Title.We know the team is slowly working on bigger changes but the game is in a very, very rough spot right now and finding full AOW matches can be difficult, much less hoping to find filled matches for featured Portal modes or active Portal servers in general. We won't even address Hazard Zone which seems completely dead.But like, is there a plan to try to address some of the population issues in the immediate? Or are us remaining players just expected to keep playing with emptier and emptier servers for the next 3+ months? It's getting tougher and tougher to even want to load the game up knowing that it's a pain in the butt to find proper matches.

Agreed @edgecrusherO0 and @Noodlesocks ,When the game is so broken and players are not having fun playing it, then any effort to try and tease more new players onto it will not have any sustainable effect on the active player count.It will actually become worse, when looking at the outlook for the EA/DICE Battlefield franchise. As the more players getting dissatisfied now, the less players will be inclined to come back any time soon again for BF.Hence the requirement for EA/DICE to do a very very substantial overhaul of the current BF2042 train wreck.or, if there is no true commitment to properly do what is really required here of very hard work...?Then it's better simply to pull the plug on it sooner than later !

@edgecrusherO0 wrote:@NoodlesocksF2P wouldn't fix it. The game is still fairly busted and they'll have as poor retention with F2P players as they would with the current community.It's just that given how badly the population tanked, and the lack of any urgency/movement from DICE, I'm wondering if there's a plan to try to bring players back to the game so that those of us that purchased it don't continue to struggle to find full matches for the next 3 months.If the game has any chance of receiving a major boost to players, it will need something that will bring players back all at once. Drip fed patches and content will only result in drip fed player returns and no matter how much better the game may get over time, it is never going to be enough to retain a large playerbase.Whether it is going Free to Play or dropping one single massive update that fixes most of the game while providing a ton of features, improvements and content all at once; the game needs something big that will bring a large number of players back all at the same time.

@JOGAGATYA wrote:@CyberDymemy logic: No player count- they will abandon it. People don’t play- because they don’t fix the game. EA almost needs to see that players will return after these critical fixes so it’s worth the effort. Because of all the negative feedback here on the forums, most saying they won’t play it if the specialist system stays, I don’t think they will put much work into this in the near future sadly. I like the game so far as I said many times if they fix those minimal bugs. (PS4) It’s not the best battlefield game but hopefully there will be better things coming next time. In the meantime I would like to play this game for good two years because there’s nothing else I like out there now.I hear you @JOGAGATYA !The very substantial problems here with this game pack are however of such fundamental character that they are not just 'minimal bugs' that needs fixing. It will take very substantial number of man days to rectify all those many and very severe game design decisions that brakes this from being what many players wants to see in a battlefield game. And based on the overwhelming feedback and the substantial drop of >98% of the entire player base, then that is required for those players to come back and play it and stay on for long playing it.Question is also if the BF2042 brand is already now so toxic that even IF it was given the full "total remake treatment in the dock" would the players then still come back??? Or the ship has long left, and we past the point of no return...That is essentially now the gamble the EA/DICE executives needs to decide on.AND QUICK ! Because so far we have no clear answer or indications thereof.The clock is ticking and every day we see more players turning off.Its nice the EA execs called out that BF is not important for the overall EA revenue.Less than 10% they said. Even that is such a stupid remark, shooting themselves in their own feet.I really got very upset to hear our EA leadership say such stupid things in front of us, their owners!!!So are we to believe they care to invest more developer time into this Titanic of BF2042, if they even dish it themselves as not important?What a sham and total lack of integrity.You know what, if it hadn't been such a total disaster, BF2042 could and should have been a great success for EA/DICE, all their paying customers, and ultimately then of course also have shot up to represent maybe 25-35% of total revenue this year!

@Noodlesocks F2P wouldn't fix it. The game is still fairly busted and they'll have as poor retention with F2P players as they would with the current community.It's just that given how badly the population tanked, and the lack of any urgency/movement from DICE, I'm wondering if there's a plan to try to bring players back to the game so that those of us that purchased it don't continue to struggle to find full matches for the next 3 months.

@Ironhead841 wrote:@CyberDyme wrote:Agreed @edgecrusherO0 and @Noodlesocks ,When the game is so broken and players are not having fun playing it, then any effort to try and tease more new players onto it will not have any sustainable effect on the active player count.It will actually become worse, when looking at the outlook for the EA/DICE Battlefield franchise. As the more players getting dissatisfied now, the less players will be inclined to come back any time soon again for BF.Hence the requirement for EA/DICE to do a very very substantial overhaul of the current BF2042 train wreck.or, if there is no true commitment to properly do what is really required here of very hard work...?Then it's better simply to pull the plug on it sooner than later !Definitely can't find any argument to that, the player count is pretty much non-existent it seems.It will take a LOT of commitment / resources to turn this ship around, and time is not on DICE's side.After this update next week its a long haul until the summer.That is why they need to publish a ROADMAP SOON, coupled with a LOT more regular communication, to give the remaining small player base something to cling on to. !

Feedback is starting but...is there a plan to address the player count for now?

53 Replies

Noodlesocks
4 years ago
Only thing that will fix player count is going free to play. They can't make people play the game and most people won't come back after so long of nothing..
edgecrusherO0
4 years ago
@Noodlesocks F2P wouldn't fix it. The game is still fairly busted and they'll have as poor retention with F2P players as they would with the current community.

It's just that given how badly the population tanked, and the lack of any urgency/movement from DICE, I'm wondering if there's a plan to try to bring players back to the game so that those of us that purchased it don't continue to struggle to find full matches for the next 3 months.
CyberDyme
4 years ago
Agreed @edgecrusherO0 and @Noodlesocks ,
When the game is so broken and players are not having fun playing it, then any effort to try and tease more new players onto it will not have any sustainable effect on the active player count.
It will actually become worse, when looking at the outlook for the EA/DICE Battlefield franchise. As the more players getting dissatisfied now, the less players will be inclined to come back any time soon again for BF.
Hence the requirement for EA/DICE to do a very very substantial overhaul of the current BF2042 train wreck.
or, if there is no true commitment to properly do what is really required here of very hard work...?
Then it's better simply to pull the plug on it sooner than later !
Noodlesocks
4 years ago
@edgecrusherO0 wrote:
@NoodlesocksF2P wouldn't fix it. The game is still fairly busted and they'll have as poor retention with F2P players as they would with the current community.

It's just that given how badly the population tanked, and the lack of any urgency/movement from DICE, I'm wondering if there's a plan to try to bring players back to the game so that those of us that purchased it don't continue to struggle to find full matches for the next 3 months.
If the game has any chance of receiving a major boost to players, it will need something that will bring players back all at once. Drip fed patches and content will only result in drip fed player returns and no matter how much better the game may get over time, it is never going to be enough to retain a large playerbase.
Whether it is going Free to Play or dropping one single massive update that fixes most of the game while providing a ton of features, improvements and content all at once; the game needs something big that will bring a large number of players back all at the same time.
Ironhead841
Hero
4 years ago
@CyberDyme wrote:
Agreed @edgecrusherO0 and @Noodlesocks ,
When the game is so broken and players are not having fun playing it, then any effort to try and tease more new players onto it will not have any sustainable effect on the active player count.
It will actually become worse, when looking at the outlook for the EA/DICE Battlefield franchise. As the more players getting dissatisfied now, the less players will be inclined to come back any time soon again for BF.
Hence the requirement for EA/DICE to do a very very substantial overhaul of the current BF2042 train wreck.
or, if there is no true commitment to properly do what is really required here of very hard work...?
Then it's better simply to pull the plug on it sooner than later !
Definitely can't find any argument to that, the player count is pretty much non-existent it seems.
RayD_O1
Hero
4 years ago
@Ironhead841 wrote:
@CyberDyme wrote:
Agreed @edgecrusherO0 and @Noodlesocks ,
When the game is so broken and players are not having fun playing it, then any effort to try and tease more new players onto it will not have any sustainable effect on the active player count.
It will actually become worse, when looking at the outlook for the EA/DICE Battlefield franchise. As the more players getting dissatisfied now, the less players will be inclined to come back any time soon again for BF.
Hence the requirement for EA/DICE to do a very very substantial overhaul of the current BF2042 train wreck.
or, if there is no true commitment to properly do what is really required here of very hard work...?
Then it's better simply to pull the plug on it sooner than later !
Definitely can't find any argument to that, the player count is pretty much non-existent it seems.
It will take a LOT of commitment / resources to turn this ship around, and time is not on DICE's side.
After this update next week its a long haul until the summer.
That is why they need to publish a ROADMAP SOON, coupled with a LOT more regular communication, to give the remaining small player base something to cling on to. !
UP_Hawxxeye
Legend
4 years ago
Players will come if the game is fixed properly.
It happened with BF4
edgecrusherO0
4 years ago
@UP_Hawxxeye That was a long time ago, and BF4's issues were more technical in nature whereas BF2042 faces both technical and extensive design problems that will take far more time to fix.

Also, there's a lot more competition for attention/money compared to when BF4 launched. The insanely steep dropoff of players in 2042 shows this, because it's highly unlikely that BF4 lost 95%+ of its playerbase in the first 4 months. Because like, they were getting new content at this point...while we're waiting on a * scoreboard.
UP_Hawxxeye
Legend
4 years ago
@edgecrusherO0 in BF4 you could not enjoy that content though due to crashing
edgecrusherO0
4 years ago
@UP_Hawxxeye You'd hope that DICE would improve the quality of the games they ship in the decade since releasing BF4, usually companies are expected to get better at what they do over time.

But in the case of BF2042, we've seen regressions both in terms of bug count and, more worryingly, basic game design.