Battlefield 4 (Winter Patch)

[Cerveza mas fina]

Just reeks of bad management.

Another option was to release with half the content and polish that at least, promise the rest as "FREE DLC". Would have been good PR for them too.

That said BF4 sold great so maybe were all just stupid or something, but Im sure this will spill over into the sales of the next one.

[Eel O'Brian]

No one talks in this game, and I can partially understand that because half the time it sounds like garbled trash, but I wish people would at least use the commo rose more.

[Stoney Mason]

No one talks in this game, and I can partially understand that because half the time it sounds like garbled trash, but I wish people would at least use the commo rose more.

That's funny. The in game voice chat system also sounds like shit on Xbox one. I thought maybe it was just a quirk of the system but I guess not. Party chat sounds fine. The game chat quality is horrible.

[fistfulofmetal]

like most PC players, I chat with my team on something else like Skype.

[Eel O'Brian]

So I'm playing Obliteration on Paracel Storm just now, and jump off the boat to get the bomb. No one is around, so I have a clear shot back to the boat so we can head to the objective island. Get there, boat's full. No one will get off. Dudes riding in pairs on wave runners all around me, no one will get off. I can't fucking swim to this island, it's way too far away. So of course by that time the enemy team shows up and wastes me out in the middle of the water, my team all around not doing shit. I got so mad I actually told my squad to go fuck themselves and quit the match   Man, some people play this game like it's a SP FPS. I wish I could have laid C4 on that boat and team-killed everyone on it.

[Groogrux]

As far as BF3 and BF4 comparisons, I picked up BF3 on 360 after it had been out 2 months.  I didn't have any problems with it at that point like I am on BF4.  Conquest is practically unplayable again because of the rubber-banding.  Rush has been pretty good though.

[tehjaybo]

I haven't really been seeing all that many problems with rubberbanding while playing Conquest...  I mean, from time to time, maybe.  But most of the time when I play, I have a pretty solid connection.  I haven't had a problem bad enough to quit a game in a few weeks probably.

[Groogrux]

I've errored out about 5 times in the past week.   

Conquest is the only mode I'm having trouble with.  Same for the other guys from work.

[Stoney Mason]

I definitely get rubber banding coupled with sketchy frame rates on a few maps in 64 man servers. Based on reddit threads a lot of other PS4 and Xbox One users are reporting the same issue.

http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_4/comments/1usw0w/on_the_state_of_the_ps4_conquest_large/
http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_4/comments/1uvolu/ps4_lagrubberbanding_is_beyond_ridiculous/

[Verdigris Murder]

I saw Eel o'brian last night, sry I vanished, but it was late. It's annoying how squads with randoms.

[Eel O'Brian]

Yeah, it's needlessly complicated to squad up with friends in this game. Maybe whenever they get their shit sorted and put up the rental servers they'll add friend squads.

[fistfulofmetal]

new favorite thing:

parachuting in during obliteration while shooting down at dudes with the SRAW and getting mad kills.

[bachikarn]

Stoney, were you just paying Rush on the Xbone? I think I was in a squad with you for a game or two hah

[Stoney Mason]

Stoney, were you just paying Rush on the Xbone? I think I was in a squad with you for a game or two hah

Lol. Yep. I didn't even notice until I was about to get off or I would have invited you into the party.

[Eel O'Brian]

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=750023&page=1

Fog event would have been great in Guilin Peaks.

Still having these issues:

- Crazy rubberbanding on certain 64 player Conquest maps, particularly Lancang Dam and Hainan Resort. This happens whether the player count is the full 64 or less (I noticed it when the player count was around 48 on Lancang).

- Maps failing to load. I can still hear games sounds and people talking, but the screen will remain black, with blinking cursor in the top right corner. I have to close the application and restart.

- Controller becomes unresponsive at times when I back out to the PS4 dashboard and then back into the game. The PS button still works, but closing out the application and restarting the game has no effect. I have to reboot the entire system to get the sticks/triggers/buttons to work in-game.

Other than these issues I've been having a good time recently. Maybe when they get to the point they start renting servers they'll add "friend squads" options, and maybe they'll get around to tightening up the sketchy hit detection - but I'm not holding my breath on those.

[fistfulofmetal]

This last few days have been utterly perfect on PC. No rubberbanding. No crashes. No glitches. Completely smooth perfect gameplay.

[Stoney Mason]

Why does it take me so many bullets to kill this guy at the end of the clip when he is already hurt. That BF 4 hit detection. 





Also I love clueless snipers.

[Brehvolution]

Now that this shit is stable on PC, I broke down and bought Premium. The China Rising maps are so pretty. 

[Brehvolution]

At least on PC, the server browser shows an icon if there are CR maps. It won't even let you join the server if the CR icon is there.

Yes they mix maps with the regular ones.

[Stoney Mason]

At least on PC, the server browser shows an icon if there are CR maps. It won't even let you join the server if the CR icon is there.

Yes they mix maps with the regular ones.

On PC they do I think because those are custom servers but there are no mixed servers currently on console. It's either Second Assault, China Rising, or Base Map servers currently. In Battlefield 3 on consoles, eventually they had some official servers that mixed some of the maps and you also had custom rented servers which ran whatever they wanted but there are not yet custom servers for console on BF 4. 

[Rahxephon91]

Is the PC version more stable now? I've encountered more disconnects and now a problem where I couldn't spawn since the last update.

Edit-And it seems a lot of people are having the spawn issue.

[SantaC]

if anyone wanna add me.

talesofwin origin id.

95 hours played on PC.

[Stoney Mason]

Is the PC version more stable now? I've encountered more disconnects and now a problem where I couldn't spawn since the last update.

Edit-And it seems a lot of people are having the spawn issue.

A recent update applied to Battlefield 4 servers on the PC is reportedly causing headaches for a number of players unable to spawn in after death.

Earlier this morning, server update R20 was applied to the PC version of Battlefield 4, according to a representative from the DICE team. Though the change notes have yet to be published, players are already reporting a severe bug that isn’t allowing those affected to respawn after dying.

On Reddit, a server administrator who goes by the name “Epileino” listed a few of the bugs introduced via the latest update:

“Players unable to spawn after they died.”
“Not showing scores on kills & capping flags.”
“Player crash to desktop when this happens.”
“Rumour has it that R21 might come out tomorrow,” he added, which we suspect would likely resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, according to an official warning currently visible on the Battlelog, users affected by the bug are urged to update their Punkbuster files. Additional reports indicate that this method has worked for a number of users.

[SantaC]

DICE sure keeps the updates coming.

[Verdigris Murder]

The commander app in ipad is actually pretty fun they seem to have taken away all the cool things from previous commandeering iterations, subsequently there seems to be less skill involved. It's still a pretty easy way to rank up (which has no real benefit?).
Also getting unanimous approval is always nice.
I have about 6 friends on this game, and no-one ever seems to be on.
Sadness moves into my vacant heart.

[Brehvolution]

I had that deploy bug happen last night. They said to update punkbuster but didn't say you had to go to their site and manually update it. There should have been a pb update pushed out. It worked fine after that.

[Eel O'Brian]

Punkbuster is the worst. Always some sort of hassle with that shit.

[Stoney Mason]

Good video.

[Brehvolution]

Do you need to get to level 110 to not have recoil?

[Eel O'Brian]

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/forum/threadview/2955064772981612449/1/

"Hey, come help us stress test our three-month old game."

[Stoney Mason]

Yeah I don't think they will ever sort out of the lag/hit detection problems in the game. If they could, they already would have. I went back and played some Battlefield 3 just to compare it and its so much better in those aspects.


Here I am getting shot behind a wall. Which happens all the time. I would have probably died here no matter what but its just annoying because neither of us were where we appeared to be on screen.





And here is me getting sniped after going prone.



Because on his screen I was still up. The whole game is played in this laggy atmosphere where nothing is actually as it appears. I can't wait for TitanFall just to have another shooter to play when this game is pissing me off.

[Eel O'Brian]

I'm just gonna quit out of Lancang Dam from now on whenever it comes up in the rotation, shit's way busted.

Also where the fuck is Second Assault?

[Stoney Mason]

Ever since the last 360 patch I get a lot more instances where I get into a gunfight with someone and die and it says they have 0 HP.

I think that was caused by a recent server side patch. It's a just a graphical error. They had health but yeah its annoying. Every time they try to fix something they end up breaking a lot of other shit. I kinda hope they lose the shit out of these lawsuits because the whole thing is really a bunch of bullshit with that they have pulled.

[Eel O'Brian]

Ever since the last 360 patch I get a lot more instances where I get into a gunfight with someone and die and it says they have 0 HP.

Yeah, evidently they fixed it showing 1hp by showing 0hp instead

[Brehvolution]

The wife was out of town this weekend so i put about 8 hours in. I'm loving the newly unlocked sar-21. The stability is amazing but the range is shit. It's a decent tradeoff.

[Brehvolution]

Alright boritos, what is your favorite class/weapons of choice?

Myself, I go back and forth between Assault and Engineer depending on the map. Or I'll switch mid game if I need a rocket launcher. I'm still unlocking new guns so I can't say I have a favorite yet. I've never played recon or support.

[fistfulofmetal]

Engineer/PDW's/SRAW

[Stoney Mason]

Assault and Engineer are always my two main classes. The other classes are more specialized. And in some cases, if the other team is very good with vehicles then its almost certainly an engineer only game for me.

I can mainly speak for the assault rifles since that is what I use the most.

The m416, the ACE 23, and the AEK are imo clearly the best guns. I mean I use other guns to vary it up for my personal taste but almost all the competitive players currently use the ACE 23 if they are using an assualt rifle. I can't use the gun you mentioned in your post earlier. The SAR has a crazy low firerate and I can't use guns in battlefield that have a low fire rate as I will get dusted. Personally I use the F2000 alot because I feel very comfortable with it from BF 3 but there is a bug in the game currently where you don't receive the ADS sidestep bonus speed on bullpup guns if you use anything but the ironsights.

Ak-12 is pretty good. Low fire rate gun but I can do better with it than the SAR.
SCAR-H is a pretty decent high damage AR but the magazine only holds 20 rounds. So sometimes when I use it and miss the first few shots I start to panic. 
AEK has that high recoil/high fire rate but if you can master the recoil, its a greaty gun
FAMAS strictly a spray gun, hip fire weapon for me as I can't control the recoil.
AUG A3. Decent middle of the road gun. Not great. Not awful.
M16A4 I can't use burst first guns in a game like battlefield. The people who can say its very good but I don't have the discipline for it.
CZ-805 & QBZ 95-1. Haven't used either enough to say anything intelligent about them.
ACE 23 M416. Both similar in many ways. Jack of all trade guns. Decent in every aspect. I seem to do better with the ACE though.


As far as the engineer class I've only used these carbines. The MTAR, the ACW-R, and the AK5C. All good guns. MTAR and ACW-R are more spray guns and hip fire guns though.

I've also used a bit of PDW-R with that class as I heard its the best PDW in that class. Seems good and it feels more like a carbine than a hip firing machine like the rest of the PDW's.

I haven't used enough Support or Recon guns to speak intelligently towards those. I do play those classes but I generally switch to a carbine with them. I have used the LSAT and the m249 LMG's. I'm not a great LMG player but I seemed to do alright with those two.

edit:Forgot I also like the CZ-3A1 (Scorpion evo). Great hip fire spray beast PDW with a high rate of fire.

[SantaC]

Support class with PKP pechnegen is Amazing. The Godzilla of guns.

[Stoney Mason]

Those battlefield moments. Game can be so frustrating but you have those wonderful little rambo moments that make you keep coming back. My heart was pounding.

[Stoney Mason]

Here is what you've all been waiting for!

To thank you for your dedication and support, I’d like to announce the Battlefield 4 Player Appreciation Month. Starting on Saturday, February 1, DICE is saying THANK YOU to all players by hosting a month filled with fun community missions and daily giveaways that you get just for jumping into a match.

We appreciate all of the great feedback you continue to provide about all aspects of Battlefield 4. We take this very seriously, and hearing directly from you has helped to make the experience better. The latest information on our game updates can always be found in the BF4 Control Room, including a few new additions that I’m pleased to say are coming soon. First, we are further improving a number of items commonly referred to as “netcode”. This will tighten the overall multiplayer experience, and we will be able to share these items with you in detail soon. In February, we’re also re-introducing the fan favorite feature Platoons in its first iteration. In this added social layer, you can team up with your friends to create your own social space and accumulate stats together. We’re also working on other feature additions that you’ve been asking for – stay tuned for more.

Now, let me walk you through some of the initiatives that we will be launching during Player Appreciation Month. We will have more announcements to make in the upcoming weeks, but below are some of the highlights.

BF4 Battlepacks
A Battlepack a Day
Every day that you log into the game in February, you’ll receive a Bronze or Silver Battlepack. For those of you who haven’t started opening your earned packs yet, these Battlepacks contain bonuses like XP Boosts and soldier camos. Normally, it would take approximately 30 hours gameplay to earn that many packs. Every day that you log a multiplayer game during the month of February, you will receive a new Battlepack. During weekdays, these will be Bronze, and during Saturdays and Sundays we will give away Silver Battlepacks. Remember to activate your earned XP boosts in the in-game menu to accelerate your progress.

ShortcutsShortcut Bundles
We are preparing two shortcut bundles for Battlefield 4 that we will make available for download at no cost during the Player Appreciation Month. These voluntary shortcut bundles will unlock all grenades and handguns for Battlefield 4 (the base game) so you can make up for lost time. Or if you’re new to the game, they will help you catch up with players who have been on the Battlefield since launch. We will get back to you with more details once we have set release dates for these items.

For all of our Battlefield 4 Premium users, we’re adding two additional weapon shortcuts, unlocking DMR’s and shotguns. That way, if you like, you can quickly get your hands on a large portion of the weapons available in Battlefield 4.

Double XP Weekend
During the Player Appreciation Month, we’ll be running a double XP weekend for all players. If you’re one of our many Battlefield 4 Premium members, you’ll also get an additional double XP weekend during the Player Appreciation Month as an added bonus.

Community Missions
You will be able to participate in global DICE Community Missions where you will work together to unlock Gold Battlepacks. During the first of these Community-wide challenges, we will ask you to grab a set number of dog tags during a specified time. More details on this first Community Mission in Battlefield 4 to follow.

DICE Developer Talks
Increased developer interaction and transparency on how we work is frequently requested from our fans. During Player Appreciation Month, we will host a number of interviews with some of the core developers of Battlefield 4. In these interviews, you can ask them about their line of work, the effort they’ve put into Battlefield 4, or in the case of our core gameplay designer, what the balancing process of Battlefield 4 looks like. We will announce the dates and channels for these developer interviews as the Player Appreciation Month kicks off.

We’re going to have more information available on each of the Battlefield 4 Player Appreciation Month activities throughout February. Check back here for those details.

If you are currently playing Battlefield 4, we hope you enjoy this month-long community appreciation. If you haven’t played in a little while, it’s a great time to get back in the game. Whoever you are, we appreciate the time you spend with Battlefield 4, we thank you for your support and we hope to keep hearing from you on the Battlefield 4 forums on Battlelog. Here’s to a great 2014!

Karl Magnus Troedsson, DICE VP & GM

http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/01/bf4-player-appreciation-month/

 

[G The Resurrected]

Hmm that's not what I expected after going to EA a few times to talk about BF4. At least its a positive gesture, but not the one I want.

[Stoney Mason]

I miss the days of when a company completely and utterly screwed up, they might have to give you something that actually cost them. Nowadays we get access to things already in the game just behind xp locks. What a scam.

[Eel O'Brian]

My go-to weapon across all classes is the ACE 52 CQB, flash hider, laser/flashlight combo, ergo grip. SRAW for Engineer, defib/medpac for Assault, airburst/ammo pack for Support.

[Eel O'Brian]

That stuff posted actually sounds okay to me. I hate the grind of unlocking shit, I just want to fit out my weapons and play the different game modes. Again, I ask, where the fuck is Second Assault for PS4?  That piece is already done, cough it up. Not like it's going to break the game more or anything

[Stoney Mason]

We’ve started rolling out a new Battlefield 4 game update on PC. You may experience some downtime during this rollout, as we are also updating the game servers. As usual, it will take a few hours before the majority of servers are updated.

This update is mainly designed to prepare the game for the upcoming release of the expansion pack Battlefield 4 Second Assault. Find out all about the new Mantle renderer in this news post [battlelog.battlefield.com]. We will announce the release date for this expansion pack later.

This update also includes the first release of Mantle support for Battlefield 4 on PC. This update also addresses various other items, detailed in the patch notes below.

If the game update doesn't start automatically for you, you can trigger it by going into the Origin Client, right clicking Battlefield 4 and selecting "Check for updates".

Jan 30 PC Game Update Notes

Mantle Support
The new Mantle renderer has been added in Battlefield 4. Most players can expect a performance increase by using this new low-level graphics API. Check out this news post [battlelog.battlefield.com] for the full details on Mantle, what the requirements are to run it, and how to enable it.

CPU/GPU performance and monitoring
-Tweaked and improved CPU multi-core utilization to try and avoid stuttering and low framerate due to stalls that happened on some CPU and OS configurations.
-Users can now configure and control themselves how many CPU cores should be used in the game with the new “Thread.MaxProcessorCount” settings in User.cfg.
-“Render.DrawScreenInfo 1” now also shows information about which CPU and GPU is in the system, how many GPUs & CPU cores are used and which renderer (DirectX 11 or Mantle) is active
-Added new “PerfOverlay.FrameFileLogEnable” command that records frame times on CPU & GPU and logs out to a .csv file
-AMD Catalyst driver 13.12 (or later) is now recommended instead of 13.9
-Enabled tile-based compute shader lighting optimization on Nvidia for improved GPU performance (already active on AMD GPUs)
-Improved performance with rendering and spotlights for all GPUs, primarily in in-door environments

DMR Balance Tweaks
-Increased the damage of all DMRs across all ranges. Specifically, damage has been increased at long ranges to allow three-hit kills against unarmored opponents. Additionally, reduced the penalty to accuracy for sustained DMR fire, allowing more rapid follow up shots in combat. The amount of the damage increase varies from weapon to weapon, according to its intended range, rate of fire, and damage. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of DMRs in combat, and determine if additional action is needed to make DMRs a viable mid to long range weapon.

Other Items
-Greatly reduced the risk of crosshairs disappearing, which would also result in hit markers disappearing
-Added a headshot icon on the killcard. This should help identify instances where players are correctly killed by one shot
-Fixed an issue in Squad Deathmatch where the “Win/Lose” text was overlapping
-Fixed an issue with players using an exploit for the SOFLAM
-Fixed an issue with players using an exploit for the MAV
-Fixed the gameplay code to properly track the FOV (Field of View) changes in the options menu
-Fixed an issue where chat would break when entering "false" or "true" in the chat window
-Fixed an out-of-helicopter glitch in Air Superiority where players could spawn on the ground and play as infantry
-Fixed the misaligned crosshairs on the T90 MBT
-Added setting to tweak joystick dead zone
-Various minor crash fixes

[SantaC]

mantle is there but lol AMD hasnt released their drivers yet. pathethic.

[Stoney Mason]

It looks like most of the platforms got the above patch today.

[Brehvolution]

Time to spring for a R9 270 and get dat Mantle.

[SantaC]

Time to spring for a R9 270 and get dat Mantle.

R9 280x is supported too

[Stoney Mason]

http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_4/comments/1wk151/ninja_updates_thread/

Some changes not noted in the patch notes.

The biggest of which for me would be:

Reduced the "black screen" on spawn from ~1.14 seconds to ~0.11 seconds.

This is a much needed fix. The long black screen meant insta-death whenever you spawned on squad without the spawn protection from BF 3.

[Brehvolution]

Time to spring for a R9 270 and get dat Mantle.

R9 280x is supported too

Yeah, but they are twice the price for not twice the performance.

Now I have a Radeon 6850 so a 270 will double the performance of what I have now and won't break the bank. Next year I can add another 270 for $100

[Brehvolution]

 

[Eel O'Brian]

Yeah, that's crazy skill. The dude I was talking about earlier in the thread, KillaMix, he can do that shit. I'm lucky not to crash during takeoff

[Brehvolution]

I can't pilot for shit so I stopped trying. Sometimes I'll spawn in one for transport, but that fucker usually is blowing up before I can bail out. 

[Stoney Mason]

Just like Black history month.

[SantaC]

and....AMD delays their driver for a few Days lol.

so much for neogaf being angry at DICE for the delays.

[Rufus]

AMD tripping over their shoelaces sure makes Dice look better by comparison.

[SantaC]

AMD tripping over their shoelaces sure makes Dice look better by comparison.

AMD's PR department is worse than EA.

I saw several Twitter feeds that they put the final touches in the driver for days now, and yet it is not coming until next week. FAIL!

[drew]

wow grenades are much more powerful than the last time I played.