A Case Against Signature Gadgets

A Case Against Signature Gadgets (+TTK and Balance).

Dear EA and Studios,

Please remove the signature gadget and reduce the number of gadgets from three to two. Do it soon—or Battlefield 6 will suffer. My suggestions, if implemented, will greatly improve squad play. Here’s why:

Signature Gadgets
Battlefield is at its best when it’s simple. It’s an FPS built on a rock–paper–scissors meta. The weight of your choices should impact not only your score, but also your squad and your team. You capture flags, watch amazing destruction, drive vehicles, and fight on big maps. But Battlefield has always been about tactics and teamwork, and that needs to remain clear.

If everyone has all the gadgets they need, players will drift toward solo play. That pushes the game closer to COD than to the classic BF style.
BF6 is a great step forward, but one of the biggest problems isn’t just TTK—it’s the rise of “super soldiers.”

We asked for smaller maps, but not claustrophobic circular ones. Those discourage tactical frontlines and coordinated flag captures/defenses. Instead, we get bottlenecks where all the gunplay happens, while recons sneak around the edges. King’s Battery feels like a merry-go-round, not a Battlefield map. It lacks squad play, frontlines, and chokepoints. When players say it “feels like COD,” that’s exactly what they mean.

The rock–paper–scissors meta needs to be clearer in BF6. The best way to achieve this is to remove signature gadgets and limit gadgets to two. That makes choices matter.

We have to gamble or pick the best choice for a temporary situation. No tank, jet, or helicopter should be strong against both ground vehicles and infantry. We have to choose one role. That self-limiting “play your cards right” design makes balance easier and more fun. If you delay, players will exploit fast movement or glitches, and fixing it later will alienate those who bought into the super-soldier/solo style.

We don’t need signature gadgets—because Battlefield already has them. Repair tools, AT rockets, Stingers—these are already signature to the Engineer class. Meanwhile, shared gadgets between classes are the exception. You’ve said the Engineer will eventually have to pick between RPG or Stinger, not both—and that’s exactly the right design philosophy. It forces meaningful trade-offs instead of turning players into multi-role super soldiers. Stick to it!

Right now, each class gets one forced signature gadget plus two others. That’s too much, and it creates imbalance. For example:
Assault can carry a shotgun, AR and two grenade launchers. Support can resupply & heal (bad choice) revive, and still carry powerful weapons. Engineers get... a repair tool (useless in Kings Battery). 

Now let's entertain this for a moment. Hypothetically, reduce the gadget numbers to two and make it flexible. Assaults would think well before choosing the shotgun, instead of a grenade launcher (your fix was reduce grenades to two and nerf the damage), and an armor or stim pen. Imagine a support with ammo and a defibrillator. Now imagine the engineer with RPG and the decoy, or even, RPG and the AT mine. Doesn't it sound more balanced in maps like Kings Battery? 

Recon can flank with the beacons, destroy walls with C4, but that plus a drone would be too much. No real trade-offs. Reduce the gadget number to two and now picking between the three options is really situational. If you have to think well, that means there is strategy in the game.

The fix is simple: give each class access to its signature gadgets plus one additional gadget—never two of the same type. (e.g. RPG + Stinger, or T-UGS + motion sensors should not be allowed.) Let players decide whether to repair, go defensive, or go offensive with rockets and mines. That’s classic Battlefield.

Right now, forcing Engineers to always carry a repair tool makes them nearly useless on infantry-focused maps like Empire Estate or King’s Battery. Meanwhile, other classes get stacked with utility. That’s poor balance.

And please don’t “solve” this by randomly moving gadgets around (e.g. giving spawn beacons to Assault). That’s not tested, while the classic formula has been proven across every Battlefield, even BF2042 after its reworks.

Locked Weapons
You should have kept certain weapons locked by class—especially for Recon. Carbines already cover the middle ground between SMGs and ARs. Why not restrict some weapons to reinforce class identity? Right now, it feels like you’re unlocking everything “just because,” which erodes what makes Battlefield unique.

Weapon exclusivity is what makes classes desirable. Don’t remove it.

TTK/TTD + support (combat medic) balance
I’d love to see TTK/TTD slightly reduced, but if you do that without adjusting the support, this class will completely dominate.

Support is already considered the best class. The neta's fast TTK/TTD hid this imbalance. If TTK is reduced, Support will dominate even more. Why?

Because there is no locked weapons, they pick what they want, have infinite ammo, and if you shoot them and they don't die fast enough, they will heal themselves. So, what weak spot do they have if they can get ARs, ressuply, heal and revive? So there is a lot to do here if you keep three gadgets and open weapons .

Other classes already feel weaker, but with a lower TTK/TTD they will feel even weaker. That will hurt long-term engagement, and yes, even cosmetic sales, because, obviously, if you have one dominant class, then you'd sell cosmetics for that beat class only (remember Street Fighter 2, the very first version when everyone picked Ryu and Ken only? There were no 2-colors, it was either Ken or Ryu. So, imagine that that. 

Now, it’s simple: re-imagine everything I just said with two gadgets per class. In classic Battlefield, Assault would carry a defibrillator and/or a medic bag, allowing them to revive or support only those brave enough to push the frontline. Alternatively, Assault could swap one of those for a specific grenade launcher. Engineers could run with an RPG and a DS-3 decoy (or even a grenade launcher/XM25 airburst if you want to buff the class), making them just as useful as Assaults on infantry-heavy maps without vehicles. Support could take the MP-APS/Trophy system and either a claymore or airburst, plus ammo (not ammo and a medic bag)—keeping them balanced and equally valuable. Recon could access carbines (please remove auto-spotting, and perhaps keep auto-spotting as a unique attachment), a beacon, claymores, C4, T-UGS, drones, and do the iconic C4+drone combo to clear unreachable spots, and Recon would be just as impactful as the other three classes.

See? The gadget balance formula is already there—tried, tested, and ready. Give Assault a Medpen, ladders, armor plates, extra explosives, perimeter alarms, or even exclusive weapons if you want—but keep that "choices matter" framework.

Don't risk it all with a beacon and the game will be so much easier to balance later, and much cleaner than swapping spawn beacons around and hoping players actually use a nerfed stim injection. This was barely tested.

Conclusion

Classic Battlefield gives us:

• Two gadgets
• Locked weapons per class

That’s the formula. It works. We loved it, we still want it, and you promised to listen. 

Make Battlefield 6 a classic Battlefield.

Keep Battlefield Battlefield. Use the winning formula.