DLC #107 - Battlefield 4 - China Rising

The China Rising pack adds yet another batch of new game features to the Battlefield 4 experience, including maps, weapons, gadgets and vehicles, along with 5 more trophies to unlock along the way.

The expansion also adds the new Air Superiority game mode, a mode focused around jet and apache dog-fighting, which also awards a trophy for merely completing a game of it.

Out of the other 4 trophies, 3 of these are awarded for obtaining kills with the new vehicles added by the pack, which include the dirtbike, bomber and SUAV (which is technically a handheld gadget, but operates as a user-guided UAV plane).

All of these are relatively easy, and don't require a terrible amount of trial and error. In the cases of the bomber and SUAV, the single kill you have to achieve in order to trigger the trophy turns out to be a bigger part of this package, which will be explained below.

This is the first of 3 packs that includes a trophy related to fulfilling the requirements of all assignments. Even though both Naval Strike and Second Assault included challenge assignments, the trophy lists of both did not have a dedicated trophy for the completion of these. China Rising does, and it ends up turning an otherwise easy completion into what is probably the most challenging DLC package in the game;

New Superpower - Complete all China Rising Assignments.

Assignments are just a series of in-game challenges of varying difficulty, of which there are 10 of across this package. Some assignments have 1 requirement to unlock the medal, and some have as many as 4. For the purpose of justifying the difficulty behind this, it'll be easier to explain the requirements that make this trophy challenging and the reasons why this is the case.

• Assignment 2 - Jet Fighter Ribbon x3.

This objective within assignment 2 requires you to obtain 3 jet fighter ribbons, which means you have to get 5 kills in a round with fighter jets. Most people familiar with Battlefield will already understand the reason this is being mentioned, but air vehicles are notoriously hard to control, making kills with them extremely tough to obtain. Understanding how to use them is a steep learning experience, and even then, when mastered, 5 kills per round is a tall order. When you combine other factors with this, including the skill of other pilots against you and ground infantry using anti-air, you'll most likely need to be extremely patient in your quest for this assignment. This was the most challenging assignment requirement in this package by some distance.

• Assignment 7 - Get 15 kills with the bombing raid.

This objective requires 15 kills with the bombing raid, the previously mentioned new addition above. Once you're in the bomber, kills aren't generally that hard to earn, but that isn't the challenge here. The bomber appears on 4 maps, and can only be accessed by 1 person at any time, which means you have to queue up to use it with anybody else that may also be waiting. Add onto the fact there is also a good 4-5 minute cooldown until it can next be used, you have a recipe for alot of hanging around and waiting for opportunities, which can be tiresome. The bomber is very mass destructive, so you shouldn't struggle for kills, it's just a matter of getting into a situation where you can use it ahead of everyone else.

• Assignment 9 - Get 20 UCAV kills.

This is another objective that focuses on kills with new equipment. The UCAV is a player-controlled guided projectile, which is mainly used to commit damage to vehicles, but for the purposes of this challenge, is better off used as a direct missile for roadkills on players. Due to this unconventional use, it can be a bit of a slog to achieve 20 kills with the UCAV. It doesn't suit smaller maps, due it's steep projection angle, and it can also be hard to guide and control because of how fast it travels. Playing on rooftop maps, such as Pearl Market, allow you to fire the UCAV into the air and control it at rooftop level, which is the best way to get kills. If you stick to that, you'll get 20 eventually, but it may also take a while.

• Assignment 10 - Play 10 hours of China Rising

This objective is purely self explanatory. If you focus the assignment progress on China Rising maps, you should play close to, if not more than, 10 hours anyway. I did find it easier to achieve some of the objectives for various assignments on other maps, and still needed around 3 hours of playtime before full completion, so it's still a decent amount of time to clock up either way.

There's some rather difficult tasks included there, and as mentioned, it looks like it makes this package the most difficult out of the 5 DLC expansions. There are a few objectives within Final Stand that could potentially surpass this claim, but the amount of effort required to fulfill the air-based assignments in this package eclipses anything else the game has offered thus far. I spent a huge amount of time towards adequately upskilling my piloting abilities and trying to achieve jet ribbons to the point where I questioned whether it was even worth it. It's important not to be fooled by the throw-away trophies, because the assignments will make you work hard for maximum completion.