XDefiant Y1S0.3 patch notes: Sniper flinch and jump/crouch penalties

Some welcome improvements.

An XDefiant player sliding on the ground towards an enemy.

Ubisoft has dropped a major update for XDefiant on June 12, finally introducing flinch to enemies who scope using a sniper rifle, while punishing players who spam jumping and crouching during matches. Read the full Y1S0.3 patch notes below.

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One of the biggest issues in XDefiant has been the overpowered sniper rifles, which have dominated matches since launch. The biggest complaint was that the weapon had no flinch, which meant players could aim down the scope of the weapon while being shot, and have no issues aiming their gun. Now, players who are hit will have increased flinch, which will continue as more bullets slam into you.

Elsewhere, fans were also upset that there was no penalty when jumping or crouching while firing weapons, meaning that you would often encounter opponents who were bouncing around and impossible to hit. Thankfully, Ubisoft has now added an aiming penalty, so that you are less accurate when jumping or crouching, putting you at a disadvantage.

There have also been fixes for a weird bug that meant your legs didn’t follow your body when you pushed the package in Escort, tweaks to long-distance shooting, and other useful bug fixes.

XDefiant
No more jumping enemies. Image via Ubisoft

XDefiant Y1S0.3 update patch notes

Gameplay

  • Added aiming penalties for players who go to town on the jump/crouch buttons, aka the nuanced tactic of jump spamming, aka the maddening exploit of jump spamming. Opinions vary.
  • Players can now push the package in Escort mode with confidence that their legs won’t detach from their torso and strand them, which was a thing that was happening.

Weapons

  • Various fine-tuning for long-distance shooting, including slightly reduced walking speed when holding your breath while wielding scoped weapons, which makes sense when you think about it.
  • Revamped how snipers flinch when they’re tagged by enemy fire, increasing the flinch and keeping it going through multiple hits. 
  • Squared away a PC-specific issue where players couldn’t set ADS on toggle after completing a match and changing gameplay input.

Social

  • Fixed an Xbox-specific issue where the Xbox button broke on the in-game Social menu after inviting a player from said console.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed blocked players to read your chat messages.
  • Tweaked the way ping is calculated in matchmaking so you’ll have access to a wider group of players who share your ping characteristics.
  • Players were unable to join a nearly full game in progress despite being invited by someone already in the game, but good news: Now they can.
  • Fixed an issue where players could join a game in progress that didn’t fit their meticulously customized controller and matchmaking settings.

Netcode

  • Libertad’s medical skills were so potent, they were soaking up bandwidth. That’s been fixed (the bandwidth issue, not the healing potency, which remains untouched).

Factions

  • Added additional fixes so that Echelon players turn invisible only when using the Digital Ghillie Suit rather than for their entire lives. They’re supposed to be sneaky but c’mon.
  • Corrected how feats of Libertad battlefield medicine are highlighted at the end of each round for well-deserved peer-group recognition.

Devices

  • The camera used to shake when nearby explosives exploded whether the explosion caused player damage or not, but now the camera shakes only when the exploding explosive causes damage.

Maps

  • Tweaked the orientation of flags on the Liberty map.

Miscellaneous

  • Crash fixes, various.
  • Reduced the pop-up frequency of the “Banned for Toxicity” notification because you know who you are.
  • Fixed an issue preventing players from deploying abilities and devices after changing control input.
  • The Buzzkill Achievement wasn’t unlocking but now it unlocks according to plan.
  • Previously cosmetic items were displayed as available in some places but not in the place where you could actually get them. That’s fixed now.
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Matt Porter
Matt has been writing about Call of Duty for almost 10 years, with bylines at Gfinity, Dexerto, and a spell as CharlieIntel's editor. Matt is experienced in all things CoD, including multiplayer, Warzone, and esports.
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