Another week, another update for Battlefield 4. This time DICE has rolled out an update for the PlayStation 4 (PS4) version of the game which contains a number of fixes including addressing the so-called "Kill trading" bug.
"We’ve rolled out a new PS4 game update and will continue to make improvements based on your feedback," DICE wrote on Battlelog. "The update includes fixes with the aim to increase the general stability of the game, and eliminates bugs that you may have experienced."
With that, here are the latest notes for the PS4 game update (Dec. 17):
- Reduced the probability of the “Kill trade” issue (see below for details).
- Fixed a common crash that could occur during round transition.
- Fixed a crash that could happen for players that had lots of friends.
- Fixed a problem where the “end of round” screen was adding up scores several times in the rank bar, resulting in the rank bar showing a higher value or rank than players really had.
- Fix for the game mode specific ribbons being counted twice in the multiplayer progression.
- Fix for a graphical glitch that could appear on terrain.
- Fixed an engine audio dropout that could happen when driving IFV’s.
- Fix for a camera glitch that could occur when players were switching weapons while moving in crouched stance.
- Fixed an animation bug for passengers on the China Rising dirt bike to make sure that the character is pointing in the direction where the player is actually aiming.
- Fix for an issue where 4x the damage from a vehicle's minigun would be applied to the chest when a player had the Defense specialization equipped.
- Tweaked the War Tape audio setting to remove distortion.
- Fix for the SUAV (introduced in the China Rising expansion pack) not exploding when hitting enemy soldiers. While these indeed should be deadly, they were never designed for “roadkilling” opponents.
- Servers with users playing on them are now by default placed on the top in the Server Browser.
- Servers that friends are playing on have a higher priority in the server list.
- Server Browser is no longer showing empty or full servers by default.
- Servers that are completely empty will be shown only when the “Empty” option is checked in the Server Browser filter.
- Server Browser filter will count a server as full if all “Soldier” slots are occupied, unless the “Free Commander” slot is checked.
- Balancing jet handling across all stealth and attack jet classes.
- Fixed a bug in Defuse mode where defenders could win a round by killing all the attackers without disarming the bomb. If the attackers arm the bomb, the defenders need to disarm it to win, even if they have killed all the attackers.
- Fix for players getting stuck in the revive screen.
- Fix for players getting stuck in the kill camera after being revived. Note that you might see a graphical bug on-screen after being revived when accepting a revive within 1 second. This graphical bug will be removed in the next patch.
- Fix for a Defuse bug where none of the teams would win a round by letting the timer run out.
- Fixed the instance where players suddenly would transition into Spectator Mode while playing the Defuse game mode.
- Fix for the death camera/screen being displayed too early.
- Raised the first-person camera slightly for walking in crouch to more accurately reflect the actual position of the character.
- Lowered IED explosion sound to not bottom out the HDR.
- General stability improvements.
As for the kill trading issue, or when two players fire at each other and seemingly beoth die at the same time, here's what DICE had to say on the fix:
The time window where a bullet could cause damage from an already dead player is now calculated as intended, decreasing the time frame when players with high latency could get a kill, even though they should be dead according to the server. This should reduce the probability of kill trading.
Earlier this month, Battlefield 4 publisher Electronic Arts said that all of DICE's future projects or expansions have been put on hold until Battlefield 4's problems are fixed. Although the statement was meant to appease frustrated gamers, it actually caused the publisher some harm as a law firm is now investigating whether EA "complied with federal securities laws."