CQB/TDM Matchmaking Lobbies Stuck at 12/16 players.

Issue:
Matchmaking lobbies stuck at 12/16 players — bots not filling, game never starts (post-update issue)

Description:
Since the most recent Battlefield 6 update, Team Deathmatch lobbies frequently get stuck at 12 / 16 players and stop populating entirely. The match either sits in the pre-match state indefinitely or starts with partial teams and never fills the rest with either players or bots.

This issue has been persistent for several days and appears to have worsened after the latest backend maintenance rolled out last week. It’s not just a temporary delay - the lobbies become permanently stuck at 12/16 and require the player to back out and re-queue to find a functioning match.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Launch Battlefield 6 (latest patch).
2. Queue for Team Deathmatch or any CQB game modes.
3. Wait in lobby until player count reaches ~12/16.
4. Observe that matchmaking halts - no new players or bots join, sometimes for several minutes or indefinitely.
5. Backing out and re-queueing often reproduces the same issue across multiple attempts.

Expected Result:
Lobby should fill to 16 players or automatically backfill remaining slots with AI soldiers, allowing the match to start in a reasonable timeframe.

Actual Result:
Lobby remains stuck at 12/16 max or less with no progress. No bots fill, and match never starts.

Additional Details:

Platform: PC (Steam) / Console

Region: South Africa (this affects other smaller regions as well)

Cross-play: Enabled/Disabled

Mode: Team Deathmatch (core playlist)/CQB

Repro Frequency: Extremely High (~ 95%)

Last Verified: October 2025

Notes: This issue may relate to recent matchmaking adjustments and backend tuning (XP-farm suppression and bot-fill threshold changes). Multiple players in smaller regions are reporting identical symptoms - partial lobbies stuck at 12/16 and inconsistent bot-backfill behaviour.

Impact:
This issue makes smaller-mode matchmaking effectively unplayable in certain regions, forcing players to abandon lobbies and restart matchmaking loops repeatedly.

Please escalate this for investigation - it seems to affect multiple smaller-region player pools and may indicate a regression in the lobby-merge or AI-backfill logic introduced post-patch.

Thanks for your time and effort on this. Happy to provide logs or session timestamps if needed.

Existing bugs reported related to this including their attachments as well:

• Official Matchmaking not populating small modes with AI to start the round | EA Forums -
• 12808994https://forums.ea.com/idea/battlefield-6-bug-reports-en/close-quarter-matches-not-starting/12844458 
• Stuck on Populating with bots unable to start match - TDM/KOTH/DOMINATION | EA Forums - 12843760 
• Latest Game Update Broke Matchmaking!!!!!! | EA Forums - 12808903 - Locked thread 

cc ​  EA_Leeuw​