Battlefield 4 China Rising launch adds fresh problems

Battlefield 4 China Rising launch adds fresh problems

Developer DICE continues to struggle with Battlefield 4 performance issues.

Yesterday EA released expansion China Rising to Battlefield Premium customers, and players struggled to join servers across multiple platforms.

When they did, some reported server crashes, booting them out of the game.

Understandably, players flooded Battlelog to complain, and in response EA posted a message on its help page.

"While exploring new battlegrounds in the Battlefield 4 expansion, China Rising, you may run into an occasional hiccup, issue, glitch, or problem that could interrupt or prohibit your gameplay," the company said, before issuing troubleshooting information.

Coinciding with the release of China Rising is a patch for all Battlefield 4 players (well, not PS4 players - more on that later), which EA advises you download before playing.

For PC players, DICE is "implementing a solution" to a problem that is causing players to get kicked from the servers within seconds of joining - however: "this fix will take some time to be fully completed, but players should be noticing normal gameplay behaviour soon".

DICE is investigating an issue preventing Xbox 360 players from joining China Rising servers even after installing the DLC and "will provide updates as quickly as possible".

Now, onto the PS4 update. This was due to go live yesterday, 3rd December, but was delayed for "some additional testing". There's no word on a release date as of yet.

The PC update issued yesterday was hotly-anticipated by players because it was supposed to fix the "one-hit kill bug", which meant occasionally damage from a single bullet was applied multiple times.

Did it work? "Yes and no," according to DICE lead technical scripter Mikael "sliced_lime" Hedberg, who addressed the issue on Reddit.

"There were two issues. One was an actual OHK (you shoot someone, they die from one bullet). That one was fixed.

"The other is an issue with how deaths are communicated from server to client, which means you can sometimes appear to die instantly, but whoever shot you still actually shot the appropriate amount of bullets. The fix for this is a server-side fix, and we are looking at getting it out as soon as possible."

As you'd expect, Battlefield 4 players are upset at the ongoing issues that have plagued Battlefield 4 since release. Last month DICE offered double XP for any multiplayer match played between 28th November and 5th December to apologise for the buggy launch.