From my experience since BF3 I feel the customized server experience has really declined in the last couple of BF titles, especially in BF5.Community servers of good quality help increase the replay-ability of the game.There need to be paid servers stay on even when empty which people can favorite and go back to if they have had a good time. The servers that have scripts that allow for automatic moderation of the lobby have also been very useful in the past. They allowed voting for maps, alerting admins, scrambling teams, allowing some extent of votekicking etc.There has to be a way to have both the BF3/4 style rented servers + making it profitable for EA so that they are not against it.

What I miss most in Battlefield are the communities that would be built around community run servers. Joining your favourite servers, playing with the same groups of people, meeting and making new friends. Gaming is a social activity and Battlefield 5's impersonal approach was severely lacking in that social aspect.And even if that's not your kind of thing, being able to choose which server running which map or which rotation, running whatever rules you prefer was a major factor in replayability. Having to play the same rotation with the same maps you don't like just for 20 minutes of one of your preferred maps isn't exactly fun.I really do hope the next Battlefield game will have proper dedicated servers for rent. At launch. Not several months after release. Sadly I fear Dice Sweden's incessant need to control how people play their games may affect this new game too.

Absolutely agree with this. Don't get me wrong, I really, really liked the idea behind Community Games, but the server rental system was/is 'better'.Had a good time getting rektd playing on some BF3 rented servers last night for example (after finally getting multiplayer working 😆), and have lots of private servers favourited for BF4 too.

Would love to see traditional rental servers come back. I've run my own servers for various games for over 20 years. There's nothing quite like a quality administrated game server. No automated service will ever beat it.BF Server historic overview (PC)...BF1942 and Vietnam came with dedicated server files AND mod/mapping tools on CD. Anyone and their mom could run a server locally or on a dedicated box.When BF2 released they introduced "ranked" servers. All rentals had to be through an EA contracted GSP. Nobody, but the GSP had access to the server files. Even on a full dedicated box, renters could not access the server files. Only settings/configs. You had to either use an RCON utility for configuration and admin, OR the PunkBuster backend...which is extremely limited.Unranked servers you could do whatever with including mapping and modding.Ranked servers required "official settings" and had limited owner/admin interaction. Kick/Ban, map restart, next map, change: map/mode/player count, custom map rotation etc. EA also charged the GSP 20-35 cents per rented slot /monthly. 64p server = $12.80 to $22.40 USDBF2142 Also had modding and mapping capabilities.BF 3 & 4 maintained the Ranked server architecture, but removed mapping and modding. All other functionality stayed the same. Ranked required official settings. Unranked whatever you wanted. EA also maintained the Contracted GSP approach for Authorized Rental Servers and the Royalties per rental slot monthly.BF2, 2142, 3 and 4 the Authorized GSP's where required (per contract) to populate the network with official servers until they reached a specific rental quota. EA/DICE at no point directly provided official servers. As the community rented server counts increased they would slowly shutdown the official servers until the community was pretty much playing solely on community run servers (Rentals). This generally happened with in 6-9 months of release date.At some point in BF4 somebody leaked the server files which gave rise to an onslaught of cheats. This was one of the main reasons for the change in BF1's community server architecture. That and EA was heavily invested in the Titan Fall approach to servers. Which BF1 mirrored using different 3rd party providers (i3D/AWS vs MultiPlay/Azure).Cloud servers are cheap (on demand usage pricing is very low). A game server instance can be spun up in seconds. Highly automated. Very low maintenance. Patch times extremely reduced. Very little staff required to manage.

@UP_Hawxxeye I totally agree and those servers are the very reason BC2, BF3, and BF4 still have player bases. From a community building aspect the lack of proper server control, permanent servers, and community support has really hampered FNB since BF1 debuted.

Guys don't hold your breath for private servers for BF6 until way after launch. Oh and take off you rose tinted glasses, with every new game breaking concurrent online players with auto servers what chance do you think we have. Also the rentable procon servers of past games is what killed them don't ever think 24/7 2000 ticket metro servers saved anything. 24/7 Hotwire servers killed Hardline in two weeks when months worth content was accessed in a week. BF4 beta was obliteration, how many of you actually played any obliteration on BF4 ???? Sever admins charging to white list players to exempt them from the queue and the auto balance. None of this was any good plus that fact that in order to have 1 million players online you need hundreds of thousands of private servers, never going to happen.If you buy a game with online gaming ability you must have access to free and private severs as a right of purchase. You should not have to rely on random online players to fill your server you should be able to host games for you and your friends as a fundamental consumer right. This is how COD get around it. Fair enough if you want to participate in weekly or monthly events and gain ranking points then that is another user agreement you sign up for. What DICE need to do to get custom servers working is put a handicap system in place for servers that modify settings so you can't game the level ups and introduce a server ranking system where players rate the server and as the server gets a higher rating it appears at the top of the servers list. Then you have server admins competing against each other to create the best game setup and rules...I came to Battlefield with the launch of BFBC2 and I've never bought a Battlefield game to play conquest. And all I see are conquest servers and all I see on PC is a sub 10k player base so no the next BF game does not need BF3/4 style servers.

The next BF game needs BF3/4 style servers

37 Replies

Noodlesocks
5 years ago
What I miss most in Battlefield are the communities that would be built around community run servers. Joining your favourite servers, playing with the same groups of people, meeting and making new friends. Gaming is a social activity and Battlefield 5's impersonal approach was severely lacking in that social aspect.
And even if that's not your kind of thing, being able to choose which server running which map or which rotation, running whatever rules you prefer was a major factor in replayability. Having to play the same rotation with the same maps you don't like just for 20 minutes of one of your preferred maps isn't exactly fun.
I really do hope the next Battlefield game will have proper dedicated servers for rent. At launch. Not several months after release. Sadly I fear Dice Sweden's incessant need to control how people play their games may affect this new game too.
ragnarok013
Hero+
5 years ago
@UP_Hawxxeye I totally agree and those servers are the very reason BC2, BF3, and BF4 still have player bases.

From a community building aspect the lack of proper server control, permanent servers, and community support has really hampered FNB since BF1 debuted.
ElliotLH
Hero+
5 years ago
Absolutely agree with this. Don't get me wrong, I really, really liked the idea behind Community Games, but the server rental system was/is 'better'.
Had a good time getting rektd playing on some BF3 rented servers last night for example (after finally getting multiplayer working 😆), and have lots of private servers favourited for BF4 too.
zenn_nme
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
Yes, Battlefield communities need their own server 'homebase' for a healthy & satisfied playerbase.
BGHFlakjacket
5 years ago
@UP_Hawxxeye I find that playing on rented servers gives you more experience than playing against low levels and uncoordinated squads. However I have found that rented server admins will kick you for a multitude of reasons.........especially if you get 4 kills in a row on an admin or repeatedly shoot down their heli with a Stigla.
ShevermiN
5 years ago
Guys don't hold your breath for private servers for BF6 until way after launch. Oh and take off you rose tinted glasses, with every new game breaking concurrent online players with auto servers what chance do you think we have. Also the rentable procon servers of past games is what killed them don't ever think 24/7 2000 ticket metro servers saved anything. 24/7 Hotwire servers killed Hardline in two weeks when months worth content was accessed in a week. BF4 beta was obliteration, how many of you actually played any obliteration on BF4 ???? Sever admins charging to white list players to exempt them from the queue and the auto balance. None of this was any good plus that fact that in order to have 1 million players online you need hundreds of thousands of private servers, never going to happen.
If you buy a game with online gaming ability you must have access to free and private severs as a right of purchase. You should not have to rely on random online players to fill your server you should be able to host games for you and your friends as a fundamental consumer right. This is how COD get around it. Fair enough if you want to participate in weekly or monthly events and gain ranking points then that is another user agreement you sign up for.
What DICE need to do to get custom servers working is put a handicap system in place for servers that modify settings so you can't game the level ups and introduce a server ranking system where players rate the server and as the server gets a higher rating it appears at the top of the servers list. Then you have server admins competing against each other to create the best game setup and rules...
I came to Battlefield with the launch of BFBC2 and I've never bought a Battlefield game to play conquest. And all I see are conquest servers and all I see on PC is a sub 10k player base so no the next BF game does not need BF3/4 style servers.
DingoKillr
5 years ago
While good customization of a server for communities(fun, competitive) is needed. Limits on points or unlock needs to be there, what would be the point of Multiplayer if 3 or 4 players adjusting setting so they could extreme rank up.
However extreme rank up servers should not be needed if the grind to unlock all does not take 1000+ hours.
Note : all and every server needs to be able to contact an admin to kick distributive players.
ragnarok013
Hero+
5 years ago
@DingoKillr wrote:

While good customization of a server for communities(fun, competitive) is needed. Limits on points or unlock needs to be there, what would be the point of Multiplayer if 3 or 4 players adjusting setting so they could extreme rank up.

However extreme rank up servers should not be needed if the grind to unlock all does not take 1000+ hours.

Note : all and every server needs to be able to contact an admin to kick distributive players.

I totally agree. I think that DICE must deliver something on par to BF3\4's Procon/Rcon functionality andt anything short of that will be a disappointment. There's no reason to tie a server owner's hands as much as they did in BF1\5.
stabbinhobo
5 years ago
Agree with OP completely. The BF5 setup is borderline insanity. All EA run public servers with no active moderation at all... who could have not seen this would be an absolute mess? The forums get active moderation.. the game servers don't... says a lot about the company priorities.
Add in the prolific issue on said servers whose name shall not be mentioned for fear of getting a warning and thread locked and you have what we are stuck with today.
IMHO the one thing BF5 did right was made the unlocks not a grind... really hated that in prior BF's and was the reason I'd hit the 24/7 2k ticket metro servers.. to grind out the unlocks.
If BF6 does not bring back rented servers or have some active server administration I'm probably going to pass. The current report function is a joke. I liken it to pressing the elevator button repeatedly hoping it will come faster. The same "disruptive" players show up night after night and spoil gameplay. All we get from EA is lipservice... if we get any response at all.
The current state of online play is a black eye for the franchise.
UP_Hawxxeye
Legend
5 years ago
@stabbinhobo @stabbinhobo yea, between disruptive bad actors and unbalanced matches where one side may be have half its makeup be platooned players (not all of the same platoon but still, the average platooned player is better than the average player not in a platoon) there are few matches where the outcome is close enough.

Also that point catchup up they have on conquest is really annoying. Sometimes the one team waits out until he catchup kicks in to quickly get almost all the bases