Battlefield 4's Spring update: the most important changes

Battlefield 4 s Spring update rolled out earlier this week with a slew of changes, tweaks, and new content more reminiscent of a weighty DLC pack than a patch release. The official notes, stretching across multiple pages, detail changes above and below the hood of the nearly 2-year-old multiplayer FPS. Generally, this is a weapons-oriented update: five new guns have been added to the arsenal, and nearly every firearm has seen slight adjustments to recoil, bloom, accuracy, and other stats. Framework improvements for netcode and suppression effects are also included in addition to the return of Gun Master mode, a chaotically fun variation of team deathmatch.

Overall, the update is a good step forward in stabilizing some of BF4 s longstanding balance and performance issues. It certainly isn t a cure-all—framerate hiccups and weird deaths behind walls still happen sporadically—but it s enough of a gain to warrant redeploying if you ve taken a hiatus or have yet to experience BF4's large-scale warfare. Read on for an overview of the patch s major components and which changes will be most visible during a typical match.

Weapons

The full extent of adjustments performed on BF4 s firearm lineup is immense. The stat wizards over at Symthic have compiled a comprehensive change list sorted for each individual gun, but you can spare your eyeballs the deluge of data. Here s the most essential takeaways.

For most guns, the starting damage drop-off range has been increased by a few meters. This means a weapon s maximum damage per bullet won t start decaying until a bit farther away. As a result, expect a slightly extended optimal engagement range, and weapons specialized for mid- to long-range fights (carbines and assault rifles, mostly) can potentially drop targets quicker with precise fire.

Bloom—the spreading crosshair denoting the conal accuracy of your shots—now diminishes at a slower rate which particularly affects automatic mag-dumps. Granted, hammering the trigger usually doesn t guarantee a clean kill—it s called spray n pray for a reason—but this change concretely emphasizes good FPS practices: patience, positioning, and light tap-firing.

Shotguns, once an unreliable close-quarters choice of weapon, are now properly deadly and destructive boomsticks. The pellet count for each shell has increased while the damage per pellet has decreased, resulting in a more even spread of hurt across a single blast s pellets. More importantly, shotguns have seen a significant increase in hip-fire accuracy, so pump-actions are now as viable and mobile as their automatic siblings and a definite danger to keep aware of on your flanks.

A significant chunk of the Engineer-specific Personal Defense Weapons (or PDW, essentially a compact hybrid between a submachine gun and a carbine) received a gigantic jump in range for dealing maximum damage before drop-off occurs. Specifically, the JS2, UMP-9, CBJ-MS, MX4, CZ-3A1, and PP-2000 have all had their max-damage ranges more than doubled from around 8 meters to an impressive 20 meters. Factoring in the typically high PDW rate of fire—the CZ-3A1 spits out bullets at a staggering 1,000 RPM, for one—further strengthens their potency as an alternative choice to assault rifles.

The headshot damage multiplier has increased to 2.13 from a flat 2.0. In other words, two bullets to the head secures a quick frag, a reward of skill for marksmen landing a double-tap on the noggin at close- and mid-range. This is a damage model carryover from Battlefield 3 where scraps in smaller, infantry-oriented maps could end quickly with accurate headshots.

Prior to the patch, fired bullets spawned out of the center of your vision directly into the crosshair. This enabled headglitching : shooting over solid cover while only the very top of your head was visible to enemies. DICE has now shifted bullets to emerge closer to the actual barrel of the gun; if you re peeking over cover, bullets will collide with whatever surface you re sticking on, and you ll need to step away for a clear shot.

Though it isn t the only nerf, the adjustments to the manually guided SRAW rocket launcher are probably the most apparent. The turning radius has taken a significant hit in responsiveness, so you likely won t see crazy aerial tracking kills with it anymore, but it s still useful against more lumbering targets such as tanks and APCs.

New guns

The patch makes five new weapons available for immediate use without needing to earn them through assignments or special requirements. With the exception of the sniper rifle and DMR categories, they cover most of BF4 s weapon types. Here s a brief overview of each one:

A BF3 favorite, the AN-94 assault rifle sports its renowned two-shot burst-fire mode with laser-like precision. Its stats (again, thanks to Symthic) reveals manageable side-to-side recoil (the numbers beside the three-directional arrows on the right) and a pretty heavy vertical recoil. Of particular note is the huge RPM jump to 1,200 when switching to burst-fire mode—for balance, DICE implemented a limiter to how fast you can click out a burst, so your actual rate will hover closer to around 900 RPM while tapping away. A heavy barrel and red-dot sight is the classic attachment combo for the AN-94, and it s a good setup for mixing stability with range. If you can master the burst-mode s rhythm, it s staggering how fast you ll rack up kills. Go for headshots!

What the Groza-1 carbine lacks in versatility is made up in raw damage. It s one of the highest damaging carbines in the game at 30 health taken per shot, but it s a jumpy gun—the recoil plot shows a bouncy side and vertical recoil pattern, and it ll be tough to keep control past the third or fourth shot on full auto. A built-in compensator, vertical grip, and a sizable 31-round magazine mitigates this drawback at the expense of losing the ability to swap barrel attachments, so silencers, flash hiders, or other grips aren t an option. Slap a short-range sight on it, avoid going rock and roll on the trigger, and you ll be good to go.

Like its big brother, the Groza-4 PDW has squirrely recoil, but when it hits, it hurts. An integrated silencer keeps you stealthy and off the minimap, so it s a good choice for ranging around major hotspots to get the drop from behind. Its diminutive max-damage range means you ll need to get in close for quick and silent kills. Keep aware of its small magazine size as well: 700 RPM will chew through all 21 bullets in a matter of seconds, so you ll be stuck in a reloading animation more often.

The light machine gun for the run-and-gun type, the L86A1 is magazine-fed which results in quicker reloads than its more burly, belt-fed bullet-hose brethren. Its mobility suits it well as a pseudo-assault-rifle for the Support kit, and it s useful for aggressive players pushing engagement lines alongside Assaults. Put on a stubby grip to help reduce spread rate for your shots, and don t be afraid to hit full auto when needed. Just remember, you only have 31 shots!

The Mare s Leg is definitely the most interesting addition of the bunch. For one, it takes up your secondary slot, replacing your pistol with a lever-action repeating rifle. (Trivia: it s named after the bounty hunter Josh Randall s weapon of choice in the 1950s Western drama Wanted: Dead or Alive.) Its role as a secondary means any class can use it, and with a scope it serves as a pocket sniper rifle. Beyond its novelty, it falters in comparison to the available heavy pistols, and you ll get far more stopping power loading up a .44 magnum or Desert Eagle. Still, it s convenient for reaching out and softening (or finishing off) a target before closing the distance, and it s a silly kind of fun playing in sniper-war servers devolving into 64-player Leg-offs.

Spotting

Spotting is the lifeblood of a victorious Battlefield team, and the patch has doubled the importance of keeping accurate while zeroing someone in your crosshairs. Passive spotting—automatically detecting an enemy on the minimap by simply looking at them directly—has shrunk all the way down to a 100-meter limit from a prior distance of 1.2 kilometers. Not only is this a boon for stealth-inclined players, it also reinforces the importance of active spotting, or hitting a key to report an enemy s position for a longer duration on the minimap. That s also seen a tighter cone of effectiveness: in practice, you ll now generally need to center your crosshairs directly on someone to achieve the spot. Spam-spotting, or sweeping your view across an area while hitting your spot key to highlight everyone at once, is also largely eliminated. You ll have to selectively and precisely eyeball individual soldiers to keep them spotted.

Suppression

The suppression effect, a gradual blurring of your peripheral view while under heavy fire, has already undergone a number of tweaks in earlier patches. This time around, DICE has sliced away suppression at closer ranges, so your vision won t blur into a smudgy mess if someone from a couple feet away lights you up. Suppression now kicks in beyond the ideal range of most guns at around the 60 to 80 meter mark. Although an annoyance on the receiving end, suppression is a valuable mechanic for repositioning, as the penalties to accuracy and stability makes return fire less likely to connect.

Gun Master mode

Another BF3 transfer, Gun Master is a team deathmatch-style mode where players race to climb a tiered weapon ladder by achieving two kills with each gun. Once you get the necessary kills, your weapon automatically swaps to the next in the list. Don t expect anything remotely resembling tactics or strategic play in this mode, as both teams tend to mash together in a giant murder-ball in the center of the map and stick there until the round finishes. A neat addition to BF4 s version of the mode is the ability for servers to set custom progression lists which is a nice jolt of variety. Good luck getting that final Riot Shield kill.

Netcode

The update s changes to the netcode are surprisingly sparse given its importance over previous patches. The biggest improvement here stems from stance changes; servers now more reliably determine whether or not you re crouching behind cover which will (hopefully) reduce the issue of taking hits if you re up against something solid. Some lingering problems remain unfixed, most notably instant deaths from taking damage from multiple sources (a complication from the server transmitting that data to your character in a single update frame instead of a sequence). More netcode improvements are in the pipeline, including a possible increase in server tick rate to 120Hz.