@DuaneDibbley wrote:
@Noodlesocks
I personally don't see any way to make 128 players work. If you think it can be done, what exactly would they have to change in your opinion to make this work and still feel like a Battlefield game and not Squad or Hell Let Loose with huge capture zones that you would most likely never be able to clear (I don't play HLL or Squad myself and can only speak from watching gameplay footage)?
And also: even if those games CAN achieve it with 100 players, BF should not try to copy them of course (as the copy approach failed with trying to be an Apex Legends clone in the first place).
One thing that comes to mind would be huge capture zones, so that there will be less chaos in case there is one contested flag left where all the action will focus on. I still think it will be chaos, but this could be at least one approach to make it work.
I have always felt that the squad system that Dice Sweden has been using since Bad Company has held Battlefield back. The squad spawning system was designed for a game that was max 24 players and was designed for Rush (conquest not even being available in BC1 until after launch) which was a more linear, head-on affair. With the greater freedom in conquest, the wider maps and 360 degrees of approach to an objective, I feel the squad spawning system favours the attackers more than the defenders when the advantage should be with the defenders.
On small conquest maps; linear conquest maps it works okay but as maps get bigger and objectives spread further apart, it actually becomes more beneficial to the team for squad members not to play together because spreading out across the map provides better spread of spawning options. If a squad sticks together, that's essentially just one area to spawn from between the 4-6 members in the squad. If they spread out, play together with other non-squad members then that's 4-6 entirely separate spawn options across a map. Essentially, if no squads are playing together with their squad mates, that's 32+ different spawn locations the enemy has to deal with in 64 player games. 64+ different spawn locations in 128 player games.
In pre-frostbite games there was no squad spawning. In 2 and 2142 you could spawn on squad leader only and squad leader and squad leader beacons in 2142. Before those games there were no squads at all so players could only spawn on flags. What this provided was very clear front lines between objectives. There was less of this round about, flag hopping gameplay that has plagued frostbite conquest because your path to the next objective was the enemy's path to yours. Flanking was still possible but it was also riskier because if you lost your squad leader and he hadn't placed a beacon, you'd either be cut off or you'd have to start again from the previous objective if it was still yours.
What it did was provide structure not only to squads but the game itself. Conquest played how it was designed to play because the rules of the game was designed specifically for conquest. It's why even if you played on the modded 128 player servers, it was still a very structured experience and less of the zerg type of gameplay that frosbite conquest has suffered from.
To be clear, I'm not saying that 2042 needs to bring back squad leader only spawning. There isn't any one factor of design that is the singular cause for conquest or 128 players not working well. The point is is that the rules of those games were written and designed specifically for the game mode. The game rules were built entirely around conquest. What Dice Sweden doesn't seem to understand is that you can't just copy paste gameplay mechanics from one game mode to another or expect gameplay mechanics designed for 12v12 to play the same as 64v64. What Dice Sweden needs to do is build a set of rules designed specifically for conquest. Specifically for Breakthrough or Rush or whatever game mode they want to make. If they want Battlefield to be 128 players, they need to design the game from the ground up for 128 players, not just copy paste game design intended for 12v12 rush, smash 128 players into it and call it a day.
Seems like nobody really cares for or is in favor of 128 player modes (or at least nobody that has a good reason why this mode is better).
Don’t mind the 128 players but firstly you actually need the netcode to be able to handle 128 players consistently and it’s not even close and secondly the maps don’t lend themselves well to 128 players due to absolutely zero cover at all.
It’s nice that it’s moved on to 128 players and we have the consumer tech to play it but sadly the talent at dice is what’s holding the franchise back.
@emerson1975 wrote:Don’t mind the 128 players but firstly you actually need the netcode to be able to handle 128 players consistently and it’s not even close and secondly the maps don’t lend themselves well to 128 players due to absolutely zero cover at all.
It’s nice that it’s moved on to 128 players and we have the consumer tech to play it but sadly the talent at dice is what’s holding the franchise back.
You nailed it @emerson1975 ... !
Which is also the answer to @DuaneDibbley 's previous post, asking why the knowledge of prior BF games did not seem to stick to newer BF game releases from EA/DICE: A very substantial part of the original team that made the classics, aka BF2, BF3, BFBC2 and BF4 mainly left during the BF1 game creation and more had even left then for the start of the BFV game development cycle.
A very large group of them actually have teamed up in a new Stockholm based company named Embark Studios, and they have also some very good promising shooter game in the pipeline now... So worthwhile to keep an eye on and check out for their playtesting.
Not the most popular topic -- or maybe not enough arguments in favor of 128 player modes after all.
Well, soon it will not matter anymore as we can only play 64 player matches if we are lucky anyway as this seems to be the TOTAL number of players per region this game slowly converges to.
So even if they WOULD keep 128 player Conquest as an option around (which I hope they won't), then there would hardly be enough active players to fill one server, even if half of the players are AI bots.
all the answers will be opinions.
but there really is a actual answer to this that is fact.
The correct answer for the number of players for conquest is what ever the person who is renting the server puts it at. and you chose to go into that server.
way back in the stone age of BF we could make maps smaller or larger and set the number of players on our rented servers. Funny how so many years later options from the past seem like something that would be nice to have now.
128 is great to me. I just wish they would have put more into the maps
