Battlefield 2042 Update 8.3.0 Patch Notes Revealed

Key Takeaways

• Battlefield 2042 Update 8.3.0 introduces vehicle tweaks, armor piercing changes, and holiday event.
• Patch focuses on balancing Dozer’s Ballistic Shield with reduced damage from Armor Piercing ammo.
• Update enhances customization, progression, and gameplay flow with improvements to vehicles and weapons.

DICE has revealed the patch notes for Battlefield 2042 Update 8.3.0. This patch wraps up 2024 with a variety of gameplay tweaks, bug fixes, and balance changes, along with a special holiday event to bring some festive spirit to Battlefield 2042.

Battlefield 2042 launched in November 2021, facing criticism for its departure from the traditional Battlefield formula and significant technical issues at release. Despite the rocky start, DICE has consistently worked to improve the game through regular updates, aiming to meet player expectations. A new update is now on the way, and while the exact release date wasn’t specified in the patch notes, it’s expected to roll out sometime in early December.

Battlefield 2042 Patch 8.3.0 delivers comprehensive updates to vehicles, weapons, and gameplay mechanics. Battlefield 2042 vehicle tweaks include aligning EMP grenades fired from vehicles with the behavior of hand-thrown ones and improving collision for the Pondhawk to prevent unintended hovering. A new HUD feature provides a “reactive hint” to players in free-falling vehicles without a pilot, urging them to take control before crashing. Other fixes include resolving issues like incorrect damage numbers due to armor and the deploy screen icon for the CAV-Brawler rotating with the vehicle. The patch also resolves a bug with the M1 Garand, where the animation for holding the weapon was delayed when swapping during a sprint.

The patch focuses heavily on balancing Dozer’s Ballistic Shield, addressing longstanding player concerns. Armor Piercing (AP) ammo has been reworked to penetrate Dozer’s shield with reduced damage, varying across Battlefield 2042 weapon types. For instance, sniper rifles can deal up to 45% damage per bullet, while assault rifles deal 10%. Additionally, AP grenade launchers now damage Dozer when fired at the shield, and the shield’s deployment time has been significantly reduced by 80%. These changes aim to make encounters with Dozer more manageable while preserving the shield’s defensive capabilities, encouraging strategic counterplay.

Additional updates enhance customization, progression, and gameplay flow. Portal now allows admins to enable team swaps via a menu option and adds features like “ammo stations” for more flexible custom game creation. New progression mechanics, such as Objective Airdrop XP for pilots and vehicle reclaim XP, reward strategic play. Fixes to pinging objectives in Shutdown mode and improvements to redeployment performance contribute to a smoother player experience. The patch also introduces the Holiday Protocol event, featuring both new and returning Battlefield 2042 rewards, offering players additional incentives to engage with these updates.

Battlefield 2042 Update 8.3.0 Patch Notes

Vehicles:

• The Draugr now only shows up in the personal category.
• Vehicle EMP fired grenades no longer get stopped by amps, to make them consistent with the behavior of hand thrown EMP grenades.
• Aligned collision on the Pondhawk to minimize players hovering on top of it.
• Added a reactive hint to the HUD when in a falling air vehicle without a pilot, to alert and encourage players to take control of the driver seat. Before you crash, you know?
• Fixed a bug where damage numbers would not take vehicle armor into account, causing the numbers to show as higher than actual damage dealt.
• Fixed a bug where the deploy screen icon for the “spawn on foot” feature of the CAV-Brawler would rotate with the vehicle.
• Fixed an issue where equipping amps on a vehicle would cause collision issues with certain objects such as vegetation. Those plants really were coming to get you.

Weapons:

• Fixed an issue where swapping to the M1 Garand when sprinting had a delayed animation for holding the weapon.

Armor Piercing Ammo

Over the years with Battlefield 2042, we have consistently seen players raise concerns about Dozer’s efficiency regarding their offensive capabilities across most of our maps. This update introduces a slight change to Armor Piercing which now allows for those rounds to pass through Dozer’s Ballistic Shield with reduced damage.

The team continues to look at balancing around Dozer, and we will further assess your feedback once this update has rolled out; however the penguins now hope that Dozer won’t be as scary the next time you run through the corridors on Exposure.

Below you will find the changes to Armor Piercing Ammo in connection to Dozer’s Ballistic Shield, the damage it shows is a percentage for example with Assault Rifles 10% bullet damage will pass through Dozer’s Ballistic Shield if you are using Armor Piercing Ammo.

• Sniper 45% damage per bullet against penetration vs shield
• Sniper Anti-Materiel Ammo 80% damage per bullet
• Railgun Single Shot 25% damage per bullet
• Railgun full auto/burst: 10% damage per bullet
• AR 10% damage per bullet
• DMR 25% damage per bullet
• Revolver 25% damage per bullet

Additional Armor Piercing & Dozer Changes:

• AP grenade launchers now will deal damage to Dozer if fired at the shield
• Dozer shield deploy time has been lowered by 80%
• All AP ammo from all primary weapons can now penetrate the shield and deal lower damage to Dozer

Characters & Gadgets:

• Fixed a bug where damage numbers would sometimes not match the actual damage dealt when dealing low damage multiple times.

Portal:

• Added the ability to place ammo stations to Custom Conquest, TDM, and FFA experiences.
• Fixed an issue that would let you press deploy even when it was on cooldown.
• Fixed an issue where custom score target could cause the score calculator to be incorrect.
• Fixed an issue causing Ascension Points not having a value for non-2042 factions.
• Added a mutator to portal for admins to allow players on their server to swap teams via the “Escape” / “Pause” menu.
  • This is only accessible when the player isn’t spawned in.
  • There is no restriction on how often you can swap or to which team for now, as this is a feature for admins to allow more freedom on their servers. With great power comes great responsibility.
• Added objective airdrop XP to custom game modes.

Progression:

• Objective Airdrop: If a passenger leaves an air vehicle and goes into a contested objective within a certain amount of time after leaving the vehicle, the pilot gets an Objective Airdrop XP event. This event also gives points on the scoreboard.
• Vehicles Boosted: If you enter a vehicle that was previously owned by the enemy you get an XP event.

Modes:

• Fixed a bug where players were unable to ping objectives in the Shutdown gamemode.

Gameplay Flow & Social:

• Small performance improvements for the Redeploy and Death flow.
• Fixed a bug where the “Ferocity” headgear for Blasco would appear twice in the headgear customization menu.
• Updated Huron vehicle description in the deploy screen.