Bf3 to bf1 had no bots, the choice was what server to join because battlefield only had pvp with a campaign for pve.
So it hasn't always been about choice.
They should add solo mode like bf2 though.
BF3 had ability to mass invite recent players though, at least on Xbox. This was how I got my server up all the time. I switched to PS4 for that generation which didn't have this feature so I never was able to get a server up for BF4 or BF1. Bot backfill allows a server to be lively while waiting for players to join. My Rush server was usually at like 12 players the first week BF6 was out. 6v6 Rush sucks, but since the rest of the slots were taken up by bots the games were fun and action packed. By the time last weekend rolled around my server was full on and off for a few days. Then the progression nerf hit, and no one is on it now.
Holding out full progression for bot backfill lobbies would have sucked in general but this wouldn't have been nearly the problem it is now if EA hadn't advertised Portal as a full progression for verified game modes and stated that the standards for retaining full progression would be far more lenient than 2042. That promise, combined with releasing the game in a state that allowed full XP for backfill lobbies, and then subsequently taking it out of the game is the main problem. People bought the game expecting one thing and EA removed it 2 weeks later.
The right thing to do would be to bring back full XP for servers running official experiences, and only nerf XP for the literal farming servers, such as giving bots 1 HP and only knives while humans get triple XP, or the like.
