At least the updates have been quick so far
Two updates down, many more to go. It’s a common belief that Battlefield 2042 launched much earlier than it should’ve, even among players who enjoy the game as is, and DICE has been busy prepping fixes and improvements. The next big push is happening on December 2 with “over 150 individual fixes, small changes, and improvements.”
The studio highlighted most of those gameplay changes last week, and we ran through them, but that date is new. Without fully getting into the nitty-gritty again, I think the UI changes will be among the most impactful for the average Battlefield 2042 experience.
Most notably, check out these HUD changes coming with Update 3:
- Added a UI element that shows nearby players that can revive you within 50m when downed.
- Added a UI element that shows incoming revivers when downed and pinged by a player that intends to revive you.
- When low on ammo or health, nearby friendly players within 50m will now show a resource icon above their head indicating that they can provide you with health or ammo.
- Increased Big Map Resolution for improved navigation.
- Added health bars on enemy vehicles (up to 200m) and enemy soldiers when looked at (up to 50m).
- All player world icons now scale over distance, making them smaller when far away in an effort to reduce icons cluttering the screen.
- Time before revive completion is now visible for the downed player when being revived.
Along with this summary about incoming UI improvements:
- “We’re introducing several improvements within the Collection screen menus to make customizing your loadout and Plus Menu easier. In short, less clicking around. It’s now also easier to understand which attachments are locked, in use, equippable, or newly unlocked within your Collection.”
And lastly, something for the Rush crowd:
- Rush game mode layouts for all 2042 All-Out Warfare maps (through Portal).
There are tons of broader bug fixes, tweaks, and changes, but this is what I’m here for.
When I complain about a general lack of teamwork in Battlefield 2042, these are some of the elements we’ve been missing. It takes time to learn the maps and specialists and loadouts, but on a base level, making this ammo, health, and revive info readily available right in your face will go a long way to instilling a sense of cooperation beyond squads.
In its blog post today, DICE also said that Weekly Missions will debut in Battlefield 2042 next week. Currently, the format works like this: there will be three missions that “you can track via the main menu.” Every mission will have an XP carrot on a stick, as well as an overall goal to finish all three for the week to unlock “a unique cosmetic reward.”
As for recent high-profile complaints about wonky hit detection, the Known Issues page says that this issue is a “work in progress” but “some improvements” will be made soon.
On that note, “one more small update focused on further balance changes and general bug fixes” is planned for early December. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Published: Dec 1, 2021 04:00 pm