Battlefield 6 Beta Feedback Report
I've played Battlefield a lot over the last decade and really enjoyed the beta: it's the most fun I've had since BF1 and is up with BF3 and BF4 in terms of my enjoyment. A lot of things have been done right. It's most similar to 3 in feel for me but also implements the best aspects of the games released since then.
Rather than list all the positives, here’s how I feel it could be improved based on many hours spent in the beta on PC.
General Suggestions:
Footsteps: Should be louder; often can't hear enemy players even when they’re close. Changing this would help tactical play by making it harder to wander into groups of enemies.
Suppression: Should be more effective, reducing the target’s ability to aim, which would give LMGs a tactical usage (or it could spot them for the team like in BF5). Currently LMGs are fun but underpowered because the suppression effect is hardly noticeable.
Spotting: Change to the BF5 system for better balance, or at least the BF4 system. Current spotting feels confusing and also like you’re spotted constantly. The auto-spotting is too generous for the spotter, changing this would create a trade-off between spotting or immediately engaging. This would be my top change for BF6. (That said I think the auto-spotting should stay the same if you are in a vehicle, because otherwise it would be too easy for engineers to obliterate you)
Grenade Throw Animation: Needs to be longer; current throw looks unnatural, like the grenade is just priming itself and flying out of my pocket.
Grenade Strength: Increase splash damage, including grenade launchers. Smoke grenades are currently the best option with little trade-off. Grenades and launchers feel too weak, as though they need a direct hit to kill anyone.
Lobbies: They should carry over between rounds instead of everyone returning to matchmaking. Prevents repetitive roles/maps (i.e. defending on the same map 3 or 4 rounds in a row on breakthrough) which can become tedious. It’s also more fun to play with the same random players multiple times, I’ve ended up adding friends to play the game with back on ps4/xbox 360 because of having good squad play with teammates over multiple matches.
Weapon Menu: Single click to select gun and open customisation, double click to select and return to class menu, rather than having to hover the mouse over the gun and then click customise.
Helicopters: Still fun to get kills in but feel very fragile. Add a second flare; make stinger do 75% damage instead of instant kill, and increase offensive strength. I was almost never killed by a helicopter on Liberation peak over at least 6 hours of conquest.
Anti-Air Cannons: On Liberation Peak, remove one cannon and move the other to C as a strategic asset. It’s currently too easy for each team to destroy the other’s air vehicles.
Ground Vehicles: Very fun to play when with a gunner and at least one engineer. Slightly too fragile without an engineer; taking damage sometimes seems inconsistent (feels like I’m killed in one hit by an rpg sometimes). Engineers could do with having maybe 1 fewer RPG each.
Running Animation: Feels faster than BF4 despite the underlying running speed being the same; animation could be smoothed to address the feeling of the game being overly fast.
Conquest Music Cues: Should start sooner when tickets are low.
Scope Glint: It needs to be clear as to which sights have scope glint when playing as a sniper. I had to just infer that the ACOG has glint from the amount of people who immediately know I’m there but I couldn’t find anything in the weapon screen to clarify this, even though there is an attachment for reducing glint. I know scope glint is already planned to be toned down.
Commonly Requested Changes I Agree With:
Server Browser: For the game’s longevity, map selection, and playing with more than three others. I like the beta maps, they work well, but if there are only 3 really big maps in the full game, I would like to selectively play only those maps sometimes (if I'm not feeling like more intense gameplay that day for example).
Recoil: Increase on some guns (especially carbines), but consider keeping current recoil for controllers (is that possible?).
Time-to-Death/Netcode: Feels inconsistent with TTK (i.e. TTK feels right but death frequently feels instant); often killed when I’ve just run behind cover.
Open vs Closed Weapons: Keep closed weapons for class role distinction and balance. Some combinations were overpowered (e.g. engineer with assault rifles). If open weapons remain, apply bigger penalties when using outside their specialist class.
Liberation Peak Size: On conquest, it could be slightly larger (e.g., add a point south of C), especially since it sounds like of those maps yet to be introduced only two or three will be really big. I disagree with others who have criticised the map structure on breakthrough; there’s no balance issue if smokes and tanks are used effectively.
Music: I don’t think the game played or felt like Call of Duty in general as some people have said. The only “COD-like” feeling I got was from the UI and some of the music. Adding more Battlefield-style tracks could help fix this a bit. Maybe you have some already (e.g. from the singleplayer).
Major Bugs:
Serious Graphical Glitch: Large black jittering polygons covering most of the screen for ~20s. Happened roughly once every hour. Couldn’t see anything or play the game while this was happening.
Firing Range Crash: With L110 LMG, exiting firing range (via menu or “y to customise gun”) causes soft crash to desktop. Happened repeatedly. Also occurred on a friend’s PS5.
Spotting Bug: Double-pressing Q sometimes fails even in clear sightlines. Especially common in the revive screen (~25% of times when I’m downed I can’t spot any enemies with q).
Overall, Battlefield is back. After two games which were sort of disasters (although I liked BF5 in the end, it never reached its full potential) it actually almost feels too good to be true. I hope if anyone sees this they understand that I’m actively giving feedback for once because I really enjoyed the beta, and as a result I’m very hopeful and optimistic and think the game has massive potential to succeed and have great longevity.
I'd be interested if anyone has any further suggestions relating to any of the points.
p.s. whichever dev suggested drag revives is a very beautiful genius
