Re: Crossplay In-game toggle request for Xbox series X

@FrEaKCH82  Windows and Xbox are both Microsoft platforms, and they're constantly taking steps to make those two platforms fully integrated with each other.

Look at Game Pass Ultimate. You used to have to subscribe to two different subscriptions in order to get Game Pass on PC and Xbox, now it's all under one subscription.

Then there's the Xbox app for Windows. That app essentially turns your PC into an Xbox. It allows you to play Game Pass Ultimate titles, interact with friends on Xbox, etc.

Every recent Microsoft "exclusive" has been released on both Xbox and PC, and unless I'm mistaken, none of them have had the option to disable crossplay. MCC was already released on consoles way before it was released on PC.

As I've said before, PS5 hasn't had a single game with forced crossplay. The only time it happens is on Xbox, and sometimes PC.

As for why they think this is a good idea when it puts Xbox at a clear disadvantage? Who the hell knows, all I know is it definitely looks like Microsoft wants it to happen.

@FrEaKCH82 Back 4 Blood is being developed by an independent studio with an independent publisher, and while 2042 is as well, Microsoft and EA have a partnership that says Xbox is the "official console of Battlefield 2042," their words, not mine.

And you kind of missed the point of my post there.

This does not happen on PS5. It only ever happens when Microsoft is in the picture.

@Velcro_Snickersbecause if you force crossplay on XsX, which has a lower install base than both PC and PS5, you are sure that Xbox players will find easily a match. And this is more important for Dice as those players won't use xbox dedicated servers, possibly with AI, which will cost more than having those players using the same servers than anyone else... If people are not finding xbox only servers, i'm pretty sure it's not because there's not enough players with crossplay off, but simply because there's no server up and running for your region.

On the other hand MS doesn't care if you have crossplay on or off, you already gave them your money for the game and the xbox Live subscription. They have nothing to gain or lose about it. Only Dice/EA have something to lose : servers are expensive, and having some servers running for just a tiny fraction of their customers, everywhere in the world, isn't good business. It's much better for them to mutualize server cost with other platforms.

@xXGugusseXx  That explanation doesn't work because, I'll say it for the 500th time, we've seen this exact situation in every single recent Microsoft title made in the last 3-4 years, and several 3rd party titles. Not just EA. Not just Battlefield.

And I'm in North America, the region where, last I looked, the Xbox Series X has at the very least kept pace with PS5, if not outsold it. Somehow I don't think the issue is lack of servers in NA.

Edit: To add to that; the whole "tiny fraction of players" issue is only even an issue because of this change. This wasn't a problem in the beta when Xbox could disable it like the other two platforms.

@Velcro_Snickers Because EA Dice is still silent on this topic, we can only guess and assume why they removed the in-game toggle from the Beta. Maybe they found a bug during the Beta weekend and had no dev resource and time to investigate, thus just removed it? Maybe it's because of the partnership with Microsoft and a different interpretation of the Xbox Live integration, maybe because of ABC... we can only speculate. 

But, we know for sure that recent games provide an in-game experience / toggle to disable cross-play. That's a hard fact! And those games integrate with the Xbox Live service, are available in the Xbox Game Pass, etc. 

@xXGugusseXx 

1) Microsoft titles? Sea of Thieves, Gears of War, Forza, and now Halo, so yeah, every single Microsoft title with multiplayer. The input based MM in Infinite for 2 man squads in ranked only is a joke, it's like they're acknowledging that crossplay between PC and Xbox is an awful idea but saying "too bad deal with it" at the same time. You can't even say they're leaving out the in-game options since we can just disable it at the system level, because even that doesn't work for Infinite.

3rd party titles? Warzone, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny, and now of course Battlefield come to mind off the top of my head. Some of those have input based MM, yeah, but input based doesn't stop cheaters on PC from seeping into the console player pool via crossplay. As for what you said about Destiny, that's 100% an opinion and I can imagine a lot of people would disagree with it.

2) I'm sitting at the "waiting for players to join" screen, not the "searching for match" countdown on the main menu. I've literally sat at that screen, by myself, watching the same 1-2 players join and leave for 10-15 minutes until I'm kicked back to the main menu. I seriously doubt that if there were more people in queue that I would be seeing those same 1-2 players pop in and out for 10-15 minutes straight. I also doubt DICE has made it so that a handful of 8 or so players are allowed to take a server slot against 120 bots since we have solo/coop available for that exact purpose. That wouldn't make any sense and wouldn't make for a fun match at all. I think it's much more likely that a server is being reserved, but not enough players are filling it for the game to start. But I'm not going to sit here and speculate about how many servers they do or don't have active in each region, because only DICE knows that.

Having said that, even if EA is just being same old EA by trying to save as much money as possible, I'd say it's still fair to put the blame on Microsoft for having such an ineffective system of controlling crossplay, especially when you look at how PS5 is handling it. Why should we ever expect these publishers/developers, who are here to make money, to do any different when Microsoft has given them every excuse they need to screw us over?

Doesn't matter which way you flip it, whether it's through action or inaction, Microsoft is to blame for this garbage.

I'm going to back out of this little debate though, since it's getting off-topic. The last thing I want is for this thread to get locked and buried.

@Velcro_SnickersYou're right, I haven't played in a while and last time did it was there.

Looks like the no crossplay on Xbox is picking up a little more steam, hopefully we can actually find matches/servers if this continues.

https://www.reddit.com/r/XboxSeriesX/comments/qzryz4/battlefield_2042_players_turn_off_crossplay/

Am amazed console guys can get any kills with this ridiculous bullet spread and absolutely abhorrent netcode!