**OFFICIAL** AT Battlefield 3 FAQ and News Thread

[GullyFoyle]

New Battlefield Blog Post: Back to Karkand launches for the PlayStation 3 on Tuesday!

Thursday, 01 December 2011 05:00

We hope you are ready to go Back to Karkand, as we are releasing our first Battlefield 3 expansion pack Tuesday, December 6th (giving you one week early access exclusively on PlayStation 3)!

Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand is a huge expansion pack featuring four legendary Battlefield maps reimagined in the Frostbite 2 engine. Three new vehicles (the VSTOL fighter jet, Desert Buggy, and an APC), ten new weapons that you can bring back to the base game, and a new layer of persistence with our all-new Assignments make this a must-have for any Battlefield fan.

Our four new maps are Wake Island, Sharqi Peninsula, Gulf of Oman, and Strike at Karkand. Over the years these maps have been played billions of times and now they’ve been reimagined with the power of the Frostbite 2 engine. To top it off, we’re taking the level of destruction to the next level as well – entire huge portions of these maps can be razed to the ground.

We’re also introducing the Assignments system. For example, to complete the “Let it Rain” assignment players must score 20 kills with Light Machine Guns and two mortar kills. When you have met the requirements, you will unlock a new Back to Karkand weapon (with a matching set of dog tags) to use in Back to Karkand and the original Battlefield 3 maps, which will mix in server rotation. You will also unlock the next Assignment in the series, the new Creeping Death Assignment.

We hope that you're as excited as we are to release our fist expansion. There's even more great content planned for the future, so stay tuned!

And before we go, here are the five new Trophies you can hunt in Back to Karkand:


Complete Warrior (Silver)
Get a kill with the following weapons in a single life: Rifle, Jet, Tank

Third Tour (Bronze)
Get a kill with the new APC, Desert Buggy, and STOVL fighter jet

Gunslinger (Bronze)
Get 10 kills with all B2K weapons

Like a Boss! (Silver)
Get a kill with the skid loader

Jaws (Bronze)
Take a swim in the pool at the Oman hotel


We hope you enjoyed this look at our first expansion pack for Battlefield 3. Let us know what you think about Back to Karkand in the Battlelog forums.

If you are a Battlefield 3 Limited Edition owner, you are entitled to this entire expansion pack at no extra charge and you can get it from the in-game store or the PlayStation Store. Otherwise, you can buy it for $14.99, from the game’s in-game store or from the PlayStation Store. Every future expansion pack for Battlefield 3 will also be available one week early exclusively on PlayStation 3, just like Back to Karkand.

 

[Anubis]

i honestly think the stinger needs to be buffed even more, its nearly impossible to take out a heli with a 1/2 competent pilot, and impossible to take out one with a gunner who also has flares. and repairing the little bird while sitting in it is incredibly overpowered. hit one square in the face with the tanks main gun yesterday, only got a disable and it just flew away

 

[JTsyo]

Is stealth a passive ability or does it need to be activated? Sometimes when I die I see vehicles with stealth in multiple slots, it this just a bug?

 

[llee]

Is stealth a passive ability or does it need to be activated? Sometimes when I die I see vehicles with stealth in multiple slots, it this just a bug?

It's just a bug. What you are seeing are perks for other vehicles, not necessarily the one they were flying/driving. Stealth is a passive ability.

 

[Zargon]

i honestly think the stinger needs to be buffed even more, its nearly impossible to take out a heli with a 1/2 competent pilot, and impossible to take out one with a gunner who also has flares. and repairing the little bird while sitting in it is incredibly overpowered. hit one square in the face with the tanks main gun yesterday, only got a disable and it just flew away

they are nerfing how flares work, and they are making tank round + air vehicle an auto kill in the next patch

now flares will only deter missles that are close by

 

[Canbacon]

they are nerfing how flares work, and they are making tank round + air vehicle an auto kill in the next patch

now flares will only deter missles that are close by

I can't wait for the "proposed" changes to be approved and put in. There were numerous times I hit a jet or helicopter last night with the 120 only to see them just get disabled.

 

[Zargon]

yeah it just makes sense. no way one of those survives a direct hit with 120mm HE round

 

[Arkaign]

i honestly think the stinger needs to be buffed even more, its nearly impossible to take out a heli with a 1/2 competent pilot, and impossible to take out one with a gunner who also has flares. and repairing the little bird while sitting in it is incredibly overpowered. hit one square in the face with the tanks main gun yesterday, only got a disable and it just flew away

Yeah the stingers/infantry AA need to be one-shot killers of helis. Right now the helis are incredibly overpowered, as I've seen them one-shot the mobile AA with missiles MANY times. Now think about that, the AA is a mobile armored vehicle, while the armor on helicopters, even BlackHawks, is pretty thin IRL.

I had a frustrating experience on firestorm the other day, the other team had two seriously skilled attack chopper pilots, and they made the game nearly pointless. It was luckily a high-ticket map though, so I called three of my friends, we all joined as a squad with my squad ammo boost (5 missiles instead of 3 like normal), and we proceeded to take them out of the sky entirely. One guy went from 8-1 to 9-20 before leaving, cussing the whole time. Lulz were had by everyone else.

 

[Termie]

I can't wait for the "proposed" changes to be approved and put in. There were numerous times I hit a jet or helicopter last night with the 120 only to see them just get disabled.

yeah it just makes sense. no way one of those survives a direct hit with 120mm HE round

You do realize that Canbacon was shooting at you last night, right? 🙂

Honestly, the team we were on was way overpowered due to the amazing helicopter skills of a few of our pilots (expandas and paqster). Given that I spend a lot of time trying to knock out helicopters with stingers, I was feeling bad for all the infantry I was spraying with minigun fire last night while expandas dodged nearly everything that came his way, and engineers repaired mid-air when he did get hit.

I agree that tank rounds should knock out helis in one shot, but I disagree about stingers. Look, it takes a ton of skill to actually survive in the heli - I killed tons of pilots and passengers yesterday with my stingers. If someone is really darn good, one hit from a locked missle should not be their demise.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Two things:

One: here are patch notes for next Tuesday:

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654489494744784/

and

Two: Canbacon - I hate you very, very, very much.

<3

 

[maevinj]

two things:

Added alternate hud colors to help colorblinds

finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Canbacon]

You do realize that Canbacon was shooting at you last night, right? 🙂

Two things:

One: here are patch notes for next Tuesday:

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654489494744784/

and

Two: Canbacon - I hate you very, very, very much.

<3

For the first part, I was missing my regular gunner/spotter team. But when they came on, Jschmuck got the full wrath of my tank crew.

Driver: Guided Shell, Thermal, Reactive Armour
Gunner/3rd: Proxy for both seats. Depending on situation either seat will jump out and repair. If air is up, gunner repairs; if infantry are near by, 3rd repairs.

 

[Childs]

reduced heat masking effectiveness of spec ops camo
slightly decreased the accuracy for all weapons on fully automatic, burst fire is now preferable at mid to long range

boooooo :thumbsdown:

 

[Arkaign]

Well what I've seen at the moment is the attack helis are overpowered. There's a missile that they can fire out of the range of AA that will kill a tank or mobile AA in a single shot. Either that should be lowered to ~75&#37; damage at most, or the heli's should have a fairly equal one-shot kill on them as well (and tank shells don't count, only an idiot chopper pilot gets hit by a tank round).

The single-strafe kill of a group vehicle is fine with me, as to do that requires both skill and getting close. The single-kill super long range missile is bullshit though.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Hi all,

We will release an update to the PC version of BF3 on Dec 6th -- that is, Tuesday morning around 8AM GMT next week. This coincides with an upgrade of many of our central systems which will be down for some hours starting around that time.

It will be both a client update -- approximately 2GB in size -- and a server update.

The client/server combination will be incompatible with older clients/servers. All players will be prompted to download the update once it has been released. All RSP companies will begin upgrading their servers at the same time.

The client update is large because it contains most of the content for Back to Karkand. This is not ideal, so we aim to make potential DLC content in the future as optional downloads.



Bugfixes:
Fixed a problem with spawn timer now showing blue border on startup and lost spawn point
Fixed a problem where player who joined queuing on End of round got spawn screen stuck on screen, but unable to do anything with it untill next round loaded
Fixed a problem where camera would change to 3rd person on killcam when killcam was turned off in server settings
Fixed stat references on several dogtags
Fixed for surveillance ribbon not counting TUGS
Fixed a missing combat area lines on the minimap for Grand Bazaar conquest small
Moved a tank spawn in US base on Caspian Border so it would not be destroyed by a falling tree
Fixed a problem where placing C4 with the russians soldier was playing US faction VO
Fixed a problem where TV guided missiles could be shot into its own helicopter and destroy it
Fixed a problem when attempting to fire lock on weapons without a target
Tweaked the chat, it should now be a bit easier to read
Fixed several vehicles that did not properly shoot rockets and guns towards their predictive sights
Fixed the G17 Supressed Laser not working properly
Added alternate HUD colors to help colorblinds
Added a network interpolation setting. This allows users with good bandwidth reduce latency, but might increase some stuttering. The user can find what works best for his connection by tweaking the slider.
Increased the Spawn protection radius on TDM
Fixed a problem with smoke on land vehicles, Missiles should now miss more often
Fixed a problem where users could end up with IRNV scope in any vehicle
Fixed a problem where player dies if vaulting over a ledge and into water while sprinting
Fixed several crashes and increased general stability
Fixed a problem where the user was unable to revive two players that have the bodies one over the other
Fixed so you can assign an axis and use as a digital input. This makes it possible for the player (on pc) to assign one of the sticks on a gameped to be used for throttle/brake.
Fixed a problem with the Kill camera acting up when suiciding from parachute
Fixed air radar was showing to much. now lasertagged, heatsignature above threshold, enemy missiles and capture points are only visible on air radar
Fixed a problem where the game would enter a technical hang if the user pressed pause menu and tilde at the same time
Fixed a problem where you could get green flashes on screen
You can now reassign cycle weapons
Fixed so the weapon zooms automatically after bipod deploy is gone when using zoom toggle
Fixed a problem where the parachute would stay stuck in air if the owner was killed


Balance Tweaks:
Fixed several weapons so they are properly suppressed and hide the player on the minimap when fired.
Tweaked Tactical Light so it is not as blinding over longer ranges.
Tweaked the IRNV scope so it is limited to usage only at close range.
Reduced heat masking effectiveness of Spec Ops Camo.
Fixed a bug where Ammo spec would give additional 40mm grenades instead of Frag spec.
Increased the number of additional 40mm grenades from Frag spec.
Fixed so AT mines only live for 20 seconds after a player dies to prevent infinite mines. (We want to make a different fix in the future, it’s in JIRA).
Increased the Time to Live on sniper caliber rounds to allow extreme distance shots.
Fixed several weapon descriptions, calibers, and fire rates. The weapons themselves have not changed.
Fixed so the M9 and MP443 pistol can be equipped by the opposing faction when it is unlocked at 100 kills.
Fixed Laser Guided Missiles missing their targets if the target is moving too fast.
Reduced the effectiveness of Stealth on Air Vehicles.
Reduced the effectiveness of Beam Scanning for Jets.
Reduced the damage done to Armored Vehicles and Infantry from AA guns.
Increased the damage RPGs and Tank shells do to AA vehicles.
Slightly decreased the accuracy for all weapons on fully automatic, burst fire is now preferable at mid to long range.
Increased the effective accuracy of long bursts for LMGs when using a bipod.
Slightly increased the range of the 44magnum bullets.
Increased the close range damage of 4.6x30mm and 5.7x28mm bullets.
Increased the reload time of the Mortar from 3.5sec to 4.8sec and increased the time it takes before a shell hits the ground.
Reduced the aimed accuracy bonus given by a Suppressor for the MP7, P90, PP2000, PP-19, and UMP45.
Increased the range and FOV for designating targets with the SOFLAM and vehicle Laser Designators.
Decreased the effectiveness of 12g FRAG ammo when equipped on semi-automatic and automatic shotguns.
Slightly Increased the power of Fighter Jet Cannons against all vehicle targets, especially Helicopters.
Decreased the power of Miniguns against Jets and Helicopters.
Increased the power of Stingers against Jets.
Flares reload times for Jets and Helicopter Gunners have been increased.
Tweaked the AN94 so its burst fire better conveys the real world advantage offered by this weapon.
Added Single Shot to the AN94 as an available fire mode.
Slightly increased the recoil on the M416 and removed the Burst Fire mode (this weapon incorrectly had burst fire, which was not authentic).
Tweaked the spawns for TDM on Kharg Island, Grand Bazaar, Caspian Border, Seine Crossing, Operation Firestorm, Damavand Peak and Noshahar Canals
Moved a tank spawn in US base on Caspian Border so it would not be destroyed by a falling tree
Tweaked the Gas station Capture area on Conquest on Caspian Border
Tweaked the max vehicle height on Noshahar Canals



Also, it will once again be possible to reduce the number of players required to start a round to 1 both in ranked and unranked mode. We changed it back after getting a lot of negative feedback from both individuals and the RSP companies.

Our plan is to introduce a warm-up mode, where players can move about and play the game, but with scoring disabled; then, when the number of players goes above the threshold -- that's when the real round starts.

For those blocked.

 

[JTsyo]

Hope the AT mine fix in the future is to have 5 mines per engineer active during the round. Not a fan of them disappearing when you die.

Lots of vehicle changes, need to wait and see how this works out in-game.

 

[Termie]

Hope the AT mine fix in the future is to have 5 mines per engineer active during the round. Not a fan of them disappearing when you die.

...

Agreed. Sounds like this was a temporary fix, and it's a lame one. I get tons of mine disables, and some mine kills, but almost never during a single life. Mines are by nature defensive, so you often set them up and move on with the battle. This will make them practically useless.

It will partially be made up for with the stronger RPGs on AAs (why no javelin buff, BTW?). Guess I'll go back to running with RPG/repair tool.

 

[maevinj]

Agreed. Sounds like this was a temporary fix, and it's a lame one. I get tons of mine disables, and some mine kills, but almost never during a single life. Mines are by nature defensive, so you often set them up and move on with the battle. This will make them practically useless.

It will partially be made up for with the stronger RPGs on AAs (why no javelin buff, BTW?). Guess I'll go back to running with RPG/repair tool.

Agreed. No point in mines now. Such a bummer.

 

[Termie]

Agreed. No point in mines now. Such a bummer.

What's funny is that they had the very same problem in BF2. Originally you could have infinitie mines/claymores, which obviously isn't good for gameplay. They might have switched to mines disappearing on death (can't quite remember), but I think they eventually settled on what it sounds like they'll eventually do here: mines disappear after you lay your fifth one. I always thought that was funny in BF2. If I stood by my five mines and then was resupplied, I could lay additional mines and watch my original mines disappear.

Oh well, better than disappearing when you die. At least I could control what happened to them. And isn't that how BC2 worked? Which reminds me...oh how I miss the days of blowing up tanks and APCs and getting multiple kills with a single mine! BF3 makes you work for it (and will soon make it basically impossible).

Overall, though, the changes are good. Tons of changes I've heard plenty of people clamoring for - here's my top 10 list:

(1) nerf INRV
(2) avoid self-destruction by TV missle
(3) nerf AA guns against tanks
(4) nerf frag ammo in auto-shotties (which basically worked like Quake-style rocket launchers)
(5) fix tac light
(6) fix suicide when jumping into water (was that you, Zargon?!?)
(7) fix AN94
(8) fix green flashes on screen
(9) fix throttle use on gamepad analog sticks (man, did I waste time trying to get that to work!)
(10) and my personal favorite, buff the stingers on jets, for goodness sake!

And a little something extra for Zargon - fix the max jet height on Canals!

 

[Worthington]

Finally!!! Letting us rebind the scroll wheel. Bout time!

 

[llee]

Given that I spend a lot of time trying to knock out helicopters with stingers, I was feeling bad for all the infantry I was spraying with minigun fire last night while expandas dodged nearly everything that came his way, and engineers repaired mid-air when he did get hit.

Flying crazy like that may seem like a piece of cake, but dodging under bridges and through confined spaces takes practice to master- I've probably died more from suicides than enemy missiles. People need to actually spend time flying before they pass judgement on gameplay nerfs.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Ugh they're making mines completely useless. How annoying.

 

[Arkaign]

Flying crazy like that may seem like a piece of cake, but dodging under bridges and through confined spaces takes practice to master- I've probably died more from suicides than enemy missiles. People need to actually spend time flying before they pass judgement on gameplay nerfs.

Someone mastering a vehicle shouldn't reduce a server to being basically unplayable. I was on a team of average players on Kharg just now, and their team had several excellent pilots that made it impossible to get out of the base. It hurt that I was seemingly the only one spawning with the stinger, but 1 stinger is currently useless against a good pilot, not even a minor annoyance in the big picture.

The way it is right now, a great pilot can destroy any chance the other team has at doing jack shit unless they are smart enough to spawn with at least 4 stinger engineers. To add insult to injury, those jacktards can fire that 1-shot insta-kill missile from wherever on the map, outside of AA range. AA range should be doubled, and the AA rockets should kill them with a single shot.

 

[Childs]

Battlefield Community Highlights from the official Battlefield channel.

 

[realjetavenger]

What's the deal with the javelins? I thought they were supposed to be so awesome. While in a tank at 100% a guy hits me twice and the tank blows up. There was no one anywhere else around and nothing else causing damage.
However I get the javelin, hit a tank 4 times and it only gets disabled. Then to top it off, I hit a jeep with one and it survives? In what world is that even possible?