Thanks for taking the time to write out a detailed response.
I'm happy to hear you are on board reducing the passive spotting distance, which currently takes manual target acquisition completely out of the game's skillset.
Weak Suppression Effect
Suppression has always been a controversial topic, but the game needs a stronger suppression mechanic. Look at the BF6 sniper problem and take that as evidence.
You are right that in battlefield you are hardly ever in 1v1 scenarios, and 1v1 scenarios are not where suppression should come into play. But if you put yourself in a position where 5 people are shooting at you, you deserve to be at a disadvantage. Suppression shifts the skill set away from gun play (though it even raises the skill ceiling of this as well which I will talk about a bit later) and toward smart positioning and battlefield control. Yes, one of its drawbacks is that the run-and-gun, one-man-army style of play is discouraged, but the Battlefield franchise was never about that. One of my, and many other's, favorite thing about Battlefield was its emphasis on team play, team work, and squad play, and its prioritization and rewarding of these over more individualistic styles of play. The core of battlefield is the grounded experience of just being a boots-on-the-ground soldier playing their part of something bigger. A cog in the machine, rather than the entire machine itself. There SHOULD be mechanics of the game that actively discourage people from playing like Master Chief taking on 6 players at once and expecting to come out on top.
Furthermore, a strong suppression system serves as nothing more than a skill check. Back in BF4, the best players were hardly affected by suppression at all because they were able to effectively combat the disadvantages it enacted upon them, and fight the increased recoil to still secure the kill. This raises the skill ceiling of the game, and allows for the player's gun play skill cap to move beyond the simple muscle memorization of combatting a gun's recoil pattern and instead requires the best of the best players to engage in more reactive control of their weapon's recoil depending on the situation they are in. This is good for the longevity of the game, as an increased skill ceiling will inherently require more time to perfect and keep players engaged for longer before total game mastery is reached.
1. 70% of the team will play Medic or Assault (as long as they have a medpen that heals), because nobody can be bothered to wait for 20 seconds for their health to regenerate.
2. 20% aren't really too aware of what they are doing, so they will just die repeatedly, especially due to a constant lack of health.
3. 10% will just hang back and become extremely passive, playing as a sniper, so they don't have to worry about being shot every few seconds.
I will update the original post to include these numbers as well, but in BF3/BF4/BF1 the health regeneration required 36 seconds to heal back to full health. BF3/BF4 in particular did have the issue where everybody played medic, but IMO one of the very few things that BF2042 did correctly was reduce the passive healing time to nearly half its previous value at a more manageable 20 seconds to get back to full health. If anything, BF2042 had a problem where too many people were playing engineers (except for the infantry-only maps, where Assault, Support, and Recon were all popular picks). Requiring 20 seconds to heal back to full health after critical damage is proven to not overly skew class choice in the medic class's favor.
Look at the BF6 sniper problem and take that as evidence.
Even if it's a problem that needs a solution, suppression isn't fit for purpose. Suppression isn't meant to serve as a solution to make sniping harder, it's a design decision that's much broader in scope. There are many more solutions that would be able to more specifically address this issue.
But if you put yourself in a position where 5 people are shooting at you, you deserve to be at a disadvantage.
If there's 5 people shooting at you, you are already at a massive disadvantage because of the disproportionate amount of fire coming your way, likely from multiple different directions. They will be able to kill you just fine and don't need the game to assist them. If anything, if you managed to kill those 5 people, you fully deserved that win.
Suppression shifts the skill set away from gun play (though it even raises the skill ceiling of this as well which I will talk about a bit later) and toward smart positioning and battlefield control. Yes, one of its drawbacks is that the run-and-gun, one-man-army style of play is discouraged, but the Battlefield franchise was never about that. One of my, and many other's, favorite thing about Battlefield was its emphasis on team play, team work, and squad play,
This is the usual fluff people come up with, to defend suppression, but truthfully this just doesn't happen. Battlefield 3 and 4 had suppression and it was nothing more than an annoyance. It did nothing to facilitate teamwork, or smart positioning for that matter. People still ran around, and the one-man-army style play was actually quite effective. You know why? Because aggressively pushing and smart positioning aren't mutually exclusive. If you want a more deliberate way of playing, there are many things the game would need to do first, before suppression would ever start to matter.
There SHOULD be mechanics of the game that actively discourage people from playing like Master Chief taking on 6 players at once and expecting to come out on top.
This has nothing to do with Battlefield, nor does Battlefield specifically facilitate it. It's a skill issue. Even in games that are supposedly "realistic" like Squad or ARMA, it's still quite easy to stack-up multiple kills, as long as you're not playing against a highly organized group of players. Games like that tend to draw a crowd that wants to play in an organized fashion, but make no mistake, the average Battlefield player isn't like that. If you've ever ran with an organized squad on a pub server, you'll quite easily dominate the entire server.
The idea that the game needs to "discourage" skill-based gameplay is the complete opposite of what I'd do. I'd instead make it easier for people to organize, by providing proper tools for players to actually work together.
Furthermore, a strong suppression system serves as nothing more than a skill check.
Not really, it was just annoying, nothing more. It introduced unnecessary randomness to the game. It was entirely pointless and the game would have been vastly better without it. Controlling recoil or spread requires you to actually learn the specifics of the weapon. In a game with over a 100 weapons, with quite complex underlying statistical systems, that's not exactly an easy thing to optimize.
If you then add a random multiplier to that based on how suppressed you are, that isn't something that you can reasonably on-the-fly compensate for, no matter how skilled you may be. That's not a matter of skill, that's a matter of the limits of human reaction speed.
If anything, BF2042 had a problem where too many people were playing engineers
Battlefield 2042 is an outlier and isn't really a suitable comparison. It's mostly a matter of all non-infantry maps being too large and too empty (even after the map reworks). It was an issue born from the desire to facilitate 128 player servers. Without proper cover for infantry, vehicles were disproportionally dominant. It was later significantly mitigated with the introduction of more anti-vehicle tools/specialists like Lis. Still, the need for engineers remains. Another reason is the weekly missions, which may include challenges that cause a temporary overrepresentation of a particular class.
Battlefield 3 and 4 had suppression and it was nothing more than an annoyance. It did nothing to facilitate teamwork, or smart positioning for that matter.
If people were suppressed behind cover, it was far less likely they were going to peek the corner as soon as the suppressor stopped firing and instead wait to for the suppression to dissipate. If the suppression mechanic weren't present, the player behind cover could easily peak the cover as soon as the suppressing player stopped firing and secure the kill. This is more than an "annoyance", it is a measurable effect on gameplay.
It introduced unnecessary randomness to the game.
In BF3, when the suppression mechanic vastly increased bullet spread, I would agree with you. This is why I'm specifically calling for suppression that does NOT increase bullet spread. When it only impacts the recoil/sway of the gun (which are both controllable by the player) and not the bullet spread, the randomness is taken out of the equation. As you said, "controlling recoil or spread requires you to actually learn the specifics of the weapon". Suppression raises the skill ceiling because when mastering a weapon, instead of only having to learn the specifics of the gun while you aren't suppressed, you would also have to familiarize yourself with how that gun performs when you are suppressed and learn to react with the correct response that each situation calls for. Suppression under this system is not, as you describe, a "random multiplier"; it is a highly predictable increase to a weapon's recoil values. It would not alter the core of the weapon's recoil pattern, and only increase the magnitude of it. If you are unable to effectively combat a magnitudinal increase to a weapon's recoil, it is a skill issue and not a problem with randomness.
The idea that the game needs to "discourage" skill-based gameplay is the complete opposite of what I'd do.
A heavy suppression mechanic does not discourage skill based gameplay, it simply raises the skill floor by giving support players a way to meaningfully slow down the enemy team's advances through a deliberate and intentional expenditure of resources while also raises the skill ceiling through the ways previously discussed.
I'd instead make it easier for people to organize, by providing proper tools for players to actually work together.
The current level of health regeneration is the exact opposite of giving players the proper tools to work together. Right now, there is about a ~3-4 second window after a player takes damage in which a medic can drop them a bag and have the active healing actually effect them, before they passively heal up to full health on their own. Slowing down the passive health regeneration rate to the level suggested would increase this window by 10 seconds, giving a greater opportunity for medics to provide them with active healing. I agree with you that the 36 seconds to full health in BF3/4/1 is too slow for today's gaming environment, but 20 seconds is already nearly halving this value while still providing ample opportunities for active healing.
When it only impacts the recoil/sway of the gun (which are both controllable by the player) and not the bullet spread, the randomness is taken out of the equation.
This simply isn't true, because suppression isn't predictably applied before a fight, it can be applied at any time during the fight, even while you're already bursting your gun. I'd challenge you to try compensating not just recoil but also sway control, mid-burst. That's why it's not a skill-based mechanic. People can't properly respond to that, plain and simple.
A heavy suppression mechanic does not discourage skill based gameplay, it simply raises the skill floor by giving support players a way to meaningfully slow down the enemy team's advances through a deliberate and intentional expenditure of resources while also raises the skill ceiling through the ways previously discussed.
Sorry, but I reject the premise entirely. Deliberately shooting and missing your shots near an enemy barely requires any skill. Combine that with your own admission of "Suppression shifts the skill set away from gun play", and you're left with a system that actively reduces skill-based gameplay.
The current level of health regeneration is the exact opposite of giving players the proper tools to work together.
You're mixing things up. My last response was about suppression, not health regeneration. The quote you were addressing was not about health regeneration. The exact time it takes for health regeneration to kick in, or how long it takes to go back to full health, is in my opinion up for debate. Suppression on the other hand is a different story. Suppression in both Battlefield 3 and 4 were absolute garbage.
I'd challenge you to try compensating not just recoil but also sway control, mid-burst.
This utilizes the exact same skillset as keeping your red dot on a moving target. If the recoil pulls up harder, drag down harder, similar to how if the enemy you are aiming at moves to the left, you would drag to the left. This is a skill issue.
Combine that with your own admission of "Suppression shifts the skill set away from gun play", and you're left with a system that actively reduces skill-based gameplay.
You are implying that gunplay is the ONLY skill that exists in Battlefield. This is disingenuous. Emphasizing smart choice of engagements over gunplay isn't reducing or removing skill-based gameplay, it is shifting the focus from one skill set to another.
