Battlefield 2042 Season 3 now live, update 3.0 patch notes revealed

Battlefield 2042 Season 3, Escalation, launches today, and DICE has released patch notes detailing the changes coming with update 3.0. In addition to all of the new content coming with Season 3, the update also includes some major changes to the game.

First off, DICE gives more details about the “ping system rework” that I reported about last week. As previously stated, 3D spotting is back in conjunction with the game’s existing ping system. Pressing the ping button once will spot enemies for the entire team if you’re looking at them, but you can still press the button twice for a general location ping for your squad. DICE anticipates an “increase in communication between your team while reducing out of date pings that may have been placed for a previous encounter.”

The other major change is the new vehicle categorization system. Vehicle categories now more accurately reflect their purpose on the battlefield, and should hopefully bring more balanced vehicle gameplay. Here’s how those categories shake out:

• Light Transport: LATV4 Recon, LCAA Hovercraft
• Armored Transport: MAV, M5C Bolte
• Heavy Armor: M1A5, T28, EMVK90-TOR
• Light Armor: EBAA-Wildcat, EBLC-Ram
• Air Transport: MV-38 Condor, Mi-240 Super Hind
• Attack Helicopter: AH-64GX Apache Warchief, KA-502 Super Hokum, YG-99 Hannibal, RAH-68 Huron, MD540 Nightbird
• Fighter Plane: F-35E Panther, SU-57 FELON

The update also includes some smaller but still noticeable improvements. Soldier animations should look even smoother now, especially when a character is changing directions. Aim assist got some more love as it should now be better when controlling vertical recoil. Players with the repair tool in their inventory should also see an icon when vehicles need repairs, and vehicle drivers will see which players have the repair tool equipped. The season pass will also include XP boosts, making it less of a grind to reach that Tier 1 reward at the end of it.

One major change that isn’t yet coming to the game is the much-advertised Specialist rework that will fit the game’s heroes into more traditional classes. That’s coming near the end of Season 3. In the meantime, the game’s next update, 3.1, will bring the Manifest map rework to the game “before the holidays.”

You can read the full patch notes for update 3.0 below. Battlefield 2042 is available on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

PING SYSTEM REWORK

We’ve made alterations to how the Ping System functions within Battlefield 2042, these changes aim to reduce the complexity of the existing ping system. Allowing for improvements to the pacing and accuracy of communication between teammates.

• Pressing the ping button once will no longer place a location ping, but instead check for targets such as soldiers, vehicles or objects near the point of that placed ping.
• If a threat is within the radius, it will immediately ping or spot that target for a duration of time.
• Spots are shared to the team, while pings are share to your squad.
• Pressing the ping button twice in a row will still place a danger ping in that location.
• Contextually, pinging targets no longer has any input delay.
• Repeatedly pressing the ping button without the system finding any targets will incur a short cooldown which will prevent spotting.

With these changes in place, we anticipate an increase in communication between your team while reducing out of date pings that may have been placed for a previous encounter.

GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS

• Fixed an issue where Q-spotting was not working as intended when pinging enemy air vehicles from further than 300m away
• Fixed an issue when switching between Borderless from Fullscreen, the game window was not rendering as intended
• Fixed an instance where pressing the ESC button would sometimes show an old Experience Selection screen
• UI subtitles from Tutorial Videos would remain on screen for a short time when returning back to the main menu
• User receives invalid game state error 2:2413J when accepting an invite from a player being in the second part of a Breakthrough game
• The Turn Right/Yaw Right keybind was unable to be unbound unless the user unbinds Turn Left/Yaw Left too. This has now been resolved.
• You will now be presented with a prompt to repair your game installation, if the game detects that you’re missing files from a patch process
• Soldier movement when changing directions will now appear smoother through improved animation physics
• Fix for character models getting stuck outside of vehicles after entering them or changing seats while playing with high latency
• Fix for ping not being positioned correctly for players inside vehicle open seat
• Communication between soldiers equipped with Repair Tools has improved when near vehicles
  • A soldier with the Repair Tool equipped will be able to see an icon over vehicles that are needing to be repaired
  • A vehicle driver will be able to see an icon over soldiers equipped with the repair tool. 
• Added a new HUD option called “Interaction Prompt Scale” which allows adjusting the size of interaction prompts. This option can be found under Display > HUD Icons

AUDIO

• Fixed projectile and firing SFX for the AA rocket for the Attack Helicopters
• Lock-on sounds design overhaul, resulting in improved Air & Ground target lock on sounds
• Weapons Audio sound improvements
• Improved instances of VO when deploying into vehicles

GADGETS

• Resolved an issue where the sprint animation for Launcher Gadgets wouldn’t play as intended in first person
• Fixed an issue where the player could not lock-on using SOFLAM through smoke
• Fixed an issue where broken animations were present on grenades when switching from FXM-33 AA Missile
• Fixed an issue where a broken animation was present on grenades when switching from any main weapon customized with a Bipod
• Vehicles now get an “Hack Warning” indicator from the OV-P Recon Drone EMP weapon when locking on
• Under Options, we have changed the naming of Quick Throw Grenades to better reflect its action within the game. It does not result in throwing grenades quicker, it results in automatically throwing the Grenade when pressed
• C5 throwing distance has been adjusted to be more in line with its Anti-Vehicle intent

PROGRESSION

• Reduced damage threshold for Vehicle Destroy Assist to 1, this will result in more Vehicle Destroy Assists taking place. Teamwork makes the dream work!
• Ranger kills would sometimes incorrectly report incorrect quest progress, this has been resolved
• Mounted Vulcan will now award “Vehicle Damaged” XP events upon destruction
• Changed sorting order of underbarrel shotguns for M5A3, AK24, LCMG, SWS-10

SPECIALISTS

General

• Fixed an issue on previous generation consoles where character models were not rendering properly
• Fixed an issue in Battlefield Portal where BC2/BF3 Characters’ hands do not align with the ladder when climbing in 1P
• Fixed an issue that would often show Specialists’ character hands as shaking while climbing ladders
• We’ve made several changes to improve the responsiveness of Soldiers in Update 3.0, you will notice these improvements particularly around Soldier Movement such as Jumping, Vaulting, Sliding, Entering Ladders and the deployment of Parachutes
• Fixed Specialists having odd movement while attached to a rope while standing ontop of vehicles

Crawford

• Fixed an issue with Crawford’s animation Vulcan Stationary Minigun animation while in death cam

Sundance

• On the first explosion when being killed by Sundance’s Scatter Grenade, the wrong weapon was displayed. It now rightfully calls it out as ‘Scatter’
• Fixed an issue that caused Sundance’s Anti-Armor grenade to be called Scatter

Casper

• Fixed an issue where the “No ammo” prompt was displayed when Casper deploys the OV-P Recon Drone

Irish

• We had spotted instances where Irish’ Deployable Cover was unable to be deployed as intended, we’ve made steps towards improving this

AI SOLDIERS

• AI Soldiers will no longer quickly bleed out when being pinged by the player
• AI Soldiers will no longer immediately re-enter vehicles after exiting due to taking damage
• AI Soldiers have learnt the ability to drive and shoot with the M5C Bolte, always ensure you look both ways when crossing a road
• AI Soldiers will now revive more often than before
• Fixed an issue which resulted in AI Soldiers attempting to climb destroyed ladders
• Improved AI navigation through several maps and modes

MAPS

• Fixed issue where players would not receive damage while in moving elevators on Kaleidoscope, Hourglass, Exposure and Orbital
• Seagulls have begun to migrate, you’ll see less of them in some areas of maps. Do seagulls quack?
• Adjusted birds flying low and popping in and out of view
• Soldiers will no longer appear as though the are spawning in through the ground on maps
• Fixed issue where entering an elevator with the ATV would result in death, driving them off a considerable height may still result in death when they land
• Fixed issue where “Deploy point lost” message was showed on contested points and the player was not able to deploy on objective
• Fixed issue where the tornado was following it’s route through the team’s HQ affecting spawns and gameplay
• Fixed issue with visual glitch on Deploy/Undeploy
• Map Location Icons were displaying incorrectly on Manifest, this has now been resolved

VEHICLES

Categorization of Vehicles has received an overhaul with Update 3.0, providing updates to the classification of Vehicles. Vehicle counts and availability have also been updated depending on Map and Mode requirements.

Vehicle categorization is as follows:

Light Transport – LATV4 Recon, LCAA Hovercraft

Armored Transport – MAV, M5C Bolte

Heavy Armor – M1A5, T28, EMVK90-TOR

Light Armor – EBAA-Wildcat, EBLC-Ram

Air Transport – MV-38 Condor, Mi-240 Super Hind

Attack Helicopter – AH-64GX Apache Warchief, KA-502 Super Hokum, YG-99 Hannibal, RAH-68 Huron, MD540 Nightbird

Fighter Plane – F-35E Panther, SU-57 FELON

With the reworked allocation of Vehicles and their availability, you can expect Maps and Modes to play a part in the amount available to you.

For example with Conquest 128 Players on Spearhead will consist of 4 Light Transport, 1 Armored Transport, 1 Light Armour, 2 Heavy Armour, 1 Air Transport, 1 Attack Helicopter and 1 Jet Per Team alongside In-World Civilian Vehicles.

• Fixed an issue where AT missile could not be fired against SOFLAM painted Aircraft and AA Missile could not be fired against SOFLAM painted Vehicles
• Fixed an issue with absent visual effects on tanks when receiving systemic damage
• Lowered collision damage multiplier at low-med velocity for Bolte
• Fixed an issue where the “Location Revealed” message was not shown for the soldier sitting in a gunner seat
• Fixed an issue where destroyed tanks would disappear immediately after the last hit
• Fixed an issue where Heavy Ground Vehicle crosshairs moved slightly down when resizing the client window
• Fixed an issue where the vehicle crosshair had a random color
• Fixed an issue where the LATV steering was as sensitive after receiving wheel damage as when undamaged
• Removed min dispersion on 50m Air and Ground Cannons
• Fixed an issue where icon opacity while zooming in vehicles would not function correctly
• Fixed an instance of driver model being rendered outside of vehicles

WEAPONS

• Fixed an issue where the Magnus Green Laser beam was not properly aligned with the Cobra R9 and its attachments
• Fixed an issue where the Tactical, Warhawk and Arcom attachments had the same icon on DXR-1
• Avancys is now using the correct bipod
• Fixed an issue with the hands pose being incorrectly placed on the LS-1 Laser Sight on Saiga 12
• HE Grenades and Incendiary Grenades now always explode after the arm timer has elapsed, regardless of a player having been hit before or not
• Fixed Scope magnification on the GOL Magnum Sniper not applying properly when switching between weapon attachments and other weapons
• Fixed an issue where the reload prompt was not the same color as the rest of the HUD
• Improved a situation where the weapon would stop shooting in automatic fire under bad network conditions
• Fixed an issue where both the Steiner Laser and Magnus Green Laser were seen as red when looking directly at them
• The crossbow is now correctly functioning as a silent weapon
• There was too much dirt on some scopes for the BSV-M, we’ve put a cloth to some of the lenses and they should now be much cleaner
• Improved Aim Assist functionality when fighting vertical recoil
• Fixed an issue where the Laser Sight was passing through walls/objects
• Shotgun pellet count lowered and damage adjusted to compensate
• Fixed issue with suppressors not silencing under some conditions
• Removed the 1x Body Shot range on SWS-10 to match the change on the GOL
  • We have noticed a rising trend of using bolt actions in enclosed space and getting advantage of this feature, meant to be used defensively, in an offensive manner
  • This change encourages Bolt Actions to be used for medium to long range encounters, allowing for the opportunity to switch to a sidearm on close quarter encounters
• Bolt Action Snipers Hipfire Dispersion increased by ~1 degree in all stances
• Increased AKS-74u Damage drop-off distance, making it better at medium combat ranges
• Lowered Avancys Damage drop-off distance, there will no longer be a 4-Shot Kill range during close range encounters
• Increased NTW-50 Damage against Light Vehicles slightly with Anti Materiel ammo and substantially increased with Anti Materiel High Power ammo
• Body Shot range reduced for NTW-50 from 150m to 100m
• M60E4 damage lowered from 50 to 75 meters. 28 -> 22
• Increased M1911 Damage drop-off distance up to 30m
• Increased MP412 REX Damage drop-off distance up to 40m
• Increased AC42 Bursts per minute. 160 -> 170
• Increased PP-29 Damage drop-off distance under 30m
• SFAR-M GL damage lowered from 50 to 75 meters. 28 -> 22
• Semi-Auto fire mode is back on AK12 after a failed experiment
• Fixed an issue on some Vault Weaponry not getting the correct headshot multipliers when some attachments were active

BATTLEFIELD PORTAL

• Added the new Season 3 map, Spearhead, to the IsCurrentMap selection block
• Added the BF3 gadget, MAV, to the gadget selection block
• Added Charlie Crawford’s Mounted Vulcan Specialist Gadget to the Specialist Gadget selection block
• Added Rasheed Zain’s XM370A Airburst Launcher Specialist Gadget to the Specialist Gadget selection block

BATTLEFIELD PORTAL WEAPONS

• Improved underbarrel grenades zeroing precision
• Adjusted shake on Holo and PKA-S optics
• M416 and AEK will now have improved gunsway

AN94

• Recoil Distance has been decreased for the AN94

M16A3

• Lowered Horizontal Recoil offset by 0.05

G3A3

• We’ve lowered the Vertical and Horizontal Recoil for the G3A3 while increasing the Recoil Decrease rate

ACW-R

• Slightly increased the Recoil Decrease rate

M60E4

• Horizontal Recoil decreased for the M60E4

SCAR-H

• Slightly reduced Vertical and Horizontal Recoil