Four all-new maps focused on intense naval warfare await you in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike. To give you a detailed tour of these wet and wild vistas, we hand over to lead gameplay designer Gustav Halling.

The four all-new maps in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike were designed with a simple premise in mind: to expand on what players loved with the naval warfare from Battlefield 4. It’s our hope you’ll enjoy the new maps immensely, whether you’re trying out the new Carrier Assault mode or piloting the new Hovercraft. Naturally, we have also crafted the surroundings with infantry and non-naval vehicles in mind. So without further ado, let’s go through the four maps of Naval Strike.

Lost Islands
Starting with Lost Islands, this map focuses around a crashed airplane located near the center of the map. The map itself contains several small islands surrounding the crash site that can be traversed using quad bikes around the whole map, or by using boats (including the new hovercraft) to take shortcuts across it. The key to master this map is to control the plane at the crash site, which can be blown open to give infantry some much needed cover. Another special area of this map is the cave blanketed by a waterfall, as it provides visual cover for patrolling boats and helicopters.

You can now take a unique first glimpse at the gameplay of Battlefield 4 Naval Strike in the full trailer for the expansion. The Carrier Assault mode, all-new naval environments, the Hovercraft vehicle, and much more await you in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike.

Prepare for the ultimate sea-to-sea warfare as you’ll be taking the intense and dramatic water-based combat introduced in Battlefield 4 to the next level. Pilot the new amphibious hovercraft vehicle through four all-new maps set in the South China Sea including Lost Islands, Nansha Strike, Wave Breaker and Operation Mortar.

Gear up for battle with 5 all-new weapons and 2 additional gadgets, the 3GL (3 grenade launcher) and the Anti-Heli Mine. You’re going to need all the firepower you can harness if you seek to master the Carrier Assault game mode – a re-imagining of the classic Battlefield 2142 Titan Mode.

Battlefield 4 Naval Strike is releasing two weeks early for Premium members on March 25th.

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As the release of Battlefield 4 Naval Strike approaches, we have received several questions from the Battlefield community about the expansion. To answer these questions, we hand over to lead gameplay designer Gustav Halling.

What was the main design goal you set out with Battlefield 4 Naval Strike?
The design philosophy behind Battlefield 4 Naval Strike was to expand on what makes naval warfare and water-based vehicles fun in Battlefield 4. We know that there are many fans of Paracel Storm in our community, and with this expansion we wanted to give players who love that map more variations in the naval gameplay.

What’s the biggest challenge when designing naval-focused maps?
As always when working with water-based maps the challenge is to give naval units a prominent role on the Battlefield, and at the same time give infantry players enough areas to fight around – and also create space for fast transport vehicles. That is why we focused on making a wide variation of vehicle- and infantry-focused bases on all the maps in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike.

What are the four new maps of Battlefield 4 Naval Strike?
You will get to wage war in the tropical Lost Islands map, in the massive level Wave Breaker, through the stormy weather of Nansha Strike, and by the breathtaking vistas in Operation Mortar. Stay tuned for an in-depth breakdown of all four maps here on Battlelog!

What kind of Levolution can we expect in Naval Strike? Will there be storms like the one in Paracel Storm?
In Naval Strike we have been focusing on how the player can interact within the levels to create and block paths for vehicles, or make other strategic use of the environments. For example, you will be able to close flood doors to stop vehicles from entering a submarine base and capturing the objective inside. You can also blow up part of a crashed airplane to create new cover for infantry.

As for storms, instead of copying what has already been done in Paracel Storm, you can expect different visual styles and weather on all four Naval Strike maps. There’ll be calm seas, stormy weather and many other weather effects. For instance, on the Mortar Strike map, you’ll start fighting at dawn and the map will be lit up by the resort lights. As the fight rages on, the sunrise will drench the tropical island in beautiful sunlight.

What can we expect for the new Hovercraft and how will the vehicle affect gameplay?
The new hovercraft, or ACV, is a very fast transport vehicle with a driver and a passenger position that travels seamless between water and land. This unique ability has many advantages; you can for instance maneuver away from boats by short cutting through an island instead of going around it. These new abilities are exciting for us to bring to our players and I can’t wait to see what crazy stuff we will see from this vehicle in the game!

What new gadgets will there be in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike?
First off, we have the new M320 3GL gadget that will give the players the possibility to fire three grenades without reloading. With smaller explosives, the M320 3GL will be great for tight corridors, but it will also require accurate shots to get the kill.

If you play as Engineer, you will be able to use the new Anti-Heli Mine, an aircraft disabling projectile. This will provide a way to block off small paths for air vehicles and could for example be used to cover a certain area behind the player in order to avoid surprises from low flying helicopters. It is however a challenge to get kills with the Anti-Heli Mines, since pilots can use countermeasures and flare them off, like with any other lock-on weapon.

With naval maps only, how do you balance the gameplay so that, for instance, land units still are important?
Battlefield 4 Naval Strike is focusing on naval warfare. Some land vehicles will be there, but they are very limited to give way for vehicles like attack boats, PWC’s, and the new ACV. There will of course also be air vehicles. But as mentioned: with Naval Strike focusing on water-based fights, there will be a limited pool of land vehicles.

What is the Carrier Assault game mode?
Carrier Assault is our homage to the classic Titan mode in Battlefield 2142, where two teams fight over control over each other’s massive aircraft carriers, by using missiles and infantry attacks. Learn more about Carrier Assault in this Battlefield Blog post.

What will make Battlefield 4 Naval Strike an awesome expansion?
All that you’ve come to love with naval warfare in Battlefield 4 will be even more intense and fast-paced in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike. Whether you’ll be taking insane shortcuts with your Hovercraft or securing a narrow win in Carrier Assault, it’s our ambition that you’ll truly enjoy the all-out war in the South China Sea.

Battlefield 4 Naval Strike is releasing first for Battlefield 4 Premium members late March. Get Battlefield 4 Premium.

One exciting feature of the upcoming Battlefield 4 Naval Strike expansion is the Carrier Assault game mode, where two opposing teams launch attacks on each others aircraft carriers. To explain the ins and outs of Carrier Assault, we hand over to lead gameplay designer Gustav Halling. 

Carrier Assault is an homage to the Titan game mode of Battlefield 2142, but this time the all-out war rages in the South Chinese Sea, and your objective is to destroy the enemy team’s carrier before they infiltrate and destroy yours. Our goal has been to make Carrier Assault a really engaging game mode, and we truly believe the amount of variety present each round will assure this. You start out fighting a big-scale war with sea, land, and air vehicles controlling the map, and then everything evolves into an infantry-focused, close quarter fight inside both carriers at the same time!

Carrier Assault Explained
So how is a match of Carrier Assault played out? There are two ways of destroying the enemy carrier: either by full map control or assaulting the carrier as infantry. Each round is divided into 2 stages, starting with map control and ending with carrier attack. Both teams start on their own carrier and race to control the missile launchers placed on the map, by capturing the control points near them. This will automatically launch missiles towards the enemy carrier throughout the round, eventually destroying its hull and making it open for infantry attacks.

When this happens for one or both teams, the carrier assault state is started. The team can then either drive a boat out to the carrier and climb aboard, or use the parachute spawn points above it. Once inside, the team must destroy two M-COM stations, which will open up new areas to the carrier, with the engine room being the final one.

Destroying the two M-COM’s, or bringing down the carrier hull’s health to 0%, will win the match for your team. See the video below for a quick tutorial.

An Hommage to a Classic Game Mode
Battlefield 2142 and Titan mode veterans will feel right at home with Carrier Assault, with the unique focus of giving players several options to win the match – either through map control or close quarter fighting inside the enemy HQ. The differences in setting and time period do however make Carrier Assault a fresh experience, and we hope you will get the same thrill out of parachute-spawning down to a carrier as you did when blasting off in a rocket pod towards a Titan.

Challenges Along the Way
Carrier Assault has been a fun challenge to develop, with many important aspects to be aware of. As fans of the old Titan mode, we really wanted to nail the end game part of the game mode, where both teams are attacking each other’s carriers. From a design point of view, it was important to create that special feeling of excitement that the potential different outcomes of a match generates.

We also wanted to keep control of the map important, so a team which is having trouble pushing through inside the enemies’ carrier can still win the level by defending their own carrier while controlling the missile launchers.

Coming Late March
We hope you will have fun with Carrier Assault when it launches later this month. Please share your thoughts on this game mode in the comments below, and make sure to keep Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on your radar the following weeks. Thanks for reading!

Carrier Assault will be playable in Battlefield 4 Naval Strike, releasing first for Battlefield 4 Premium members late March. Get Battlefield 4 Premium.

We at DICE are committed to improving the overall Battlefield 4 multiplayer experience for our players. Some issues, commonly referenced in conjunction to “netcode” are preventing Battlefield 4 from performing optimally for everyone, and with this post we would like to explain what we are doing to address these problems.

Fixing the commonly nicknamed “netcode issues” – problems ranging between faulty networking latency compensation and glitches in the gameplay simulation itself – is one of the top priorities for DICE. We’d like to take a moment to discuss how we are addressing these issues, as this is a very hot topic for many of our fans.

We are working on fixing glitches in your immediate interactions with the game world: the way you move and shoot, the feedback when you’re hit, and the way other players’ actions are shown on your screen.

The game receives updates from the game server and displays these to the player using a system called latency compensation – this system makes sure players move around naturally on your screen when network updates arrive. We have found and fixed several issues with latency compensation, and thereby decreased the impressions of “one hit kills” in the game.

We have also fixed several issues that could lead to rubber banding, and we are working on fixing several more. Below you’ll find a detailed list of the issues we are focusing on, or have already adjusted in-game. We hope this gives you more insight into the “netcode” issues and we will continue to keep you updated on top issues.

What we are Fixing or Investigating

Rubber banding
We have made several server optimizations that have decreased rubber banding for some players. To further address the issue, there are upcoming fixes for packet loss and a customize screen bug, both connected to the rubber banding issue. Furthermore, we will continue to collect data to pinpoint exactly when and why rubber banding is occurring.

Kill camera delay / Player death sync
On some occasions, the kill camera would trigger before the game client displayed the last portion of damage being dealt, giving players the impression that they died too early. There were also issues with blood effects, damage indicators, and the health bar in the HUD being out of sync. A fix for this will be included in the next game update.

Tickrate
Players have been asking whether the tickrate – how often the server will update the game world – in Battlefield 4 will be higher in the future. Though we haven’t got any immediate plans to increase the tickrate at this moment, we are exploring the possibilities of raising the tickrate on specific servers.

No registered damage
We are aware of the bug where players have been firing at their opponent and not doing damage. In the February 13 game update for PC, we added a piece of code that enables us to specifically track instances where this would occur. We are currently looking at when this issue is triggered, and what causes it. The data that we receive will help us to further improve the firefights in the future.

Instant death while sprinting
At certain occasions while walking or sprinting, a player could get catapulted at high speed which would cause death if any object was standing in the way. This was caused by a mathematical error in the character physics code, and we have a fix prepared for an upcoming patch.

Various Items
In addition to these items, there are also fixes coming for issues with Levolution being out of sync, shots appearing to be fired in the wrong direction, and vehicles outside the infantry area not taking damage when fired at. Also, we have introduced new in-game icons that will help you, and us, to troubleshoot network related problems that could cause an inconsistent multiplayer experience.

Network Troubleshooting Icons
With the January 30-31 game updates, we’ve introduced two new icons to the Battlefield 4 HUD (head-up display). These were added to the game as a way for us, and the players, to more easily troubleshoot common network-related issues that may have negative effects on the multiplayer experience.

The first icon, seen at the top in the shape of a clock, indicates that your connection to the server is lagging. There can be several reasons for this. For example, it could mean that someone else is using your connection while you are playing, but it could also mean that there is a network problem that occurred somewhere between you and the server. The effect of such lag is that it will take a bit longer for you to see what is happening in the game world. If this icon is frequently blinking, you might want to try a different server or see if you can decrease the load on your Internet connection.

The second icon, at the bottom, shows four squares that indicate packet loss. When you see this icon, your connection to the server is experiencing lost packets, which means that information is failing to reach its destination, either when your game client sends it to the server or when the server sends the information to you. Please keep in mind that packets always get lost on the Internet and that you should not be alarmed if you’re seeing this icon blinking once or twice. If you have a large amount of packet loss and see the icon often, you will probably experience game “hiccups” sometimes – action will stop for a moment, then speed ahead to catch up.

What we have Fixed

Kill card shows 0 health
Kill card sometimes incorrectly displays 0 health, despite the enemy being alive. This could happen when a portion of damage dealt was rejected by the server, since the bullets that caused it were fired after the point of death for the firing player – the kill card would show the health as predicted by your game client, rather than the health confirmed by the server. An improvement that decreased the rate at which this happens went live for PC on Feb 13, and will be included in the next game update for all the platforms.

Broken collision
We have fixed instances of broken collision that made it impossible for players to shoot past broken objects, such as the collapsed chimney on Zavod 311.

Crosshair disappearing, resulting in hit markers disappearing
In firefights, players on PC could experience their crosshair disappearing, resulting in hit markers also disappearing. This would happen when certain gadgets were deployed by other players. A fix for this is now live.

Hit impact sounds
Impact sounds did not match the number of bullet impacts, causing players to feel that they died too quickly.  An improvement to this went live for PC on February 13, and will be included in the next update for all the other platforms. The cooldown time for letting bullet hits trigger the sound has been decreased considerably, so players will now hear every bullet that hits them.

Headshot icon
We have re-introduced the headshot icon to help players understand when they get killed by a headshot, something that usually results in an instant death. The headshot icon went live in the January 30-31 game update for all platforms.

We want to assure you that we are constantly investigating, or already in the process of updating, all these items and several more that you’ve had concerns with – and that we will continue to do so with your help. Please continue to send us your feedback, and thank you for your continued support.

Remember to visit the Battlefield 4 Control Room regularly for all intel on game updates.