This isn’t another “bring back the server browser” post.It’s about Battlefield losing the ecosystem that kept it alive between releases.Right now, BF6 splits the game in two:Matchmaking servers — where 95% of players are, but no one can find, return to, or build around.Portal servers — where communities try to build something real, but servers shut down even when set to persistent, get buried under bot farms, and are invisible to most players, doesn't fill up with real players, is hidden among temporary, grind, fun and other one time non serious portal servers.This design breaks what made Battlefield work for decades.In BF3, BF4, and BF1, communities ran servers, balanced teams, built memories, friendship, and turned random one time sale buyers into loyal fans who preordered the next game.Now those tools are gone.No visibility. No stability. No way for serious, non-XP-farm communities to grow.The fix is simple and benefits everyone:– Let us pay for guaranteed persistent servers with uptime, visibility, and a way to bypass the capacity limit. Serious hosters would gladly pay for this!– Show official and community servers in the same browser.– Allow team-switching to the losing side and basic admin tools for balance.Look at Battlefield 3, 4, and 1 — that system worked.Communities kept Battlefield alive for years. You just need to let them again.

I hope DICE sees this and does something about it. Finding communities and meeting new friends to play and laugh with made battlefield so rememberable for me, ive made memories i will probably never forget.

Portal is a complete failure. It’s built around quick, throwaway servers that people use for XP farming, not for real communities that want to run proper servers long-term.You can’t even start a server half the time because the system says capacity is full. If you finally get one running, it disappears or resets when it’s empty for a while. There’s no way to add admins or moderators to help manage it, no option to switch teams, and the ping can be terrible depending on where the server randomly spawns.To make it worse, your server shows up in the same list as all the grind and AI farm servers, so serious servers get buried and no one finds them.Everything about this shows that EA completely misunderstood what Battlefield communities actually want. They clearly thought Portal would be used for casual, one-off matches — not by people trying to build real, long-term servers like in BF3, BF4, or BF1. If that’s what they expected, they never would’ve made something this limited and unsustainable.

This will decide if I'll buy bf6 and recommend it to friends. We need visible community servers and EA needs them, too. Otherwise this game will be just one shooter among many. Let's save this game together!

Its a disaster.This game could be GOATED. But its missing some core pillars.DICE/EA really? Why this server setup?We spend more time frustrated, quitting back to menu because the server is botted or its the same server again.After every fun round, the players and squads are separated into different servers/lobbies that dont fill. No consistency and its just plain stupid.Bring back a proper server browser so we can choose what we play and who we play with!! Didnt you learn from 2042? Its not better in any way from the way it was always done. Fix it before we lose numbers!!! BTW!!! This isnt COD.

I totally agree.I was trying to play with some friends the whole weekend and we always had issues to find a suitable server and to play all together.We never had this problem in other games as BF4, BF3 or BF1, since you could find a server that suited you and play many fun and balanced games.I hope DICE hear our feedback and implements community servers where I am sure many people will be more than happy to pay for it. As Ubbe mentioned, communities kept Battlefield alive for many years.For my part, I found BF1 game randomly. I liked the atmosphere and the servers and that's why I remained there. Thanks to the people and the communities that kept the servers alive with good and fun games, I started to preorder other games as BFV, BF20242 and so on, becoming my favorite games to play and support and recommending it to friends with whom right now we play.So we hope we can keep having fun as we used to do it and it doesn't get ruined 🙏

The problem with Battlefield 6 and the communities

36 Replies

KlootonicPlague
New Scout
2 months ago
What's even worse about portal is now the "official rules" tag is broken and doesn't get added to vanilla verified servers...so now the "official rules" filter in the portal browser doesn't find anything so it's even harder to find normal matches among all the crap. Portal was a crappy solution to persistent servers and rented servers...and now they've managed to make it even worse.
harimogura
Seasoned Rookie
2 months ago
*Apologies if the text is strange due to Google Translate.
In my area, outside of a few peak hours at night, all I get are matches full of bots. And I don't know how much longer that will last.
I think the server browser is necessary, but they also need to remove the current ridiculous quick matching system in the main menu.
Because it's so noticeable, people are drawn to it and start their games from there.
I have a hard time understanding why the entire matching system is designed to be so malicious.
If they can't properly play 64-player matches against humans, which was common in previous games, then it can no longer be called the "Battlefield" franchise.
This was one of my favorite franchises, but I was completely disappointed with this one, and I won't be buying the next game unless they improve.
UBBE16
New Vanguard
2 months ago
Our community (2,5k members, 80 k unique server favorites) host a Portal server, and every time we try to fill it, we run into a major problem. If you are AFK or alt-tab for a short time, the game kicks you out even when the server is almost empty. This makes it almost impossible to fill a server. In older Battlefield games, you could join your server with friends, wait while doing something else on PC and let random players join over time. That was how servers became active. Now you must be constantly active in-game or you get kicked, which is not realistic for anyone trying to run a community server.
Portal also has other issues that make it very hard for communities to grow. You cannot choose your region, as EU community, we get high ping servers. You cannot add other people as admins. You cannot switch teams or move players to keep matches balanced. Because of these limitations, serious communities stand no chance in Battlefield 6. Many players of our players simply do not play the game, or stopped playing due to the hassle of being able to play together or against each other as a large group..

These are not minor problems. If Portal is meant to support community servers, then the basic conditions for seeding and managing those servers must exist. Allowing AFK until the server reaches a certain population threshold, like 32/64 or similar, would already solve a major part of the issue. Adding basic admin tools would allow communities to actually use Portal in a meaningful way.
Right now, communities cannot form, and that directly affects player retention.. The current design is extremely anti community. Fixing these issues is in the best interest of the game and should be a priority.
CPU_UK
Seasoned Ace
2 months ago
Yes, literally there isn't time to run to the toilet for a tinkle, because the game disconnects you for inactivity. Come on DICE, at least a bladder length of timeout.
ibasaw_fr
Seasoned Vanguard
2 months ago
+10
UBBE16
New Vanguard
2 months ago
As a relatively big and active community, even we are barely able to start a Portal server.
How are you supposed to even fill up a server in this game, if you even manage to host a server after countless errors? Either capacity, or some unknown error..You join the server with several friends and members, but the server visibility and Portal browser is extremely bad so your server barely gets visible to players.
Portal really needs some attention becasue right now, its useless for anything except saturday night some youtuber organizing a zombie event or something like that and invites his viewers, or communities that has hundreds of active people. Both are extremely unlikely to carry this game..
What this game needs is some community oriented features.
Better promotion of server browser and visibility of proper servers hosted by communities
No AFK kick of people in the server unless server is above critical population treshold, like half full.
Allow adding people as admins, balance teams etc.
Change to a map you wish, not just to the next map in the rotation. But to any map you have added in the server, just like in BF1.
Real server persistence, not this constantly having to rehost, even when you use persistent option.
Overall, community oriented features and framework