I have played every battlefield since BF2. And I have some serious concerns...
Regarding the new patch that's about to be released in Battlefield 6:
u/battlefield (Reddit)
We are developing adjustments that are intended to diminish the number of XP farms taking up server space while further emphasizing playing with friends on both custom and verified experiences.
For context: From what people have said after this announcement, including some moderators, Dice plans to remove XP gains from servers with a higher ratio of bots than players.
My friends and I have been very much enjoying the game in somewhat populated community servers, against both players and bots. We have no where near a great Kill/Death ratio, and the bots provide good competition for us; As in, we die a lot, even with the bots. The players in these games are mostly like us, fun to talk to, and nothing is ever serious. Occasionally someone shows up that's extremely skilled, but it's not very often. 'Pro' players seem to stick to 'pro' modes. Mostly it's casual players in our games.
I'm super concerned about Dice's decision to take action against players like us who according to them are "Farming XP". I assure you that we are not farming XP. We are not the one person off in the distance going 200-0 in empty servers where they am the only person there. We do not join empty servers. We find servers with 10-20 players, and join in. Sure, there's sometimes more bots than real players, but the server is far from "empty". Usually there are more players than bots as the server fills up.
Casual players need to "Get Good". Or we are not allowed to play for experience anymore.
The competitive servers in the game, the ones the game puts you in by default, some of us are completely outclassed by players with much higher skill levels than ourselves. We do not have any sort of fun against these people sometimes. By the time we even think about firing our weapons we are dead. I understand that it's a multiplayer game, but for some of us, we do not have fun in those games. To play in those games, we're forced to not play with a gun, and instead use tactics to farm experience with gadgets and spotting. In those games, we end up being that person farming EXP because some of us are not skilled enough to bring a gun into battle.
The thrill that we get "helping our team" with spots, assists, or revives gets old tho. Do you think it's fun the players that end up at the top of the scoreboard with almost no kills, and all assists? Sure it helps our teams win. But it's not what the game is about. Sometimes we like to play the game and be on the front lines too, ya know? And you're saying that are we not allowed to do that anymore.
So, that means that we cannot progress anymore because a few people took it upon themselves to excessively farm XP and ruin the game for everyone? Is that fair to murder our experience because they cannot be satisfied with 'good enough' and have to resort to unfair XP progression methods?
The only reason that many of us preordered this game, and paid the full $100 was because Dice promised us all that we'd be able to play the game our way, and gain weapons, gadgets, and progression any way that we wanted to. Now they are going back on their word and breaking that promise.
If they remove EXP gained from bot players, then it will affect everyone. We'll never be able to experience the battle in a meaningful way. We'll never have a goal to work toward. And we'll have no reason to play the game. Dice seem to be taking the side of the Karen's that will whine and complain about everything. Even after removing everything, these players will still be Karens, and they'll still find something to complain about. I personally love the game. I have issues with certain things, even enjoy the competitive servers. But that's due to my own skill with a gun in the game and that's enjoyable to me. But, Dice doesn't seem to care about what the casual players think anymore. And that's very concerning. They'll just keep bending over backwards for the people with the biggest mouths. It's a pretty bad business model when you start excluding players because of the Karen's in your audience.
Personally. I do not care that some players feel the need to brag about their 10:1 Kill Death ratios on reddit / facebook to intentionally bait people into arguments. Their insane KDR doesn't affect any of us. I don't complain about it. Everyone knows how they got it, it's not like it's some kind of big fat secret. They farmed bots to get it. We all know, and for the most part, your players do not care how they got it.
If you remove the XP for all because of a very small handful of the player population. That will affect myself and my friends. And I do not like this new direction that Dice is taking.
Suggestion:
If you want to limit the number of EXP farm servers, just remove servers from the list if they don't have any population for 24 hours. Take the experience down. Oh, and bring back server hosting. There are literally huge communities of players that would be more than happy to pay you directly to keep their server up 24/7. A lot of your negative feedback is actually coming from those players who cannot pay for their own server but would be more than willing to. And are instead forced to be in the public lobby, where they cannot even access their own 'experiences' because of all of the empty servers that are filling the list.
Your problem isn't the XP farm servers, your problem is too many empty servers.
The problem is getting worse. Nobody can launch games anymore. Bricking XP farming didn't do anything. Tons of people are still playing in the Bot servers even for no XP because they don't want to sweat against Real Players. Just proves that the XP farming problem was even smaller than EA/DICE thought it was.
That's me man! I'm a Vet who is used to"Checking my corners" in real life combat, so when you get used to doing it in the game because you have learned by past cheaters that you get dinged from nowhere. That time that you take to check, someone that is a good player wastes you. That extra milisecond counts. My point is..............Rather than have to look out for that crap, I enjoy playing BOT games I setup just so I can put the battlefield on my terms. Granted, I don't get XP but I enjoy myself and isn't that what it's all about?
I agree with you. It shouldn't matter how many extras you get. I have a lot more fun earning stuff, but it shouldn't be discouraging either. I think they missed that balance. It takes time (legally) to master all those weapons, keep your challenges up to date along with any other collections you want to reap like stickers, emblems etc. You said it though! The bottom line is you got our money! The question is, will we ever go back for a repeat?
Not only that, the game was advertised for bots and multiplayer, but the answer is simple people who one don't want to play the other, so what's the problem. I enjoy playing bots because its fun to play with your friends. It beats getting shot every time you spawn in when people camp at spawn points. Not only that online the other week I shot 100 bullets with my lmr into a guy who just there then shot me!?
I've been running into a lot of that too! That's one of the main reasons I don't like multiplayer. I'm tired of shooting people that don't go down, but instead stand there and kill you when you know you hit this dude 6 times! Really? First off you don't learn anything if you cheat. The only people who cheat are the ones that can't stand to be criticized or hate to lose. It's not about fun. It's about domination and humiliation. Like you said, friends and BOTS are perfect. It's a shame we can't get xp points for that!
