Game feels more like an arena game

you aint wrong brother.  I was thinking that too.     The movement also seems a little more fast paced,  the maps seem slightly smaller.  maybe i'm imagining it  But I need super high mouse sens cause the whole time i'm just spinning like a top and still getting shot in my back haha.  And I was thinking the same thing like wow this is intense like quake.     

And I guess that is also the COD aspect, a game I never played,  but there because infantry are literally immune to most explosive and flak damage especially from vehicles.   Something also unprecedented for a bf game.    They also took out alot of teamplay commands.  little by little with every bf through the years.  SO its been a gradual process of turning it into COD and this is the simply the furthest it has evolved.  and its because thats what people want brother.  I blame the school systems and the internet dumbing down our kids.  I mean you are talking about communities that say pwning noobs is competitive lmao.  and the watch their favorite streamers sandbagging for a living and its allowed.   Metro was one of the most popular maps in the franchise brother.  And its because all the aimbots just want to hold w and shoot through walls.  I kid you not.   

back in my day we could segregate ourselves from trolls, but then they got ddos power to take down servers so people stopped hosting them.    Now unsportlike trolls are the whole community.     And whats scary is that gaming is simply a microcosm of society,  and this woke ideology

But all that being said I enjoy the tank play in this game much more than bfv.  And I do like that infantry can actually kill them now.  It still feels like bf,  just smaller and faster.   I only play conquest btw.

I thought we stopped having our own servers because the IP holders wanted more control on killing off a game.

I agree, tanks are much better than BFV and you can kill them now, much improved and balanced.  I pretty much main Breakthrough.

No it was forced upon them brother.  They don't want the responsibility thats why they seem to resent it as they do.   Because they just want to develop the game.  Its the community that has to represent it as a sport.   What happened was,  its very expensive brother,   and if your server is just always lagging out because of some disgruntled player who was banned,  its not worth it to spend the money on it.  And so if they making a multiplayer game,  someone has to host it,   and thats when mmr's were introduced shortly after.   Which in theory should be even more fair then a community run league.  Cause its by computer algorithm.   But these things are always undermined because of the anonymity that is allowed.  People just constantly create new accounts.  Which is always why getting rids of 50k cheaters in a month is meaningless when they just come back next month.  Paying even 100s to play again is like a drug addiction to them.     So its actually worse now then it was with dedicated servers and no mmr.     It was more like playing ball in a real life ball court.  Everyone knows each other,  you match up accordingly.  Like a real life athletic sport.    now its just a bunch of trolls that make anonymous accounts and get off on undermining a competitive matchup.  

As you said, players griefing a game has always been a thing.

I think what kills PTO is the plethora of solo challenges which have nothing to do with playing the game and everything to do with stupid unlocks.

It's clear that grinding unlocks is much harder now and not for casual players.  I suspect they are counting on the casual players buying the unlocks.

The map design leaves a lot to be desired. The newest maps especially are not great. There seems to be a wide range in skill within the dev team. Some parts of the game are really high quality, and some parts really needs work.

Map design is one of the areas this game fails, as well as characters looking bad (same stupid cartoon style as 2142, Im afraid looking at the style its the same designers).

The net code is also pretty horrific and feels so outdated. The team working on that part of frostbite need to be replaced. Their latest improvements are really laughable. 

The sound design is really good, top notch. A pity the mixing is sometimes off. 

The movement and gunplay is good, but there are sometimes major bugs where running on certain assets still launch you into the air. 

eh what I've always loved about bf is I don't have to care about xp or unlocks.  Its one of the least p2w games and I usually just use the base guns throughout the franchise history.   I don't think most bf players care about that sort of thing man,  that is for a more modern audience.  I don't pay attention to what the social media influencers say.  they make stuff up for clicks and views brother.