Link.

Lots of changes listed in the linked article, these are just the ones that jumped at me.

What I like:

• Increased the locking distance for Jets when locking on laser designated targets.
• Tank rounds will now instantly destroy Jets, Attack Helicopters, and Scout Helicopters.
• Using flares too early will no longer distract missiles fired at long range. The missile must be approaching the vehicle in order to reliably be distracted by flares.
• Reduced the direct damage done by helicopter gunners vs armor.
• Significantly increased the damage of Laser Guided Top Attack missiles.
• Slightly reduced the repair speed of the repair tool.
• Fixed a problem when locking on to two nearby targets, the locking should no longer jump rapidly between multiple targets.
• Slightly reduced the effective blast radius of the RPG and SMAW projectiles against infantry.

• Increased the spawn protection time from 1sec to 2sec. The protection will still be immediately canceled as soon as the player moves or shoots.

No a fan:

• Reduced the total number of RPG and SMAW missiles carried from 5 to 4.

"Slightly reduced the effective blast radius of the RPG and SMAW projectiles against infantry."

It's basically 0 splash already.

@Canteu said:

"Slightly reduced the effective blast radius of the RPG and SMAW projectiles against infantry."

It's basically 0 splash already.

Not on PC, spamming RPGs can get you easy kills, especially on metro/sienne.

Is that all that was in the patch? It was almost an 800 mb download on PS3.

@Redbullet685 said:

Is that all that was in the patch? It was almost an 800 mb download on PS3.

No, these are proposed balance changes, not part of the patch.

These are precisely the things I wanted balanced for Battlefield 3. Very quickly after the game released it was apparent to me that there were a lot of serious balance issues. Pretty much everything listed in this proposal addresses the things about the game that were irritating to me (aside from the rocket splash damage, that seems fine). I'm hoping this goes through, I think it would make the game a lot more enjoyable than it already is.

I say slightly faster lock-ons for stingers. Enemy air recharges their IR flares right when I fire a rocket.

What about the effect of flashlight during the day. that seriously needs to be amended, torches just don't do that in light : (

I say slightly faster lock-ons for stingers. Enemy air recharges their IR flares right when I fire a rocket.

Reduced the recoil of the SKS rifle and slightly increased its power at close range.

Good, the SKS is super underpowered unless you can consistently get 3 shots to hit an enemy simultaneously at long range. I tried using it up close and it took me something like 6 rounds to kill an enemy.

Using flares too early will no longer distract missiles fired at long range. The missile must be approaching the vehicle in order to reliably be distracted by flares.

Not sure how they'll make this work.

I like them all.

@Mikemcn said:

Using flares too early will no longer distract missiles fired at long range. The missile must be approaching the vehicle in order to reliably be distracted by flares.

Not sure how they'll make this work.

sounds like flares will only work when the missile is X meters away from the plane.

@eclipsesis said:

What about the effect of flashlight during the day. that seriously needs to be amended, torches just don't do that in light : (

They could be using really powerful LEDs?

This is something that really bugs me too. Makes absolutely no sense.

Thank fuck for the flare change.  They should not do that to the RPG and SMAW while keeping the M320 a super-splash through the wall instagibbing cannon of death.

@Mahonay said:

@eclipsesis said:

What about the effect of flashlight during the day. that seriously needs to be amended, torches just don't do that in light : (

They could be using really powerful LEDs?

This is something that really bugs me too. Makes absolutely no sense.

LED's with the power of super novas!! :)

Dice said the taclight will be less bright depending on distance.

Holy crap I'm gonna shoot down so many jets now!
 
Do we know what exactly will or will not cancel the spawn protection? Is looking around with the mouse the only thing you can do? Does ADS or changing weapons break it?
 
edit: "Spawn protection will no longer be canceled by the player looking around." Oh... no wonder. There practically was no such thing as spawn protection on PC since mice are so sensitive. Glad that's going to be looked at.

Spot on... except for spawn protection. Silly crutch is aggrivating and lazy. Why can't they simply come up with decent spawn mechanics, instead of relying on a 10 years old design that was broken from the get-go. And I'm talking the entire fucking gaming industry. Innovate spawn mechanics already. I can think of spawn mechanics off the top of my head which would be less broken and less exploitable than the 'handful of predefined spawnpoints' mechanics common in pretty much every online multiplayer FPS game to date. Get codin' already. Stop the my gamer rage!

Is there IR recharge ??? I assumed the pilot just gets one because the first stinger is always flared away and then sometimes I get a hit with the second. (other pilots are the reason I haven't even been able to unlock IR flares yet to find out...) The T-90 style tank round seems to be one hit kill on aircraft already in my experience. I've actually shot down more aircraft that way than with stingers... It's vehicle machine guns that don't make much sense to me. They are supposed to be 50 cal but a lot times it takes 4-5 hits to kill infantry. After the patch you can lay a whole stream of hits into a chopper until the gun overheats and not even do 50% damage. I think it would be interested to move somewhat closed to a weight based loadout (ala joint operations if anyone is familiar with that game) I can carry 4 or 5 (or 8+ with expl perk) multi-pound rpg rounds but only one or two hand grenades??? Maybe I could give up a couple ammo clips in order to carry an extra mine, etc

Just downloaded the thing. They still haven't fixed the input lag.

Fuck this game. Fuck Dice and Fuck EA. I knew I shouldn't have fucking preordred this piece of shit game. Goddamn I feel ripped off.

@AuthenticM said:

Just downloaded the thing. They still haven't fixed the input lag.

Fuck this game. Fuck Dice and Fuck EA. I knew I shouldn't have fucking preordred this piece of shit game. Goddamn I feel ripped off.

WOAH, there! Calm down just a little bit, man. I understand you're mad but don't blow a damn gasket!

I like them all.

Actually I've shot down more aircraft with the RPG than the SMAW also....
at least then I can aim it and the pilot gets no warning about it
So I guess I'm for reducing the IR flare effectiveness and not sure about reducing rpg/smaw count.
I'm sure pilots feel otherwise tho.

@AuthenticM said:

Just downloaded the thing. They still haven't fixed the input lag.

Fuck this game. Fuck Dice and Fuck EA. I knew I shouldn't have fucking preordred this piece of shit game. Goddamn I feel ripped off.

Whoa now. I hope you're not currently packing up some kind of bomb device addressed to the EA offices. You know, like some kind of...giant bomb. YES! FUCK YOU GUYS.

I am really pissed off. I don't intend to boycott Dice's future games; but I can assure you that no preorder will ever be put down again.

Spawn protection still needs to be a bit longer and apply when the person moves.

@mosdl said:

• Significantly increased the damage of Laser Guided Top Attack missiles.

That's something that I'm very glad to see. I spent a game on citv with another fellow and we were appalled at how little damage was done for all the work involved in lining up a javelin/citv shot.

@mosdl said:

@Canteu said:

"Slightly reduced the effective blast radius of the RPG and SMAW projectiles against infantry."

It's basically 0 splash already.

Not on PC, spamming RPGs can get you easy kills, especially on metro/sienne.

fucking metro

@big_jon said:

I like them all.

QFT. I would say reduce the RPGs to 3. Its way to easy for infantry to take down tanks, since basically everyone goes Engi on the vehicle maps. The Stinger change is no issue. I always only fire the flares when I get the "missiles fired" beep. Just do not change the recharge time.

@AuthenticM said:

Just downloaded the thing. They still haven't fixed the input lag.

Fuck this game. Fuck Dice and Fuck EA. I knew I shouldn't have fucking preordred this piece of shit game. Goddamn I feel ripped off.

We're all here to weep with you. *tear*

@MikkaQ said:

Spawn protection still needs to be a bit longer and apply when the person moves.

It's not so much spawn protection, there shouldn't be any spawn protection. They should just make it "spawn on squad leader only" instead of sitting not helping and picking and choosing the least path of resistance in a fire fight. If you want to turn it into an argument over spawn trending then that's on the developers. I was playing Bazar and wasnt even trying to cap b, I just ran into one of the spawn area's had my squad spawn on me, and proceeded to rape everyone who instantly spawned in that room trying to hold b.

Cheap tactic, maybe but you bet your sweet ass they stopped spawning at B so I could eventually push to capture it.

There are some things I like about the proposed changes, and some things I don't. I personally hate every single semi auto sniper rifle in the game, especially when you can equip a normal sight, a grip and turn it into a 2 shot death gun. I went 22-3 with an sks, grip, kobra sight/invr playing recon in team death match. Those rifles require zero skill to play with, feed me all the bullshit you want about bullet drop or whatever. A sniper/recon person shouldn't be running the streets with the big dawgs. They should be serving their purpose as camping fags.

Sounds like they are nerfing the attack helis somewhat. The flare recharge time is plenty long enough anyway, I've been able to relock on post flares and get a hit numerous times.

I am glad they are reducing damage against infantry with RPGs though, that shit is silly.

@137 said:

There are some things I like about the proposed changes, and some things I don't. I personally hate every single semi auto sniper rifle in the game, especially when you can equip a normal sight, a grip and turn it into a 2 shot death gun. I went 22-3 with an sks, grip, kobra sight/invr playing recon in team death match. Those rifles require zero skill to play with, feed me all the bullshit you want about bullet drop or whatever. A sniper/recon person shouldn't be running the streets with the big dawgs. They should be serving their purpose as camping fags.

How fast are the reloads on those? But yeah, I hate when I get killed like that, upclose, by a sniper gun.

the reload on the semi auto snipers is no different than an g36, or a usas maybe 1-2 seconds

I still went them to remove IR Scopes.

@137: Well I've had a lot of instances of spawning where an explosion is, and I literally couldn't have done anything about it, which is very annoying. Spawn protection is important, but I'd rather they do the thing that BC2 did and spawn you further and further away from your capture point as the other team starts to take it.

I'm not sure about the spawn invincibility timer. It doesn't makes a lot to sense to me. I don't think you should have any expectation of safety unless you're spawning in your default spawn. If you spawned into a firefight and got hit with an explosion that's your fault/risk.

I really haven't had much trouble with people camping nearby spawn points without capturing the flags. It's annoying when it happens, but equally annoying is when people start appearing out of nowhere before you can fully neutralize, although at that point I guess you're the one nailing them as they spawn so it evens out.

I definately don't think invicibility should extend after you move except maybe in the default spawn. If I see someone randomly appear in a corner near me I'm supposed to delay so I don't waste ammo on them just so they can identify where I am, shoot first and kill me without really doing anything to earn control of that ground?

...If we're talking about deathmatch I might feel differently