Well... I am opposed to things that could be or could've been within the game, and them being added as DLC is kinda fucked up, but... I'll wait to see how big the game is to pass that judgement. I used to hate EA, they were the company that initiated the infamous Online pass bullshit. They've since turned that marketing decision around. Since BF4 and even BFH, EA has made up for it's deceitful ways. I would vouch that the DLC's/season pass for BF4 has been more than worth it, same for BFH [unfortunately not a lot of people still play Hardline due to visceral being so fuckin scrubby at shooters, that they've created possibly the worst TTK in any FPS].
Here's the best part...
Not only have the DLC's been each filled with a more than substantial amount of content, but EA/DICE are probably currently the best in the business when it comes to constant updates, patches and NETCODE improvements... ehem.
The Netcode for BF4 has been updated/improved over 6 times. And today, AGAIN!
We BF4 players are months past the end of the season pass content, all 4 DLC's and they are STILL updating and fine tuning the game constantly.
Along with...
Get this...
FREE content after the season pass, 3 years later into the games life. Today we just got the community map project free map that was designed through polls made for the community, building a map with all the things the majority of people requested. This also came with once again, an enormous update and even more NETCODE improvements. [yes, having to rewrite/code several things to accomplish this].
There is ANOTHER free map and more updates coming within the next couple months, even with SWBF being out in the wild. The things DICE does for the community as far as support and responding to feedback is amazing and SWBF could not be in better hands.
With that being said... I'm still gonna wait for the first DLC reveal to decide whether or not the season pass is for me, but regardless... This game will be supported [DLC or not] for years. If it does look good though, the 2 week early access to every map pack is always hype. It's worth it just for that, for me anyway.
The entire patch notes just for today are fucking bible size so I'll only leave you with this part...
NETCODE IMPROVEMENTS
With this release we are continuing our quest for the best “netcode” in a multiplayer game.
Included this time are fixes for a majority of the high tick rate known issues that were present in the
Summer Patch, and some pretty great general optimizations as well!
If you play on PC, you might have found some high tick rate servers and played at 60hz or more already,
and with this release we significantly improve on the experience.
High tick rate specific changes
With this release we addressed several of the known issues from the Beta which only surface when
running servers at tick rates higher than 30hz, as well as optimizing and tuning existing features
Enabled high tick rate servers. Previously released post summer patch, enabling Rental Server
Providers to rent servers running higher tick rates than 30hz
Battlelog: Added high tick rate server browser indicators and filters
Fixed an issue where jet's pitch up gets cancelled almost instantly when using the mouse on
high tick rate servers
Fixed an issue in which wings on any aircraft behaved inconsistently at higher rates (this also
applied when having low framerate)
Soldier Movement: Implemented sprint acceleration modifiers for high tick rates the same way
we did the walk modifiers some time ago
Weapons: Fixed an issue where burst fire, recoil, spread and gun sway was not applied in a
consistent manner
Fixed some issues related to general movement & vaulting
Added stronger rubber-banding prevention for high tick rate
Fixed an issue related to pickup entities fixes (battle pickups etc.)
Improved server/client synchronization for character input when running at low fps
Significantly reduced bandwidth usage at higher tick rates
Dual Frame History Time support
With dual Frame History Time we can minimize both dusting and the worst of the high ping issues!
Infantry & everything not considered a vehicle use FHT 0.125 value. This means that with a ping
>250ms you will have to lead your shots to compensate
Vehicles use FHT 1.0 value. This allows for a majority of projectiles to hit even at higher speeds
or pings when in a vehicle
Bump max allowed latency to 1s as frame history time protects impact on other players now
Visualization & Tools
In this release we’ve made some pretty extensive improvements and additions to our networking graph
Performance overlay: General
o Shows a longer time period in its window, making it easier to follow what is happening
o Added orange and red colors (warning, severe) to indicate problems. These values are
also synced with the HUD icons for corresponding problems (latency, server performance
etc.)
o Changing the latency variation calculation for the warning icons
o PC: Added RCON command to return the server tick time (request by the RSPs)
Performance overlay: Updated tracking properties
o Tickrate(hz)
Shows the current active tick rate used by the server
o Latency(ms)
Shows the latency of the client (like ping, but within the game), lower is better
o LatVrtn(ms)
Shows the current latency variation, lower is better
o PktLoss(%)
Shows the current packet loss, lower is better
o CliFired(num)
Shows the current number of bullets fired on the client
o CliHit(num)
Shows the current number of bullets hit on the client, should match CliFired normally
o SrvDmgBnd(num)
Shows the current number of damage bundles sent by the server. Can’t be used to
compare the CliHit value
o SrvTick(ms)
Shows how long it takes for the server to process a “tick” (an update), lower is better,
should stay consistent over time
o SrvOffset(ms)
Shows how far behind or ahead of the server the player is, a value between 0 and 50 is
good. Below zero means the server is having a hard time keeping up, higher than 50
means client bandwidth have a hard time catching up
o DownStr(kbit)
Shows how much bandwidth (in kbit) that is used by the game coming from server to
client
represent expected values:
o Five bars Great connection (0ms-50ms)
o Four bars Good connection (50ms-100ms)
o Three bars OK connection (100ms-170ms)
o Two bars Almost bearable connection (170ms-220ms)
o One Bar Bad connection (220ms-300ms)
Like I said, this is like the sixth netcode improvement already for BF4, a 3 year old game. DICE actually care about their customers/players.
Now just imagine what a another certain billion dollar company could do to improve the netcode for their game, if they gave a flying fuck after they already got your money.
