Battlefield Hardline Patch Nerfs Couch And RPGs

Battlefield Hardline's first major patch is almost here. The update makes changes to several aspects of multiplayer, including a surprisingly powerful Easter Egg.

As many players know by now, there's a drivable couch hidden in the multiplayer map "Dust Bowl" during Hotwire mode. The couch seats four and is faster than any other land vehicle in the game. While it only spawns once per match, the couch was surviving much longer than expected through player repairs. Visceral Games will put a stop to this with Patch 1 by reducing its health and repair rate to "a miniscule amount."

The patch also delivers the high-priority fixes previously promised by Visceral. Team Deathmatch has been tweaked so spawns are smarter. The total tickets for Conquest matches will be increased. RPGs will be less dominant now that their explosion radius has been reduced and RPGs loaded into the back of vehicles will only have one ammo.

There are a bunch of other balance changes in the patch, too. The K10, a popular submachine gun for the Law Enforcement team, has been nerfed. Conversely, the much-harder-to-obtain FMG-9 has been given a boost. Minimum damage has been bumped up to 25 for all Battle Rifles as well to make them more competitive.

Here are the full list of patch notes from the Battlelog forums:

BUG FIXES:

- Fixed a server crash in Rescue

- Increased the character limit in the MapList to support up to 150 maps in a rotation

- You can now set the time limit to 0 and it disables the time limit instead of instantly ending the round in Blood Money

- Various fixes for server crashes with rental servers (multiple issues addressed)

- Fix for the timer in Conquest freezing when the user set the time limit higher than 800

- Fix for MP squad join issue where after the squad leader gets disconnected, a new leader cannot kick members or disband

- Fix for the patch awarded in released game for reaching Rank 10 in the Beta

- Fix for Derailed Levolution where players were teleported to origin of Point B and killed in some circumstances

- Fix for crash if the UI is disabled in the .cfg file

- Fix for Bloodmoney exploit in HH where players could access the money pile through the floor/roof

- Fix on XB1 for players using invite/join on friend after Quickmatching

- Fix for the Uzi's weapon license cost, setting it to the correct value of $50,000

- Fix for X360 players being unable to invite friends while playing Rescue

- Fix for a rare crash in the Customize screen

- All platforms, miscellaneous low frequency crash fixes

GAMEPLAY CHANGES:

- Conquest tickets increased (CQL 999, CQS 600)

- Greatly decreased nearby bullet impact flinch; your aimpoint will not shift from rounds striking the environment near you

- Fixed some issues with FLIR/IRNV

- RPG reduced to 1 ammo from back of cars, with smaller explosion radius overall thus requiring more skill to use effectively

- TDM friendzones have been adjusted for better spawning

- Rescue / Crosshair exploit where players could skip the round start time by hitting START or ESC has been fixed

- Couch health reduced and repair rate decreased to a miniscule amount, making the Couch the one-off it was intended

- Player should no longer Quickmatch into servers with unsupported numbers of players

- K10: Reduce max damage to 33 and min damage to 8

- Saiga and PTR: reduce recoil to bring more in line with Cop faction DMRs

- HCAR and HK51: reduce recoil to bring more in line with SCAR-H and SA-58

- .410 Jury: Increase damage per pellet to become more effective

- FMG-9: increase damage per round to 25 and push out falloff start range to make these weapons more effective

- Battlerifle min damage increased to 25 across the board

- AKM min damage reduced to 24

Visceral didn't mention a specific platform for the patch so we can probably expect it on Xbox and PlayStation consoles along with PC. No release date was announced yet.