So Battlefield 4...

[Alyeska]

Gamestop is selling BF4 for $25 today as a Black Friday sale in the US. Picked it up and installing now.

[Alyeska]

Ah, what would I do without a buggy Dice game? Battlefield 4, like EVERY battlefield game, is buggy as fuck. Even when I want to play single player. But we have come to expect that. Just like Bethesda and Obsidian releases are buggy as fuck.

[Minischoles]

Buggy as all shit, netcode is seriously the most fucking awful piece of shit ever attached to a multiplayer shooter, load times are unbearable (i'm regularly getting 40-100 seconds easily).

[Mr Bean]

Buggy as all shit, netcode is seriously the most fucking awful piece of shit ever attached to a multiplayer shooter, load times are unbearable (i'm regularly getting 40-100 seconds easily).

You've never played Battlezone 2
Also yes the load times are terrible.

[Sea Skimmer]

The load times are much better then Battlefield 3, which isn't saying much but this is all still better then the way Battlefield 2 was when it was new. Seriously if anyone expected otherwise they were rather blind.

Of course it turns out my computer can play BF4 at about 15fps, but hell it was on sale and I have new hardware on order, I kinda expected this.

[Mr Bean]

The load times are much better then Battlefield 3, which isn't saying much but this is all still better then the way Battlefield 2 was when it was new. Seriously if anyone expected otherwise they were rather blind.

Of course it turns out my computer can play BF4 at about 15fps, but hell it was on sale and I have new hardware on order, I kinda expected this.

Take my advice, play engineer first long enough to unlock carbines then do the assignment to unlock the MTAR, just need to kill someone with a assault rifle, a light machine gun, a sniper rifle and grenade in the same round. My advice is play something like Lockout start chucking grenades, once you get a kill swap classes till it's unlocked. The weapon is a beast in short to medium range which 90% of battlefield engagements are.

[Sea Skimmer]

I usually play engineer period in battlefield. The game is pointless without a rocket launcher, particularly now that they have a slightly more plausible speed. Bad Company 2 had that so much better. Idiot snipers who get kill by them across the map can DIE.

[Lagmonster]

Just picked it up, made a beeline for shotguns. I have such horrifically poor coordination that I rely on moving v-e-r-y slowly and then blamming people at point blank range. On the downside, it's crude. On the upside, there are so many visual distractions in-game that it's effective. Pairing it with an assault kit, I enjoy playing support to whichever squad member thinks he's Rambo by reviving his ass after he's charged in and died.

[Lagmonster]

I love hardcore mode. I will never play another normal version of the game, ever. I don't actually die any less often, because the lower health bars (or higher weapon damage, or whatever) means that "epileptic seizure over the mouse" results in a decent chance that I'll spray the other guy to death first.

[Mr Bean]

I love hardcore mode. I will never play another normal version of the game, ever. I don't actually die any less often, because the lower health bars (or higher weapon damage, or whatever) means that "epileptic seizure over the mouse" results in a decent chance that I'll spray the other guy to death first.

Hardcore turns off ton of assists like the Doritos (The bright red enemy markers over their heads) and 3rd person controls. Player hitpoints are turned down from 100 to 60. Considering most guns do between 25-50 damage per shot this means much faster killing. Heath regen is out as are most bars period. Want to know how damaged a tank is? Look at it or guess.

[Lagmonster]

I love hardcore mode. I will never play another normal version of the game, ever. I don't actually die any less often, because the lower health bars (or higher weapon damage, or whatever) means that "epileptic seizure over the mouse" results in a decent chance that I'll spray the other guy to death first.

Hardcore turns off ton of assists like the Doritos (The bright red enemy markers over their heads) and 3rd person controls.

I would like it for the disappearance of the red markers alone; it means that when you're crawling through bushes for counter-sniping or to outflank an entrenched position, there isn't anything giving away your position.

[Replicant]

I love hardcore mode. I will never play another normal version of the game, ever. I don't actually die any less often, because the lower health bars (or higher weapon damage, or whatever) means that "epileptic seizure over the mouse" results in a decent chance that I'll spray the other guy to death first.

Hardcore turns off ton of assists like the Doritos (The bright red enemy markers over their heads) and 3rd person controls. Player hitpoints are turned down from 100 to 60. Considering most guns do between 25-50 damage per shot this means much faster killing. Heath regen is out as are most bars period. Want to know how damaged a tank is? Look at it or guess.

Is there friendly fire? The reason I ask is if the doritos are gone then identifying who is on which team at anything beyond medium range becomes quite the pain.

[Lagmonster]

I love hardcore mode. I will never play another normal version of the game, ever. I don't actually die any less often, because the lower health bars (or higher weapon damage, or whatever) means that "epileptic seizure over the mouse" results in a decent chance that I'll spray the other guy to death first.

Hardcore turns off ton of assists like the Doritos (The bright red enemy markers over their heads) and 3rd person controls. Player hitpoints are turned down from 100 to 60. Considering most guns do between 25-50 damage per shot this means much faster killing. Heath regen is out as are most bars period. Want to know how damaged a tank is? Look at it or guess.

Is there friendly fire? The reason I ask is if the doritos are gone then identifying who is on which team at anything beyond medium range becomes quite the pain.

There are indicators for team members, but they take a split-second to pop up, so you always check your fire. It's not harder as much as it is more deliberate and intense. You can do significantly more damage and be vastly more stealthy in hardcore mode, but you can't panic, and you need more battlefield awareness. I find that the handicaps vastly improve squad coordination out of sheer need to rely on others, unless you're playing with the most selfish of retarded children.

I've noticed it affects your loadout, as well. On assault, I hardly see people taking med.packs, likely because hits are lethal enough that most engagements end with one guy dead and the other guy perfectly healthy.

[Mr Bean]

Hardcore makes you want spawn beacons and ammo boxes. You have farther to run in Hardcore thus wanting close deploy-able spawnpoints while if your good in hardcore mode you go through lots more ammo since hosing down cover makes sense in HC. In HC mode peaking your head out of cover can result in death rather than a little heath loss.

[Kojiro]

For now I'm done with BF4. Mostly I do fine but every now and then I'll just have a terrible round where I can't kill a damn thing and the (seemingly much rarer) opposite where everything I look at dies. The inconsistency is infuriating.

[Lagmonster]

I wish like hell that I had the time to find a dedicated squad of four guys to play with, using voice chat (the game says there is in-game VOIP, but it lies. Or does not accept "T" as a substitute key binding). It would be nice to have a dedicated role to play rather than have to invent purpose based on changing game conditions. A way to know in advance which person *should* be flying the 'copter, and to know if the team-mate I'm following is going to turn around and panic-blast me or if we can co-operate on an objective.

I'm having BF3 flashbacks, where I realize that the feeling you get from the moments where you are Rambo are awesome, but the successes gained from working smoothly with a team provide the most consistent highs.

[Mr Bean]

I miss having the forgotten hope tournament to pull on. Having four to twelve people to roll into a server means instant domination with everyone used to working together and doing things like properly supporting tanks with infantry or support attacks with air power rather than planes flying all around and attacking targets of opportunity. Four is bad enough when you see the four clan mates in the same tags 20 kills above everyone else and 5000 points higher than the entire rest of the team.

[Broken]

Yeah, BF4 even more then the previous games in the series seems to come and go in streaks. Last night in one match in particular I couldn't kill anyone with my carbine, missing or only wounding regardless of range (the netcode has not been kind lately) but my SRAW couldn't seem to miss, I downed 2 choppers, a tank, and a lav which were all carrying multiple crew. Positive K/D ratio purely via a missile launcher.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I don't really enjoy Battlefield 4 that much. The vehicle balance is all over the place with the scout helicopter being more survivable and useful than the attack helo and attack boats are ludicrously OP, DMRs are back to being the assault snipers that people just spam at your face, sniper rifles are always single shot now within 30m. There's also things like the JDAM and active protection which sound cool on paper but in effect are almost totally useless, for the JDAM it's the fact that it still takes two hits to kill an armored vehicle but that makes it less useful than guided since it takes the same number of hits but is significantly more difficult to aim and to compound that the spot function doesn't last nearly as long as it needs to and when used against infantry the blast radius just plain isn't big enough and you're better off using your 30mm, for active protection it's things like the SRAW and MBT LAW as the active protection doesn't last long enough to give protection and there's not enough time to deploy it. On a similar note the passive radar missiles are ridiculous since there's basically no defending from them, by the time you get warning you've been hit. Maybe things are different on PC but on console I just have less fun and it's not even that I'm bad at the game in fact I'm quite good, slightly better than I was at BF3 for the time invested*. Even the maps are bland or downright terrible, like Dawnbreaker on Conquest, what purpose does the stealth jet serve in that map except as sniper transport to roofs or Hainan on Rush where the first set of M-COMS are basically impossible to take unless the enemy are just completely incompetent? There's not a single one I can actually say I liked like I did Kharg or Caspian.

*Battlefield 3 vs BF4.

[bilateralrope]

There is now a lawsuit related to the bugs in BF4 and EA lying about them before release.

The complaint charges Electronic Arts and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Electronic Arts develops, markets, publishes and distributes video game software content and services that can be played by consumers on a variety of Internet-based electronic devices for video game consoles, personal computers, mobile phones, tablets and electronic readers.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants issued materially false and misleading statements highlighting the purported strength of the Company’s rollout of version 4 of its all-important Battlefield video game series, which had provided approximately 11% of its revenues in fiscal 2012. Based on the purported strength of the Battlefield 4 rollout then underway, defendants issued strong fiscal 2014 financial guidance for the Company and actually increased that guidance on October 29, 2013. The price of Electronic Arts’ stock steadily climbed on these statements, reaching a Class Period high of $28.13 per share by August 23, 2013 and allowing certain of Electronic Arts’ senior executives to sell their Electronic Arts stock at artificially inflated prices.

The complaint further alleges that, on November 15, 2013, the day Sony released its new Play Station 4 (“PS4”) console, it was disclosed that players of Electronic Arts’ games were being subjected to multiple glitches and significant crashes when attempting to play Electronic Arts’ titles on PS4. The price of Electronic Arts stock fell on these disclosures, declining more than 7% from a close of $25.96 per share on November 14, 2013 to close at $24.06 per share on November 15, 2013. Then, on December 4, 2013, it was disclosed through discussions defendants had with video game bloggers that due to bugs, connectivity issues, server limitations, and various other problems plaguing Battlefield 4, Electronic Arts had been forced to indefinitely halt the Battlefield 4 rollout and other projects until the problems with Battlefield 4 could be fixed. The price of Electronic Arts shares declined on this news from a close of $22.34 on December 4, 2013 to close at $21.01 on December 5, 2013, sending the share price down more than 28% from its Class Period high.

According to the complaint, defendants’ Class Period statements were materially false and misleading because they failed to disclose and misrepresented the following adverse facts which were known to or recklessly disregarded by defendants: (a) Battlefield 4 was riddled with bugs and multiple other problems, including downloadable content that allowed players access to more levels of the game, a myriad of connectivity issues, server limitations, lost data and repeated sudden crashes, among other things; (b) as a result, Electronic Arts would not achieve a successful holiday season 2013 rollout of Battlefield 4; (c) the performance of the Electronic Arts unit publishing Battlefield 4 was so deficient that all other projects that unit was involved in had to be put on hold to permit it to focus its efforts on fixing Battlefield 4; and (d) as a result, Electronic Arts was not on track to achieve the financial results it had told the market it was on track to achieve during the Class Period.

Link to the court document.

This could be interesting to watch.

[TheFeniX]

Would be nice to see a major player take a hit from the amount of lies and bullshit that's routinely swept under the rug. A shame it's about 8 years too late for the Battlefield franchise, but EA in particular has needed this coming for many years.

I'm not optimistic about this going anywhere though. American courts don't really seem to give a shit about regulating false-advertisement or blatant fraud concerning entertainment. Basically, consumer protection laws don't really apply in America as opposed to valve getting their EULA spanked by the EU. Unless that fraud can lead to something catching you on fire, fuck off: spend your money more wisely in the future.

It took forever lawmakers to do anything about the RIAAs price-fixing and even then, it didn't accomplish much of anything.

[bilateralrope]

How do US courts treat insider trading ?

[TheFeniX]

They make Martha Stewart knit some sweaters in jail for a few months, while the major players all skate with millions of dollars.

[Steel]

While I'm very keen to see some consequences for releasing broken rushed shoddy software, I'm also wary that its happening to Battlefield. Although it is one of the prime offenders, its also a high budget technically challenging game, and one response from publishers is just to take their ball and play elsewhere and not fund anything remotely interesting in favour of masses of social shovelware app shit.

(Or at least decide to reduce the 'risk' that their inability to plan projects technically demanding projects always magically take longer than expected and fund them less so that there is less financial downside if someone calls a turd a turd.)

[Sea Skimmer]

As far as the end user in the US goes, it really is a buyer beware kind of thing, its just becoming market standard that games are released as glorified beta's now. As long as the game works at all some of the time, they can just do that. Nor do I really have vast amounts of sympathy for people who ran out to buy it day one when the beta was so immensely buggy so close to release.

As far as a lawsuit over earnings forecasts goes, it will get nowhere. Lawsuits like this happen all the damn time, and fail all the damn time. The product was not vaporware, and without that they have a very weak case. Does anyone thing EA or Dice really said the thing was bug free? It looks like this whole lawsuit is in its self a zombie case with a law firm behind it but few or no clients. the firms own site is fishing for more of them in fact, you only have 56 days to join! Oh and you can join even if you bought stock in EA as late as December 4th which is long after the bugs were known on the other versions, because oh the PS4 version only came out that late.