Holiday Update Patch notes

The classic map update started way back before the christmas update. Dice knew they wanted to build a more classic map with focus on vehicle play, especialy considering the infrantry community map…

Old vs New

Lets take a quick look at wat has changed compared with the BF2 map…

General fixes, tweaks, and improvement

• Some of the animations have been fixed, such as when a player appears to “slide” across the ground.
• Two game modes have been updated: Squad Deathmatch has received several tweaks and bug fixes, and Capture The Flag has received a minor tweak as well.
• Two maps have received minor updates and bug fixes: Operation Outbreak and Operation Locker.
• Commo Rose communication system has been tweaked with some issues fixed.
• The netcode has once again gotten some improvements.
• Battlelog has been improved as well, now shows the correct amount of service stars earned, and now features an improved stats view.

Weapon and gadget updates

• Several weapons have their magazine sizes corrected. For example, the Ace 23 showed 35 instead of 30.
• Several weapons have had their firing rates corrected. Affected weapons are the AK12, LSAT, G18, and 93R
• Two DMRs have been buffed: the QBU-88 has increased damage drop off, so has the SKS.
• The Stinger and IGLA have been buffed up: they can now lock on targets further away, at a higher acceptance angle.

Vehicles

• The Mobile AA has reduced damage against lighter vehicles such as boats, and jeeps.
• Tanks now have improved hit detection against small moving targets. The HE shell has reduced reload time. However, damage and blast radius has been reduced.

The new man, Dragon Valley 2015, is easily one of the biggest in the game, and has a ton of capture points in Conquest. Dragon Valley 2015 not only satisfies Conquest and vehicle warfare lovers, it also has something for Team Deathmatch lovers: one of the most popular TDM maps in BF3 was Noshahr Canals, and now a recreation of that TDM stage has been added to Dragon Valley 2015

What it all means

Overall, this patch does not introduce any radical changes to the game — for the most part, the gameplay remains the same. The biggest balancing tweak seems to concern the mobile AA, which now deals less damage to lighter vehicles. This isn’t the first time the mobile AA has been nerfed — DICE has done it several times in the past.

As for weapons, if you like DMRs, you’ll be happy to know that the damage drop off has been increased on the QBU-88 and SKS, meaning the bullets will travel longer before less damage is dealt. Specifically, the QBU-88 is changed from 65m to 90m, while the SKS goes from 60m to 75m.

Those who have complained about the lack of usefulness of the portable AAs (Stinger and IGLA) will be happy to learn that those have been improved: the range has been extended for the portable AAs, meaning players can lock on enemy aircraft from farther away.

If you’d like to take a detailed looked at the patch notes, you can find them here.

Source: EA