EA Says Battlefield 4 Launch Was Unacceptable

[Stefan Becker]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/battlefield-pc-gaming-fps-electronic-arts-dice,27116.html

 

In an interview with Eurogamer, EA CEO Andrew Wilson says, that EA is not happy with the launch of Battlefield 4.

 

 

 "Think about what Battlefield 4 was: 64 player multiplayer, giant maps, 1080p, Levolution that was changing the gameplay design in an emergent way," Wilson said. "There is a chance there are things you are going to miss through the development cycle. And you end up in a situation we had with Battlefield 4."

 

 

 

 The interviewer later on points out that gamers are accusing EA of rushing the game out the door so it could be playable on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 at launch. Fans also claim that DICE should have been given more time to test the game before it was released. Wilson disagreed, saying that DICE had plenty of time to test the game.

 

 

 

 "DICE had a lot of time this time," he said. "Hardline has had three years. Last year was a very unique situation. Not to abdicate responsibility whatsoever - we own it, we are responsible for it and we have worked tirelessly to remedy the situation - but when you are building a game on an unfinished platform with unfinished software, there are some things that can't get done until the very last minute because the platform wasn't ready to get done.

 

 

I call bullshit, and I still have not forgiven EA for launching this game at such a terrible state. And it's still broken!

[EmotionalSloth]

Honestly, BF4 was the biggest gaming disappointment ever for me

[sonarctica]

Now make Hardline a $10 DLC for BF4 and they've regained some of my respect towards them, it won't do much but it's a good start

[MikeTz]

I don't see how it is not fixed.. I had crashes and now I don't have any..

I had bad FPS now I don't and I'm only using 4gb of RAM. BF4 is in a good state at the moment

As for EA the fact they said it means that they atleast understand unlike Ubisoft...

[daemonowner]

EA is really trying to make the most of this Ubisoft situation aren't they..

They will still release an unimpressive Sims 4 with expensive prices, trailers promoting preordering by gullible preteens, and shitloads of DLC with almost none of the C. Actions speak louder than words, and every time they say stuff like this you have to remember that.

Hardline will still be almost the same as BF4, with the same bugs and issues, and they will persist for months because I don't care if the devs had 3 years and I don't care if they are working tirelessly right now, the game is fucked.

 

EA. You're trying to say all the right things. Apparently you don't like your reputation. Apparently you have a clue as to why we generally don't like you, and what you could do to fix these things. Now do them.

[Hulk]

The fact that it came out right after the last expansion pack for BF3 came out is what made it unacceptable for me. Fully releasing a product and then launching a new one isn't going to make me buy it. They should have waited for a year atleast...

[PhantomChevron]

Well free games are still good, and atleast they do not downgrade quality like effing ubisoft

[Biased Opinion]

I don't see how it is not fixed.. I had crashes and now I don't have any..

I had bad FPS now I don't and I'm only using 4gb of RAM. BF4 is in a good state at the moment

As for EA the fact they said it means that they atleast understand unlike Ubisoft...

there are still a lot of balance issues and strange clipping problems on a lot of maps.

[ShadowCaptain]

[nuclear465]

Never bought it, never played it. Maybe i will try to play it when EA Origin gives it for free like BF3.

[Si3Rra_7]

Ugh , they say they are sorry but keep on bullshitting and sucking money . 70$ for hardline ? a fuckin bf4 reskin ? damn , i regret buying bf4 , didnt even buy past first DLC .

 

I might just cut my tongue after this , but black ops 2 free weekend on steam some months ago was better than all of bf4

[Stefan Becker]

Well... It's not about Ubisoft... I call that something new.

[ShadowCaptain]

Well... It's not about Ubisoft... I call that something new.

 

True

 

I have never really had much issue with EA, sure they do some questionable stuff, but they dont enslave children or murder old ladies

 

Ubisoft are slowly turning from a dev with a great line up to Hitler

[lachyman]

I found BF4 playable right from the start, these complaints always come from players who suck at the game and blame their every death on the game, which are frankly the majority of the players. Over the past months the game greatly improved so that it plays much better and is more enjoyable, yet the same players like the topic starter cry again the game is broken. I reckon it's caused by the fact these guys clocked 2 hours in the game when it launched, heard about bad netcode, of course blamed all their deaths on it and left with words "this game is broken". I admit, Battlefield is about skill and it can be rage inducing, but only aggravating things in the game right now are retards and lack of skill, the latter one being a big problem for a lot of players.

[Stefan Becker]

... they dont enslave children or murder old ladies

I don't think anyone has ever done that. At least I hope so

[Stefan Becker]

I found BF4 playable right from the start, these complaints always come from players who suck at the game and blame their every death on the game, which are frankly the majority of the players. Over the past months the game greatly improved so that it plays much better and is more enjoyable, yet the same players like the topic starter cry again the game is broken. I reckon it's caused by the fact these guys clocked 2 hours in the game when it launched, heard about bad netcode, of course blamed all their deaths on it and left with words "this game is broken". I admit, Battlefield is about skill and it can be rage inducing, but only aggravating things in the game right now are retards and lack of skill, the latter one being a big problem for a lot of players.

I hate to take YouTubers as examples, but have you ever heard about LevelCap? He is one of, if not the biggest Battlefield 4 'tuber and he tops the scoreboards every time. And he complains about issues. Your argument is invalid.

[daemonowner]

Children have been enslaved. And if Josef Fritzl from Austria counts then there's that too.

[ShadowCaptain]

I hate to take YouTubers as examples, but have you ever heard about LevelCap? He is one of, if not the biggest Battlefield 4 'tuber and he tops the scoreboards every time. And he complains about issues. Your argument is invalid.

 

Agreed, the game does have flaws, I would not call it broken like it was in the first few weeks when you could barely get in, but it does have problems and issues that are still around, and still getting fixed. Just recently they discovered the dead bodies blocking grenades for example >< come on EA

 

that said, I have put lots of hours into it, and I still thoroughly enjoy the game. Its frustrating when a bug causes you to die/lose or whatever, but I do not regret buying the game in all honestly

 

I just hope this was a one off. I can let 1 game slide.....(a little) providing they make future battlefield games 100x better and learn from their mistakes.

 

I hope they dont "pull a Ubi" (that is a the new phrase, everyone use it, Copyright ShadowCaptain 2014) and fuck up all their new games

[lachyman]

I hate to take YouTubers as examples, but have you ever heard about LevelCap? He is one of, if not the biggest Battlefield 4 'tuber and he tops the scoreboards every time. And he complains about issues. Your argument is invalid.

He complains about issues because it is his job to do so, and he doesn't blame his every death on the game. Also if you looked at the issues post-CTE patch, the problems persistent in the game are fundamental to every multiplayer FPS and you can't expect DICE to fix them, they aren't gods. There will always be delays and the tickrate most likely can't go higher than 30Hz, because of HW limitations, there is a LOT more info transferred in 1 tick in BF4 than in BF3 and CS:GO for example. Bugs however can be fixed and they are being fixed, that's what CTE is for, they made a to of improvements which you can try and post feedback on yourself.

[Stefan Becker]

Just recently they discovered the dead bodies blocking grenades for example >< come on EA

That might be the most realistic bug I've ever heard of...

Anyway, I too have put a lot of hours into it, and enjoyed it, but when I think about how many times I have died around corners, killtraded etc. I can't help thinking: Why have you not fixed this yet? Yes, I know they've launched CTE, but still. This game should have been fixed months ago.

[colonel_mortis]

The fact that it came out right after the last expansion pack for BF3 came out is what made it unacceptable for me. Fully releasing a product and then launching a new one isn't going to make me buy it. They should have waited for a year atleast...

But it didn't... It came out 7 months after End Game, which is enough I would argue. However, to all those who are saying that it works and worked fine, I have personally had some really bad experiences with the game - for the first couple of weeks, more than 50% of the games I played resulted in a client crash, not to mention the server crashes (that's fact which I could back up with evidence - my quit ratio was >50% but I didn't manually quit any games (or very few)). Even now, I have issues where I drop from >60FPS to ~10 part way into the game, and it only goes back after a restart. It sounds like an issue with my computer, but BF4 is the only game that I have experienced this in.

All that said, I do still play the game, but nowhere near as much as I played BF3, and mainly because I play with friends. Its not terrible, but there are major flaws with the game, especially the "netcode".

[colonel_mortis]

That might be the most realistic bug I've ever heard of...

Anyway, I too have put a lot of hours into it, and enjoyed it, but when I think about how many times I have died around corners, killtraded etc. I can't help thinking: Why have you not fixed this yet? Yes, I know they've launched CTE, but still. This game should have been fixed months ago.

No the body can be dead on the floor but the grenade bounces off a massive box above their body, as if they're still standing.

And the netcode in this game really is appalling. And we complained about BF3... I would consider paying to go back to BF3's netcode.

[Stefan Becker]

And we complained about BF3... I would consider paying to go back to BF3's netcode.

Played BF3 today. So much better netcode.

[LAwLz]

Good job EA but you're ~8 months to late at this point.

 

He complains about issues because it is his job to do so, and he doesn't blame his every death on the game. Also if you looked at the issues post-CTE patch, the problems persistent in the game are fundamental to every multiplayer FPS and you can't expect DICE to fix them, they aren't gods. There will always be delays and the tickrate most likely can't go higher than 30Hz, because of HW limitations, there is a LOT more info transferred in 1 tick in BF4 than in BF3 and CS:GO for example. Bugs however can be fixed and they are being fixed, that's what CTE is for, they made a to of improvements which you can try and post feedback on yourself.

I would like to see a breakdown of what each tick contains.

If Quake 3, a 15 year old game that was played on dial-up modems, could handle 30 updates a second by default (and you could set it to 120 I think), and Quake Live runs at 100+ by default, then I think it's pathetic of a brand new game to run at 10 updates a second.

Counter Strike (5 years old) also runs at above 100 ticks.

The average Internet connection in the US is about 5Mbps, those other games were played on a maximum of 64Kbps... If we got 80 times as fast connections then why the hell does it update 1/3 as often? The fact that they released a patch to update it (but not turned on by default) means that there was no technical reason to not run at 30 tick/s to begin with. There is absolutely no excuse at all.

[carolkarine]

Good job EA but you're ~8 months to late at this point.

I would like to see a breakdown of what each tick contains.

If Quake 3, a 15 year old game that was played on dial-up modems, could handle 30 updates a second by default (and you could set it to 120 I think), and Quake Live runs at 100+ by default, then I think it's pathetic of a brand new game to run at 10 updates a second.

Counter Strike (5 years old) also runs at above 100 ticks.

The average Internet connection in the US is about 5Mbps, those other games were played on a maximum of 64Kbps... If we got 80 times as fast connections then why the hell does it update 1/3 as often? The fact that they released a patch to update it (but not turned on by default) means that there was no technical reason to not run at 30 tick/s to begin with. There is absolutely no excuse at all.

The low tick rate originally was from last gen consoles. The high tick rate of csgo was because it was hitscan, fewer players, much smaller maps, fewer objects, almost no physics interactions between objects besides ragdoll... The more happening the more bandwidth it needs. I can easily see bf4 needing 80 times the bandwidth of csgo