[ More casuality? ] Damage vs gameplay

I truly enjoy the immersion in BF6. The feeling that a real battle is happening around you is incredible — the soldier moves heavily, as he should. This sense of weight and realism was missing for a long time. But the weapon balance — especially the low damage model — has pushed the game into a trap that many dying projects fall into.

It started back in 2042, when your designers began experimenting: “What if we reduce weapon damage but increase accuracy so players feel like snipers?” That idea led straight into a loop. Now players feel that guns are cartoonish. They keep unlocking higher-tier weapons, expecting something powerful, trying barrels with higher stats and lower recoil — yet every weapon still deals less damage than expected. Eventually, players decide that all guns are trash.

So everyone switches to shotguns — they dont depend on ping and usually kill with the first shot. Then you design close-quarters maps and fill them with players — and a small desert street turns into hell itself: behind every corner, every door, every sandbag theres someone with a one-shot gun.

You add headshot multipliers, which helps a bit — some weapons at 3–4 meters finally start to compete with shotguns — but ping remains the enemy. Random packet loss, on either side, turns a sure win into a loss and creates constant frustration.

You raise or lower damage again, but people still pick shotguns and still say the balance is broken. You cant fix this with +2 or -2 damage tweaks or range adjustments — that balance is gone.

I ask you to think about what was lost since BF3 and BF4:
a shooter-game can be good not because of the shooting itself, but because of what happens around it.

The best games are not based on the point "won by those who aim best or react fastest or grind 20 hours a day until muscle memory takes over". The best ones reward those who prepare better for the fight — who read the field, position smartly, and adapt. Thats what balances skill and fun, pros and casuals, long-range and close-range play. Everyone stays engaged.

Fans will never admit it — they dont see the complexity behind your design. Theyll always say “just make headshots and recoil patterns like in every other shooter.” But Battlefield was better. Now you compete with prettier Delta Force, faster PUBG, more tactical Tarkov, and more esport-oriented Counter-Strike — not because theyre better, but because they all chase what fans say they want. And fans dont know what they actually love until its gone.

Low weapon damage creates too many problems:

The player cant cover his squads back because he simply doesnt have enough damage or accuracy to stop enemies flanking from behind.

The player cant quickly finish off an enemy hiding behind cover with a one-shot weapon — that enemy will always win.

The player cant storm a room and punish unaware opponents — he must hit everyone in the head, otherwise theres no time to kill them.

The player cant use DMR rifles properly: if the damage is too high its overpowered, but if its too low its useless. You have to land three consecutive hits — impossible at close range, too weak at long range.

The player will inevitably switch to high rate-of-fire weapons, since they are less dependent on ping and barely slow down movement when aiming. Thats the main problem of Delta Force — everyone runs with Vectors, spinning like tops, turning fights into close-range circus slides and jumps.

Players will soon realize that grenades are only effective when spammed all at once. Then youll have to invent counter-systems — laser interceptors, anti-grenade gadgets — instead of simply forcing players to take grenades from captured points, not ammo boxes. The simple fact that they have to restock them manually removes mindless grenade spam.

Military shooters shouldnt be about that.
They should be about knowing where enemies might appear, watching that angle beforehand, and not letting them even peek.

To “push” isnt to throw a hundred soldiers into chaos — its to lock down every path so the enemy is too afraid to move.
At low damage, thats impossible. The game becomes casualized, where the fastest, not the smartest, wins.

You already slowed down the pace — and that was a great move, it made the game more tactical. But the damage model is still tuned for microsecond reaction times, not for thinking. A full squad can easily be wiped by one player doing a random slide between them just because the squads mouse sensitivity is set for long-range and they cant track him fast enough.

No real fight works like that. Real firefights begin with shooting at windows, doors, and corners — to suppress, to scare, to control. Dozens of bullets fly roughly toward the enemy, and maybe one connects — and that one decides the fight. After that, squads move tactically, creating 2v2 or 3v3 fights at key points, not chaotic 20v20 meat grinders. If you pack everyone together, either one grenade kills fifteen people, or in the casual mode it kills no one — and both cases feel wrong.

Experimenting with damage instead of core mechanics is a dangerous habit that has already killed dozens of games. Please, consider a DLC or a Battlefield Labs test where weapons are lethal at any range — where victory depends on who already aimed first, who handled recoil better, who is not supressed by enemy fire (means - took better position with more covers) or who prepared smarter for the encounter.

A squad is truly strong not when it defibrillator revives fast as possible, but when it positions so well that the defibrillator isnt needed at all.