Pacing and lack of coordination
Title speaks for itself ; there is objectively zero coordination incentives with these smaller maps.
Pacing - There are critical mechanics on the game to accelerate or reduce pacing ; time to respawn/deploy, gun reload time, infantry sprint speed, abundance or lack of cover, objective and map layout can also play a role. I think most Battlefield players can understand what pacing is about and how crucial it is to maintain an organic ''Battlefield rhythm''. In my opinion, Battlefield 6 Beta, so far, have shown it's way out of bound in terms of that authentic pacing.
- Revive and respawn timer : Everyone has no incentive to hold onto their revive timer because they can simply spawn back just as fast or in some cases, faster.
- We have a loadout of guns able to reload under or around 2 seconds. Let's say for example the M4A1 takes 4 seconds to reload instead of 2 seconds. That window of opportunity is crucial to consider as a player. It creates vulnerability and this kind of mechanic can create ''rhythm'' and dynamism. A gun reloading in 2 seconds have almost no downside and gives an incentive to constantly reload even if the mag is at 50%+ capacity. There is just no dynamism.
- Infantry sprint speed have been shown to be below BF3 and BF4, which is fine. Combined to the map layout, this detail is crucial.
- Map layout is terrible in both Empire State and Iberian Offensive. Every ''hall'' has multiple angles of offense and every intersections has multiple connections attached to it. There are exception, and those exception are the complete opposite which is just as bad or worse. Imagine Operation Metro where you get 3-4 lanes of offense, it creates chokepoints which can be manageable in some ways (smokes, nades, nades launchers), but in BF6 it's like one side has 10+ points of cover whereas the opposite side has less than 5 and have to push through impossible to cross chokepoints. For me the most important thing, aside of chokepoints, is having longer lanes, more cover, wider rooms, less connections in intersections..
Lack of coordination - The pacing plays a key role into inducing coordination or enabling it. We're all human, some of us enjoy arcade game with fast-paced gameplay but in Battlefield, this is just not your typical arcade game. There has to be coordination because teammates can have key roles to resolve certain specific situations. If there are no room for decision making and most of your team just constantly run towards the target, why would communication even be necessary? In this situation, the only objective is to spawn, run, kill, push, die, repeat. When in reality, Battlefield is about spawning, assessing the situation, find the squad mates who can resolve the most imminent threat, let them do their job, push, follow your team, don't over push to compromise your position or under push to artificially increase the game time, find cover, wait for squad mates to respawn if needed, assess the situation, repeat.
Anyway I hope the devs just realized how boring it is right now in close quarters. The game won't live up to what battlefield truly is about if the devs can't trust players to have a minimum of thinking and strategy making. For me the 2nd weekend is just a big miss.
