Battlefield 5’s Tides of War, a post-launch schedule of seasonal content, will be receiving its second chapter, Lightning Strikes, this week. The update brings a new mode called Squad Conquest, new weapons, new vehicles, weekly challenges, and much more for players. The co-op PvE mode Combined Arms will be out in February though.
However, along with new content, there will be a number of tweaks and changes to the current experience. DICE has released patch notes for Lightning Strikes and highlighted time to death and death experience adjustments. For instance, when you die, the name of your enemy is now shown in the game world. A camera will also follow and zoom towards the enemy.
Furthermore, vaulting has been improved so that it no longer triggers on steep hills or slopes. There’s also better detection for vaulting through a window that’s already been broken. Check out some of the patch notes below, with the full notes offered here.
New Content
New Mode: Squad Conquest
Squad Conquest is a tighter and more intense version of Conquest, where two squads per team battle it out over smaller, more tactical layouts of three existing maps: Arras, Hamada, and Rotterdam. These maps all feature 16 players on two teams, three flags, spawning restricted to HQs, and limited access to vehicles. A core belief behind Squad Conquest is a
restricted number of variables to allow strategy to be able to exist – you have to be able to predict player behavior and patterns, which is reflected in all three map layouts. Clear lanes and conservative combat areas allow players to predict where enemies are coming from, where they need to defend, and how to subvert enemy movement.
New Weapons
These are some of the weapons that will be obtainable through the Weekly Challenges in January and February:
- ZK-383 (SMG)
- Modele 1944 (SA)
- M1922 (MMG)
Top Issue Fixes and Changes
Time to Death and Death Experience Fixes
- The name of the enemy that has killed a player is now shown in the game world when the player has died. This highlights the killer and helps players understand who killed them and from where, especially in crowded situations.
- Improved the death experience with the addition of a camera that now follows and zooms towards the killer. This will allow players to understand what killed them and the position of the killer.
- Improved accuracy of the visual representation of incoming bullets for other players. Tracers should now properly appear to consistently appear from the shooter, and should be clearer when the victim is looking directly at the shooter.
- Fixed an issue with the UI directional damage indicator that delayed the indication of damage to the victim.
- Made tweaks to the UI directional damage indicator to more accurately point towards the enemy damaging the player.
Soldier Fixes and Tweaks
Vault
- Improved vaulting so that it no longer incorrectly triggers against steep hills and slopes.
- Improved vaulting detection when trying to vault through a window that’s already broken. This will make vaulting in those cases less sensitive to tight attack angles (you’re welcome, Reddit!) https://www.reddit.com/r/BattlefieldV/comments/a2cyz9/jumping_through_windows_never_felt_so_smooth/
- Fixed an issue where players could receive fall damage from vaulting over a wall.
Revive
- Fixed an issue where players would pick up a weapon while reviving on console.
- Fixed an issue where the camera would clip through the soldier while in the man down state when the player had set a very high FOV.
- Improved the camera behavior when a player revives a downed player very quickly.
Animation
- Improved soldier ragdoll behaviors and made them more granular when killed in different poses (stand, crouch, prone) and based on the impulse of explosions.
- Soldiers killed by explosions will now blend nicely into full ragdoll when they land rather than snapping to a specific ragdoll position when landing.
- Players will no longer get a strange arm pose when melee hitting an enemy three times in a row and then switching to the Fortification tool.
- Fixed an issue where the ammo self-supply animation could get stuck and play indefinitely.
Miscellaneous
- The Heavy Weapons trait is no longer as powerful on AA guns which previously would result in them having almost no overheat while firing.
- Improved sliding activation consistency from double-tap by reducing the impact of turning while sprinting.
- General improvements to the detection of auto-peek over and auto-lean.
Prone
Increased the horizontal free aiming angle when prone by 40°.