BF6 Impressions

I've played BF going back to 1942, but became a huge fan around BF2, with BF3/4 being my favorite, if that adds any perspective.

The best way I can describe how I felt after playing the beta is: Not at all excited. One positive thing I can say is the beta was pretty bug free for me (PC) aside from a couple of short-lived graphic glitches. This is no small feat, but the experience itself remains deeply flawed as a BF title.

1. Pace - just feels too fast for a BF title. No time to communicate/coordinate, think tactically once in a while, and focus on objectives. I know it sounds like a cliche now in these forums, but comparisons to CoD are warranted. Mind you, I don't knock CoD or their players. It's a different style of game and I've also enjoyed it over the years. Which is why I don't fire up a BF title when I crave that small-scale, faster paced game.

2. Maps - most felt way too small, which probably contributes to #1 above, and #3 below.

3. Vehicles (a) - or lack thereof. To me BF means expansive battlefields with objectives spaced out such that vehicles are a practically a requirement, not just a "cool" game mechanic. Denser clusters tailored to infantry around objectives are fine, as are the occasional infantry-only map, but this beta felt like just a gross mash-up of dense areas with a few consequential (powerful) vehicles thrown in to try to appease those who believe such vehicles are an integral part of the BF experience. 

3. Vehicles (b) - I was really hoping to see a significant course correction from BF2042 with vehicles, but I got a sense that this is not going to change. 2042 had large enough maps but over time it seems devs succumbed to the complaints of "infantry farming" by powerful vehicles like tanks and attack helos, and they further limited the number and spawn frequency of such vehicles. This, IMO, was the absolute wrong direction for BF. The "infantry farming" complaints were legitimate but the answer was more and more frequent access to such vehicles on both sides, not less. If I'm in a tank covering an objective but I have no major threat from a similar vehicle or from the air, what do you think happens? I'll spend inordinate amounts of time blasting infantry, cause "what else is there for me to do?". If OTOH, the enemy has vehicles I need to worry about (land or air) covering the same objective, they become my priority, not the infantry. These sorts of encounters between vehicles are essential to the BF experience IMO. I feel like they dumbed this down in 2042, and probably doubled down on it for BF6.

I'm sure there are other things we could get into and many have been articulated elsewhere in the forums, but to me, these three elements are what keep BF6 from at least "being in the ballpark" of a Battlefield experience.