Battlefield 3 Patch Discussion

Despite Modern Warfare 3's recent release, Battlefield 3 is still seeing a good amount of play among first person shooter fans. To show their commitment to their franchise, DICE has begun talking more items they are going to be patching for their latest game. Some of them will feel very welcome, other ones might not be.

So what exactly is DICE looking into to patch in Battlefield 3? Senior gameplay designer, Alan Kertz lays it out for us: Firstly, the tactical light will be receiving a nerf. Yes, no longer will you be blinded from what seems like 100 feet away when someone is pointing a flashlight at you. The light will still function as normal, except the effectiveness of the brightness will be determined by how far away players are from one another. Meaning, the light will definitely be blinding when someone is within 25 feet or so.

Perhaps an unfortunate fault of BF3 is the inability to practice flying the jets or helicopters, which even DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troeddson admitted was going to be something players had to learn. While ost vehicles have a capacity to be repaired while they are in use due to their multi-passenger capabilities, pilots will be finding themselves in the danger zone more often than not without anyone to help them. Unless, that is, they decide to attempt to land the jet in an area to repair it, which could lead to crash landings and embarrassment. Kertz has decreed this unsafe landing practice (seriously, it's almost as hard as landing in Top Gun on NES) to be "unfair" and will strive to make it easier in the future.

On the ground, the vehicles that are charged with destroying air support might be getting some adjustments as well. The mobile anti-aircraft stations - while not doing a ton of damage to the actual aircraft - can dramatically alter enemy flight paths. When mixed with a high difficulty to pilot, this usually causes the craft the crash, something Kertz confirmed DICE is looking into to try and find a happy medium.

The last thing discussed was weapon recoil, specifically when a player utilizes burst firing on full auto. One of our 5 important tips for Battlefield 3 had advocated using a weapon's single-fire mode for long distance engagements, which helps both in the accuracy and ammo conservation. Kertz explains that when a weapon is burst fired on full auto, while the accuracy might end up taking a dive, the weapon retains control after the first few shots. When a player keeps pulling the trigger, he will have to deal with the recoil each and every trigger pull. Easy solution? Single fire setting.

No word yet on whether or not this is going to be one whole title update or several over a period of time, but changes will be coming.

Our review of Battlefield 3 still marks it as a very solid multiplayer experience that should be worthy of everyone's time. To see DICE active in implementing changes and striving to improve the experience for everyone shows they want players to enjoy it for a very long time.

Are you happy about these changes? Indifferent? Mad that they didn't happen sooner?

Battlefield 3 is available now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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Source: MP1st