Qualms with EA/Dice

Battlefield 1 General Discussion
1

I’ve noticed this trend with recent EA products. Primarily SWTOR and BF1. I’ll cut right to the chase, and I get the impression that many other players feel this way also. At least in my experience.

I don’t think the devs/higher ups (mostly in EA) give a damn about the quality of their product. They spray perfume and lather a corpse in makeup, market it with some nice banners and good music and pre-rendered cut scenes, and charge a price for it. Sometimes the price is justifiable, sometimes it’s a blatant scam. Maybe not a scam since they know for a fact that people will pay it. In the beforehand games I mentioned, EA is embedded in both, and both games share a common feature. “Packs.”

SWTOR/BF1 will trade irl cash for either cartel packs or battle packs which offer different, sometimes exclusive content. This is a somewhat new trend, at least from what I have gathered in my life of playing videogames. Said trend allows corresponding companies to increase profits at a minor cost to themselves.

Let’s face it. Some players will pay quite a bit of money to get an extremely rare piece of content. And it’s worked. Players get what they want, EA gets bags full of cash. That’s fine. However, it’s what these companies do their new found profit that really irks me.

Nothing meaningful. With all this new found cash, it seems like they use none of it to run routine maintenance, patching, repairs, and other actions that would improve and boost quality of gameplay for the player base.

About every other match I am in, regardless of latency, I am seeing constant “rubber banding” from other players. (I know I am repeating myself from a previous complaint on forums.) Making it a lot harder to play the game normally. Other instances include watching airplanes disappear from sight due to lag spikes, enemy players running behind you, and weapon’s fire passing harmlessly through enemies. That AT round that hit that plane? Nah, too much lag son, did no damage. Passed right through the fuselage. Other times it’s the main menu or spawn menu turning all black, getting randomly disconnected despite having a ping that is better than 75% of all other players.

“Well anon, I don’t have any of these issues and the game runs perfectly for me. You’re just bad.”

Right, you may not have any of these issues, in that case, I am truly glad, because this really is a great game, it’s really fun, and if you are having no issues with it, it means that you’re having the best gaming experience that you paid for and deserve. And I will stand up and say that I am not a skilled or known player. I admit that. But it doesn’t take a legendary player to know that something is wrong with the game when you empty an entire magazine into an enemy at point blank and WATCH HIM FLINCH WITH EVERY IMPACT and suddenly you die and he has taken no damage.

I get that all games are going to have their share of bugs. Obviously some bugs will stick with the game till the servers die. The only way to repair these bugs would be to remake the entire game from the ground up. Even then, games I played over a decade ago were near invincible. You could patch and mod and throw rocks and wrenches in the virtual gearbox and the game would run fine. Nowadays games seem so clunky and easily corruptible.

But I digress. I don’t necessarily think it’s the dev’s fault, more likely those in charge of funding, hence my beef with EA. Though, I reckon Dice, or some elements of Dice, may not care as much. I think, with all these newfound cash, they should put some of it into fixing known issues.

I’m not angry or upset. Honestly, it am in a very reserved, calm state of mind and simply presenting my findings. I am merely stating something that I have noticed time and again when I play games where EA has a strong foothold in. In a few years, we’ll have Battlefield 1776 or Battlefield Vietnam, it’ll get the fanfare, the banners, the perfume, the marketing, and everyone will once again fork over 60 dollars for a game that’s clunky and inherently flawed.

Take it for what you will.

I sincerely hope your gaming experience is better than mine, because I seem to be getting dive bombed by a thousand birds.

2

To be honest, the SWTOR microtransactions are fairly different. In BF1, you can only really get cosmetic items, whereas cartel packs in SWTOR offer items with significant advantages over normal items (trust me, I’ve played that game for a while).

3

(Double post, sorry about that)

4

I only like playing teamdeath match with 24 players, no lag, quick spawns and fun, fun, fun,

It is world war one, overpowered, tanks, planes, does not make sense to me.

5
6

My i5 4690 paired with 16GB of RAM and a GTX 1070 run the game pretty well till June Patch, after that it’s unplayable.

I Have another computer with a i7 4970k paired with 16 GB RAM and a R390 and the game runs like butter smooth before and after the June patch.

There are hundreds of people complaining about the problem with the i5 cpu’s and even some new generation i7 having 100% cpu usage and horrible spikes, lagging, stuttering and lot’s of fps drops plus low fps. It’s not the computers fault, because the machine is the same, the windows 10 is the same (had the creators update installed before the June update) and the game is not the same.

Where is the support?

Where are the guys that sold the game coming and say that they are aware of the problems and they wll fix it!?

Nobody says nothing. Truly disappointing!

I hope we get problems fixed soon.

7

Same and true, played for almost six years. The cartel packs in tor have a great deal more in content and offer a whole lot more. The items you can get can be resold for astronomical amounts of in-game currency. Sure you’ll miss out on some cool looking items, but if you don’t care about that, you can sell an armor set for 10s of millions of credits.

However, alluding back to my OP, both games have had known issues and bugs that have been present since launch. But despite the massive boost in revenue from the launch of the cartel market, many of the bugs still exist. Despite everything, devs and moneymakers still insists on reskinning old content and reselling it at top dollar.

8
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So, basically you’re lagging and are suffering the effects of said lagging - and you’re blaming EA/DICE for this by claiming they “do nothing good” with the money they make from microtransactions, even though you have no idea at all what EA/DICE does with the funds they make from…well…ANYWHERE.

Just saying - a few months ago when the latency limit (or whatever you want to call it) concerning server-side hit reg was first implemented and everyone came here like the world was ending, screaming that they can’t play because their ping is too high, I was on here completely on the offensive against those chuds.

Mainly because I had a connection strong enough to negate any effects the changes brought - but MOSTLY because I played several matches OOR with a ping over said limits, and not only had a stellar game, but came in first place on the winning team. I even recorded several videos of me getting kills (with several different weapon types at several different ranges on moving and stationary targets), and then looking at the scoreboard to see my 120+ms ping.

But, I kept thinking to myself - “well, maybe it’s because you have a near 100 Mb/s internet connection”.

On the other hand - I just moved around 200~ miles away a month or so ago to a place where LITERALLY the only connection I can get is a 15Mb/s, unreliably slow connection from Windstream that leaves games UNPLAYABLE if attempting to use a wireless connection. On top of that, I stay in a house with two guys who are constantly streaming videos and using the same connection I am (something I didn’t have to deal with before I moved).

But these past few days I hopped on BF1 for the first time in 1-2 months, and despite my horrible connection (that is wired now), I still did fantastic, my shots still connected, and the few instances of rubberbanding I experienced were not only short-lived, but more than likely came from MY end of the connection being under use (again, by the two other guys in my house)

So - at this point in this discussion of the famed “Oh my god this game lags so bad that I can’t play it” topic - I honestly have no idea why people are lagging seemingly SO BAD that the game is legitimately unplayable for them.

I’ve done EVERYTHING I could - I’ve played OOR forcing myself to have as high a ping as possible, I’ve played on a TOTALLY crap connection while two other people were using it simultaneously - and I STILL can’t manage to get the supposed “unbelievable amount of lag” that seems to be plaguing so many people on this forum.

That leads me to believe the problem is actually stemming from the people who are complaining. There’s something wrong that they’re doing that they’re not telling people. Whether it be that they use a wireless connection, they get their internet from their neighbor, they use as low-quality an ISP as possible, their family members are all using it at the same time, or there’s just no servers in their region and they’re trying to play OOR (which, again, I proved was possible)

SOMETHING on the user’s end is going wrong. I’ve tried emulating scenarios of “unplayable” lag so many times with zero results pointing to the lag trouble being on the GAME’S end.

There are too many people having a perfectly acceptable experience for it to be a problem with the game - after all, we’re all playing the same game that has undergone the same major patch changes across each platform.

I mean, really - you’re bringing up games being “solid” 10 years ago, but look what you’re comparing them to. Not only is BF1 enormously more complex than shooters made 10 years ago, it’s one of the best and most complex technological feats in modern gaming (I mean, really, with the visuals and playercount/action it has happening simultaneously, it’s a miracle they got it to run the way it does on consoles). There’s SO MUCH MORE that goes into developing large-scale AAA games nowadays that it’s not even funny.

That’s exactly like comparing apples to oranges. They’re both fruit, but they’re nothing alike apart from that fact. You act like creating patches for this highly complex game to fix “real problems” is as simple as buying a candy bar from a store and handing it to a little kid.

Sorry that you’re having a crap experience, but what you’re describing sounds like network issues that a lot of people don’t experience in the same exact game you’re playing and claiming that the problem is emanating from. Coming from a guy playing with a now crap connection out in the middle of nowhere while two other people simultaneously suck bandwidth with Netflix and YouTube all day - it sounds like a problem on your end whether your or anyone else wants to admit it or not.

10

I never said I was doing poorly, I’ve said servers are 50 shades of buttocks since Nivelle and that does hamper my PTFO severly, I will not push to engage with the 95 when I know the server to be unstable. A lot of people seemingly got problems on their end following that update, was the game requirements upgraded too to absolve DICE/EA from any fault in this subpar experience since?

11

EA business model - Make flashy launch videos, promote heavily on the front end, satisfy the stockholders expectations, abandon the title and repeat with next title.

12

Take the cpu out of the equation, and tell me the difference between the 2 PC’s. Now think about it a minute. What’s the one thing that changes often with the item that is different?

13

300 down 30 up with my PS4 pro being the ONLY thing on the wired internet connection yet I’ve experienced similar results. I upgraded from 100 mb down /10 up, new drop line and main line into the house, as well as a new panoramic Wi-Fi router. Static IP which I even dmz’d ? Still similar results? Yeah I’m sure it’s everyone’s internet…bull pucky!
Despite my atrocious aim,when slow moed, some shots in this video were on target yet no hit registratio. And two clips are players appearing AFTER I was shot dead by them! And first three clips are where I was using the same gun as enemy, started firing first yet was instantly killed by the enemy? Also includes a clip where I was behind cover (piano) yet still get shot from down the hallway…)Take a look for yourself…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tv-pLqQxXY

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And if 120ms is as hard of an oor experience that you can muster, your not trying very hard obviously!!

15

Sure some of the time when your lagging, it’s your fault. However, DIVE/EA have how much money? They are worth how much? BF franchise if not their marquise franchise certainly one of them. But they still have yet to use dedicated servers for battlefield 1. Because of this, I feel, is why you see so many issues with the game. Some call it net code, some call it bad servers etc. Whatever it is it is an issue. Being shot and killed when you are clearly behind a wall or cover, only to have the guy that killed you say on his screen you were still in the middle of the street and hadn’t gotten behind cover. Or,having your friend 2 shot you with the automatico, only to have him say he shot half of his clip before you died on his screen. Or, you turn the corner and unload on your friend and kill him before he even shoots a shot but still manages to do 30 damage to you, only to have him say on his screen he shot 3 shots of. I know this kind of stuff happens in all games but for some reason it feel worse in this game. And I’d be an extremely rich man if I had a dollar for everytime one of these senarios occured. Funny thing is, even playing online games that DO have crap servers, or are P2P it’s not this bad.

I’m not saying I"m agreeing with the OP, but in this case I do see an issue.

16

Well welcome to the modern world of gaming. They arent creating games with a passion anymore, they are creating virtual stores. BF1 is just cosmetic stuff and can be completely ignored tho. So it doesnt bother me. EA is nothing compared to Ubisoft and Daybreak games when it comes to this kind of thing.

I completely agree with you tho, its saddening that the extra money doesnt seem to be used to polish the games and servers

17

Again - if there are people with crap connections getting a better performance than you, it’s not a problem with the game AS A WHOLE.

You have a substantially better connection than I could ever hope for in my current location, and I’m getting substantially better performance.

Again - people who are getting bad performance swear up and down that it HAS to be the game, but not only do they ignore the fact that there are a myriad of players out there not having performance issues - but they also seemingly can’t point out at all what they believe is actually wrong WITH THE GAME. They juts proclaim blindly that it “has” to be the game, because their connection is flawless.

As for those clips - some of them have me incredibly doubtful of any lag. For instance, the 1st and 2nd clip. One guy just outplayed the hell out of you and killed you before you could kill him - and the 2nd guy took ALL your shots and beat you with a headshot. Third clip was an example of how broken the cavalry melee on horseback is FOR EVERYONE, fourth clip the guy initially headshot you which took down almost half your health and FOR WHATEVER REASON you melee’d after your ONE shot you hit him with - but I guess lag was the culprit there too? 5th clip you got run over by a tank on spawn just as your protection came off (still in contact with the tank).

There are some suspect clips, like number 6 and 7 - but that’s about it. I could keep going on about the others.

You weren’t “instantly” killed by anybody. I mean, really - you were firing wildly at the guy in clip 2, and he headshot you and killed you - but lag was at fault for what? His headshot ability? Your horrible aim?

Like I said, you melee’d in the doorway in clip 4 after you and an enemy headshot each other simultaneously - was lag to blame for you pressing your melee button?

Not to mention that there were LATENCY ISSUE ICONS in the corner of your screen on some clips where your shots weren’t connecting - and with the change to hit registration, when you’re lagging and those icons pop up, you have to lead your targets further than usual, even if they’re only SLIGHTLY moving (this is because you’re lagging, and where you see the person isn’t actually where the person is - the consequences of lagging)

People are so quick to blame the game for their own shortcomings nowadays that it’s not even funny. I can show you clips where I was getting those warning icons as well and was connecting shots because I adjusted my aim for the lag (like the developers told us to in the patch notes when the changes were implemented).

It doesn’t matter how much higher than that it was - that was back when the server-side hit reg limit was 100ms. So anything over that forced you to server-side hit reg, meaning I was still experiencing that “lagging” experience.

As of this response, you’re literally just making excuses to try and talk down anything I could possibly say against your opinion of why you get bad performance in the game.

120ms is considered a TERRIBLE connection - it’s beyond just “lagging” where latency is concerned. And I’ll post the clips if you don’t believe me, I get kills and then show my latency on the scoreboard afterward to prove it.

You can’t get much OOR than US to EU if you’re looking for populated servers - that is way OOR.

What you’re describing is player-to-player latency. It does happen in every game, and it’s only more apparent in Battlefield because of the amount of people you’re playing with.

If you ever play Planetside 2 or ARMA, you’ll notice it a lot in those games as well.

But first off - it doesn’t matter how much DICE/EA are worth. It’s not like Battlefield is the only thing EA is working on. They had an entire gaming expo of their own before E3 for god’s sake. Their putting hundreds of millions to billions of dollars into SEVERAL games coming out - not to mention the fact that DICE are probably hard at work on SWBF2 and the next installation in the BF franchise.

Secondly - BF doesn’t have dedicated servers? Since when? Battlefield 1 and every BF game in the past does have dedicated servers. If they don’t, what do you believe the games are running on? You just said that games with “crap servers” and that are P2P aren’t as bad, meaning that you believe BF1 doesn’t have “crap servers” nor is it P2P - so if they’re not using dedi servers (which they are), then what could they possibly be using?

These latency issues have always been an issue because of the large playercount, and the myriad of connection speeds and qualities said players are using all simultaneously on the same server. You can go back to BF3 BattleLog days and see threads about the same complaints.

it’s not as easy to “fix” as people claim it is, as most of it is entirely dependent on the connection each player has to the server (which is why DICE recently implemented the server-side hit reg-to-latency change).

The more low ping players in the server, the better it’s going to be - the more high ping, low quality connection players to the server, the worse it’s going to be. It’s been that way for an incredibly long time, and it happens in many other games as well.

It’s not that apparent in, say, Call of Duty games, because you’re siphoning off of ONE host player, and there are only ever 12 players total at any given time - not 64 leeching off of the same server.