BF6 Practice Range
A leading indicator to me on whether BF6 will be a critical success is the humble Practice Range. BF5 lacked a PR at launch and the one that was subsequently included was, no exaggeration, a huge st...
Forum Discussion
I agree that we need a fully functional PR if for no other reason than to tweak settings for flight controls, check recoil, etc. I would counter however on two things:
1) Single Player (Campaign): I really enjoyed the ones in BF3/4 and even 1 as a nice intro to the game and a good way to give backstory as well as let you get a feel for the overall movement functionality of the game. IMHO its a damned shame there wont be one in BF6.
2) IMHO the thing that always set BF apart from the competition were the player run servers. BF3 and 4 had the best server architecture around and allowed clans to have a customizable arena for scrims and clan v clan battles. After the debacle that were the BF1 servers, and to a great extent the BFV servers, I am hopeful that they have noted what clans want/need. A functioning server program with a strong toolset will go a very long way in bringing BF back to the forefront of FPS games. BF4 servers are still going strong even after all this time whereas the company has all but abandoned the game. That should tell the folks at EA that the clans are willing to support the game for the long run. It's not like they are devoting any resources to it any longer and there is still a revenue stream there. If there wasn't I can guarantee they would have shut down the ability to rent servers via third party hosts long ago.
This, again is only my opinion, is what will bring BF back to the front of the genre.
How ya doin man? Long time no see.
@NetRngr Good to see you NetRngr!
I'm not opposed to a BF single player in theory but BF is, at its heart, a MP game and with limited resources at its disposal it really needs to put all of its focus into refining that core experience. This franchise has soooo much potential but it feels too often like with every new release all the previous knowledge and experience gained is wiped and they're starting from a blank slate. DICE should be REALLY good at making BF's now but BFV's launch proved right everyone who feared that doing a Battle Royale mode would spread them too thin and leave the core experience neglected. They need to build taller not wider and since rumor has it that BR will be coming back something had to give and it looks like SP may have been that sacrifice. Who knows, maybe they'll finally get on board with my idea of replacing SP with a boot camp like experience where you have a really entertaining Drill Instructor yelling at you and teaching you how the game mechanics work.
On the topic of servers I agree that those clan servers really brought some atmosphere to the game. Not always a good one of course, but enough were. And as long as there was a healthy amount of official servers to choose from I think we had the best of both worlds. I suspect Community Servers are here to stay though both for cost and security reasons. Hopefully they can expand upon the BFV model and make them more clan friendly.
Coming off the failure of BFV and with a dev cycle impacted by Covid my expectations could hardly be lower though. Then again maybe some of the talent leaving for competitors is a good thing. After all, it may be better to have someone with a less prestigious resume but more drive than someone with proven talent but who does little more than the bare minimum because they don't have the passion for the project and/or don't feel like they are being properly compensated.
I'm not opposed to a BF single player in theory but BF is, at its heart, a MP game and with limited resources at its disposal it really needs to put all of its focus into refining that core experience. This franchise has soooo much potential but it feels too often like with every new release all the previous knowledge and experience gained is wiped and they're starting from a blank slate. DICE should be REALLY good at making BF's now but BFV's launch proved right everyone who feared that doing a Battle Royale mode would spread them too thin and leave the core experience neglected. They need to build taller not wider and since rumor has it that BR will be coming back something had to give and it looks like SP may have been that sacrifice. Who knows, maybe they'll finally get on board with my idea of replacing SP with a boot camp like experience where you have a really entertaining Drill Instructor yelling at you and teaching you how the game mechanics work.
On the topic of servers I agree that those clan servers really brought some atmosphere to the game. Not always a good one of course, but enough were. And as long as there was a healthy amount of official servers to choose from I think we had the best of both worlds. I suspect Community Servers are here to stay though both for cost and security reasons. Hopefully they can expand upon the BFV model and make them more clan friendly.
Coming off the failure of BFV and with a dev cycle impacted by Covid my expectations could hardly be lower though. Then again maybe some of the talent leaving for competitors is a good thing. After all, it may be better to have someone with a less prestigious resume but more drive than someone with proven talent but who does little more than the bare minimum because they don't have the passion for the project and/or don't feel like they are being properly compensated.
