With the Player Base rapidly shrinking I think it is even more important now that they reduce the number of players needed to start a round.
I notice that they actually increased the number of players needed to start World Tour (Official Portal Mode). It was always a one player start (like most of the OPM's) but they raised it to 4 which seems strange.
How do you guys feel, would you be happy with one player starts in all modes. ?
I just quit the game even though I want to play some more.
In Team Deathmatch, which needs 4 players to start, we were 3 people just waiting, waiting, waiting.
After 5 minutes I gave up.
I guess EA/DICE don’t care that this is a problem because this thread for sure means they know about it.
They just choose not to change it.
Weird but ok, I will go watch Netflix then :D
It is probably a battle between ongoing (server) costs, and development costs/future earnings (new BF).
Seems a little strange, since EA are obviously targeting current/past players with the new BF, as well as new players.
Customer loyalty is far more important in this era of video games, than it was say 10 years ago. Then, a company could disrespect the player base knowing that they would flock back to the next 'big thing'.
Not anymore. I will be interested to see how many current/past players pre-order or buy day 1. My guess - significantly fewer that any previous games.
Imho all players should have access at all times, and with the player base shrinking they really need to make it easier for all players to get into matches.
There is nothing worse than endlessly waiting for lobbies to reach the required number of players, only to see players give up in frustration.
I strongly believe we need one player starts, backfilled with AI in all game modes in both AOW and Official Portal Experiences.
@Lancelot_du_Lac wrote:It is probably a battle between ongoing (server) costs, and development costs/future earnings (new BF).
Seems a little strange, since EA are obviously targeting current/past players with the new BF, as well as new players.
Customer loyalty is far more important in this era of video games, than it was say 10 years ago. Then, a company could disrespect the player base knowing that they would flock back to the next 'big thing'.
Not anymore. I will be interested to see how many current/past players pre-order or buy day 1. My guess - significantly fewer that any previous games.
I would argue that loyalty is far more important, the old guard like myself is a shrinking population. When BF1942 came out I was 25 years old, single and just had my first real job and living space providing me with means and space to game a lot. Most people of my generation who were gaming as well in that time have now moved on as life got in the way. Carreers, family's etc. Same for me but I kept gaming as my hobby, and stuck with the BF franchise.
But EA doesn't care for me as a customer anymore, because I'm not the type of customer that spends money on cosmetics and stuff which is their main earnings model. Instead new customers enter the market constantly by kids getting old enough to catch an interest in gaming and perhaps FPS. That's the target audience! Are these people interested in classic Battlefield? NO! They want Fortnite, CoD type of games, which is why EA is constantly trying to get a share of that pie.
Pre-orders from current/past player will indeed be significantly lower. Do they care? Probably not.
You need to play an official experience mode to earn the ribbons in the week’s official game mode or to get weapon, specialist, gear or vehicle progression above Tier 3. Most of the official experience modes require 16 people minimum to start a game. But some of the official experience modes, typically Team Deathmatch and some of the other modes that are rotated each week (under the Portal menu, but not in Portal), used to have the minimum number of players required set to one. I have noticed in the last few weeks the minimum number of players required to start a game in these modes seems to have been increased to four.
Even before Season 7 ended, in the Australia / New Zealand region, it has been difficult to start any game mode that required more than one person minimum except for 64 Player Conquest and the Week’s Official Game Mode during the day. And of late, that has only been possible in the late afternoons and evenings. I have not been able to play any official modes of Conquest 128, Rush or Breakthrough for many months. With Battlefield 2042 almost three years old and not having any more seasons, the player base seems to be decreasing significantly. It is now almost impossible to start any official game mode during the day. It is not until the early evening that enough players are around to start an official experience game.
EA/Dice needs to reduce the minimum number of people required to start an official game mode to make it easier to get games started, not increase them. Maybe reset all the previous modes back to one, and the other modes if not also reduce them to one, at least reduce them to 4 or so. If they don’t, then what is left of the player base will rapidly disappear.
