issue where the flashbang icons fading out feature broke the HUD visibility options for icons
Fixed a bug where remote controlled vehicles won’t show the vehicle health in the HUD
Revive HUD world icon now uses the visibility setting for the health bar/revive timer instead of the one for the main soldier icon
Minimap Scaling
Implemented scaling of commander related minimap assets.
Visibility now independent from the HUD visibility option
Added option for setting the minimap icons size and visibility independently from the background

SOLDIER MOVEMENT
Goal: Make soldier movement feel more immediate, direct and in control.

Third person crouch tweaks
One of the problems with “death behind cover” is crouching. As crouching is a finite state – we cannot predict if a player will crouch in the same manner we predict movement. This in combination with our client side authorative damage model means there is currently a possibility to get a pretty severe delay when crouching behind cover on someone elses side (and being able to damage it).We have tried to mitigate this by making crouch animations in third person quicker (in the beginning) – which should get rid of the worst of these issues.
These are transitions touched:
Transition Stand -> StandToCrouch_Node
Transition Run -> StandToCrouch_Node
Transition Run -> Sneak_Node
Transition StandTurn -> Sneak_Node
Transition Walk -> Sneak_Node
Transition Sprint -> Sneak_Node
Sprint accelleration tweaked to match that of general movement
You now reach top speed faster/more directly and it vibes better with the previous change (no change to top sprint speed).

VISUAL RECOIL
Goal: Get guns to always point where you shoot. Remove randomness from shooting. Finalizing this is a prerequisite to look at gun damage and _real_ recoil tweaking.

TEST: M9 Pistol now has a single fire animation
This test is an answer to feedback we’ve gotten where the pistols “kick” and the way it randomly picks an animation was called out at something that makes it hard to hit targets (without adding depth). We’ve as a test removed all but one animation on the M9 pistol – to see what that does to shooting the gun.
TEST: New Red Dot is now smaller on request (feedback in forum!)
Pending this works out – we will look at replacing the other “red” (really pink) sights with this more red and “red-light” looking version
Tweaked size of Pistol Delta sight down a notch
Fixed visual issues for ALL weapons (find any issues? report them in forum!)
PWD, LMG, Sniper Rifles, DMR, Shotguns
FOUND ISSUE IN TESTING OF BUILD:
Red dots on the Coyote and Reflexs RDS sights is clipping again after the downscaled red dot. Will be fixed in next update, Sorry about this!

GAME MODES
Goal: Improve selected gamemodes to deliver the intent and playstyle envisoned for the gamemode in question

Obliteration Competitive
Bombs can now be placed in any order.
Reduced bomb disarm time from 10s -> 8s. There is a 3s warmup when defusing.
Reduced radar sweep on home bases to 40 meters on competitive.
Chain Link
Decreased the rate of ticker bleeding by 40%.
Increased round timer to 30 minutes.

WEAPON/GADGET BALANCE
Goal: With the changes to visual recoil, head flinching and netcode weapons have become deadlier and kills faster. Tune weapons to take this into consideration and find clear roles for them in doing so.

Grenade Balancing
First out is a grenade pass. We think the game currently is a bit spammy when it comes to grenades. We want to make grenades something that is powerful – but not used lightly in any situation, also we want type of grenade you pick to mean something – and give the different grenades more clear roles.

Reduced RGO capacity 2->1
Reduced RGO inner blast radius 1.65->1
Reduced v40 capacity 3->2
Reduced v40 blast radius 7->6
Reduced v40 inner blast radius 2.5->1
Increased ammo bag pickup time for grenades:
Flashbang 5s->9s
RGO 7s->25s
v40 8s->13s
Handflare 1s->6s
M18 5s->9s
M34 8s->25s
M67 5s->25s
XM25 DART 1s->3.5s (5->4 rounds)
XM25 3.5s->6s
40mm 3GL 8s->18s
40mm Smoke 2.5s->5s (matching flashbang now)
40mm LVG/HE 8s->9s

BULLET COLLISION CLEANUP
Goal: Find and clean up inconsistencies in visual collision for bullets and players. Improve on the clarity of game environments.

Fixed poor collision issue in cover assets like free standing pillar and store stack.
Affected levels: Operation Locker, Pearl Market, Flood Zone
Pearl Market
Fixed issue with collision of wall between C and D bases

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

Flashbang tweaks
Flashbangs now hide the HUD (still shows the minimap – we will probable make them hide the FULL hud next).
Enemies flashbang time is now 10 seconds, and friendlies 5 seconds.
Grenade HUD-icons only shows when needed
De cluttering the HUD, and only showing these icons when they are a danger to you
Netcode Automation
The AUTO option now uses a new value to track if the client has trouble with the High Frequency setting (to determine if it needs to lower or raise the setting). The time is also shortened from 30s to 5s to react.

UI TRIAGE
New UI cleanup and tweaks added:

Independent minimap scaling and visibility control added
Via the advanced gameplay options screen. Minimap scaling has much higher limit than the existing general HUD scaling option
Player’s own health bar/HUD world icon
Disabled your own third person healthbar to reduce HUD clutter
The global HUD scale option moved from the video options screen to the advanced gameplay options screen
Player name/health/vehicle now shown for any friendly unit at long distance on reticle rollover.
Was for squad mates only before but based on requests from players wanting to know the status of any friendly distant vehicle we added this

VISUAL RECOIL – WEAPON PASS 2
We’ve now finished these weapons & sight combinations:

All Assault weapons
All Handguns
All Carbines
All sights on all weapon now use high quality textures
The sights fixed includes all Closerange and medium range ones except:

Iron sights
IRNV
FLIR
Remaining weapons to be fixed: PDW’s, LMG’s, Recon rifles, DMR’s and Shotguns.

BULLET COLLISION CLEANUP
We now have a new effort where we look at the worst object in the game when it comes to bullet collision – and fix them. Much thanks to this thread: Open Forum thread by Zoutepoel - Thank you!

Collision fixes in this update:

Fixed collision issue on Dawnbreaker near lion statue
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34td1qv&s=8#.U8h7wLEQ470
Lion statue in Siege of Shanghai, Dawnbreaker, Flood Zone, Lumphini Garden
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2dlnfj4&s=8#.U8hADLEQ470
Caspian 2014 – Collision blocking bullet issue. large tubbles at gas station
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=xdcxgw&s=8#.U8cmFLEQ470

LANCANG DAM – REMINDER
Remember: we added Lancang Dam to the Rush servers! Please help us test it!

Today we got a another update for you, sadly the patch size issue has not been fixed yet – this patch is big.
Sidenote: we will make Dragons Teeth maps available in Friday’s release (hopefully our next CTE release). Which can mean even bigger patch sizes unless the size issue has been tracked down – sorry for that in advance if that is the case!

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

Obliteration changes
Obliteration bomb circle UI animation is synced with every position update.

Reduced obliteration bomb update time from 10sec -> 8sec
UI changes
Bug fix: Defensive “dorito” is now only showing in the world (and not on the minimap) as intended.
Grenade icons are now cleaned up when they explode – for all grenades except the incendiary grenade.
Systems performance test now properly displays millisecond values (it was displaying seconds)
The minimap now has an option to stop rotating (for the player that prefer that way of looking at the world)

VISUAL RECOIL – SCOPE PASS 1
We’ve now made ALL close range and medium range sights use the new system, except three sights:

Iron sights
IRNV
FLIR

These three we want to keep the way they are since they have other advantages on the battlefield (quicker ADS, clearly see targets respectively).

What has changed?

The sights now all use high quality textures at all times (test with low graphics settings)
The red dot graphics has gotten a facelift/is more precise – we need to test this out in bright environments
All sights are scaled to what we want from a gameplay point of view

What is still broken?

Some sight clipping will occur on most weapons
Sorting of some of the Medium range sights is incorrect (the red part being behind the black part – fix in next update)
Blurry textures (not using the high fidelity ones) on some medium sights
Pistol red dot sights

4TH OF JULY VIDEO CONTEST!
We got alot of videos from you guys in the contest we had running for 4th of July! A big thank you to all who participated!

We have picked our favorites – and you guys will get to pick the winner using the poll system – see the front page at the bottom in the rightmost column!

Our picked contestants in alphabetical order:

AUTh0rity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baPLKmQptEA
BLACK_GEEZUS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xddlNLJ4QpQ
blindman69
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-EnjmqoRQM
HughesMDflyer4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bflKZJ3sffs
megaquest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcGTfP-xbB4
TheRA1DER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUI4LHRXlnU

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite! Voting will end one week from now (July 23:rd 3PM PDT).

DICE <3 RUSH
To focus testing, for this update we are removing Hainan Resort and Rouge Transmission while we are tweaking them from the rotations.

LANCANG DAM – CTE PREMIERE

New vehicle setup, attackers:

1xTransport helicopter, 1xLTV, 1xRHIB, 1xMBT on all bases

New vehicle setup, defenders:

1xMBT on all bases

Other changes:

Tweaked initial spawn delay of vehicles
Transport helicopter not allowed in surrounding combat area (bound to the same area as land vehicles)
Explicitly set respawn delay on light vehicles to 20 seconds (=30 in Rush due to 1.5 multiplier)
Edited some Rush specific cover and added some
Switched A/B where needed to always keep A on left side for attackers
Moved MCOMs 2A, 2B, 3A
Added some pre-destruction for defender approach on base 2
Edited emplaced weapons, combat areas, base HQs and spawns
Made sure that sliding doors are opened when the power goes out (happens in Rush automatically because of the scripted fall of the dam) plus fixed a bug where it wouldn’t open if there were more than one player in the trigger area
Reduced crater depth to almost zero in the playable areas of the map (all game modes) and in particular around new cover added for Rush

FRAMEHISTORYTIME TESTING
We have run the FrameHistoryTime servers for a couple of days now – and the results look promising from our end. We will replace these servers with 3 new servers with new values – and do the whole thing again to dial in the values!

If you missed the last update- read more about this testing here: Open FrameHistoryTime News post

The new servers will be named D, E and F to not confuse them with the old.

This is a special update (no need for a patch). We are going to commence testing of new values for the FrameHistoryTime value.

FRAMEHISTORYTIME? WHAT?
To understand what this will change, you have to understand how networking works in BF4: In essence, the server runs the simulation, and is also the “referee” when it comes to allowed things for the clients to do.

The clients are not all dumb however – they handle basic hit detection on a bullet per bullet basis, with the server making sure they are not doing crazy/unwanted stuff (like cheating).
One of these things the server checks is the FrameHistoryTime – which applies when clients are moving in the world, and in particluar when they have a higher latency to the server.

WHAT ARE WE TESTING?
We have three servers setup in EU, NA east and NA west: FHT Server A, B and C. These are all running different values (and thus allow less or more difference on the client versus the server).

This means that if you play on one of these servers and the value is too low – you will have a hard time hitting a target that moves (in particular someone moving perpendicular).
We want you to play on all these servers, and give us some test data:

Server: FHT SERVER A
My latency (NetworkPerfOverlay.drawGraph 1): 150ms
My Ping (scoreboard): 120ms
Estimated hits (seeing blood effect but no damage “X”): 5%
Rounds played: 2 (Dawnbreaker, Siege)

WHY? WHAT GOOD WILL THIS POSSIBLY DO?
With enough data from the result of this thread, we can find out if our estimates are correct.
If they are – we will get a game where dying behind corners will be more or less negated from the high ping vs low ping perspective (low = <50ms, high >=250ms).

So, please help us test this – make sure you test all three types of servers (preferrably in the same sitting). The more results we get in the better! Also – feel free to region hop and try being the high ping player – we want results from all types of connections!

FEEDBACK
To post results, please visit the created forum and post in the appropriate thread!

Open FrameHistoryTime Testing Forum

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

Obliteration Changes
Fixed an issue where exiting a vehicle would stop updating the HUD position
Increased the HUD update “ping” time to 10s from 5s
Lowering Encounter Randomness Effort
We have added a visual represenation for the defensive perk (the one that removes 10% damage to upper body). Enemies using this will now sport a nifty new “dorito” with a shield outline to tell you they will normally take one more bullet to kill. We are still evaluating the order of the perks in the defensive tree, and we might look into stirring that pot in the future!
Revive Fixes
Revives should now revive the one aimed at first (not the guy behind you or next to him on the floor) – we need testing this works as intended, and has no follow up issues!
We also fixed an issue with defibrillator firing over the network for “hold” weapons and gadgets on release – be on the lookout for issues with hold and release weapons and gadgets after this patch.
Defibrillator – Fully Charged
We’ve added a sound when the defibrillator is fully charged
Head flinching redux
We’ve now reduced “that one” animation that ducked down severly to be more of a nod forward – this makes the head bounce around much less – and should help with the head behind cover hiding issue!
Server Degradation Telemetry
This build includes some extra telemetry for our servers to pinpoint the degradation issue – please let us know if the server performance goes bad!
Netcode: AUTO option forced
The AUTO option has performed without breaking the game (it seems) – which means we can enforce it now to get even more and better testing.
If you see any issues (use the network graph!) – let us know in the appropriate forum and videos are _very_ helpful in this matter!
UI Triage
Fixed the health bar world icon not scaling issue.
Enabled world icons to draw when the gameplay options is rendering (for you to be able to see them when changing the options)
World Cup Fever
The finals of the World Cup is happening this weekend! Celebrate your favorite finals-team with a Battlefield themed Football/Soccer game – if you find it that is!

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

All previous XPack maps are now available on the CTE
China Rising, Second Assault, Naval Strike. This will make this particular patch larger, but coming patches should be small again! (we hope).
Remember to test the fixes to Nansha Strike terrain bug and the China Rising map streaming issues! (they should be fixed now)

UI TRIAGE

World HUD icons for mission objectives now scale with distance. Slider added to control that.
Sliders added for setting the master size of the HUD world icons. One for common, one for friendlies and one for enemies.
Reduced the size of the revive HUD world icon/timer by 25% so it matches the size of the rest of the soldier icons.

DICE <3 RUSH

VEHICLE SPAWN TIMER TWEAKS

Rogue Transmission: changed IFV to 60 seconds initial spawn delay on base 2,3,4
Abandoned: changed attacker IFV and defender MBT to 60 seconds initial spawn delay at base 4
Siege: Changed all AAV, MBT initial spawn delay to 60 on base 2,3,4,5
Resort: Set initial spawn delay to 60 on attacker IFVs at base 2,3,4

FLOOD ZONE – CTE PREMIERE

Completely redid the Rush layout. It’s now reversed with the finale on the rooftops
MCOMs, flags, spawns and combat areas all redone
Removed all vehicles (infantry only now)
Removed all emplaced weapons and battle pickups
Disabled paradrop on spawn beacon in Rush specifically
Levolution set-piece (Flood) no longer automatically triggered. Can’t be triggered before base 3 (due to being out of bounds)
Placed some additional cover in the Rush layer
Fixed some art related glitches (floating graffiti, floating trash etc.)

GOLMUD RAILWAY – CTE PREMIERE

Touched up MCOM positions
Added new Rush specific cover
Went over and edited combat zones, spawnpoints and HQ flags
Edited emplaced weapons (removed some, moved some)
Painted terrain destruction layer to work with new cover
Fixed a bug that would despawn defender MBT on base 1
Fixed a bug in commander for obliteration that I fixed (tomahawk was tied to A for team 2 instead of C)
Added a pre destruction volume for a prop by the train at base 1
Set initial spawn delay on MBTs to 60 seconds for base 2
Set respawn delay explicitly on LTVs to 15 seconds
Fixed a bug with defender squad spawning on base 4 and 5

GOLMUD VEHICLE SETUP CHANGES

Base 1 attackers: 2 x MBT, 2 x LTV
Base 1 defenders: 1 x MBT
Base 2 attackers: 1 x MBT, 1 x LTV
Base 2 defenders: infantry only
Base 3,4,5 attackers & defenders: infantry only

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

Nansha Strike ground texture load fix
Fix for the terrain layer on this map (will be included in rotations next week)
>5 Squad size issue
Fixed an issue where more than 5 members were possible
Netcode: Framehistorytime server side configurable
The Framehistorytime value is used in determining how much “slack” the server allows a client with packetloss to have. This value is central to getting killed behind cover and 1 frame deaths. The challenge is getting it balanced between allowing damage and not – to make it work for all types of connections and players.
We will commence testing of different values to gauge where the limits of this value sits early next week.

Obliteration Improvements
We’re far from done with these, but we wanted to get your feedback on the direction we’re taking with the bomb indicator. More updates to this mode soon(tm)!

Bomb HUD is always on but will now update the postion of enemy carrier every 5 seconds
Raised bomb icon over the bomb carrier’s head for visibility

UI Triage

Adjustable scaling for friendly and enemy icons
Health & revive icons now separated from player name in the advanced gameplay options

FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND!
Tomorrow is the fourth of July – or American Independence day!
We are celebrating this on the Community Test Environment with several temporary additions to the game!
Find them all and record an awesome video – the best video will WIN A PRIZE!

Have a great weekend!

PATCH CHANGES
This is what is included in this patch:

Added Advanced Gameplay options screen
We’ve cleaned up the gameplay options screen – and added an advanced version (where the High frequency network option and other options which might be too much for casual players get put from now on).
Added several UI Transparency options to advanced options screen
Including new default values – give us feedback on the default values and added items. Don’t forget to click on the RESET button under gameplay options to get the new default values!
Added more guns to use the new Visual recoil system
AWS, M60e4, M249, U100 MK5, Desert Eagle, p226, m416, AK5c. Give us feedback on these new additions!
3P Head flinching: Removed “bad” variations on the reaction animations
Now the worst offender animations do not play – and the head stays much more stable in general.
Flooded railing shotgun collision issue
Now approriately reflect where damage is applied – consider this first pass, we will revisit railings all over the place soon.

DICE <3 RUSH
Due to your great continued feedback, we have a lot of tweaks & fixes added today. We are also adding Hainan Resort to the mix.

General Fixes
Default respawn times of Rush vehicles changed from (Conquest default / 3) to (Conquest default * 1.5).

Some examples:

MBT (CQ = 90s). Before patch = 30s. After patch = 135s.
ATV (CQ = 10s). Before patch = 3.33s. After patch = 15s.

HAINAN RESORT CHANGES

Changed spawn delay on RHIBs to 10 seconds (15 seconds with Rush rules). This is to always permit attackers to get out of their home base which is far from shore
Changed initial spawn delay of IFV to 0 seconds
Changed initial spawn delay of transport helo to 0 seconds
Change initial spawn delay of scout helo to 30 seconds
Removed the FAC
Removed some emplaced weapons throughout the map
Moved and deleted some cover from base 1
Moved 1A and 1B
Moved defender spawns at base 1 to not spawn them too close to the objectives
Moved attacker HQ flag 2,3,4
Slightly extended combat area for attackers at base 2 to allow them to flank more easily on the left
Added some cover around MCOM A base 2
Moved MCOM B at base 2 to inside one of the barracks
Moved some attacker spawns a little bit closer at base 3
Moved MCOM A & B at base 3
Edited and added some cover at base 3
Moved MCOM A & B at base 4
Added some cover around MCOMs at base 4
Edited combat area for attackers on base 4
Edited defender spawns on base 4 to be a little bit closer
Moved defender HQ flag at base 4
Disabled the elevators in the hotel for all game modes except conquest and obliteration (same as hotel wings destruction)
Edited terrain craters for moved cover

ZAVOD 311 CHANGES

Removed attacker transport helicopter
Removed attacker ATVs from base 4
Attacker IFV removed from base 2, starts at base 3 instead
Levolution set-piece (warhead) not triggered automatically
Moved 4A and B
Added some cover at base 4
Removed emplaced weapons at base 4
Edited some defender spawns at base 4 including their MBT
Changed combat areas for base 4
Edited crater mask around new cover at base 4

SIEGE OF SHANGHAI CHANGES

Switched attacker IFV out for an AAV
Removed 1 attacker ATV on base 1, 2
Moved attacker ATV to old IFV position on base 1
Added some more cover around 1A and slightly moved 1A to provide better cover by itself
Changed attacker base 1 combat area to allow for better flanking and clearer lines
Moved one defender spawn that would be exposed with the new combat area at base 1
More cover added to 2A, also making it more difficult for heavy vehicles to navigate the space down there
Moved attacker HQ for base 2,3,4,5
Removed 1 attacker PWC on base 3, 4, 5
Delayed attacker PWC initial spawn by 15 more seconds
Moved 3A and 3B
Added one piece of cover to 4A
Added a defender PWC at base 5
Moved 5A and 5B (5A was just moved to 5Bs old position)
Repurposed and added some cover around base 5
Edited some defender spawns at base 5, including their MBT
Changed attacker base 5 combat area to disallow water traffic on the back of the base

ROGUE TRANSMISSION CHANGES

Removed one ATV from attackers
Removed light jeep for attackers
Removed defender vehicles
Moved remaining attacker vehicles at base 1
Moved 1B slightly
Moved 2A and 2B
Edited and added cover to base 2
Removed emplaced weapons at base 2 (+ some tires tied to one of the ATs)
Slightly enlarged combat areas at base 2
Moved defender base 2 & 3 HQ flag
Moved 3A and 3B
Added cover at base 3
Edited terrain crater depth around added cover