Not throwing shade but you are probably new to the BF series if you think Official servers are "fair" but I think I can interpret the point you're trying to make.
Just for clarity, there are no "private servers" in BF6. The last official game to feature a traditional paid Rent-A-Server Program (RSP) was Battlefield 1. Since, EA has pivoted to Portal only where players can spin up a "custom server" for others to join. These are still hosted by EA and the AWS servers they license. No one other than EA paid for the server space. The server browser people are going to get may help with map selection and rotation but they will NOT be the same as private servers from BF1 and previous. It won't be long until people realize this really isn't what they are hoping for.
Now, the contradictory statement that Official servers are more fair... I'll expand the scope to any main stream arcade FPS genre like BF and counter the concept that Official servers are more fair than Private servers. Official servers are NOT monitored or policed by anyone. EA relies solely on their anticheat to stop game breaking unfairness. Server admins (good admins) have the ability to respond to multiple claims of unfairness or toxicity in many forms. Server admins have the ability to watch and monitor in real time a suspected cheater and remove/ban them from the server. Ensure they stop impacting the server they rent, uphold a reputation and quality standard that usually higher than EA's, and make adjustments to the server if there appears to be an imbalance or population drop for whatever reason.
Because once private servers are allowed into the main ecosystem, the game quickly gets filled with stacked squads, closed little groups, and admin abuse.
If EA would have implemented an actual Join as a Squad feature or allow you to join on your friends, as they had in previous BF games, this problem would be very less impactful. Even now the matchmaking algorithm fails to balance the teams. Furthermore, private servers would often configure the server to scramble the teams while keeping squad of friends intact. This effectively helped with match balancing and keeping friends together. Because it's a private server, that means a human being / admin set it up that way. This was a common requirement for private servers in BF3 and BF4 and the private server community is the reason these titles are still playable today.
Too many servers turn into places where “server owners” act like emperors, using their power to kick, ban, or control players however they want. That kind of environment is unhealthy for the game and terrible for the long-term player experience.
💯Yes. We saw this too, and I agree with you. There are definitely BADMINS out there that will abuse their fake power. The benefit of having private servers and a functional server browser is that you could filter servers that were modded or had different rules. Come across a badmin, ensure your filter excluded this server. Personally, I have only ever experience badmins a handful of times during my BF3 and 4 career. They do exist so, your concerns are valid.
I remember one time, a server had a limit on snipers. If the server was capped at that limit and you spawn in as a sniper, you were warned to switch. If you didn't, you were admin-killed automatically and a message was sent telling you why. I was on this server as another class and picked up one of the one-shot sniper rifles on top of the hotel building on Hainan Resort. I was shocked to see that it was still laying there so I grabbed it. Within 15 seconds, I was admin-killed with a warning that the sniper cap was reached and I couldn't use it. Did I think this was dumb? Absolutely. But in all fairness, if I wanted to play on that server where they considered class balances, I couldn't act like another sniper but play as a different class. To me, this made sense so I wasn't upset. I was surprised but not upset.
A fair, stable multiplayer game needs consistent rules, transparent matchmaking, and equal treatment for everyone. If DICE wants to support a server browser, that should mean official servers only — not private rule sets, not admin-controlled sandboxes, and not a system that lets abuse become part of the core experience.
While I understand the point you are trying to make, the conflicting part about this statement is that EA and DICE are giving the majority of the player base exactly what they asked for in a server browser. Here, you could find matches EXACTLY how YOU want to play. Everyone can see Official servers and Custom, Portal servers (not private, those do not exist here). But beware, Portal, as of right now, has a server tick rate of 30hz (thats pathetically low) and you absolutely will see more netcode problems than on their current matchmaking on non-Portal servers. I played on private servers that were in excess of 120+hz and man, those servers were buttery smooth and rarely did I have strange netcode problems. Oh, and maybe, we will see the option to have input-based matches only. If a player has to do this for EA because EA won't listen to their community, its a bad sign.
I am a little hesitant to cheer for this browser server if EA and DICE aren't going to improve the performance of Portal. You think people complain about Portal now with all of the poor performance and EXP gain restrictions, wait till the server browser is released and Portal is thrust into the forefront of gamer's angst against the game's ability to provide a satisfying experience. IMO, EA and DICE won't do anything about Portal and the "server browser" and kneecap it by not improving the QOL of Portal servers and it dies due to a lack of support. Then, players will simply accept what they have and stop complaining.
I believe, with more transparency into the game modes we all want to play, we can fine tune how we want to play the game as a whole. The server browser will temporarily fill the gap. But for how long, not sure yet but I am willing to bet not for very long. I anticipate that players that make custom Portal servers and mark them as persistent will be simple rotations of popular maps and modes. If EA and DICE improve the quality of Portal, its going to be a win. If they do not improve the performance, they are planning for it to fail.
To end my novel, EA should allow private lease servers again. The community has already proven it can police itself while improving fairness through the private server community unmanaged by EA. They won't allow private leasing because it takes money away from them, preventing players from moving onto their next product.
I’ve never understood why anyone still supports opening up privately managed servers.
Today, almost every successful online game is built around official matchmaking for a reason: it gives players the fairest, most consistent, and least frustrating experience possible. Do you really want to queue into some so-called “community server,” play for a while, and then get kicked just because an admin doesn’t like you, or because your K/D is too high, or because you got too many kills?
I’m not new to Battlefield. I’ve seen far too many of these so-called “emperor servers” in the Asian Battlefield 1 scene.
They usually come with all kinds of absurd rules:
Even worse, many private servers freely modify core gameplay rules. For example, they may shorten vehicle respawn times, which makes anti-vehicle play almost meaningless. You work hard to destroy a tank, and then another one comes back again a few seconds later. At that point, it is no longer a normal Battlefield experience. It is just the admin’s personal playground.
Some people say private servers help with balance.
In reality, the opposite is usually true.
Most admins are neither capable nor willing to truly balance both teams. They usually care more about whether they and their friends are having fun than whether the server is actually fair. What people call “manual balancing” often turns into admin abuse and favoritism.
Team balance should be handled by the official system, not by some server emperor with kick permissions.
From the perspective of the game’s long-term health, privately managed servers are very harmful.
They lead to:
Battlefield 2042’s official matchmaking was actually already pretty good. Battlefield 6’s anti-cheat is also gradually improving, although DMA cheats and AI cheats still need to be dealt with more effectively. The overall direction is correct.
Privately managed servers are not the future. They belong to a past era.
I support the return of an official server browser, because it lets players choose maps and modes for themselves. But I strongly oppose putting privately managed servers into the official server browser system.
Fast matchmaking plus an official server browser should be the baseline.
Battlefield does not need to go back to the era of VIP privileges, admin abuse, and arbitrary kicks. Private admin-controlled servers will eventually end up in the trash heap of gaming history, while a fair and transparent official server system is what truly benefits the long-term health of the game.
I know you may not believe it but private run servers have a much more enjoyable experience than Official servers that EA does not manage. The game has a basic set of rules for matchmaking and round churn. All assets are bound to their normal, intended rule sets. There isn't anything wrong with that and it seems fair.
The unfairness come from no one being able to step-in when there are people who intentionally ruin the fun for everyone else. Just ask someone about Official DayZ servers.
Some people say private servers help with balance. In reality, the opposite is usually true.
I've played A LOT of BF3 and 4 on private servers and the balance was always more fair than Official, always. We had in-round balancing where if too many people left, people from the opposing side were automatically shifted to the other team to keep it fair. It was forced and some people didn't like it but you definitely did not see the problem that plagues this game with imbalanced teams. Man, I recall people saying "teams!" in global chat so that it would trigger the auto-admin to shuffle people to rebalanced it again.
Was your team stomped by the other? Well, the next round balanced the skill between everyone on the server who stayed to fix the matchmaking cliff we all experience today. Also, you knew which map was next. Heck, most of the time you could vote-map for the next match. If you were done playing for a while or the match started on a map you didn't like, that's fine. Quit and come back later. That server was STILL running the same rotation of maps.
They lead to:
- a worse experience for new players,
- fragmentation into small cliques,
- widespread admin abuse,
- broken balance from custom rule sets,
- and players having to constantly sift through servers just to find a normal match.
A game in it's late stages of support will always have a major skill gap and learning curve to new players as most players have found their niche and run their preferred class and loadouts since they have unlocked most things. And, omgosh, the amount of unlocks you could get in those games was so fun. There were still meta builds but you could make most guns viable for all-around versatility or you could trick one out for a very niche situation. I used to frustrate people with the bipoded MG4. That thing would delete snipers. Oh the hateful chat messages I would see. I would sit in one of the pill boxes on Zavod 311 with an ammo crate, the MG4, and a claymore to guard the entrance. Or, I would substitute the claymores for the mortar and drop bombs from inside the pill box, through the small square hole in the roof. So many people would rage and try payback only to trip on the claymore and really enrage them. Then, I would relocate to the other pill box. 😂
Some of these points I suspect are assumptions if you really haven't tried playing on a private server or don't own these titles. As for cliques... we called those Clans and if you did well and showed up on a server repeatedly, you might be invited to it. It's kinda the reason a gaming community exists; to find similar players to have fun with. Official servers don't allow for anything other than the basic game and its normal rule sets. As of now, the end of the round will end and spin up a new server. Unless you choose to stick with the squad (which no one hardly does) you'll be teamed up with another random set of players. But if you do choose to stay in the same squad, could that be considered a "4 man clique?" 🤔
As far as rule sets for weapons, sure. You may find a server that restricts usage or has a slightly different damage model than you're used to. The good thing is, that isn't the only server you can play on. Move onto the next. I remember pistol and knives only servers.
Your version of "normal match" may be different for others. If you like the Official rule sets and how the game plays, that's cool. Play the way you want, I do. 😁 But to shame servers you will probably never play on seems a little pointless to me. If you don't play on a private server, you'll not be affected by those experiences so why bother? Seems like a rhetorical question to me.
I support the return of an official server browser, because it lets players choose maps and modes for themselves. But I strongly oppose putting privately managed servers into the official server browser system.
Well that's good, I suppose because EA isn't going to allow people to lease Rent-A-Server any time soon. It takes money from their investments and if you do that, you'll get a lifetime ban from EA. Hopefully, like I mentioned before, DICE and EA work to improve the experience for Portal because that is exactly what people are going to get. A server browser that can filter games between Official games (that spin up, play, and spin down) and custom rules in Portal servers that are a diluted version of a private server. However, you may be shocked to find that even Portal servers are going to be heavily tuned to tailored experiences. So I guess the best thing for you to do is just keep playing like you are. Smash that Quick Play button and jump into the fray, soldier!
Battlefield does not need to go back to the era of VIP privileges, admin abuse, and arbitrary kicks. Private admin-controlled servers will eventually end up in the trash heap of gaming history, while a fair and transparent official server system is what truly benefits the long-term health of the game.
You conflated the two very different experiences here. Battlefield's core development and playability was never about VIP privileges or granting admin abilities. There are no special access or privileges on that game's Official servers. When support ended for those games, that is when the community stepped up to continue to fun where EA left a gap. How you play now is exactly the same routine DICE has washed, rinsed, and repeated for more than two decades. The option to allow players to manage their own servers using the game's core gameplay mechanic but allowing people to tune the rules was solely at the discretion of the private server's admin or owner. DICE never supported private servers and could not guarantee an experience that did not follow the game's normal rule set. This was their disclaimer. Hardcore mode comes to mind. Some people love it, others hate it. There are glaring balance issues with that kind of mode. But, I won't knock it if there are people who enjoy it.
If history says anything about BF3 and 4's private servers, you could rely on a much more reliable gunplay and exchange between players and teams. Renting a high tick rate server was definitely going to get you players and repeat players at that. The cool part was, it was FREE. You only needed to buy the content from EA.
Lemme ask you this... Do you or did you ever play Skyrim, Cyberpunk, or The Witcher 3 with mods? See where I am going with this? It's your choice and that's the beautiful part about it.
Fast matchmaking plus an official server browser should be the baseline.
I am sure EA and DICE are working on it to improve it from what it is today. There are countless complaints of bots, bots, bots, in empty servers that just appear to drop from matchmaking. Again, hopefully they have some good news on improvements to Portal since this sounds like it will be your preferred method. Heck, I probably will too so I don't have to drop from a Portal server that has a poor map in the rotation or forced to find a new match at the end of every round.
They usually come with all kinds of absurd rules:
- If you do not pay VIP fees to the admin, you do not get to play comfortably.
- Weapons like shotguns or snipers may be banned simply because the admin does not like them.
- Get too many kills, and you get kicked.
- Have too high a K/D, and you get kicked.
- Kill the admin or the admin’s friends too many times, and you get kicked.
- The admin’s friends are allowed to “farm fresh noobs” freely, while regular players are forced to obey a long list of restrictions.
Again, this wasn't the experience at all. No one had a pay-to-play style. EA forbade it. You could see some major legal implications from making a profit off of someone else's product you betcha EA will come after that server. The VIP status was usually for VIP slots, like someone else mentioned. These were reserved slots for people who pay a small fee to support the continual running of the server and are guaranteed a slot to join. Everyone understood this dynamic. It was simply called "priority queueing."
Heck, even EA and DICE has that in their "Premium" version of the game which gave the owner priority queue in official matches through the Battlelog web servers. Oh man, Battlelog was so good.
You can still access Battlelog at https://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/
Now THAT was a server browser and a **bleep** good one too. They need this again for sure even with Official and Portal servers.
As far as KDR and SPM, the games had Fairfight and their own embedded anticheat but they were only so effective. Farfight would ban really good players but also balance the skill gap on the servers. So it was a mix bag of reception. Server admins shared ban lists with other admins to generate a community of safe places to play. This lead to the creation of the Community Ban List. A centralized, open-source project that compiles ban information from various gaming communities into one massive database. Partner servers contribute their ban lists, allowing the system to update proactively and help server owners defend their communities from harmful players.
So, despite your indifference to private servers, private servers are very much the culture of the BF franchise that is being force out due to greed, business-as-usual cycles. Don't worry, you will get your wish since EA has publicly stated that they will no longer allow the Rent-A-Server Program.
TLDR; You don't want private servers. EA won't allow them. You get your wish because it was always go to be this way. So, I guess you will keep doing exactly like you intend to and this discussion is kind pointless after all.
Cheers mate, and PTFO. 🍻
