BF veteran response to BF6

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2807960/discussions/0/664963107066609781/

BatSithCrazy Aug 15 @ 8:27am 
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The Battlefield We Lost, And How to Bring It Back in BF6
I wanted to put together a proper post to get a conversation going about something that’s been bugging me since I jumped into the Battlefield 6 beta, and I know I’m not alone. I’ve been playing this franchise since Battlefield 1942, and in that time, I’ve seen how much the series has evolved, for better or worse.

I’ve been around since before Battlefield was even Battlefield. Back in 1999, Refraction Games dropped Codename Eagle, a wild, alternate-1917 FPS with massive open maps, planes, tanks, boats, and full-on multiplayer chaos. In 2000, DICE bought Refraction, and that chaotic, ahead-of-its-time experiment became the blueprint for Battlefield 1942. If you were there, you know, this was where the legend began. That’s the road I’ve walked to get here. That’s where my perspective comes from.

One thing that hasn’t really changed, at least not in a meaningful way, is the Conquest game mode.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Conquest is iconic. It’s the foundation of what made Battlefield Battlefield. When people say “the Battlefield experience,” they’re usually thinking of sprawling maps, vehicle mayhem, dynamic team play, and flag-by-flag warfare. And yet, here we are, 23 years later, and Conquest still plays almost exactly like it always has, except now it’s lost some of its soul.

Let me explain.

During this Beta, I saw someone on here joking that playing Conquest in BF6 feels like a massive team deathmatch with extra steps. And honestly, thats not far off.

During the beta, I’d hop into voice chat with friends, and when we asked each other where to go next, it was always the same vibe,

“Doesn’t matter. Bravo? Alpha? They’re all close.”

That’s the core issue. IT DOSEN'T MATTER.

There’s no strategic weight to your choices. No real incentive to turn around and defend a flag. You just keep moving forward, hoping to grab the next objective while silently accepting you’ll probably lose the one you just took.

It’s a loop of “capture, abandon, ignore, repeat.”

And it didn’t used to be this way.

...say what you will about the Rush game mode, I’m personally not a big fan. Its linear nature turns matches into meat grinders. Everyone pushes two M-COMs from a known direction, and defenders just dig in. There’s not a lot of room for creativity.

But here’s the thing, Rush has URGENCY. It has TENSION. It has CONSEQUENCE.

You run out of tickets? You're done.
Fail to blow the M-COMs? You lose ground, no retry.
Defenders hold their ground? It feels earned.

How about Conquest in recent Battlefield titles? Not so much. You can lose an objective and just say “eh, we’ll get it later.” Nothing’s really at stake except maybe your kill-death ratio if you’re playing solo. That sense of pressure, the thing that makes games intense and memorable, is missing.

So the question becomes, How do we bring that back into Conquest?

To answer that, let’s rewind the clock.

Battlefield 2. One of the most underrated city maps in the franchise, Mashtuur City.

Not flashy. Not shiny. But what it was... was brilliantly map designed.

This map used the Conquest Double Assault layout, and if you’ve never played it, here's the key, every flag, including the main bases, was capturable. No permanent spawn safety nets.

That meant both teams were at risk of losing everything. If you pushed too hard and overextended without defending, you could find yourself trapped, spawning on the edge of the map, or worse, not at all.

It made every decision matter:

"Do we push the frontline?"
"Do we double back and protect our main base?"
"Do we risk it all for a helicopter spawn?"

Every flag had meaning. Every choice had consequence.

But DICE didn’t stop there.

Mashtuur City’s key objectives also controlled vehicle spawns, and those vehicles were faction-specific. Helicopters only spawned at the main base helipads. Tanks? Only available from two locations on the map.
Lose the flag, and you lose the asset.
Deny the enemy their tank? You shift the balance of power.
Lose your chopper? Suddenly the enemy controls the skies.

It was tactical, layered, and incredibly satisfying to play as a team that actually communicated. Squad leaders mattered. Flanks mattered. You couldn’t just W-key your way to victory.

And yes, Battlefield once baked Fog of War right into the first-person view, it was part of the fight itself.

It limited visibility wasn’t just an aesthetic choice. It balanced snipers, hid movement, and encouraged creativity. Combined with the terrain’s elevation changes, it gave you options, sneak around, set ambushes, flank the backline.

DICE learned the hard way when they ported BF2 maps to Battlefield 3 and removed the fog. The result? Spawn camping. Sniper lanes. Matches that lost all their depth.

Sometimes shiny visuals come at the cost of good gameplay, and we felt that cost to this day.

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Let’s imagine for a second that Battlefield 6 had the bones of Battlefield 2, but with modern graphics, animations, sound design, and UI polish. What would that actually look like?

You boot into the server and instantly form your own six-man squad. You give it a name. A real name. Not “Squad 1” something with personality, like “Ghostknife” or “Nordic Steel”. No RNG assignment, no forced grouping. You choose who’s in, and you control the direction.

As squad leader, your first move isn’t to just ping some objective and hope for the best. You open comms with the commander and request orders.

Because in Battlefield 2, the commander wasn’t just a fancy map icon, he was the brain of the team. A real player, with real abilities that mattered.

“Commander, requesting mission assignment.”

The response crackles over the radio.

“Copy. Enemy forces mobilizing across central bridge. Intercept. Prevent flanking toward our main base.”

Alright, time to move. But you're not just hoofing it across open ground like a bunch of headless chickens. You pop smoke, then request a vehicle drop right on your squad’s position. The commander obliges. Seconds later, a Jeep parachutes down from the sky and lands perfectly behind your cover.

Your squad piles in.

But instead of driving through the enemy chokepoints, where everyone else is getting lit up, you make the tactical call

“We’ll flank wide. Far edge of the map. Use the fog and terrain.”

his is where BF2 shines. That classic “fog of war” wasn’t just a visual limiter it was a tool. It let smart players move undetected, hug terrain contours, and approach objectives from angles the enemy never expected.

You stick to the shadows and push south, hugging hills and using elevation dips. Suddenly, new orders come in from the commander,

“Change of plans. Blow the central bridge. Cut off their route entirely.”

You reroute. One of your engineers plants C4 on the underside of the bridge. Boom. The only fast land route to your main base is now rubble. The enemy's mobility is crippled, they’ll either have to swim, parachute, or reroute entirely.

Mission complete.

“New priority: take the enemy helipad. Deny them air superiority.”

You’re already in the perfect position.

As you approach, enemy resistance is spotted holding the area. You request artillery from the commander. Seconds later, the sky cracks open with thunder. Shells rain down on the helipad, wiping half their defense in a perfectly timed strike.

Your squad moves in to mop up, but visibility is still sketchy. Could be one guy hiding prone behind a concrete slab. So you call in UAV recon, another tool in the commander’s arsenal. The drone reveals last pockets of resistance and gives you real-time map intel.

Now that the coast is clear, you cap the objective and watch the enemy helicopter timer disappear from their vehicle pool.

That one push?

It wasn’t a random zerg rush.

It was:
Squad coordination
Commander support
Map knowledge
Stealth movement
Asset denial
Adaptable objectives
Communication

It was a military sandbox at its best, and it all happened in 2005. No AI bots filling gaps. No cinematic killstreaks. Just real teamwork, executed well.

Look, I’m not saying Battlefield 6 should just become Battlefield 2: Remastered. Not every map needs Double Assault. Not every mode needs six-player squads or destructible bridges.

But having a few maps built like this, maps with purpose, pressure, and possibility, could make a world of difference. Want to bring Battlefield 6 back to life? Don’t chase another battle pass. Chase this. Bring back tools that matter, roles that matter, and decisions that change the game.

Even if most players don’t care about winning or losing in Conquest these days, maybe that’s because the game doesn’t make the outcome feel meaningful anymore. My friend told me after playing "BETA", m8, he said "BF6 isn’t carrying the Battlefield torch… it’s carrying COD’s luggage." and I agree.

Would you give Conquest Double Assault a try if it came back in BF6? Would old-school mechanics like repairable bridges, commander roles, and squad-level coordination make a difference?

Drop your thoughts below... :] Cheers! if you made it to this point.
Last edited by BatSithCrazy; Aug 15 @ 8:42am

mateba  Aug 15 @ 9:35am  

    
I started playing BF w/ BF: Vietnam. BF2 was my first love. I played it for years. Bought all the expansions. The game play of BF2 was amazing. BF:BC2 had a goof single player that everyone indears but the no one would care about the title because of that. The only reason Haggard gets remembers is because of the map leveling destruction. Every building falls, not every wall, but everything was destructible at the solder level. BF3 and 4 seem like the same game. I enjoyed and welcomed BF3 but it was buggy BF4 was actually patched BF3. BF: 3&4 still looks good. Play the single player on maxed settings today. BF3 campaign was great. But they did not hit the mark for BF2 gameplay. NO VOIP for years, Where was y'alls head at?

What I want:
- BF: 2 combined arms large map team based objective driven gameplay (BF6 needs work)
- BF: BC2 destruction.
- BF: 3/4 graphics. (I know BF: 1 has superior graphics but KISS. The game has to have all three aspects. And, graphics alone will not make this a great game.)

I think the BETA test has been successful for tiny maps. But I am afraid the scale of BF6 is wrong. Like, wrong game. Some of these maps take less time to walk across than an airstrip. We are going to get airstrips right? Do you understand the scale of BF? Its not city blocks, its counties. These large maps have aspects of all play including close urban fighting. These maps are dissected into portions for smaller player games and various mods. Some of the BF:2 games took 2-4 hours to play out. Strike at Karkand was one of my favorite maps in BF2 and BF3. It had a very long linear foot path but you could take a boat and shortcut by sea. I made an amazing SDM map too.

The class system in BF6 is convoluted. Why does support have both health and ammo? The "opens weapons" is a bandaid that will strip class individuality out of the game. Assault is a better sniper than Recon. You can always add a class, BF2 had 7. Fix the classes and close the weapons. Use a general weapon pool that all classes can pull from like previous titles. If you want your customers to play the game for years you will need to give us the tools to have community. We have to have persistent servers. Filter in and out bots to keep in live. You must know how hard it is to populate servers? Don't lock weapon attachments in battle packs, its random and awkward. Where is the commander and why do we have kill-streaks instead?

I am not going to assume the worst. BF6 looks great (check!) BF6 has destruction (check!) but where is combined arms team based objective driven gameplay and large maps? BF is not a game about running around in a circle shooting solders. BF has that with 16-32 player Squad Death Match but that's not all. That's the other game.