Unbelievable: Closed weapons unconvincing high school essay 🤦‍♂️

Don't take it from me. Take it from AI. Since that essay sounds like it was partially written by AI, here is some too.

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DICE's Battlefield 6 Update: A Flawed Endorsement of Open Weapons

In their October 6, 2025, community update, "BATTLEFIELD 6 - COMMUNITY UPDATE - PLAY YOUR WAY," DICE presents a data-driven case for Open Weapons as the future of Battlefield 6, citing over 92 million beta hours to claim it's the "right path forward." While the effort to incorporate player feedback is commendable, the analysis reveals significant shortcomings, from biased beta design to selective data interpretation, ultimately undermining their conclusion. Respectfully, this approach feels more like confirmation bias than objective evaluation, especially as DICE hedges by retaining Closed Weapons playlists at launch.

The beta's structure stacked the odds against Closed Weapons, skewing results toward Open. As highlighted in PC Gamer's analysis, Open was framed as the default "normal" mode—simply labeled "Conquest"—while Closed required an "unpleasant horizontal scroll" off-screen for the first few days and lacked support for modes like Rush, forcing players into Open for those experiences. This isn't neutral testing; it's akin to promoting one option with a billboard while hiding the other in obscurity. No wonder the "vast majority" stuck with Open—accessibility drove participation, not inherent superiority. DICE's claim of validated player preference ignores this flaw, treating unequal exposure as genuine choice.

Data points further expose inconsistencies. Kills Per Hour edged slightly higher in Open (0.2 in Conquest, 0.1 in Breakthrough), but Closed boasted 2-3% more revives and matches up to 45 seconds longer, suggesting deeper teamwork and strategy—hallmarks of Battlefield's identity. Class picks remained nearly identical (1-2% variance), yet DICE spins non-signature weapon use in Open as "exploration," when it likely reflects imbalances: players abandoned specializations for meta picks, except Recon clinging to snipers. The vague "well-distributed" archetype rates lack specifics—if not roughly 25% per class, it's not true balance but a skewed meta favoring assault rifles.

Weapon usage data contradicts DICE's narrative: Open encouraged homogenization, diluting class roles, while Closed enforced variety within constraints, promoting even distribution and reducing exploits like revive spamming. Time in Combat showed no difference, proving Closed maintains intensity without chaos.

Ultimately, DICE's indecision—offering Closed as an "alternative" via official playlists and Portal—reveals uncertainty in their own verdict. If Open were unequivocally better, why not commit fully? This respectful critique urges DICE to acknowledge the beta's biases and prioritize Closed for its tactical depth, preserving what fans love about Battlefield. Without transparency on raw data and fair testing, their push risks alienating purists in favor of a diluted experience.

The reason why I DIDN'T PLAY closed weapons was because I couldn't, because it was open for a short period, or it was buried in the menu. It definitely was not as highlighted as the open weapon mode, and the wait times, obviously, was longer. "Closed" was COMPETING against the open weapon mode, and that is not the proper way to gather evidence/data.

I mentioned it in another thread, so just briefly - you don't know how the data gathering and methodology was set. You don't know what exactly they measured, how it was measured, when it was measured and also if there were any other conditions, compensations, or data normalization. Basically, you are criticizing something you have absolutely no information about.

I do agree that the situation as you describe may be a recipe for biased data (I mean different menu positions, mode availability, etc.; not the competition as it's a different kind of testing and not also necessarily cases where players tried both modes, depending what exactly you measure), but as I said - you, me, and nobody else knows what methodology was used.

They were never gonna make the game closed weapons from day 1.  At least we have the closed weapons playlist.

You don't know what exactly they measured, how it was measured, when it was measured and also if there were any other conditions, compensations, or data normalization. Basically, you are criticizing something you have absolutely no information about.

I don't how how it was done exactly, but I do know there was two competing modes to chose, and I know they know how to dl proper research. That is not the best way.

By Data normalization I think you mean any possible data cleaning or removal of confounding factors and noise. That I don't know if or how they did. I just know the article was revealing in how it manipulated the data. 

I hope that "it was more popular" was not  inferred from the hours played completely ignoring how buried "closed weapons" was in the menu, and how it didn't have the spotlight.

Basically, closed weapon was the alternative, not the norm. 

If they tested [closed weapon] frontlines (just a big banner saying Frontlines), [closed weapons] rush, [closed weapons conquest] , [closed weapons] Breakthrough, and "Open Weapons Conquest" instead, it would not matter much what data twisting method they used. No data cleaning would prove otherwise, that open.weapons in this hypothetical scenario, was more.popular. 

Above all, I know why I ignored signature weapons and went with Open Weapons: The weapon specialization was barely relevant, and my character was just stronger with open weapons. I could play solo a lot more when friends weren't around, and that is not how Battlefield is supposed to be played.

If a weapon archetype is stronger, OBVIOUSLY, it will be more popular. 

At the core of this drama, it's not about the choice they made, but how they went about it. If the process seems rigged, it is difficult to support the conclusion. Regardless of how accurate that conclusion may be. 

It’s basically the same as what happened with specialists. Everyone criticized the BF2042 specialist concept from the start, as early as closed pre-alpha feedback sessions. Yet, they ignored it and pushed through because the game designers in all their wisdom decided that this was what the community wants.
We all know what happened next, all the backlash and the immensely reluctant half-baked reintroduction of classes.

Now we are back with the same situation. “We listened, we are bringing back classes and getting rid of specialists“. Then in all their wisdom some game designers decided that what we want is open weapons, which in turn  completely undermines the classes concept again. But because they think they know best what we want, they are jumping through hoops to validate their decision and try to make it our decision.

This is the whole Specialists debacle all over again. I guess we’ll just have to see where we end up this time around.

That is pretty much it. A great analogy. 

And that is a very overpaid wisdom. 

It s like "Coke or Sprite? Coke! Okay, Sprite it is. We listen." 

Sawtooth75 wrote:

This is the whole Specialists debacle all over again. I guess we’ll just have to see where we end up this time around.

What's worse about it this time is that with the specialist system they designed for BF2042 I can imagine it was hard to throw the game around in a different direction after the criticism, as it would mean the whole design philosophy would have to be turned around and basically the game had to be rebuild from scratch. 
However with open vs closed weapons this is not the case, as they have proven themselves by making both options available during Beta, and it also being a mutator in Portal. It literally seems a flick of a switch

ghostflux wrote:

At the core of this drama, it's not about the choice they made, but how they went about it.

I partially agree to this. I still believe closed weapons is the better in the long run so I'm happy that they will offer closed weapons playlists at launch, if I eventually buy the game I will spend my time there. I also think it's good they offer both open and closed so everybody is happy. 
The part I agree on is how they went about it; Trying to sell their narrative based on undisclosed data that was gathered in a way that seems biased. I agree with TO's points below. 

RAF2042 wrote:

"The deck was stacked against Closed Weapons from the start.
For example:

-Open Weapons was presented as the default, "normal" Battlefield 6 mode, while "Closed Weapons" was labeled like an alternate: It wasn't called "Open Weapons Conquest," just "Conquest"
- For the first few days of the beta, the Closed Weapons playlist was shoved off-screen from the main menu, requiring an unpleasant horizontal scroll to find it
- DICE did not support Closed Weapons versions of all its modes in the beta, so if you wanted to play Rush, for instance, you had to stick to Open Weapons". 

It's the last one that really concerns me. We only know they will offer closed weapons playlists at launch as taken from their Community Update below

At the same time, we recognize that some players prefer the Closed Weapons experience. To support them, official Closed Weapons playlists will be available at launch.

The question is which playlists will be available and for how long? Will all game modes be available in both an open AND closed weapons system?
At launch the population will be big enough to keep multiple playslists populated, but what's going to happen in say 6 months when the hype of the launch has died? 
I fear we will eventually see the Battlefield 2042 model of rotating playlists being reimplemented, or game modes/playlists being burried so deep in the menu's that they won't ever fill up. The only solution would be to make all modes and variations a 1-player to start, but I doubt they ever will implement that.

And one final thing "some players prefer the Closed Weapons experience"? It's statements like these that makes me question how they went about it? Quantify some, as I did a poll inside a Battlefield community asking what players would prefer, closed or open weapons, and the endresult after 295 votes was 72.9% in favor of closed weapons. And although I realize my data may be biased as well as I specifically targeted (I assume) traditional Battlefield players, at least it's visible data. Contrary to the vague claims based on undisclosed data from the Battlefield Studios.
I've been part of both Alpha and Beta and always filled the surveys afterwards, and these surveys were never designed in a way that would allow this easy type of data collection like asking questions as simple as I did in my poll. 

Posted before I saw this, but closed is definitely the move. 

However with open vs closed weapons this is not the case, as they have proven themselves by making both options available during Beta, and it also being a mutator in Portal. It literally seems a flick of a switch

It is hard to compete with the official experiences. Maybe at the end of life like with the current BF4 servers. 

And due to the fact that they are so insecure to ditch closed weapons for good, I think THEY MUST KNOW and could attest that closed weapons is the favorite and best choice, as the data already showed, they just spun the narrative their way. 

Watch for eventual unannounced highlighted closed playlists on the main menu increasing in frequency, slowly and silently becoming official by season two because they are not humble enough to admit the FUP.