I wish with all my heart I had bought a physical copy of this so I could come up with some sort of reason to return it. As it stands, I'll just keep chugging and suffer but literally every play sessions has one to two hard locks for me. And not even necessary the 'leveloution' levels or anything. It just locks in the middle of low intensity matches. I wouldn't have quit the issue with this that I do but I've already spent an entire day where I apparently got nothing done due to server disconnects and hard locks.

Why, in the name of everything good and holy, would they put out a multiplayer game, knowing how launches go for these sorts of things, and not give you what you earned unless you finish the round?

Unless I'm just totally oblivious, I don't think I've retained any progress upon it crashing, and boooooooooooooy fucking howdy does it like to do that. Which is a shame, because honestly, I do like this game, even if I feel Rush is the only mode that approaches Battlefield-esque gameplay on consoles.

3+ hours of playing and i have been promoted to LVL 2 about 800 times so i feel exactly where you are coming from. I really want to like this because its just a better BF3 but this is one rocky launch.. Im considering getting it on PS3 just so i can play the damm game.

Any reports on if its the same issues on consoles?

EDIT: wait screw that i spent 1600 on this gaming PC plus was a nice guy and paid retail for the game instead of that shady MEXICAN VPN business so im not paying another $80 to play a inferior version on consoles. I picked up GHOSTS for PS3 and haven't had a single issue. I could have expected issues like this if it was their first time but Jesus this is battlefield what 10? you would think they would have their shit sorted a week after launch.

I got the retail disc and i highly doubt i could walk into a store and get a refund piracy made every legit person look like they are stealing CDkeys

So you're playing on consoles? Current gen no less? You did this to yourself. I don't have a PC but I know that's the place to play or on next-gen.

Edit: If you're reading this, here's my response in another post (#36) so you won't call me out:

You guys are taking my post way to seriously. It was being said a bit jokingly, ableit way more seriously. Either way, I'm not saying this is acceptable so your phone and car comments aren't needed. Who honestly thought Frostbite 3 would hold it's shit together on current gen? Frostbite 2 on current gen was pretty awful so how is an upgraded and more powerful engine going to be any better? The answer, it's not. As I said, it's unacceptable, but that doesn't mean anything is going to be done about it. People either swallow it, don't buy it or get the better versions. I'm also not getting rid of my PS3 so your comment (sharkethic) wasn't necessary either. It'll be a while until I go next gen and even then, I still won't kick it to the curb because my backlog is huge.

@awesomeusername: PC is still unstable too or at least it's improving more now over the past couple days

Pretty sure if the holly grail "NEXT-GEN" versions came out same day that they would also be just as busted

Hey guess what every single Battlefield game for years now has been busted as hell for the first two weeks. I think a bumpy launch is to be expected with these games at this point.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you had bought it from Origin, you could actually have returned it.

Only within 24hr's or what ever right? So that's kinda useless. You would give them 1-2 days grace to get things under control but rolling on to a week and i cant even level up.

Best thread title of, at least, the year.

I think you should take a break. Getting mad at games is a waste of energy.

They'll fix the issues. Just give it time.

That's... actually a thoughtful feature for them to include.

The Xbox version actually tracks head movements via Kinect, and with Battlefields' famous destructible environments, you can now demolish entire buildings as you vent your frustration!

@colourful_hippie: And so I've heard. I was talking mostly about the console versions looking like complete poop and that it's so scaled down. Don't know why because he was talking about hard locks but eh. I love my PS3 but I can't wait to put it away next year. I'm ready for better tech and more p's! I'm not ready for the p's you're getting ready for though. Too much p's for my peasant, console playing eyes.

@awesomeusername: There are other serious technical issues with the console versions than just graphical differences too. One of my friends who played it on the 360 kept talking about gross visual glitches and other random bugs throughout, it just sounds like the engine is barely holding shit together on the weaker hardware.

Of course. I expected this with current gen. They could hardly hold Battlefield 3 (Frostbite 2) together. I can't imagine the shit show that goes on with Frostbite 3. I can't think of any reason as to why anyone would buy this game on current gen. Next-gen being so close is why I won't be playing any cross-gen game on PS3. Just the difference between the sea in the PS3 & PS4 versions of AC4 is ridiculous. I hear the framerate is pretty messed up on current gen too. Also, with MLB 14 The Show, the difference is pretty ridiculous. I can't handle the ugliness and technical problems anymore!

Skip to 40 if you don't care about what they say.

Do it do it do it do it.

Come back to BF3. Shit is still okay here.

PC gamers right now are just beta testing for the PS4 and Xbox One versions. I'm glad I'm holding out until a 50% off deal.

I love when you level up between matches, and then all during the next match your screen is constantly flashing that you have leveled up. Every 2 seconds. For the entire match! Its really great with making sure I can't see everything on screen.

I'm really enjoying the game and for the first few nights it seemed perfect online. Now out of nowhere my game completely freezes and I have to turn my PS3 on and off. I feel like this might have happened last time with BF3 as well.

The console versions have a major freezing bug with the support kit's Field Upgrades. If you try to spawn with either *Indirect Fire* or *Perimeter Defense* Field Upgrades equipped, the game will freeze your console. There's the occassional *legit* freeze too, but nothing beyond the levels of how Frostbite Battlefield games always locked-up on consoles. DICE is simply pushing these consoles too hard, eversince BF:BC 1.

Well - technical hiccups aside, BF4 is like a million times better than BF3. Playing BF3, I can't help but blame the game for everything that went wrong. In BF4, I'm back to laying the blame at my and my team's feet - where it belongs.

There's just no question what I'd rather play.

@seppli: I remember Bad Company 2 not only being my favorite console Battlefield game but also running quite well. I think it's because the maps were console-tailored which not only worked much better with the smaller player size but allowed for more destruction. They should really do an Infinity Ward/Treyarch split at DICE and have one team develop regular Battlefield with a PC focus and a second team develop Bad Company with a console focus.

Yeah, bro! What was he even thinking? That he could buy a retail copy of a current gen game and just expect it to work?! LOL! The nerve of some people, amiright?

The way some people (including Patrick and Alex who have very strange views of the industry) talk about next-gen titles or current cross-gen releases, you'd think we should be grateful these games even boot up at all.

Got it running stable and looking good on pc, now my client still crashes but server crashes are almost none existent. The longer the first big patch and nvidia driver take, the more I believe those will do wonders.

Was also playing BF3 last week, but now Im liking BF4 so much more that I just take all the shiz. Maps, weapons, upgrades and just overall BF4 feels so much better apart from all the tech problems for now.

"You did this to yourself" is way too harsh, of course it's DICE's fault. But the current gen consoles struggled with BF3, so I think most of us expected BF4 to be fucked, at least at launch. DICE do not have a good history when it comes to console ports, and it's clear that the current gen versions are an afterthought for DICE. Still, it's fucked that consumers have to go through this shit again, that we can agree on.

I still can't believe that DICE/EA hasn't gotten its shit together when it comes to the PC version though. BF3 was pretty broken for at least a week, maybe two, after launch, and the same seems to be happening here. EA is talking a big game about the Battlefield series, you'd think they'd at least manage a stable launch of the fucking game on the main platform! And DICE has been doing this for YEARS now, come on.

nice thread catchy one i was intruge by the title when i open the forums :D

@humanity: Pretty much. This borderline patronizing attitude towards people that have yet to completely denounce their 360 or PS3 is pretty fucking obnoxious.

EDIT: I wrote a fairly long post and as always when trying to quote more than one person or do any sort of complicated text editing it all just disappeared into thin air when I posted it.

So long story short - this wouldn't be acceptable in any other industry, yet were more than happy to give broken games a pass because for some reason that's ok.

@humanity: Haha, I was wondering what happened with that post:) But yeah, I'm in total agreement - it's absolutely baffling.

Well maybe this won't just disappear again so in a bit shorter format:

What would happen if these sort of things occurred in the car industry? If you spent $40,000 on a brand new car, and the navigation, radio, AC and power windows didn't work at the time of purchase and Toyota eluded to a future update that would enable those functions - would people just shrug it off as growing pains because it's a brand new car model? If the car stalled every time you turned on the radio when the AC was running would people be as forgiving? No, that stuff would be unacceptable - and cars are much more complicated than video games or video game consoles.

@humanity:

Every Frostbite Battlefield game, eversince Bad Company 1, was plagued by occassional freezes. Occurring most frequently in choppers though. Battlefield 4 sure seems like the most unstable of the bunch though. It also suffers from some serious framerate dips, the likes of which weren't apparent in the console Battlefield games prior to BF3.

Map-wise, I think BF4 blows Bad Company 2 out of the water easily. Strictly talking Rush though, since it's what's best with the 24 player cap - at least as far as I'm concerned. Though I'm sure it'll be a hoot in 64 player Conquest on PS4 too. Can't wait.

It's like if Apple was releasing the two new iPhones, with the difference between the two being that the C (i.e. the lower end version) didn't fucking work half the time - would people then go "Well, if you wanted it to work you should have bought the S."? The answer is No.

The current gen version is fine. In fact I haven't had more multiplayer fun in any other game this year. And with the 10$ upgrade for PS4, there's literally no reason to miss out. It suffers from some techinical hiccups and some rather serious bugs, but it's still the best darn multiplayer Battlefield has ever had, and that's saying something.

@seppli: I haven't played BF4 but I thought the napa in BF3 were really boring and often too big for the console version.

@sharkethic: @humanity: You guys are taking my post way to seriously. It was being said a bit jokingly, ableit way more seriously. Either way, I'm not saying this is acceptable so your phone and car comments aren't needed. Who honestly thought Frostbite 3 would hold it's shit together on current gen? Frostbite 2 on current gen was pretty awful so how is an upgraded and more powerful engine going to be any better? The answer, it's not. As I said, it's unacceptable, but that doesn't mean anything is going to be done about it. People either swallow it, don't buy it or get the better versions. I'm also not getting rid of my PS3 so your comment (sharkethic) wasn't necessary either. It'll be a while until I go next gen and even then, I still won't kick it to the curb because my backlog is huge.

FOR YOU.

Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 were fine for me, 60 frames no hitching, nothing. Don't come in and preach nonsense without attaching that it's simply your experience.

A video game's not going to kill me or endanger other people if it locks up while in use. A video game also doesn't cost that much. People's tolerance for glitches are going to be very different between those cases.

@markwahlberg said:

Hah, yep - it's actually pretty weird that we don't talk about that more. If you suggest to someone that you should have any kind of return window on Steam, XBL or PSN you'd get laughed out of the room. Origin is actually the most user friendly (damn you to hell for making me say this, EA). I think it's 24 hours from when you first launch the game, so long as that's 7 days from the time you purchased it, or something like that.

I was just gonna say something similar. Love the emotions pouring through the title.

weird. the only trouble ive had on current gen was the game freezing on me every 2 hrs or so. Its annoying but all my matches are saved.

Yeah this or also not play it for the entire time. I haven't been playing straight BF 4 MP sessions so I haven't been experiencing the server crashes as much since I'm not playing it in long stretches but I can sympathize with it not being able to record progression because it's as if you're quitting mid-match due to crashes..

Notice, I am talking the console version. BC2 and BF3, which I both own on PC too, were fine there - after a good deal of patching. If you weren't there at PC launch, you just don't know. Shit wasn't stable and smooth from the get-go on PC either. And Battlefield games freeze up PS3s like it's nobody's business. BF:BC 1 and BF 1943 certainly did freeze my 360 too occassionally. Battlefield games are of many superlatives. Most of them positive. Most unstable console games this generation? Check.

Also - I've got around 1000+ hours on both BF:BC 1 and BF:BC 2/Vietnam overall on both PS3 and 360. Freezes are not an anomaly. They're frequent enough to not surprise any BF veteran on consoles. Hopefully PS4 and Xbox One will allow for DICE to not skirt the abyss ressources-wise, and deliver more stable Battlefield games for the new generation. You know, as stable and smooth as the PC experience eventually becomes, after a good deal of patching both clientside and serverside, as you so adamantly proclaim.

@gaspower said:

My issue at the time of this post is the simple idea that no matter the reason that you're disconnected from a match, progression is not saved. I haven't experienced anything nearly to the issue I was having at the time I started this thread, but I'm still getting hard locks after multiple games, which is a bummer.

@awesomeusername: "Doing this to myself." It's a fully fledged sixty dollar product. I expect a certain level of quality from it, and my issue as far as the unlocks go is purely an issue at design level. In addition, I don't have a PC that can run Battlefield, and all of my Battlefield experiences have been on consoles. My plan is to utilize the upgrade system for my PS3 copy, but even then, it doesn't look like the launch of the next-gen version is exactly going smoothly. Moreover, I can't necessarily afford a PS4 at the moment, and personal business is going to have me tied up away from video games entirely for at least two months starting Nov. 19. Purchasing a next-gen console at this point would be a literal waste of money for the near future.

I bought Battlefield 4 because I like Battlefield, and I wanted to play Battlefield while I still could. Expecting a game to be fully, or considering my experience at the time of this thread, to be marginally functional, a week and a half after it's initial launch doesn't seem like it'd be asking that much.

Edit: And now one of the hard locks that occurred between online matches has wiped my campaign progress. Which while I wasn't enjoying my time with it anyways, I'm certainly not playing that shit over again. Awesome.

@xxizzypop: Look at post 36.

I bought digital version on PS3 that I plan on upgrading to PS4 on 29th and I had no freezing issues a lot of people on current gen were experiecing.

Then DICE released R7 update, and now my console freezes every 1-2 rounds, despite of game mode.

I have so mixed feelings, when I manage to play game without problems, having good time with friends and getting those "Only in Battlefield" moments, I forget about whole lot of crap we're dealing with this unfinished game.

Then game freezes, causing me to shake my head in dissapointment and thinking "Only in Battlefield.."

As disappointed as I am in the near unplayable quality of the game on 360. I'm more upset that not one media outlet is reporting on it. It's like they all drank the bottom line kool aid. It's no longer about informing their fanbase, it has become about keeping jobs and leading people to the slaughter.

@xxizzypop:

Yeah I can sympathize with that completely even though I don't own the game on console (I have the PC version), it really sucks to play a really great multiplayer game only to get hampered by technical problems constantly that it just sours the experience. You don't want to hate the game per se, but rather the circumstances that prevents you from consitently playing the actual game just leads you to just hate the product/service even though the game itself is really enjoyable.

In a way, with the way it performs in current gen consoles, I kinda wished they just went ahead and not have made current gen versions just to save people the trouble of playing it and get hammered with technical problems. At the same time I'm sure a lot of people who are still invested in current gen and are not willing to go over to next-gen in the next few months would be really disappointed that they couldn't be able to play it. It's a really tough situation. Hopefully though when you'll be able to get back to playing again you'll be able to afford to get a PS4 and by that time all the technical problems would be smoothed out and everything is stable.

I'm a little bummed that my console version of BF4 isn't broken. I honestly have no complaints with my 360 version and am looking forward to the xbone version this week. I don't understand the uproar and the only trouble for me is the battlefield series isn't as easy as cod (difficulty isn't taking away my enjoyment though).

I'm playing on PC and PS4. The PC is so much more stable. I can't even connect to multiplayer games on the PS4. Hopefully they get it fixed soon.