Battlefield 4 (Winter Patch)

[Eel O'Brian]

I'm still sore they never went back and added European maps to BF1943.

[SantaC]

holy shit nice flank

[tehjaybo]

So I finally played a little China Rising. I'm glad there are more helicopters and planes and I like the addition of motorbikes. But what's the deal with the unlock for the support UAV? Is it 5 fighter ribbons? I will never get that. I think I've shot one chopper down once ever.

Go to the firing range until you get the hang of flying by yourself, then start training on doing strafing runs on ground targets.  Then move your way up to the UAV drones that are flying around, then move on to a few Air Superiority matches.  Five kills is a ribbon, and they don't have to be in a row.  Practice makes perfect, I have faith in you! 

Or, you know, get some friends together and trade kills in an unpopulated server.  :innocentwhistle

[Stoney Mason]

Sometimes obliteration can be really fun. Was playing some of that tonight.

Was proud of this chase down on the bomb carrier because before this part of the clip I had to run a long way to meet the vehicle here at the bomb site.




And also my god I love dat SRAW. The way you can curve those things is so god damn cool.

[Eel O'Brian]

Man, I'm really shitting it up today, had to unplug my Mic I was cursing so much

[Stoney Mason]

Sometimes obliteration can be really fun. Was playing some of that tonight.

Was proud of this chase down on the bomb carrier because before this part of the clip I had to run a long way to meet the vehicle here at the bomb site.




And also my god I love dat SRAW. The way you can curve those things is so god damn cool.

Can the PS4 save clips like this too?

Yes. Both consoles can save clips and such and then you just have to upload them to youtube in various ways. Xbox one uses skydrive to do it.

[Eel O'Brian]

You can also live stream from Twitch and Ustream on PS4. Twitch is coming to XB1 in early 2014. I like the way XB1 does the sharing of clips better than PS4.  Right now you can only share saved clips to Facebook on PS4.

[Eel O'Brian]

Not unless you download the clip from Facebook and manually upload it to YouTube.

[Stoney Mason]

To be fair we are so early in this stuff that it was simply a matter of what each company wanted to get done before launch. A year down the road I'm sure each console will have relative parity on all of this stuff whether it's clip sharing or streaming to twitch, etc.

Currently I wish the xbox could capture the last 15 minutes of gameplay like the PS4 instead of just the last 5. I'm sure eventually they will each try to catch the other and whatever they are behind on. It is good to have competition from a consumer perspective.

[Stoney Mason]

Finally tried the commander mode thing. It's okay. Not great. Hard to determine the effect you are having. I mean some games my team crushed the other side and I thought I was helping a great deal. And some games it felt like it didn't really matter as the players on the other side were just too good. Not to mention people often refuse your orders or don't follow them. So it becomes more a minigame of reacting to what is going on versus directing the flow of battle.

One thing though is that I much preferred using the tablet for commander mode than the interface in the console version which I found confusing. Maybe the PC interface is better as in theory I would assume that would be closer to the format of mouse/touching tablet.

[Eel O'Brian]

I just flew as engineer with the best helicopter pilot I've seen yet, guy could fly right up to the side of a ground level building and kill people through tiny windows.  I got so many spotting and repair ribbons it took like five seconds to scroll out, haha.  Dude had a 48:4 K/D ratio at the end of the match, just crazy flying skills. I hit the save button to share the clip, but it never saved, of course. For some reason I had a clip saved of the previous match which was kind of boring, though. I really don't understand how the clip saving is supposed to work at all. I thought that if you hit the Share button it automatically saves the last 15 minutes to your hard drive, but that is hardly ever the case. I never manage to save any of the really cool stuff, just random clips of me running around like an idiot trying not to get killed.

[Groogrux]

I think you tap once for a pic and double tap for a clip.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

Put me down for PS4.  I need to get a mic though....or does the PS4 come with one?  lol I haven't even checked.

Kids will be away for the weekend so I should be able to dick around a bit.

Gamertag: pocketfudge

[Eel O'Brian]

Yeah, check the box, there should be a cell phone style earpiece headset in there.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

Thanks.

I'll have to send my wife a text to not throw the box away.....

[Eel O'Brian]

any stereo heaphones or headset will work by plugging it into the jack on the controller, btw

then go into your settings and set audio to come out of the controller

now you can play and listen to games or whatever through the controller, and not disturb anyone

[Eel O'Brian]

Tell you what, they need to do some work on matchmaking, badly. I was in a match last night and we were getting our asses handed to us in the worst possible way. I mean, the spawn in and die a couple seconds later kinda asswhipping. I took a peek at the scoreboard and the enemy side had dudes ranging from level 60 to 100. Our side had exactly 3 people over my level (21), and they were only a couple levels over me. I bailed out. I suppose that makes me a poor sport or whatever, but fuck it, I'm not gonna sit there and be miserable just to boost someone else's K/D ratio or score or whatever. Balance your shit, DICE.

[Stoney Mason]

Unfortunately battlefield always seems to have a problem with this. Especially since a lot of people play in squads together. And its very easy to for people to team swap over to the winning side anyway. But if you have one side that has good vehicle players and the other side not so much then you are very likely to have an incredibly lop sided match.

Random good video from levelcap.

[Stoney Mason]

I feel like the hit detection is so sketchy sometimes. I feel like sometimes I just can't kill a person when I feel like I've landed at least enough bullets to do so. Stuff like this happens all the time.

[Eel O'Brian]

I need to train myself to shoot from the hip more. I'm sure I've gotten killed at least a couple dozen times due to trying to ads before firing.

[fistfulofmetal]

I shoot from the hip more often than not and I imagine the majority of my kills come from dumping an entire magazine into someone while firing from the hip.

add some gun mods that increase accuracy while shooting from the hip and you're golden.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

For some reason I can't log into my Origin account on the PS4. It gives me the option to create a new ID but nowhere does it let me enter my existing one and even if I do try to make a new account it just brings me back to the same new ID screen.  So basically I'm completely locked out of all the online stuff.

Thanks EA!

Time to try tech support.......

[Eel O'Brian]

Have you ever used another log in name/password on any other EA PS3 game? I had to go on the EA site, log in there, and find my PS3 EA username I had made way back for Burnout Paradise and use that. All of them are tied together on Origin, but it's still confusing as fuck.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

It's always been my pocketfudge ID.  I logged into their site and evidently I never linked my PSN account to Origin, which I thought was kind of strange. I thought for sure I did it back when I played the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2.  Whatever.  I just don't understand this perpetual loop the game is stuck in.

So anyway, I'm in EA limbo now.  I'll have to wait until I get back from work to give them a call.

[Eel O'Brian]

If anyone's wondering why BF4 can be so buggy and crashy and people still suffer through shit like corrupted saves and still keep playing, here's why. You can totally suck at the game like I do, and still occasionally pull off action movie things like this which make you feel like a complete badass.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got killed by HIV, though

[close]

 

[tehjaybo]

If anyone's wondering why BF4 can be so buggy and crashy and people still suffer through shit like corrupted saves and still keep playing, here's why. You can totally suck at the game like I do, and still occasionally pull off action movie things like this which make you feel like a complete badass.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got killed by HIV, though

[close]

 

http://shar.es/ONCFF

[Eel O'Brian]

[Groogrux]

I'm still of the opinion that any time you make a jump with a parachute involved, the A-Team theme should play in the background.

[Rahxephon91]

Well since the Parachute is so nice and responsive in this game, that would basically be every sec.

[tehjaybo]

Had a couple of okay games last night, and then some AWESOME games.  Went 25/2 one game in a chopper, with my buddy flying repairman.  It was choice.

[Stoney Mason]

As expected a lot of christmas noobs so the game has gotten easier in the past week on average.

[Eel O'Brian]

Rubberbanding like crazy ever since right before Christmas. Very frustrating. I think I'm just gonna stick with the 32 player modes for right now, until they sort their shit out on 64 CQ.  So, Summer 2014, just in time for BF5 marketing to begin, I suppose.

It had been working okay for a while, so a couple weeks ago like a dumbass I traded in COD for $40, bought 2 $20 PSN cards, and used the $10 PSN money that came in the PS4 box for Premium

[tehjaybo]

Rubberbanding like crazy ever since right before Christmas. Very frustrating. I think I'm just gonna stick with the 32 player modes for right now, until they sort their shit out on 64 CQ.  So, Summer 2014, just in time for BF5 marketing to begin, I suppose.

It had been working okay for a while, so a couple weeks ago like a dumbass I traded in COD for $40, bought 2 $20 PSN cards, and used the $10 PSN money that came in the PS4 box for Premium

Sounds like a worthwhile investment to me, since you're gonna be playing with me a ton.   

[Stoney Mason]

The gaming press as always belatedly taking a stand.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/3/5269676/battlefield-4-spotlights-eas-inability-to-launch-games-treat-players
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/01/03/opinion-ea-and-dice-have-broken-consumer-trust.aspx

On a sidenote double xp this weekend if you have premium.

edit: To be fair Kuchera just started writing recently for Polygon.

[Eel O'Brian]

Just about every other game today my MP progress would get wiped and reset. I'd see shit like MB LAW and REPAIR TOOL pop up, and all my weapons would revert back to the starter weapon for each kit. I'd have to quit out of the game entirely and restart it for it to "fix" itself. This game is crazy broken in so, so many ways. I really do hope they get the shit sued out of them and lose a fuckton of money over it.

[Stoney Mason]

It's a frustrating and embarrassing situation in a lot of ways. The fact that they knowingly released the game in a completely broken state is one of the scummier moves I've seen in recent years. There is an arrogance from both EA and DICE that has really been disillusioning.

Say what you will about Activision and COD (and there is a lot of negative to be said in many cases) but they've never released an edition of COD this buggy and broken. 

[Rahxephon91]

I'm surprised they haven't offered some sort of free thing during all of this.

[Stoney Mason]

I'm surprised they haven't offered some sort of free thing during all of this.

They did. They gave us a week of double xp back in december.

 


I have a feeling one of the DLC map packs will eventually be made free to everyone.

But I think they are in a delicate position. Because if they admit publicly how screwed the game was/is it will hurt them in the lawsuits.

[fistfulofmetal]

[fistfulofmetal]

when you get a hang of the SRAW is really is pretty beastly.

edit: gif form:

[Eel O'Brian]

Haha, I need to start using that. I tend to stick with the RPG-7 just because it's so versatile. I love taking out walls and scaring the shit out of whoever is behind them.

[Stoney Mason]

The SRAW is definitely more of a long range launcher even on the ground targets since you have to stay zoomed in to control versus and rpg which is more for up close and personal situations involving tanks.

[Eel O'Brian]

I don't think I really "get" Obliteration mode. I mean, get it, it's basically football. What I mean is, I try to get right in the thick of it, picking up the bomb, covering the bomb carrier, laying down covering fire, trying to keep vehicles repaired and ready, etc. At the end of the round, though, I see myself sitting  in the lower half of the scoreboard and feeling like I busted my ass for nothing, while snipers stand on top of buildings and hills not playing the objective and getting over-rewarded for random kills.

[Stoney Mason]

Obliteration is more fun with a group. I mean all modes in Battlefield are obviously like that but Obliteration even more so because its most similar to something like capture the flag. You have to have a decent group coordinating and having different roles. It's also the mode most likely to turn into a complete stalemate.

[Groogrux]

Obliteration is more fun with a group. I mean all modes in Battlefield are obviously like that but Obliteration even more so because its most similar to something like capture the flag. You have to have a decent group coordinating and having different roles. It's also the mode most likely to turn into a complete stalemate.

All of this.  The only thing I would add is that one person in your group has to be there to counter-snipe and spot for you.  Obliteration is not my most favorite game mode, but I will play it from time to time.

Last night, a few buddies and myself decided to be mortar-jackoffs, and literally had four of us playing support with raining mortars.  We had a fifth guy come in as recon with a mav and spot it out for us.  We played rush and the opposing team could not move at all.  Chuckles all around.

[Stoney Mason]

http://bf4central.com/2014/01/battlefield-4-criticism-shows-hypocrisy-gaming-media/

For example, Polygon gave Battlefield 4 a 7.5 in its initial review, but now says the game “has wasted the time of many, many players“. GameInformer gave Battlefield 4 an 8.75 score, but now says that EA and DICE “haven’t simply released a broken game. They have cracked the foundation of the brand and driven a wedge between themselves and a loyal fan base”.
If anything, the game is much better off now than it was when it launched. Yet the reviews from these sites were great back then, when EA’s was funneling a lot of marketing dollars into their sites. Now that the launch is over and EA isn’t dangling a bunch of advertising money in front them, they’re gladly speaking speaking up.
Where were these critical articles back when the game was really broken?

Although I wish people would realize it isn't just marketing dollars that dictate this stuff. It's the group think circle jerk mentality of game critic types who would do this regardless of marketing dollars. It happens with indie darlings too that aren't throwing any marketing dollars towards them.

[Rufus]

They also fall for empty promises that were made as they were reviewing dev builds or participated in review events with very controlled environments, although I do seem to remember that BF4 had obvious technical issue even in those conditions.
The "product evaluation" part should really be a separate score or a sidebar or something.

[Eel O'Brian]

Now I just quit out when I notice the rubberbanding getting too bad. I don't give a shit about my quit ratio or whatever. Just unlocked mortars the other day. You can rain down Hell with those in Obliteration

[G The Resurrected]

So I just want to say that having played a specific multiplayer shooter today in a particular specific location that is near or around san mateo, ca. This shit is seriously affecting a company that is not called AE. There was a huge group of more than 200 folks who were brought in school buses that seem to be from DICE. There was 5-6 developers per player watching and taking notes while the session was going on. A very well dressed gentleman who was not a gamer was looking at all the issues first hand, later this gentleman and myself got into an argument about a specific issue dealing with the game and how players have been treated. He was highly argumentative and very defensive of the product they had released. I tried to rebuttal his comments and defend my opinion, It was obvious this guy is blind. I give AE some credit for taking some action, but if all you're going to do is put a bandage on it and call it a day you're doing it wrong. All of our footage was shown to the 200 folks in the main conference room and we were asked questions extensive questions regarding issues they saw during play.

This was not your normal play session, and I feel for those folks that are working there.

[tehjaybo]

I take it someone signed a NDA.

[G The Resurrected]

I take it someone signed a NDA.

In no particular words did they say they didn't want it to be known that they are working hard on resolving all of the issues related to the product.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

truth is that they are only concerned with fixing and putting resources into fixing a few issues and not all of them. Personally I think the issues surrounding this thing are being made worse by their lack of communication and understanding of players and their frustrations over their expectations vs the reality of the situation.

[close]

[Cerveza mas fina]

I havent been following BF4, but I know there are some technical issues with it. Is it anything beyond that that breaks the game compared to BF3 (which I have played)?

[Stoney Mason]

I havent been following BF4, but I know there are some technical issues with it. Is it anything beyond that that breaks the game compared to BF3 (which I have played)?

The game for me still crashes more than BF 3 did at this stage. It's not as bad as it was. The game doesn't crash everytime or a crazy amount for me anymore but it does still occasionally hard crash or server crash.
The netcode and lag issues seem worse than Battlefield 3. They Just do. They got rid of random bullet deviation when you are suppressed which is a lot better than the bf 3 model but you still experience wonky hit detection and delayed hit registration. It feels like you are one shot killed alot or shot as you move behind walls and cover because the damage seems to come in all at once rather than register properly like it should. Now everybody who plays any first person shooter complains about such things. But it does feel worse and more noticeable in BF4 than I can remember in other recent shooters. This doesn't happen in every gun fight. But it happens enough to be very frustrating.
And finally there are just a lot of bugs and stuff. Just things that have not worked properly in addition to all the other little bugs that crop up. The game is behind in comparison to the BF 3 schedule because they've had to spend so much time just fixing basic shit that didn't work at launch and getting the game stable so it doesn't crash a crazy amount. They haven't even been able to properly address real bugs yet.

So basically you have a game that just doesn't feel as polished or as finished as it should. And the way DICE has gone about things it hasn't given a lot of confidence that they will get there in a timely manner or even at all.

Battlefield 3 was a game that improved a great deal over its life. And there was a feeling from the community that DICE fixed a lot of the major issues that the game originally had. It wasn't a perfect game but it felt like DICE was trying hard to improve it. The issue with BF4 is the community is starting to feel pessimistic like DICE isn't going to be able to do that with BF 4 and that worse DICE/EA haven't been honest in their communications on a host of issues.

Not sure if that answers your question but that's about the best answer I can give.


 

[G The Resurrected]

I can tell you that the reason behind the hit detection bs is due to the server refresh rate being locked at 10hz or 100ms. 100ms ping is huge! that right there is totaly not excusable. I can tell you that it seems there are a lot of people who are genuinely trying to fix things. But there are others that don't see a problem with the product in it's current form.

[Stoney Mason]

I can tell you that the reason behind the hit detection bs is due to the server refresh rate being locked at 10hz or 100ms. 100ms ping is huge! that right there is totaly not excusable. I can tell you that it seems there are a lot of people who are genuinely trying to fix things. But there are others that don't see a problem with the product in it's current form.

I agree that the low refresh rate thing sucks but supposedly that was the way it was in BF 3 also. So in addition to it not being a good system on its face, it still feels worse than it did in that game. You get more trade kills. And more kills behind cover than you ever did in BF 3. I think a lot of people just wish it kind of felt as decent as it did in that game not that it was best of any world type situation.

So I think there is something wrong with their code even in addition to the bad/low refresh system. But absolutely I would agree with you.

[Cerveza mas fina]

100ms? So that means you actually always play with this?

I remember when I used to play CS and I had MS above 50 I'd just switch servers. Thats mad.

How much time does DICE really have to fix all of this though, I mean EA is probably pushing them to release a new game asap this november or at least some big expansion pack. Swear to god EA ruins everything.

[G The Resurrected]

100ms? So that means you actually always play with this?

I remember when I used to play CS and I had MS above 50 I'd just switch servers. Thats mad.

How much time does DICE really have to fix all of this though, I mean EA is probably pushing them to release a new game asap this november or at least some big expansion pack. Swear to god EA ruins everything.

It is mad crazy lag, it also makes the damage models change when someone spawns on you during a firefight. You do not want to be in a one on one situation you will most likely die even if you're commanding the firefight.

The folks I spoke with were taken off their current project('s) (not ME2) to work exclusively on BF4. So It's possible, but I think Visceral is getting it's hands on BF Bad Company from what I heard today. So whatever DICE was working on wasn't BF related, probably StarWars. I jokingly said something about Bad Company and the response was: "You'll see that when Mirrors Edge 2 comes out" which I kind of took as either saying ME2 is vapor or they will be coming out in the same year thus confirming it will be made.

I honestly think there are still internal issues at play over there that are magnifying the issues that face EA. Someone over there needs to get that shit under control cause employee morale and customers are seriously tired of all of the bs.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Sounds like a huge mess alright and really offputting. Is this an issue with the PC version as well or is this lag exclusive to consoles?

On one hand I understand EA wanting to meet the deadline. But they could have pushed this to march and push titanfall to fall. Would have made more sense imho since now they haven't done the brand any favours.

[Stoney Mason]

It exists on all platforms although there are worse issues of rubberbanding and such on the next gen console versions with 64 players.

[G The Resurrected]

It's baked into the netcode of all versions of BF4. So it doesn't matter where you go you get the same experience of lag and crashes. Though the crashes all happen in their own funny ways.

Yeah It would have made sense to polish this and release it exclusively on next gen and pc. Thus giving them to focus specifically on those three platforms. I'm sure Titanfall would benefit from such logic as well. But as we all know what's logic by us is not logical to business' and their continued greed. They "had" to get this out before Cod or as they put it: "they wouldn't even sell"