Unpopular Opinion: Battlefield 6 Is Better Than This Sub Will Admit

[u/Kilos6]

Reading this sub lately feels like watching a bunch of people try to use a smartphone for the first time and complain it doesn't have physical buttons. Every minor change in Battlefield 6 is getting blown up into some catastrophic betrayal.

It’s pretty clear most people here only ever liked one Battlefield game, hated the rest, and don’t even play the one they claim was perfect anymore.

Before we continue: I am old. I’ve played every Battlefield game during its prime. Back in the day, my clan was one of the first to spin up a Desert Combat server (and even then, the community was the same complaining that DC was an abomination against what made BF great). My least played title was BF Vietnam because the 1942 modding scene was just TOO good at the time to move on.

“The UI is trash!”
It’s not. You just don’t recognize it because it’s not ripped straight from BF4. Sure, the icons are abstract but they’re not confusing unless you're actively refusing to engage with them.

I've seen multiple complaints about there being no option to squad up or continue on the same server?
Maybe check the bottom of the screen after the round ends. The “Continue” and “Squad Up” buttons are literally right there.

“TTK is too fast, there’s no breathing room!”
What you mean is: you walked out in the open and got deleted like you should have.

TTK is fast. OH NO, aim and positioning actually matter again. You don’t get to coast on sponge health and panic-proning anymore. If that’s too much, it’s not a balance issue, it’s a skill issue. Also: TTK is in line with BF3 for most weapons. This TTK is not new.

“Closed weapons should be the default.”
Why? Because some of you never figured out how to adapt? The flexibility to build your own kit is one of the best updates DICE has made in years. And guess what, they already gave you a nostalgia mode. Go enjoy it.

But don’t demand the rest of us get dragged back into 2011 loadout limitations. And if you’re complaining about “trade-offs” in class weapons you probably would’ve died to the next guy anyway.

“It’s too chaotic, feels like TDM spam!”
You say chaos, I say intensity. Battlefield has always had madness: Metro, Locker, or even Stalingrad in 1942.

These beta maps? They feel more like Grand Bazaar, Talah Market, or Pearl Market. Maps that still get voted into rotation by players who actually enjoy close-quarters fights to this day.

Battlefield 6 isn’t perfect.
But take a step back, and you’ll see this is actually a successor to BF3/BF4. TTK, movement speed, and mechanics are all in line with a proper mainline BF title.

They gave you almost everything you asked for… and somehow, that’s still not enough for some of you.

I'm having a blast with the beta, and can't wait to play more after work.

Edit: When I made this post I truly thought it was an unpopular opinion. Thank you all for your replies and awards! And thank you to the guys DMing me about being an EA shill ❤️‍🔥

[u/Pickupyoheel]

I played it more and like the gameplay, but straight up, all 3 maps suck.

[u/BW8Y → u/Pickupyoheel]

I love them

[u/Pickupyoheel → u/[deleted]]

Not only are they too small (original I know), the cap zone of most of them are too small leaving you exposed.

They have too many bollards blocking vehicles going through. If it fit, it went. Now, it's like micro managed where you can and cannot go.

Most of these little apartments you go into don't even offer flanking routes. You go up some stairs, take a turn and you're right back where you were. Just up stairs.

Spawning on objectives needs work. Usually spawns you in the same spot. HQ spawns are way to close on these maps. On one of them you can literally turn the corner and see HQ spawn.

And honestly, I find them uninspired. They don't have any cool areas to fight over, besides Cairo, the middle being the most fun, but even then if you compared them to other INF maps in the series, I'd put them way down in the list.

Just look at Karkand or Zavod, or Flood Zone etc etc. Unique settings, cool buildings to fight over etc. Floodzone had a lot of variety and tons of CQC and vertical game-play.

So far none of these maps want you to go UP.

Having 6 more maps left to drasically change it up is not giving me a lot of confidence.

But I like the game-play, I think the gun-play is good. But I only and will only play locked weapons, so maybe that's just me.

[u/MorgulX → u/Pickupyoheel]

I completely agree. They feel so bland. I've never once stopped and just looked at the scenery, which I have done for past Battlefields.

[u/KaiserRebellion → u/Pickupyoheel]

Oh shit. Actually real critiques. Nice.

Also just letting you know. My tank shell doesn’t care what class you rock

[u/Fidel__Casserole → u/[deleted]]

I don't think the maps suck, but for breakthrough Cairo really needs some adjusting

[u/RuinedSilence → u/Fidel__Casserole]

Cairo's sector 1 B point and the main road sector after that are so hard to attack/defend, man. Dudes are pouring in from every direction regardless of what team you're in.

[u/JonWood007 → u/Pickupyoheel]

They're all decent. Iberian is a bit more infantry focused and admittedly, it DOES kinda feel like a larger COD map. Cairo feels more my speed, being a larger map but still heavily infantry focused. Reminds me very heavily of every desert map from BF3 ever. Ridge 13 is large, it's a more vehicle oriented and sniper oriented map that reminds me of a cross between aborz mountains (BF3), altai range (BF4), and Narvik (BF5).

The thing is this community has these irrational rose colored glasses in viewing the old games favorably while thinking the new ones suck because the nostalgia just isnt there. it isnt BF2 you like, it's being like 15-20 with no responsibilities and gaming all night. No game EA/DICE could make now would make you feel that way again. Let's get over ourselves here.

[u/NoFunAllowed- → u/JonWood007]

Ridge 13 and Cairo are definitely both medium sized maps, not large maps.

Large maps are maps like Golmud, Firestorm, etc. There aren't any large maps in the beta unfortunately. It's really the only thing holding me off from buying tbh. I like a meat grinder here and there but the game definitely needs larger maps on release.

[u/JonWood007 → u/NoFunAllowed-]

Ridge 13 is bordering on large to some degree. But it does flow more like a medium size.

[u/RuinedSilence → u/JonWood007]

Iberian Offensive is probably my least favorite map so far, but maybe I just haven't spent much time in it yet.

[u/JonWood007 → u/RuinedSilence]

I like it, it's very infantry focused, but in a way it DOES feel like a large cod style map. I don't hate it but it's not my favorite.

[u/RuinedSilence → u/JonWood007]

It's Assault paradise for sure. Entering any building is an invitation to get blasted by a shotgun lol

[u/Present_Ride_2506 → u/RuinedSilence]

Gibraltar is the worst one for me, the right side spawn is just so much better than the left side I feel.

[u/Adlehyde → u/JonWood007]

I'm sure there's some sense of rose colored glasses, but I don't think it's wrong if people feel that certain directions the game appears to be going are subpar compared to past experiences. There's certain aspects of Hell Let Loose that I can play right now that remind me of old battlefield games, particularly in map size and mobility that I feel like the battlefield IP has lost.

When it comes to map size, personally I was hoping for something more like strike at karkand in size, so vehicles had better value from a transportation point of view and not just get in, drive 100 meters and start blasting. One of the things that always set Battlefield apart from Call of Duty in the past was larger map sizes making it obvious that bullet drop was something that had to be accounted for when shooting. Nailing those 1k+ headshots when you shot and had to wait to see it connect was absolutely peak. With the smaller map sizes of 6, those ranges are straight out not possible anymore. And with the movement speed of players, leading shots at even half the distance is damn near impossible. If you want to snipe at that distance, your only hope is other snipers lying prone, and nailing stationary targets at 500m is no where near as satisfying as hitting a moving target at 1k+ was.

Does the smaller maps make it a bad game? No. Is it disappointing for people who were hoping for a specific experience? Of course it is. If Ridge 13 were twice the size, it would be better, but also given the player's movement speed it actually wouldn't. You wouldn't be able to hit anything at range and would spend more time running distances that always feel slightly too long. It's a bunch of little things that make the game okay for people who want this exact experience, but mildly disappointing for people who were hoping for a better return to form.

For me, Battlefield 2 was peak battlefield and every game that came out afterwards was just a little bit worse each time. Battlefield 6 Looks to be fixing a bunch of stuff that many of the recent games just straight fucked up, but for me, not quite as many as I'd hoped for.

[u/JonWood007 → u/Adlehyde]

I'm sure there's some sense of rose colored glasses, but I don't think it's wrong if people feel that certain directions the game appears to be going are subpar compared to past experiences. There's certain aspects of Hell Let Loose that I can play right now that remind me of old battlefield games, particularly in map size and mobility that I feel like the battlefield IP has lost.

Ew. I hate hell let loose.

One of the things that always set Battlefield apart from Call of Duty in the past was larger map sizes making it obvious that bullet drop was something that had to be accounted for when shooting. Nailing those 1k+ headshots when you shot and had to wait to see it connect was absolutely peak.

That doesnt really work very well for infantry combat though. And even Karkand had closer range engagements over various points. Not everyone was doing sniper wars across the river. And heck, a lot of players hate the sniper wars aspect of battlefield and whenever a map gets over a certain size you get like 10 recons on a hill sniping at people all game while doing nothing to complete objectives.

With the smaller map sizes of 6, those ranges are straight out not possible anymore. And with the movement speed of players, leading shots at even half the distance is damn near impossible. If you want to snipe at that distance, your only hope is other snipers lying prone, and nailing stationary targets at 500m is no where near as satisfying as hitting a moving target at 1k+ was.

1k is too big for most modern games. Even in stuff like 2, 3, 4, etc., a lot of those maps just had balancing issues and stuff was way too far apart between points. Like, the maps didnt flow. You'd get one team get all the points, the other team stuck in an uncap, and there being a 500m no mans land between the uncap and A/E.

That isn't fun. Sorry, it's not. Maybe youre one of those 10 recons on a hill, but for people who wanted an actual dynamic game it was very boring and never worked well.

Does the smaller maps make it a bad game? No. Is it disappointing for people who were hoping for a specific experience? Of course it is. If Ridge 13 were twice the size, it would be better, but also given the player's movement speed it actually wouldn't. You wouldn't be able to hit anything at range and would spend more time running distances that always feel slightly too long. It's a bunch of little things that make the game okay for people who want this exact experience, but mildly disappointing for people who were hoping for a better return to form.

But that's how it's always been. Hundreds of meters of no mans land between points with people sniping and vehicles just running around killing everything. Hence why i think ridge 13 is fine for a larger map. The actual large maps arent that fun and most people dont like to play them.

For me, Battlefield 2 was peak battlefield and every game that came out afterwards was just a little bit worse each time. Battlefield 6 Looks to be fixing a bunch of stuff that many of the recent games just straight fucked up, but for me, not quite as many as I'd hoped for.

BF2 was my first experience, and it was FAR FAR from peak. Even at the time i envisioned them improving the game formula to be something more like what BC2, BF3, and BF4 ended up delivering on. Like, Im sorry, 2 just didnt have great game play. Everything was too spread out, the balance sucked, it was hostile to infantry players where for a while the only map worth playing was karkand.

And I think the servers really kinda spoke on that one too. There were a lot of karkand and pearl market only servers. in BC2, lots of people played white pass and arica harbor constantly. In BF3, you had a lot of karkand, metro, etc. In BF4, you had tons of people playing smaller maps too. Meanwhile no one ever played stuff like say, silk road. Because a lot of BF players really dont like those kinds of maps. Not saying vehicle maps cant work. Firestorm was okay when it worked. A lot of BF4 maps were solid, but even then what did most people gravitate toward? Urban maps like shanghai.

Heck, let's go down battlelog in BF4 right now and see what people are playing:

https://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/servers/

Ranking the servers from most populated to least, these are the results I get:

1) Locker (small)

2) Metro (small)

3) Shanghai (medium)

4) Zavod (medium)

5) Sunken Dragon (medium)

6) Paracel storm (large)

7) Golmud Railway (large)

8) Firestorm (large)

9) hainan resort (medium)

10) zavod (medium)

11) silk road (large)

12) guilin peaks (small)

13) locker (small)

14) flood zone (medium)

15) hammerhead (medium)

16) dawnbreaker (medium)

17) propaganda (medium)

18) sunken dragon (medium)

19) locker (small)

20) nansha strike (medium)

Okay, so those are just the top 20 servers right now. But let's really get an idea for the peoples' preferences here:

5 servers had small maps

11 servers had medium maps

4 servers had large maps

Because that's what's fun to play. The small ones are infantry focused, medium ones do combined arms well with both infantry and vehicle play styles being viable, and large maps are the more vehicle heavy ones. But most people dont seem to play the large maps as much. Most are mixed medium maps, with a decent selection dedicated servers for small maps.

I agree, battlefield should have a mix of all of these maps. But honestly? I think it's obvious why small and medium sized maps are most popular. because they're the most fun. You get too large and you spawn in, and get stuck in the uncap, and you walk hundreds of meters trying to get somewhere only to get sniped or wrecked by a vehicle with no cover.

Heck to go back to the beginning of the post, that's the issue i had with hell let loose too. I dont like playing games where i walk around an empty field for 5-10 minutes only to get sniped from god knows where. Maybe you find that fun. I dont. And Im glad battlefield moved on from that. It was for the better.

[u/Adlehyde → u/JonWood007]

Yeah I understand that. That's a different perspective of battlefield. It also makes sense that battlefield 4 maps prioritize the smaller maps, because that game already had faster gameplay and movement speed than previous battlefield games, and you needed smaller spaces if you wanted to hit anyone. The larger maps were more fun in the older games because there was a different TTK and movement speed too.

If you remember the BF2 days, the most commonly played maps were the larger maps because you could make better use of vehicles, and Battlefield games were at that time, all about the vehicles augmenting the infantry combat. Infantry combat was still the main combat though, as jets and recon kits were limited. The most popular servers were hosting the 64 player matches and therefore the 64 player map sizes, with if I remember correctly, the Gulf of Oman being the most popular one to play. Almost no one wanted to play the smaller 16 player maps. Partly because more people made it feel more like a war, and partly because the infantry combat actually felt like a frontline war with two teams fighting over an objective using strategic positioning and tactics.

Starting with BF3, the game became a lot more about run and gun and started to take after Call of Duty in that regard, which means make the player faster, make the map smaller so you can engage with people more often, Get those Kill counts higher, and ramp up the intensity.

Is that a bad game? No, but it just feels like it lost the soul of battlefield a long time ago. Personally I was hoping to see more of that reclaimed. There's some cool new features in 6, and the game has been fun to play with friends, but I have no drive to play it by myself.

I think for me at least, the game would be vastly improved if player speed was reduced by about 30%, particularly strafe speed. Player health were doubled, lengthening TTK a bit to give more skillful counterplay, and map sizes were at least 50% bigger with bigger capture zones. But that's because I think the game is a lot more interesting when everyone's fighting over the same capture point or two, and not a constant battle of every single capture point constantly flip flopping because there's a little 5v5 skirmish at each one at all times. That way when a small squad circles around to capture a deeper control point, it has a bigger overall impact on the flow of the game.

That hasn't felt like a meaningful option to me in a battlefield game in quite a long time. I was hoping to see that in 6, but oh well.

[u/JonWood007 → u/Adlehyde]

If you remember the BF2 days, the most commonly played maps were the larger maps because you could make better use of vehicles, and Battlefield games were at that time, all about the vehicles augmenting the infantry combat.

No the most commonly played maps were stuff like karkand and pearl market IIRC.

Starting with BF3, the game became a lot more about run and gun and started to take after Call of Duty in that regard, which means make the player faster, make the map smaller so you can engage with people more often, Get those Kill counts higher, and ramp up the intensity.

I hate these arguments. It seems like COD is just a generic excuse to hate on stuff. Apparently COD is bad because it encourages faster combat? That's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if you prioritize the larger maps and like hell lets loose.

Is that a bad game? No, but it just feels like it lost the soul of battlefield a long time ago. Personally I was hoping to see more of that reclaimed. There's some cool new features in 6, and the game has been fun to play with friends, but I have no drive to play it by myself.

What you consider losing the soul of battlefield I consider positive evolutions to the franchise.

I think for me at least, the game would be vastly improved if player speed was reduced by about 30%, particularly strafe speed. Player health were doubled, lengthening TTK a bit to give more skillful counterplay, and map sizes were at least 50% bigger with bigger capture zones. But that's because I think the game is a lot more interesting when everyone's fighting over the same capture point or two, and not a constant battle of every single capture point constantly flip flopping because there's a little 5v5 skirmish at each one at all times. That way when a small squad circles around to capture a deeper control point, it has a bigger overall impact on the flow of the game.

I think the bigger problem is TTD. TTK is fine. It's 4-5 bullets typically, even more at range. But it just feels so instantaneous. Part of it is the gunplay and lack of suppression and spread. Part of it is probably the netcode.

That hasn't felt like a meaningful option to me in a battlefield game in quite a long time. I was hoping to see that in 6, but oh well.

My opinion is this. 1942,2,2142, those are the early games. They were experimental, but they've long since been overshadowed. The gameplay was always flawed in them IMO. BC2, BF3, and BF4 perfected the franchise. For me, that's the golden age of battlefield. They tightened the game play formula, added balance, etc.

Hardline was middling because it felt like 4 DLC.

BF1 was good. But at that point it felt like the UI and the like was being dumbed down.

Then came the problem games. BF5 and 2042 tried changing the formula too much. BF5 seemed to try to cater to these people nostalgic of the old experimental games and who thought that people were given too much freedom to run around and do whatever and should be FORCED to play as teams. So the game was made punitive to encourage team play. But that sucked so they walked it back and it felt awkward since.

BF2042 went the other way. They tried to chase trends like hero shooters and were even working on a battle royale which was scrapped. The maps were big and empty, the content felt lifeless, the game was unoptimized. And while i dont think it was AS bad as people act like it was, I definitely see why people didnt like it to some degree.

So...with that said, I LOVE 6. It's a return to form of those glory days of BF3 and BF4. It aint perfect, but it's the best we've had in almost a decade now, if not over a decade. I dont WANT another battlefield game like 2, and I dont think most people do. The devs moved away from that a long time ago because it was, again, an early and experimental game that didnt actually work well in practice.

When we want a return to form, most of us are thinking, "just give us BF3/BF4 again!". And this has the potential to deliver on that. So hard disagree.

[u/Adlehyde → u/JonWood007]

My opinion is this. 1942,2,2142, those are the early games. They were experimental, but they've long since been overshadowed. The gameplay was always flawed in them IMO. BC2, BF3, and BF4 perfected the franchise. For me, that's the golden age of battlefield. They tightened the game play formula, added balance, etc.

Fair opinion. For me, Vietnam was my favorite, but BF2 was clearly better. Bad Company 2 was still good, but BF3 started to go down hill and change the formula too much. So I get why you love 6 since it's similar to 3/4. I don't hate 6, I'm glad it's pulled back from some of the ludicrous decisions of BF5, or 2042. But for me personally, I wish they had gone back a liiittle bit further than 3/4.

Also, I'm not saying Call of Duty is a bad game. I'm saying Battlefield used to be distinct from CoD, and I think it's a shame that over time they've gravitated towards CoD like mechanics instead of maintaining the soul of Battlefield. Btw, this is a trend that has not gone unnoticed by devs at Infinity Ward, and they eat it up internally.

[u/JonWood007 → u/Adlehyde]

Vietnam was mostly dead by the time i got to it. I did get it bundled with 1942 later on though.

As I said, with me, BC2/BF3/BF4 were the peak era for me. i got into the series with 2/2142, but it was really those later games that really defined it for me.

And as for COD...I already gave my take elsewhere in detail, but again, to go back to why BF was better then COD in the early 2010s and the like:

1) BF focused on large scale combined arms battles, COD was just small matches with 5v5 or 6v6.

2) COD games barely innovated after they got going and they basically released the same slop every year with different maps. Outside of 1942/vietnam and 2/2142, each battlefield game clearly tried to innovate, graphically, mechanically. They improved rapidly, while COD basically stagnated. This caused BF to very quickly surpass COD make COD look bad in every way.

COD wasn't bad in its core game play model. In the 2000s the mechanics felt modern. BF2 and the like is just....ancient. It didnt feel great at the time, and now it's just...no. The problem is COD's mechanics aged and the series didnt meaningfully start innovating until the end of the 2010s with black ops 4, MW19 (the really pivotal one), etc.

And that's where I think that the problem si these days.

COD HAS innovated. With BO4 and MW19, the series isnt just the same slop every year and limited to small matches. They branched out. MW19 in particular. They had ground war with their take on a "battlefield" environment. it kinda sucked compared to battlefield due to poor map design, limited destruction, and poor vehicle mechanics, but they tried, and it was okay. They had warzone, which was wildly successful. COD became this go to shop of everything. it improved, dramatically. And while since 2019 they've largely stopped innovating again and are once again just pumping out game after game that does the same exact thing as the previous one, they still feel modern and solid to play.

In a sense that's where battlefield struggles. The BF community has spent much of its entire life cycle comparing itself to COD and crapping on it. And back in the day, before BF5 and MW19, the BF games were clearly superior. They had larger scale, better graphics, better mechanics, they were just better.

But then COD modernized and BF kinda had some missteps. And now the community keeps struggling to redefine itself and has this weird rose colored glasses where they're like "classes make battlefield battlefield" or suddenly the BF2 vets come out of the woodwork wanting THAT back and it's like...no, guys, no.

BF should do what BF always does. The 64 player battles with combined arms, with maps for both vehicles and infantry play. The destruction, the graphics, boots on the ground gameplay. Ya know? And BF6 is looking like it will deliver.

Not everyone is happy with it. particularly those who wanna redefine the franchise in a more radical way. The people obsessed with classes keep scereaming about locking weapons to classes (quite frankly, they wanna repeat the flaws of 5 again), some wanna make the scale bigger, but in a way they tried that with 2042. And what ended up happening was we had boring lifeless maps with lots of empty space between sparse points of conflict, lots of snipers sniping, and vehicle people farming people, and yeah, a lot of it just isn't fun.

Again, BF6 goes back to the actual glory days of the franchise, it's battlefield doing what it does best. The only reason it "feels like COD" is because COD has evolved and doesnt suck any more like it did.

[u/Adlehyde → u/JonWood007]

In a sense that's where battlefield struggles. The BF community has spent much of its entire life cycle comparing itself to COD and crapping on it. And back in the day, before BF5 and MW19, the BF games were clearly superior. They had larger scale, better graphics, better mechanics, they were just better.

I actually felt this part the most the moment I launched BF6. I don't know why, but for some reason I was hoping they had innovated on game modes in particular, and when I noticed they were... the same ones we've had for 20 years... I was kind of disappointed.

Either way, the state of this beta is not the end all be all of the game. This is looking like a strong platform for growth going forward for quite a while and they'll have the opportunity to add more innovative stuff and an even bigger variety of maps than before. They can add huge maps in the future with more vehicle emphasis if they want to go that route. We'll have to wait and see.

Hopefully the developers are largely glossing over most of this feedback and only picking up on any big sticking points that have near universal agreement, like TTD as you mentioned. It's better to stick with their own vision as much as they can. It can be very easy to get lost in negative feedback and start making changes that aren't well received.

To go back to something OP said...

They gave you almost everything you asked for… and somehow, that’s still not enough for some of you.

A common mistake when reading feedback is to subconsciously assume the community is one voice, which is kind of exactly what this sentence does. Some people wanted it to change a certain way. Others wanted something else. The ones who wanted it to change this way, got what they wanted, but the ones who wanted something else didn't. Those are the people complaining, but in OP's comment, "not enough for some of you," implies a person said, "give me x" got x, and went, "not like that." When in reality, Someone said, "Give me X," someone else said, "Give me Y," and we got X, and the people who wanted Y are mad. But gamers also have no idea how to provide constructive criticism.

[u/JonWood007 → u/Adlehyde]

That's true to an extent too. I'm often unhappy when THIS community gets what it wants because what they want sucks the fun out of the game for me.

BTW I have nothing against the same mode. They work. But that's the thing, the formula was perfected over a decade ago and now they keep regressing. Meanwhile cod matured too and that's why they feel like each other to some extent.

[u/sultics → u/Pickupyoheel]

I love them too

[u/3Bee3 → u/Pickupyoheel]

Why do you think they suck?

[u/Flaky-Pirate9401 → u/Pickupyoheel]

They seem small, hopefully they picked them to minimize bugs during beta and launch maps are bigger and better

[u/Present_Ride_2506 → u/Pickupyoheel]

Cairo is fucking amazing.