Producer discusses difficulties of bug squelching in Battlefront

Battlefront has had its share of bugs since the Death Star update a couple of weeks ago.

A couple of server patches have dropped since that update. Unfortunately, server patches can’t fix everything.

Paul Keslin, a producer on Battlefront, recently discussed why numerous bugs still exist.

“There are certain things we can fix with a server update and certain things we can fix only with a client update,” he wrote on the game’s official forums. “Client updates take longer to kick out due to the work involved with making that happen.”

He further clarified that DICE is still working on fixing other problems.

“As such, with our server update we were only able to get to a few fixes, one of which was the most impactful to players at the time,” Keslin wrote. “We’re aware of the other issues and are working on them.”

Those other issues include the multi-hero glitch on Walker Assault, frozen hero screens on Extraction and balancing problems.

One possible reason why client-side patches (i.e., when a patch is downloaded onto your system) take longer is because updates on the PS4 and Xbox One need to go through a certification process. This adds extra time to the development process before the patch goes live. PC doesn’t require an external certification. This why a client patch arrived yesterday—albeit broken—for PC users.

Server-side patches don’t need to go through the external certification because EA owns the servers. Unfortunately, because the developers don’t touch the actual code on your system, they can’t fix everything.

Still, it’s frustrating to see bugs introduced into the game. Hopefully we’ll get a client update soon that will fix many of the current issues (without adding too many other ones!). My guess (based on previous patterns) is that the earliest we’ll see a client update is October 18 or 25.