Battlefield V 1.16 update makes major changes to Firestorm map – Patch notes

Exciting changes have been made to the Battlefield V Firestorm map, with brand new points of interest added in the game’s May update. But, that’s not all, as some major elements of gameplay have also been revamped.

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The popular battle royale game mode, Firestorm, was first released in March and its Norwegian Halvøy map has been left largely unchanged since that time. Well, until now. 

EA DICE have revealed that three new landmarks, Watchtowers, the Blue Forest, and an Excavation Site, have been introduced in order to give players not only some more locations to drop at, but to also increase the “strategic value” of the peninsula, according to the patch notes. 

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While that might be a move that could see players who also dabble with other BR games come surging back to Firestorm, the announcement also includes one very interesting change to gameplay – manual leaning. This has been a feature of fellow battle royale game PUBG also and is considered to add an extra layer of skill to gun-fights.

• Read More: Battlefield V developer hints at Dinosaur mode coming soon

“Leaning is a feature that already exists in Battlefield V using the auto-leaning system,” the patch notes state. “With this update, we are introducing manual leaning which allows players to have more control over leaning and use this feature in more cases than what the auto-leaning systems allows.” 

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More information about manual leaning, the changes to Firestorm, and a number of other tweaks made in the May update can be found in the patch notes below…

• Read More: DICE reveals major update for Battlefield V Firestorm looting

BATTLEFIELD V FIRESTORM

Three New Landmarks

Fighting foes and fleeing from flames you may come across three Firestorm locations you haven’t seen before: Watchtowers, the Blue Forest, and the Excavation Site.

The three tall concrete watchtowers have been constructed along the southwest coastline, between Baldr’s Point and Guderos. The significance of the towers is yet unknown, but it’s obvious that the strategic value of the peninsula has been re-evaluated.

Blue Forest consists of a secluded forest area, suddenly in full blossom. It’s been speculated that the unusually early spring in the region is somehow related to the recent geological activity. Head to the west side of the dam and admire the bloom.

Finally, Excavation Site contains a large area that unexpectedly appeared on Halvøy. You’ll find this in the mountainous terrain south east of the quarry.

Use Gold Tier Weapons to Be the Last Squad Standing

Even more powerful loot is coming, too. The Firestorm update contains the mode’s first weapon of the Gold Tier – the highest rarity level following Common, Rare, and Epic. Nicknamed the “elephant gun,” the Gold Tier weapon in question is the Boys AT Rifle. It has some serious stopping power and will give players the means to attack enemy vehicles. Look through safes, lockers, and supply drops and you may find it.

Gameplay and Various Fixes

We’ve made multiple fixes under the hood as well. These will slightly tweak some game rules and iron out technical wrinkles of various sizes.

Clipping issues, floating objects, and other minor graphical artifacts have been fixed. As detailed in our Community Broadcast, we’ve adjusted the lighting of soldiers to make them a bit more visible when in dark areas. Some rare disconnects when deploying in the hangar in a Squad have been addressed, too.

Previously, Artillery Strike shells were a bit too dangerous, hurting you despite that the mini-map’s threat area assured your safety. We’ve fixed this.

Finally, you’ll now earn score when a squad mate downs, kills, or squad wipes enemies. On the same topic, we’ve increased the score earned when you survive long enough or emerge victorious in a Firestorm match.

Battlefield V 

Vehicles

• Added the reloading icon which was missing when using the Churchill MK VII 95MM Howitzer
  specialization.
• Fixed an issue which would cause players to fall slightly below the ground when going into the bleed
  out state after getting killed while in a plane.
• Improved the turning rates for planes. Bombers should no longer be able to out-turn fighter planes.
• Fixed a bug that would cause airplanes to not resupply under certain conditions.
• Changed irreparable damage multiplier on rocket vs fighter from 1.8 to 0.18. This fixes the issue of
  rockets dealing a too high percentage of their damage as irreparable damage when damaging
  fighters. This change now brings rockets in line with other forms of damage, and players will be able
  to self-repair their fighter planes after getting hit by a rocket.
• Fixed an issue that would randomly cause camera shakes and bumps when in a tank in first person
  view
• While in a vehicle the splash damage indicators that appear when damage is taken from anti- tank
  weapons now show the correct direction.
• Passengers that exit your tank no longer block your shots while playing the entry/exit
  animation state.
• New visual dust effects have been added when tanks fire their main cannons.
  Fixed a bug that would enable the JU-88 A to automatically get resupplied without passing the
  resupply station.
• Improved the animation when a player jumps out of the JU-88 A. The camera will now have smoother
  movement and less stutter when the exit animation plays.

Weapons, Gadgets, and Specializations

• Fixed an issue that was causing sight misalignment when using the Mint or Gold plated skins on the EMP. 
• Fixed a bug that would cause the weapon model to not show in third person if the player. 
• Fixed an issue with the MAS 44 which would make the magazine invisible in third person
  view if a certain combination of skins was used.

Gadget Tweaks

In this update, we are bringing new changes to the Health and Ammo crates with the goal to make these gadgets more interesting choices in defensive scenarios.

Crates now inherit from the soldier’s speed to increase the throw distance. Crates throw speed is now affected by the pitch angle to enable higher throwing arcs. Crates now attach to the terrain when landing to ensure that they always land upright.

Medic crates:

• When selected, heals nearby friendlies in a 2m radius from the crate. This effect is interrupted for 2 seconds while taking damage and for 1.5 seconds while being suppressed.
• When deployed, heals nearby friendlies in a 2m radius from the crate. This effect is interrupted for 2 seconds while taking damage and for 1.5 seconds while being suppressed.
• When equipped in a gadget slot, friendly players can interact with friendly Medics to get health.

Ammo crates:

• When equipped in a gadget slot, friendly players can interact with friendly Supports to take ammo. Please consider these changes as a first iteration as we monitor and get your feedback. We will be looking at doing further changes as needed in the near future.
  

Weapon Tweaks

P08 Carbine:

• Improved firing animation with iron sights to be less distracting.
• Reduced recoil and sped up recoil decrease.
• Can no longer be used while swimming.

Commando Carbine:

We found the Commando Carbine was a bit lacking at medium range already, due to low damage and slow projectiles making landing shots hard.

• Increased two hit kill range to 50 m (was 30 m).
• Increased distance at which one head and one body shot are lethal to 75 m (was 50 m).
• Increased muzzle velocity to 350 m/s (was 300 m/s) and 400 m/s (was 330 m/s) when using High Velocity Bullets.
• Decreased suppression per bullet, which was overly high.

M28 con Tromboncino:

• Decreased suppression per bullet, which was overly high.
• Fixed grenade launcher dealing incorrect amounts of damage.

LS/26:

• Added resumable empty reload.
• Slightly reduced the efficacy of the Ported Barrel specialization.
• Tweaked the recoil pattern to make the weapon easier to use.

Assault Rifles and SMGs:

• Improved accuracy in aimed sustained fire from the second shot.

Sidearms:

• Improved accuracy in unaimed sustained fire from the second shot for all sidearms except the Mk VI Revolver. This means follow-up shots in hip fire will be much more accurate than before.

Mk VI Revolver:

• Increased deploy time to 0.7 s (was 0.65 s) and 0.65 s (was 0.6 s) when using Slings and Swivels. This
  means switching to the revolver takes longer, leaving it at a bigger disadvantage to the pistols when you
  need to switch to your sidearm fast.

Soldier

Lighting:

• Improvements to the lighting on soldiers, this is a shader that makes third person soldiers a bit more visible when in dark areas. This change is only applied to Multiplayer and Firestorm.

Manual Leaning: 

Leaning is a feature that already exists in Battlefield V using the auto-leaning system. With this update, we are introducing manual leaning which allows players to have more control over leaning and use this feature in more cases than what the auto-leaning systems allows.

• Manual leaning is only available when aiming down sight.
• Moving while leaning is 50% slower.
• It is not possible to use a bipod while manual leaning.
• Players can decide if leaning should be a toggle or a hold (OPTIONS / CONTROLS).

Key bindings

There are two ways to use manual leaning:

1. ACTIVATE STRAFE TO LEAN WHILE ZOOMING:

Zooming and using the “Activate Strafe to Lean While Zooming” key (PC Default “F”, Console Default “R3”). When this key is pressed, strafing becomes leaning.

2. LEAN RIGHT / LEAN LEFT WHILE ZOOMING:

You can manually assign a key binding to both “Lean Left While Zooming” and “Lean Right While Zooming” (Not assigned by default). This is possible on console using a custom soldier mapping.

Note that it is also recommended to unassign “Activate Strafe to Lean While Zooming” when using manual leaning. Using L3 and R3 is recommended on console.

Other Soldier Changes

• Fixed a bug that would cause the player to be stuck in a death state.
• Players can now also trigger landing rolls using the jump button when hitting the ground.
• Landing roll is now timing based, players have to hold the button within 333ms before hitting the ground to trigger it. It was a little bit too easy when you just had to hold down the button.
• Fixed an issue where players would get killed if they had switched seats in a vehicle, left the vehicle and then the vehicle ultimately getting destroyed.
• Fixed a rare issue that was causing soldiers to be misaligned against ladders when climbing them.
• Fixed an issue where in some cases a soldier standing still while looking around would not always be properly updated from the other players point of view.
• Fixed a bug that in rare cases would enable a player to fire their weapon and use gadgets while in a bleed out state.
• Improved soldier ragdoll behavior when they die in water at the same moment as they are vaulting over an object.
• The interaction functionality now only affects the object that is usable and closest to the player, instead of triggering multiple objects close to the player at the same time.
• Improved soldier stability on slopes, player will now slide less often when terrain becomes a bit steeper.

Maps and Modes

• Removed a placeholder box from the Practice Range.
• Firestorm – Altered the map and added three new distinct locations: Watchtowers, Excavation Site, and Blue Forest.
• Firestorm – Fixed multiple clipping issues, floating objects and other minor graphical artifacts.
• Firestorm – Fixed an issue where players in some cases could get disconnected from the server when deploying in the hangar while in a Squad.
• Firestorm: Artillery Strike shells will no longer land very close to the edge of the threat area.
• Players outside of the minimap threat area were previously able to take damage from the strike despite the UI telling them they were safe.
• Combined Arms – The Squad leader will no longer get stuck in the menu when attempting to repeat a mission if the squad members have left the game.
• Combined Arms – The outro cinematic is no longer affected by bullets and explosions which would cause screen shake.
• Aerodrome – Improved the capture area on Flag A when playing Conquest.
• Aerodrome – Players will no longer be able to climb up on top of the hangar near Flag E when playing Conquest.
• Arras – Added bullet penetration to the leaves and branches of the big tree close to flag A on Conquest.
• Arras – Removed a magical ladder inside a house that would teleport players. That had to go.
• Devastation – Players can no longer get stuck between the railing and the window canopy near objective A on Conquest.
• Devastation – Players should no longer be able to catch fire through certain walls if there is a fire on the other side of them.
• Narvik – Fix for a floating PAK 40 when playing the Breakthrough mode.
• Hamada – Added bullet penetration to a certain bush that was previously bulletproof.
• Hamada – Added more Tank supply stations on the outer points on Conquest.
• Hamada – Players will no longer be able to hide below the ground near the D flag when playing Conquest.
• Hamada – Players can no longer get stuck in the gap on the ruined wall near F flag.
• Hamada – Added the missing collision on a small area of the bridge which could result in soldiers falling down.
• Panzerstorm – The fuel tank near capture point D on Grand Operations – Airborne no longer clips with the ammo resupply station.
• Rotterdam – The ammo supply station no longer clips with the boxes which made the station difficult to use.
• Rotterdam – Fixed a few sandbags that would remain floating in mid-air if the object below it was destroyed.
• Rotterdam – The destroyed artillery cannon no longer clips with the ammo resupply station near capture point B when playing Grand Operations.
• War Stories – Players that have an eye for details might want to play the War Stories one more time. Coming in a future update. Stay tuned.

UI/HUD/Options/Assignments/Other changes

• Weapons earned through class progression are now properly unlocked even if the player leaves mid-round.
• Fixed a bug with the scoring so that Enemy Hit is back to a maximum of 100 points.
• Fixed missing descriptions on some items in the Armory.
• Fixed the third person bleed out timer on the revive icon to properly show the bleed out
  rate.
• Rush Dog Tags are now properly unlocked once earned.
• The bronze Dog Tag for the P08 Carbine Pistol is now properly unlocked if earned.
• The Kar98k now has an image and name when the default muzzle is selected in the customize weapons screen.
• The “Play Firestorm” daily order now tracks progression properly.
• Fixed an issue that would cause players to not see Combat Traits under the “Your Company” if the player had just played the Practice Range.
• When players are directly looking at a visible enemy within 8m, the enemy name tag will be visible for that player only, similar to previous Battlefield titles.
• The camera no longer goes under the ground for a second if the match ends while the player is on the deploy screen.
• War Stories – The Last Tiger – Fixed a bug where in some cases the War Letters were not properly counted which would make it not possible to unlock the Tank skin reward.
• Fixed a rare bug where the deploy timer would get stuck, making it not possible to spawn.
• Finer mouse sensitivity (basic control options screen) adjustment – use the keyboard arrow buttons to adjust the mouse sensitivity for soldiers and vehicles by decimals.
• Fixed the bug where clicking with the mouse on the numeric part of a slider widget would
• cause the profile option to be reset to 0.
• Firestorm – Added 3 scoring events to Firestorm, for when a squad mate downs, kills or squad wipes enemies.
• Changed score for winning in Firestorm from 500/750/1000 to 1250/1250/1250 (Squad/Duo/Solo)
• Tweaked scoring events for Final Position and Wins in Firestorm: from 50, 100, 150 and tweaked “Last 32/16/8” scoring event for Firestorm: from 50, 100, 150 to 200/500/1000.
• A pizza baker was experimenting with new flavors, when he suddenly had an awful idea. He decided to use pineapple as topping. Having served it to his friend, the reaction was simply “Ha! Why?” – thus, the pizza was named Hawaii.

Stability

• Various crash fixes and improvements to stability.
• Fixed a specific crash that was causing instability when using Spectator mode.

PC Specific Improvements

• Added compatibility between direct melee lean buttons and the melee/bayonet ones when using a gamepad on PC.
• Firestorm – Improved visibility through aperture sights when running the game on low settings.
• Made the left and right scroll arrows fit with the progression tiles on the Profile screen.
• The Squad Reinforcements screen button indicators in the Squad widget now changes if the player uses custom button mappings.
• Players can now equip items in the customization menu with the keyboard.
• The future frame rendering is no longer automatically set to off if players choose another graphical preset besides automatic quality options which will turn this setting off.
• Soldier and vehicle mouse sensitivity sliders (in the basic control options screen) can now be
  tuned at a finer step by using the left/right keys.