The bot / challenge is a side effect / symptom (explained later)
The real reason why MP has less people is because people are leaving the game.
- Weekend 1 of Beta felt better than current game state (not weekend 2 cuz that's where cheat devs, gun n attachment meta was figured out and woe to anyone that didn't gun meta / attachment meta , gun meta was shotgun / M4 HK 416 one of the SMG's and attachment meta was hipfire could get ADS accuracy with certain attachments)
- Glitches / issues / known day one release, some big like netcode / hitreg / challenges not tracking / rewards / skins etc not showing in accounts, not being fixed but BR and small game modes coming out instead.
- vehicles broken in beta, and still being tweaked today, whilst working examples of how they work exist in previous BF's.
- General feeling the game is shifting from make BF great again to let's pull in COD / Warzone crowd, grounded skins to monster energy then next year beavis n butt head skins.
- Leading into Season 1 came early (in general FPS) and in came the monetization, which is fine, they have to make their money, but maybe should have delayed Season 1 and improved the game, and season 1 didn't have what people wanted, like a big map or more.
- Feeling of lack of direction, like the open vs locked weapons. So they went both ways . . . like they solved the bot XP issue in 2042 but making the same mistakes and floundering in having casual PVE modes for those who want it. The big map thang (new entry below), BR and new modes preference as draw a new crowd / new hotness instead of fixing glitches / issues
- Biggest map was released for BR and not Conquest. Biggest complaint is BF 6 has no big maps, and they could just rework existing big maps that were loved by fans in prior BF's.
- attachments are big thing. like suppressors make HUGE diff in you being noticed (without you show up on mini map and in game as you fire) and they are all around late teens to 20's . So there's a compelling reason / competitive advantage to grind you guns and the best way is bot lobbies to grind out your guns.
- Gun grind is real / challenge description sux, and overall the game feels more of a MMO type grind than just go play. Also some challenges have actual equipment and guns locked behind them soo . . .
Like in 2042 level 50 (this was BF 6 season pass) I had all sniper DMR attachment unlocked, all attachments for two of my fav SMG, rifle, carbine etc . I had jets unlocked (fighter for each side), tank / IFV, and doge ram / pond hawk. Ok 2042 also had good way to grind guns (Rush or breakthru 128 redacted ) but BF 6 is longer. And the solo coop allowed me a chance to learn the distances at 150 m and 250 + m on orbital to get the sniper scope grind . . . much faster than playing that map in MP.
BF 6 at lvl 50 . . . i have lvl 10 IFV, and lvl 3 tank, lvl 1 for aircraft and other ground. Guns I only have first / starter (I tend to go class specific weapons), and 3rd of the attachment unlocked for them and SMG is 9, pistol 4, LMG 22 (main support), AR is 15 (lol, pun intended) and this was burning all my hardware XP tokens from the EA app fiasco during release day.
- Competition. B07 was said to go no SBMM, but gaming media got from EA / Dice devs that SBMM is used to balance out maps and feel for modes. They gave the W to B0 7 .
- Competition #2, Arc Raiders just came out, is a small team based extraction shooter (4 man) and they hit it out of park and checked all good boxes of Extraction shooters and dodge the bad ones. Half my FPS gaming crew moved from here to there. Currently number one on steam (displaced BF which got review bombed on redsec) Arc just released Oct 30 and now is at 700,000 concurrent players across all platforms. Steam alone crossed 460K peak players, which shows how quickly the game has taken off.
- Rise of cheaters. Given that EA and DICe have the right approach (ban) to cheaters (vs COD devs which is look the other way if someone is popular / has a huge following etc / have weak anti cheat system and don't keep up with cat n mouse approach required cheat devs and game devs to keep most of cheats out of the game) . I think initial BF 6 popularity and (10 million copies sold) and people checking it out and sheer volume and cheat devs figuring out the game has lead to many cheaters slipping in.