Battlefield 6 - No to SBMM and YES to Server Browser
Been a huge fan of the Battlefield Franchise since I first started to play Battlefield 3 back in 2011. Ever since then I have purchased every Battlefield Game, DLC Pack and what have you and and almost exclusively played only Battlefield. Before this I was a COD player. COD never attracted me back once I got in on the Battlefield Sandbox and begun to play the game as part of a squad, choosing which class I was going to be based on what was happening in the game and how I could react to this to help my team and squad out.
One of the great things I liked about it too was that every game was not the same because of the Sandbox, squad and class experience. If I was playing for a couple of hours, I don't think that I ever felt that I played the same round twice in that they played out differently every time, even if I was with the same squad and on the same map.
Now that BF6 or whatever the new Battlefield will be called is coming closer to releasing, I hope some things from these older BF games come back. One of these is the Server Browser and Persistent Servers.
Recently I have begun playing BF4 again consistently. It is great to see the old Server Browser there and being able to pick a game mode and series of maps that I want to play that are not like Portals 1000% Hardcore servers. Just normal BF with good maps and rotations. Being able to change my region and filter by ping has also been fantastic. I really hope that the new BF6 brings this back, or somehow splits it with Portal. Maybe portal has two options, Server Browser with Persistent Servers and then the custom side which we all get to make our own games in.
With the launch of BF2042 we saw that there was no Server Browser and that what we got instead was Match Making. MM has been a big pain for a lot of reasons. We cant pick what map we want to play, we cant see what map is coming up next, if we load into a map we don't want to play we have to exit out and then try MM again which sometimes loads us back into the same map. There is no region filter or ping filter. A lot of the time MM can not happen because there are not enough people to start the game in my region (Australia) and this MM saga goes round and round. This all takes a lot of time and ruins the gaming experience, ultimately damaging the franchise. Which isn't good for us players or the BF franchise either.
The second thing I would not like to see happen is Skill Based Match Making come into BF6. We all see and hear people complain about SBMM in the COD community. It's a little bit in Delta Force now as well and people are complaining that they are getting loaded into lobbies with bad ping because of their skill and all sorts. IMO SBMM would kill the next BF if it is brought in.
Like everything, the more you do something the better you get at it. There are some guy's that spends hours and hours just practicing sniping, or flying choppers and they are elite at it. Part of the BF experience is the cannon fodder, is learning the classes, the weapons and their attachments, the various vehicle setups and maps. This is what contributes massively to the sandbox environment IMO. It's because of all these variables as well as other players, that makes every game different. If SBMM is brought in, then I feel we will loose that experience and pretty soon, every game will start to feel the same and turn into a sweaty grindfest which looses all those cool quirky BF moments.
Anyhow, it's something I have been thinking about for a while. Thought I would share it and see what others thought or felt about the same two issues.
