Battlefield 1 Spring Update is out now - all the changes

News by Sherif Saed Contributing Editor

Published on April 27, 2017

DICE has begun rolling out the newest Battlefield 1 patch, the Spring Update.

As expected, the Battlefield 1 Spring Update has arrived to bring a number of new features, add new weapons, make balance changes, and much more.

We've previously covered the biggest changes, but now developer DICE has released the full list of patch notes for your to pour over.

The update is now available on PC (2.30GB), and is going live now on PS4. Xbox One gets it a bit later, following a two-hour server maintenance that kicks off at 11am GMT, 12pm BST, 4am PDT.

Headline changes include the new Platoon feature. In this first iteration you'll be able to join and manage Platoons, get a unique tag for others to see in game, and show your emblem on a little flag when you contribute towards capturing it. You can join multiple Platoons, but only represent one at a time. Platoons can have up to 100 members.

The other, more significant gameplay change, is something DICE is calling 'revive intent'. In short, this allows medics to use the spot button to let dead players know they're coming to revive them. The dead player will see this, which should help reduce the number of people skipping revives.

Sever admins also received some much needed love in the Spring Update. Admins can now grant admin rights to other players, and control the number of players required before a round starts - as low as six players. Admins can now finally also set passwords on their servers.

The Spring Update brings four new variants of existing, level ten weapons for all classes. These are the Hellriegel 1915 Defensive, Selbstlader 1906 Sniper, Huot Automatic Optical, and the Martini-Henry Sniper. You can see gameplay of all four through the link. These come with unlock requirements, though, so you have something to work for.

New ribbons and dog tags have also been added. Find the full list of changes below:

Maps and modes

General

Frontlines - Fixed issue where combat areas weren't activated during warmup, meaning you could go out of bounds.
Frontlines - Fixed issue where timer would not start. Longest game recorded was over 3.5 hours long.
Fixed issue where combat areas could cause minor visual bug in minimap.
Updated the physical material for rivers and lakes on the terrain. Water explosions should now look correct.
Set small game modes on consoles to be 60 Hz.
Increased width of rain texture to avoid tiling patterns.

Amiens

Fixed multiple glitch spots.

Argonne Forest

Fixed multiple glitch spots.
Fixed an issue which allowed players to get on top of a bunker they shouldn't be on top of.
Tweaked lighting to make the map look better.

Fao Fortress

Adjusted height of fog when in airplane or parachute.

For De Vaux

Operations - Update to intro camera.
Operations - Made Elite pickups disappear once the defenders won a battalion.
Conquest - Readjusted the spawn locations to avoid spawning near enemies.
Conquest - Adjusted the capture area sizes of A, C and D.
Conquest - Hero kits will be spawned at the HQ of the losing team, if the enemy team owns all capture points.
Conquest - Adjusted the combat area around the German spawn.
Rush - Moved the first MCOM in the 3rd sector closer to the attackers and adjusted some spawn distances due to high rate of successful defenders.
Rush - Adjusted the spawn locations for better balance.
Rush - Added additional cover in the 3rd sector.
Reduced the bloom scale for the customisation screen.
Fixed issue where players were able to access unintended area.
Fixed an issue with an invisible collision in a corridor.
Fixed issue where players could not be revived on top of drainage systems.
Fixed issue where climbing the bridge would sometimes not work.
Fixed an issue where players could climb on top of the fort.
Fixed issue with enlighten rendering on some pipes.

Giant's Shadow

Fixed boundaries for free camera when spectating.
Fixed some interactions with doors.

Monte Grappa

Conquest - Fixed issue where players could capture C from an unintended position.

Rupture

Operations - Fixed issue where players could spawn in the Behemoth before it was ready and later got teleported back.
Operations - Added a tank for the attackers to the first sector of Rupture
Operations - Adjusted some of the capture and spawn points for better balance.
Conquest - Reduced the number of planes from 3 to 2 per team.
Conquest - Changed size of capture area of A and D point.
Conquest - Swapped B and C flag.
Conquest - Moved motorcycle out of bush near team 2 spawn.
Conquest - Moved spawns back for team 2.
Conquest - Added spawn area AA guns for both teams.
Conquest - Removed an MG position that wasn't supposed to be usable.
Rush - Weakened defense on first and third sectors based on community feedback and telemetry.
Rush - Moved the attacker tank from the first sector to the third sector.

Sinai Desert

Fixed issue where players were unable to get out of a Fk.96 field gun at a specific rotation.
Moved field gun a meter back to give it a bit more clearance.

Soissons

Operations - Added an additional AA gun for the defenders on the last sector to balance the attackers' vehicles.
Operations - Tweaked balance based on feedback and telemetry.
Operations - Fixed issue where players could spawn in the Behemoth before it was ready and later got teleported back.
Conquest - Fixed a bug around one of the field guns and fixed an issue related to spawn camping.
Conquest - Readjusted the spawn locations to avoid spawning near enemies.
Conquest - Adjusted the size of some of the capture areas (made them bigger in general).
Conquest - Reduced the number of tanks from 4 to 3 per team and moved one of the 3 tank spawns to the closest capture point (A and E). By this, the enemy team can deny them and influence the tank situation on the map. It also adds more value to points that get less attentions by the players.
Conquest - Increased the tank respawn time to add more value to their use.
Conquest - Reduced the airplanes per team from 2 to 1.
Conquest - Reduced the hero kit spawn respawn time.
Rush - Weakened the defenders by adjusting their spawns in the first and third sectors.
Rush - Fixed an issue where players could spawn outside the combat area.
Fixed boundaries for free camera when spectating.
Toned down exposure while indoors.

Suez

Fixed issue where player could not be revived after dying in a puddle near the British HQ.

Verdun Heights

Operations - Adjusted some of the capture and spawn points for better balance.
Operations - Changed the tickets from 250 to 350.
Operations - The Howitzer in the first sector now spawns after 5 minutes of the first battalion.
Operations - Tweaked the weather on Verdun.
Conquest - Adjusted some of the capture and spawn points for better balance.
Conquest - Adjustments the Hero kit spawn delay.

Weapons and gadgets

General

Fixed all sniper rifles to have separate cocking pieces.
Fixed incorrect scope sway when using 2.00x or 1.25x magnification.
Wrench will no longer make repair sounds and play repair animation when vehicle is fully repaired.
Fixed an issue where the repair indicator progress was not updating when repairing with a wrench.
Fixed issue where the weapon skin "The Seaforth Highlander" was misspelled as "Higlander". There can be only one.
Corrected UI for rate of fire for the M1903 Marksman and Sniper from 51 to 54 rpm, which is the actual ROF for these weapons.
Fixed issue where K Bullets could hurt tanks farther than 150 meters away.
Fixed incorrectly low drag for the Chauchat.
Increased M1903 Experimental trigger pull weight to match the ROF change done in They Shall Not Pass.
Removed post reload delay when using K Bullets on the Martini-Henry.
Fixed an issue where the crosshair disappeared when zooming in using the Villar-Perosa.
Fixed a bug where certain first person reload-animations that were interrupted when killed would not play after being revived.
Fixed bayonet bug that allowed player to be killed without triggering the animation when there was no obstacle between them.

Grenade changes

Increased magazine size for smoke grenades from 1 to 2.
Reduced damage of AT Grenades against standard soldiers by 10%.
Increased ammo box resupply rate modifier from 3x to 3.5x for all lethal grenades.
Grenades will no longer resupply unless player is near supply crate or pack.
Grenades should no longer collide with team mates within 10m.
Incoming suppression will halt resupply progress of grenades without an ammo box, and will reduce resupply speed with an ammo box to two thirds its normal value.
Fixed position of rib sight for 12g Auto.
Added folded bayonet when no bayonet is equipped instead of completely removing it for Automatico.
Fixed incorrect 2x zoom level for Bodeo1889.
Tweaked muzzle VFX of Hellriegel.
Fixed spread decrease being too slow for Infantry version of Lebel Model 1886.
Fixed bipod having no influence on recoil and hipfire spread for Sniper version of Lebel Model 1886.
Fixed issue where K Bullet icon would not be visible when using the Lebel.

Reduced the outer blast radius of the following grenades

Frag/Stick: 6.3 from 7.0
Impact/Min/Light ATi: 5.6 from 6.0
Increased fuse timings on the following grenades:
Mini/Frag/Stick: 1.4 s minimum delay from 1.3 s, 0.85 s fuse from 0.7 s
Impact: 1.2 s minimum delay from 1.0 s
Incendiary: 1.4 s minimum delay from 1.3 s
Rifle Frag: 0.8 s fuse from 0.7 s

Increased lethal grenade resupply timers

Mini: 28s
Gas: 35s
Light AT: 42s
Frag: 49s
Impact: 49s
Incendiary: 49s

Vehicles

General

Fixed a bug where the first-person camera on the Artillery Truck could be in the wrong position.
Fixed a bug where the 1st person camera in the St. Chamond tank would not reset when exiting and re-entering the driver seat during the camera transition for the Pigeon Carrier Artillery.
Corrected BL9 Gas Shell Friendly Fire Behavior. Now damage will be disabled with friendly fire off instead of suppression.
Moved weapon components for St. Chamond equipment from under the vehicle to near the top to allow them to be used in shallow water.
Removed impact impulse from plane MGs.
Fixed incorrectly low damage of rockets against other planes.
Fixed bad behaviour on crashing planes by disabling rotor critical state when landing gear is deployed.
Removed physics impulses from Desert Armored Train AA weapon projectile.
Fixed issue where player could sometimes falsely see two available vehicles instead of one in the deploy screen.
Fixed issue where artillery shells would explode midair.
Fixed an issue where the saber sound kept playing when jumping off a horse while swinging.

Increased AA cannon blast damage multiplier against planes

Fighter: 0.8 from 0.7
Attack Plane: 0.75 from 0.7
Bomber: 0.65 from 0.6

Increased sniper rifle damage multiplier against planes

Fighter: 1.2 from 1
Attack Plane: 0.9 from 0.75
Bomber: 0.375 from 0.3125
Increased inner blast radius of AA cannons from 4 to 6 meters when the detonation is triggered by a vehicle.

Ranken Darts

Increased reload time from 12 to 15 seconds
Decreased blast damage from 20 to 16.7
Decreased blastradius from 3 to 1.5 meters
Direct damage no longer hurts soldiers

Controls

Fixed horse melee and camera toggle gamepad button mapping issues related to the alternate and Legacy Southpaw schemes.
Fixed the airplanes throttle input mapping in Lefty buttons + Legacy Southpaw stick combo.
Fixed issue where the Legacy Southpaw control scheme for the Field Gun made the RS have both Strafe and Look functionality.
Fixed issue where using a joystick alongside a mouse would cause the keymapping to revert to default functions.
Added advanced gameplay option for adjusting the Stick Aiming Acceleration. Allows setting the soldier aiming when using a stick, as seen in Battlefield 4.
Removed invalid binding for Left Alternate controller with the horse. Gallop and Melee were being bound to left stick click, which is not possible. Removed the melee attack binding and from now on only gallop will trigger (melee attack would never trigger anyway).
Fixed a bug where vaulting could be triggered while transitioning into prone.
Diving underwater and resurfacing can now only be triggered when the soldier has finished the previous dive or resurface animation.
Fixed a bug where certain inputs would stop working after vaulting.
Separated dead zones for joysticks and gamepads.
Added options to adjust the axial dead zones of the gamepad sticks and the joystick.
Added options to adjust max input thresholds for sticks and gamepad triggers (L2/R2).

UI

Changed the RTL alignment of the squad count text element to avoid the overlap in Arabic.
Changed the alignment of the kit-rank so it is displayed correctly in Arabic.
Changed alignment of progression tracker text for weapons and medals in Arabic.
Changed alignment of XP boost percentage in Arabic.
Adjusted the columns on the scoreboard to restore score and latency to their intended font size.
Fixed issue where an overlap was present in squad menu for the XP boost and the padlock.
Fixed issue where wrong weapon and weapon skin would sometimes appear on the killcam.
The Squad XP boost logo is now responding correctly to the highlight.
Fixed issue where player was unable to see nearby medics if he/she killed him/herself with gas or incendiary grenade.
Fixed issue where weapons bought for Warbonds in the menu system would not show as unlocked in the customise screen.
Fixed issue where some game messages would not show up in the chat.
Fixed issue where other classes than Medic could show up in the "Nearby Medics" list when dead. Can still appear in some rare cases.
Fixed issue where the same map could show up in both slots during vote map.
Added a gameplay option to turn off the Player-Created content.

Netcode

Fixed jitter for spectator when movement starts.
Replaced Ping in Scoreboard by Latency for all platforms.
Players with a connection above 100ms will have to lead their shot as server side hit detection is performed, indicated by icon in upper right corner.
This should lower the hit around corner effects and impede a penalty for high ping players to hit players.
Improved extrapolation handling for jittery players. Movement should now be much smoother and allow the other clients to have better hit detection on those.
Lowered thresholds for network latency warning icons. (Yellow = 90ms, Red = 200ms)
Fixed issue with grenade unspawning when owner died. When you dropped a grenade right before you died, it previously just disappeared.
Allow bullet damage from killed players if the victim got his shot off while he was still alive. This will allow killtrades, but in a fair manner.
Improved level loading times during network syncing phase. Will improve the time joining into ongoing matches.
Prioritise hit information over other information during networking.
Fixed issue where bullet impact FX would appear at the wrong impact positions.
Moved hit effect in more sync with networked shooter/shooting.
Changed warning icons to use average fps for fps instead of CPU spikes.
Improved algorithm of calculating lag compensation.

Other

Fixed issue that would make map loading times longer than necessary. Should cut ~10 seconds of loading per map.
Fixed issue with flickering water when running the game in SLI.
Fixed a tracking issue with heal and revive scoring criteria.
Map voting is now on as default on official experiences.
Updated game credits.
Added the options to turn off aim assist in rented servers.
Fixed issue where server would crash if 24 players connected at the same time for Domination.
Fixed issue where players could exploit damaging and repairing a vehicle for experience. No more!
Game will now always de-spawn a corpse when the player spawns in again. (Seeing your own dead body can be scary.)