Patch R9 for PC released

[Caddys83]

..

How to get the game client updated

* If you are using Steam: the Steam client will automatically begin updating your game client once Oct 29th, 6:00 AM (GMT) has passed by.
* If you are not using Steam: then the game?s online updater will find the version online at the same hour and ask you to patch.
* If you are not using Steam: we will also publish an offline updater. Download links will be added to this blog post during the day.

Here is the complete fix-list for the patch

- All Weapons Bronze Insignia requiring an unobtainable bronze star for the tracer dart ? requirement removed.
- Improved Hit registration made through several fixes and some of the hitboxes themselves have been changed. This will increase the accuracy of guns.
- Blue box chat window removed
- The 2 second immunity when spawning/being revived will now be immediately removed either by firing, zooming, or any movement (move, crouch, jump). A Spawning Player can still orient passively in the Game World..
- 3D vision fixed.
- Fixed slug shotgun zoom crosshair on PC so they better represent the long range accuracy. Crosshairs now close more on PC, similar to consoles.
- Reduced slug shotgun hip accuracy to require zooming for consistent long range accuracy. Hip accuracy is now on par with the semi automatic weapons.
- Fixed a bug on PC where the G3 would do less damage than intended.
- Fixed VADS turning sensitivity on PC so it performs like the ZU23.
- Reduced VADS push back and damage to balance it with the ZU23.
- Fixed a bug where vehicle countermeasures would fail to remove tracer darts at high speed.
- Reduced the reload time for vehicle countermeasures.
- Slightly increased the AT4's damage vs armor to emphasize its anti vehicle role while keeping it balanced vs armor.
- Increased the AT4?s top speed and acceleration so users spend less time exposed when firing.
- Increased the AT4's splash damage so it competes with other AT weapons vs infantry. The AT4 still has the least splash damage of all AT weapons.
- Reduced the splash damage of the Carl Gustav to bring it in line with other explosive weapons. The Carl Gustav still has the most splash damage of all AT weapons.
- Increased the 1 shot kill range of the M95 body shot to counter its lower rate of fire.
- Fixed a bug with the SVU that gave it better close range damage than other semi auto weapons.
- Reduced all weapon damage to the MCOM by 50%.
- Fixed an C4 vs MCOM exploit on Atacama Desert.
- Fixed a bug with FOV when aiming the M1911.
- Lowered the close range damage of the AN94 to highlight its long range role.
- Increased the accuracy of the F2000 on the move to highlight its role as a mobile AR.
- Increased the close range damage of the shotguns to give them a greater advantage vs slugs.
- Slightly lowered the damage of the M60 to balance its accuracy advantage vs other LMG's.
- Slightly lowered the damage of the MG3 at close range to balance it with other high rate of fire weapons.
- Slightly increased the damage of the UH60.
__________________
Battlefield Community Manager

http://www.twitter.com/zh1nt0

[{CLR} Cobalt]

Nothing really changed for anything I shoot or do. I like the weapon damage being reduced on the Mcoms. Stop the Gustav and RPG crowd from not trying to arm the thing. And the C4. Cheap way to get rid of an Mcom. Now they might have to actually arm it to win.

[juneau]

Nothing really changed for anything I shoot or do. I like the weapon damage being reduced on the Mcoms. Stop the Gustav and RPG crowd from not trying to arm the thing. And the C4. Cheap way to get rid of an Mcom. Now they might have to actually arm it to win.

Same here. I think unless they seriously break something now this is the finished product.

[Caddys83]

I agree. Infact. I have deleted the game from my hard drive about 2 weeks ago. Dice hasn't or cant fix the Mic issues, They say BFBC2 will get modtools and last month one of the developer post a reason why modtools isn't coming for BFBC2 Then in a other topic, a different developer post what they learn that works and dont work on PC for the upcoming BF3. Really? These are the same group of people that hack up somethings to make Frostbite even to work on PC. Although, the post about BF3 looks promising, I guess intime will tell. What they need to do is dump that Frostbite and stick to Unreal



From MikaelKalms - http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/b...-modtools.html

Zh1nt0 and you folks have asked about it, so here's a piece on the modtools situation for BC2 PC.


Frostbite 1.5 consists of these components:


The game runtime
The editor runtime
The content processing runtime (aka "the pipeline")
and some plugins for Maya

The game runtime is distributed outside of EA, but the editor + pipeline + Maya plugins are not.



So let's take a look at some things that would need to be solved before we'd be ready to distribute the editor + pipeline.


Pipeline operation

Let's say that you tell the pipeline to build level MP_003.

MP_003 is represented by an XML file, which references a bunch of other files. These in turn reference other files. If you follow this graph of references, you will find the level layout, heightmap, characters, weapons, vehicles, and all the content that you can see in-game. (The in-game HUD and related stuff might also be in the graph.)

When the pipeline is about to build MP_003, it will first perform a consistency check on all content, and yell if any file that is referenced by any other is not present.

If all files are present, the pipeline will attempt to convert all files referenced by MP_003. It uses the file system journal to determine which files have changed on-disk. Also, and any files that have already been converted have info on which files depend on it (so it has info like: "if file X changes, then files Y,Z,W will also need to be rebuilt").

Building all content for BC2 from scratch takes something like 48-72 hours on a normal workstation. Half that time is spent building common content (such as character animations), half builds level-specific content.

In addition, there's a caching mechanism: if the pipeline wants to build a specific bit of content, it will first check if the pre-built content is already available on a cache server and take the result directly from the cache server instead. The pipeline can also populate the cache if it builds something new.


Pipeline issues

So how does this work in practice? It's not ideal, but it's good enough for us to ship games on it.

The pipeline is a bit overzealous with regards to rebuilding assets - sometimes it rebuilds stuff that it shouldn't need to.

The pipeline will normally crash about 2-3 times during a full rebuild.

You need to have Maya 8.5 (32-bit version) installed in order to convert any meshes.

Any content in the cache expires after 3 weeks. After 3 weeks have passed, that content will need to be rebuilt and re-uploaded by a machine running the pipeline. The effect that this has on day-to-day development is minimized by having one or two machines dedicated to running the pipeline every time any content change is done. By running the pipeline, those machines will populate the cache, thereby speeding up the build process for everyone else. (The output form those content build steps is discarded.)

In short: the pipeline + cache setup works better the more people are using it simultaneously.


If there are content errors, you need to know a lot about the internals of the game engine to figure out what's wrong.

Finally, in its current form, the pipeline + editor expects some specific IT infrastructure in place (most notably the cache server and a Perforce server).
If it's not there then the pipeline + editor will behave strangely.
The first time I tried, it took me about one week to get the full editor + pipeline setup to work properly outside of the DICE office. And that was when I had the option to call any of the other developers to ask for help.



... does this sound bad to you?

Truth be told, this is approximately where the industry average is at for game studios' internal game engines. One of FB 1.5's weaknesses is specifically that its content processing is flaky, and the flakiness gets more problematic as the amount of content goes up. FB 2.0 is much improved in this regard, but FB 1.5 is what we're using for BC2 and that's what relevant in the current discussion (or monologue if you prefer).


Content

Both the pipeline and the editor takes in all content in its raw, original form. Anyone who is to build any content needs the full 80GB of raw data on their machine. We are not comfortable giving out all our animations, meshes etc in raw form.

We are comfortable giving out the processed data - after all, that's what on the game disc - but that data does not plug into the editor/pipeline at all.


Licenses

The game, editor and pipeline all use commercial middleware. It is developed by Havok and several other companies.

The licensing agreement for the middleware allows us to use that code in specific products, on specific platforms.
If we want to release editor + pipeline, we need to license the middleware specifically for this. How much would that be? Perhaps $1M-$3M. I'm guessing wildly here.

Stripping out that middleware would seriously hamper the functionality especially of the pipeline. We use Havok Physics, for instance. Without Havok Physics, the pipeline wouldn't be able to convert any of the physics meshes. We also use Granny. Without Granny, the pipeline will not be able to convert any of the character animations. Etc.

Re-implementing the necessary functionality of the middleware ourselves ("let's make our own physics engine / let's plug in an open-source physics engine") would take literally man-years. Licensing is cheaper in pure $ cost and faster (it works now instead of by 2012).

The pipeline also uses some code that is under GPL. Given that we do not want to release the full source code for the editor + pipeline, we would need to replace the GPLed code with other implementations.

The GPLed code is less of a problem than the proprietary middleware.


Editor

The editor itself is reasonably stable and well-behaving. It is far from obvious how to set up the game logic for a level, but that is easily covered by releasing some example levels which contain the logic setup for the common gamemodes.


Test-running levels

First the level needs to be successfully processed by the pipeline. Then you'd want to be able to test it locally. That involves having a listen server around. We don't have a listen server neatly packaged. There's probably a piracy angle here too but I'm not going to discuss that.


Distribution of levels

Getting levels onto the RSPs server machines would likely not be any problem. However there's need for checksumming levels, so that game clients can know whether or not they have the correct version of level X on their machines. There's a whole bunch of other things (mainly UI-related) which will need cleaning up as well. Not difficult to do, just takes time and I'm listing it for the sake of completeness.

Also, there are some complications wrt when we release patches that affect the base game's content. Whenever we release a patch, all existing levels will need to be rebuilt with a new set of original data. This is because some level-common data is stored inside of the level archives. I'm not sure at the time of writing, but that probably means that the only manageable way for us would be to invalidate any user-made levels when we release a patch of that form.
Then creators of any user-generated levels would be required to run their levels again through the pipeline with the new base content supplied.


So how about just a map editor?

If it doesn't plug into the ecosystem above, then getting it to work involves some serious wrangling. Either it is a light-weight replacement for our existing editor - in which case all the challenges with the pipeline still remain - or it is a separate mode (think Forge for Halo). Developing an extra mod-layer that is sandwiched into the game would easily take 6-12 months.


Synergy effects between FB 1.5 and FB 2.0

So let's say that we would go through the procedure of making mod tools for FB 1.5. How much of that work would be reusable for FB 2.0?
I don't have any firm figures, but the differences between FB 1.5 and FB 2.0 are pretty large by now. Given this and the fact that a fair bit of the FB 1.5-specific problems (where the devil often is in the details) don't apply to FB 2.0, I'd guess that less than half of the work would port over to FB 2.0.


Conclusion

In conclusion, my recommendation to the rest of DICE is not to develop mod tools for BC2 PC. There are too many hurdles to overcome. That energy is better spent elsewhere, be that on BC2 or other titles.
__________________
Follow Battlefield on Twitter at http://twitter.com/OfficialBF2 and http://twitter.com/OfficialBF2142 and http://twitter.com/OfficialBFBC2

From Demize99- http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/b...l#post18686418

Early on BFBC2 our PC playtest feedback showed that weapon feeling was lacking. It just wasn't as much fun to shoot the guns on PC as on console. With controls being the big gameplay difference (mouse vs pad) it quickly became clear that simply put the original weapon tweaks, which were done on the PS3, weren't working on PC. The guns all had a bit of base inaccuracy, that with a gamepad wasn't really noteworthy, but on PC it really prevented players from taking advantage of the mouse input. On 2142 one of the key things about the guns is that they were all deadly accurate, they lost damage over range sure, but if you could put the crosshairs on the target you could hit it. Sure, some people feel like an AR should be more accurate than an SMG or carbine. I feel like the issue is "ARs should be better at range" and thus, they do better damage over range than the SMGs.

In response to the feedback on PC, I completely retweaked the accuracy. The next playtest it was immediately obvious that it was a change for the better, and surprisingly it also made gamepads feel much better as well.

Fundamentally I think it is an error to have different core gameplay on console vs PCs. PC gives a player more input control and if a gun feels good on PC it feels good on console. I won't "dumb it down" by lowering the recoil or changing the damage model or other such silliness.

PC and Console Battlefield players want similar gameplay: Epic sprawling Battlefields, and also tight infantry fights. Balanced weapons and land/sea/air vehicles with a rock-paper-scissors emphasis. Squad and teamplay, where no one player can be a do-it-all super soldier, and communications systems to support teamplay. And a deep and rewarding system of progression with deep and varied gameplay that keeps you wanting to go 1 more round. Everyone also wants it to be easy to play with their friends.

Consoles generally are less tolerant of overly complex interfaces. They have less buttons, you need more elegant interfaces. Deep systems work well though if they have a straight forward interface. The fun is not in figuring out how to use the system, it's in figuring out how to best use the system.

PC players have their own set of requirements. They tend to play only on PC, and they know their PCs have capabilities beyond that of a console. The gap is narrowing, but PCs still have a clear advantage in memory. PC players also demand a PC interface, a server browser, and anything that feels like it might have been "ported" from a console is going to get flamed hard. They are more forgiving of complex systems and will tear any design down into its parts to really figure out how it works. It's a damn sight harder to please a PC player, they have higher expectations.

It's too early to talk BF3 specifics. But it's never too early for me to acknowledge that PC players have a fear that BF3 will be "consolized." PC gaming is alive and well, BFBC2 has proven that and no one at DICE or EA can argue with the numbers. Battlefield 3 needs an extra bit of special attention on the PC. I intend to give it that attention, tradition and our community demand it.

[Dead_And_Gone]

I like most of the patch details, especially lowering Gustav damage and Mcom damage.

[Skud]

I like most of the patch details, especially lowering Gustav damage and Mcom damage.

Agreed. Maybe some of the twits will actually try planting a charge now.

[Dead...Again]

WHen is it actually supposed to be released? It didn't update my game last night.

[Ghost_Rain]

Its updating now and course in me some headache everytime I get on a sever it kicks me off roll on new week black ops time I just pre ordered it on steam

[Dead_And_Gone]

Looking forward to it, especially after last evening.
Trying to get the server kicking, 2v2 or 2v3 at the time, and some sniper decided to blow the Mcom's with C4.

Nice going, emptied the server..

[MRDEATH[GoD]Gen]

You can also get it from fileplanet
BF: Bad Company 2 R9 Client Patch - Planet Battlefield

[Dead_And_Gone]

connected before patch...

Upgraded...

Now can't even login to EA

[lady-MGS]

connected before patch...

Upgraded...

Now can't even login to EA

I downloaded it earlier and was able to get into the server. Stayed for a while but no one else showed up

[Dead_And_Gone]

We finally got a little bit going last night before i crashed....

[Grisu]

I regularly get kicked because of a Punkbuster B communication error.

It's really hard to carry issues from BF2 over to BFBC2. But DICE did it well.

[DougBob]

I regularly get kicked because of a Punkbuster B communication error.

It's really hard to carry issues from BF2 over to BFBC2. But DICE did it well.

I had the same this morning, but I updated and rebooted to solve the issue.