Battlefield 4- Out on October 29th (current gen)

[Brett]

In terms of Commander scores, I have been near the top of the leaderboard. Unless one is able to be really fortunate with cruise missile kills, I cannot really see topping the leaderboard as commander. However, middle to near top is definitely doable.

Last night was not a great night of gaming. I want to like the AEK-971 and was pretty much forcing myself to use the weapon to unlock at least the Angled Foregrip. While the Angled Foregrip helps the weapon, the weapon still ends up being a handful. Any engagements beyond short or middish range are very unpredictable. I ended up abandoning the idea of using the AEK-971, played a game or two with the ACE 23, and ended up enjoying playing the game more than I had prior.

 

[mcfizzle]

Update out for PS4 - 607 MB. Will update with change log.

Stability improvements and crash fixes
Performance improvements
Added support to BF4 for the China Rising expansion pack

First match crashed to menu half way through but I didn't experience the suppression glitch, sound glitch, or rubber banding so there is that.

 

[Parker]

Any word on how to get the scope for the M1911 we were supposed to get today? I've played a few games and have yet to get it.

 

[nk4e]

How do you join in as Commander?

 

[Akira AC]

You have to be at least 10 lvl, then if the match has a commander spot it should pop up underneath the "Join Game" button (Join as commander).

 

[ProjectWHaT]

I thought you said ton of points...

~1500+ is not a ton of points.

When you closing in on 15000-20000, then you are getting tons of points.

Whopse typo. I forget how much points I got. It was either 2,000 or 20,000

 

[Patrick]

Was able to go from level 8 to 15 thanks to an hour of 100% XP along with x2 XP.

 

[sesselpupser]

This double XP thing is great. Tonight alone I've unlocked loads of stuff. I also got my first weapon battlepack, it was for the RFB and it contained a silencer, the laser/light combo and... Something else. I don't really care, I like it with the ACOG, canted sights and heavy barrel. I've unlocked the Shorty 12G and G18 tonight as well, but I can't really get over how much I love the P226 long enough to use anything else.

Also, the duckbill; is that really worth it? Surely it prevents the shotgun from getting head/chest hits in one shot?

 

[Brett]

The double XP is even better when you use a Battlepack experience boost. I used a 50% one last night and received massive amounts of points after getting a Conquest and Assault Service Star in the same match.

 

[Patrick]

I got 3 Rush Medals and with my 100% bonus added on gave me 40k XP each time.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

I played earlier today and I keep on "losing connection". The game's completely broken. They lost where I was in campaign. I'm really disappointed in this game.

 

[sesselpupser]

The double XP is even better when you use a Battlepack experience boost. I used a 50% one last night and received massive amounts of points after getting a Conquest and Assault Service Star in the same match.

Oh yeah, true. Although, I used a 50% XP boost but managed to time it just so that my standard of play trailed right off afterwards. I actually got more XP without the boost than with it...

 

[Phoenix]

Just tried playing some BF4 today after a week off...

After 1st round the game froze and had to force it to close. Good job Dice... Just brilliant.

At least it was working before the patch....

 

[nk4e]

After beating the Campaign, I decided to hop online. In the first match, I decided to drop a C4 on a buggy because the player was AFK. I noticed that the AFK left off in the buggy, I waited for a bit before deciding to blow up hopefully not getting him. Instead, I got someone else from the other team. It was wtf moment for me today.

 

[Brett]

Being on crap team after crap team is getting old. It is rage inducing to be constantly trying to push objectives only to get pummeled from multiple directions because the rest of your team does not know their heads from their butts.

 

[Daniel]

I'm having a blast playing Commander Mode. Got an incredibly close win on SoS CQ with only 5 tickets left on our side. I told one squad to hold back at Bravo while another defended Alpha and two other squads attacked Charlie.

 

[sesselpupser]

Being on crap team after crap team is getting old. It is rage inducing to be constantly trying to push objectives only to get pummeled from multiple directions because the rest of your team does not know their heads from their butts.

You should find a local (i.e. not trans-Atlantic) gaming community to play with (as they're usually less serious and more welcoming than a clan), get a mic and join their Mumble/TS3 server. I just don't play BF4 if I'm not with RPS or what's left of the BF3 clan I was in once, not because they're good, but because they are fun to play with regardless of whether you're winning or losing. You should try and join us sometime, the ping might not be too bad. See if you can find the Rock Paper Shotgun Community Server and have a look at your ping to it maybe?

 

[Brett]

You should find a local (i.e. not trans-Atlantic) gaming community to play with (as they're usually less serious and more welcoming than a clan), get a mic and join their Mumble/TS3 server. I just don't play BF4 if I'm not with RPS or what's left of the BF3 clan I was in once, not because they're good, but because they are fun to play with regardless of whether you're winning or losing.

I have played some on the PURE Reddit servers and that has usually been a very good experience. They have a Teamspeak server that syncs squads together automatically. It also helps that the majority of players on those servers PTFO. There are also quite a few very good players that play there and to compete with them, I have to put on my tryhard pants. However, their two servers tend to be full and I am mostly not patient enough to wait around to join a server. I have seen up to eight to ten people waiting to join the servers.

A few days ago I jumped into a game with Pako. That was pretty fun. It was a pretty good group and we worked together most of the matches. ibonibo jumped in also. Sorry about getting separated in the squads.

You should try and join us sometime, the ping might not be too bad. See if you can find the Rock Paper Shotgun Community Server and have a look at your ping to it maybe?

If I see you on, then I will jump into the game, at least if the server is not full. I would expect my ping to be in the around 120-130ish, maybe 150. That should be playable.

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On a different note, the ACR with the Coyote sight is pretty awesome. The Coyote sight offers much more visibility than the US red dot sight. I did not unlock the Coyote from an ACR Battlepack, but a random Battlepack from leveling. I will probably be jumping back and forth between the ACR and ACE 21 when playing as an Engineer or Recon. Both of those are very good weapons.

I also unlocked the MP7 last night. I tried out the weapon on the Test Range. However, I did not have a chance to try the weapon outside the Test Range. Getting a vehicle destroy with a Stinger or IGLA was a pain. I could consistently get hits on vehicles, but most people would bail out after getting hit once and I would not be able to get a vehicle destroy.

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I am quite happy that DICE added red dot sights to sidearms. The P226 with the Mini Red Dot is brilliant. Prior to unlocking the Mini Red Dot, my accuracy with the P226 was already quite good. However, utilizing the Mini Red Dot has taken my accuracy up a notch. Pistol kills are much easier to come by and my chances of success when I have to switch to a sidearm have gone up tremendously. The only problem I see is once I finally unlock the sidearms that I am interested in, the 93R and Compact 45, I may have become so accustomed/spoiled by using a red dot on the sidearm that fighting through iron sights may be too big of a chore.

 

[TiZzla]

Being on crap team after crap team is getting old. It is rage inducing to be constantly trying to push objectives only to get pummeled from multiple directions because the rest of your team does not know their heads from their butts.

Pretty much sums up 80% of the rounds I play. Or your on the good team which can be just as bad when there are no caps to attack.

It's so epic when you do get a close round though, had one yesterday when we came from behind to win by 2 tickets.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

If you're a PC player, I recommend checking out LevelBF. They're a community that's been trying to make Battlefield competitive.

 

[sesselpupser]

So they say they've patched the frame rate issues on PC again, but I'm still getting drops as bad as I ever did... Also, unrelated, I can't kill anything with sniper rifles any more. I was never that great with them in BF3 - probably above average but still regularly outsniped - and now with the zeroing mechanic and variable zoom I find I'm never correctly set up to make a shot. I'm considering ditching the scope and trying a 4x to see if I can use it like a longer range DMR, but... I don't know, maybe I just won't bother with them at all.

 

[Brett]

I found another option to take out the attack boats on Paracel Storm. A scout helicopter equipped with the 25mm cannon and guided missiles make for formidable opposition to the attack boats. The guided missiles work wonderfully from a bit of distance and two of those pretty much ensure the attack boat is immobilized. From there, the 25mm will need about one and a half magazines to finish the boat off. Quite a few attack boat pilots will have a hard time landing shots on the scout chopper with the main gun. Further, I have not seen many, and for that matter one, attack boat pilots use an anti air weapon as a secondary, so that is of lesser concern. However, having flares/ECM ready to go would not hurt.

The attack jets are probably the better option because the attack boats pose a smaller threat to the attack jets. Though, the scout chopper is still capable of filling the anti attack boat role nicely. However, this particular scout chopper setup is dreadful against air targets. The low velocity on 25mm cannon shells tends to make consistently landing shots on other air targets difficult, at least at anything other than fairly close ranges. The limited ammunition only makes matters worse. The guided missiles are useless against air targets, at least on non-lased targets. I would assume that guided missiles can still hit lased air targets. Not sure about that though, as I have seen very few lased targets.

So they say they've patched the frame rate issues on PC again, but I'm still getting drops as bad as I ever did... Also, unrelated, I can't kill anything with sniper rifles any more. I was never that great with them in BF3 - probably above average but still regularly outsniped - and now with the zeroing mechanic and variable zoom I find I'm never correctly set up to make a shot. I'm considering ditching the scope and trying a 4x to see if I can use it like a longer range DMR, but... I don't know, maybe I just won't bother with them at all.

I was not a big fan of the bolt action rifles in BF3. I am still not a big fan of them in BF4. Bolt actions tend to have a fairly specific role in which they need to be used and in my toolbox, that role is too specialized in many cases. With a bolt action, I am not a consistent enough shot in those mid range engagements where many other weapons can still operate fairly effectively. Further, when I use a bolt action, I tend to have a lesser impact on the game for my team. I find myself playing too far from the action and end up doing less PTFO.

 

[TiZzla]

So they say they've patched the frame rate issues on PC again, but I'm still getting drops as bad as I ever did... Also, unrelated, I can't kill anything with sniper rifles any more. I was never that great with them in BF3 - probably above average but still regularly outsniped - and now with the zeroing mechanic and variable zoom I find I'm never correctly set up to make a shot. I'm considering ditching the scope and trying a 4x to see if I can use it like a longer range DMR, but... I don't know, maybe I just won't bother with them at all.

Are you using windows 8 or 7? I'm considering upgrading to windows 8 because my fps stability is still rubbish. Even though it's not maxing out my gpu or my cpu.

As for sniping, don't touch the zeroing. Or the variable zoom. Just use the 7x or 8x that the gun comes with and get comfortable with it. Once you unlock the M98B you barely have to compensate for bullet drop at all. Even the first rifles have far less bullet drop than BF3 had. I found it really hard at first but once you get the hang of it one shotting people from hundreds of metres away is a lot of fun

 

[sesselpupser]

Are you using windows 8 or 7? I'm considering upgrading to windows 8 because my fps stability is still rubbish. Even though it's not maxing out my gpu or my cpu.

As for sniping, don't touch the zeroing. Or the variable zoom. Just use the 7x or 8x that the gun comes with and get comfortable with it. Once you unlock the M98B you barely have to compensate for bullet drop at all. Even the first rifles have far less bullet drop than BF3 had. I found it really hard at first but once you get the hang of it one shotting people from hundreds of metres away is a lot of fun

I'm on Windows 7, but I'm not even considering upgrading to 8 just for BF4. I play a whole load of games and a lot of them don't work with Windows 8, so it's just not worth it for me. At the very most I might consider a dual-boot arrangement...

Unlocking the sniper rifles is really slow going for me, I've probably got about 50 kills on the first two in total and they're all I've unlocked so far. I did have a really good start with them, and I did find my ability varied from day to day in BF3, so maybe I'm just always having a bad sniping day whenever I try to use them... I don't really know what it is, I can get hit markers until the cows come home but never any headshots, and I just don't have the 'instinct' nailed yet where I can estimate how high to aim and how far to lead a target so I keep losing those pop-out sniper duels that are so common. Also something is different about how the bullet looks, I don't know how to describe it but I'm pretty sure it was easier to see where your shot landed in BF3.

 

[Earth]

I have two strategies for breaking up the congestion in the tunnels at operation locker. The first is to endlessly spam EOD bots (hopefully someone on your team supplies you with ammo), the 2nd is to spam smoke grenades and then run into the smoke and take as many of them out as possible. It takes some time but I've managed to push them back. If your team supplies you with ammo the EOD bot is very deadly in the tight quarters of Operation locker. Its not uncommon for me to go 30-5 in the right circumstances using the EOD bot. Strangely enough, I have more kills (500+) with the EOD bot then any weapon or vehicle.

If you spawn on the west end of Shanghai jump in the helicopter and park it ontop of one of the buildings in the southwest corner overlooking the rest of the map. Then move into the gunners seat. Its easy to pick off people just sitting there with 30mm gunner cannons.

Im finally getting a hang of the helicopters. It kind of sucks that when your in an attack helicopter you have to run and hide so much because the stingers are way over powered. But at the moment you have to do that. It takes patience. Its best to just stay in a small area of the map and just defend it. If you try and fly around an open map with no buildings to hide behind you wont last long.

Some exploits Ive noticed: someone was spamming mini grenades at locker, I thought that was impossible. He was just standing still and throwing them continuously. I saw one guy jump out of his heli when they were either locking on or about to hit him with a missle. The heli floated harmlessly to the ground and when the danger passed he just got back into it. He did that multiple times.

One thing they HAVE to fix in a patch: theres no way to hold on to a helicopter after taking a hit without the gyro stabilizer. I can barely hang on with the stabilizer. Mobility hits need to be toned down.

 

[nk4e]

I would have claymore's and smoke gernades waiting in the Tunnels. A few solders with LMG prone/crouch waiting to shoot.

 

[Brett]

I have to strategies for breaking up the congestion in the tunnels at operation locker. The first is to endlessly spam EOD bots (hopefully someone on your team supplies you with ammo), the 2nd is to spam smoke grenades and then run into the smoke and take as many of them out as possible. It takes some time but I've managed to push them back. If your team supplies you with ammo the EOD bot is very deadly in the tight quarters of Operation locker. Its not uncommon for me to go 30-5 in the right circumstances using the EOD bot. Strangely enough, I have more kills (500+) with the EOD bot then any weapon or vehicle.

I find it to be easy to cause havoc on Operation Locker by going with the outside route. The outside route is not used nearly enough and it makes it easy to bypass the cluster. Once the cluster is bypassed, it is fairly easy to come in from behind and pick off quite a few people on the other team. A full squad is usually more than enough to cause problems. While that squad is back capping and causing the other team to pull people away from the cluster, the rest of the team needs to push the cluster back and gain the middle point. Sacrificing one squad to cause a distraction to gain ground is a wonderful solution on Operation Locker.

Is driving the EOD Bot as bad in BF4 as it was in BF3? That thing was awful to drive in BF3. I absolutely hated having to use that thing to complete an Assignment.

If you spawn on the west end of Shanghai jump in the helicopter and park it ontop of one of the buildings in the southwest corner overlooking the rest of the map. Then move into the gunners seat. Its easy to pick off people just sitting there with 30mm gunner cannons.

Im finally getting a hang of the helicopters. It kind of sucks that when your in an attack helicopter you have to run and hide so much because the stingers are way over powered. But at the moment you have to do that. It takes patience. Its best to just stay in a small area of the map and just defend it. If you try and fly around an open map with no buildings to hide behind you wont last long.

The attack choppers are garbage in BF4. The mobility of the attack chopper is dreadful. The scout choppers are everything the attack choppers wish they could be.

Some exploits Ive noticed: someone was spamming mini grenades at locker, I thought that was impossible. He was just standing still and throwing them continuously. I saw one guy jump out of his heli when they were either locking on or about to hit him with a missle. The heli floated harmlessly to the ground and when the danger passed he just got back into it. He did that multiple times.

I do not believe I have encountered explosive spam just yet. I do remember there being a bug in BF3 that if a person stood on two ammo boxes, then explosives were resupplied at a much greater pace. That may have carried over into BF4.

One thing they HAVE to fix in a patch: theres no way to hold on to a helicopter after taking a hit without the gyro stabilizer. I can barely hang on with the stabilizer. Mobility hits need to be toned down.

I have found one way to hold on with the helicopters without the gyro stabilizer. You can gain altitude and hope that you are far enough away to not allow for a follow up shot. With the added elevation, you can sometimes have enough time to recover before crashing. However, it is not an overly reliable method, but it is an occasional solution. Gyro stabilizers are definitely a better option.

 

[sesselpupser]

Infinite grenades is probably because he was sitting on an ammo box, I'm pretty sure that if your other weapons and equipment don't need resupplying then you get grenades quickly, I think. It was like that in Bad Company 2 and early in BF3, they might've patched it, I can't remember.

Tonight I've been trying to play with friends but I keep getting kicked for ping, mainly because my internet sucks. 100ms is optimistic even on domestic servers, let alone German ones. The few minutes I did manage to play (on Zavod 311) were great though, I was having one of those rounds where I seemed to be in the right place at the right time and ended up with a fair few kills, somehow. I hadn't realised how much I missed my MAV, it saved my bacon quite a few times. Funny how people prioritise it over people with guns, but hey.

 

[nk4e]

Infinite grenades is probably because he was sitting on an ammo box, I'm pretty sure that if your other weapons and equipment don't need resupplying then you get grenades quickly, I think. It was like that in Bad Company 2 and early in BF3, they might've patched it, I can't remember.

Ever thought about Port Forwarding?

 

[Brett]

On the topic of the MAV, I am fairly certain they are immune to Stingers. I have played two games of Rush recently as a Defender and in each game, I launched five or six Stingers at a MAV and none of them hit the MAV. In the second game, I asked in the chat if anyone else noticed the same thing and at least one person had the same experience. While a MAV can be useful in Conquest, a MAV in Rush can be invaluable. Throw in Stinger/Igla invulnerability, the lack of spammable vehicle weapon fire, and the thing is downright unfair. Further, it is fairly easy to avoid small arms fire from infantry while using the MAV. In the second game, I ended up countering the enemy MAV by using a MAV myself. I figured my team knowing where all of the enemy team was at would be beneficial. I ended up with something like nine or ten spotting ribbons.