Detailed Battlefield 6 Initial Feedback
Was trying to find a good place to do this, I think the Forums will work well. (Thought at the end here that might be good for me to join the Battlefield Labs they have going on)
After playing few matches I thought I would provide feedback on my initial thoughts of the Beta, this much like the beta are subject to change as I continue to play more, but I think it's still important if nothing else than for a perspective of what some other players first experience might be like. I'm still a junior gameplay designer, so I could be way off base, and quite rambly as this is something I am passionate in, as I sure the team is as well. Long time casual Battlefield player, but that shouldn't come up too much in this.
TL:DR:
Game plays well, maps are designed well but contribute to playing quickly with shorter ranged weapons. Weapons being faster firing and quite accurate means kill times are short. This removes some grounded feel to the game, and replaces it with a run and gun style.
I think closed class weapons will help increase the variety of threats each team has, well helping the game make the classes feel more unique. I think the closed class weapons could be closed even more, but that requires a lot of consideration.
Suppression is lacking impact as well as reasons to crouch and prone other than hide. Suppression decreasing accuracy well crouch and prone increasing it could help make them impactful well slowing down the game.
Very interested to see what the developers decide for the game. They seem to be taking feedback quite seriously, which I think everyone in the community appreciates.
The game is overall very well designed, with a mixture of strategy moving around the map and positioning, and tactical gameplay about engaging enemy squads in a variety of situations where quick calls need to be made. If that was the intention of the game, which I believe it is, then I think the game will thoroughly succeed at that experience. There are always going to be a few problems that I can see, and the discourse around the game seems to be positive otherwise. These changes however impact the game quite heavily and provide difficult gameplay decisions to be made. I do not envy being the ones to make that decision, and the team has my best of luck in find one that fits the experience that they are looking to create. I'll still provide my own opinions based on my time with the game and my perception of what the playerbase wants, as well as what the developers intends. This will be long, and I hope my logic is not flawed in some way I have not noticed, but either way it can provide a different perspective.
First thing, movement around the maps, this might be a bit long but I think it's important. It feels good, but I did find that a lot of people are running and gunning on all maps, not anything battlefield hasn't seen before but it feels different in this. I'll try and explain why. The maps themselves are designed well, each objective has a decent amount of cover and a variety of engagement lengths. Most of these lengths end up leading into battles that converge on a lot of close range fire because the cover on top of the objectives will be fairly close together, by design, even if there are lanes of fire that are watching generally the cover on these objectives are omnidirectional and indestructible cover.
This encourages the use of short-mid ranged weapons because those long firing lanes that can watch over the objectives, but on the objective they have very good cover from those sides specifically, reducing the effectiveness on long ranged weapons and also with gameplay that removes you from the objective. This works well for vehicles though with not wanting to be on the objectives and having slash damage to hit around cover. By playing the game you'll be passing through different areas with varying engagement lengths constantly, getting caught out in these areas is a good way to die. So naturally the goal becomes run through these areas until you reach short-mid range engagement areas to be the most effective. This is pared with the slightly faster kill time of this game compared to the other games, means that repeatedly swarming these objectives with close range weapons is going to be the default. Which is where I think a lot of the complaints of game pace, and the lack of more grounded engagements come from. It simplifies the experience, but makes it very frenetic and frantic if that's the intended gameplay.
Second thing is the elephant in the room, open or locked classes. This is where I feel I should place this, as it's linked to my opinion up top, as the details above discuss weapon selection as a driving force for player decision making. I played a bunch of open classes and I really enjoyed it. The ability to take my favorite weapon into battle was great, it allowed me to play my own way and change it up as I like. However, I feel like this compromises on the identity of the classes. As a full kit, even with the limited choices in the beta, it never felt like I had a reason to pick certain equipment, and I know that sucks to hear. I'm sure the developers have data on this already so I wont go too into detail, only enough to make this point. No matter how much we try and fight it, players will optimise the game, and even thought it didn't come up in the beta for me yet. I know that they'll optimise the game to the point where they damage the experience for themselves. That's a feeling I have, based off a quote by someone who knows far more than me on the matter.
In the few games that I did play with the locked class weapons. I immediately felt a change, and this also comes from the type of players that were playing in that gamemode. I appreciate the gamemode existing because it feels like the developers do really want the open weapon system in the game. But as soon as it was locked, the players had more variety in their moments, larger class distribution in the games. This lead to more moments of squad members covering other squad members from a distance or as revives were happening, players were more reluctant to run forward when they lacked the promise of a quick close range kill. Positioning mattered a lot more as described in the above, but also for the balance of the game with the nature of defending and attacking objectives. It felt much better to hold an area if we knew we had an advantage that naturally came from us moving around in these different areas with different engagement lengths. it suddenly felt like a large portion of the map was opened up to us.
I would strongly consider, even if more people are playing the other gamemode, to closing the weapon system for certain classes to control certain distances. Perhaps even more than what is already there (Shotguns for Assault as well, DMRs for Recon, and Carbines for Engineer) Your team will know what type of experience they want to deliver and what works best for that.
This leads to the third point that might sound rather strange but I think it's worth a thought. Gunplay, suppression, crouched and prone stances. This is all linked into one because I think they play off each other to deliver the experience we currently have. Firearms have a faster firerate than they did in say Battlefield 1, making kill time overall lower when the situation allows all rounds to hit the target. Combined with guns feeling rather accurate. The accuracy I say as a positive, the ability for a weapon to hit a target at long range stop people from finding power positions and holding in them until removed by the players dedicating something significant. A tank coming in, using resources with long cooldowns/rearm, or a class change to sniper. All are frustrating decisions that move away from the "Use the weapon that fits you" experience that the developers seem to be interested in and so to avoid it is good gameplay.
High accuracy does decrease time to kill, making faster kills available at longer distances. This combines with another mechanic, suppression. Where suppressed targets would get decreased accuracy with more shake well aiming down sights and more spread well hipfiring. I have found the suppression system in Battlefield 6 to be underwhelming. Many people would probably mention that it doesn't impact gameplay much and that's good, I would like to touch on it to see if it could be changed slightly. Because it is on topic I have heard that changes are coming to stop health regeneration, which I find to be an interesting discussion and am not opposed to in the slightest, but would like to purpose an alternative that reduces the offensive ability of the player rather than decrease the already quite frail defense capabilities. As a continuation from the accuracy discussion, my suggestion is to dramatically increase first the game that suppression is applied to people and secondly to increase sway and more spread for bullets similar to battlefield 1s system but increase effect to hip fire beyond that. Rushing a defended position with and LMG set up should reward the LMG player with proper positioning, as it stands in a lot of Battlefield games an SMG or shotgun could fairly consistently win the engagement despite the suppression. So it may provide a way of temporarily slowing down the fast paced interior combat zones to something similar of Operation Metro and Operation Locker, offers a good opportunity for grenades or grenade launchers to be used as well the the defensive barricades. Would give the support class (With the closed weapon system) the ability to slow the gameplay down if people wanted to play that way, and forcing a different approach that could be reacted to by enemy players.
This leads to the final piece of the puzzle, crouched and prone. Which feels, other than impacting your ability to not be shot (Which is very important) like in combat there is few reasons to change stance at all, especially when the situation is changing so quickly in the combat zones. Allowing players to move faster, changing the situation further in a feedback loop. Incentivising players to slow movement for mechanical benefits I feel like helps the overall grounded nature of the combat in the game, and is still a trade off well those precious tickets are ticking away. Even if not implementing any of the changes up top, I would be very happy to see some more recoil, spray and sway reduction when crouched and more when prone for those players that want that sort of gameplay. If this is viewed as untenable to implement or unwanted that is understandable as this does move player incentives away from speed and "Kenitic" combat. If suppression is increase I might also suggest reducing the effects well crouched and even more well prone as well.
That is some feedback and some suggested changes for those issues that I have seen based on my experiences, which are still subject to change, I wanted to get this is early so that the gameplay developers have time to think about the suggestions and try options out. I know I'm not part of the Battlefield labs team, but maybe I should considering the time I've put into this. I just didn't know I had so much to say until I had hands on with it myself. Which I believe, is already a great sign for the game, and am very interested to see where the development goes when it releases because it sets a precedent for what type of game this is.
