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. 🍻
