“Rubber banding” has long since been a problem in Battlefield 4. More than a mere annoyance, and existing since even before the launch of the game, the issue has caused many players to abandon the title for other online first-person shooter experiences.
For those not in the know, “rubber banding” is what happens when players experience slow or stalled movement followed by rapidly catching up to where your character would be on the map. Players feel as if they are “blinking,” or “rubber banding” all over the map.
The “rubber banding” problem has been made even worse with the release of the new Naval Strike DLC, which didn’t serve to alleviate the issue but rather inflame it. Thankfully, DICE has discovered the cause of the issue and is working diligently to fixing it.
“We’ve found that the root cause of the issue was a configuration of certain hardware types dedicated to 64-player matches,” wrote DICE VP and GM, Karl Magnus Troedsson on the game’s official blog.
“We have invested in new hardware to resolve this issue and deployed new higher-performance servers this week. In preparation, we conducted a significant amount of testing before installing the new servers to ensure they would correct the issue. We are already seeing performance improvement with 64-player matches and expect this to continue.”
Troedsson added that the process took longer than the developers intended, but they wanted to make “100% sure” it was done right and that the long-term solution was properly in place.
Given how long the problem has existed, some players aren’t going to be as forgiving as others in dealing with the issue. We’re just glad it’s finally getting fixed.
