It's a bit shy of 5GB in size, so you may want to start downloading now if you want to play later this evening.
In addition, a general update for Battlefield 4 was also released today. This update is about 533MB in size and includes the following changes.
Changelog for Battlefield 4 PC for March 31
GENERAL FIXES
-General stability improvements
-Fix for a crash that could occur when players were customizing vehicles.
-Fix for an issue in the Rush game mode where end-of-round screen would always indicate that there were 60 minutes left of the game.
-Fix for an issue where the splash damage for IFV shells, Helicopter rockets, and Mortar rounds was unable to destroy deployed equipment.
-Fix for an issue that could cause the quad bike to explode when it hit indestructible objects.
-Fix for an issue that would cause sniper rifles to display too much bloom when aiming in snowy conditions, especially the outside areas of Operation Locker.
-Fix for an issue where the ECM would sometimes fail to jam incoming missiles.
-Shortened the take-off distances for jets to match the length of the runways in Second Assault maps.
-Fix for going above ceiling exploits in Operation Metro.
-Fix for a new MAV riding exploit.
-Fix for kill camera jittering/strobing sometimes if colliding with other world objects or terrain.
-Fix for soldiers getting catapulted when walking on steep surfaces
“NETCODE”
-Fix for an issue where the kill camera would display the incorrect killer.
-Fix for an issue where the kill card won’t show up when playing on servers which have the kill camera turned off.
-Fixed an issue where other soldiers would appear to fire in the wrong direction when turning quickly.
-Fix for weapons firing twice, or not at all in some instances.
-Fix for an issue where explosions didn’t do any damage to infantry and vehicles that were outside of the combat area.
-Fix for an issue where late-joining players wouldn’t correctly experience Levolution events on Paracel Storm and Flood Zone.
-Fix for an issue that could cause packet loss.
PROGRESSION
-Added Gold Battlepacks as rewards for Class Service Stars, allowing players that have reached the max Rank to continue earning new Battlepacks.*
WEAPONS / GADGET TWEAKS
-Increased the damage of the normal buckshot against targets with Body Armor.
-Reduced the vertical recoil of the M4 and M16A4 to give these burst fire weapons a tighter burst accuracy in their mid- to long range role.
-Reduced the side-to-side and first shot recoil of the G36C. This weapon now has the lowest side-to-side recoil of the carbines, giving it a clear controllable low rate of fire role, especially when compared to the AK5C, Type-95B-1 and the AKU-12.
-Tweaked the detonation time of the 40mm LVG so it bounces less before going off. The maximum damage has however been reduced to 80 like the RGO.
-Reduced the number of how many 40mm HE and LVG rounds players can carry, from 4 to 3.
-Increased the time it takes to get new 40mm round from ammo boxes. The time is longer for HE and LVG grenades and shorter for utility grenades like SMK and FLASH.
GRENADE TWEAKS
-Increased the time it takes to get new RGO IMPACT, V40 MINI, M84 FLASHBANG and M18 SMOKE grenades from ammo boxes. Since the player now carries more of these grenades, the resupply delay needed to be longer to prevent grenade spamming.
VEHICLE TWEAKS
-Significantly improved the suppression from mounted vehicle weapons, including miniguns, HMGs, LMGs, and all shells types for all armored vehicles.
AIRCRAFT TWEAKS
-Further reduced the repair rate for the Scout Helicopters and the Transport Helicopters.
-Significantly increased the damage of Transport Helicopter miniguns.
-Changed the flight ceilings on Gulf of Oman, Caspian Border and Operation Firestorm to better match the height of the structures in those levels.
-Adjusted the damage of the 25mm and 30mm cannons for both Stealth Jets and Mobile AA to be equal in Damage Per Second to the 20mm default weapons. These weapons were clearly poorer choices in all circumstances, and their different rates of fire are intended to be the player's choice factor for these weapon systems.
-Increased the splash damage and the range at which the JDAM bombs can achieve max splash damage. The JDAM's power was not properly balanced with its difficulty to use. The JDAM remains a primarily anti-vehicle weapon, though this change will increase the effectiveness against all targets.
-Increased the accuracy and direct hit damage of the AC130 40mm cannons. 40mm cannons can now be used to fire pinpoint shots in 2-3 round bursts, enabling them to provide accurate fire on infantry and vehicle targets. Their velocity has also been marginally increased to aid their accuracy.
-Increased the splash damage and range of the AC130 25mm cannons. These cannons now do approximately 50% more damage, in a slightly increased area of impact. The increased damage as well as increased suppression effects will allow the 25mm cannon to fill its role as an area of effect weapon against infantry.
MANTLE
-Mantle now requires Catalyst 14.2 or later drivers.
-Fixed multiple crashes.
-Fixed memory leak when switching between windowed and full screen.
-Optimized memory management which can reduce amount of performance stalls when video memory is overcommitted.
-Improved performance when vsync is used.
-Fixed bug with offset mouse cursor when using full screen and horizontal windows taskbar.
-Multi-GPU: Added initial support for frame pacing for smoother frame rate in full screen mode, enabled by default. Can be disabled in console / User.cfg with “RenderDevice.FramePacingMethod 0”.
-Multi-GPU: Fixed black screen when starting on machine with multiple GPUs where the weakest GPU has the display attached to it.
-Multi-GPU: Fixed intermittent crash when switching between windowed and full screen mode when having multiple GPUs
DIRECTX
-Fixed bug with borderless window not covering entire screen when starting up
*Temporarily disabled, as the team is working on addressing an issue related to it.
-General stability improvements
-Fix for a crash that could occur when players were customizing vehicles.
-Fix for an issue in the Rush game mode where end-of-round screen would always indicate that there were 60 minutes left of the game.
-Fix for an issue where the splash damage for IFV shells, Helicopter rockets, and Mortar rounds was unable to destroy deployed equipment.
-Fix for an issue that could cause the quad bike to explode when it hit indestructible objects.
-Fix for an issue that would cause sniper rifles to display too much bloom when aiming in snowy conditions, especially the outside areas of Operation Locker.
-Fix for an issue where the ECM would sometimes fail to jam incoming missiles.
-Shortened the take-off distances for jets to match the length of the runways in Second Assault maps.
-Fix for going above ceiling exploits in Operation Metro.
-Fix for a new MAV riding exploit.
-Fix for kill camera jittering/strobing sometimes if colliding with other world objects or terrain.
-Fix for soldiers getting catapulted when walking on steep surfaces
“NETCODE”
-Fix for an issue where the kill camera would display the incorrect killer.
-Fix for an issue where the kill card won’t show up when playing on servers which have the kill camera turned off.
-Fixed an issue where other soldiers would appear to fire in the wrong direction when turning quickly.
-Fix for weapons firing twice, or not at all in some instances.
-Fix for an issue where explosions didn’t do any damage to infantry and vehicles that were outside of the combat area.
-Fix for an issue where late-joining players wouldn’t correctly experience Levolution events on Paracel Storm and Flood Zone.
-Fix for an issue that could cause packet loss.
PROGRESSION
-Added Gold Battlepacks as rewards for Class Service Stars, allowing players that have reached the max Rank to continue earning new Battlepacks.*
WEAPONS / GADGET TWEAKS
-Increased the damage of the normal buckshot against targets with Body Armor.
-Reduced the vertical recoil of the M4 and M16A4 to give these burst fire weapons a tighter burst accuracy in their mid- to long range role.
-Reduced the side-to-side and first shot recoil of the G36C. This weapon now has the lowest side-to-side recoil of the carbines, giving it a clear controllable low rate of fire role, especially when compared to the AK5C, Type-95B-1 and the AKU-12.
-Tweaked the detonation time of the 40mm LVG so it bounces less before going off. The maximum damage has however been reduced to 80 like the RGO.
-Reduced the number of how many 40mm HE and LVG rounds players can carry, from 4 to 3.
-Increased the time it takes to get new 40mm round from ammo boxes. The time is longer for HE and LVG grenades and shorter for utility grenades like SMK and FLASH.
GRENADE TWEAKS
-Increased the time it takes to get new RGO IMPACT, V40 MINI, M84 FLASHBANG and M18 SMOKE grenades from ammo boxes. Since the player now carries more of these grenades, the resupply delay needed to be longer to prevent grenade spamming.
VEHICLE TWEAKS
-Significantly improved the suppression from mounted vehicle weapons, including miniguns, HMGs, LMGs, and all shells types for all armored vehicles.
AIRCRAFT TWEAKS
-Further reduced the repair rate for the Scout Helicopters and the Transport Helicopters.
-Significantly increased the damage of Transport Helicopter miniguns.
-Changed the flight ceilings on Gulf of Oman, Caspian Border and Operation Firestorm to better match the height of the structures in those levels.
-Adjusted the damage of the 25mm and 30mm cannons for both Stealth Jets and Mobile AA to be equal in Damage Per Second to the 20mm default weapons. These weapons were clearly poorer choices in all circumstances, and their different rates of fire are intended to be the player's choice factor for these weapon systems.
-Increased the splash damage and the range at which the JDAM bombs can achieve max splash damage. The JDAM's power was not properly balanced with its difficulty to use. The JDAM remains a primarily anti-vehicle weapon, though this change will increase the effectiveness against all targets.
-Increased the accuracy and direct hit damage of the AC130 40mm cannons. 40mm cannons can now be used to fire pinpoint shots in 2-3 round bursts, enabling them to provide accurate fire on infantry and vehicle targets. Their velocity has also been marginally increased to aid their accuracy.
-Increased the splash damage and range of the AC130 25mm cannons. These cannons now do approximately 50% more damage, in a slightly increased area of impact. The increased damage as well as increased suppression effects will allow the 25mm cannon to fill its role as an area of effect weapon against infantry.
MANTLE
-Mantle now requires Catalyst 14.2 or later drivers.
-Fixed multiple crashes.
-Fixed memory leak when switching between windowed and full screen.
-Optimized memory management which can reduce amount of performance stalls when video memory is overcommitted.
-Improved performance when vsync is used.
-Fixed bug with offset mouse cursor when using full screen and horizontal windows taskbar.
-Multi-GPU: Added initial support for frame pacing for smoother frame rate in full screen mode, enabled by default. Can be disabled in console / User.cfg with “RenderDevice.FramePacingMethod 0”.
-Multi-GPU: Fixed black screen when starting on machine with multiple GPUs where the weakest GPU has the display attached to it.
-Multi-GPU: Fixed intermittent crash when switching between windowed and full screen mode when having multiple GPUs
DIRECTX
-Fixed bug with borderless window not covering entire screen when starting up
*Temporarily disabled, as the team is working on addressing an issue related to it.
Holy crap, they fixed the kill cam bug finally? Amazing.
New maps are always a welcomed addition though three out of the four did not wow me in any fashion. Only Wave Breaker added something new to the mix. Especially when closing the floodgates leaving the gunboats outside.
The rest was just even more sniper spamming. And since the new maps a very light on the vehicle side you often find yourself out in the open scurryring for cover.
Carrier assault was a bit of a let down. An average round took around 15 min. As soon as the hull was breached that side basically lost. It is virtually impossible to defend.
I do like the doors that only open from the inside giving the defenders a posibility to appear from nowhere. But on the other hand the attackers can just camp outside with a couple of LMG´s and thats that. I got a lot of kills doing this:)
It would be better if the defenders could somehow look out the door to decide whether to run outside or find another route.
I remember from 2142 that it was possible to take down the titan if you were in control of all the missile launchers so even though your own Titan was under attacke you could still win. I have not yet experienced that.
The carriers themselves are just... boring as hell. Not much going on inside, they look pisspoor, and progress is gated by the com stations, of which there are only two and thus only two different areas to attack! It's super underwhelming.
Also, good thing there's rubberbanding on anything more than 32 players on servers. Holy crap. You'd think they'd be able to code a game to run well on a player count they've supported for years now, but I guess not.
The carrier part just seems a bit half arsed.